'Must just be me, then,' muttered Hespell, getting to his feet. He felt an urgent need to change the subject. Looking around the MedLab, he realised that the Doctor wasn't around. His brown coat was slung over the back of a chair, but other than that there was no sign of him.

'Where is the Doctor?' he asked Baker.

'With his other patient,' Ania told him. Hespell looked a bit confused. Baker fixed him with a sharp look. 'It wasn't just us out there, was it?'

Hespell found the Doctor and the 'other patient' in the cargo bay, which had been adjudged the best place to act as a holding cell. Hespell had refused the suggestion of using his cabin again but it had never really been a possibility; this new prisoner was rather larger than the Doctor.

The Doctor looked up as he heard the doors open and was pleased to see that it was the young trainee pilot. Both the professor and Kendle were hopelessly fixed in their worldviews but Hespell showed signs of having some imagination, and he approved of that. He nodded a greeting at Hespell and returned to examining the unconscious creature. 88 'Is there any possibility of getting these off?' he asked, gesturing at the heavy metal chains that were wrapped around the creature, which lay sprawled on its back in the middle of the floor. Hespell looked at the chains, which were fixed to points on the walls that had originally been intended to support shelving units. They were stretched tight, pinning the creature securely to the floor. It looked, and probably was, painful.

'I'm sorry Doctor, but the professor says this thing has to be restrained.' He could see the sadness in the Doctor's eyes and felt guilty, but he dared not disobey a direct order.

'I don't think he's dangerous,' explained the Doctor, 'I really don't.'

'Tell that to Baker,' muttered Hespell.

'Baker went out there and started shooting at them. You all did. They only wanted to stop you from poisoning the planet. Once this ' the Doctor waved an arm in the general direction of the wrecked generator 'this obscenity was destroyed they just left, didn't they?'

Hespell had to admit that the Doctor had a point.

'What are they?' he wondered.

The Doctor shrugged. 'I don't know. But there's more to them than meets the eye, I'm sure of that.'

Hespell came closer, intrigued. Even asleep, the creature looked fearsome. 'What do you mean?' he asked, bending and reaching out a curious hand to touch the alien fur.

'Well, they attacked as a group. There wasn't much sign of individuality, was there?' The Doctor looked to Hespell for confirmation.

'I er, I suppose you're right,' he replied, not having thought about it much.

The Doctor continued with his theory. 'So that would suggest some kind of an animal that wasn't highly developed.'

Hespell nodded again.

'And yet,' said the Doctor, 'they knew exactly what they needed to do, which demonstrates a certain degree of intelligence.'

Hespell began to see what the Doctor was driving at. 'You mean they displayed characteristics of simple animals and more complex life forms at the same time?' he said.

89.To his delight, the Doctor broke into a broad smile. 'Good lad!

You're using your brain!'

The Doctor gave him an encouraging pat on the shoulder, which threatened to knock him off balance and send him tumbling into the creature. The Doctor then reached over to pick at something on the monster's chest.

'So, now you've warmed up your noggin, what do you make of this?'

Hespell studied what the Doctor was holding. It was a necklace, decorated with colourful stones and crystals, threaded on to some kind of vine. The centrepiece was one enormous fist-sized yellow crystal. He gasped. 'Is that trisilicate?'

'Looks like it, doesn't it?' the Doctor agreed.

'Wow!'

'Which raises some rather interesting questions,' the Doctor announced, getting to his feet. 'For a start, when was the last time you saw a great big hairy monster like this wearing bling quite like that?'

The atmosphere in the temple crypt was chilly and Rose shivered. She had discovered that it was far more than a simple room. Just as Rez had told her earlier, there was an absolute warren of interconnected cellars and tunnels down here that seemed to go on for kilometres. It was dark, cold and creepy, but fascinating at the same time. Rose found other images on the walls. They were fairly crude but clearly represented a range of ancient Layloran activities. They were even sketchier than the carvings the Doctor had been so fascinated by, the ones that decorated the exterior of the temple. In fact, now she thought about it, some of these tunnels and chambers seemed much older than the building above, as if perhaps the great temple had been built on top of an earlier, more primitive sacred place. A repeated image depicted the Witiku. However, there was more to this underground area than just wall paintings. There were stores of grain and jinnen beans, and other materials too. Rose looked into one room and gasped in surprise. It was filled with a huge pile of crystals. Except, on closer examination, she found that what she had taken to be crystals were some kind of hard jewel, like yellow diamonds. And 90 there were thousands of them. She picked one up to examine it more closely.

