Description: Chapter One: Death on Gethria Whirling through the Vortex, dwarfed by the infinities of eternity and a limitless universe, a small, blue, cuboid object, with a glowing light atop and windows like white, squarish eyes squinting out into a dizzying, kaleidoscopic tunnel, propelled itself ever onwards. It was the TARDIS, space-time craft of that most mysterious citizen of the universe, the Doctor. Inside that sturdy, blue exterior, exactly engineered to resemble a twentieth-century London police box''s modest dimensions, there was an Aladdin''s Cave of impossibly advanced technology and seemingly endless accommodation. At its heart was the control room. Here, on top of a glass-floored platform sat the TARDIS''s multi-sided console. Dancing around it with a fevered intensity, punctuated by spectacularly carefree flourishes and pirouettes, was the Doctor himself. Making adjustments, tweaking an intricate imbalance here, absently flicking a switch or two there, he always took great pride in operating his beloved time and space machine. They had been together for many lifetimes. Many Earthly companions had come and gone, but the Doctor and the TARDIS... they were constants in each other''s lives. His life''s work had been the accidental but well- meaning interference in the lives of others. He had illegally set o into the universe, defying the laws of his now extinct people, the Time Lords, because he wanted to explore... to seek out... anything and everything. He had experienced the extremes of existence. There had been so much terror, so much delight... and everything in between. He had made so many friends, fought as many enemies. There had been beginnings and ends, joyous meetings, sad farewells. And it was all etched across the face of this man who had had many faces. The one, unchanging facet of his appearance--the scope of his lives and deeds, there in his eyes. There, in the warmth of his ancient smile. Even now, with the Doctor in his most outwardly youthful body, more than ever, there was something of the ancient about him. There was a weariness... Perhaps even a growing awareness of his place in all things, that made him concerned about the extent of the consequences of his wanderings. Travelling alone now, he was intending to keep a low profile in the tracks of eternity. Those were his avowed, good intentions. But the Doctor''s Achilles heel was his curiosity. Standing back from the console, exuding that pride in his own, latest adjustments, he caught sight of himself in the glass column ascending from the centre of the hexagonal console. The unmistakable signs of his ship''s power were rising and falling encouragingly inside the glass. He beamed a broad smile at himself, tweaked his bow tie and smoothed down his tweed jacket. ''Somewhere nice and quiet, I think,'' he said to his reflection. He twiddled his fingers, like a safe-cracker about to unlock a fortune. But before he could set a new course, something on one of the festooned hexagon''s opposite surfaces bleeped. A single, faint bleep. Then another. And another, until the bleeping became insistent, bordering on the downright irritating. The Doctor had already circled the console and was anxiously inspecting the source of the bleeping. A blinking amber light. He frowned and tapped it. The bleeping and blinking continued. ''Are you sure, old girl?'' he whispered, moving his ancient, youthful face closer and closer to the amber light. This was not a light he had ever thought to see blinking again. Then, suddenly, it stopped. No blinking. No bleeping. ''Oh,'' said the Doctor. He felt a sudden pang of sadness; but it was only momentary, because the silence was soon broken by a very distinct tapping on the outer side of the TARDIS''s wooden doors. Something was outside, in the surging Vortex, tapping on the TARDIS''s outer dimensions. Checking that the ship''s force field was in place, the Doctor dashed from the console, down the steps to the rather quaint wooden doors set into the other-worldly architecture of the control room. He flung the doors open, and there, hovering before him was a small white, glowing cube. ''Oh, you''re just a baby one, aren''t you?'' he said, beaming with his unique mix of surprise, delight and enthusiasm. In an instant, he had snatched the cube into his hands, thrown the doors shut and dashed back up the stairs to the controls. He held the cube in the light from the console, squinting, intrigued. In dire emergencies, his people had used these strange, telepathic cubes to send messages. He had used one himself, many lifetimes ago - and not so long ago, he had been lured into a trap by one. But this little ''fellow'' was a slightly different kettle of fish, he thought. It was very small. About half the size of your standard Time Lord cube. ''Looks like something I might have knocked up in a hurry,'' he said to himself. ''Ah!'' And the thought hit him. Or rather... the question. Was this one of those moments when something from his future had rocketed back into his past? Time travel was fraught with these difficulties. He had no way of telling when and where the cube had come from just by looking at it. Best to press ahead and find out what this little messenger had to say to him, he thought. Crouching down on the floor, with all the inelegance of a recently born gazelle, the Doctor placed the cube in front of him and began to concentrate his whole mind upon it. Would it work, he wondered? If it did, it would be a sure sign that he had indeed sent the message to himself. At that precise moment, the cube unlocked itself and a fizz of sparkling, white energy rose from it. As the tiny walls fell gracefully apart and the cloud of particles dissipated, the Doctor''s mind was filled with the impression of something... Something... He couldn''t quite articulate the thought in his mind. All he knew was, he had to go to the console. He placed the opened pieces of the cube into his jacket pocket and jumped to his feet. His hands set to work, rapidly adjusting coordinates. The TARDIS was quick to respond, her engines groaning reassuringly. Moments later, they thudded to a halt. The Doctor breathed a sigh of satisfaction. He patted the console and smiled. ''Clever old thing. Well done.'' He pulled the console''s screen towards him, peering at the whirl of symbols and graphics on it. He''d never been here before, he knew that. But he had heard the name of the place. ''The planet Gethria,'' he mouthed to himself. All the readings showed the planet could support a wide range of life forms, so he decided to go outside, pausing only briefly to activate the wall scanner to see what he could expect to be greeted with. He frowned as he saw the barren, desert landscape and some kind of gigantic, ancient stone monument. Hard, grey, granite-like. Just below it, there was a small gathering of humanoids. ''Bound to be friendly,'' he muttered, half-suspecting his optimism might be misplaced. But the same kind of compulsion that had led him to set the coordinates for Gethria seemed to be driving him now. He was possessed of a feeling that he couldn''t quite understand. He just knew he must set foot on this world. The TARDIS had landed about half a mile away from the monument. This gave the Doctor plenty of time to survey the group of humanoids as he approached over the crumbling, dry surface of Gethria. He made no attempt to hide himself. He could, for example, have darted between rocky outcrops, alternately hiding and dashing for cover; but there was really no need, he thought. The closer he got to the gathering, the more it became apparent to the Doctor that these people were not the slightest bit interested in anything other than whatever it was directly in front of them. He couldn''t see what that was for now; but they were all staring down at it. As he got ever closer, some indistinct words drifted across to him on the dry, dusty breeze. Although he couldn''t quite make them out, they sounded sombre and respectful in tone. And then, before he had reached the gathering, as if responding to some unspoken signal, the humanoids began to depart, walking slowly, heads bowed, around the monument, heading o in the opposite direction to the Doctor. He felt almost compelled to stop, finding himself instinctively bowing his own head, as if he were attending... A funeral. That was it. It was a funeral. Yes. The dappled grey of the long, hooded cloaks these people were wearing... That was a popular form of funeral attire in... Oh, somewhere in the universe the Doctor had long forgotten about. And there was the grave. Right where they had all been standing. It had a rather beautiful but stark, engraved, orange headstone - evidently imported from far away. Embedded in the curve of its upper edge were half a dozen small items, encased in glass or something very similar, like fragments of memory caught in clear amber. As with the dappled grey cloaks, the Doctor remembered, the encasing of a person''s chosen mementoes in a gravestone was an age-old tradition in many parts of the cosmos. As the Doctor began to approach the stone for a closer lo

Please Wait