|
From the journal of Christopher Cwej:
ENTRY 1
This was Benny's idea.
She told me that keeping a diary would be therapeutic. She said it had helped her a lot over the years, having something to write her thoughts and feelings down into. A sort of pressure valve, she said.
I think it's cobblers.
I don't want to write what I'm feeling.
I just want to forget it.
Writing it all down will only help me remember it.
I suppose she means well, though.
ENTRY 2 (Time elapsed since last entry: 1 Day, 14.52 Hours)
Got up. Got drunk. Went to bed.
ENTRY 3 (Time elapsed: 1 Day, 3.16 Hours)
Ditto.
ENTRY 4 (Time elapsed: 2 Days, 7.18 Hours)
Benny tells me I'm missing the point of keeping a diary. I knew I shouldn't have left it lying around for her to pick up.
It's all right for her. She's an academic. She's used to writing things.
What's so interesting in my life that needs writing about?
(Written on a yellow post-it note, in Bernice's handwriting)
What do you mean, there's nothing interesting? Tell the diary what we did today!
ENTRY 5 (Time elapsed: 12.34 Hours)
Oh yeah. We stopped a Dalek invasion force from taking over Dellah.
(Another yellow post-it note)
IS THAT IT?!!!!?
ENTRY 6 (Time Elapsed: 7 days, 3.42 Hours)
Benny says I need a holiday. Checked out the travel guide on the Uninet, and booked myself a long cruise on a ship called the Spirit of Rapture. Benny says it looks like fun, but I bet it won't be.
(another post-it)
Pessimist.
(Underneath it)
I wish she'd stop doing this.
ENTRY 7 (Time Elapsed: 2 Days, 9.08 Hours)
Nice ship. Nice people. Nice bar. Voxnic Slammers only two credits! Benny would love it here.
ENTRY 8 (Time Elapsed: 1 Day, 1.02 Hours)
I feel miserable.
I miss Roz.
A lot.
ENTRY 9 (Time Elapsed: 1 Week, 3 Days, 12.35 Hours)
I'd forgotten I still had this. I thought I'd left it in my cabin on the cruise ship. I found it again while looking through my jacket to find something useful to help us out of the situation we're currently in (it'll take too long to describe and I don't have the time. If I say the words 'Killer Time Lords' you'll get my drift).
I didn't find much apart from this, but Chayni found something in the end.
She usually does.
Chayni. I haven't mentioned her before, have I? From tomorrow I will (promise, Benny!)
I'd like to write about Chayni.
She inspires me A LOT.
ENTRY 10 (Time Elapsed: 7.17 Hours)
Chayni's asleep (finally!) so I've got a chance to write some stuff about her - about us.
Well, she looks like Roz a lot. Apart from that, she's not really much like her, in personality anyway. Apart from the fact she's very crabby first thing in the morning (like Roz used to be) and has an infinite variety of colourful descriptions for me when I mess things up (like Roz used to).
She also snores - just like Roz used to! (now don't get the wrong idea, Benny. It's not like that, honest!!)
I don't know much about her really. She hasn't told me a lot about herself, though she seems to know a lot about me. She's in terrible trouble with the Time Lords for some crimes she's committed against them. I haven't really asked what and she hasn't told me, but they must be pretty serious. The ones chasing us are very serious looking people.
Why am I looking out for her then? Good question.
She's a killer. I know this for a fact. She told me so.
But it doesn't seem to bother me. Am I so wrapped up with the fact that she looks so much like Roz that I'm blind to this?
Supposing she really is a very bad person? Supposing these Time Lords chasing her (us!) are legit?
I think I don't care.
So long as we're together.
ENTRY 11 (Time Elapsed: 4 days, 16.06 Hours)
They nearly got us today.
We were lucky. Up until now, we've been relying on her sixth sense for knowing when they're about to arrive. But they've been getting sneaky just lately.
It was in a hotel on the planet we're currently on. I thought there was something funny about the waiter. Well, we'd just ordered, but as luck would have it, someone in the kitchen must have screwed the order up as ours went to the table next to us and the couple started on it before anyone noticed. They keeled over after the first mouthful, dead or unconscious, I never had time to find out.
