Part 4 (1/2)

'Laylora, Laylora. . . Laylora! Laylora! ' '

'You've heard of it?'

The Doctor nodded his head. 'Yes, I think so. . . It's one of those legendary worlds that mayor may not exist all half-truths and rumour. Of course, I'm probably remembering it from the future. One of the side effects of time travel. . . '

The professor stared at him, convinced the man was a fool, or mad, or possibly both. 'But you do recognise the name?' she demanded.

'Well, yes, I think so. A planet reputed to be perfect in every way. The Paradise Planet. But it doesn't exist, does it? It's just a myth.'

'It's no myth, Doctor,' said the professor with pride. 'This is Laylora!'

The rear doors of the bridge opened and Kendle was surprised to see Hespell stride through.

'Mr Hespell, have you left the professor alone with the prisoner?'

Hespell looked a little embarra.s.sed. 'She insisted.'

Kendle sighed. 'Doesn't she understand that man might be linked to those creatures that attacked us! Does she want to get herself killed?'

Hespell was smart enough to know that the older man didn't want an answer to that.

'How are the repairs to our sensor array going?' he asked, hoping that changing the subject wouldn't get him into trouble.

'Auto-repair systems are cycling through. We should have most of the video and infrared back on-line within the hour.'

Hespell nodded an acknowledgement and slipped into his seat. 56 With power still a precious commodity, most of his console was dead, but at least he could monitor some systems to keep himself busy. In the command chair, Kendle was deep in thought. Hespell wondered what the man was thinking. Was he really worried about the professor being left alone with the Doctor? Or was he thinking about the creatures that had attacked them, trying to come up with a strategy to deal with them the next time they met?

'Do you think they'll come back?' Hespell asked, breaking the oppressive silence.

'Of course they will.' Kendle was certain of it. 'Whatever it was they wanted they didn't get, did they? They'll be back all right.'

Hespell laughed nervously. 'So much for paradise!'

Jae Collins was stuck. He had been dispatched to oversee the environmental systems, the control matrix for which had been damaged in the crash. He found the various controls a mess of burnt-out circuit boards and broken connections.

With a heavy heart he had begun to take various parts of the system off-line when a power outage had locked the doors to the room. He tried to call for help via the intercom, but it too had ceased to function. After a half-hearted attempt to pull open the doors manually, Collins slumped to the floor. Why, oh why, had he ever volunteered for this ridiculous mission? The first time he'd seen the banged-up Humphrey Bogart Humphrey Bogart he knew he'd made a terrible mistake. And yet he had still joined up. he knew he'd made a terrible mistake. And yet he had still joined up.

His fellow crewmates were fresh academy graduates with stars in their eyes, the s.h.i.+p's owner was a steel-hearted obsessive and the pilot was an old soldier looking for one more fight. Every instinct had told Collins that joining this crew was a bad idea. The problem was, he didn't have a choice. He needed to drop out of sight. Unfinished business with the banks that had funded his s.p.a.ce-yacht-racing career and gambling debts that would bankrupt a small planet all added up to an urgent need to get out of his home system and vanish. The offer of a place on board the Humphrey Bogart Humphrey Bogart had seemed like a lifesaver. Now he feared it might yet cost him his life. 57 had seemed like a lifesaver. Now he feared it might yet cost him his life. 57 Collins's nose wrinkled something was burning. That's all he needed. He looked up at the ceiling, at the nozzles from which nothing was shooting. The fire sprinklers must be off-line too. Great!

'Be careful. It's very old.'

The Doctor smiled to himself. So you do care about some things, he thought.

Professor Shulough had taken him to her quarters to explain about her quest. She told him about how she had ama.s.sed a large collection of clues and evidence relating to Laylora and its location, the most valuable of which was the book he was now examining a handwritten journal. The yellowing pages were crisp and fragile and the Doctor had to take care as he flicked through not to inflict any further damage.

Reading at a speed no human could match, the Doctor scanned the pages, taking in huge amounts of information. It was an oldfas.h.i.+oned diary, the personal record of someone called Maurit Guillan.

