Rose froze where she was, hardly daring to breathe, her left leg hovering a few centimetres above the ground. Was she hearing the professor moving deep in the pit? She couldn't be certain. It had 127 sounded closer than that, hadn't it? Slowly, she placed her foot down and, having regained her balance, she tried to see where the noise was coming from. There it was, over to her left. Something was clearly progressing through the forest. Dare she call out, or would that be a mistake? A moment later she knew that staying quiet had been the right strategy, as a Witiku appeared, pushing through the trees. Had it seen her?

'Rose? Rose, are you there?'

The Witiku stopped at the sound of the human voice and changed direction, moving away from Rose and back towards the pit. Rose followed it, going as quickly as she could but making sure she did nothing to draw attention to herself.

The Witiku was roaring now, sensing prey.

'Rose?'

This time there was no doubting the fear in the woman's voice. She was trapped and the monster was about to find her, cornered and vulnerable. Rose couldn't ignore her.

'Professor, it's one of the creatures,' she called out desperately.

'Look, I've found something we can use as rope, but you'll have to be ready when I say the word!'

Unfortunately, shouting like this meant the creature was now aware of a second human to target. It swung round and faced Rose, who realised that the pit was between her and the Witiku. Moving quickly, she tied one end of her vine 'rope' round a thick tree trunk at the side of the pit. She looked up from completing her knot to see where the monster had got to. It was circling the pit in a clockwise direction. Leaving the vine, Rose started moving in the same direction. The Witiku extended its terrifying talons with a noise like knives being sharpened. If it wasn't for the danger she was in, Rose thought, the scene might look quite amusing. The Savage Beast and the Plucky Heroine, dancing round the Pit of Death!

She realised she was now back at the place where she'd tied the vine. Not taking her eyes off the monster, she crouched down and tipped the untied end of the rope into the pit.128.

'Grab hold now,' she instructed the professor. 'But don't start climbing yet!'

Watching the Witiku getting ever closer, Rose knew what she had to do. The creatures were big and heavy, but that was also a weakness. They weren't exactly nimble. She'd have to time this to perfection, but they had no other choice. She could now smell the familiar odour of the creature's fur and could hear its ragged and angry breathing. It raised one of its upper arms, ready to slice down at her. Now, she thought, and dived towards the creature's legs, rolling under its arms and pulling off a credible forward roll. Getting to her feet as quickly as she could, she saw that the Witiku had also turned around. Roaring angrily, it took another step towards her. Again, she had to make sure her timing was impeccable. She dropped her shoulder and charged at the creature's legs. Mickey had once given her a long lecture about the art of the rugby tackle. It had been pretty tedious at the time, but she had remembered one key idea hit hard and hit low. She shoulder-barged the Witiku just below its knee with her full weight. She twisted and rolled to one side, praying that the talons arcing through the air wouldn't connect. Above her, the creature flailed its arms, its whole body knocked off balance. For a moment it seemed to be frozen in midair, and then, finally, it fell backwards into the trap, roaring angrily the whole way down. Rose got to her feet quickly and ran to the edge of the pit, screaming, 'Professor! Climb now, Professor!'

At the bottom of the pit she could just make out the thrashing figure of the Witiku, but much closer another figure was moving. Climbing up the side of the pit, using the vine, was the professor. She was surprisingly agile for an older woman, Rose thought. A moment later a hand popped up and Rose grabbed it. As the professor clambered out of the pit she was breathing heavily and looked a little pale, but she was otherwise unharmed. They could hear that back down in the pit the creature was getting to its feet and attempting to climb out after them.

'Come on,' urged Rose, who was still holding the older woman's hand.129.

They began to run in the direction of the ruins. Rose just hoped there were no more traps along the way. The professor, who seemed to be in a state of shock, had never appeared more human to Rose before.

'Why did you come back for me?' she gasped.

'Couldn't leave you down there, could I?' Rose replied, without slowing down.

'But you could have been hurt. Or worse. You should have left me.'

