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Human Nature - Prologue

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Prologue

'they seem, in places, to address me so directly it's almost uncomfortable'

'either the wallow in the sudden realisation that every single sad song in the world is written for me alone, or the overwhelming, distracting power of a lot of very loud noise'

From the diary of Prof Bernice Summerfield

Long ago and far away. That's one way of looking at it. But I still sat on the edge of the bathtub and bit my knuckles.

I'm trying to ignore it, and I hope you are as well. An unfortunate episode. If Ace was here, I could say to her: 'Yes, I understand it now, once again. I remember that grief is like having somebody sit on your chest and punch you in the face.' Pain is always forgotten. That's what allows us to have babies. It is a pity she's not here, actually, because now we have so much more in common.

Post-It note covering the above

I will not become maudlin. This is all meaningless. I met someone called Guy, he took on overwhelming odds and then he happened to die. May have died. Did die. Perhaps.

Post-It note covering the above

'These words are not my own they only come when I'm alone'

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Post-It note covering the above

Those five minutes... I remember seeing the look on Clive's face when he heard that a dear friend of his had hanged himself. The most frightening thing I've ever seen. Because it was so different. I didn't think that I could make that face if I tried. What was so bad was that Clive had suddenly, in that moment, discovered how to. Now I can do it too.

From the diary of Prof Bernice Summerfield

'Aren't there any alien monsters we can go and destroy?' I asked the Doctor, on one of the few occasions when I met him in the TARDIS corridors. I mean, granted, I'd been hiding away for a few weeks, and I looked so white that you could put a tail on me and call me Flopsy, but he'd been hiding too. He hadn't followed up on his pledge to take me to Blackpool, or somewhere else exciting. He'd just become sad, at exactly the time I needed him to be happy. Whenever I'd gone into the console room, he'd been absent, and at night I'd just hear the occasional cry from one of those terrible nightmares of his.

'Alien monsters...' he mused now, tapping his finger on the tip of his nose. 'No. They're all gone. Little Johnny Piper - no, sorry, different train of thought. No alien monsters, I'm afraid.' He had that troubled look about his eyes, and wouldn't quite look at me.

I wanted rather desperately to touch him, hug him or something, but everything about him said that that wouldn't be a good idea. He seemed embarrassed about seeing me, which wasn't really him at all. If I didn't know better, I'd say that he was thinking as hard about the last five minutes of Guy's life as I was.

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Post-It note covering the above

Summerfield, B.S. Subject: Human Nature: 3/10, must try harder. (The 'Human' is crossed out and then replaced. There is evidence of correcting fluid.)

From the diary of Prof Bernice Summerfield

We wandered into the console room, me still trying to think of some way to break the ice. One of the many trivial things I'd been doing over the last few days was to try and repair my portable history unit. It's a little screen that lets you access archives while in the field. Or, in my case, while in the bath. Normally you'd need an account with whatever library you're accessing, but, with a bit of help from one of those beardie-weirdie computer experts you trip over in spaceports, I'd put together a program that makes the library think you're a member. The thing broke down, of course, just before Heaven, and I'd been carrying it in my luggage ever since. So, as part of my great campaign to do things, I had hefted one of the Doctor's folding work-tables into the console room and set about dismantling the thing, on and off, with gaps for tea and crying.

As we entered the console room, then, I was surprised to see the unit sitting atop the folding table, complete and repaired. I picked it up and switched it on, while the Doctor glanced offhandedly at various monitors on the console. He'd repaired the unit's hardware, but the programming was all over the place. Travelling through the time vortex isn't the best place to deal in electronic media, of course. It's like trying to follow a soap opera that's being performed on a series of trains as they speed by, while other trains with different stories... well, it's difficult, all right? Anyhow, the Doctor had succeeded in creating some weird protocols, with new files half set-up all over the place, and error messages demanding attention everywhere.

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I pressed a few buttons and cleared everything, discovering, to my relief, that the Doctor had got the thing functioning correctly at least. I turned to him, grateful to have something to ask him about. 'Thanks for fixing this up.'

