The headman turned to them and spoke in perfect English; "You see, we are no fools, contrary to what your fellow Earthmen seem to believe. Now, as much as I abhor your barbarous ways, I am obliged to make a threat. Will you aid us, or shall we burn you, like the savages you would have us believe we are?"

 "Burn them."

 It was said so casually that Carr felt his jaw drop. Adrian and Chernev's did the same. All three turned to stare at the Doctor, who had spoken. The torch flames surrounding them cast the Doctor in an unholy light, his features partially illuminated like a skull.

 "I will gladly aid your people," the Doctor continued, dismissing the daggers being stared at him. "But these Earthmen, I'm afraid, are incorrigible. Unchangeable. Nothing to be done for them."

 "You would betray your own and expect us to trust you?" the headman asked incredulously. "You must truly think us barbarians."

 "I must," the Doctor replied coolly, "if you summarily execute people with no proof. You claim to be a cultured people, but are readily willing to kill innocents?"

 "What would you have me do?" the headman cried, spreading his arms. "My people have lost their wills to chemical lies. Only I realize what has happened to us. Earthmen came and stole our identity, replacing it with hatred of all others. It matters not if these people are the culprits, my people cry for blood. Nothing but revenge will suffice. I wish it were otherwise, anything but the state my people have descended to."

 "Then let us help you," the Doctor said urgently. "We can drive the others away."

 "No, no, no," the headman said angrily. "My people will not trust you or your fellows to keep your word. Your chemicals have altered their minds so they hate all humans but their gods."

 "But I'm not human," the Doctor protested. "I'm nothing like them. Surely you can tell that."

 He appeared indecisive now, no longer sure of the Doctor's standing. "Perhaps," he admitted, "you are...different. The others still carry an air of sanity."

 "What!" The Doctor gave a strangled cry. "Are you insinuating my mental health is -- "

 He paused, reconsidered, and changed tack. "I can help your people. I can convince the humans to leave and let your people be. If your people will trust me, my three friends will remain here as a sign of your good faith."

 "*Your* good faith?!" Chernev shrieked. "He's sold us out, Aster!"

 Adrian moaned quietly, slumping against his pole.

 "Doctor," Carr said coldly, "you had better be joking."

 "I mean every word of it," the Doctor said irritably. "Your people have no right here. The least you can do is co-operate and be good little hostages. No," he amended, "it would seem that's the most you can do right now."

 "You presume much," the headman rumbled grudgingly. "But very well, the three from the ship will remain here, unharmed for the moment. You may go. But be warned, at most you will have two days before my people wait no longer. After then, the lives of your friends are forfeit."

 "All well and good," the Doctor agreed. "Now, if you would be so kind..." He twisted around to bring his bound hands into sight and waggled them. "I'll be on my way."

 The headman motioned and a warrior clambered up onto the woodpile and cut the ropes holding the Doctor. Three more did the same for the crew members, but left their hands bound.

 As they were led down the mound and into the darkness towards the tree cage, Chernev spat at the Doctor's feet. "Traitor," she snarled. "What kind of human sells out his own kind?"

 Standing very still, the Doctor said quietly and clearly to Chernev's back, "Do not call me human again."

 The undertones of his voice struck chords of dread in Carr.

 With a cry of anguish, the Doctor dropped to his knees. Carefully and gently, he cradled his beloved coat in his arms. Normally a beautiful work of art, this garment worthy of the title "masterpiece" lay disgraced by vandals.

 The back was covered by an intricate, spoked wheel of deep blue pigment. Each sleeve had been smeared with long stripes of alternating red and yellow. Making a putrid shade of green, yellow and blue had been liberally spattered up and down the lapels, even ruining the little cat badge the Doctor kept for luck. Little red and blue figures danced across the interior lining.

 "Call yourself civilized?" he snapped to the headman, whose name he had learned to be Lin-Kai. "You've defiled one of the greatest pieces of clothing ever worn! That's what you've done!"

 Lin-Kai shrugged indifferently. "Your clothes are of little interest to me. In their fear, the people saw it as a robe of power. They believe they nullified its magic with these symbols of warding."

 "Oh my dear," the Doctor murmured protectively, "pay no attention. We'll get you clean soon as possible. Have no fear." Sighing deeply, he stood up and gingerly pulled the coat on, wincing as he heard the dried paint crackle and pop. He paused a moment and picked off the worst of the coloring encrusted on the cat badge.

 "Now," he said briskly, tearing his attention away from his much abused coat, "why exactly do you need me?"

 "Send away the Earthmen who mine our lands," Lin-Kai answered immediately. "Find the cure for that with which they have tainted our waters. And then leave yourself. We have had enough of other peoples. They bring little else but death. I care little for how you accomplish it, but do it quickly. The people you must find are somewhere in the northern hills, less than half a day's walk from here."

 "A tall order," the Doctor said musingly. "But nevertheless, I can deliver!"

