Doctor Who_ Empire of Death - BBC Worldwide [82]
`Beautiful here, isn't it? Like being inside a dream.' A man was standing in the shadows, admiring his surroundings. 'If this is a dream, you never want to wake from it. You want it to go on forever.'
Ì often dream about you,' Nyssa said.
Ì know,' her father replied, sadness in his gentle voice. 'It's a strange thing, being dead. Not at all what I expected. I thought it would be like falling asleep, just drifting into an eternal rest. Being at peace, no troubles, no fears - like an endless embrace.' Tremas stepped out of the shadows, his greying hair swept back from his face, the features just as Nyssa remembered them before the Doctor came to Traken.
Ànd what is it like being dead?' she asked.
`That you will have to find out for yourself. You are still very much alive, my daughter. But you can choose to stay here, if you wish - with me.'
Nyssa stood and began to wander idly between the stone columns and lush tendrils of the grove, her hands roaming over the familiar plants and structures. She wanted to run to Tremas, to hug her father and never let him go, but something was holding her back. The Doctor's final warning was still occupying her thoughts. How could she trust her own senses in this place? 'This could al just be an illusion,' she said eventually, 'a near-death hallucination brought on by my brain being starved of oxygen. Last thing I can recall, I was drowning at the bottom of a murky river. Now I am alive and well, my clothes are dry and I'm back in the grove at home.
Some, if not all, of that is quite impossible.'
`You never used to be this narrow-minded,' Tremas said, disappointment plain in his tone. 'What has happened to you, my child? I taught you to be a good scientist with an enquiring mind, dismissing nothing until you knew more about it. You have been awake just a few minutes and already you are denying the reality that surrounds you. Just because you cannot explain this place does not make it any less real.'
`But how can I believe?'
`We cannot give you faith, you must find belief within yourself.'
Nyssa shook her head sadly. 'I want to believe you live on in this place. I want to believe all this is real but... Yes, I should have an open mind to any possibility. But faith without proof is a very difficult enigma for a good scientist to accept.'
Ì know' Tremas smiled as he approached his daughter. 'I had the same questions when I first arrived here. But someone helped me to believe.'
'Who?'
`Someone who has been longing to meet you.' He reached out his arms and Nyssa accepted the embrace, still uncertain of her feelings. But the sensation of being held once again in her father's arms was so familiar, so welcome... This was what she had needed, Nyssa realised. To feel she belonged, that she was loved. It was what everybody needed, she supposed. It would be so easy to give in to this, to surrender herself. Tremas sighed. 'I told her you might be coming here. She suggested I meet you, help you adjust 10 this new world. Only when I thought you were ready would she make herself known. This person has waited a lifetime to know you.'
Nyssa looked up at her father's face. 'What's her name?'
`Lucina,' a voice replied from behind them. Tremas stepped away from his daughter so she could see who was speaking. A woman walked into the grove, dressed in a long flowing gown of crimson and gold. Her face was friendly, with high cheekbones and wide eyes framed by a mass of brown curly hair. For Nyssa it was like looking at an older, more serene reflection of herself. 'Welcome to the Other Side, my daughter.'
For the first few days at Corra Linn it was birdsong that had woken Vollmer each morning. But now the sun rose to a chilling silence, just the sound of distant water audible from the river below. The sergeant