He glanced up from the console. 'I just wanted to work out what it was... how it worked. I reversed the polarity of the communications coil, by the way, so you can write into archives too, but to do that I had to connect it through the TARDIS information processors, because I know how to work with those. So you might get information from the past. Or the future. Which in some cases wouldn't be a good idea, so don't use it when we land anywhere. Please.'

I sighed. 'So you repaired it so well that I can't use it?'

'Repaired? Oh, did it need repairing?'

I smiled, which was good. I got the feeling that the module was a sort of present. 'What have you been doing in the last few days, then?'

'Jigsaws. Chinese cookery. I made clay models. Of the Zygons. I did what I normally do when I'm investigating something... with your unit, I mean. I dived in and messed it up. Threw away the manual, ignored the notes and laughed in the face of Balloon Help.' He left the console, and perched in the wicker chair, his hands folded into a spire. 'That's what I did with the TARDIS when I first got her. You can't do everything for a long time. In the case of the TARDIS, for far too long. But when you do get where you want to go, you've learnt all sorts of useful stuff about the system you're investigating.'

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'No wonder your cakes are so awful.' I grabbed a cushion and sat down facing him.

'The ducks like them.'

'The ducks are programmed to like them. Besides, it all sounds rather dangerous to me. You can get terribly hurt, mucking around like that. I prefer to read the manual from cover to cover, hopefully in the bath with a good bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon.'

'Mmmm...' The Doctor frowned again, and jumped up. He started to pace around the console once more, tapping controls seemingly at random. Maybe it was me using the words 'terribly hurt' that had set him off again.

God, I was being careful of his feelings!

His glance fastened on a monitor and an uneasy grin spread over his features. 'Found it. Good girl.' He tapped a few buttons and straightened up. 'There's a planet called Crex in the Augon system. They have a market there. Would you like to go?'

I had the feeling that saying no would invalidate several days' worth of hovering in the vortex. 'A sort of spacecraft boot sale? Is there something particular you're after?'

'A white elephant. Maybe a pink one.'

'Is this an item or an acquaintance?

He paused for a moment, and then smiled one of his more dangerous secret smiles. 'Both.'

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The TARDIS materialised with that noise it has (sorry, I've never been able to come up with a good description) amidst a tight little knot of stalls, under the shade of purple silks and great canopies of striped fabric. The first thing that caught my attention as the Doctor locked the door behind us was the smell, a wonderfully jumbled mixture of spices and cooking scents, a hundred different cultures in one place.

Nobody seemed to bat an eyelid at the TARDIS landing. They must have been fairly used to materialisations. The Doctor raised his umbrella like an aerial, and turned it and his nose until he'd settled on a direction. 'This way.' He walked off in a straight line, tossing a memory module from the TARDIS databanks in his hand thoughtfully.

I followed him through the masses of alien species, both humanoid and otherwise, their bargainings and gestures and laughter merging in one great shout. Felt odd to be out and about, a bit vulnerable. Shrugged it off. The Doctor led the way to a little hillock, its surface once grassy, but now a churned patch of mud. He pulled me after him up to the top of it, and from there we got a good look at the whole market.

It went on for miles, all the way to one cloudy horizon, a brilliant jumble of tents and awnings. The other way, it petered out a bit in the direction of some mountains, and a big dark square with some buildings indicated a rough spaceport. 'It's wonderful,' I opined. 'How did it start?'

'Tax concessions.' The Doctor was still turning like a weather vane. His eyes suddenly focused on something in the distance. He nodded, and then turned to me. 'I'll be gone for an hour. Maybe two. I'll find you.'

'What, in that lot?'

'Back at the TARDIS then.' He seemed eager to get away, flustered and impatient.

In the middle distance I glimpsed the solution to our problem. 'Tell you what,' I said, pointing. 'I'll meet you over there.'

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The beer tent seems to be a universal icon, and one, to paraphrase a recent acquaintance, about which I may write a short monograph one day. The atmosphere's always different to a pub or a bar, slightly edgy and hot under the canvas, relaxed and cool outside. You see more undone buttons and exposed podge outside a beer tent than anywhere short of the Flaborama on Boojus 5. I bought a pint of The Admiral's Old Antisocial at the, thankfully currency-unspecific, bar, and wandered out to the plastic tables.