'Pretty, aren't they?'

Rose nearly jumped out of her skin. She whirled around to see who had crept up on her, but she already had an idea from the voice.

'Sister Kaylen!' The not-girlfriend. Terrific.

Rose had been aware of the girl shooting her dark looks all evening. She was clearly very fond of her stepbrother and Rose had halfexpected her to join them for their 'date', but she'd stayed away. Rose stood up, dropping the jewel she'd just picked up. Although she had done nothing wrong, she still felt guilty.

'I wasn't going to take it!' she insisted, getting in her defence first. Kaylen just shrugged. 'Take as many as you like. They're everywhere.'

Rose couldn't quite believe her ears. 'You don't value these things?'

She picked one up and felt its weight. It would make a lovely necklace, she thought. The Layloran looked bemused. 'Value? What do you mean? They're pretty and we use them in our jewellery,' she continued, 'but they're ever so common. In the fields we find them all the time. It's a pain.'

A pain! Rose had to stop herself from laughing. Fields full of free jewellery and they think it's a problem!

'Were you looking for me?' Rose asked, wondering what she was doing there.

Kaylen nodded. 'I'm doing a head count,' she explained. Suddenly the seriousness of what had happened last night came flooding back to Rose. She let Kaylen lead her back towards the staircase going up to the surface, all thoughts of the crystals forgotten.

'Are there many people missing?' she asked.

Kaylen nodded, a grim expression on her face. 'Eight, we think.'

Eight! The raid had been more successful than Rose had thought.

'Any sign of Brother Hugan?' Kaylen shook her head sadly.

'No.'

91.Back on the surface, Rose and Kaylen found most of the adults gathered in an informal crisis meeting, discussing their options. As she had feared, an all-out attack on the s.p.a.ceship was a popular choice, but not all the Laylorans were in favour. Mother Jaelette, for example, wanted to wait rather than rush into some foolish action that might just lead to more loss of life and she made her point forcibly. Rose could see that both sides of the argument had their supporters, but neither commanded a majority. The one thing they all agreed on, though, was that what had happened was connected in some way with the crashed sky boat. She cleared her throat and tried to interrupt the debate, which was beginning to get a little heated.

'Excuse me,' she began, but her voice was drowned out. She tried again. 'Oi!' she cried, much louder, and this time she got their attention.

'Look, it's no good just shouting at each other.'

'You're an outsider what do you know about this?' retorted one of the more belligerent elders.

Rose bristled but kept her cool. Losing her temper wouldn't help the situation at all.

'The people in that ship are human, like me. Like Rez here.'

Rez shot her an unhappy look, not pleased to be singled out like this.

'Perhaps I can talk to them, find out what they know. They may be able to help find your missing people.'

Mother Jaelette looked at her with interest. 'Is that likely?'

Rose nodded. 'They'll have technology, tools that might help. . . '

And the Doctor's there, she thought to herself, he's worth a whole pile of tech all by himself.

To her relief she saw that Mother Jaelette was nodding; it looked like Rose had persuaded them not to take any action until this option had been explored. Rez stepped forward.

'I'll take you,' he said simply. 'I promised I would.'

'Thanks.' Rose smiled at him.

As Mother Jaelette gave him a big hug and told him to take care, Rose felt a twinge of guilt. She was taking Rez away from his family 92 and she had an ominous feeling that he might never come back to them.

93.

[image]

The walk through the forest was different this time. It was still as beautiful as ever and everywhere Rose looked there was another stunning vista to marvel at, but since the attack last night something subtle had changed for her. It might be a paradise but now she was very much aware that there could be monsters lurking all around. Rez led the way, confidently striding through the maze of different trees, following the path the monsters had taken last night. They walked in silence, each occupied with their own thoughts. Finally they reached an area where there were signs of damage to the tree tops.

'This must be where the ship came down,' Rez told her, pointing up at the broken branches.

A little further on they reached a clearing and there, battered but intact, was the s.p.a.ceship.

