It was a rippling field of white, like an ocean of milk that had somehow congealed. It stretched in irregular billows and hollows as far as the eye could see, and the blue sky overhead seemed almost an afterthought. Huddled against a hill of the white stuff, two figures draped in glittery black robes talked to each other in hushed, urgent tones.

"You must be there," said one figure. "The God could come among us, any time!" The surface behind them bulged outwards, and they leaned aside without even realising they had moved, as though it was nothing of importance that a hill seemed ready to ooze over them.

"But it's dangerous, even now. The Daughters are always watching-"

"If the God comes, they will be gone! Everything will be gone! The God will bring us his power; give us the tasks that we were made for." The figure's voice rose in a chant. "The God will bring us blood."

The other replied, "The God will bring us fire."

"The God will bring us death."

"The God will bring us-"

The chant interrupted by a wheezing noise, like a giant coughing up a roll of rusty wire.

"It's them!" and they both hid. But what appeared was instead a tall blue box, with a flashing light on top.

# # #

"Does the TARDIS often bring you to places you have been before?" asked Leela.

The Doctor turned, flicking his long scarf aside, and looked at his companion. For a savage jungle-girl, she could sometimes ask the most uncomfortable questions.

"First of all, it's I who chooses where the TARDIS goes, not the other way round," he replied. "And secondly, the universe is full of new things to see. I don't usually see any point in going back for seconds." He paused and considered. "Sometimes, if a place is of some consuming interest, or if I want to see how folks are doing, I'll drop by. Just informally, mind you. I don't want to cause a fuss."

"Did you think Xoanon was of consuming interest?" she asked. The Doctor winced inside: he'd helped some folks who'd been having a spot of trouble with their computer, and had returned generations later to find those same folks split into two factions, the hunting tribe called the Sevateem (Leela's people) and the scientific Tesh. Said split having been engineered by the computer he'd fixed, now calling itself Xoanon, and quite mad.

"No, no, just random chance we crossed paths again. Now this," he adjusted the TARDIS' controls, and the bobbing column in the centre of the console slowed and stopped, "this should be more your speed." With a flourish, he touched another control to activate the viewer.

The Doctor and Leela both stared at the landscape outside. The Doctor, who had been expecting the varicoloured forest of Thepp II to be revealed, was nonplussed to see a landscape of endless, billowing white. He frowned, and touched the controls again; their view panned, showing only more whiteness.

"Is that snow?" Leela was curious; she knew snow only as something seen far off on the tops of mountains. She looked down at herself, wondered if she should get a coat from the TARDIS' seemingly endless wardrobes. Right now she was only wearing the brief garb of a warrior: a leather top, woven loincloth and soft boots. "Can we go outside?"

"Hang on." The Doctor consulted his control panel. "It's too warm outside for snow. It could be-"

She knew full well that the Doctor could spend hours talking about what it could be or might be, and she wanted to see what it was. Rather than wait, Leela tripped the appropriate control panel lever and quickly dashed through the TARDIS' opening doors.

"-dangerous. Wait!" said the Doctor, and followed her.

Outside, Leela was staring at the land. Everything was covered with the white stuff. There wasn't a speck of green as far as she could see. If this was 'winter', she did not think it was very pretty. "I thought snow was supposed to be cold?" she asked, leaning over and poking at the stuff. "And all in little bits like sand." This felt more like cured leather. And it was warmer than the ground ought to be, whatever this season was.

"Yes, well, this isn't snow. Obviously," said the Doctor, stepping out of the TARDIS. "It seems to be some sort of fungus." He looked at a long, straight rod poking out of the fungus next to him, and picked at it. "Shaped metal; could be made by intelligent life."

"You think there are people here? Where are they?" Leela couldn't imagine anyone living here. It would be like living in the middle of a plain, with no shelter and nothing to eat. Not even grass.

Behind them, something that resembled a small stylised mechanical dog pushed through the doors of the TARDIS. Leela looked down and asked, "K-9, where would the people be here?"

"Insufficient data, Mistress," said K-9, in his prim robotic voice. "Do you wish me to perform a sensor scan?"

"Doctor?" She looked up, and saw the Doctor looking at a small red thing in his hand. It had a little light in it that was blinking.

"Should K-9 do a sensor scan?" she asked.

"Hmm?" he said, distracted. "You know, I've been hauling this etheric beam locator around in my pocket for centuries, and it still works! Someone around here is using some fairly sophisticated electronics. I wonder where they are - an underground civilisation?" The Doctor absent-mindedly closed the TARDIS door and wandered off to his left, staring at his little red device. "Come along, K-9," he said, and the little robot obediently trundled after him, its wheels scraping over the strangely soft landscape.