Now, you may well be thinking: 'Beer? What a terrible idea. That's no solution.' I would reply that you're wrong. It's a solution of hops, barley and yeast, and it is so transcendently wonderful that I long ago made the decision to sacrifice any chance of trim thighs in favour of it.

Company is always an issue at this juncture. There's no point, in my view, in being a solitary drinker. You can do that at home, given a certain degree of sadness which I wouldn't dream of sinking to. Usually. Well, three out of ten times. And it's been a difficult time for me lately. Anyway, there were the usual tables of dangerous-looking space pirates, penniless backpackers with their glasses of iced water, and traders waving their hands and complaining that business wasn't what it once was. Most of them were aliens of some sort.

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Therefore, it was with a rather xenophobic sort of glee that I came across a table whose occupants were doubly interesting. They were A: human and B: female. They looked like they all came from different places, and had clustered together out of the familiar realisation that internal gonads are best, actually. So I sat down and introduced myself. Professor Bernice Summerfield, FRAS (Fairly Rotten At Scrabble), current occupier of the Proxima University Chair Of Archaeology (it's in my room, by the begonias), holder of the Martian Gallantry Medal (I found one and thought I thoroughly deserved it). They were suitably impressed. They laughed out loud.

'Jac,' said a young woman with short hair and interesting ear-rings. 'I'm here researching the origins of the market for Ellerycorp. They're thinking of doing something similar.' She introduced the others. There was another short- haired woman with the eyes of a Traveller Priestess, who was called Sarah. I don't think I ever found out why she was there. And there was a feisty-looking woman with tanned olive skin, wearing an assortment of charity shop relics that she somehow made stylish. She was looking at me with a world-weary expression that I found instantly charming, her head propped up on one hand.

'How's it going?' she asked. For a moment I thought of telling her. But no. 'Fine.'

'Your round, Lucy,' Sarah told her, placing her empty glass definitively down on the table.

'You're not exactly svelte either,' Lucy replied, reaching for the glasses and winking.

I smiled at that, too. 'Same again, please,' I said. As soon as Lucy had departed, Jac told Sarah that the woman was a Psychology tutor, who'd been here for a month, waiting for an interplanetary lift that never seemed to arrive.

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Well, that was a familiar story, and I went on to tell them some of my own history. As regular readers of my diary (if that's you, Doctor, put it down now) know, there are certain portions of my life that I can't readily account for. I tend to gloss over these with a post-it note, but on this occasion I have enough recollections to fill a page, disconnected as they may be. I said all these things, but some of the words may be in the wrong order.

Pint two: I'm arguing with them. 'But that's ridiculous. You can't expect an internal market to operate for any extended period of time - '

Pint three: They're laughing at me. 'There is not a God! Listen, if this coin lands on the same side... several times... then - '

Pint four: They're falling over themselves, holding up their hands like anglers talking about the fish that got away. 'Short and stubby. Well, I've only ever encountered five of them, but - what are you laughing at? Did I say something funny?'

Pint five: They're listening intently, nodding every now and then. 'So we had to go away. There were so many of them. I think... I hope it was quick for him.'

Pint six: Sarah is looking at me, concerned and sweet.

'It's not far from here, really. Just a quick hopper ride over the hill. I've got this really great Alcorian wine that you ought to try. And we could, you know, just hang around for a while. Play tennis. What do you think?'

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The next thing I knew, a familiar hand was tapping me on the shoulder, and something cold attached itself to my cheek. I was thinking about Sarah's offer, and I tried to swat the hand away like a fly, but then, suddenly-

I was utterly sober.

I unpeeled the medi-patch that the Doctor had slapped on to my cheek and looked up at him. 'What - ?'

'Alcohol dispersion pad. We haven't got much time, and there's a lot you need to know.' He grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet.

'Hey...' Sarah said foggily, gazing up at me. 'Wait a minute...'

'Leave her alone!' Jac was halfway to her feet. 'Who is this guy?'

'It's all right,' I reassured them. 'He's a friend.' I felt suddenly rather foolish, as if my dad had arrived to pick me up. Rather awkwardly, I shook Sarah's hand. 'Thanks for being so nice. I appreciated the offer.'

She shrugged. 'No problem. I hope it all works out.' 'It will,' I told her. But then I glanced at the Doctor.

