The Transhuman, snarling like a rabid dog, exploded through the Incrypt door behind him.
The console in front of the Doctor lit up. It made the Doctor jump. Deliciously comprehensive quantities of information were uploading into the workstation display.
'Good boy, Rory!' the Doctor cried.
'Did he do it?' asked Amy, peering out from behind the workstation. 'Did he? Did he do it?'
'Yes,' said the Doctor, 'he jolly well did. I never doubted him for a moment. I have direct access to our Guide e-manual.'
'So what's the matter?' Amy asked.
'Gosh,' said the Doctor. 'There's quite a lot of it.
Enough information to... to build a world, in fact. It's a lot to take in.'
'Can you do anything with it?' she asked.
'It would probably take a normal human days just to browse this, even with a decent search tool...'
'Doctor! We don't have days!' Amy yelled.
Proving her point, one of the battling Ice Warriors flew overhead, hurled headlong by a snarling Transhuman. The Ice Warrior smashed into the plate-glass screen, cracked it, bounced off, and fell onto the deck. Lord Ixyldir had several deep notches in the blade of his war sword, and the monster he was battling was showing no signs of weakening.
'We certainly don't,' the Doctor agreed. 'But fortunately, I'm not a normal human.'
Rory yelped and tried to put the dais between him and the slavering, grinning predator that was coming for him.
It snarled, head low, back arched, ready to spring.
Of all the possible deaths he'd faced in the last day or so, Rory was pretty sure this was going to be the least pleasant by quite a margin.
Vesta appeared behind it and hit it on the back of the head with a mallet. The creature roared and turned away from Rory for a moment.
'You've still got that mallet?' Rory said in surprise.
'I thought it might come in useful!' Vesta replied.
The monster, uttering a deep, throbbing growl, was now circling them both. It tensed to spring.
Roaring, Jack Duggat charged into the Incrypt and drove the blade of his hoe into the Transhuman's side.
The impact smashed the Transhuman into the wall.
Straining hard, the biggest of the Morphans leaned on the shaft of his implement and pinned the writhing, howling beast in place.
'Run away, Elect Rory!' he bellowed. 'Take Vesta with you! In Guide's name, run away now!'
Rory wasn't having that. Jack Duggat had just saved his life. He ran to Jack's side, adding his own strength to the labourer's brawn. They leaned on the hoe, spearing the raging, thrashing Transhuman to the wall.
Vesta joined them, lending her effort too.
'We can hold it!' Rory cried. 'We can hold it!'
The sturdy shaft of the farm implement gave out under the force involved and splintered.
'Or maybe not,' Rory said, as he, Vesta and Jack backed away.
'Doctor!' Amy yelled.
With a vast, two-handed blow, Ssord had just managed to bury the blade of his axe in the skull of one of the Transhumans, killing it, but it was too small a victory, too late. Lord Ixyldir had been knocked over and wounded. The three remaining Transhumans were about to make short work of the Ice Warrior cohort.
And others - several others - had just appeared in the chamber doorway behind them. Their eyes shone red. Their smiles were steel.
The Doctor had selected a section of the Guide database and centred it on his desk display. His Time Lord mind had picked it out of the mass of data, like a needle in the proverbial haystack. Well, pretty much.
He didn't want to admit to Amy that he was only fifty per cent sure it was actually the section he needed.
'Do you know what you're doing?' Amy yelled.
'Yes!' he shouted back.
'Do you, or are you just making it up as you go along?' she demanded.
'It's called business as usual! he replied.
He took a deep breath, reached into his pocket and pulled out his sonic screwdriver. He blew on it and rubbed it briskly between his hands as though he was warming up a set of roulette dice.
'Come on,' he pleaded, 'you've had quite enough rest for one day! Come on, daddy needs a brand new planet!'
He aimed his sonic screwdriver at the display and pressed the activator.
Chapter
17
Close by Me Forever
Nothing happened.
It only didn't happen for few seconds, but it felt to everyone concerned like an eternity. They teetered on the very edge of life or death.
