Philip lit a match and held it up, moving it gently around the cavernous space. The room was like some vast cathedral of gothic arches and victorian girders, its altar a great ruined mound of electronics and crystal. The ceiling was lost in the night: no matter how high he held the match he could see nothing but shadows. The guttering flame touched his fingers and he dropped it with a curse, but he had seen his immediate target- a big arc light, probably purloined from some roadworks gang, set up to one side of the central table, its beam angled shine upon it. He hurried over, leaving Gwen standing motionless, half enraptured, by the door, and eventually, tripping over discarded components, old coats and what felt and sounded suspiciously like an indignant cat on the way, he found himself by the lamp and lit it, hoping not to find it to be unplugged. A dazzling blast of light flared at the central table and he screwed his eyes tight, turning his head away.
When he had recovered, Philip studied the table. It had been a hexagonal control console of sorts, with six sloped panels presumably- from what survived and had been reconstructed- bearing the control mechanisms for the machine, grouped around a tall cylindrical glass column, which now rose two feet from the console before ending in a jagged flower of broken glass. Inside the column, a mechanism of interlocking spines and revolving panels remained largely undamaged. Philip nodded, relieved. Of the surrounding panels one, that nearest the doors, seemed to have been ripped out completely and replaced. Switches, heavy levers and even, in one place, a loose connection of two bare live wires tied in a knot and soldered together decorated a panel of as yet unpainted hardboard. Further round the console the navigation computer- if Philip remembered correctly from the directions he'd received- was bereft of its keyboard, the ship's master having screwed a nineteen fifties mechanical typewriter to the console, with sparking contacts linked to each of the keypresses, presumably as a somewhat desperate emergency replacement. He felt a sudden shiver of pain and fear.
"Philip?" Gwen had stumbled against the inner doors of the room- both replaced and a gleaming white in contrast to the dark tomb itself- and was making her way slowly towards the console. "Where are we?" She screwed up her brows and pressed a hand to her forehead. "I keep... I keep blacking out. When did we leave the office... where..." she reached him, and he took her hand, feeling for a pulse at the wrist. Slow but violent. Philip nodded, gently guiding his sister to a high-backed velvet upholstered chair.
"We're still in Dr Smith's office, Gwen..." he eased her back into the chair, and tilted her face up to look into his own. "It's just we're inside something else as well." Quickly he stood up, and scanned the walls of the chamber. There, to the left of the entrance doors, was the ship's main library. "Now, if you'll excuse me, we have a memory to reclaim."
Philip walked quickly across the floor to the shelves, dimly lit by the reflected glow of the arc-light. Behind him, Gwen raised her head. She felt strange, certainly, but she was by no means incapable of thought. Philip- well, Philip could make talking about going shopping sound like he was on the verge of world domination, but even so, she had a very clear sense that her brother was up to something. She cast a quick look around, trying not to attract Philip's attention. Her last clear memory was standing in Dr Smith's room, looking at the phone box. This place... it looked like it could be a cellar in the Bodleian library, maybe, or some deep underground vault in the university. Gwen rose to her feet a little unsteadily. She had a constant feeling of itching all over her body now, but she dared not start to scratch them. Once she started, the creatures burst forth from her flesh, and then she would black out again. Gwen did not know if the silverfish she saw burrowing out of her body and leaving no wound were the cause of her dementia, or merely another symptom of it, but she would not start the movement of that chain of thought, where ever might be its beginning and end.
The young woman approached the control console, catching sight of her reflection in an old, oak framed mirror as she moved. A normal figure, a semi-nocturnal student in jeans and thick woollen jersey of indeterminate colour, her appearance out of place in this great mausoleum, just as this... machine seemed out of place. She reached out a hand towards a large switch, and hesitated.
"I wouldn't." Philip barely looked up from the bookshelves over by the wall.
"I've got the oddest feeling someone's crawling around between my ears."
Mike shrugged his shoulders. Ahead of him, the Doctor shuddered and drew his coat more tightly about himself. He rearranged a striped university scarf to cover his chin, then, without turning, continued, "Well, come along, young man." Mike de Gris-nez snorted. 'Young man' indeed. This Doctor couldn't be more than five years older than he was, but he acted as if he was some kind of elderly Einstein figure. What was stranger, most of the military seemed to treat him like it. He'd cast all mention of the dragons from the table at dinner, preferring to wrangle over obscure religious and moral problems with Andwell until even the vicar had grown tired of the man's pedantry- although of course he'd been too polite to say so. Then he had retired into the living room with the two army officers and talked until well after the rest of the house- including Mike, whose room was directly over the living room- had gone to bed. Finally they had subsided, and Mike had enjoyed all of three hours peaceful sleep before a persistent knocking on the door had heralded the reawakening of the Doctor's enthusiasm.