'Quickly,' he said.

His pupils were glowing silver. I got the feeling that it wasn't going to be that easy.

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I let the Doctor lead me back to the TARDIS. He was walking quickly, urgently. I glanced back to see if he was being followed, but that wasn't it. He was walking like he was about to explode or throw up, as if something terrible was about to happen and he had to be in a particular place when it did.

'Could I have a few of those patches?' I asked, still banjaxed by my instant sobriety. 'They're already my favourite bit of TARDIS equipment.'

'Yes. No. I don't know, it isn't important!' The Doctor turned a corner, saw the TARDIS ahead and broke into a run. He fumbled the door open and leapt inside, diving at the co-ordinate keyboard and tapping in instructions faster than I could follow. 'Catch!' he called, and threw me a rolled-up scroll. I noted that it was sealed with his thumbprint.

The TARDIS doors closed, and the familiar take-off sound began. The central column started to rise and fall. 'The letter will tell you everything!' the Doctor shouted. 'And pay attention to the list! See you in three months! Eck.'

The last was a little click from his throat, like something switching itself off. The Doctor's eyes flicked back to their normal colour. Then he closed them, and his mouth twisted into a giddy smile.

Then he fell into a crumpled heap.

A red ball rolled from his pocket, and settled in one comer of the console room.

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'Doctor?' I ran to his side, and checked his pulses. One seemed to have stopped altogether. The other was racing. My first impulse was to rush him straight into the TARDIS medical bay, but I restrained myself. I broke the seal on the scroll and quickly read the several sheets it contained. 'Oh no...' I groaned when I'd finished, flopping back against the console. I turned to address the unconscious, still grinning, body. 'I may have remarked on this on several occasions in the past, but let me say it definitively this time. You are such a git!'

And, feeling a bit better, I left him there and headed for the wardrobe room.

This adventure was going to require a serious frock.

Diary Entry Ends

A solemn old humanoid with a grey beard stood outside a tent in the marketplace. He put his hand up to shade his eyes against the setting sun. Out of it, from the direction of the spaceport, a hopper was approaching. With a great shouting and a roar of turbos, it descended next to the tent, and the old man walked forward to greet the occupants.

The first of them leapt out, dressed in a long cloak and breeches, his two swords crossed in scabbards across his back. He was a young man, well-muscled and vital. His green eyes flashed in happiness as he embraced the old man. 'Well met, my son! You meant what you said in the message? You finally got one?'

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'Indeed I have, Greeneye. It has been a long wait, but a Time Lord finally responded to our signal. I had thought that we hadn't tried enough channels, but -'

'Oh, they heard. Those bastards always hear.' Greeneye glanced at the sky involuntarily. 'Are you coming with us, then? You've waited so long, it'd be a shame if you weren't there for the kill.'

'I wish you wouldn't put it like that.' The old man frowned. He brightened when he saw the latest arrival stepping from the hopper. It was a child, a girl of ten or so, carrying a balloon. 'Aphasia, my dear daughter, how are you?'

'I'm not talking,' the girl told him. 'I'm sulking.'

'I told her she couldn't...' Greeneye looked around again, stopping himself. 'Get up to her usual tricks. But quickly now, have you prepared the tunnel?'

'All is ready. Are the others here?'

'We are here!' a hissing voice emanated from the hopper. A dark figure in a wide-brimmed hat jumped to the ground, and pointed a white glove at the old man. 'If you have failed, Laylock, I shall make you suffer. You know I shall.'

'Don't threaten me, Serif. You wouldn't harm your own flesh.'

'Wouldn't I?' Serif glanced at Aphasia, a grin twisting his mouth. He would have said something more, but another hopper was approaching. It landed, with a swirl, of soil, and two more figures stepped from it. One was a big, bearded man, carrying a huge backpack and wearing a belt from which hung numerous weapons. The other was a thin, precise-looking man, his hair neatly back- combed and his cape enclosing an elegant suit.

'Good,' he muttered, looking around. 'We're all here. Into the tent then, quickly now. We don't want to attract attention.'

They went into Laylock's Emporium, as a sign referred to it. Laylock himself remained outside for a moment, glancing about worriedly, before he followed.

