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By Root 468 0

A month ago he had left his companions behind and trekked hundreds of miles out here, following rumours, searching for leads. Ahead of him, up through the trees, the warning light of the waystation was flashing lazily. As the Doctor reached the edge of the forest, he could see that the station had been built on a raised area of ground to improve telecommunications and transmat reception. The snow whipped around the corners of the dark building, reminding the Doctor for a moment of something that he couldn’t place. Judging by the architectural style of the half-ruined station, it had been built early in the colony’s history, during the pre-modernist revival of the mid-twenty-second century. Thick snow on the roof indicated that the building was heavily insulated. Now the Doctor could hear a jangling electronic drumbeat in the air, distant music from inside the station. Beneath that, the rumbling of a dozen conversations and someone’s laughter.

He was surprised how lonely the sound made him feel.

How far from home.

He stepped up onto the path, shaking the snow from his boots. A variety of battered snowships had been moored around the waystation, and there were a couple of twenty-year-old skimmers parked by the entrance. A skitrain track ran straight past the building and curved around, disappearing along the contour of the mountain. The Doctor walked a hundred yards down the cleared pathway.

Standing close to the entrance was an elegant transmat pagoda, showing signs of ruin but still in working order.

‘Who’s there?’ In his thick layers of clothing, the watchman stepping forward appeared misshapen, a hunchback with stubby claws for hands and blocks for feet.

Steam swirled from his facemask, but this was just his breath condensing in the freezing air. He held a gun, a homemade laser burster that had probably once been a cutting tool of some kind. It would only really be effective at short range, and must be very difficult to aim. The Doctor stepped closer, into the light.

‘I am the Doctor. I’ve come a long way.’

‘Who sent you?’ As the guard spoke, he waved a primitive energy scanner, searching for weapons. The Doctor didn’t need to look up, he wasn’t hiding anything.

‘No one sent me. What’s the matter? It looks as though you’ve seen a ghost.’

The guard stiffened. ‘In you go,’ he said hurriedly, indicating the doorway. The Doctor thanked him and walked inside into a tiny cubicle. At first he thought it was a lift, but there were no controls and the room was an irregular shape. There was a metal door ahead, but it didn’t open as the Doctor approached it.

Behind him, the door to the outside world slammed shut, closing him in. The Doctor nearly reached it in time.

He pressed his fingers against the hatch, but it was solid, at least an inch of armour-plating. The Doctor glanced up and saw the sensor on the ceiling that had registered his presence. Pressurized seals hissed into place and the whine of a heating system began warming up. It was just a snowlock, a system that ensured none of the bitterly cold air would be allowed inside.

There was a chime, and the inner door slid open. The Doctor stepped from the snowlock into oppressive warmth.

The room was long, narrow. There was a heater at either end and the great hall was full of people eating from steaming plates. There was a thick haze of smoke in the air.

The rich smells of food, beer and sweat were overwhelming after so long in the pine forest, and the room, although large, was almost claustrophobic, As the Doctor made his way to the bar a.couple of the patrons glanced up, but most weren’t paying him any attention. There were a couple of dozen here in this low-vaulted room, mostly local trappers, farmers and travellers, but also a few offworlders. The humans had shed a few layers of their brightly coloured clothing, but kept it close to them. A group of humans in full warpaint watched him suspiciously, There were aliens here, too. By the door a small group of Wandarks from the Wateh Galaxy were engrossed in conversation. A couple of Shark People sat towards