The beast stooped through the air towards them, smoke trailing from its beak, the sun sparkling on iridescent feather and scale. Closer the boat came, closer, the tiny running figures on its deck in ever sharper relief. The dragon saw one of them, a dark skinned female, point a short stick up towards him, saw a male in a long coat knock it away with a snarl of anger. The dragon drew closer, plunging towards the deck, saw fear glint in the eyes of all but one of the men and women beneath and then spread his wings, sweeping over them in glory and up, up into the heights once more. Faster now, fighting his weight instead of falling with it. Dheranaunda was his name, or, at least Dheranaunda was how the kind human with the white collar told him should be spelled the sound he most closely associated with the idea of identity. Names were strange to the dragon. Not alien, but something long disused. Dheranaunda had dragged his name up from the depths of his memory, as far back as he could recall. The blood was racing through his skull now as he climbed almost vertically through the skies. He could almost feel the admiration of the people below, fear melting away as they saw that he meant them no harm. He leant back into the skies and tumbled, the ground now above him, but his momentum carrying him forward, describing a great loop in the air as he swept once more back down on the boat. He had felt this joy before.
Viner watched the dragon's headlong approach with less fear this time. The thing was putting on a show for them. There was still a knot of anxiety in the pit of his stomach- it is perhaps rather difficult to face an oncoming fire-breathing mythical beast without at least the barest hint of concern, but he was surprised to find it sublimated by a genuine appreciation of the performance. Beside him, the Doctor was grinning openly, and he clapped loudly as the beast flew overhead, standing upright as everyone else threw themselves to the deck. This time the dragon swept away to one side, skimming the waves with one wingtip as it threw itself around its arc.
"Bravo!" the Doctor called, then cast an amused look at a still stony-faced Bambera. "Would you have preferred it to have barbecued you into next week, perhaps?"
Bambera shook her head irritably, her eyes never leaving the dragon, now two thirds round its circle and returning.
"I'd prefer to know what's going on." The Doctor shrugged.
"I would have thought that was quite obvious. A bit of a display. You're here to welcome these new visitors to planet Earth," he laid a very slight stress on it, "and they're obviously thanking you for your time with a little bit of a flourish." The dragon swept in, its talons dropping to the foredeck and sinking some depth into the vessel. Beside him, Viner thought he heard the ship's captain's teeth grind. The creature furled its wings and the Doctor, seeming quite unafraid, strolled forward, silver-topped walking stick under one arm, clapping and beaming at the creature until he stood beneath its smoking nostrils. The beast was going slightly cross-eyed trying to focus on him.
"Oh, well done, sir." The Doctor applauded. "First rate performance." Behind, Viner heard a somewhat ragged echo of the applause break out amongst the scientists and journalists who had followed them on deck. He risked a glance at Bambera, but she had folded her arms and appeared to show no intention of clapping. Viner was not technically directly under the Brigadier's command, of course, and privately he suspected that, this being something in the nature of a diplomatic contact, they should show some appreciation, but he wasn't about to start ESDF's first formal field work by undermining UNIT authority.
The Doctor doffed his hat to the creature.
"Doctor..." he thought for a moment, "Doctor Herbert Wells, at your service." There was a pause. Then, in a low rumbling voice that seemed to shake the hull, the dragon replied.
"Dheranaunda, at yours." The Doctor blinked. The creature paused again, then added. "And if that's your real name I'm Smaug the Tremendous."
Viner and Bambera exchanged glances. The Brigadier moved forward, keeping her gun visible, but distinctly lowered. Not that, Captain Viner reflected, it would probably be much good anyway. A couple of UNIT troops formed a rough semi-circle behind her. Viner nodded to two ESDF marksmen standing on a railed catwalk above them. Stay alert, but don't do anything provocative. If such basic sign-language could have borne a subtext, then it might have been- Don't mess this up, let's leave that to UNIT if anyone.
The Doctor was leaning casually on his stick, part turned so as to still address the dragon- Dheranaunda- but also to keep a wary eye on the advancing UNIT men. It was almost, Viner reflected, as if they were the untrustworthy aliens he was afraid of.
