A few moments later we reached the group of monoliths.

Leela examined the ground. 'He entered this one.' She touched the surface - and immediately recoiled from a brilliant burst of sunlight.

Allowing our eyes to adjust, we stepped through.

Gravity changed again. Now we were on a smaller world. My steps took us ten feet at a time - or would have if I had been able to get past my astonishment.

Allowing no time to observe my immediate surroundings, my gaze was captured immediately by the sky. The sun. It was small, a brilliant presence in the pale sky. Behind it was another sun - this one vast, a ruddy ochre globe blotched with darker patches. I could not help thinking of this pair as older and younger brothers. One youthful and the other entering its dotage. The crescents of moons and other planets drifted silently among the rarefied clouds scudding quickly through the thin air.

At last I lowered my eyes to the ground - only to find we were on a beach. Here the moai moai were less copiously distributed, framed by a dazzling green ocean with foaming whitecaps. The waves surged against the sh.o.r.e in caterpillar splendour. The sand was black, possibly volcanic in origin. It glittered like the obsidian blades the islanders used. Where rocks emerged from the sh.o.r.e I saw they held the cla.s.sic sponge-structure of pumice - cooled lava. Other pumice islands drifted across the seascape. There were buildings there but, again, no sign of movement, no sign of life. were less copiously distributed, framed by a dazzling green ocean with foaming whitecaps. The waves surged against the sh.o.r.e in caterpillar splendour. The sand was black, possibly volcanic in origin. It glittered like the obsidian blades the islanders used. Where rocks emerged from the sh.o.r.e I saw they held the cla.s.sic sponge-structure of pumice - cooled lava. Other pumice islands drifted across the seascape. There were buildings there but, again, no sign of movement, no sign of life.

Royston's footsteps were fast being obscured by the tide, so we ran along the beach to the nearest monolith and pa.s.sed through it.

I can only hint at the incredible journey that followed. A journey of awe and sadness - for, although we visited places without number and saw wonders of architecture that relegated the great cities of Europe to the status of crude experiments carried out by less than talented students of the craft, nowhere did we see a single sign of life in any form.

No bird tipped its wing across the sterile moons and suns, no animal prowled among the parks and gardens, no fish swam in the ponds or oceans. Nothing. No life of any description, just corpses, many of them rotted almost to nothing in one or two cities.

I swiftly built up a picture of a world lost to time. Or rather worlds. For the journey we made through the worlds and their connecting moai moai doorways reminded me in a more spectacular way of the simple cave system located in the volcanic pa.s.sages beneath Rapa Nui. I tried to imagine the worlds alive with the light and presence of people. I wondered what they sounded like, what they looked like. Perhaps their appearance had shaped the great stone heads that featured so heavily within their culture. I wondered if I would ever know. I had my answer when we found the library. doorways reminded me in a more spectacular way of the simple cave system located in the volcanic pa.s.sages beneath Rapa Nui. I tried to imagine the worlds alive with the light and presence of people. I wondered what they sounded like, what they looked like. Perhaps their appearance had shaped the great stone heads that featured so heavily within their culture. I wondered if I would ever know. I had my answer when we found the library.

I called it that because even from the outside it had the air of a building that served a function, a need. It was huge, with wide doorways and sweeping ramps which seemed to invite you to move further into its vaulted halls and chambers. And every chamber was in effect a view into the past, in the same way as the moai moai were views into the present - but these were views you could not interact with, only experience. were views into the present - but these were views you could not interact with, only experience.

We found Royston collapsed on the floor of one of the chambers, his face clothed in tears. 'So beautiful.' His voice was a whisper. 'All of it. So beautiful.'

'What happened?'

'Watch,' he said.

It had been war of course.

Over the next minutes or hours or days, I wandered from chamber to chamber obsessively and, I must admit at first vicariously, discovering atrocity after historical atrocity. And not just discovering. For through some means unknown to me I actually experienced experienced what it was like to stand on a world and witness the extinction of all life there. I felt the ruin of moons and whole planets. I watched a sun bullied by technology into premature age and imminent death. I saw so many people die that the word what it was like to stand on a world and witness the extinction of all life there. I felt the ruin of moons and whole planets. I watched a sun bullied by technology into premature age and imminent death. I saw so many people die that the word extinction extinction became meaningless. It went on and on, the record apparently endless, the aggressor species ever voiceless, faceless, their reasons for this genocide - if they had reasons - never explained. I was sole witness to their thoroughness, their unswerving dedication to the end of all life not their own. They were without justification, reversal, compromise - and absolutely without mercy. became meaningless. It went on and on, the record apparently endless, the aggressor species ever voiceless, faceless, their reasons for this genocide - if they had reasons - never explained. I was sole witness to their thoroughness, their unswerving dedication to the end of all life not their own. They were without justification, reversal, compromise - and absolutely without mercy.

