‘I’m not,’ said the Doctor. ‘What other occasions?’
‘This conflict is escalating,’ the Ice Lord said. ‘The latest advance gained by your side is a resistance to our sonic weapons. It has required us to re-equip with blade weapons. Are you the architect of this tactical advantage?’
‘Oh, come on,’ said the Doctor. ‘I block your sonic blasters during one skirmish in the woods – a frantic improvisation, I might add – and you revise your entire combat strategy? You dump your high-tech guns in favour of ritual blades? Seriously, I’m impressive, but I’m not that impressive.’
‘Your arrival in this theatre coincided with the sudden negation of our sonic arsenal. Can you deny that you are the architect of this tactical improvement?’
‘You are misreading the facts,’ said the Doctor.
The Ice Lord did not reply. At an almost leisurely pace, he crossed to the other high-backed chair, rotated it to face the Doctor, and sat down.
‘Where have you and the other new arrivals come from?’ the Ice Lord asked.
‘We arrived yesterday,’ replied the Doctor.
‘All of you?’
‘Yes.’
‘How?’
‘In my ship,’ replied the Doctor.
The Ice Lord paused again. ‘We have not detected a ship. Orbital surveillance is continuous and comprehensive. We have not detected a ship, certainly not a ship large enough to contain all of you.’
‘Well, there you are,’ said the Doctor. ‘I’m telling the truth. Your instruments must be wrong. So, you’re monitoring the human population on Hereafter?’
‘Of course.’
‘How do you distinguish between the existing population and any new arrivals?’
‘Heatprints do not lie,’ said the Ice Lord.
The Doctor nodded. ‘Ah, yes, right. Everyone’s thermal image is as unique as a gene-scan or a retina,’ he mused. He turned his head and took a wistful look at the hatch that Amy had sealed behind her. The woolly mitten was on the deck where it had fallen.
‘Or a palm-print,’ he added, ruefully. He looked back at the Ice Lord. ‘All right. This is interesting. You detected heatprints that didn’t match any on your database, so you despatched troops to find and identify the new arrivals.’
‘Precise monitoring must be maintained,’ replied the Ice Lord. ‘Constant threat evaluation and analysis keeps us ahead in this war.’
‘This cold war,’ the Doctor said. He sat back. ‘How long have you been here?’
‘Ten Earth years.’
‘But only in these last few weeks or so have you revealed yourselves?’
‘Alterations made to the climate engines were sufficient at first. We were waiting for the effects to manifest. However, we have been forced to become more proactive.’
‘Your plan has run into difficulties?’ pressed the Doctor.
‘It has turned into open war.’
‘Has it?’ asked the Doctor. ‘Has it indeed? Again, and I’m sorry if I offend, you are simply misreading the facts. You are traumatically altering the climate of this planet and, as a direct consequence of that policy, you are going to exterminate a sentient population. Progressive genocide. I’d say that puts you in a difficult place, morally speaking, just to begin with. Then I arrive, and get caught in the middle, and my actions are misinterpreted as your victims fighting back. Now, in your eyes, it’s a war? You are simply misreading the facts.’
‘And you know more than you claim to know,’ replied the Ice Lord. ‘In this complex, just a short time ago, you addressed my Warriors as you fled from them. Ssord, repeat the words the prisoner used.’
The Ice Warrior with the axe took a step forward. In a compressed air-hiss, he said, ‘The captive ssspoke thusss: “Warriorsss of the Tanssor clan line of the Ixon Monsss family, inform your warlord that the Belot’ssar greetsss him.”’
‘Explain how you know these things,’ the Ice Lord said to the Doctor.
‘It’s obvious,’ replied the Doctor. ‘You are of the Tanssor Clan. The characteristic pattern of scales and ridges on your breastplates and helmets is unmistakable. The emblem on your pectoral confirms that your clan allegiance is to the Ixon Mons family, which is one of the most code-honourable families on Old Mars. It’s a simple matter of observation.’
‘And also a simple matter to conclude that you have encountered my species before,’ said the Ice Lord.
‘I never claimed I hadn’t.’
