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By Root 733 0

travel with him. Perhaps he had chosen one that did not argue; one that was prepared to hang on his every word and treat him like the shaman-chieftain he pretended to be. Someone like that girl student he had taken such a liking to, that one called Chloe, she was the sort of travelling companion he would rather have. Breathe deep and slow, examine what you know. Nonsense. It was nonsense. The Doctor would not do that to her or to anyone else. The Doctor would say what he felt about things, and he would tell you what he intended to do about them. He was a Time Lord and, although Leela was not sure what a Time Lord was, she knew it was nothing to do with the Tesh.

The darkness was spreading out beyond the edges of her vision again.

This time it was flowing across the ground like a flat shadow cast by something huge and close, and it was moving towards the hollow where the TARDIS should be standing. Involuntarily she glanced up at the sky. It was unchanged. Nothing was casting this shadow. It was the shadow of nothing. But that was madness: nothing could be the shadow of nothing.

Instinct whispered to Leela that if she let this black nothing touch any part of her it would take her into itself and she would be lost and alone for ever.

She would be lost, alone and afraid for ever.

She shivered. She remembered the invisible killers the Tesh let loose on her people. Fear muttered strange words in her mind. 'Listen to me! Listen to me you little bitch!' The words were jumbled and overlapping like distant, fading echoes. 'You will listen to me and do as I tell you! You will do as I tell you, you little bitch!' The words seemed to collide and buffet one another.

'Die. Listen to me! Die for ever in my darkness. Listen to me you little bitch!

Die for ever in my darkness, bitch.' They made no sense as they ran together. 'Die. Die in darkness, bitch! You will listen to me and do as I tell you! You will do as I tell you, you little bitch!' And they came and went, louder and softer, further away and closer to her, but never really there with her. 'You think so?' It was a whisper, followed by cackles and hoots of mad laughter which seemed to come from all around, and yet not all around, her. 'You can't run from me, you stupid bitch!

Leela gripped her knife tighter and did her best to shake off what she could only understand as the memory of fear. What she was hearing was nothing to do with her she told herself. She felt the fear and the mad words whirling in her mind but somehow they were not hers. She recognised the hate and the anger and the fear for what they were, because she herself had felt all of these things at one time or another. But she had never felt them all at once, and she had never felt them like this. These feelings belonged to someone else. She was Leela of the Sevateem. She repeated it like a mantra. She was Leela of the Sevateem. It was more important to her than any of the rules she had been made to learn by the warrior-trainers. She was Leela of the Sevateem. She was a warrior and she had been trained to recognise and overcome the weaknesses and stupidities that crippled men and women. Fear, hate and anger were the most crippling stupidities of all.

They were instincts that served no useful purpose. They were for short-lived fools. Bright and stupid die the same way: but not the same day. Fear, hate, anger: no warrior who gave in to them could survive for long. The chance of death is never remote, the chance of survival always is.

The half-heard words and pale feelings flickered and gibbered on and suddenly there were images too. Pictures that were almost transparent but not quite, visions that were almost imaginary but not quite. A striding, leaping man-creature was charging towards her. He had long legs and moved with speed and agility. He was not armed but he cackled and raged as he came. He obviously intended to terrify his victim, but Leela judged that the long thin legs were vulnerable. His face was a twisted, sneering distortion of something that might once have been human. If there was such