"So," he remarked to the dragon, "You've had time to lap up a bit of local culture then?" The dragon nodded its huge head.
"Reverend Andwell has a very large library," it explained. "We do find your literature fascinating...." the creature expelled a small gout of flame in something of a sigh, which singed the deck. "Although I really wish you didn't use carbon to record things on." The Doctor raised his eyebrows, then laughed. Suddenly he whirled round to face the approaching Brigadier.
"Ah, Winifred, please join us." He gave a friendly smile, which held as he dropped his gaze to her gun. Bambera met the look challengingly, and for a moment his smile broadened. Unseen by the dragon behind him, the Doctor dipped into his coat pocket and brought out the magazine he'd removed from Bambera's pistol. He winked at the Brigadier, then spun round to face Dheranaunda once again.
"Dheranaunda, allow me to present Brigadier Winifred Bambera, of the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, head of the... welcoming committee." He raised his head. "As a gesture of trust and friendship, Brigadier Bambera has removed the armaments from her weapon and placed them in my care. He held out his right hand, the one holding the pistol magazine and, with the smuggest look possible on the back of his head, let it drop over the side into the sea. The dragon's neck unfurled slightly, and its head moved over above the Doctor to look down upon Bambera.
"A wonderful gesture of friendship," it noted, and Bambera fancied she caught something ironic and mocking even in its booming voice. A massive claw indicated Dheranaunda's throat. "I apologise that I am not really capable of responding in kind. However, the thought is there."
"On behalf of the peoples of the Earth, I greet you, Dheranaunda." The UN had spent months agreeing upon the First Contact address to be used at a peaceful encounter with an extra- terrestrial- or whatever, she reminded herself, entity. She hesitated, casting a glance round at the eager journalists. This was not an ideal arrangement. Finally she looked up at the dragon. "Are you the leader of your kind."
The dragon pondered this, sucking in its cheeks.
"I'm the first one on this boat, if that's what you mean." The Doctor smiled.
"I think what Winifred means is... the head of your pack, the one who makes decisions which affect the whole group...?" He gave Dheranaunda an encouraging grin. The dragon exhaled a plume of smoke.
"Oh, I've read of the concept, but it doesn't really apply to us, does it? There's only two of us here." An excited quiver ran through the UNIT men. No one had been looking forward to fighting hordes of dragons, if things got ugly. The Doctor nodded, and stroked his beard.
"Only two... well, I wouldn't advise you to discuss that sort of thing in front of these people," he gestured to the Brigadier. "Not until you're entirely certain you can trust them, anyway." Bambera seized him by one arm and drew him aside.
"I'd like to ask what the hell you think you're doing! You're supposed to be on our side, remember?" The Doctor gave her a fatuous smile, then dropped his gaze pointedly to her hand on his arm, until she released him. Then he rolled his eyes up to look at the face of the dragon, still peering down, somewhat curiously, upon them from overhead.
"Pas devant les dragons, ma chere general de brigade." He walked round to behind Dheranaunda's shoulder and looked up at the creature. "Could you perhaps give me a lift, hmm?" The dragon seemed pleased.
"You want to fly?" The beast sloped one of its forelimbs to allow the Doctor to scramble up. Rolling its eyes to watch his ascent, the dragon advised: "Sit in front of my shoulder blades, just at the base of the neck." It wriggled slightly as the Doctor settled into place. "That tickles," Dheranaunda commented. "All right, where to?" The Doctor laughed.
"Dragon Island, of course. I'd like to talk to your colleague." Bambera glared up at him. The man was breaking every regulation, every procedure, even a few he'd personally had Lethbridge-Stewart add to the rulebook, and he just didn't care. As the dragon turned, its tail sending a couple of inquisitive biologists fleeing for cover as it moved round, and flexed its wings ready for flight, she caught the Doctor's eye, and heard him murmur to the dragon. "Hi-ho silver, away!"