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Inside, the thin man looked around appreciatively. A polished consultation table, with various computer reference devices atop it, stood at the very centre of the tent, the big roof spar through the middle of it. Brightly coloured canvas avenues led off in all directions, access to the other tents where the real work was done. Gentle music tinkled throughout. 'Very professional. You've gone to a lot of trouble.'

Laylock inclined his head. 'Thank you, August. I've made quite a profit in all this time.'

Serif hissed. 'That is unimportant. The cover story has been successful, that is all.'

'No, no...' August raised a hand. 'I think it's a great achievement. It's not as if our own projects haven't blossomed in this last decade. Now then, I believe Hoff thinks that the Time Lords could be tracking us.'

The big man grunted in the affirmative. 'If they knew everything, they might divert an asteroid, cleanse the whole site.'

'Well, I disagree with that, they haven't the will these days, they'd probably just send an agent. But anyhow, we really should be going. Lead the way, Laylock.'

The old man did so, glancing nervously at the roof.

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The cabinet was a rusty old gothic thing, hidden away under a cloth in a comer of Laylock's surgical supplies area. He pulled the cloth aside and slapped a control. The front of the cabinet, previously a metal door, dissolved into the butterfly tunnel of the time vortex.

'Don't stare into it, daughter.' Greeneye hid Aphasia's eyes. 'After a while, you see terrible things.'

Aphasia slapped his hand away. 'I want to see terrible things.'

'The tracer's working,' Laylock confirmed. 'I activated it as soon as he left. There.' A golden thread snaked down the vortex tunnel and spiralled off into the distance. 'That'll lead you to wherever he's going. Estimated travel time... about nine weeks.'

'Yes. Good.' August stared into the tunnel with some trepidation. Behind him, Hoff and Greeneye were bringing in several large packs of equipment. 'We'll need to keep this link open, so you'll remain here, Laylock. That won't be too much of a burden for you, will it?'

Laylock nodded. 'Thank you.;

'Any idea of what he got?'

'No, he brought it himself. They often do, those who think of themselves as composers. He'd been in contact with me for several days, asking for tech specs, wondering if I could really do what I said I could. I had to be discreet; I wondered for a while if he was an Intervention Agent.'

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'Opek to a Grotzi he is!' muttered Greeneye. 'If this is a set up - '

'It isn't, I'm certain,' Laylock told him. 'He was going through real quantum rearrangement effects when he left, at any rate.' He handed August a memory pad. 'This is everything I learnt about him, including a description. I did try to persuade him to give up the pod, but - '

'That's too much to expect, yes.' August clapped his hands for quiet. 'All right then. This is the best shot we're going to get. Follow me.' He took a deep breath, pinched his nose, and leapt into the tunnel. He shot off into the distance, a doll-like figure, buffeted to and fro until he vanished, his form curling around the path of the golden thread.

'Hey!' shouted Aphasia. 'Wait for me!' And she leapt in too.

Greeneye and Hoff followed, carrying the bundles they'd brought from the hopper. Before he left, Serif turned and pointed at Laylock. 'If you have betrayed us- '

'Of course I haven't, son. Off you go.' Scowling, Serif leapt into the vortex. A moment later, they were all gone. Laylock patted the cabinet in satisfaction, and threw the cloth back over it. Just the hoppers to hide, and then he could get back to his regular routine.

He just couldn't shake the terrible feeling that he was being watched.

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In the long, dark room, all that could be heard was the ticking of a clock and the occasional snore.

Two lines of beds ran along the walls. In them slept boys in their late teens.

But one didn't sleep.

He was sitting up in bed, his hands to his mouth, his eyes staring into the distance. His name was Tim. His mother was dead, and his father, abroad on business, had transferred him to this place.

He'd just had such a dream. A nightmare, full of people and places he'd never seen before. They seemed to address him so directly that it was terrifying.

'I've seen the future,' he whispered. 'And everybody dies. '

She appeared at the end of his bed then, and showed him her skeletal hands. 'Yes,' she whispered. 'Everybody dies.'

Tim screamed.

Lamps were lit, there were cries of alarm and annoyance, and of course she was gone when the light flooded along the dormitory.

From the window came a great beat of wings. Tim spun and stared.

An owl was flapping off into the night.