Part 31 (1/2)

'It's hard sometimes. I know more than most. You just have to pick up the pieces.'

Chris nodded, but didn't meet her gaze. He was looking at the crystal again. 'That's what the Detrians have to do now too,'

she said gently.

'I know,' he said. 'You're right. They can still do something.

They aren't dead yet.'

He gave Roz a wan smile. 'And neither, I suppose, are we.'

'What the h.e.l.l kept you?'

Ace practically fell into the TARDIS and gulped in deep breaths of its sweet, rich air. The Doctor was silent. He remained at the console and reset the coordinates.

'Don't tell me you had problems?' Ace mocked. She grinned, looking over to him for some form of rejoinder. The expression froze as she saw him properly for the first time. 'b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l.

What happened to you?'

'It doesn't matter. It's over now.'

'All except for the cleaning bill. Who did you murder?' He looked at her sharply, but chose not to answer. He returned to his work, but Ace's eyes were captivated by the stains on his jacket and his skin. There was even a splash of blood on his face. 'You must have some pretty wild dreams,' she said.

She was obviously not going to get an explanation. She found herself wondering what sort of dreams he did have. She wondered to what lengths he had gone to triumph over his own mind.

As the fictional blood began to evaporate from the Doctor's hands, Ace wondered if the metaphorical stains could ever fade.

240.

26.

And They All Lived

Kat'lanna stared up through the hole in the Great Hall's roof and wiped a stray tear from her cheek as the Detrian Miracle's death-throes continued. 'What was it all for in the end?' she whispered. 'Our planet is doomed despite all we've been through.'

She felt Thruskarr's hand on her shoulder. His sibilant voice came softly, haltingly. 'You told me what the alien said, what you worked out together.'

'I know,' she sighed. 'That the Miracle was no real answer.

And I knew in my heart that it couldn't last. It's Just hard to imagine a better salvation.'

'It will come,' the lizard man a.s.sured her. 'So long as the survivors of this catastrophe can work together, on something which will benefit us all.'

Kat wrenched her gaze away from the depleted crystal. The Hall was still full of people, but there was no fighting. Those of both sides who were not dead or unconscious were staring at the sky or weeping on their knees or sitting with heads buried, unable to believe all that had happened.

Somebody had taken advantage of the distraction to slip a knife into Enros's gut. He coughed blood and spasmed as his soul went to whatever final rest he had brought upon himself.

Kat knew it could have been much worse. If Rokk had managed to kill him only moments earlier, the Undying One's fall would really have coincided with that of the Miracle. His immortality in Detrian beliefs would have been a.s.sured, and who knew what might have been done in his name then? As it was, few people spared his carca.s.s a second glance. The discredited Messiah, defeated and exposed; and dead, now.

241.

The Doctor was spotless once more. Only the dejected hunch of his shoulders remained as evidence of whatever he had been through. Ace studied him as he allowed Jason into the TARDIS and dematerialized once more, bound for Detrios. If she knew him half as well as she thought she did, then he was definitely worried about something.

Had he fretted so much about her, she wondered? Had he been as hurt when she turned against him?

Chris Cwej walked in almost as soon as the doors opened. He spared the Doctor only a brief nod as he bustled through to the internal corridor, fists clenched and head down. Ace was genuinely taken aback by the hurt that this dismissal precipitated in the Doctor's expression.

'You didn't bring her then,' he said to Roz, as she followed.

His voice was dull and he had turned so that neither she nor Ace was able to see his face. He pretended to be working at the s.h.i.+p's controls.

'It's all gone,' Jason announced. Ace looked up, surprised by the sudden outburst. He wasn't addressing anybody in particular. His eyes were staring into the mid-distance. 'It's draining away,' he said.

Roz had hesitated, torn between answering the Doctor's question and pursuing her partner. 'He learnt the hard way,' she said. 'He'll get over it.' Then she chose the latter option, calling out Chris's name as she hurried after him.

'No more stories,' Jason wailed painfully, wrapping his arms about himself. He seemed oblivious to everything else.

'What are we going to do with him?' Ace asked.

The Doctor sighed and walked over to the young man. He regarded him intently for a second, then seemed to reach a decision. He pa.s.sed his hand briefly over Jason's eyes and commanded: 'Sleep.'

'You're going to wipe his memory, aren't you? I thought you were learning your lesson about that.' The Doctor glared at her and Ace almost felt guilty about her accusation. 'Still playing head games?' she clarified, one eyebrow raised.

'I'm giving him a chance to live.'

242.

'You're correcting the Time Lords' mistake for them, more like. Finis.h.i.+ng of their botched job. Cleaning up the Land of Fiction's remains.'

'It's better for everybody this way.'

Ace shrugged. 'So long as you can still justify mucking with people's minds.' He continued to subject her to his penetrating stare. She studied the console and pretended not to be affected.

'Are you taking him home then?' she asked him finally.

The Doctor returned to the console sulkily. 'England, 2001,'

he grunted.

The following week pa.s.sed in a dull blur, and later, Kat would find it hard to distinguish in her memories between one day and the next. The Detrians went underground again, their brief forays to the surface halted by the eventual loss of atmosphere.

The power they had drained from the Miracle vanished from their grids and even the most optimistic estimates said that life would be extinct on the planet within two generations.

Not all things were so bleak. Mortannis's return had filled Kat with joy. She had a.s.sumed him dead, but instead he had incredible tales to tell. His story tallied with - and expanded upon - what she already knew, although she was disappointed not to hear any mention of her erstwhile alien confidante.

Kat'lanna was amazed at how much respect Mortannis commanded now. Disillusioned cultists flocked to his outcast band in droves and many of the Ruling Family's supporters were noticeably quiet, ashamed to admit their Political inclinations. In the cold darkness which followed the p.r.o.nouncement of death upon Detrios, allegiances s.h.i.+fted like the wind.