"Oh shame."
from: winifrid.bambera@unitednations/uk.mil
to: trapone.unit@unitednations/uk.mil
cc: alastair.lethbridge-stewart@spacedefence.ministry.org
subject: Field Mission 336/01:blue box class situation
The man Sir Alastair sent has confirmed his identity as 'the Doctor', and I must tell you, he seems to be the most annoying one yet. He's not fully on side, and I do not entirely trust him. Brig, you've had plenty of experience of the Doctor's double bluffs- any pointers as to when he's only pretending to change sides? At present he has gone off with our first dragon- named 'Dheranaunda', which seems to be a literate creature, capable of speech. Creature claims that there are only two of its kind present. We are investigating further. Shortly to arrive on island. Please advise me asap of any related incidents on worldwide scale. I hope to avoid killing our scientific advisor.
Brigadier Bambera.
Dheranaunda leant forward into the wind, carefully adjusting his balance to compensate for the extra weight of the being on his back. His mate had flown the human with the white collar between their little islet and Herm several times over the last few days, and he had often wondered how it would feel, to have such power and control over another. Now he knew. There was something special in it, true, a pleasing generosity in affording the skies to one normally bound to earth, but mainly it just created an uncomfortable itch between the shoulders.
He rolled one eye back to consider the Doctor, who was gripping the dragon's scaled back with his legs, his arms gripping his lapels, seemingly confident in the flight of the dragon, and grinning broadly.
"Tell me," Dheranaunda rumbled, "Your 'Brigadier Bambera' had no idea that you'd taken that thing from her weapon-stick, had she?" The Doctor's face fell slightly, and he jerked his head forward once, in a gesture the dragon had come to learn meant assent. "Then why did you do it to her?" The Doctor squirmed again.
"For the same reason just over half the U.S.A.'s nuclear warheads actually only contain mildly radioactive sawdust," I suppose, he shouted over the wind, "I don't like weapons in the wrong hands."
"And what are the right hands?" asked the dragon, banking into a steep curve. The islet was below them now, a small, lightly wooded egg-shape, the dragons' nest a shallow bowl in the rock, some seventy metres across, white-collar and long-nose had told him. The Doctor said nothing, but Dheranaunda thought he glimpsed the creature casting a glance down at his own hands for a moment. The dragon sighed. "Well, in any event it was most amusing, Doctor." The man looked up at that, his face for a moment shocked, as if by some sudden thought.
"Yes, I thought you found it funny... and so did Captain Viner, for all he tried not to show it." The Doctor rubbed his chin with one hand, the other gripping the dragon's neck as their descent grew more rapid. "Interesting really, considering that I didn't..."
Captain Viner had his troops fall in behind the UNIT force, although he himself walked side by side with Bambera. The two men standing on the quay watched their approach silently. Reverend Joseph Andwell, of St Paul's Church, and Michael de Gris- nez, of French ancestry but raised on the island, apparently some not-terribly successful private detective over in Northern France. It was fairly easy to tell the two apart. Andwell, the balding, white haired little man was almost a caricature of a man of the cloth, and the detective, long pointed nose quivering, long, lank hair hanging over a thin face, had, as the CO of the first UNIT troops to arrive had described him, more than a little of the rat about his appearance. Andwell had been the one to find the creatures and, rather than immediately contacting a legitimate government agency, had chosen to call on his friend, who he'd hoped would be able to wreck any UNIT attempts to keep the affair under wraps- thereby ensuring that UNIT couldn't simply slaughter the dragons and then pretend they had never existed. Viner, knowing something of UNIT's past operations, felt a certain sympathy with this view. He wondered if Andwell had ever heard the word 'Silurian'.
The Brigadier stopped in front of Mr de Gris-nez.
"Michael de Gris-nez?" he nodded. "Brigadier Winifred Bambera of the United Nations Intelligence Taskfore. We've just been introduced to your dragons."
De Gris-nez nodded again. "I thought we could give the journalists something to look at," he smiled. "You see, they're quite peaceful."
Viner felt, privately, that he'd like a little more time to be convinced of that- and so would you, unless I'm much mistaken, he thought, watching De Gris-nez carefully.
Fire and ice. Earth and air. A moment of being where before there had been none. Consciousness without memory. Blankness and terrible uncomprehending conclusion. Flailing back and forth, heat boiling up from within, and then something alike, another, the same and yet different.
"Your mate?" the Doctor hazarded.