Then the Transhumans stopped in their tracks. They stopped fighting. They retracted their claws. The red light in their eyes grew dim. They turned their backs on the battered, bemused Ice Warriors, and slunk away, as aloof and disinterested as cats.
In the Incrypt, the Transhuman pounced and crashed into Rory, Vesta and Jack, and knocked them flat on their backs, but it didn't kill them. They looked up to see it padding over them and walking away. It prowled out through the assembly hall, through the outer doors beyond, and began to bound away across the snow until it was lost in the darkness.
'Are you two all right?' asked Rory, getting up.
Winnowner was peering in at them through the Incrypt hatch anxiously.
'I thought we were dead,' said Jack.
'Get used to it,' said Rory, 'that's how we roll.'
They walked back into the hall together. In the hologram field, the Doctor was beaming at them. Amy, Bel and Samewell were with him.
So were a surprising number of battle-damaged Ice Warriors.
'I reset their sanction,' the Doctor said. 'The Transhumans, I mean. It turned out to be quite a simple instruction in the end. You just had to find the right override.'
'You did what?' asked Rory.
'I countermanded their orders. I sent them back to deactivation. Back to hibernetic suspension. Back to sleep.'
'All of them?' asked Amy.
'All of them,' the Doctor confirmed, 'and I hope they'll stay there for a long time.'
He looked back at Rory.
'Rory, get your friends to go and tell the other Morphans that the crisis is over. I've got to have a little tete-a-tete with Lord Ixyldir here, but that should be a formality. Then well come down to Beside and find you. All right?'
'Yes, Doctor,' said Rory.
'And it is safe,' said the Doctor. 'Lord Ixyldir won't be doing any more attacking, will you, Lord Ixyldir?'
The Ice Lord took a moment to reply, but it was a regular Ice Warrior pause.
'No, cold blue star,' he replied.
The wounded Ice Warriors began to patch themselves up. Amy, Bel and Samewell tried to offer some help, but they didn't really know enough about Martian physiology, and they were also a little freaked out to be so close to giant green aliens who had spent most of the previous day chasing them with murderous intent.
'Why exactly should I desist from my pursuit of this planet?' Lord Ixyldir asked the Doctor.
'Because it's the honourable thing to do,' the Doctor replied. 'You have ships. Go elsewhere.'
'Because you won this battle for us?' asked the Ice Lord.
'If you like,' the Doctor replied. 'I suppose there's a mark of honour to be repaid there. A matter of respect.
But before we even started this fight, I told you why you ought to leave Hereafter and the Morphans alone.'
He walked back over to the console where the Guide database flickered and cycled in a tight information swarm.
'You're trying to rebuild your civilisation, Ixyldir,'
he said. 'That's good. Ultimately, the empire of the Ice Warriors is a positive force in the universe. Except for the few occasions you put a size sixteen foot wrong, or forget to do the right thing.'
The Ice Lord did not reply.
'Rebuild, Ixyldir,' said the Doctor. 'Rebuild your world, rebuild your race, rebuild your empire. Rebuild it all. But make sure you rebuild your ideals too.
> Rebuild the principles that made you a great and honourable galactic power in the first place. Don't prey on the weak. Don't steal from the helpless. Don't murder the innocent. Be a force for good, not a force for yourself.'
The Doctor selected some data from the Guide and pulled it up in hologram form.
'The original Morphan pioneers did a good job of surveying this galactic neighbourhood,' he said. 'I've only made a quick study of it, but it's very interesting.
Very interesting indeed. They picked Hereafter because it was certainly the most Earth-like world in the quadrant. It wasn't, however, the most Mars- like. See here?'
He pointed to one of the stars on the chart. His fingertip dipped into the hologram as though he was writing on water.
'Atrox 881. It's about eight light years from here.
Entirely unsuitable for humans. Well within range of your ships. I happen to know, Ixyldir, that in about 9,000 years' time, one of the most significant fiefworlds of the Ixon Mons dynasty will be located there. A quadrant capital. A famous centre of culture and power. It'll be run by a particularly able warlord called Azylax. If I remember my Galactic Migration Eras correctly, it's a colony that's due to be founded any day now.'