‘Your knowledge of our culture is considerable. You know how to fortify against our weapons. You understand the lineage and hierarchy of our bloodlines. You distinguish the polymorphic traits of our physiology, a habit seldom known in other races. And you know words in our language. Belot’ssar.’
‘Indeed,’ smiled the Doctor. ‘Belot’ssar. I was wondering when we’d get to that.’
‘As I was wondering why you used the term.’
‘It means cold blue star,’ said the Doctor.
‘Curiously enough, I know what it means,’ replied the Ice Lord. ‘Why did you use the phrase in, so it seems, reference to yourself?’
‘Because that’s how I’m known to your people,’ replied the Doctor. He looked quite pleased with himself. ‘Traditionally, I mean. Your people, particularly the Ixon Mons family, know me as cold blue star. It’s a reference to the ship I travel in. The title is an honorific. It shows me to be a true and lasting friend to the Ixon Mons dynasty, but also a fair and daunting adversary.’
The Doctor rose to his feet. The Ice Lord stood to face him. The Doctor drew himself up, narrowing his eyes to look at the Ice Lord. He was fearless. The gloves were off. It was time to play his ace.
‘I have been a friend to the dynasties of Mars,’ said the Doctor, ‘but I have also been a foe. I have fought them many times and I have won every time. Ice Lord Azylax, warlord of the Tanssor, personally named me the Belot’ssar as a mark of respect, so that future generations would know me and tread carefully. The situation on this planet will end. You will disengage, and you will cease your prosecution of the human population. That’s your final warning. I am everything your ancestors warned you about. I am the Belot’ssar.’
The Ice Lord stared back at him. There was no expression.
‘Never heard of you,’ he said.
‘What?’ asked the Doctor.
‘I am Ixyldir, warlord of the Tanssor Clan,’ said the Ice Lord. ‘There has never been a warlord called Azylax. We know nothing of a respected foe known as the cold blue star.’
‘But…’ the Doctor began.
‘Hang on…’ he floundered.
‘That’s just not…’ he added.
He sat down and rested his forehead on his hand.
‘Time travel,’ he murmured. He slapped his palm against his forehead repeatedly, scolding himself. ‘Lets you down every! Single! Time! I have got to learn to set my watch!’
He looked up at Ixyldir and the Ice Warriors.
‘All that,’ he said, gesturing vaguely into the space where he had just been standing, as if to encapsulate his bold and defiant performance. ‘All of that showy-offy stuff, could we just pretend that never happened? I can see from your faces that we can’t. You’re going to kill me.’
‘You were going to die anyway,’ replied the Ice Lord.
‘Yes,’ said the Doctor, ‘but now I’m going to be really annoyed when it happens.’
‘We’ve got to go back!’ Amy raged, fighting against the firm grips both Samewell and Arabel had on her.
‘And do what, precisely?’ Arabel asked.
‘Save him!’ Amy blurted. ‘Rescue him! Poke the Ice Men in the eyes with sticks! I don’t know!’
‘Ice Warriors,’ Samewell corrected her.
Amy turned on him. ‘Oh, really? Really? Now is the time to focus on that? Is it, Samewell Crook? Is it really?’
Arabel pulled Amy away from the cringing Samewell. ‘You’re upset,’ she said.
‘Damn right!’ Amy cried. ‘We just le
ft the Doctor to die! We left him trapped there, surrounded by the giant green lizard things! That’s just… just…’
‘Just what?’ asked Bel.
‘It’s not how I do things!’ Amy declared.
She turned away from them. She was breathing hard, trying to control her anger. They’d been running for a few minutes, following an access corridor into a warren of tunnels that had finally led out onto the walkway where they were now standing.
In the vast gulf of the rock-cut cavern below them, huge turbines pumped and rumbled. There was an amber cast to the light. Vapour rose up around the suspended mesh walkway that supported them.
‘He’s always there for me,’ Amy said quietly. ‘He’s always got my back. He’s crossed time and space to save me, more than once. And I just ditched him.’
She turned to face them. Samewell and Arabel were watching her with great concern. Amy held up one baggy sleeve of her duffel coat.
‘Also, I lost a glove,’ she sniffed, ‘which I know is a completely different scale of things to be upset about, but it’s annoying, you know?’
