Steve Cole - Doctor Who - The Knight, The Fool and The Dead

‘Look at me!’ Fallomax gestured at her Lifeshroud bodysuit, and the crown jammed into her hair. ‘You think I wear this stuff for fun? You think I want to fund my work this way?’

‘I haven’t the first clue,’ the Doctor stormed back. ‘And I don’t know how you first came to use Estinee in your Wild Frontier Theatre show or why the Kotturuh should want to take her back to Mordeela when she’s already been judged, or how you’re able to steal stuff away from under their big veiled noses but—’

Estinee was so riveted by the anger in the Doctor’s voice – by the idea that he should actually seem to care about her welfare – that she didn’t notice Brian’s furtive movement until it was too late to react. He had taken a slender silver gun from the lining of his black jacket.

And she screamed as he fired it straight at her.

Estinee blazed bright as a sun in the gun’s energies. Brian kept his finger calmly on the trigger.

‘What the …?’ The Doctor threw himself at Brian, brought his fist down on the Ood’s arm. The gun was chopped from Brian’s grip, and he put up no resistance as the Doctor shoved him up against the wall of the cockpit, shaking with fury. ‘ Why would you do that? ’ Fearing what he would see, he turned first to Fallomax – who had fallen back in her chair with her hands shielding her eyes – and then to Estinee herself.

She lay like a broken doll in the tattered remains of her linen jumpsuit. Her skin had been burned glossy-red. It was veined with ash.

He tightened his grip on Brian’s shoulders. ‘She wasn’t wearing the Lifeshroud!’

‘And yet,’ Brian panted through his red morass of fronds, ‘she is breathing.’

The Doctor turned, watched, incredulous, as Estinee started to shiver and twitch. He let go of Brian and crossed to her. The angry glare of her skin was fading already, just as it had on Andalia.

‘She’s alive. Healing.’ The Doctor looked at Fallomax. ‘She’s not wearing the Lifeshroud …’

‘Mr Ball has reached a conclusion, Doctor, ’ said Brian quietly. ‘It is not the Lifeshroud that cheats death. It’s Estinee. She does it herself.’

Chapter Nine

‘Medicapsule, Professor.’ The Doctor’s voice shook as he lifted Estinee in his arms. ‘You must have one on board.’

‘Yes, last room astern,’ she said. ‘You don’t need to worry about Estinee, she’ll be all right—’

‘I suppose this must happen a lot,’ the Doctor said icily. ‘All part of the medicine show. Lifeshroud is the Dark Times’ equivalent of snake oil – a useless “cure-all” tonic sold to the gullible, the desperate – the dying, though they don’t even know it.’

‘It will save lives,’ Fallomax protested. ‘It’s not a magic cure against all death but it will keep them safe from the Kotturuh. I’ve got more of the Mordeela crystals now, I just need time and funding to—’

‘Shut up, you’ll keep. Now, you .’ The Doctor swung his attention threateningly back to Brian. ‘One thing, and make it good. How did you know you wouldn’t kill her for real?’

‘Intuition on my part. Observation on Mr Ball’s.’ Brian shrugged slightly. ‘When I fired upon her on the stage, she tried to work the Lifeshroud’s transmat. It seemed to me that the entire circuit was jammed, and yet cellular regeneration still took place. She is the miracle here, not the technology.’

‘You didn’t know for certain.’

‘I am certain now. There had to be a reason why the Kotturuh would confine her to Mordeela when she’s already been judged. She is a freak of nature – a child immune to their touch. Immune to death.’

The Doctor pushed past him, rushing Estinee to the medicapsule, a large brass coffin-shaped affair set into a pink, stuccoed alcove. Dark Times! He could’ve laughed: the beautiful improbability of a child naturally immune to death; these days deserved to be called the Brightest Times Of All. But of course, always, there were creatures like the Kotturuh wanting to take something so miraculous, so wonderful, and drag it down into the dirt and darkness, try to break it or suppress it. Angrily he kicked a green button on the side of the medicapsule and its lid swung open. He laid Estinee down in it and hit the heal cycle.

Then the ship pitched under some great impact, throwing him against the wall. The whushhh of the ship’s systems was replaced moments later by the froufrou swank of an extremely irritating alarm.

‘What’s happening?’ the Doctor cried.

‘Something just burned away our cover,’ Fallomax shouted.

‘The asteroid has been destroyed,’ Brian confirmed.

The Doctor ran back. Every light and gauge in the room was glowing purple. Indicator needles jumped as if in time to a skipping pulse. Chunks of rubble floated past the cockpit window.

‘Unidentified ship, closing fast,’ said Fallomax.

‘Kotturuh?’ said the Doctor.

‘Can’t tell,’ said Fallomax, ‘scanners are out.’

A low clanging rumble rang through the Polythrope .

‘Whoever they are, they’re going to board,’ said Brian, the silver gun back in his grip. He hurried away back towards the cargo bay.

‘No time to get us all into the TARDIS …’ The Doctor scooped up the bronze pistol from the floor and looked at Fallomax. ‘You and I are going to have a talk. But first things first.’ He pressed the pistol into her grip. ‘Stay with Estinee.’

Then he turned and ran after Brian through the mauve shadows of the Polythrope . He found the Ood back in the cargo bay, shifting the mining machine in front of the filigree airlock shutters to form a barrier.

The Doctor pulled out his sonic and buzzed the doors – just as they began to rumble open. ‘No good, can’t keep them locked. That ship must’ve hacked the security protocols …’

‘Take cover?’ Brian gestured behind the mining machine as if it were a place set for dinner.

‘Let’s try some diplomacy,’ the Doctor suggested, as two humanoid creatures in thick, yellow protective suits and bulbous space helmets ducked under the barrier, ornate rifles in their many-fingered grip. ‘Hello! I’m the Doctor and it’s not my ship either. Perhaps we should put down the guns and talk?’

The two guards hesitated. Brian shot them and they fell back screaming in an intense burst of light.

‘Excellent diplomacy, Doctor,’ Brian said.

‘You killed them?’

‘I am an assassin.’ He fired a third energy blast that cut down the next guard too.

‘Stop it!’ The Doctor wrestled the gun off him. ‘No one’s paying you!’

‘On the contrary, good Doctor. I am paying him. So I’d thank him to stop eliminating my troops!’

The Doctor and Brian turned as the door finished rising. A hairy, misshapen blob with a single eye, the size of a Shetland pony, perched on three fleshy tails. It was no hologram this time, but the real, living—

‘High Ambassador Chalskal!’ The Doctor stared. ‘How’d you find us?’

‘I believe Brian referred to it as Snoop DNA ? I surreptitiously light-scanned a good deal into his own system so I could follow your progress.’

Brian bristled. ‘I was about to say that Mr Ball and I apologise for terminating your employees. However …’

‘Your efficiency is commended,’ Chalskal said, waving the matter away, and swung himself forward. ‘As High Ambassador of Skalithai and Standing Throne-Being of the Pan-Victis Defensive Alliance, I offer you this formal bow of appreciation for the success of your mission.’

‘Chalskal?’ Fallomax stepped forward from the shadow of the hold, her hands raised. ‘Verv-Hoondai Chalskal?’ Estinee followed just behind her, still badly burned but with eyes shining, gripping on to a doll.