Doctor Who_ The Doomsday Weapon - Malcolm Hulke [15]
By the time the Lessons' bodies had been carried to the main dome, the first rays of their alien sun were shooting like fiery fingers into the eastern sky. All the colonists had come to the main dome, and now they all looked at Ashe and expected him to do something, to take another decision. When people died on Earth it was always in a hospital, and the hospital operatives sent the bodies to a crematorium. Ashe looked at the two bodies laid side by side on make-do stretchers in the main area of the big dome, each covered now in old sheets, and wondered what he ought to do. It was impossible to build a fire such as they had in the crematoria, because they could never find enough wood.
It was this stranger, the Doctor, who somehow saw into Ashe's troubled mind and came up to him and spoke very quietly 'You'll have to bury them.'
Now Ashe remembered reading an old audiobook about burying dead people, back in the time when Earth still had open land. 'Yes,' he said, 'we must dig holes.'
' Graves ,' said the Doctor, so quietly that no one else could hear.
'Yes,' said Ashe, 'graves.'
'I have already asked two of your men to start preparing them,' whispered the Doctor. 'You and I must be pall-bearers.'
Ashe didn't understand him at first. But the Doctor went to the end of one of the stretchers, and Ashe realised he was expected to go to the other end. Two of the other men present got the idea, and went to lift the other stretcher. The Doctor lifted, and Ashe lifted, and the sad little procession left the main dome. All the other colonists followed in silence.
As the Doctor led the way to where two other colonists with spades were waiting by freshly dug graves, he turned his head and spoke over his shoulder to Ashe. 'Tell your daughter to have tea or coffee or something ready for our return.'
Ashe was bewildered. 'Why?'
'I'll explain afterwards,' said the Doctor.
Ashe called his daughter over to him as he walked carrying the stretcher, and gave her the order. She, at least, never questioned him. From the corner of his eye he saw her hurrying back to the main dome.
At last they were beside the holes, which the Doctor called graves. Here Ashe was glad to let the Doctor take over. The Doctor had ropes ready, so that the two bodies could be lowered gently down into their respective graves.
'Thanks,' said Ashe, glad that someone knew what to do.
'Now we have a service,' said the Doctor. 'What religion were they?'
'Religion?' said Ashe, not understanding.
'You must stand here and say some nice things about them both,' said the Doctor, still in no more than a whisper. 'You must say that they did not die for nothing.'
'Why?' asked Ashe.
'Because,' said the Doctor, 'all these people standing here expect it. They don't know that they expect it, because they've never met death before, not on your computerised, sanitised Earth.'
Ashe looked at the colonists. They were all standing there, eyes to the ground. waiting for something. 'All right,' he told the Doctor. 'I'll try.' He cleared his throat. He was used to speaking to the whole group, but never before like this. 'We shall miss Jane and Eric Leeson. Jane was always kind, and kept her head when the spaceship nearly blew up. Eric was a hard worker, and never afraid of anything. Some of you may think that they died for nothing. But they didn't, not really... they died trying to make a better life, not only for themselves, but for all of us. We shall not forget them.' He stopped and looked at the Doctor for approval. The Doctor nodded, picked up some of the dug out soil in his hand and dropped it into first one grave then the other. Then the Doctor walked off quietly towards the main dome. Almost involuntarily Ashe did