‘He will be all right,’ said Bel.
‘How do you know that?’ asked Amy.
‘Well,’ said Bel, ‘I haven’t known your Doctor for anything like as long as you have. I realise that. But just in the short time I’ve been around him, I’ve been filled with a confidence. He knows what he’s doing. I’ve… I’ve never met anyone who seems so capable.’
‘Bel’s right,’ said Samewell. ‘The Doctor wanted us to go. He told us to. He was quite plain about it. It was the only way.’
‘Those things, they had us cornered,’ said Bel. ‘He wanted us to escape.’
‘That won’t be much consolation to him when he’s dead,’ said Amy.
‘But it might be consolation to him as he’s dying,’ replied Bel.
Amy breathed out hard. She turned away, gripped the metal handrail and stared down into the pit where the mighty terraforming engines were performing their slow toil.
‘He always has more than one plan,’ she said quietly.
‘How do you mean?’ asked Bel.
‘He wanted us to escape,’ said Amy, turning back to face them. There was a new expression on her face. ‘I mean, of course he did. He was trying to save us, and he’d lay down his life for anyone. But I know the Doctor. He’s like one of those chess grand masters, you know?’
They both shook their heads.
‘They plan their moves way in advance,’ said Amy, carrying on anyway. ‘They know what they’re going to do long before they get there. It was all getting a bit frantic back in that room, and he definitely wanted to save us… and I know there was a lot of improvising going on as well, because I’ve seen what he looks like when he does that. But he always has more than one plan.’
‘So?’ asked Bel.
‘He stayed there so we could get away,’ said Amy. ‘You said it yourself, Samewell, he told us to. He needs us to do something. He needs us to carry on with the plan while he keeps the Ice Men busy.’
She checked herself and glared at Samewell.
‘Don’t correct me,’ she advised.
He shrugged and raised his hands.
‘Sabotage their sabotage,’ Amy said. ‘That’s what he said he was going to do. Sabotage whatever sabotage the Ice Warriors had caused. Get the Firmers working again. We need the Guide to do that, to set things right. Rory’s going to get that for us.’
‘If he can,’ said Bel.
‘My husband won’t let me down,’ said Amy. ‘So the first thing we need to do is find a way to regain contact with Rory.’
She seemed galvanised and ready for action, as if she’d got her mojo back.
‘I think that’s the second thing we need to do,’ said Samewell.
‘Why?’ asked Amy. ‘What’s the first?’
Samewell pointed. Four Ice Warriors had appeared on another walkway high above them. The Warriors looked down, spotted them, and then began to search for the nearest route down.
‘I think getting away from here might be number one,’ said Samewell.
‘Amy! Amy! Doctor!’ Rory yelped. He clamped his hands to his forehead in hopeless panic, and turned in a full, bewildered circle. The centre of the assembly hall had become the centre of the assembly hall again. There was no sign of the polished white room with the fancy console and the high-backed seats. There was no scintillating bleed of light coming out of the metal seams inlaid in the floor and the beams. There was no sign of the Doctor or Amy.
There was no sign of the axe-wielding Ice Warriors.
‘I don’t believe this!’ Rory exclaimed.
‘Where…’ Sol began. He frowned. ‘Where did they go? They were just here. Where did they go? Come to that, where in Guide’s name did they come from in the first place? That’s conjury, that is! Cat A conjury!’
‘Oh, get over it!’ Rory moaned. ‘Did you see? Did you see what was happening? Those things! Those Ice Warrior things! They were right there! They were going to capture them!’
He looked at Sol. A flicker of true and terrible realisation crossed his face.
‘They could be dead already,’ he murmured.
‘What happened? What happened?’ Vesta asked, rushing back into the room. Bill Groan and the rest of the council followed after her.
‘Rory, where did it all go?’ Vesta asked, grabbing him by the arms.
‘Never mind,’ Rory said.
‘I will strike you on your sorry head with a mallet again, so I will!’ she declared. ‘Where did it all go?’
‘It got cut off,’ Rory told her. ‘Just cut off. The Ice Warriors got them.’
‘The Ice Warriors?’ asked Vesta.
‘Yes, the thing from the woods!’
‘With the red eyes?’