Then instinct takes over, rushing in. The sense of self, of place, of time and being tumble in upon me.
"I see..." The Doctor sat down on the rim of the nest and took an old sketchbook from his pocket. "Even now you have no recollection of any events prior to this?"
"Even now," Dheranaunda confirmed. "It was on the second night that the white-collared... that Reverend Andwell met Chyrista as she fed."
"Fed?" The man studied the dragon's face, his pencil moving busily on the page. "Yes... and what exactly do you eat, again?"
A hollow booming noise came from the dragon's chest. "Why, sacrificial virgins of course! Preferably with long blonde tresses and..."
"Yes, very amusing," the Doctor snapped. Dheranaunda wavered, and the man continued more kindly. "You don't have any memory of who you are or where you came from... knowing your diet might help me to pin your species down."
"Fish. Just fish and the occasional bit of waterweed."
"And why do you need to breathe fire to accomplish that?" Dheranaunda subsided in puzzlement. The Doctor glanced quickly between the dragon and his sketch for comparison, and then, seemingly having absorbed a mental picture of the creature, concentrated solely on his sketchpad.
"You're quite a mystery, you know that, don't you?" A broad sweep across the paper, then some fine, detailed etching of scales. "A breeding pair with no past, ridiculous biology and what seems very like a human-based personality profile suddenly pop up out of nowhere. Hibernation? That might have damaged your memories, but there's no sign of any equipment here, and no one who's visited this island in the past has mentioned a nest of sleeping dragon." He looked up at the creature again. "Any theories?"
Dheranaunda turned slowly in the great bowl. "Perhaps we were simply... created. A new species for this world." The Doctor snorted.
"New life-forms develop a bit more complicatedly than that!"
"Reverend Andwell believes that God created the world in seven days.... perhaps He created us a bit later." The Doctor raised an eyebrow quizzically, and returned to his sketch.
"Well, it's possible, isn't it? Do you believe in God, Doctor?" The Doctor put down his pencil and cast a reflective glance up towards the sun.
"Sometimes, Dheranaunda, I don't believe in anyone at all. What we know about the world is very imperfect, and all our 'facts' and 'theories' and notions are just attempts to extrapolate some sort of sense from the seeming chaos which surrounds us. If great big fire breathing dragons really can just pop into existence like flying sperm whales... then I suppose we'll just have to accept that as one of the weirder laws of physics, but," he amended, turning his gaze back on the dragon. "Not before applying Occam's razor to see if we can't find a simpler explanation."
Mike took in the night air. It was a cool, calm evening, a world away from the wind and rain of two nights ago. The various groups of soldiers had pitched their tents on the green, the scientists and journalists, after a happy day spent poking and interrogating Chyrista had all retired to their billets, and Andwell had sent the female dragon back to the island, with instructions to send Dheranaunda across with one of the UNIT scientists, who had apparently caught a lift with him to the island from the boat. He thought he could hear the wingbeats of one of the creatures in the distance. Dheranaunda, probably- he seemed to have the less self-assured rhythm of the two. It rather shocked Mike how easily and quickly he'd grown accustomed to the two, learned to tell them apart. Mind you, over the last two days since he had met them he'd practically eaten, breathed and drunk dragon. He had insisted that they make formal contact with UNIT- an organisation he'd only read about in tabloid newspapers, rather than just letting them find out through the press, as Joseph had wanted. There was no need to antagonise the military unduly, although he'd agreed with the older man that getting the information out into the public domain first was definitely a good thing. They'd been right there- almost the first thing Bambera had done after disembarking was to have them, practically at gunpoint, sign the Official Secrets Act, much to the obvious disappointment of a number of the reporters. Yes, there was the dragon, flying against the moon, a small jet of flame billowing from its mouth, perhaps lighting the way, a tiny human silhouette on its back, coming nearer and nearer. Mike fought down the involuntary tingling of fear as the dragon approached. They were peaceful, fascinating, eager to learn and help, neither of them had ever shown any aggressive tendency. So why am I still afraid? He asked himself.
When the dragon landed the man slithered down from its back and turned to say something to it. Dheranaunda nodded in an oddly human manner, greeted Mike, then flapped huge wings and soared away into the night, leaving the man- a dark haired figure in a long coat- gazing up after him.