"Your name wouldn't be Insomnia, by any chance, would it?" he asked, scrambling over the broken down wall at the back of the vicarage garden. The second time in a week he'd been dragged up this hill by a madman. That was another thing! The name joke. Over dinner, the Doctor had, without seeming to realise it, introduced himself to seven different people using seven different names. On one occasion he'd even used the name of someone he'd been previously introduced to, who was sitting not three places away. Brigadier Bambera had just offered the group an embarrassed smile, and explained to Reverend Andwell that the Doctor was a little eccentric, but a very skilled scientist and negotiator. The man stopped suddenly, and looked round at Mike.
"Why now?" Mike blinked at him, and the Doctor continued with what he obviously thought was an elaboration. "Dimensional breakthroughs happen of course, but why now as opposed to any other particular time... and why on Earth are they so..." he flapped a hand irritably.
"Dragonish?" Mike offered, a little sarcastically. To his surprise, the Doctor beamed.
"Precisely, my boy." He turned, continuing up the path, muttering to himself. "Dragonish... Smaug the Tremendous... Ivor the Engine more likely."
It was, at least, Mike reflected, a kinder night than his previous trip, and they made quite good time to the Bay. He pointed out towards the island. The red glow was still there, flickering faintly.
"There you are... does it tell you anything by night that it didn't in daylight?" The Doctor nodded, and his face was suddenly grave.
"That light tells me something. One of them's on the island... on the nest, in fact. They must be keeping eggs warm... eggs or live young. Things that can survive unaided in the temperatures of the day, but need the heat from an adult's furnace at night." He caught the look on Mike's face and afforded him a quick, bleak grin. "Well, I'm just guessing." He looked out again. "But they've bred, I'm sure of that... and that's something they didn't tell Winifred, isn't it?"
"They did not tell me either." Mike joined the Doctor on the point. "Do you think like your Brigadier... that they are here to invade us?" The Doctor shook his head.
"Invade, no..." he turned slowly, heading back towards the vicarage. "But I have a nasty feeling they could be a symptom of someth-" he broke off, eyes widening. Mike followed his gaze. Down in the valley- it was so hard to tell in the dark, but down in the valley where there'd been a little cottage- its owner an elderly fisherman who sometimes wasn't too choosy about whose fish he caught- there was fire, a great blazing fire, and for just one moment Mike thought he caught the silhouette of a wing against the flames. The Doctor released an oath in some harshly accented language and plunged back down the path, his hat falling from his head.
"Come on!"
"But what..." Mike stared at him. If the dragons had started this, then calling the Brigadier or Captain Viner, trigger-happy UNIT or no trigger-happy UNIT seemed like the best option. Confronting a homicidal fire-breathing dragon almost the size of an elephant armed only with a walking stick and a pair of aggressive eyebrows was not high on his list of sensible lifestyle choices.
There was a faint humming sound coming from the depths of the console, Gwen noticed now. It had hovered just on the threshold of hearing, and only passed into her awareness now as its rhythm changed slightly. It's alive. It was a strange thought. A television set on standby will hum, a computer will hum, but we do not think of those as living things, but this, this control unit, indeed this whole room, where ever it was, seemed different somehow, and it was alive. She looked at the ruination around her. Alive, but perhaps in its final illness. A thought occurred to her then, a comparison, and the burnt out 'phone box in Dr Smith's office, and her last memory of stepping over that threshold came back to her. She cast one quick look back at the double doors through which they'd entered, and shook her head, almost laughing. Impossible. Ridiculous. She looked over at Philip, seated in a high backed armchair, lit in a yellow circle of light from a candelabra, poring over some ancient text, and could not prevent a stifled choke of amusement. He was always the same. Where ever he went, give him a library and he would immerse himself in it. She had a sudden conviction that if ever her brother found himself on the bridge of an alien spacecraft he would probably head straight for the library just as quickly as he had in this tomb.
"So... where are we then?" Gwen asked as Philip's head snapped up. "Bodleian bookstacks, or somewhere in Christchurch's rabbit warren?" He smiled.
"I'm glad to see you're feeling better." The smile faded, almost wiped off his face, and his head dropped back to the book. "And you know where we are." She felt a sharp spark of irritation, and headed across the floor towards him.
"What do you mean by that?" No answer. The walking was making her dizzy again. "Philip, I'm really not feeling well and you aren't helping. Now, can we please leave?" He slammed the book shut, and for one moment it was not her brothers face beneath the short red hair, but something else, something peering out from behind his skin and bone and sinew, something bitter and malignant.
"No." Philip smiled at her- and now he was Philip again. "No, I'm afraid we can't... not 'leave' in the sense you mean. This machine," he gestured around them, "is very unstable. She's in great pain, and she's confused. Time is flowing within her, but only very slowly. From the outside perspective, we've already been in here for two or three days."