But Chayni knew what happened. We got out of there as quick as we could. They were waiting for us in the lobby but we shot our way out.
Trouble is, the Time Ring got damaged. It doesn't look too bad, but I'm a little worried about it. It's the only way we have of keeping ahead of them.
Chayni wants to push on as soon as possible. We're running out of hiding places here.
But dare we risk using the Ring in its present state?
ENTRY 12 (Time Elapsed: 2 Days, 12.01 Hours)
The Time Ring died on us. In mid jump too. Bad experience.
Chayni convinced me to take the risk. We were trapped, nowhere left to run. I activated it and pow! Ten feet under water. I got to the surface but Chayni was struggling badly. I had to dive back down and get her. I've never seen her lose control before. I had to knock her out just to get her back to the shore, she was struggling so bad.
Trouble is, we lost virtually all our belongings in making it. I still have the Ring - for what it's worth.
When she woke up, she stormed down to the other end of the beach.
No thank-you-for-saving-me-from-drowning. Nothing.
That's gratitude.
I never knew she couldn't swim.
ENTRY 13 (Time Elapsed: 1.52 Hours)
A brief note on where we are now I've looked around a bit:
Tropical island, basically. Very lush and colourful. Lots of vegetation, trees, flowers etc., golden sands, blue waters, bluer sky... no coconuts though. There is fruit on the trees, but I haven't tested it yet so I can't say how it tastes.
It's all quite beautiful.
I've no idea what the planet is. Just the one sun (that narrows it down!) but it's baking hot. Reminds me of the Caribbean on old Earth, or one of the resort islands on Unicepter. Only without the tourists and locals trying to fleece you with useless nick-nacks (well, not that we've seen so far anyway).
Me and Chayni seem to be the only intelligent life here (though Chayni would dispute my case!) though there seems to be plenty of wildlife in the jungle beyond the beach, judging from all the noises.
Knowing our luck, there's a tribe of cannibals lurking in there somewhere.
When Chayni gets round to speaking to me again, we'll go exploring.
Marooned on a lush tropical paradise, with only a beautiful woman for company...
Someone pinch me, I'm dreaming!
ENTRY 14 (Time Elapsed: 7.24 Hours)
Chayni is talking to me again. Guess she got bored being on her own (more like she wanted to see if I'd got the Time Ring working. Well, I haven't. How do I know how to fix it? More to the point, what am I going to fix it with? Sand? A twig?) and came back up the beach to me when night fell. We got a fire going and risked a few of the local veggies. They don't taste bad. Hopefully they will agree with our digestion as well.
I have to say she was looking drop-dead sexy in that single-piece white number she was wearing under her clothes, totally the opposite to me in my old shorts (and peeling red skin. Factor 75, where are you when I need you?). It's very hard to concentrate with her in this state.
Very hard!
She still hasn't said thank you for me saving her life in the water yet. She got a bit moody when I asked her about it. I even thought she was going to storm off again. She finally admitted that she hates the water. Fears it, more like. I don't think she liked admitting to this weakness. I tried to reassure her by saying that everyone has them, even me, but she still wasn't happy.
She's an odd one.
But I like her.
A LOT.
ENTRY 15 (Time Elapsed: 6.19 Hours)
No ill effects from fruit. Exploring jungle today. Ever resourceful, Chayni has improvised us some weapons from tree branches and things. She seems to have a natural ability for making weapons - very worrying! We lost the ones we had in the water.
Guess who got blamed for that?
ENTRY 16 (Time Elapsed: 5.57 Hours)
We are NOT alone.
We found footprints in the jungle - BIG footprints. Four-clawed, bipedal. Chayni says they're reptilian. Great. I hope they're more like the Earth-Reptiles rather than the Chelonians. We scouted the area carefully but found no other trace of them.
But they're out there. Somewhere.
Chayni is busy improvising more weapons as I write.
