'Don't give the Dark the satisfaction,' Stoker hissed. 'It's trying to destroy you from the inside out, don't you see? It's wiping out everything that means anything to you.'

His eyes narrowed. 'I can feel it, you know, touching my mind. No, it isn't touching... it's sc.r.a.ping, scratching away at my thoughts. It's so so evil. It's so evil it can't think straight. And now neither can I.' He pressed his fists into his eyes and grimaced. 'It's twisting my mind... confusing me... making me doubt myself. I can see what it's doing but I can't stop it.' evil. It's so evil it can't think straight. And now neither can I.' He pressed his fists into his eyes and grimaced. 'It's twisting my mind... confusing me... making me doubt myself. I can see what it's doing but I can't stop it.'

'You must!' Stoker was surprised and dismayed at how desperate she sounded, her voice cracking as she implored him. 'You must!' The Doctor let out a long, shuddering breath and looked at her again. His eyes were full of pain. 'How?

And what would be the point? All that death and destruction: Vega Jaal, Bunny, Lawrence, Tegan and Nyssa and even Cadwell and all the others... gone forever. And what good have I done? Who have I saved?'

'Well, we're we're still here,' Stoker tried to hide the hopelessness she now felt An ice-cold despondency was rising up inside her. She tried to think of something useful, something uplifting to say. still here,' Stoker tried to hide the hopelessness she now felt An ice-cold despondency was rising up inside her. She tried to think of something useful, something uplifting to say. 'We are still alive. 'We are still alive.

The Doctor seemed to sag with defeat. 'But for how much longer?' It had grown very dark, very quickly, as they talked. With a fresh tremor of fear, Stoker realised that the Dark was gathering once again, thickening like black, arterial blood all around them. She could hear the distant screams of ancient Akoshemon, and the sucking, moist sound of the planet's evil nemesis trying to make a physical shape in the shadows.

She took out her cigarette lighter and flicked it on. The flame leapt up and lit the Doctor's face: the tiny point of light danced mockingly in his eyes as they dilated. The grey shadow on his cheek had spread across half his face.

Tegan couldn't stop shaking. She didn't know if it was just a reaction to the stasis tank or plain fear, but she couldn't stop.

She knew how to control panic attacks, how to quell anxiety, it had all been part of her training as an air hostess, but this was different. There was something in the air, something evil, something you couldn't get away from.

And then there was that thing. thing.

He was in the shadows now, slumped against the laboratory wall, breathing with a harsh, rasping noise that did nothing for her nerves. He was burned raw, the last vestiges of his uniform little more than charred rags. His features were unrecognisable, the skin blistered and blackened.

It was, apparently, Captain Lawrence.

'H-how did he survive?' Tegan asked. She couldn't take her eyes off him.

'I've no idea,' said Nyssa simply: By rights he should be dead. I don't know how much longer he'll last.'

Lawrence shivered and croaked. It had been his face looking down at Tegan through the stasis tank's window. She had screamed just as the seals on the lid were broken and the tank opened. Then, unbelievably, Nyssa had been there, holding her, hugging her. Tegan had cried, a mixture of utter relief and terrible fear boiling inside her.

'Maybe he is dead,' Tegan said quietly, still glaring at Lawrence.

'Maybe it's the Dark, controlling him still. Using his body.'

Nyssa shook her head. 'I don't think so.'

Lawrence's head turned blindly towards them, hearing their voices. His eyes were little more than sc.r.a.ps of blackened flesh. 'H-help... me...' he gasped. His voice was a dry croak.

'We don't know what to do,' Nyssa explained to him carefully. 'We have no medical equipment.'

'Help... me...'

Tegan wiped her eyes. 'We need to find the Doctor.

Maybe he can do something.

'S-Stoker...' whispered Lawrence.

Nyssa turned to Tegan. 'We found Silas Cadwell's body in the main cavern. Or what was left of it. I don't know what happened, but there was no sign of Stoker.'

'She's still alive, as far as I know. She's with the Doctor.'

Lawrence's lips moved with painful slowness. 'T-take...

me... to... S-Stoker...'

Tegan bit her lip. She wasn't sure Stoker would want to see Lawrence like this. To Nyssa she said, 'The Dark's been trying to form itself into something, I don't know what, something that can live in our universe I think. It killed Cadwell but the Doctor and Stoker managed to get away.'

'Which way did they go?'

'Down into the caves,' Tegan said. 'But the Dark keeps trying to materialise. The Doctor says it can only do that in complete darkness. I was hiding from it when you found me.'

Nyssa looked worried. 'The Dark must be after the Doctor. It had gone when we found you in here. Presumably it's followed the Doctor and Stoker into the deep caves.'

'We've got to go after them,' Tegan realised. The prospect made her feel almost breathless with fear.

'I know.'

Tegan glanced at Lawrence. 'What about him?'

Lawrence moved, straining to hear them speak. His ears had been burnt away, leaving little more than crisp, puckered holes on the sides of his head. 'Please... take... me... to...

Stoker...' he implored.