"What utter rubbish are you talking about now...?" she stopped. The thing in her brother's body stood up now, and thrust the book at her. She swallowed, fighting a rising tide of nausea. They were there, crawling out from every page, pouring out from the spine in a great glittering torrent, far more than the book could hold, many creatures moving with one mind and one will. It wasn't Philip. Somehow... perhaps her brother was possessed- she'd never believed in such things but perhaps some horrible thing had somehow got into his mind and - or perhaps he was mad- or perhaps- The right side of her brain interrupted the left. It isn't Philip. Be sure of that if nothing else. Her fist swung round in an arc and struck him on the cheek, and he fell to the floor, and she was running then, running for the door, millions of tiny silverfish bodies popping beneath her feet with every footstep, and the doors were closing in front of her. She whirled as she reached them, now sealed shut. Where was he?
The candles had gone out, and the only light shone on the console. Gwen looked wildly about the cavernous room. A scuffle, a tiny noise in the dark to the right of her. She turned, grabbing at an ancient wooden hatstand by the doors. Somewhere in the darkness there was a cruel, guttural laugh.
"Philip!" It was part a plea, part a challenge, and part a scream. She peered into the dark, looking for the thing that wore her brother's body, and caught a flicker of movement on her left. There, by the console, he was bending over the arc-light, and his face as it twisted towards her was etched on her memory for the rest of her life. Ancient malice and bitter hatred were carved into that face, its features still those of her kind, odd, but good brother, but the eyes blazing with a terrible desire for destruction. Then the light went out, and even as it darkened, plunging the room into utter blind blackness, she saw the figure straighten up and run straight for her. Fifty metres or so across the floor from console to door. No sight. Blind in the dark. Gwen screamed, flailing the hatstand before her, her feet rooted to the spot, and as she screamed this time she felt the creatures bubble up behind her eyes, pour from her nose, ears and mouth, flow from her very being. She had to run, but the idea of playing hide and seek in the utter black with that demon stripped her sanity from her and she sank to her knees, even as an unseen hand reached out of the darkness and lightly touched her cheek.
Mike was shouting something, but the Doctor ignored him. It was a dragon, standing bathed in the flames of the burning house like some great, terrible phoenix. Not the same one that he had travelled with- this must be the female, Chyrista. His eyes locked on to hers, and for a moment a terrible nausea struck him. Not fear of the beast- he'd faced down armies in his time, but an overpowering blow of revulsion and terror that clawed at him from inside his very soul. A thought. Something very bad is happening there- but no clarification as to what 'there' might be. He shunted it to one side, concentrating on more immediate matters. The dragon was arching its neck, gaping its jaws. He came to a halt about twenty metres from Chyrista, close enough to feel the scorching heat from the flames of the house, and struck his cane hard upon the ground.
"You will stop!" The Doctor's eyes blazed with a fire far more deadly than dragon fire, and he walked forward towards the house. Chyrista hissed defensively. Mike hurried up to him, his eyes darting between house, Doctor, and dragon. He seemed to know what the Doctor needed.
"One old man, alone," he said, keeping pace with the Doctor. The Time Lord nodded, never letting his eyes stray from the dragon.
"Take the roof from the house." He felt Mike's surprise. No one the human had ever met would use the imperative with so little doubt. It was not the voice of command, it was the voice of the act itself. To disobey would be almost a physical impossibility. Slowly, Chyrista gripped the flaming roof and tore it away.
"Is he dead?" The dragon peered into the smoke and debris and, after a moment, nodded its huge head. The Doctor stopped walking, and for a moment Mike though he almost saw tears form in the man's eyes. Then he spoke again, and his voice was as cold as ice.
"He offended you in some manner?"
"His... " the dragon hissed, "his nets ensnared me. I fought to get free. A week before it was Dheranaunda who was trapped by them. This creature.."
"This man had no idea that you even existed," the Doctor grated. "He was just a simple fisherman." He paused. "This is your idea of peaceful co-existence, is it, hmm?" Chyrista reared again, her moment's almost fear passed. The Doctor watched her contemptuously. "Oh, why do you always have to complicate everything," he sighed. "I can just imagine how Bambera and the others will react to this."
"And they'd be right to." Mike spat. "This is a fine way to repay trust, isn't it?"
"They will not be told." Chyrista drew in her breath, glaring down at them. The Doctor laughed.
"Do you not think she might notice? Death by fire? Arson? When she's investigating dragons?" He shook his head. "I think even dear old Lethbridge-Stewart would pick up on that one." He looked up at the dragon again, then spoke more quietly. "Why? I mean... really. Not this in particular, but why spoil it?" Chyrista was silent. "You're afraid, aren't you. Afraid for your offspring and afraid for yourselves, and afraid of both just as much. Afraid of this world just as much." Chyrista looked down at him, and when she spoke, her voice was quite different.