ENTRY 17 (Time Elapsed: 7.04 Hours)
Chayni woke me up to say we were being watched. We had a mooch around, but couldn't see anything.
We could HEAR things though.
Something is out there. If it was friendly, it would have contacted us by now. I shouted, but there was no response.
Can't get back to sleep now. I don't think she can either. She has her back to me, but I can tell she's awake. She's shivering too. The fire doesn't seem to be as warm as it was earlier.
I wonder if she's as scared as I am?
ENTRY 18 (Time Elapsed: 11.20 Hours)
More exploring. Jackpot! Chayni spotted something through the trees and we came across the wreck of a single-seat space vessel - scout-ship or shuttlecraft of some sort. Judging from the state it was in it had been there awhile. Burn marks seemed to indicate it had been in some sort of dog-fight. It was very beat-up, stripped bare of most of its instruments and stuff. No sign of pilot, though the ejector seat was intact. Chayni estimated it had been there for between 6-12 months.
Could the pilot still be around? We'll keep our eyes and ears open.
Good news - it was a Terran ship! The name and serial number of the pilot was stencilled inside; ESTEBAN J. FUENTES, LT (JG). The ADF logo figured pretty prominently on a lot of the surfaces, which did nothing for my morale; supposing this place was in a Dalek-occupied area? Yikes...
Bad news - not much to loot. Looked like something had already had a go at it (Lt. Fuentes probably, but judging from the damage, our reptilian friends maybe?), but Chayni uncovered a hidden panel under the pilots' seat containing a basic survival kit - food concentrates, drugs... and a flask of alcohol!
That night, we toasted to the memory of Lt. Fuentes - wherever he ended up.
Chayni was disappointed that there were no weapons or a tool-kit, but she has decided to fashion some sort of shelter out of the wreck down by the beach. It'll keep us occupied.
ENTRY 19 (Time Elapsed: 7.41 Hours)
More strange noises in the night. I think they're getting closer.
Chayni is getting some strange notions about going out after them, but since it's pitch-black in the jungle I don't think it's a good idea. She says she's fought under such conditions before, but I think the last thing we need to do right now is look for a fight. I'm pinning my hopes on the Time Ring being able to mend itself; I dimly recall someone (either Romana or the Doctor, I can't remember which), saying that Time Lord equipment had a way of regenerating itself as well. Though he might just have been referring to TARDISes (or is that TARDII? I must ask Romana one day).
Chayni isn't convinced, and I must say, neither am I.
So what do we do?
Looks like we're in for a long stay.
ENTRY 20 (Time Elapsed: 8.15 Hours)
What a day.
Nearly panicked first thing. Woke up and found Chayni was gone. Thought the natives had got her until she strolled into camp later in the morning. Said she'd gone off before dawn to try and track our friends to their lair - without success. She seemed very surprised that I was so angry at her doing that. We had a bit of a bust up, calling each other every name under the sun. And that led to us fighting. Well, pushing and shoving really. And we ended up rolling around on the sand, and then-
I won't say what happened after that. It got a bit - personal.
ENTRY 21 (Time Elapsed: 7.09 Hours)
Blissful afternoon.
We've both come to the conclusion that maybe being marooned on this tropical island planet isn't going to be so bad after all.
Though Chayni has asked me quite politely but firmly to stop calling her 'Eve'.
ENTRY 22 (Time Elapsed: 14.41 Hours)
Story of my life. Just when things start to look good...
Our native friends paid us a visit. Thank goodness this diary has an automatic handwriting chip built in or you'd never be able to read this. I'm still shaking. I'm glad of the opportunity to wind down.
Chayni heard them first, of course. Before I knew it she was up and waving a flaming torch in the air, yelling and shouting. I jumped up to join her and something heavy jumped at me and knocked me to the ground. It was some sort of creature, humanoid, very rough and scaly. It had terrible breath, like rotting fish.
(Chayni reckons they're amphibians, which is why we've never spotted them. It's possible they live in the sea and only come out at night).
