Doctor Who_ Longest Day - Michael Collier [24]
There wasn't much else to see. A muddy trickle of water snaked its way from his wet feet beneath him through a furrow in the plain and into the base of a sheer cliff side towering in the distance. A few mountain birds wheeled around in the warm dirty air. Tanhith imagined them flying too near that fat sun one day and igniting, bursting into huge orange flames, falling like blazing arrows to the ground.
Dying in flames.
He was more sure every day that he would die here himself. Ever since the forced landing, the memories had been recreating the event so vividly and so often it was like living through the last few minutes of a scared and desperate life. Enough was enough, and perhaps the burning birds would be the key. He wanted to be in their path - to die that way -when it happened. When it was time.
Just then, a movement caught his eye.
Something arose from behind one of the giant boulders nearby, hauling itself up into view. Tanhith rubbed his eyes, and took a few steps back, the splashes of his footsteps in the water drowning out what the creature seemed to be saying.
' Oiwadeaminnit.'
Tanhith cocked his head to one side, his eyelashes fluttering against his cheeks as he blinked in consternation, a look of astonishment on his face.
The thing - the figure - was holding out its arms. Its voice was high-pitched and cracked, but clearer this time. It sounded desperate.
'Can you direct me back to the moon please?'
The figure crumpled to the hard sandy floor. Tanhith frowned.
He looked up once more at the circling birds, then moved cautiously towards the fallen figure.
***
'Hopeless. There's not enough power.' The Doctor slumped back on to the console and looked at Vasid. While his voice was calm, his eyes betrayed his anger and frustration. 'Tell me about Hirath.'
'What about it?'
He gestured around them. 'What is all this for? What do you keep down there, and why? What's Sam up against?'
'Depends where she is,' said Vasid, shrugging.'Some use it as a storehouse. Some to tuck away their undesirables. TCC has got clients all around the local systems. Beyond that for all I know.'
'It's a shame you don't know more,' sighed the Doctor.
'You could do with talking to Vost. They recruited him quite early on. They took a lot of the initial workers from the Thannos sector. Strong central government. Order. Vost did a lot of the survey assessments, checking which bits were stable enough to support life and which could only be used as a dumping ground.'
'Plenty of takers for that, I suppose. Why drop on your own doorstep what you can drop on someone else's without protest?' reasoned the Doctor.
'And are many of the areas amicable to life?'
'No. But the transmission terminals the other end were only constructed in those areas in case we needed to check up on them on the owner's behalf: The Doctor baulked visibly at the term 'owner', but seemed relieved nevertheless. 'So this Vost, your boss, did you know him well?'
'No. He just ran things. He was all right, I suppose, for a repatriot.'
'I'm sorry?'
'Word is he started life on Venel.' The Doctor looked blank, and Vasid began to feel a little more like his old self at the revelation that the Doctor wasn't as clued up on local knowledge.'You know, one of those arsey little Outer Worlds the government took back a few decades ago.'
'Was it theirs to reclaim?' wondered the Doctor, innocently.
'Of course it was ours. Everything in Thannos is rightfully ours. Anyway,'
Vasid continued, 'Vost wasn't so bad for one of them.'
'Ironic, isn't it",' said the Doctor, smiling sadly,'how much you miss the normality you've spent your life railing against when it's torn away from you? Things aren't so easy, are they?'
'Like I say' muttered Vasid,'he was