"Oh, you've got to be joking," Clara says, as the Wray emerges from the lost Gate.
The ice fields of Hielos are gone, replaced by desert sands. The primary sun squats fat and red on the horizon, smaller twin still high in the sky. A shimmering heat haze hovers in the air.
"Look at it this way: it's a change of costume."
"Yes, from Scott of the Antarctic to Lawrence of Arabia."
"It could be worse."
"How?"
"Well, we could be underwater. Scuba gear is even less flattering on someone of your…" He waves a hand vaguely, trying to think of the right word. She hates it when he calls her short. "Size."
The ringing silence that follows this pronouncement suggests his diplomatic option was anything but. Antares breaks the hush, quite possibly saving the Doctor from an untimely death at the hands of his companion. "Have you pair finished?"
"Scans indicate another Gate structure, approximately five kilometres south-west of here," reports the Pale Man.
"Life-signs?"
"One. Very faint."
Antares scowls. "Take us down behind those dunes then, Multiple. This feels like a trap. I don't want them to see us coming."
"They definitely aren't moving."
They are lying flat on top of a convenient dune slope. Clara is now wearing a loose fitting burnous, a pair antique of field-glasses pressed to her nose. He gives his collar a surreptitious tug. Black is a good colour for a time-traveller, rarely out of place in any setting, but possibly not the best choice for desert wear.
"Where did you find those?"
"TARDIS wardrobe, obviously." Unusually terse; he suspects she is still rather annoyed at him for his innocent observation regarding wetsuits.
They inch back down to the bottom of the dune, where Elara and Antares are waiting following their own investigative forays.
"Well?"
"It looks like there was some sort of fight. There's spent bullet cases all around the base of the Gate and what looks like a body behind the tent."
Elara nods her assent. "The desert heat is affecting my internal sensors, but the only life sign I'm picking up is in that tent."
Antares takes a moment to consider their options. "Okay. Elara, I want you to go and take a closer look. Be careful. There could be traps or detectors we haven't spotted."
She nods. "Don't worry, Captain. I have done this sort of thing before. The rest of you should head back to the ship for now. I'll report back to you with my findings."
"I'm coming with you."
They all turn to look at him, three different expressions of confusion. "I'm sorry Doctor, but you're too conspicuous, and I can't risk-"
He holds up his left wrist, grins, and presses the button which makes him invisible.
He hears Clara sigh. "I knew I should have confiscated that watch."
Elara shakes her magnificent head before similarly fading from view. "I'll make sure we stay unnoticed," reassures her voice on the air.
He is already making towards the dune hill, impatient to investigate, but stops abruptly as invisible fingers close on his wrist.
"You can still see me?"
"Not exactly see, but sense, certainly. With me, Doctor. Even invisible you'll still leave footprints on the dune slope. Let's go this way instead." Her hand slips into his, leading him around the dune. He's uncomfortable with hand-holding at the best of times; being unable to see the owner of said hand does not improve the experience.
They inch closer to the Gate, and the large tent pitched at the base of the plinth on which it stands. The owner of the boots Clara spotted through the field-glasses lies spread-eagled on the ground. He is indeed dead. The sand is bloody beneath him.
"He was running away," he whispers. The mess of the exit wounds on the dead man's chest suggest he was shot in back.
"Yes." Elara breathes her agreement. "Shot by someone inside the tent."
He turns a critical eye to the structure. It is hard white, plastic-looking; more akin to a decontamination tent than anything one might take camping. He's seen similar before. "Does it look… familiar to you?"
"Yes." She swallows. "It's a Kessel field hospital tent."
He digests this information. "We're a very long way from Kessel space. Any ideas as to why a military medical outpost would be here?"
"None. But I'm keen to find out."
He hears her take a deep breath, before the doors are pulled open before him.
Inside, it is cooler than he expects. The air conditioners are still working. There are three gurneys, each with a physician's station at their head. The first gurney is empty, station laid out ready for surgery; laser scalpels, tissue regenerators and electro-cauters in a neat row.
The second gurney is not empty. The Doctor has lived long enough to look once and then away – nothing can survive the kind of mutilation visited on the occupant, and he has enough fuel for his nightmares as it is. Blood drips slowly onto the floor.
A man lies on the third. He is brilliant blue, clearly Kessel, and obviously dying. The Doctor drops his cloak of invisibility and crosses to him, grabbing the tissue regenerator as if it could be of any use. The man's ribcage is torn open; he looks as if he has been bitten by a shark. Extensive augmentations are clearly visible through the gaping hole, a mixture of blood and synthetic fluid pooling around him.
"Too late, I'm afraid," the dying man wheezes. He has a dandelion puffball of white hair and a kind face; the air of a genial grandfather.
Elara drops her own shield, standing on the other side of the gurney. She is ashen, her breathing fast and shallow. Her reaction strikes him as odd; as a soldier, she has undoubtedly seen bodies before. Horrible as the man's injuries are, battle wounds can be worse. He frowns. "Elara?"
"Is this it?" she breathes. "This is my reward?"
"What are you talking about?"
"You promised me that I would get my chance−my chance to make it up. To Elysia." Her voice cracks as she says the name. "I never dreamed… I didn't believe."