Rose slowed down. They'd reached the more complete buildings now and the temple, which was their target, was in sight. Just another hundred metres or so. But Rose was tiring, and if the frantic running was getting to her, what was it doing to the professor? The pair of them stopped and both bent double, trying desperately to control their breathing. Rose glanced over at the professor and shook her head.

'I couldn't just leave you. We don't do things like that.'

For a moment the professor wondered who the 'we' was, but then she realised. 'You and the Doctor?' she asked, and Rose nodded a confirmation. 'So what kind of things do you do? Rescue people, fight monsters?'

'Yeah, that's about the size of it,' Rose confirmed. 'That and run a lot! Come on!'

The Witiku that had fallen into the pit burst out of the forest some distance behind them. It was going to be a foot race now. Rose and the professor set off, the younger woman leading the way towards the entrance.

They were now running along the side wall of the temple. Suddenly she became aware of movement over to her left. A glance confirmed her worst fears. Three more of the creatures were moving to cut them off.

'Rose!' called the professor with alarm. 'There are more of them!'

Rose was about to say that she had already seen them when she realised that the professor was looking in another direction entirely. Rose spun around, frantically looking for an escape route, but there wasn't one. They had nowhere left to run. The creatures had them surrounded.130.

[image]

KendlefoundtheDoctorintheprofessor'squarters,lookingthrough her precious collection of Paradise Planet evidence. He knew he ought to be angry, but the expression on the stranger's face pulled him up short. It was identical to the one he'd seen on his niece's face a thousand times before. A look of puzzled concentration, as if at any moment a vital connection would be made.

The Doctor didn't look up from the journal he was reading even though he must have heard Kendle enter the room.

'The answer is in all this somewhere,' he said, as if that explained everything.

'You shouldn't be in here,' Kendle started, but then changed tack as what the Doctor had said registered. 'What answer? What's the question?'

The Doctor glanced over his shoulder and raised his eyebrows behind his gla.s.ses. 'Ah, that's just it. If I knew the question I'd be halfway there. Thing is, I don't know the question or the answer. Which makes looking for either really, really difficult.' He turned away modestly and grinned. 'Still, wouldn't want it to be too easy, would we? Where's the fun in that?'

'I don't understand,' replied Kendle.131.

'Are you going to stand there feeding me straight lines all night or are you going to try and help?'

The exmarine's training came to the fore. Intelligence gathering. Specify target. Focus on the key data.

'What do we know about the planet?' asked the Doctor. That it's meant to be a paradise,' replied Kendle.

'But why do we think that?'

Kendle nodded at the direction of the journal. 'Because Guillan came here and described it.'

The Doctor nodded and flicked through a few more pages.

'He certainly did in great detail. Reckoned himself a bit of a poet, did old Guillan. Shame he wasn't. It's like reading Hamlet before my final edit. . . Now, the thing he keeps going on about is balance.'

'Balance?'

The Doctor pointed out a few paragraphs on the page he had reached.

'Here "every element of the ecosystem is in balance", you see. . . and then he goes on to list in what ways. I think your man Guillan was a bit of a tree-hugger. All this yin and yang stuff going on.'

'So what are you saying? That those creatures are part of this balance? That every now and again the locals start turning into monsters and it's all part of the cycle of nature on this planet?' Kendle didn't sound at all convinced.

The Doctor shook his head. 'No, I'm not saying that at all. It doesn't fit. There's something else.' He flipped further into the journal, scanning the pages at incredible speed, until he reached the end. 'Hang on. . . what's this. . . ' he muttered, reading the final entry again. Kendle came closer to look over the Doctor's shoulder. And now we must leave this heavenly paradise, and take away with us our human and ancient imperfections. Faced with such beauty we have no choice but to accept our uncleanliness and return to the harsh realities of our own filthy lives. And now we must leave this heavenly paradise, and take away with us our human and ancient imperfections. Faced with such beauty we have no choice but to accept our uncleanliness and return to the harsh realities of our own filthy lives.