I realised I had slept when I became aware of someone shaking me awake.

'What does it mean?' Leela. Her face was haggard. She too had been experiencing the memories of a dead race.

'They died. They were killed.'

'I know. Why?'

'I don't know.'

Royston added, 'I've found something else.'

It was a small chamber which seemed to contain a record of industry. I recognised the planet on which we had first arrived, now revealed to be a moon of this planet. To my amazement the entire world was given over to the production of - so - so much so that it had been the ruin of it. An entire world strip-mined to manufacture these strange monoliths. And not just that. More worlds wrecked to provide a means of propelling the thousands of statues out into s.p.a.ce. much so that it had been the ruin of it. An entire world strip-mined to manufacture these strange monoliths. And not just that. More worlds wrecked to provide a means of propelling the thousands of statues out into s.p.a.ce.

I did not understand.

'They look like Vai-tarakai-ua - the G.o.d in the cave which brought us here.' Leela was right. I had a sudden gleam of - not understanding exactly but - connection. connection. I saw the islanders stripping their own world as these great ones had ransacked their own, in emulation of the which did not originate in their own culture. I saw the islanders stripping their own world as these great ones had ransacked their own, in emulation of the which did not originate in their own culture.

The islanders had copied what happened here - unwittingly, history had repeated itself.

I felt a great sadness inside. That so much should have come to so little. And for no reason that I could see.

There was a sudden noise. Footsteps.

'h.e.l.lo? I say, is anyone there?' The Doctor.

We turned away from the history lesson in time to see him enter carrying the unconscious body of Jennifer Richards, her blouse and jacket soaked with blood.

Leela leapt up joyfully. 'How did you find us?'

The Doctor pointed to a set of strange carvings on the floor and grinned. 'Ever been on the London Underground? "You are here."All this is child's play by comparison. Now - who wants to find out what all this really means?'

20.

Man o' War

Earth. It's my favourite planet. I can't imagine why. I've been hurt here more times than I can recall. I've seen friends and companions injured or die here. I died here twice myself.

Thankfully I was nowhere near death at the moment. I was recovering from a pistol wound to my chest in the hold of the man o' war. With me were about a hundred islanders. They were terrified, agitated, violent.

Their anger was in the main part directed at myself, as the only white-skinned foreigner present. I suppose I was lucky they did not try to cut out my heart. Double redundancy goes only so far, and my right heart had already suffered minor damage when I was shot. Fortunately, that was healing now. I would have to expel the bullet but I could do that at any time, a.s.suming no major artery was nicked beforehand.

I observed my surroundings as a way of pa.s.sing time while I healed. The hold of the ship was a terrible place to languish. Filthy, b.l.o.o.d.y, it stank of the salt-water-and-vinegar solution with which it was infrequently washed down. Rats scuttled among the islanders. c.o.c.kroaches scuttled among the slops. Several of the islanders were wounded, one quite badly.

Moans rumbled through the darkness. I made a mental note to take the Captain to task regarding the hygiene of his vessel. Perhaps I could bargain for the release of the islanders with an offer of my lemon-juice-cordial scurvy remedy. Then again maybe they had already looted the medical supplies from Tweed. Tweed. That made me think of Stuart and the rest of the men, incarcerated in the hold of their own ship. I tried to think what I could do to help them. For the moment, beyond trying to heal, I was forced to accept that I could do nothing at all. That made me think of Stuart and the rest of the men, incarcerated in the hold of their own ship. I tried to think what I could do to help them. For the moment, beyond trying to heal, I was forced to accept that I could do nothing at all.

Instead I concentrated on my wound.

A lifetime ago and many hundred years in the past my dear friend the Master Padmasambhava had taught me the healing ways of his people in return for my helping to ward off Chinese bandits intent on ransacking the monastery and killing the monks, the beginning of a political and religious rout that was not to end for centuries. My mind slipped back to Tibet as I wove a healing trance around myself.

For a time, time itself became fluid. I was simultaneously here, in the hold of a Peruvian man o' war, and then then in the monastery of the monks of Det Sen, high in the Himalayas. in the monastery of the monks of Det Sen, high in the Himalayas.