The Doctor took the lighter from Stoker and turned up the flame. The sudden increase in illumination was horribly revealing: in the darkness all around them they glimpsed thousands of moist, wriggling black shapes which recoiled from the blaze of light. The dark, slime-covered coils withdrew into the deeper shadows with a sucking hiss of displeasure.

'Eew,' said Stoker.

'Interesting,' the Doctor murmured. 'It still can't quite manage to overcome the light.' He thrust out the lighter at arm's length, and they caught another brief sight of the Dark: an oleaginous ma.s.s of blackness, like a peek into a seething nest of worms. It fled from the brightness and the shadows swallowed the crawling ma.s.s whole.

'It's so close,' whispered Stoker, terrified.

The Doctor waved the lighter. 'But no cigar.'

She looked at him. 'You feeling better now?'

'Not at all,' he said. 'But I can't help being curious...'

'I can think of other words.'

'Then try this one: hungry.'

'Hungry?' Stoker blinked. She stole a quick, fearful look into the darkness, and was glad that she couldn't see it. But she could hear it moving wetly in the shadows. 'No, sorry. I am definitely not not hungry.' hungry.'

'The Dark's hungry,' said the Doctor quietly.

'What for? Us?'

'No. Something else. I'm not sure what.'

'Breakfast?'

The Doctor shook his head. 'It's not food it wants. I wonder what it is?'

The Dark shifted in the shadows, a ma.s.s of something that now had them surrounded but dare not penetrate the circle of light. The noise it made sounded to Stoker like the mouth of some great beast preparing to eat.

The Doctor bit his lip. 'It wants me,' me,' he said, as if thinking aloud. he said, as if thinking aloud.

'More than anything else. It wants my TARDIS. ' At the edge of the light, the Dark seethed in agreement. 'It sensed the TARDIS in the Vortex. Sensed me. me. Brought us here... Brought us here...

and then destroyed everything and everyone to get to this moment. The moment where it has me completely at its mercy.'

'But it doesn't have any mercy,' whispered Stoker fearfully.

'I know.' The Doctor looked at the cigarette lighter, and the little tongue of flickering light. 'Oh, my small, bright friend: are you all I have left?'

Tegan and Nyssa helped Lawrence through the tunnels. He could barely stand and their progress was painfully slow.

Worse than that, he smelled of roast meat and it was making Tegan feel sick.

'What's that?' asked Nyssa suddenly . 'I thought I heard something.'

They stopped and listened, which wasn't easy because they had to support Lawrence and his breathing was hard and noisy.

But Tegan soon heard it: a voice, light, almost childlike, echoing down the pa.s.sageway. It was too dark to see anything up ahead, except for a faint, watery glow.

'What is it?'

'It could be a trap,' said Nyssa. 'The Dark...'

'No,' said Tegan. 'I think I recognise the voice.'

They pressed on, rounding a corner in the tunnel. The glow became a little brighter. They stopped dead when they saw the ghost of a little girl floating in the shadows ahead.

She was no more than a silvery shape against the dark rock wall, white-faced and incredibly beautiful. Tegan felt the hairs moving on the back of her neck as the child spoke again.

'Is it silly to be scared of dreams?'

The ghost stared plaintively at them. Tegan almost opened her mouth to reply, but the child continued, 'Mummy lets me sleep in her bed at night but it's still dark. I don't like it when it's dark.'

Tegan said, 'It's Rosie. Bunny Cheung's little girl!'

'Some kind of three-dimensional image,' Nyssa speculated.

'Mummy says you work in caves where it's dark all the time and you're not scared one bit,' said Rosie. 'Is that right?

How come you're not scared?'

'Hologram,' said Tegan positively. 'Bunny kept his hologram recordings of her in his ring.

'Please come home soon, Daddy. I don't like it when you're away.

Neither does Kooka. His arm's come loose again.

Mummy says it's going to drop right off soon, so you'd better come back home and fix it real quick.'

'But why is it here?' Nyssa wanted to know.

'Oh, but Daddy, be careful you don't fall off the edge of the galaxy. We miss you. Bye.'

'Wait a sec,' Tegan said. She moved forward and bent down, picking something up off the cave floor. The image of Rosie swung wildly around in the darkness. 'Look what I've found.'

She held up a human arm for Nyssa to see. Wires and machinery poked out of the shoulder and biceps where it had been torn away.

'Bionic arm,' Tegan announced. 'With Bunny's hologram ring still working. The Bloodhunter must've dropped it here when it found it couldn't eat it or something.'

'It has an integral power source,' said Nyssa.

The image of Rosie flickered and died as the recording came to an end.

'Poor Rosie,' said Tegan. 'She's got no way of knowing what's happened to her dad ...'

Nyssa's lips tightened. 'He was murdered by something evil. Perhaps it's best that she doesn't ever know.'

The flame was shrinking. The lighter was running out of fuel.

The Doctor looked at Stoker, and she knew he didn't have to spell it out: when the flame died, so would they. The Dark would be on them in a second, closing around them like a cold, wet fist in the night.