We rolled over and over in the sand and I was just about able to kick it off. I heard it rushing at me through the dark and I lashed out. I hit something more by luck than judgement and heard a terrible wailing cry and a thud as it fell over. Chayni yelled and tossed me another firebrand and we came back to back, swinging and yelling as they pressed around us, shrieking and clutching with their claws.
They didn't like the fire. I think that was what kept them at bay before. We must have burnt a dozen of them, and we could hear more splashing around in the surf behind us. We couldn't see clearly; there's only one moon and it was too small to provide much light, and anyway the fire ruined our night vision.
I'm rather glad we couldn't see!
Then it struck me; perhaps it was the light they didn't like. I remembered there were flares in the survival kit we'd recovered. Chayni held them at bay while I recovered them and sparked them off.
The effect was dramatic. The scaly gits took off when they fired up, the glare obviously too much for their eyes. They all ran back to the sea and disappeared beneath the waves.
They came back an hour or so later, but we used another flare to drive them away.
They stopped coming after the third time, just as dawn was starting to break. By this time, we were down to our last flare.
Surviving another night looks pretty bleak. I'm keeping a brave face for Chayni's sake. I have a horrible suspicion she's doing the same for me.
ENTRY 23 (Time Elapsed: 5.08 Hours)
We've decided to push on inland. Staying by the beach is no longer an attractive idea. We're pinning our hopes on finding a cave or something similar by nightfall. Just somewhere to shelter while we figure out what to do. How to get off this planet.
But we've encountered a lot of lagoons and ponds on our travels. Do they sleep in them as well?
Paradise doesn't look quite so nice now.
At least we're together.
***
Chris sighed and slid the stylus back into its slot in the diary's spine, flexing his aching hand. He wasn't used to writing. He gazed out across the deep blue ocean before him, from where he was sitting on the brow of a short cliff overlooking the sea; how anything so gorgeous could hide anything so deadly was a mystery to him. He looked up into the sky; it was already starting to darken. Another hour or so and it really would start to get dark. And what then?
"Chris?"
"Over here," he called. Chayni emerged from the jungle behind him, clutching a bundle of sticks. "Anything?" he asked hopefully.
She dropped the sticks with a clatter and shook her head disgustedly. "Nothing! You'd need to be a rabbit to get in the holes round here."
"How about climbing a tree?" he suggested.
"They don't look strong enough. Besides, I prefer fighting on my feet, not cowering like a bird."
"Just a thought."
She came over to him and kissed the top of his head. "Nice try. What are you doing? Writing in that diary again?"
"Yes."
"What do you put in it?"
"Just thoughts, really."
She smiled. "Am I in it?"
He looked up at her and smiled. "As you're never far from my thoughts, yes!"
She sat down beside him. "I've never had anyone write about me before. Can I see?"
Chris hesitated, then shrugged. It didn't really matter now. "Sure. There's not much in it though."
Chayni flicked through the pages, pausing every now and then, smiling occasionally at what she read. "You're pretty good at this."
"Thanks," he mumbled bashfully.
"You've never really asked me about... well, me, I suppose."
He shrugged. "I didn't see any point in pressuring you. I figured if you wanted to tell me, you would."
She looked at him and smiled. "You're quite a guy, Chris Cwej."
"And you're quite a gal."
They embraced.
"It's getting dark..."
"I know. Not for an hour so yet though."
"Shouldn't we be looking for somewhere to hide rather than...?"
"Yes. But we might not get another chance again."
"Don't say that."
He chuckled. "And I thought you were always the one telling me to get real the whole time!"
"Chris."
"Yes?"
"Did you mean what you said about being glad we were together?"
"Definitely!"
"So am I. Roll over..."
***
She screamed in pain.
"Hell!"
"Chayni! Are you all right?"
"No! Cruk, they got me!"
Chris swung his torch in a wide arc and was rewarded with a solid thump and a ghastly shriek. He bent towards Chayni, who was crouched on the ground clutching an arm. He saw dark blood trickling down it. "Is it bad?"
She gritted her teeth. It felt like an artery. "Bad enough! Watch out!"
