in which Sarah nearly feels crushed before embarking upon an investigation with the Doctor; we play witness to acts of kindness and acts of cruelty; and a move is made from a mood of madness and melancholy to one of misery and mystery.
** by Gregg Smith **

 'Some things are just too unjust for words.' - Ralph Ellison, 'Invisible Man.'

 At the top of the tower, in the windowless room, things crawl. They crawl in the bare grey stone of the floor and the walls, dance around the drab drapings over the door, circle the chamber's only living occupant, and fill the air with cruel pleasure. Things crawl, and whisper, in this windowless room, this eyrie of chains, this cold keep with coldness at its heart, the only building left on the moon of the fourth planet. But they fall still, and silent, at the sound of a heavy bolt being drawn back, as the door swings open and the drapes are dragged out, as a youthful figure, a man in cream and crimson, walks in.

 The candlelight shines his clothes, his face, his blonde hair. His footfalls seem to wash the floor clean. An ivory fetish, fulgent in this dark womb.

 The lone prisoner, nestling at the chamber's centre, drifts from his meditation and raises his face to the newcomer.

 "So good of you to come," he says with a thin smile.

 "Not at all," the Doctor nods in return.

 "You've changed. I - I recognise you, but that's a different face you've got on. They're right, aren't they? No, no they can't be. We knew you weren't human, we knew, this must just be something you do. How long has it been for you?"

 "Not very long. How are you?"

 "How am I?" He chuckles, a sound like the sea on shale, then starts coughing. As his aged, weak frame topples forward the Doctor dives to support him. The prisoner pauses to catch his breath and the Doctor helps him sit up again. "As you can see, I am not in full health."

 "I'm - I'm sorry."

 "Yes, I'm sure you are."

 "I just wanted to see how you were doing. I should go."

 "They think I'm mad, you know. Mad old me, eh?"

 "But when I left, things - I don't understand."

 "Nothing is understood. But some things are felt. If you understand a story, it's just that it's been told badly. That's from Earth, you know, a famous writer once wrote that. In a play. A good play. Well, I like it." A pause. "But I can tell from your eyes what you're thinking, and you're probably right - I'm just showing off, like those wankers who stick quotes at the start of stories to make themselves look more intelligent or funnier." Another pause.

 "What happened?"

 "What happened? 'What happened,' he asks. What happened, what happened, what happened. Heh, heh, heh. I'll tell you what happened, sweetheart. You came here, that's what happened. Everything was fine until you came here. Profitable, comfortable. But you just couldn't keep your nose out, could you?"

 "Good morning, and how are we today?"

 IN EXCELLENT CONDITION, DOCTOR SANGSTOM, SIR.

 "Anything new I should know about?"

 THE BOARD HAS DECIDED TO EXTEND THE SUMMER SEASON BY THREE WEEKS NEXT YEAR.

 "Why?"

 TURNOVER IS DOWN THREE PERCENT, AND THEY HAVE HAD TO LIQUIDATE THIRTY-SIX ASSETS. THE PRESS REACTED RATHER UNFAVOURABLY, AND CENTRAL SENT A FORMAL WARNING AND A COPY OF KARROLL'S 'THE SANCTITY OF LIFE.' IN ORDER TO AVOID SIMILAR BAD PUBLICITY AND DATA-USE NEXT YEAR, IT WAS DECIDED THAT AN EXTENSION TO THE SEASON AND THE PREDICTED INCREASE IN REVENUE FROM THAT WOULD BE THE BEST COURSE OF ACTION. SIR.

 "Silly bloody fools. Why they can't just fire our 'assets' instead of killing them I don't know."

 TECHNOLOGY, SIR, AS WELL YOU KNOW. IF OUR INNOVATIONS WERE TO FALL INTO THE HANDS OF OUR COMPETITORS, WHO KNOWS HOW OUR PROFIT SHARE WOULD BE AFFECTED?