'I see what you mean about the poetry. It's a bit over the top, isn't it?' Kendle said.132.

To his surprise, however, the Doctor didn't agree. Instead, he slammed shut the journal and pulled his gla.s.ses from his face. 'Yes!'

he announced, eyes wide with delight. 'That's it!'

'What is?' demanded Kendle, confused.

The Doctor started talking very fast and Kendle had to strain to keep up.

'It's not a metaphor at all. He's being factual, you know, not poetic. The planet's got a perfectly balanced ecosystem, right? So what happens if you add a new element to something that's perfectly balanced? You send it out of kilter. And what are we here? Alien. We're the new element. We're making the planet ill and the Witiku are the planet's response. It's as if the planet itself is allergic to us!' He stopped and looked serious. 'We have to sort this out fast before the entire planet suffers a fatal anaphylactic shock. And that is a metaphor,' he added, 'for the end of the world!'

Rose ran through the options. To her right monsters. To her left monsters. In front of her monsters. Just another day at the office, then. No possibilities up or down, so the only way to go was backwards, but that was just a solid wall. No convenient entrance there. Bad planning.

Beside her Petra Shulough was shaking with fear. She grabbed the older woman's hand and gave it a squeeze. With her other hand, she felt the uneven surface of the wall at their backs. It was rough and uneven; the individual stones were not all the same size and some jutted out slightly. Maybe up was an option after all. There was a window set in the wall about three metres from the ground could she reach it? It was certainly worth a try.

'Quick! Help me up,' she hissed at Petra.

Petra put her hands together and Rose placed her foot into them, then pushed off. She scrabbled for a handhold with her left hand and found one. Moving quickly but carefully, she found a secure place for her left foot and then her right. She was clinging to the wall, Spider-Man fashion, but without the dodgy skin-tight costume. Not 133 far to go now. She stretched up with her right arm and felt for the window ledge. Got it.

With a huge and unladylike grunt Rose hauled herself up and over the ledge, into the room on the other side. From there she was able to reach down to help the professor, who was already starting her own ascent. And with good reason the nearest Witiku was only a few metres away.

Rose clasped the professor's arms and pulled with all her strength. The older woman was quite light, thankfully, and a moment or two later she was through the window. Below, an enraged Witiku had arrived at the base of the wall and was trying to slice at them. Its talons raked the stone just below the ledge, causing sparks to fly. The two women exchanged looks and smiled, then Rose led the way deeper into the building.

'Thank you,' gasped the professor as they went. 'That's twice you've saved my life.'

'There are worse habits,' joked Rose as they reached a stone spiral staircase.

They could hear the roars of the creatures all around them, but it was impossible to work out how close they were.

'Up or down?' Rose wondered aloud, trying to work out the lie of the land.

She knew this was the main temple building that she had partly explored earlier. Up would take them to side galleries and then on to the observation tower that the Doctor had climbed. From there they would be able to see their attackers coming but they would also be trapped. Down would lead to the crypt. Although the cellars and tunnels there were dark and dangerous, they had the advantage of being extensive. With luck they would be able to lose their pursuers that way. Rose had made up her mind.

'Down?' queried the professor, following her.

'You wanted to see the crystals, didn't you?' Rose smiled encouragingly, and led the way down the spiral staircase.134.

Kendle regarded his troops with a critical eye. Not the finest body of soldiers that he had ever commanded but they would have to do. Hespell, the red-headed trainee pilot, looked paler than ever, and his female colleague, Baker, didn't look much better. The pair of them had graduated from the s.p.a.ce Naval Academy just before he had taken them on and, from the records he had seen, neither of them had excelled at the combat-training element of their course. The third member of his a.s.sault squad was the human turned native Rez. He seemed calmer than the other two, even though they were at least eight years older than him. Perhaps it was the advantage of knowing the territory.