Ixyldir studied the chart.
'Atrox 881,' the Ice Lord murmured. 'From the scans, it appears to be... a cold blue star.'
'A Belot'ssar indeed, Ixyldir,' said the Doctor.
'Perhaps Lord Azylax was invoking something entirely different when he gave me my nickname.
Perhaps he was remembering something that I hadn't done yet.'
'Will you not stay, Doctor?' asked Bill Groan.
Many of the Morphans gathered in the comforting warmth of the assembly raised their voices in hearty encouragement.
'We'd love to,' said the Doctor, glancing at Amy and Rory beside him. 'But... miles to go before we sleep, and all that.'
'We've got a long journey ahead of us,' said Rory.
'But you came all this way to well-wish us for the festival,' said Vesta. 'All the way from your plantnation. Wherever that is.'
'I think we've well-wished you more than enough already,' said the Doctor. 'You need some time to tidy up. You've got rebuilding to do, Elect. Some people have lost loved ones. You've come through a crisis and survived, but there's a hard winter ahead. Several, in fact. The Firmers are stabilised, but it will take a few more years before they start to ease the climate back out of ice-age mode. So card wool. Knit. Collect plenty of firewood. You'll do fine, though. You always have.
A bit of hard work, and you'll get through it. I know you're not afraid of hard work.'
He looked at the faces watching him in the solamp light.
'Celebrate your survival,' he said. 'And keep celebrating it. The elders of this plantnation, Bill and Winnowner, and the others, they know they have a fine new generation to pass the torch to when the time comes.'
Bel got to her feet. She was sitting in the front row between Samewell and Vesta.
'It is traditional for us to give gifts to well-wishers at the festival,' she said. 'We have not much this year, not with everything that has happened. But we wanted you to have this back at least.'
She handed the Doctor his wallet of psychic paper.
'Excellent choice,' he said. 'I always like to have some around. I have a gift for you too. For all the Morphans, actually.'
He looked at them.
'I took the liberty,' he said, 'of slightly resetting your Guide. Don't worry, Winnowner, I haven't fiddled with it. I've just tidied up the user interface so you can all access it. You'll find it easy to use. Just ask it questions. It has all sorts of information in it. It'll help you a great deal. It should make your life here, and the development of your colony, a little easier. It'll help you build and improve.'
He paused for a moment. Not quite an Ice Warrior pause, but a pause nevertheless.
'I also,' he said, 'reset the parameters of the hibernetic systems. The patients are sleeping. And they will sleep for as long as you want them to. When the time comes, when Hereafter is ready, you can decide whether to wake them up or not.'
'If it was up to me,' said Rory, 'I'd let them sleep for ever.'
'If it was up to me,' said Amy, 'I'd pull the plug.'
'It's not up to either of you,' said the Doctor. 'It's up to the Morphans. They might decide it's cruel to leave their kin sleeping. They might think it's kinder to let them dream out eternity. The important thing is, if you do decide to wake them, it will be on your terms. You will have total control. They can't wake up repurposed and armed to the teeth like this time. You can revive them, and you can show them how the new world works, and what their part in it can be.'
He shrugged.
'It's not much of a present, I know,' he said, 'but the shops were shut.'
Chapter
18
Above Thy Deep
and Dreamless Sleep
It was about an hour before dawn. Guide's Bell would soon be ringing. The sky was almost mauve, and the stars were all out. The ghostly snow-cover was perfect for as far as the eye could see. The only blemish on the scene was the thin smoke rising from the fires that had burned out in the high woods. But Would Be would grow back in time. It would be a wood again.
At the top of the valley, the three of them stopped and turned to look back at the little town in the valley below. Its lamps twinkled in the cold air.
'It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas,' said Rory.
'Really? Christmas-like?' asked Amy.
'Christmas -esque,' said the Doctor.
