Part 11 (1/2)

Rose froze where she was, hardly daring to breathe, her left leg hovering a few centimetres above the ground. Was she hearing the professor moving deep in the pit? She couldn't be certain. It had 127 sounded closer than that, hadn't it? Slowly, she placed her foot down and, having regained her balance, she tried to see where the noise was coming from. There it was, over to her left. Something was clearly progressing through the forest. Dare she call out, or would that be a mistake? A moment later she knew that staying quiet had been the right strategy, as a Witiku appeared, pus.h.i.+ng through the trees. Had it seen her?

'Rose? Rose, are you there?'

The Witiku stopped at the sound of the human voice and changed direction, moving away from Rose and back towards the pit. Rose followed it, going as quickly as she could but making sure she did nothing to draw attention to herself.

The Witiku was roaring now, sensing prey.

'Rose?'

This time there was no doubting the fear in the woman's voice. She was trapped and the monster was about to find her, cornered and vulnerable. Rose couldn't ignore her.

'Professor, it's one of the creatures,' she called out desperately.

'Look, I've found something we can use as rope, but you'll have to be ready when I say the word!'

Unfortunately, shouting like this meant the creature was now aware of a second human to target. It swung round and faced Rose, who realised that the pit was between her and the Witiku. Moving quickly, she tied one end of her vine 'rope' round a thick tree trunk at the side of the pit. She looked up from completing her knot to see where the monster had got to. It was circling the pit in a clockwise direction. Leaving the vine, Rose started moving in the same direction. The Witiku extended its terrifying talons with a noise like knives being sharpened. If it wasn't for the danger she was in, Rose thought, the scene might look quite amusing. The Savage Beast and the Plucky Heroine, dancing round the Pit of Death!

She realised she was now back at the place where she'd tied the vine. Not taking her eyes off the monster, she crouched down and tipped the untied end of the rope into the pit.128.

'Grab hold now,' she instructed the professor. 'But don't start climbing yet!'

Watching the Witiku getting ever closer, Rose knew what she had to do. The creatures were big and heavy, but that was also a weakness. They weren't exactly nimble. She'd have to time this to perfection, but they had no other choice. She could now smell the familiar odour of the creature's fur and could hear its ragged and angry breathing. It raised one of its upper arms, ready to slice down at her. Now, she thought, and dived towards the creature's legs, rolling under its arms and pulling off a credible forward roll. Getting to her feet as quickly as she could, she saw that the Witiku had also turned around. Roaring angrily, it took another step towards her. Again, she had to make sure her timing was impeccable. She dropped her shoulder and charged at the creature's legs. Mickey had once given her a long lecture about the art of the rugby tackle. It had been pretty tedious at the time, but she had remembered one key idea hit hard and hit low. She shoulder-barged the Witiku just below its knee with her full weight. She twisted and rolled to one side, praying that the talons arcing through the air wouldn't connect. Above her, the creature flailed its arms, its whole body knocked off balance. For a moment it seemed to be frozen in midair, and then, finally, it fell backwards into the trap, roaring angrily the whole way down. Rose got to her feet quickly and ran to the edge of the pit, screaming, 'Professor! Climb now, Professor!'

At the bottom of the pit she could just make out the thras.h.i.+ng figure of the Witiku, but much closer another figure was moving. Climbing up the side of the pit, using the vine, was the professor. She was surprisingly agile for an older woman, Rose thought. A moment later a hand popped up and Rose grabbed it. As the professor clambered out of the pit she was breathing heavily and looked a little pale, but she was otherwise unharmed. They could hear that back down in the pit the creature was getting to its feet and attempting to climb out after them.

'Come on,' urged Rose, who was still holding the older woman's hand.129.

They began to run in the direction of the ruins. Rose just hoped there were no more traps along the way. The professor, who seemed to be in a state of shock, had never appeared more human to Rose before.

'Why did you come back for me?' she gasped.

'Couldn't leave you down there, could I?' Rose replied, without slowing down.

'But you could have been hurt. Or worse. You should have left me.'

Rose slowed down. They'd reached the more complete buildings now and the temple, which was their target, was in sight. Just another hundred metres or so. But Rose was tiring, and if the frantic running was getting to her, what was it doing to the professor? The pair of them stopped and both bent double, trying desperately to control their breathing. Rose glanced over at the professor and shook her head.

'I couldn't just leave you. We don't do things like that.'