"What chance? You're not making any sense, Elara, you've-you've developed a fault." She is staring down at the dying man on the gurney with a terrible hunger in her eyes. "Elara, Elara! Listen to me. I don't understand. Who's Elysia?"
"Her sister," rasps the man, "Elysia was her sister."
He hates moments like this; of not holding all the pieces of the puzzle. He thought he knew how the story would unfold when they came in here, but suddenly the supporting characters are reading from a different script.
"You know each other?"
"They were my star patients," replies the man, "Never such fine work… in all my years. Elysia was the saviour of our people."
"She was fourteen!" snaps Elara, "A child! You had no right, none at all."
"She gave herself willingly to the programme," the dying man counters mildly, "After I explained my success with you, and how I believed she would be even more… compatible with the technology."
"What child doesn't want to become a hero to her people? To end a bloody war? To blast every last Dalek out of the sky and understand; what it was all for; why we were fighting over some primitive Human colony a billion light years away−"
Understanding dawns at last. "Trenzalore."
Both Kessel wince at the sound. "That name is forbidden," hisses Elara.
"The Daleks tried to carve through Kessel space, didn't they?" he says, "To get to past the Papal Mainframe."
"They succeeded. Our people bled out for those wretched Humans. A thousand worlds burned. Our Empire in ashes."
"Poetic," spits Elara, "Is that how you justified it to yourself? Is that how you sleep at night?"
"I gave our soldiers a chance, Elara. Through you. Through Elysia. Without you the augmentation programme would never have succeeded."
"You carved her up," Elara says, voice thick with rage, "You cut away all that made us good and kind and happy and you stitched in its place a machine heart. An android's soul. Do you know what it's like?" She is shouting now. "All that's left is what you deemed combat suitable! I can't feel anything that you didn't want me to feel. The warmth of another's touch. The beauty of a sunrise. The only thing that makes me happy is bringing death to my enemies! Well, guess what? I only have one enemy left now. And that's you. I'm going to watch you die, Surgeon. I'm going to make you die."
She snatches for the laser scalpel, but the Doctor's hand is miraculously faster. She looks askance, amazed that he could have the strength and speed necessary to stop her.
"But you promised," she begs.
"No," he intones, praying that he's right. Am I a good man, Clara? Time to find out. "Whatever I promised you Elara, whatever I said; this isn't it."
"Then why am I here?" she screams. "'Travel a long way,' you said. 'Find who you are. One day you'll be so very far from home and you will see me again when you least expect it.' Well, I did travel Doctor. I did what you said. And when I finally stopped hoping that I would ever see you again, there you were. With Clara. Looking like… like nothing had happened, no time had passed for you at all. And you didn't recognise me. But I knew. I knew this was the time that you'd spoken of."
"Elara, listen to me. What I said to you, it hasn't happened yet. Not for me. I don't know what it is that you're here for, but I do know that it isn't murder."
"But I told you! I cursed his wretched name." She indicates the man on the gurney. "I told you that there was nothing else left for me in the universe but my vengeance."
"Then that's what I meant," he says. "That's what my promise was: something else. Something other than killing. You're not a soldier anymore."
The shadow of a thousand potential futures is cast over their tableau; he has no idea what will happen next, out of the grey. So he rolls the dice, letting go of her hand. To his immense relief it falls to her side; her head bowing. Time for the next problem.
"Why are you here, Surgeon?" he asks. "How did you end up dying so very far from Kessel space?"
The Surgeon smiles. "She came to me with a commission. To me. The best surgeon in all the galaxies. To carry out an augmentation like… like nothing I'd ever seen. Of her own design."
"She?"
"The girl. Alya. She bought me here and we-we tested her design first." His eyes flicker towards the mess of parts on the other gurney. "And then I performed the operation on her."
"Alya bought you here?"
"Yes, of course. She bought all of us. And when it was done, she betrayed us."
He blinks. "What?"
"Once she knew the operation was successful, she did this. To me. She shot Tomance out there as he tried to escape. And then she took the Gate."
"That doesn't make any sense," whispers Elara.
"You're telling me," the Doctor snaps. "Alya was kidnapped−"
"Of course she wasn't! She escaped." The Surgeon laughs, his chest wound bubbling horribly. "Oh Elara. Did they lie to you again? Did they−?"
"No," interrupts the Doctor, pulling the sonic screwdriver out of his pocket. "I won't let her kill you, but I won't let you torture her, either." He points the screwdriver at the Surgeon's throat. The man's lips move, his face turning purple with the effort of shouting, but no further words come out.
"What did you do?"
"I turned off his vocal modulator."
He turns away, looking for the pieces that will help him make sense of this puzzle; angrier than he can remember being for a long, long time.
"Did Antares lie to us?"
He logs into the Surgeon's computer terminal, scanning quickly through the schematics and scans stored therein. Until he finds the answer he is looking for.
"Yes," he growls.
Underneath the rage is a ripple of fear now, for Clara is waiting back with the Captain. A desperate desire to run back to her, to make sure that she is safe, competes with his need to understand this terrible place. He throws open cold storage boxes stacked at the back of the tent, his stomach roiling at their grisly contents. He finds what he is looking for, wrapped in something like a zip-lock bag. He scans it with the sonic before turning back to the Kessel soldier.
"Is he dead?"
"Yes," she breathes.
"Good. Then we can go."
His fingers close around the cold contents of the bag.