Abandoned, Leela considered what to do. It did not look like this was a place worth exploring, it was all the same! Although it was not perfectly flat now that she looked at it, there were hills and valleys under this white 'fungus'. There could in fact be houses, or people, hidden somewhere. Then a flash of movement caught her hunter's eye. It was gone in an instant, but for a moment it had looked like a man's head, wearing something red. She moved as though to go after it and then stopped, considered waiting here for the Doctor. Then she had a happy thought: the TARDIS was the only blue thing in sight. She could go as far away as she wanted, and then just turn back and look for the big blue box.

So she went to her right, moving towards where she had seen the flash of red. Behind her, the fungus on which the TARDIS rested started to puff and bubble. And then, very slowly, it started to ooze upwards.

# # #

There was a path through the fungus after all; it was hard-packed earth edged on both sides with glittery black powder that did look like sand. And it was straight, not the meandering trail that animals would make. Leela stood on the path and watched in fascination as some of the fungus oozed towards the powder, touched it and then retreated.

"I'm trying to be accommodating, Stor-" came a voice, and two people walked around a curve in the path and into Leela's line of sight. Her hand went to her belt knife, reflexively.

The one in front, a youth, put a hand to his knife in turn: it was in a fancy shiny sheath, and the hilt was a marvel of ornate metal gleaming between his white-knuckled fingers. But it was not the sheath or the handle that mattered, she reminded herself: it was the quality of the blade. And the quality of the one who held it. Her eyes flicked over the youth, measuring. His stance was all wrong for a serious attacker: he was presenting himself face-on to intimidate, not sideways to extend his reach and protect his torso. She dismissed him for the moment, and her eyes went to the second person.

He looked to be not much older than Leela, but his exact age was hard to judge because of the terrible calm that lay over his expression. He was dressed in loose blue clothes, and a red headband was wound around his head. There was something uncertain in the way he moved, like he was very old. But his eyes were disturbingly intent as he looked at Leela. She couldn't decide if he was dangerous or not - and that was dangerous.

She stood straight and looked at them.

"Who are you and why are you dressed like that?" said the younger man, in a harsh demanding tone.

Leela raised an eyebrow. "I am Leela, and I dress as a warrior. What are you dressed as?" she asked, looking at the too-large jacket he wore. He scowled defensively.

The older man came forward a pace or two. "This is Student Stor," he touched the younger man's shoulder as though to hold him back, "and I am Teacher Ravon. And I apologise for changing the subject, but have you noticed what the fungus is doing to your boots?"

Leela looked down and was aghast to see that her leather boots were covered with puffy white balls that seemed to be growing even as she watched. She raised her foot and shook it frantically, but the fungus was stuck - and she was afraid, now, to touch the white stuff with her fingers. What if it started to grow on her flesh as well? "How do I stop it?" she cried, looking at the two men.

"Allow me," said Ravon, stepping past Stor and spraying Leela's boots with something out of a bottle he pulled from his pocket. The fungus shrivelledand fell off, and when Leela looked more closely, she could see that her boots were dusted with tiny black glittery speckles now.

"Thank you," she said with a bright smile. Ravon did not smile back; instead he looked at her with that same intent expression.

"Are you from far off?" he asked.

Leela thought for a moment, and decided to answer. He had saved her boots, after all. "Yes, very far."

"Ah," he said. "Well, your boots should be all right now, but you might want to get some cloth that is coated with repellent as well. Stor and I are going to the Bunker, and they have ample stores of the material there. Perhaps you would like to accompany us?"

"I do not have anything to trade for your cloth," she pointed out practically.

"If you come from far off, perhaps you could trade us a story of where things are like where you are from." Ravon smiled vaguely. "You know, exactly how far off 'far off' is, how many there are of you, and so on." There was something unnerving about the combination of that vague smile and the intent stare.

Leela saw no problem with talking about her tribe, because after all, how could this man get from here to the jungles of the Sevateem? Nothing she told him could harm her people, so far away. It seemed rather canny to her, to give him useless information. She looked at the scowling Stor, who reluctantly took his hand off his knife (after Ravon cleared his throat) and marched up the path. Leela and Ravon walked after him, side by side.

"Why do you not get rid of this fungus?" she asked him. "Just spray your black dust everywhere and kill it?"