For a moment the professor wondered who the 'we' was, but then she realised. 'You and the Doctor?' she asked, and Rose nodded a confirmation. 'So what kind of things do you do? Rescue people, fight monsters?'

'Yeah, that's about the size of it,' Rose confirmed. 'That and run a lot! Come on!'

The Witiku that had fallen into the pit burst out of the forest some distance behind them. It was going to be a foot race now. Rose and the professor set off, the younger woman leading the way towards the entrance.

They were now running along the side wall of the temple. Suddenly she became aware of movement over to her left. A glance confirmed her worst fears. Three more of the creatures were moving to cut them off.

'Rose!' called the professor with alarm. 'There are more of them!'

Rose was about to say that she had already seen them when she realised that the professor was looking in another direction entirely. Rose spun around, frantically looking for an escape route, but there wasn't one. They had nowhere left to run. The creatures had them surrounded.130.

[image]

KendlefoundtheDoctorintheprofessor'squarters,lookingthrough her precious collection of Paradise Planet evidence. He knew he ought to be angry, but the expression on the stranger's face pulled him up short. It was identical to the one he'd seen on his niece's face a thousand times before. A look of puzzled concentration, as if at any moment a vital connection would be made.

The Doctor didn't look up from the journal he was reading even though he must have heard Kendle enter the room.

'The answer is in all this somewhere,' he said, as if that explained everything.

'You shouldn't be in here,' Kendle started, but then changed tack as what the Doctor had said registered. 'What answer? What's the question?'

The Doctor glanced over his shoulder and raised his eyebrows behind his gla.s.ses. 'Ah, that's just it. If I knew the question I'd be halfway there. Thing is, I don't know the question or the answer. Which makes looking for either really, really difficult.' He turned away modestly and grinned. 'Still, wouldn't want it to be too easy, would we? Where's the fun in that?'

'I don't understand,' replied Kendle.131.

'Are you going to stand there feeding me straight lines all night or are you going to try and help?'

The exmarine's training came to the fore. Intelligence gathering. Specify target. Focus on the key data.

'What do we know about the planet?' asked the Doctor. That it's meant to be a paradise,' replied Kendle.

'But why do we think that?'

Kendle nodded at the direction of the journal. 'Because Guillan came here and described it.'

The Doctor nodded and flicked through a few more pages.

'He certainly did in great detail. Reckoned himself a bit of a poet, did old Guillan. Shame he wasn't. It's like reading Hamlet before my final edit. . . Now, the thing he keeps going on about is balance.'

'Balance?'

The Doctor pointed out a few paragraphs on the page he had reached.

'Here ”every element of the ecosystem is in balance”, you see. . . and then he goes on to list in what ways. I think your man Guillan was a bit of a tree-hugger. All this yin and yang stuff going on.'

'So what are you saying? That those creatures are part of this balance? That every now and again the locals start turning into monsters and it's all part of the cycle of nature on this planet?' Kendle didn't sound at all convinced.

The Doctor shook his head. 'No, I'm not saying that at all. It doesn't fit. There's something else.' He flipped further into the journal, scanning the pages at incredible speed, until he reached the end. 'Hang on. . . what's this. . . ' he muttered, reading the final entry again. Kendle came closer to look over the Doctor's shoulder. And now we must leave this heavenly paradise, and take away with us our human and ancient imperfections. Faced with such beauty we have no choice but to accept our uncleanliness and return to the harsh realities of our own filthy lives. And now we must leave this heavenly paradise, and take away with us our human and ancient imperfections. Faced with such beauty we have no choice but to accept our uncleanliness and return to the harsh realities of our own filthy lives.

'I see what you mean about the poetry. It's a bit over the top, isn't it?' Kendle said.132.

To his surprise, however, the Doctor didn't agree. Instead, he slammed shut the journal and pulled his gla.s.ses from his face. 'Yes!'

he announced, eyes wide with delight. 'That's it!'

'What is?' demanded Kendle, confused.

The Doctor started talking very fast and Kendle had to strain to keep up.

'It's not a metaphor at all. He's being factual, you know, not poetic. The planet's got a perfectly balanced ecosystem, right? So what happens if you add a new element to something that's perfectly balanced? You send it out of kilter. And what are we here? Alien. We're the new element. We're making the planet ill and the Witiku are the planet's response. It's as if the planet itself is allergic to us!' He stopped and looked serious. 'We have to sort this out fast before the entire planet suffers a fatal anaphylactic shock. And that is a metaphor,' he added, 'for the end of the world!'