 With that, he strode from the central structure of the village. The people outside dashed out of his path in fear as he marched out of the circle of torches that defined the perimeter of the village.

 In the flickering half-light, and with the arcane symbols scribbled across his flowing coat, the Doctor looked more the demonic sorcerer than ever.

 And he vanished like a witch's familiar. The thick, oppressive night swallowed him up like a cat would hide in its depths.

 "Yeah," Carr replied bitterly. "That's what he claims and I think he means it."

 "I knew it," Chernev said darkly from her seat on the rounded floor of the gloomy cage. "There's no such thing as brotherhood amongst species. It's every slob for themselves."

 "But he said he'd be back," Adrian said worriedly.

 Adrian was a junior officer, a year in the corps and most of that spent on a base in peace time. He'd been chosen for this test run only for his navigational genius.

 The parapsychology conditioning at the academy (Carr still thought of it as brain washing) had been particularly effective on Adrian. All known systems within six months' estimated warp travel of Earth was recorded in his memory. Adrian had total recall about any fact pertaining to them. The only drawback being that the conditioning had left Adrian a little stunted in terms of maturity. Chronologically twenty-five years old, he sometimes acted and thought like a pre-pubescent teenager. Carr wondered just what the hell he'd been doing on a scouting team.

 "I wouldn't worry," Carr said airily. He knew Adrian desperately needed to be reassured and so was making a show of not being worried. Besides, he needed a little reassurance as well.

 "If he doesn't make it back in time, I have a plan," he continued confidently.

 Carr was encouraged to see Adrian visibly brighten with the news. *It isn't a complete lie,* he told himself. *I do have a plan. Sort of.*

 "Right," Chernev muttered. "Sure. We're gonna just sit there and wait for your alien friend? The only way out is the one we make for ourselves."

 "Sergeant," Carr reprimanded her sharply. "I am still your commanding officer and until I order otherwise, you will not attempt action of any sort against the natives. This situation is bad enough. The first contact simulations on Earth simply weren't sufficiently detailed for us to prepare from them. No one really expected to encounter intelligent life on the first run out of the solar system. This is our one and only chance to make any sort of good impression at all. I will not let you blow that chance to hell. Do you understand me?"

 "Sir," Chernev said sullenly, staring at the floor.

 "I said, 'DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME, SERGEANT!'" Carrington thundered.

 "Sir, yes, sir!" Chernev jumped to her feet and saluted.

 "Good. I'm glad we're communicating properly." He turned away to watch the scene below the cage.

 In doing so, he utterly failed to see Chernev's rebellious glare stab metaphorical daggers in his back.

 He shifted uneasily. One can stay in one place only so long before boredom sets in. Still, he resolved, he had been set to guard the structure and he would do so as his code demanded.

 Mere meters away from the clearing and the TARDIS, the Doctor was crouching in the sodden undergrowth. His coat was clean of the natives' wards now, but instead wringing wet, as were the rest of his clothes. Tramping through the steamy jungle all night had done anything for his disposition, either.

 He silently turned away from the clearing and started northwards again.

 "I only wanted to check on the TARDIS," he muttered. "I wasn't going to leave. I wasn't."

 Somehow, repeating the sentiment didn't make it true.

 As he moved ever northwards, the Doctor's mind strayed to his past.

 He was a nomad by nature, unable to settle down. Any roots he made, any friendships, quickly shriveled and died when the time came to move on. Even his travelling companions came to the same end. Sooner or later they all left him for want of a home, love, or a thousand other reasons. And although he would never have admitted to such weakness, every farewell left another gap in the Doctor's soul.

 He buried away such feelings of loss and guilt long ago, hidden them deep. But they built up, overflowed occasionally. And he broke lose in grief and rage. For instance, in the dying pangs of his last regeneration he had almost strangled Peri -- his then companion.

 That renewal had been an excruciating one. The Doctor hadn't been expecting to survive the toxaemia. The best he had hoped for was a partial regeneration, then his half-formed new body succumbing to the poison.

 But to pulled back from death like the lowest point bungee jump...it is, to say the least, jolting. This entire incarnation had been like that. Highs and lows. He'd lost the happy medium he once possessed to fall prey to bouts of extreme depression and giddiness. And in his experience, such a drastic persona invited disaster.

 Which is exactly what had happened. Disaster and tragedy followed him about like faithful dogs.

 Grant Markham, brutally yanked from his foster home of New Tokyo by ruthless television executives, had left the TARDIS embittered and distrustful.

 Angela, a girl who would have lived so much longer if not for him, had died on a derelict spacecraft, alone and afraid.

 And Peri, she had been killed as well. If not for him -- no, it was the Time Lords' fault. If they hadn't taken him away then, she would still be alive. There was nothing he could have done, he had been taken out of time.

 Ah yes, his trial. Dragged out of time to appear before Time Lord court, he'd been put on the spot for interference in others' affairs, a familiar charge. Only this time, when the Time Lords had snatched him up, they had taken him away at a critical moment.