And then I felt something give inside my chest. A blood vessel. I was aware of blood gushing out into my chest cavity. I shut down conscious thought and let then then and and now now become one, as become one, as then then I fought Chinese swords with holy prayer as I fought Chinese swords with holy prayer as now now I fought myocardial infarction and shock with meditation as I fought myocardial infarction and shock with meditation as then then I fought the political infection taking root in the country as I fought the political infection taking root in the country as now now I fought the biological infection taking root in my body as I fought the biological infection taking root in my body as then then I was wounded while defending Padmasambhava's life as I was wounded while defending Padmasambhava's life as now now I was shot while trying to save the islanders as I was shot while trying to save the islanders as then I then I lay dying on sunlit snow as now I lay dying in the stinking hold, a bandit sword buried in my heart pirate lead buried in my heart, and lay dying on sunlit snow as now I lay dying in the stinking hold, a bandit sword buried in my heart pirate lead buried in my heart, and then then at the moment of death at the moment of death Padmasambhava touched me and me and healed me and me and now I remember fleeing from the Chinese and I remember fleeing from the Chinese and then then I remember being given the holy I remember being given the holy ghanta ghanta for safekeeping and for safekeeping and then then I remember the blood gushing from my body and I remember the blood gushing from my body and now now I remember the promise I made to return it and I remember the promise I made to return it and then then I remember the healing touch of his hands and I remember the healing touch of his hands and now now I remember the healing touch of his mind and I remember the healing touch of his mind and now now I remember and I remember and I remember and I remember and time returns to normal.

I sat up, taking cautious deep breaths, grinning when nothing hurt. I wiped blood from my chest. The wound was gone. I performed a few experimental sit-ups and a bit of running on the spot. Blood routing normal. Bruising minimal. Adrenaline level minimal, Artron energy at optimal. All systems very definitely go.

'Just like riding a bike.' I realised I had spoken aloud when a hundred pairs of eyes turned to look at me with fear. And I knew what they had seen: a man on the point of death rising to life, brushing aside what for them would be a mortal injury as if it were no more than a bedsheet.

Well - it would be something for them to tell their grandchildren about.

I stood. I stretched. And then I beamed. With the healing meditation had come a fresh bloom of insight. The moai. moai. The islanders. The slavers. The The islanders. The slavers. The rongo-rongo. rongo-rongo. The reason for everything. The reason for everything.

I looked at the islanders. Some were cowering in fear, others were making aggressive noises and looking around for weapons, presumably to use on me. I poked my finger through the charred bullet hole in my shirt and wriggled it happily at the islanders.

'Nothing like a good myocardial infarction to hoover away the cobwebs. Now,' I added in Polynesian, while b.u.t.toning my shirt, wrapping my scarf around my neck and tapping my hat firmly into place, 'who wants to know a really good plan for getting out of here?'

No one wanted to know the plan. About ten of the men jumped on me at once, screaming invocations to their G.o.ds, denouncing me as the devil while trying to strangle me with my own scarf.

My belief in self-determination was only mildly shaken when - with perfect timing - a handful of armed Peruvians descended into the hold, kicked aside the islanders trying to kill me and dragged me up on deck to meet the Captain.

DaBraisse was a tall man, rake-thin and spare of movement. He was dressed, unlike the rest of his men, with some dignity. His clothes were of impeccable quality and his beard was neatly trimmed. His sun-darkened skin bore many scars, the price of the life he had chosen. His black eyes sparkled with cold intelligence. He stood at the port deck rail, one hand resting lightly upon it, the other at his breast, fingering the engraved barrel of a silver-plated pistol which rested in a harness there. His head made tiny, precise movements as he followed the sounds of fighting and distant gunfire rolling off the sh.o.r.e.

'Do you hear them screaming, man of the cloth?' When he spoke his voice was like a breath of wind curling gently from an iceberg. 'We have started this day upon a profitable venture.'

'I compliment you.' I made no effort to keep the irony from my voice.

'You are a perfect example of evolution in action.'

He did not turn from his view of the island, did not so much as clench his fist upon the deck rail. 'I thank you for your compliment, though I have no doubt you did not mean it as such. I pride myself on efficiency, man of the cloth. The most return for the least effort, that is my motto.'

'And you expect to make a profit from today's atrocities?'

'You have already heard me say that I do. A handsome profit.'

'You are a man of some intelligence. This island is small, isolated, defenceless. Surely you see if you continue on this course the population here will be decimated; it will never be the same again.'

DaBraisse turned at this, his eyes hungry for my words. I had only a slim hope he could be convinced. 'Your effort here will be wasted. Your government will release those you take as slaves - but by that time over nine hundred will be dead. The rest will die from smallpox after being returned to the island. You, DaBraisse, will be personally responsible for destroying an entire culture.'