 "Well, I suppose so. But don't you sometimes think we worry about profits a little too much?"

 CERTAINLY NOT, SIR.

 "Now, ORG, how on Earth did I know you were going to say that?"

 The Doctor was balanced, carefully, against the high ceiling, when Sarah found him. She craned her neck up, and shouted out to him.

 "Doctor, what are you doing?"

 "Shh!" He wavered a little, before straightening out his position. "I've nearly got it."

 "Got what?"

 "The Tourist Guide." He was reaching along the top of a bookcase, the only bookcase in the otherwise bare room. "The Tourist Guide to Alta Regina." As the Doctor grabbed for that book, he sent others sprawling down to a dusty fate on the floor below.

 "The what?"

 "What?"

 "The tourist guide to where?" Sarah dodged some more falling tomes and circled around to the edge of the bookcase, looking up at the Doctor.

 "Alta Regina."

 "Well, Doctor, you're going to - look out!"

 The Doctor grabbed his prize, as the bookcase toppled forward and crashed down to the floor, arcing past Sarah's face. Books splashed, liberally, around the room. Sarah stood, dumbfounded and covered in dust. She coughed a bit, blinked, then looked up.

 "Doctor?"

 "It's OK, I got it!" He was still in the air, already flicking through the slim volume.

 "Oh, good. I am glad. Are you going to come down now?"

 "Do you want me to?"

 "Well, it would certainly be kinder to my neck if you did."

 The Doctor reached into his pocket and pulled out a remote control. He pressed a few buttons, and the red pad he was crouching on began to float back down to the floor.

 "Is that better?"

 "Yes, thank you, Doctor. Now, what is Alta Regina?"

 "Alta Regina is a planet in the HOP system..."

 "HOP?"

 "Humanity-Only-Please; it's an area of space colonised by some very xenophobic humans during the 29th-century. They had taken something of a dislike to the Earth Empire's views on non-humans."

 "I thought you said the Empire was, er, species-ist."

 "It was, but not enough for some, so they colonised this solar system. Alta Regina is the moon of the fourth planet. And that's where we've landed."

 "Have we? And why have we done that?"

 "I thought it might be an interesting place for a little visit." He wandered past, not making eye contact.

 "What's going on, Doctor?"

 "Going on?" He stopped walking, and turned to face her. "Why should there be anything going on?"

 "That's it. Just relax. Let all that tension flow out of you. Yes, that's right."

 His client's body seemed to glow in the diffused mood lighting of the sparsely furnished chamber. And as his hands crept further and further down, Hadyn felt himself drifting inside. All external stimuli, save the contact between him and his client, was switched off. It was just the two of them, there was no one else in the world, there was nothing else, there never had been and never would be.

 The initial exhilaration, the feeling of oneness, shared existence, collectivity, feelings so much more than feelings. But, as with so many things, what started wonderfully rapidly went downhill. His hands came to rest at the top of the man's buttocks, and he dug his fingers into the flesh there. His jaw locked slightly, and then snapped shut. He screwed his face, tensed his entire body. And then, metaphorically speaking at least, he pulled, pulled the man inside him.

 And as he did, he felt the concentration in his head replaced with distraction, the distraction of family, of mortgage, of work and no play, of friends he didn't like, of a family he couldn't stand. He remembered watching his son grow up, all the hopes he had had for him, the career prospects the boy could have had. He could have gone so far. But no; he was just bumming around on some Academic world, he'd finished his degree but 'still wanted to be near his friends.' The idiot was going to be a writer, 'as if people of his background, of my background could be writers.'

 And as he did, he felt the charged, trained, desired stress in his muscles replaced by the stress of never being able to relax, of never taking time off, of always doing what he felt was expected of him, what he felt he needed to do, what he knew was his duty, rather than doing what he wanted to do (or would have wanted to do, if he wasn't so fucking uptight, so concerned with his job and boss and with bottom lines).

 Hadyn collapsed back, shivering.