"What a wonderful way to travel." He looked round suddenly, and blinked, his eyes seeming to have moderate difficulty in focussing on Mike's face. Finally he laughed.
"Um... you must be Dr Smith?" Mike hazarded. "I'm..."
"Mike de Gris-nez, yes, I do know." Dr Smith looked searchingly at him for a moment. "I wondered when we would meet. You must age quite a bit over the next few years." Bambera had warned him the Doctor could be a little strange. Mike nodded, for want of any more appropriate way of acknowledging the strange comment, and turned, heading back towards the vicarage.
"The Brigadier and Captain Viner are staying here... she asked if Joe could put you up as well, but I'm afraid he's out of bedrooms now, so you'll be stuck on the living room couch."
"That will be quite sufficient, I think." He laughed. "She wants to keep a close eye on me. Very wise."
"So you're saying the dragons don't know where they come from at all?" Bambera looked sceptical. The Doctor shook his head. He'd kicked off his shoes, hung his coat and jacket on the hooks in the hall, and placed his tie in his pocket before reclining on the couch in the low ceilinged oak beamed living room of the old vicarage, a blanket the same grey as the curtains drawn up over him.
"That's what they claim, just as your information said."
"So basically you've spent the day verifying what my sources already knew." She paced the room irritably. "Not to mention doing your level best to make me look a fool."
"Winifred Winifred Winifred," he stretched out an arm to take a chocolate biscuit from the coffee table on the hearthrug. "You and the good captain here can be our eyes in the human camp. You're human, you've already got a head start on it... but we won't learn anything about these creatures unless we gain their confidence, will we? Hmm?" He ate the biscuit. Bambera shot a glance at Viner, leaning on the old fireplace toying with various ornaments. The first thing the Doctor had done on entering the house had been to apologise profusely for his behaviour earlier in the day. The second had been to outline his 'instructions' for how Bambera was to proceed with her investigation. She was beginning to lose track of where she was with the man. He swallowed, then continued, as if answering her thoughts. "I'm neutral in this affair, Brigadier. The dragons say they don't mean any harm, and I believe them. Of course," his voice changed, "whether harm will come of it is a different matter, but my main aim in that regard is to ensure that the two of you negotiate in a sensible and fair manner. I'm rather more interested in the how and why...."
Viner shrugged.
"Reverend Andwell thinks they're some sort of miracle. Spontaneously created." The Doctor nodded.
"Yes, and that's the most convincing explanation the dragons have heard as well... they've certainly never been seen before."
"Surely that's impossible." Bambera sat opposite the Doctor. "If they're not from outer space... couldn't they have come from some parallel dimension? I mean, if King Arthur came from one, why not legends of dragons from another?" The Doctor beamed at her.
"Very good thinking, Brigadier. Yes, that's what I'm inclined to believe at present... although it doesn't clear up a number of anomalies."
"Such as?"
He sat up. "Such as the name of the place, for one thing. Look at your maps. 'Dragon Island.' It's on all the charts... those that are detailed enough to show it, but there are no legends of dragons associated with this part of the world, the island itself looks nothing like a dragon, and yet it's had that name since time immemorial, according to Mike, and no one has set foot on it for centuries." He slapped the side of his head with a palm, his eyes suddenly widening. "I've a horrible feeling I'm being quite spectacularly stupid."
"So..." Viner continued. "They were in hibernation then... there were legends, long, long ago, but they've just been forgotten... at the conscious level, any how." The Brigadier shook her head.
"People would have seen something."
"That 'nest''s very recent... if they were hidden from the air, and people say no one's actually landed their for centuries, then..."
"P and not P," the Doctor interrupted, "a logical paradox... and I have the horrible feeling the universe can't quite make up its mind. Good night." He swung his legs back up on to the couch and turned his face from the room. Bambera stared at him for a moment, and was about to say something when the Time Lord began to snore.
"Oh shame." She looked at Viner. "We won't get anything more out of him tonight. I suggest we turn in and make an early start tomorrow."
Later that night, the Doctor dreamed of fire.