"Oh no, we can't do that," Ravon replied. "You see, this fungus is genetically engineered, to absorb poisons from the soil and then break them down into harmless elements. It covers all of this, which used to be the Wastelands." He gestured with both hands, encompassing the horizon. "As far as you can see, and very deep into the ground as well. The poisons had soaked in here over generations; nothing whole could grow here, and what did grow was deformed and often poisonous as well."

"What poisoned the land?" Leela asked.

"The war, of course," he said, glancing at her. Leela knew that tone; it was the everyone-knows tone that meant she should not tell him that she knew nothing of this war.

Instead she asked, "Were you a warrior?" The way he moved could be due to some injury, rather than age.

"I was…once." He touched the wide red band around his head, almost stroking it with his fingertips.

# # #

K-9 was making a valiant go of it in following the Doctor, and fortunately his metal composition was not exciting the fungus the way that Leela's leather boots had. But the surface bubbled and swelled around him, as each patch of fungus 'tasted' him, found him not worthy of devouring, and let him move on.

"Master," he finally said. "I am impeded." The fungus had risen all around him, forming a little valley with him in the middle. And he was not designed to jump, only roll. He deployed the blaster in his muzzle and zapped some of the fungus, but it just seemed to bubble more.

"Hang on, K-9, this is very interesting." The Doctor stood in front of an erect tube-shaped section of fungus that was partially covering some sort of machine. The machine glowed: the core of it was a glass tube alight with flickering, dancing patterns. Familiar patterns. He'd seen this device, but where? And when?

He wrapped the end of his long multi-coloured scarf around his hand, and peeled back some of the fungus; a flurry of black dust came out as well, and the fungus started to retreat on its own. The dust must be some sort of repellent, released by his motion.

He stared at the device, paying no attention to the bubbles of fungus that were starting to grow on the end of his scarf where it had dragged on the ground. The way the core was surrounded with thick metal cables, the angles of the casing, the details…he'd seen this - aha! He remembered!

"A particle fountain! That's what it is, a particle fountain for neutralising background radiation," he said, beaming. The smile froze on his face, and swiftly retreated. Eyes wide, he whispered, "I never did find out, though, if they named it the Kaled particle fountain. Or the Davros particle fountain."

"Master!" said K-9, still unable to move. The Doctor turned, fast, snapping his scarf and sending the fungus on it flying. He saw the overgrowth now and quickly scuffed his scarf and his shoes in the pool of black dust; a fine cloud of the stuff rose around him, and the fungus that had been growing on his clothes withered. With two long strides he was at K-9's side, and picked him up and turned him end-for-end before setting the robot down.

"K-9, I know where we are now. This is Skaro. We have to find Leela and leave, now!" Suiting actions to words, the Doctor dashed back in the direction of the TARDIS, with K-9 determinedly ploughing along in his wake.

They retraced their path to where the TARDIS should be, and stopped. "Leela!" shouted the Doctor, turning. No sign of a woman in brown leather, or a large blue box. The TARDIS was the only coloured thing in sight, he couldn't have missed it. "Leela?" Of all the planets to lose a companion on, he would choose this one!

"She has moved out of sensor range," said K-9, rolling to a stop.

"K-9, where's the TARDIS?" The robot spun on his centreaxis, and finally stopped with his head pointing at a large mound of fungus. Very large. And getting larger.

"It has been covered, Mast-," said K-9, only to be shushed by the Doctor dropping to a crouch and clamping a hand over his muzzle. He shut down his voice system, and like the Doctor, listened.

There was a voice in the distance, a grating mechanical voice. A voice that the Doctor knew far too well. It said, "Ninth Patrol reporting. Unable to locate source of anomalous energy emissions-"

Black-clad hands were on the Doctor suddenly, on his body and limbs and grabbing his clothing. They dragged him up and to the nearest hillock, and over it. He kicked and thrashed, but there were too many hands. His scarf was pulled tighter, around his face and mouth and cruelly tight around his neck, and he couldn't even cry out.

K-9 was unable to stop his master's abduction, but he immediately prepared to follow. The little hillock was steep enough that he would be unable to go up its slope. He would have to go around and - no, that way was blocked too. Should he find the Mistress first, and enlist her help in rescuing the Doctor? He turned in the direction she had gone - and was confronted by a metal pillar, decorated with gleaming half-spheres. He tilted his head back to raise his sensory array, and saw three of the pillar-things, each one with an eyestalk at its domed top, staring at him. There seemed like robots, but K-9's sensors detected life signals within them. Life? Was this not a robot, but a vehicle, a tank?

Each of these domed robot-tanks was armed, with inbuilt weapons aimed unerringly at K-9.

"We have located the anomaly," said the Dalek.