"Where do we come from?" The Doctor shook his head.
"I don't know that yet." Then he seemed to deflate. "Go back to the island. Do not come to the vicarage tomorrow. I'll try to..." he looked around. "I'll try to say something to Winifred and Joseph. If I can smooth things over, I'll come over and tell you personally. Now go." Without a word, Chyrista departed into the night. Mike swung the Doctor round.
"You can't still take their side? What about..." he gestured wordlessly into the burning ruin of the house. The Doctor looked at him, his face blank.
"Can't I? I'm not a human or a dragon, Michael de Gris-nez. It's not my business to dispense justice, or to decide on a fit punishment for a crime. That man is dead... my business is with the living."
"We can't just let it slide!" Mike grabbed the Doctor's arm. "Chyrista killed a man, for Christ's sake! You think UNIT are going to..."
"UNIT will do precisely as they're told." The Doctor turned away. "You will make the various human arrangements for dealing with such things," he gestured back at the house. "I will wake the Brigadier and Captain Viner and speak with them."
"There has to be..."
"Vengeance?" The alien man looked bleakly at him. "You know, I'm seriously considering taking that toy out of your species' toybox for good." Then he walked back into the night.
She was writing, always writing, and now a claw rested upon her shoulder.
"Well, so much for peace then." sighed Viner. Bambera nodded.
"I'm sorry, Doctor." she looked at him challengingly, "but you must realise I can't let this slide."
"I realise that." His face was pale, Mike realised, and under all the cold calculation the alien- he did not doubt it, and could no longer think of the Doctor as 'the man'- looked sick at the thought of what was to come, almost as sick as Andwell, sitting numb-faced at the foot of the kitchen table, eyes blank with horror. The Doctor looked up. "But does it have to be violence?"
"We can hardly lock them up in prison!"
"So that's your reason for genocide, is it? They transgress a few or your ideas about civilised beings and so you exterminate them because it's tidier?" The Doctor's eyes blazed.
"A few of my ideas?" Bambera stiffened. "They killed a man, or have you forgotten that?"
"And you, a soldier, you've never killed?" The Doctor stood up, never letting his gaze waver from the Brigadier's. "They killed in a manner you don't find acceptable. What's the matter? Weren't they wearing dog tags?" He brought his fist down on the table- hard, and snapped his head round to face Andwell. "What does that book you're so fond of say? Turn the other cheek?"
"We have to..."
"You have to teach them to behave differently. Nothing you do to Chyrista will bring the fisherman back. They don't understand your society, your justice... Chyrista thought she was dispensing justice herself!"
"And you support that, do you?" Now Bambera was angry, getting to her feet in turn. "Doctor, I don't want to wipe them out, believe it or not, but my responsibility is to protect the people of this planet, and I'm damned if I'm going to be stopped from doing just that, by you or anyone."
"She didn't understand." The Doctor sat down now, all his anger seemingly folded back away once more. "These creatures... they speak like you, they think like you... but they are not your kind. You're judging them as people."
"Isn't that what you've always preached? Not to treat aliens as dumb mindless animals?"
"These creatures are not aliens." The Doctor closed his eyes. "How much 'justice' would you enforce on a flatlander for making a mistake about height? How much do you want to sue Homer Simpson for irresponsible parenting?" He shook his head, his brows drawing together in a pained frown. "They don't come from our kind of reality at all, Winifred... they're simplified... a cartoon sketch of a dragon by someone who's taken the time to craft a body, but then not bothered to invent a believable dragon personality. That's why they don't remember their pasts- they don't have any."
"Then you think these creatures are created?" Andwell started up. The Doctor regarded him steadily.
"Oh yes, you were right about that, my friend. They are new... horribly new. Half formed personalities, a random jumble of character traits that don't add up..." He narrowed his eyes. "Trust me, I know what it's like to come into the world in that state, better than you can ever know."
Captain Viner exchanged a worried glance with the Brigadier and leaned forward.
"Then who's created them?" The Doctor shook his head, glanced at Andwell and cast an ironic look upwards.
"Well, I can tell you who hasn't..." He looked back at the Captain. "I don't know. I came here to find clues, to examine the dragons more closely, but as yet I've accomplished almost nothing... but I will tell you, Bambera, that they are just as much the innocent victims as anyone else here. They don't know what's going on, don't know who or what they are. They're afraid."
She wavered, and he pushed on.
"I can speak to them, try to teach them that they mustn't attack, no matter the provocation... and I can make them give you a promise, Brigadier, a promise I'll see they hold to. Will that be enough?" Mike looked between the two of them. Finally, Bambera spoke.
"Yes." The Doctor sighed.
"Thank you, Brigadier. We have to help these creatures, and we need to understand them... for our sakes as well as theirs, because I've got a nasty feeling things may get a lot worse very soon."
Thanks to drox for the review, and vote of confidence.