The pale alien groaned, "I think she's coming round," Rory told Amy, his voice muffled through the large fluffy hood over his head. Amy giggled at the massive coat he had found in the TARDIS wardrobe, "But then again," she thought "I probably look just as silly!" She glanced down at the big fur coat she was sporting, it looked quite good on her, she thought, but the others may have a different opinion. The Doctor came over to them and crouched down next to Rory. He wasn't wearing a coat and he wasn't even shivering! Amy shook her head and looked down as the alien opened her eyes. The first thing she said was to Rory "Aren't you warm?" and Amy burst out laughing.
"Errrm, no" Rory replied.
"Of course," the alien smiled "you're aliens!"
"Well to us you're the alien," Amy told her.
"Wow!" said the alien "I'm Anda by the way"
"Pleased to meet you," Amy, Rory and the Doctor said in unison and Anda giggled, but then her expression changed to one sullen and hostile "Hang on," she said "you're not behind the disappearances are you?" The Doctor was there in a flash, "What disappearances?" he asked her, and Anda breathed a sigh of relief, these people evidently knew nothing about all this. "Ten people have gone missing in the last month," she said. The Doctor pondered this for a moment "Right," he said "one Halo month is approximately 30 Halo days and one Halo day is approximately 26 Earth hours. Oh and one Halo year is 13 Halo months."
He paused for a moment and then said "Anda I think we need to visit your settlement." Anda nodded "follow me," she said.
Rory and Amy exchanged looks; before they set off into the wilderness, after the Doctor and Anda. Amy turned to look back at the TARDIS one more time, and noticed that they had landed beside a dark, snowy forest; she turned her head slightly, and was sure she saw some movement out the corner of her eye, but she shook her head and set off after the others.
As Amy walked away, two dark figures concealed in the trees turned to each other. "The tallest male seems clever, we need him," said the first in a gruff voice.
"And the orange one would make a good hostage," the other added.
"Better add the Skariib into that, just to make sure,"
"What about the other human looking one?"
"Leave him, he seems to only know about medication and we already have plenty of that kind. Also he would just be extra to guard if we took him, we can't spare the men."
And with that the two silhouettes moved away into the darkness.
"So..." Rory moved forwards to speak with Anda "How old are you exactly?"
"14," she answered. Rory nodded, and then thought how pointless this question was, he was on an alien planet, with aliens on it. The years were different (Rory would do the maths later on) and these aliens might age totally differently too. Also, the TARDIS translation thingy might change the amount of years that he heard coming out of Anda's mouth, so that it meant more to him, or it might translate literally! "Don't worry about that now." Rory muttered to himself.
"Hey," Anda said catching his attention "can you do any special things, your species? In fact what species are you? I'm a skariib if that's any help to you."
"Well I'm human," replied Rory "and, no, we can't really do anything special. What about you?"
Anda thought about this for a moment and then asked "Can you make fire?"
"Errm…no" replied Rory. Anda looked at him and, smiling, said "do you have a something that'll burn?" Amy bounced over to them like a kangaroo in a miniskirt and produced a box of matches from her pocket "I do," she said. The pale alien wrapped her fingers round the box and slid it open (they evidently had match style boxes on this planet, thought Amy) and took out a match, she held the thin stick of wood in her left hand, held it close to her right, and clicked together the skariib equivalent of a middle finger, and her thumb. The match lit. Amy and Rory stared and then both started talking at once "How did you do that?" Amy asked.
"Well," came the Doctor's voice from behind Amy's shoulder "the skariib have extremely rough, tough skin so when they snap their fingers together there's enough friction to generate a spark. Also their skin is really tough so they are practically immune to fire. If you engulfed one of the skariib in flames they would probably escape with minor burns, it's the smoke they have to worry most about."
"Correct," agreed Anda "how do you know so much about us?" The Doctor simply tapped his nose knowingly, and smiled at her.
As the travellers continued into the vast white desert they began to see obvious signs of life; at first it was only a footprint here and a snapped twig there, but eventually the ground was covered with the imprints of skariib footwear. As they rounded the brow of the hill they were climbing, a small cluster of houses loomed out of the light snow that was beginning to fall.
"Put your hoods up," warned Anda "I don't think it would be a good idea for everyone to see you straight away, so keep your heads down." She turned to the Doctor who had no coat and therefore no hood to hide under. "Here," she said, reaching into a small pouch at her hip "this should help." She had produced a small, black, fairly thin, compact coat. The Doctor pulled it over his head, the hood was a weird shape, and the back had a saggy section, as this was a coat made to fit three thick head tails inside. They stepped into the village.