Doctor Who_ The Paradise of Death - Barry Letts [80]
There was no sound, bar the heedless cries of small children, until late that night, when the flames of the fitneral pyre of aromatic woods had consumed the body. As if someone had given a signal – perhaps Kaido had done just that, Onya thought – the crowd broke up. Everybody started chattering, laughing, running into their huts and appearing with dishes of food or jugs of sap wine, and dancing to the piping of their wooden flutes. The feast went on until dawn was breaking.
Onya had no idea for several days that she had taken Darshee’s place. In an empty world, she carried on with her usual life, working in the fields, meditating as he had taught her, visiting the many friends she had made; until one afternoon as she sat outside her hut, she saw approaching a small bunch of men and women. At their head was Kaido, and in his arms he carried the small limp body of a little child.
She rose and went to meet them. As she neared the group she saw that the child was Kaido’s youngest son, whose mother had died in the bearing of him.
He laid his sad burden at her feet and looked up at her expectantly. ‘He is dying,’ he said.
Ever afterwards, it didn’t seem to Onya that it was her doing that the boy was healed. Placing her hands on either side of the small head, as she had seen Darshee do so many times, she closed her eyes and let everything go from her mind (even the wish to help), feeling the life flowing through her, until the boy stirred under her fingers.
It was Kaido who first called her Mamonya, as he hugged his baby son to him.
No longer was Onya’s world empty; she was at one with the people of Kimonya, just as before she had been at one with her master.
‘Shall you be without me?’
‘When the time comes... you will be ready.’
The feast would not be taking place for several hours – it takes time to barbecue a whole deer – so the visitors were given a bite to be going on with and shown to their quarters. (‘Super,’ said Jeremy. ‘All those little huts. Like Toytown.’)
After a bit of a collapse on the pile of skins in the corner, Sarah woke herself up with an ecstatic swim in the river. The question of a bathing costume just didn’t seem relevant; none of the Kimonyans who called to her to join them had bothered; and the clear cold water was so stimulating that when she put on the dress that Onya had provided for her, the touch of the soft leather on her skin made her feel ‘all sliggly-hoo’. as Greckle had said.
But the memory of the party brought thoughts of Waldo back with a rush. All the time she’d been swanning around as if she were on a package tour to the Costa del Chippo, Waldo was banged up on death row.
Feeling bitterly ashamed, she went in search of Onya.
She found her showing the Doctor and the Brigadier round the camp, with Jeremy, fed-up, trailing along behind. She caught them up as they reached the electronics section of the main hut.
‘But Mr Rance, aren’t these stunguns?’ the Doctor was saying. as he surveyed the work area, now empty of technicians.
‘If we’re going to overturn Freeth and his gang, we’ve got to have weapons,’ Rance answered. ‘We’ve a certain number of old fashioned firearms, but we’ve also
“acquired”, you might say, quite a few of the Entertainment Division’s security weapons.’
‘But I won’t let them even consider using them,’ said Onya.
Sarah hung around on the edge of the group, wondering how she could interrupt. A bit like being a child trying to get a word in with a bunch of chattering grownups, she thought.
‘They sound rather effective to me,’ said the Brigadier, and Sarah noticed that Haban Rance gave an approving nod.
‘A barbarous weapon,’ said Onya. ‘Total permanent paralysis? A nasty lingering death? How can the new Parakon be based on such a thing? We’d be no better than those we tight.’
The Doctor had been examining the scattered pieces of one of the guns, which was being re-assembled. ‘So you’re converting them into simple old-fashioned stunguns?’
‘Which