'Guillan was an explorer working for one of the big corporations back home. His s.h.i.+p was on a long-term survey mission, looking for suitable planets,' the professor explained.

The Doctor paused in his speed-reading and shot her a cool look. With his gla.s.ses perched on his nose, he looked quite severe, but it was all water off a duck's back to the professor.

'Suitable for what? Strip-mining of all its mineral a.s.sets?' he suggested icily.

'The Empire doesn't run on air, Doctor. Things have to be built, raw materials have to come from somewhere. The Empire always needs new planets for expansion, colonisation, exploitation. . . '

'So having ravaged your own world and made it little better than a giant rubbish-filled quarry, now you're looking to do the same to other worlds, is that it?'

The professor was quite shocked to see how angry this idea seemed to make the Doctor. Surely he wasn't that naive?

'You can't turn back time, Doctor. Progress is a one-way street.'

58.The Doctor shook his head vehemently. 'No, no, no. That's where you're wrong. It's cyclic. What goes up must come down. You can break the cycle, although it takes imagination and willpower and real effort. But if you don't, your empire will fall just like every other empire before it. You can't ignore history.'

'I don't,' said the professor, taking the ancient journal back from the Doctor and replacing it safely in its temperature-controlled container.

'Guillan's s.h.i.+p was the infamous SS Armstrong SS Armstrong,' she went on, as if expecting him to recognise the name.

The Doctor looked blank and shrugged. 'Is that meant to mean something?'

'It was in the news for months,' she said, frowning.

'I travel a lot,' confessed the Doctor. 'I don't always get to catch up with current affairs.'

'Hardly current,' the professor replied. 'It was nearly fifty years ago!'

She explained that the SS Armstrong SS Armstrong was notorious because of the mysterious circ.u.mstances in which it had been recovered. The s.h.i.+p had been found drifting, out of control and out of power, at the edge of Draconian s.p.a.ce. An unknown disaster had befallen it and it had lost life support along with power. Whatever the reason, the entire crew had been killed. was notorious because of the mysterious circ.u.mstances in which it had been recovered. The s.h.i.+p had been found drifting, out of control and out of power, at the edge of Draconian s.p.a.ce. An unknown disaster had befallen it and it had lost life support along with power. Whatever the reason, the entire crew had been killed.

'Any ideas what exactly happened to it?' asked the Doctor.

'Thousands,' the professor replied, 'each one more unlikely than the last. All we know for certain is that when an imperial cruiser patrolling the no-fly zone recovered it, the salvage team found they weren't the first to have gone on board since the accident. s.p.a.ce pirates had stripped the s.h.i.+p of everything of value.'

'But that's not the whole story, is it?' guessed the Doctor. The professor smiled and shook her head. 'There were traces of trisilicate in the hold. Scans revealed that the s.h.i.+p had been carrying an enormous stock of the stuff.'

'Trisilicate,' mused the Doctor.

'A rare and valuable energy source. . . '

'The fuel my s.h.i.+p needs too,' agreed the professor.

'So, Guillan's exploration had been successful?'

59.'That's certainly what everyone thought. Although the s.h.i.+p had been stripped of most things, there were a few personal items left. Including a handful of images printed out and stuck on the wall of Guillan's cabin. They were various views of the same planet and had been labelled in his own hand. Two words described each image Laylora and paradise.'

'Hence the legend of the ”Paradise Planet”?'

The professor nodded. 'You know how myths develop. It's like a s...o...b..ll. It starts with a kernel of truth and builds and builds until,.. well, it becomes something far greater. It takes on the status of legend. And that's what happened with Laylora. Soon that's all people were talking about. Everyone had a theory about where it could be found.'

The Doctor was taking all this in. 'A holy grail for a new generation. . . ' he murmured.

'If you like. For a while it was all the rage everyone and his electronic dog were looking for the legendary Paradise Planet. But when no one found it the interest faded. Something else came along to capture the public imagination and everyone forgot the name Laylora. . . '