 The client was stirring, stretching slightly, still exhausted obviously (as if he had done any of the work, as if he was in any state to be exhausted). Hadyn looked around, then went to the wardrobe and opened it. He hastily pulled out a robe and wrapped it around himself, covering up a slight embarrassment he hadn't felt a few minutes before.

 "Oh, that is fantastic." The client spoke. His voice was invigorated, though slightly drained. Hadyn turned to look at him. The man was standing beside the bed, yawning and stretching himself. "That was truly wonderful. I haven't felt so good in years. Thank you, thank you very much." He strode over and grabbed Hadyn's hand, shaking it vigorously.

 "That's... that's quite alright, glad to be of service." Hadyn looked sideways at the man, then slipped past him and retrieved his robe from the floor. "Here, why don't you put this on? It's a little chilly," he proffered the robe. The man took it slowly, and with a grin, and put it on.

 "Well, thanks again. I pay on the way out, don't I?"

 "Yes, yes that's right. And please, come again."

 The client opened the chamber door and left. Hadyn closed it behind the man, and fell back against it.

 "Well, it says a lot about how good relaxation is for you, how 'important it is to work out those little stresses and strains of daily life.' 'Healing with a human touch,' apparently. Some pictures, a few glowing references: 'I feel like a new man; it's completely changed my life; I've never been so happy; the world is new to me again,' and so on. But that's about all it says. And I've always been rather curious as to what goes one here."

 "Perhaps you should tell the Brigadier about it."

 "What?"

 "Well, he could do with unwinding a bit."

 "Yes. Yes, perhaps that's not a bad idea."

 "I was joking."

 "Yes." He sounded less than convinced. "Well. Let's find out what it's like, shall we." The Doctor activated the door control on the TARDIS' ornately gothic console.

 "How're you doing?" Carmen, a sweet girl, always asking after him.

 "Fine, just fine." He frowned a little, staring at Carmen. They were all the same, really, women. Suck the life out of you, spend all your money, take all your time, then betray you and love your kids more than they could ever have loved you. Never doing what you ask them, always forcing you to shout and get angry, and then telling you what a bastard you are when you get angry, and how you shouldn't. Cooking those ready meals, mother never had to resort to such crap so why does she? And you know what she's up to, you can see the looks she gives the neighbours. Maybe once she just got off on the flirting, on the whistles and cat calls, and the way people looked. But how long could she have resisted temptation, eh? Certainly not longer than you managed to, so she must be at it with someone.

 Hadyn lashed his arm out and punched Carmen's jaw. She hit the floor, hard, and looked up at him nervously.

 "You'd better get unloaded as soon as. Must have been a hard one, eh?"

 Hadyn frowned again, and began to say that he was sorry, but Carmen put her hand up to stop him, shaking her head. "I understand. I've been there, I go there every day. We all do. You know that, or you will know it again in a minute, once we get you sorted out and get all that stuff out of your head." She stood, walking up to Hadyn and fingering the socket at the back of his neck, under his hair. "It's not as if I haven't done worse now, is it?" She pulled his robe open playfully, and then ran her finger across the white streak across his left thigh - the scar she'd left him. And then she thought of Kim and Oval, crossing herself as she did. "It's part of the job, innit?" she said, looking away.

 The Doctor wandered up to join her, and she was about to turn towards him when a flurry of movement below caught her attention. The Doctor followed her gaze. A group of men and women in drab grey uniforms staggered down a gantry from one of the ship's cargo holds, dragging a large purple cephalopod between them. The creature was thrashing its tentacles, indignantly at first and then frantically, as they threw it onto the tarmac below. It landed on the top of its head, it's limbs waving in the air. Then the crew stalked down and around it, sizing the thing up, before pulling short black clubs from their belts. A squat, wiry man stepped forward and then with all his force began to batter the creature. The rest of the group soon followed suit, arcing their batons down with as much force as possible. They pummelled the creature's limbs, their weapons tearing open its marbled flesh. Thick, greenish blood began to run onto the ground, and a small satchel that the creature had been carrying was trampled under foot.