'What kind of man of the cloth are you that you can see things to come with such certainty?' DaBraisse lifted his hand from the deck rail and ran one elegantly manicured fingernail along an old scar running beside his right eye. 'Tell me, man of the cloth, has your Church learnt to predict the future yet?'

'All religions make that claim.'

'You have a penchant for imprecision and avoidance.' He smiled. 'Word games. It seems the province of religion does not change no matter who the G.o.d in question.' He turned at the sound of many guns firing simultaneously. 'The religions of these savages also make many claims.

To the future, the past. Who is to say if they are right or wrong?'

'You hunt them with superior weaponry and superior force and yet you call them them savages?' savages?'

'There is no virtue in honour when death is the result. The only honour is in winning. That and profit. I am a man of intelligence, Doctor.

I can turn that which is valueless into that which is worth much.'

'As a man of cloth -' I touched my scarf for luck and hoped I would not have to be specific about which which cloth, exactly - 'I demand their release.' cloth, exactly - 'I demand their release.'

'I have not come all the way here to forgo my cargo.'

'I have money. Diamonds. I could buy them from you.'

DaBraisse turned, interested by the mention of his own G.o.d. 'You have diamonds, you say?'

At gunpoint I removed a leather bag from my pocket and offered it to DaBraisse, who took it, weighed it and tucked it into his purse.

'Well, man of the cloth. Now you don't have any diamonds any more, do you?'

I sighed. 'You don't understand. These are a peaceful people. They have no weapons.'

'Who then would be better to attack?'

'But they have nothing of value.'

'Their work is their value. They will make excellent slaves. So you see, I am after all able to convert valueless human life into precious stones. The medieval necromancers could have learnt from my skill, don't you think?

Turning lead into gold would be easy by comparison.'

'From the disposition of your men and the conditions of your prisoners I should have thought the Inquisition could have learnt from your skills.'

The Captain did not reply straight away. When he did his voice did not change inflection one iota. 'Indeed. Your sympathies reside with the Spanish. How unfortunate for you. As you are a man of the cloth - albeit of somewhat uncommon dress - and of obvious intelligence, I was prepared to be magnanimous towards you. Instead I find I must now treat you with the utmost contempt due to an enemy of my people.' He spoke over his shoulder to the men holding me. 'Empty his pockets and then take him back to the hold. Later he will perform for our amus.e.m.e.nt upon the plank.' My last sight of DaBraisse as I was taken below decks was of his head jerking back and forth to the sounds of fighting, as if he were keeping time to a beautiful piece of music.

21.

Rosetta Stone I do not know what happened to me. One moment I was quite clearly dying, carried through a night filled with screams and cannon fire to a miserable cave full of chanting islanders by the man whom I had betrayed; the next, the night had turned to day - a kind of dull, hazy, summer afternoon - and the pain from my wounds had severely diminished.

I remember drifting in and out of consciousness as I was carried across a place which made a nonsense of my experiences of travel in Europe. There seemed to be two suns. And many different moons. And a plethora of great cities which seemed to me to be larger and more beautiful than any I had ever visited.

But there was no sound. Not a sound anywhere save for the even breathing of the Doctor as he carried me, and his strange double heartbeat, which seemed to vibrate through my body and fill it with every pumping double thud. It was by listening to the hypnotic quality of this sound, and being rocked by the motion of his steps, that my senses were robbed by a deep and dream-troubled sleep.

When I awoke I found myself in a building. Stockwood was there. And Leela. And Royston. We were five. I learnt the world was dead and I overheard the many theories and conjectures put forward by the Doctor as he examined the various recordings held within the library, as he called this place.

I found the experience disturbing. I was reminded of a time in my youth when, delirious with fever, I had visited the tropical rainforest, spoken with fairies at the bottom of my garden, and flown naked across the surface of the moon. All were fantasies, the ramblings of a girl brought to the point of death by illness and later burnt from her by ridicule and practical motherly concern.

I had recovered of course, and put these ridiculous imaginings from my mind The world was far too unforgiving a place to indulge such fancies, particularly - as my mother insisted many times - when you were a girl in the bloom of her womanhood, with marriage to a good husband and a good station in life the possible sacrifice for ever listening to your dreams.

At the age of eighteen my efforts at dismissal were finally -and horrifyingly - vindicated when my elder brother Alexander failed to return from his expedition to the Pacific. He had been twenty-four. He had followed his dreams and they had led him to his death. I vowed never to repeat his folly, to waste the life G.o.d had given him. Dreams were for the sleeping world, not the waking.