The final member of the team was the Doctor and Kendle just didn't know where to begin with this one. He didn't look like a fighter tall and thin, you could imagine him snapping in two like a twig in the hands of a Witiku. Yet there was an inner strength to him, a steel core, well hidden but definitely there, that even Kendle found intimidating. The belts they each wore, from which numerous plastic bags hung, did not improve the impression of a makeshift army about to face the enemy with no weapons. Each bag was filled with the solution the Doctor had designed, and the sophisticated, high-tech delivery system for this bio-weapon was to be the human arm. In short, they were going to lob the bags at the creatures, like kids in a summer garden hurling water balloons at each other. Kendle grimaced and was glad none of the professional soldiers he had led into countless battles could see him now. In addition to the jinnera 'bombs', each of them carried a makeshift water pistol, a hose connected to a pumpaction container of liquid. Kendle sighed to himself. 'All right, let's move out. Rez, you know the territory, you take point.'

The young human looked confused at the order.

'Lead the way,' the Doctor explained kindly.

Rez nodded and set off. Hespell and Baker fell in behind him. The Doctor hesitated but Kendle waved him on, taking up the final position in the formation. Outside the s.p.a.ceship, the forest was now dark. Dark but not silent. 135 Animal noises filled the air, together with the calls and hoots of nocturnal birds. As they followed the teenager into the darkness, Hespell and Baker looked around nervously. Without a word, Hespell found himself reaching out and taking his colleague's hand. She returned the quick squeeze and they continued forward together, still holding hands.

Behind them both the Doctor and Kendle saw this unorthodox military manoeuvre. Kendle sighed, audibly this time. The Doctor just smiled. How human, he thought. And then the smile faded as he remembered Rose. He was sure she'd be OK. In all their adventures she had proved herself a worthy companion time and time again; nevertheless, he admitted to himself, he would feel a lot happier when they were reunited once more.

Rose reckoned they had Brother Hugan to thank for the illumination. It was because of his devotion to the old ways that the temple building was still in use if only largely for storage and that meant a number of torches had been left at various strategic points, together with flint and fuel. Rose had found one, fixed into a metal holder, as they had reached the bottom of the spiral staircase. She had carefully removed it and now it was at least giving them a fighting chance of seeing what they were doing. Not that Rose actually knew where any of the pa.s.sages led, but at least they could see the uneven floor at their feet. They had been walking in silence for some time now, going ever deeper into the labyrinth of storerooms and connecting corridors. They'd seen stores of dried fruit, cloth and jinnen powder and more rooms like the one Rose had seen before, full of crystals, but the professor's curiosity had been muted. Right now she was more interested in survival than in the state of her ship's engines.

'Do you think we're safe yet?' she asked, in a voice devoid of her usual arrogance and authority.

Rose was amused at the way she had somehow become the leader of their little expedition. She considered her answer for a moment. The sound of the creatures' cries had faded, but that could just mean that they were no longer roaring, not that they were far away. 136 'I don't know,' she answered eventually, 'but I think we should keep moving.'

They had reached an archway into another large chamber. Rose raised the torch above her head, to cast the light as widely as possible. There was a shape over to her left, ma.s.sive and inhuman. Rose gasped and was about to run when she realised there were more of them. Five or six in total, all around the edge of the room Witiku. Had they walked into a trap?

Then, with relief, Rose saw that these Witiku were statues huge stone replicas of the creatures that were chasing them. In the centre of the room was a vast slab of stone like the sacrificial altar in the main temple above but on a much larger scale. Rose swallowed. This altar stone was stained too, with a deep black mark. Whatever had been sacrificed here was a lot larger than a bird or a hog. Rose glanced at the professor, who was regarding the stone with academic interest. She caught Rose's eye and Rose could see that they had both reached the same conclusion about the function of this altar. This chamber was a real killing pit a place where the ancient Laylorans had practised human sacrifice. The two women looked at each other and nodded they were not going to stay here a moment longer than necessary.