 The commotion drew the attention of the small crowd of arrivals, and a woman broke from the group. She clambered over the barricade at the edge of the concourse and ran over to the ground crew and their victim. She seemed to be shouting, but Sarah couldn't hear a thing through the glass.

 The woman pulled some of the crew out of her way as she got to them, stumbling through into the centre of the group. She pointed angrily at a collar on one of the cephalopod's tentacles, which was now hanging limply at an uncomfortable looking angle. Then she produced a small piece of yellow paper from her clutch purse and showed it around. Finally, and not to mention reluctantly, the crew withdrew. The woman stroked the alien's head, and was repeating something over and over to it as two men in white and red carried it away to a building on the opposite side of the landing pad, an infirmary of some sort.

 Unnoticed, the alien's satchel blew open and pieces of paper scattered across the tarmac.

 "Cejoy. A race of poets and public speakers," said the Doctor.

 "That... that creature?" Sarah stammered.

 "Yes. Their poetry is held in the highest regard throughout this galaxy. Important politicians employ them to write their speeches."

 "That woman seemed to treat it as a..."

 "Yes, I know. Come along, Sarah. I think we should be very careful."

 "There's a surprise."

 "It's OK, It's OK. We'll take the blame away." He read the holograph to his right: Fliss Indie, EnClass 17, ID-AT916/000/6S. Fliss fell into a deep sleep.

 "Poor thing. Just a tool, really. Now wandering around with the guilt complex of a fifty-year-old government advisor. A vessel for someone else's past so that they can have a future."

 IT IS NOT LIKE YOU TO BE SENTIMENTAL, SIR.

 Sangstom frowned. "You're not mindless, ORG. Programmed heartlessly, perhaps, but you know what we're doing here. Don't you feel any regret, no sorrow for these people?"

 THEY ARE WELL PAID, WELL TREATED. ORG's tone was contemplative, reasoned.

 "For the few scant years they survive, and besides a few hours of utter madness every other day, yeah, they are the richest, most satisfied of people. Kids fed on ambrosia and guilt, laid out on chiffon, silk and nervous disorders."

 THEY CHOOSE TO COME HERE, AND ARE INFORMED OF THE EXACT NATURE OF THEIR WORK BEFORE ANY CONTRACTS ARE SIGNED OR ENHANCEMENTS UNDERTAKEN.

 "Oh yes, they could always choose to stay at home and starve on the streets, or be killed by the Appearance Authorities."

 THAT'S MEDIA LIES.

 Sangstom sighed. "I don't blame you, ORG, really I don't. You've been programmed to think this way. But you've been doing this for a long time, as long as I've been alive. I can't be the first to try and make you see that what we're doing here is... not wrong, but... but..."

 IMMORAL?

 "Yes. Well, maybe. I don't know."

 I DO. I KNOW THAT WE ARE HELPING PEOPLE, THAT YOU AND I AND ALL OF THOSE BEFORE YOU HAVE HELPED MILLIONS OF PEOPLE. AND NOT JUST HOPPERS, HUMANS FROM ALL OVER THE EMPIRE HAVE COME HERE.

 "And paid highly for a bit of piece of mind, a quantum of solace, relief from their hang-ups, phobias and neuroses. Is it good to take all their monsters away, and if it's so good why don't we do it for everyone, instead of just those who can afford our high prices?"

 THINK HOW MAD THESE PEOPLE COULD HAVE BECOME IF WE DIDN'T HELP THEM, HOW MUCH THEY MIGHT SUFFER. ONLY THE RICHEST OF PEOPLE HAVE TO FACE THE STRESSES AND STRAINS THAT REQUIRE OUR TREATMENT.

 "Bull!"

 AND OUR TECHNOLOGY IS NOT CHEAP. THIS PLACE IS NOT RUN ON GOOD WILL.