‘Yes!’ said Rory.
‘Oh, Guide preserve me, they got Bel too?’ Vesta asked.
‘It was hard to tell,’ said Rory. ‘But it didn’t look good.’
Vesta looked like she was going to burst into tears.
‘Explain this commotion to me now,’ Bill Groan insisted. ‘Vesta came banging on the Incrypt door raving about a window into another place, with people in it!’
‘What unguidely horror have you perpetrated?’ Winnowner asked Rory.
‘Do me a favour!’ Rory snapped, rounding on her and the other muttering council members. ‘Give it a rest with the unguidely this and the conjury that, OK? OK? It’s not helping! My wife, and my friend, and her sister –’ Rory pointed at the anxious Vesta – ‘and some other bloke, just got captured by the same creatures who are messing your world up and trying to kill you off. Captured… or worse.’
‘What did your friend call them?’ Vesta asked quietly.
‘Ice Warriors,’ said Rory. ‘The Doctor said they were called Ice Warriors.’
‘But how,’ Bill Groan asked, struggling, ‘did this happen here in the assembly?’
‘It was a technological link,’ Rory explained. ‘Transmitted hologram images. A communication system. Do any of these phrases mean anything to you?’
‘Some of them are words that we know from our Guide Emanual,’ said Chaunce Plowrite nervously.
‘That is true,’ admitted Winnowner.
‘It was like they were here!’ declared Vesta.
‘It was, Elect,’ said Sol Farrow. ‘I would not have believed it except I saw it with my own eyes. As big as life, here in the hall. They spoke to us, and could hear us and see us. It was Arabel and Samewell, and the strangers from this morning, the odd fellow and the girl with the red hair.’
‘What did they say?’ asked Bill Groan.
‘I swear I did not understand much of it,’ said Sol. ‘He speaks fast, the odd fellow does, and uses words I haven’t the notion of. But it was clear to me that it was Cat A urgent.’
‘I understood what it meant,’ said Rory. ‘These things are called Ice Warriors—’
‘These things with red eyes, like we both saw i
n the woods?’ asked Vesta.
‘That’s right,’ said Rory.
‘I said they was monstrous,’ Vesta said, nodding and looking earnestly at Bill and the council. ‘Most ferocious thing I have ever seen, it was. I barely escaped with my life.’
‘The Ice Warriors have their sights set on Hereafter,’ said Rory. ‘That’s how the Doctor explained it. They want to colonise the planet themselves.’
‘They are invading our world?’ asked Jack Duggat.
‘They are,’ Rory agreed. ‘They’re going to wipe the Morphans out. This plantnation… all of the plantnations. They want this world to be colder, to suit them. But that means that the Morphans will die out, because it will be too cold to survive.’
‘They cannot have our world,’ murmured Bill Groan in horror. ‘We have worked so hard for it. So many lifetimes have gone by, toiling to shape Hereafter. They can’t have it.’
‘The Ice Warriors have got into your Firmers, Elect,’ said Rory. ‘They’ve mucked up the way they work. They’ve… sort of made them do the reverse of what they were built to do in the first place.’
‘They’re making everything colder?’ asked Chaunce. ‘Our own Firmers?’
‘That’s why the white has come,’ said Bill. ‘That’s why winter has claimed us.’
‘Exactly,’ said Rory.
‘We will stop them,’ Bill Groan said firmly.
‘That gets my vote,’ said Rory.
‘What did the Doctor say we should do?’ Bill asked him.
Rory shrugged. ‘He said that your Guide Emanual had the answer,’ he replied.
‘Of course it does!’ said Winnowner.
‘The Doctor said that if he could consult the Guide, use it, he could reset the Firmer systems to undo the damage the Ice Warriors had done.’
‘And how would this be achieved?’ asked Bill Groan.
‘He wants me to look at the Guide,’ said Rory. ‘He wants me to access it, and be ready for him when he communicates again. If he communicates again. Look, he said he was going to find another part of the communication system to use, to talk to us. Of course, that was before he got captured… Look, the Doctor’s pretty amazing. He won’t let us down. Let’s get the Guide ready for him when he links through again. And if he doesn’t, then we come up with some other plan.’