Rose was getting a bit blase about s.p.a.ceships these days, but she'd never seen one quite like this. She could tell instantly that this was not a new ship. It looked a bit like one of the cars she used to see boys working on back home on the estate. Not new by any means, but well loved and showing signs of a long life of repairs. On the Powell Estate you'd see cars with bonnets and doors in colours that didn't match the 95 rest of the car, and it was the same with this s.p.a.ce vehicle. Panels looked to have been replaced by spares from entirely different ships, or possibly bits salvaged from junkyards.

'Perhaps that's why it crashed!' she speculated out loud. Rez gave her a look. To him it was an amazing, technologically advanced machine and it was clearly intimidating him.

'Do you think it's safe to just walk up to it?' he asked. Rose wasn't sure. 'We could go under a white flag?' she suggested. Unfortunately a quick search of her pockets failed to produce anything that even faintly resembled a white flag, although Rose did find a half-empty packet of Polos, which was a bonus.

'Come on, then,' she said finally, popping a mint into her mouth and offering Rez one. 'Let's just walk slowly, keep our hands where they can see them and hope they don't fancy any target practice.'

A little nervously they stepped out of the cover offered by the trees and began to walk towards the s.p.a.ceship. As they got closer Rose could see that the main airlock doors were open and there were a couple of people standing just inside.

'We come in peace,' she called out hopefully, adding, 'Don't shoot!'

'Rose Tyler, where the heck have you been?' called a familiar voice. To Rose's shame she completely lost it. 'Doctor!'

She ran towards him and was delighted to see that he was running to meet her too. They collided in a giant bear hug that was probably so not cool, but Rose just didn't care. Sometimes being cool was just overrated.

Finally the Doctor let her go and they just grinned at each other for a moment, then they both began speaking at once, stopped, started again at exactly the same moment and then stopped again, laughing.

'You first, then,' Rose said finally.

'No, no. . . ' insisted the Doctor, 'you carry on.'

'Actually I don't know quite where to begin,' Rose confessed. The Doctor threw a look in the direction of Rez, who was standing around looking a little embarra.s.sed at the overt display of affection.

'How about starting with introducing the new boyfriend?' suggested the Doctor with a grin. 96 This is Rez,' Rose said, ignoring the Doctor's teasing. 'He's a human living with the locals,' she added.

'Pleased to meet you,' said the Doctor, extending a hand for the lad to shake.

Rez looked a little hesitant.

'Does he shake?' he asked, raising an eyebrow at Rose. She and Rez exchanged a knowing look and then both of them burst into hysterics.

'I'll take that as a no, shall I?' The Doctor sounded a little hurt. Rose managed to stop herself laughing and apologised. 'Private joke,' she explained.

If anything this only made him look more upset.

'So, are you going to introduce us to your new friend?' she asked, grinning, and nodded over the Doctor's shoulder in the direction of a severe-looking woman in her fifties who was walking purposefully towards them.

'Let me introduce the commander of this fine ship, Professor Petra Shulough,' said the Doctor. 'Professor, this is my travelling companion, Rose Tyler, and this is, er, her new friend, Rez.'

The professor nodded at the newcomers but her expression remained serious. 'You live with the natives?' she asked Rez. He nodded. 'I was found here as a baby in an escape pod fifteen years ago.'

'An orphan!' exclaimed the professor, and Rose thought she could detect an unexpected emotion in the woman's voice. Was it empathy?

'And you've been brought up as a native since then?'

Again he nodded.

The professor seemed to be making an effort to stifle whatever emotional reaction she was having and her voice hardened. 'So what can you tell us about the creatures that attacked us last night?'

'Creatures?'

'Big hairy chaps with four arms and serious talons,' the Doctor said, giving Rez some more details.

'Snap!' said Rose.

'You've seen them too?' The Doctor sounded excited. 97 Rose affected an air of nonchalance. 'Been there, seen that, bought the T-shirt,' She grinned again.

'You were attacked too?' asked the professor, surprised at this development.

'Our village was raided last night,' explained Rez.

'But it was OK,' Rose hurried to tell the Doctor. 'I saw them off with a hot drink!'

'I'm sorry?'

Rose was pleased to hear the surprise in the Doctor's voice.

'I threw my drink at them and it seemed to stop them. Like Superman and kryptonite.'

'You found a weakness!' The Doctor was impressed. Rose was chuffed. The score was now two-nil, Rose told herself.

'I think we need to compare notes,' the Doctor decided, and started to lead them back towards the s.p.a.ceship. 'And talking of hot drinks, any chance of a cup of tea, Professor?'