Chris swung round and thrust the torch into the face of the creature bearing down on him. It screamed and retreated. A jet of water struck him in the face and he gasped. "They're spraying us again!"
Chayni managed to rise to her feet and grab another torch from the fire. It wasn't in good shape. The creatures were directing jets of water - possibly spitting at them - at the fire and their torches. They'd built the fire up well but it wouldn't survive the onslaught much longer. She supposed they should be glad they weren't spraying venom.
She clutched at his shoulder for support, feeling suddenly light-headed. He pulled her to him, waving his spluttering torch around.
"No point in asking you to make a run for it, I suppose?" she gasped.
"No chance whatsoever!"
"You're really keen on keeping me alive, aren't you?"
"Yup! Cruk..." The torch hissed and died. He lobbed it into the darkness and reached down for another. There were none left and they'd used the last flare an hour ago. He grabbed one of Chayni's improvised spears instead and brandished it fiercely.
"That's it then," she said simply, sinking to the ground. That it should have come to this...
"Not if I can help it!" He thrust the spear and something screamed. When he pulled it back, the tip was covered in a thick green substance. He grinned and shouted: "Where there's life there's - arghh!"
A rock bounced off his forehead and he sunk to his knees beside Chayni. "Cheats!" he managed to holler feebly, before slumping forward.
Chayni tried to drag him closer to what was left of the fire with her one good arm, but it was no use. He was too heavy and she was too weak. The hissing and gurgling around them became louder as the creatures closed in.
She pulled her stilleto blade clear from her belt and pressed it to Chris's throat. "Sorry, my love... better this way than as some filthy monsters' dinner, eh?" She looked up into the stars and cried: "I kept my promise in the end, Lavarre!"
She clenched her hand around the handle and prepared to give it a shove...
Bright light suddenly filled the glade. A bright flashing blue light, followed by a dreadful cacophony of sound; a terrible wheezing and groaning like a tortured elephant. Something blue and shining bright materialised before them. Chayni had to shade her watering eyes, the glare was so bright.
The creatures fled back into the darkness, yelling and shrieking.
Somewhere a door creaked open. A patch of white light appeared in the middle of the blue. A figure was briefly silhouetted, then crossed the ground quickly towards her. She felt Chris sliding away from her, and she struggled feebly to hold on to him. "No..." she managed to croak.
"Chayni..." She heard him gasp.
The dark figure sighed: "Yes, yes..."
They disappeared into the light. Chayni's vision swam and blood roared in her ears. Or was it the creatures coming back? The light dimmed...
"Left me... he left me..." she whimpered. "Chris... Chris..."
She sank back into the cold, damp earth, a black tide of despair washing over her.
Then her eyes snapped open. Strong hands gripped under her arms, pulling her into the light, which was glowing stronger than ever. She had to squeeze them closed again, so bright was it. She heard him grunting with effort, then she was laid gently down on a cool floor. She felt rather than heard the doors closing behind her. She got an impression of a large open space, machinary humming and ticking close by. It was like being in the middle of a working clock. Peaceful, still... restful.
Chris was lying quite close beside her, groaning softly. There was a pair of feet between them, shod in old-fashioned black brogues. They were polished to mirror perfection, marred only by flecks of jungle dirt he'd picked up carrying them in. The shine on the tips fascinated her, for no discernable reason. She thought she could see her face reflected in them...
A wave of dizziness slapped at her senses and she felt herself drifting away. Then she heard Chris's voice, weak and cracked with pain and emotion.
"Doctor? Is it... really you?"
Chayni's heart skipped a beat when she heard that name. She rolled over, trying to see more of the person wearing the shiny shoes, and landed her full weight on her injured arm. She screamed, pain overwhelming her senses. The black tide rushed over her again and she went numb with unconsciousness. But before she did, she heard a deep, gentle voice soothing him above her.
"Yes, Christopher. It's me. You're quite safe now... quite safe..."
Safe... the word echoed round her mind. Yes, he might be.
But what about her?
As if he read her mind, he added:
"Both of you are..."
Then she blacked out.
Next: Daughter of the Gods
|
