Doctor Who_ Full Circle - Andrew Smith [46]
Login spoke. 'Nefred's dying words - that's why we can't return to Terradon.'
The Doctor waved an arm towards the Marshmen. 'These, gentlemen, are your ancestors - almost come full circle. Look.'
As they watched, the Marshman who had been toying with the wheel lock slowly turned it, and the hatchway swung open.
Thick fog rolled in from the outside, and the Marshmen revelled in its caress. Quickly, they swarmed out of the ship.
'Romana,' said the Doctor. 'The other hatchways.'
'Right away, Doctor.' She hurried off to the nearest of the other hatchways.
'Nefred... he knew,' Login breathed, stunned by the realisation. 'He must have learned from the System Files.'
'I remember,' said Garif, 'when I talked to him after he returned from the bio-data storage chamber. He seemed burdened. I took it for a passing malaise.'
'He was a good man,' said the Doctor. 'But, like most of you, a slave to the procedures.'
At the second escape hatchway, Romana picked her way among a group of wilting Marshmen and reached out for the wheel lock. She hesitated with hands outstretched, staring at the wheel lock with a peculiar feeling that... a vague, stirring memory... she dismissed the notion and turned the wheel. The Marshmen hurried out as the hatchway swung open. Immediately, Romana moved along to the next hatchway.
Back at the first hatchway, Garif watched the departing Marshmen with a growing feeling of revulsion. 'Our ancestors... it's horrible.'
'Oh, I don't think so,' said the Doctor casually. 'We're all of us basically primeval slime with ideas above its station.'
'How can you compare us with those...' he fell abruptly silent as a Marshman moved between them, staggering towards the hatchway. 'With those things?'
'Yes, I do see what you mean,' said the Doctor. 'They're adaptive, inquisitive, intelligent, and you people are just stuck in a rut. Still, it's your choice.'
Garif chose to ignore this rebuke. Looking round, he discovered that the last of the Marshmen seemed to have gone. 'Login, shut the hatchway.'
Login moved forward and spun the wheel lock. The hatch closed over.
The stench of the Marshmen hung clammily on the air despite the fact that they had by now all departed.
Garif watched the hatchway close with some satisfaction. 'They've gone.'
Login turned. 'But how long for?'
'What?'
'They've learned to get out...' said Login.
'Quite,' said Garif, and then the idea that had struck Login occurred to him. 'But... will they learn to come in?'
The Marshmen lined the banks of the marshlands, an army of them, numbering in their hundreds, joined in mental empathy.
The non-people of the metal city had won this battle, but there would be others, and the people of the marshlands, the real people of Alzarius, would be triumphant and crush the arrogant ones for ever.
The Marshmen opened their mouths and released a wailing sound that reverberated around the forestlands.
The Marshleader allowed himself to break away from the empathy, and he turned his head in the direction of the starliner, recalling the mindshare with the off-world female. Her mind had understood their cause. The people of the marsh were not evil. They were not monsters, in the pursuit of destruction for its own sake.
The people of the marsh were frightened. They were aware of the threat posed by the non-people. Like, but unlike. Unchecked, one day to spread across Alzarius and smother the planet with their foul off-world technology.
On Alzarius, all should be nature. This was the philosophy of the people of the marsh. They existed to serve and to protect nature on this planet. They were the guardians of Alzarius, their lives dedicated to maintaining its purity from off-world corruption.
The non-people, they who had once been guardians themselves, had discarded this philosophy and had allowed the corruption of off-world to infect them.
One day they would remove their corruption.
The marshleader rejoined the mindshare with his fellows, and put the question to them: why does the maintaining of beauty always have to require the taking of lives? It