 Part of the prosecution's case included the incident on Thoros Beta, where the Doctor had become entangled in a plot of the Mentors to fund brain transference. Trapped under Crozier's equipment, his brain had been addled. At least, that's what he thought happened. He couldn't remember clearly.

 Just as things were building to a climax, he'd been scooped away.

 And his companion Peri left to the experiments of Crozier. According to Matrix records, she died at the hands of Yrcanos, unknowing assassin of the Time Lords, when all evolution was threatened by Crozier's mind transference procedure.

 Oh, yes, the Master had said Peri survived the attack, but this was the *Master*, for heaven's sake! She had already died when Kiv took her body, there was no way she could possibly have survived...

 "It wasn't my fault," the Doctor protested aloud. "It wasn't!"

 But the words didn't ring true.

 Deep down inside himself, the Doctor knew he could have resisted the call. He had done so on prior occasions, forcing the Time Lords to physically recall his TARDIS. But this time he had submitted to the mental call without a fight. Stepped into the TARDIS without struggling, knowing precisely what he was doing, subconsciously. When he was needed most by his companion, he had given in.

 He'd run away.

 Left Peri to die.

 Run away like a coward.

 "No," he whispered, then raised his voice:

 "I didn't! I didn't run away!"

 The words died away, flat and dulled in the dense foliage.

 "I didn't."

 But saying something doesn't make it true.

 Jensen glanced nervously from the communicator to Klein, who was hunched over the fire. He was half-heartedly trying to nurse the soaked kindling into flame, but they remained obstinately unlit.

 "It's no good," Klein gloomily pronounced. "We're dead. The ship's gone. Chernev and Adrian are gone. Carrington's gods-know-where and we're trapped on a rainforest the size of Mars."

 "Will you shut up?" Jensen snapped anxiously. "We don't know anyone's dead. There may just be some sort of interference due to the minerals or a meteorological phenomenon. We just don't know. Until Commander Aster or Sergeant Chernev returns, we stay put."

 "Sure, why not?" Klein affected another great sigh of depression. "One clearing's good as another when the buzzards come. Do you think this planet even *has* buzzards? Be just our luck to land on the one planet where the local scavengers are ten foot tall, slavering mushrooms, wouldn't it?"

 "Klein, if you don't shut up *now*, I'm going to do something I guarantee I will not regret."

 "Be doing me a favor, you know that? Go ahead, I'm game."

 Turning away to face the jungle, Jensen made a visible effort to keep his cool. At the best of times, Alfred Klein did his damnedest to make sure everyone felt as miserable as he did. And now had to be the worst opportunity for the geologist to spread his unique brand of sadistic misery. Which only drove on him to discover deeper pits of depression to share with the world.

 Quietly, Bertram Jensen cursed whatever moronic bureaucrat who had decided the risk of driving the entire crew beyond insanity was worth the addition of one petty, morbid, little geologist who just happened to be the most brilliant mind in his field.

 "You know, Bertram," Klein said thoughtfully, "I bet the natives eat their victims. Alive, too."

 In the case of the Galaxion's remaining crew, they never had time.

 Locked on a course, the private security ship coasted away silently from the pulverized debris. Pieces of space flotsam ricocheted off the side of the vessel, but didn't leave a dent. The Spinward logo was only mildly charred from the explosions.

 "You hear that, Joseph?"

 "Hear what?"

 "Someone's out there, shouting."

 "Oh, cruk. You think some other corporation's got out here?"

 "Relax. Spinward's the only company with warp technology. Where do you think the world government got the parts for their test ships?"

 Joseph chuckled. "Yeah, you're right. Still, if one of the prototype ships did make it out here..."

 "Right." Garth grabbed a plasma rifle and tossed another to Joseph. "Come on. You go that way." Garth motioned off to the right of where the shouts had come from. "I'll take the left."

 Nodding in agreement, Joseph crept through the underbrush. He could barely see Garth twenty yards opposite him, so efficient was the chameleonic chemical impregnated in their fatigues.

 He came upon a small gully running lengthwise across his path. At the bottom he could see a human figure.

 *Scout from a rival company,* Joseph decided. If the intruder had been with Exploration Special Service, he'd have been wearing the standard survival kit, not that wild outfit.

 *Freelance, most likely,* Joseph thought. *Probably working for Butler. Maybe even IMC.*

 Moments after Joseph was in position, Garth came into half-view further down the gully, obscured by ferns and his own camouflage. There wasn't a chance the intruder would notice the hunters on either side of him: he was kneeling on the ground, head bowed.

 Raising his rifle, Joseph powered up the charge cell and braced the rifle against his shoulder pad to absorb the recoil. Further down the gully, Garth mirrored Joseph's actions.

 Oblivious to his fate, the frizzy-haired man remained still as the killers took aim...

 To be continued...