At the far end of the chamber there was another archway to yet another corridor. They hurried towards it, but as they moved away, carrying the only light, something stirred behind one of the Witiku statues. Cold, hard eyes watched the flame disappear into the darkness. Then something began to follow, moving with panther-like stealth. The Doctor had joined Rez at the head of their group. He was glad of his large coat but the human boy seemed immune to the cold night. Hardened to the local conditions, the Doctor supposed. Rez had obviously adapted to the planet's climate. But had the planet adapted to having him here?

It appeared that he had been harbouring similar thoughts. 'You think the Witiku have risen because the s.p.a.ceship crashed here?' he asked the Doctor.137.

'I think the ma.s.s production of Witiku is a response to the professor's ship, yes. . . ' the Doctor began, but it was clear to the boy that this wasn't a full answer.

'But the first Witiku appeared before the ship came down?' continued Rez.

'Yes,' nodded the Doctor solemnly.

'So they were a reaction to a different problem. Like all the other things. The crop failures. The strange weather. The earth tremors.'

The Doctor was fascinated. 'And these things are unusual for Laylora?'

'Very. The elders told me that nothing like this has happened before. But it's been getting worse year by year now. And no one understands why.'

'But you think you do, don't you?' He let the question hang in the air for a moment. 'How long has this been going on?' he asked, fearing that he already knew what the reply would be.

'Fifteen years,' Rez told him sadly. 'Since they found me,' he added in a small voice.

They walked on in silence.

A few minutes later Kendle's unit reached the outlying ruins. Here, where the tree cover was less dense, Laylora's twin moons bathed the area in an eerie bluish light, making the landscape look stranger than ever before. It was very cold now too, and their breath misted in front of their faces. The five of them stood together for a moment, regarding the mysterious scene before them.

'Now where?' asked Kendle.

The Doctor shrugged. 'Not sure. Why don't we head for the main temple? I bet that's where we'll find the monsters,' he suggested. 'To be honest, I was rather expecting to have been attacked by now!'

Rose stopped suddenly and the professor cannoned into her.

'Witiku,' whispered Rose, turning around on the spot. 'We need to go back the way we came.'138.

The professor turned and took the lead, but she had only gone a short distance when she too came to an abrupt stop. Something was moving in the darkness. Rose still had the torch, so she couldn't see very well, but something was definitely up ahead.

'There's something in front of us too,' she whispered to Rose. 'Now what?'

Rose looked around quickly. There was a chamber entrance a metre or so away, but it was likely to have only the one entrance if they sheltered in there they would be trapped. A roar from behind made the decision for her and she pulled the older woman into the chamber. They'd just have to hope the Doctor was on his way. The attack party had already suffered a few setbacks. The terrain was treacherous and they had all stumbled and slipped as they hurried towards the temple building. Unfortunately, their falls had come at a price. Both Hespell and Baker had lost some of their jinnera bombs. Indeed, Hespell had a soaking-wet leg where a brace of bags had burst prematurely. Nevertheless, they had reached the temple without any serious injury and with most of their precious cargo intact. The Doctor led the way into the dark interior. Moving quickly, they found a couple of torches. The Doctor took one, giving the other to Baker, and he then led the way down the stone steps into the crypt. They could hear Witiku activity up ahead. Each of them now had one of the jinnera bombs to hand, ready to throw.

'Aim at the body,' instructed the Doctor. 'The bags will break on impact and we should get maximum coverage that way.'

'And you're sure that will cure them?' Hespell gave voice to the question they all wanted to ask.

'Well, nothing in life's ever certain,' the Doctor replied. 'Except death and taxes and neither of them has ever troubled me!'

They had now reached a pa.s.sageway and were moving towards sounds of activity. Witiku roaring loud and angry floated back to them.

'Stand by,' muttered the Doctor. 'Sounds like we've found them.'

He scouted on ahead, poking his head round the edge of an arched 139 doorway. His eyes quickly adjusted to the light and he was able to see what was happening. Six or seven Witiku were in front of him, facing into a room containing a huge pile of yellow crystals. And on the top of the pile perched Rose and the professor.