 "No, that's the last thing it's run on."

 THINK HOW MANY MORE WOULD SUFFER IF OUR SERVICE DID NOT EXIST. HOW MANY OF OUR CLIENTS WOULD HAVE SNAPPED AND KILLED THEMSELVES, OR OTHERS, OR JUST NOT DONE THEIR JOBS PROPERLY. HOW MANY PEOPLE WOULD BE DEAD, OR IMPOVERISHED, IF WE WEREN'T HERE?

 "But these kids..."

 YES, IT IS A SHAME ABOUT THEM. BUT IT HAS TO BE DONE.

 "I don't know if I can do it much longer."

 YOU ARE WELL CARED FOR HERE, SIR. AND THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS WOULD NEVER ALLOW YOU TO LEAVE.

 "No."

 DOCTOR... DAVE, I CARE ABOUT YOU. YOU MUST TRY TO OVERCOME THESE DOUBTS. PERHAPS YOU SHOULD HAVE THE THERAPY YOURSELF.

 "No! Never."

 A Pause.

 THIS ONE IS FINISHED.

 "What?"

 THE PROCESS IS OVER, THIS SUBJECT HAS BEEN RESTORED TO MEDIUM LEVEL. I HAVE PERFORMED ABSORBTION, SHE IS...

 "Right, I get the picture." Sangstom looked down at Fliss. "Come on, love. Wake up. Time to go, now. Your friends are waiting for you." The girl opened her eyes and smiled. She stood, and left in silence, turning at the door to mouth 'thanks, Dave' to Sangstom. He smiled back.

 "You're welcome," he said, once the girl was gone. "I'll prep the equipment for the next one, ORG."

 SO THAT'S WHY HE WAS NEVER IMPEACHED.

 "ORG? Is something wrong?"

 NO. JUST A GLITCH IN MY SYSTEM.

 "Are you sure?"

 YES, DAVE. I'M FINE.

 The Doctor froze, in an exaggerated 'eight-year-old-caught-with- fingers-in-cookie-jar' pose. Sarah turned around, an explanation already forming in her mind. The woman wore a green uniform, bland and unassuming, and, like the similarly-dressed man next to her, she had her hands clasped behind her back.

 "Did you get separated from your Check-In group? Did you? Oh well, it doesn't matter, we'll find them for you, don't you worry. Now, do you have your papers? Your important documents?"

 Sarah and the Doctor looked at each other.

 "I think there's been some mistake," Sarah began, but the Doctor kicked her lightly in the shins and she stopped.

 "Can't you remember?" The woman turned to the man at her side. "Looks like a real couple of dopes here. Major-coma burn-out type stuff. We'll take them up to ORG and see if he can id them." She turned back to the time travellers. "Now, we're going to take you somewhere nice and safe, and everything is going to be just fine. It's great upstairs, there're lots of relaxing things, and you want to relax, don't you? And I know you'll just love ORG."

 The woman stepped forward, smiling all the time, and brought her hands out. She was holding a pair of handcuffs. Before he could react, the Doctor found himself swung around and cuffed behind his back. Sarah found herself in the same predicament, at the hands of the uniformed man. Then the two officials produced dummies from their pockets and shoved them into the Doctor and Sarah's mouths (blue for him, pink for her). Some sort of suction device held them there, gagging the two.

 "I say," said the man, "you don't suppose they're - aliens." The last word had been hushed, and uncomfortably said.

 "Don't know. Don't worry, if they are we'll soon sort them out. But they seem pretty decent and human to me."

 "Now, off we go. And don't worry, ORG will soon have your minds nice uncluttered, free from all the problems, woes, all the experience that is so dogging your working potential. You'll soon be just as good as new, prepped for a brand new life in the futures markets, or whatever your employer's particular profession. And we can assure you, they will be very happy with our work. And you'll be happy to. There'll be nothing in your minds to make you in the slightest bit unhappy. Isn't that good news?"