They trudged up the slope to where the TARDIS
was still patiently leaning.
'I notice we didn't get gifts,' said Amy.
'I got you gifts,' the Doctor replied.
'Did you?' asked Amy.
'What do I get?' asked Rory.
'You get to drive,' said the Doctor.
'Really?' asked Rory excitedly.
'For a little bit. With me supervising,' said the Doctor. 'I mean, it's now absolutely imperative that we get home for Christmas, or you pair will never let me hear the end of it, so I think Rory should drive. He's determined. He can find Christmas for us.'
'I can?' Rory asked.
'You're a wise man, Rory,' said the Doctor.
Rory rubbed his hands together gleefully and led the way into the TARDIS.
'So what do I get, then?' asked Amy.
The Doctor turned to her. He reached into his coat pocket, took something out and handed it to her.
It was a single mitten on a snapped piece of elastic.
'It's just what I've always wanted,' she whispered.
'Really?' he asked.
'Shut up, I'm welling up here,' she sniffed.
'Merry Christmas, Pond,' said the Doctor.
'It's not actually Christmas, you know,' she replied, following him into the TARDIS.
'Nonsense,' the Doctor replied, 'that's the great thing about time travel. It's always Christmas somewhere.'
The door closed.
After a moment there was a shudder, a creak and a groan. The light on the top of the police box began to flash like a cold blue star. With a shivering, juddering noise, the TARDIS began to dematerialise.
Far overhead, as the blue box faded and disappeared, taking its noise with it, lights glimmered in the night sky.
If they had still been standing there, the three travellers in the TARDIS would have been able to see the silent stars go by for the very last time.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Justin Richards, Steve Tribe and Nik Vincent for their generous help and encouragement.
About the Author
Dan Abnett is a multiple New York Times bestselling author and an award-winning comic book writer. He has written forty novels, including the acclaimed Gaunt's Ghosts series, and the Eisenhorn and Ravenor trilogies. His latest novel for the Black Library, Prospero Burns, topped the SF charts in the UK and the USA. His n
ovel Triumff, for Angry Robot, was published in 2009 and nominated for the British Fantasy Society Award for Best Novel, and his combat SF novel for the same publisher, Embedded, was published in spring 2011.
Dan has written more than a dozen comic strips and short stories for Doctor Who Magazine, as well as several Doctor Who audio plays and short stories for Big Finish Productions. His Doctor Who audio originals The Forever Trap, read by Catherine Tate, and The Last Voyage, read by David Tennant, were released by BBC Audio in 2008 and 2010. Between 2006 and 2008, he wrote the novels Torchwood: Border Princes and Doctor Who: The Story of Martha for BBC Books, and the Torchwood audio original Everyone Says Hello, read by Burn Gorman, for BBC
Audio.
Dan was educated at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, and lives and works in Maidstone, Kent. His blog and website can be found at www.danabnett.com.
Follow him on Twitter @VincentAbnett.
Available now from BBC Books
The TARDIS Handbook
by Steve Tribe
£12.99 ISBN 978 1 846 07986 3
The inside scoop on 900 years of travel aboard the Doctor's famous time machine.
Everything you need to know about the TARDIS is here
– where is came from, where it's been, how it works and how it has changed since we first encountered it in that East London junkyard in 1963.
Including photographs, design drawings and concept artwork from different eras of the series, this handbook explores the ship's endless interior, looking inside its wardrobe and bedrooms, its power rooms and sick bay, its corridors and cloisters, and revealing just how the show's production teams have created the dimensionally transcendental police box, inside and out.
The TARDIS Handbook is the essential guide to the best ship in the universe.
Available now from BBC Books
Nuclear Time
by Oli Smith
£6.99 ISBN 978 1 846 07989 4
Colorado, 1981. The Doctor, Amy and Rory arrive in Appletown — an idyllic village in the remote American desert where the townsfolk go peacefully about their suburban routines. But when two more strangers arrive, things begin to change.
The first is a mad scientist — whose warnings are cut short by an untimely and brutal death. The second is the Doctor...