Carlen hated ploughing. By hand that is. Especially at night as it was now, all dark and cold and lonely. The Cows loved ploughing his uncle told him, that’s why they did it all day long, which is funny because Carlen was sure they did it through fear of being given the whip. His heavy hands dropped the rake as he decided to lie back on a nearby slab for a moment. Rest his aching body and think about Chirelle. She’d earned his attention when they were young, big green eyes like lotus leaves and pure skin like it had been crafted and smoothed over centuries by flowing rivers.
He was enjoying the usual pleasurable dull ache in his heart when he thought of her when suddenly his heavy heart sank - as he lay back on the rock, there they were in front of him in the sky, the 3 huge bright stars, bigger and brighter than anything in the sky, except for Jano or Saro, the two moons that hung in the black sky together every night side by side. What were they? Where had they come from? No one in the village knew. They were either huge and far away, or small but very, very close. Either possibility scared Carlen half to death. He was just considering the possibility that were sent from God as his uncle believed, when next to third star another appeared, materialising like a pure white stone floating to the murky surface.
Carlen sat up right, he knew what happened now, but was too scared to move, too scared to breathe in case any movement set the star into motion as the others had when they first appeared. Then slowly, just as he thought, the Star began to glow bluer and bluer. Carlen immediately turned and ran as fast as he could, tripping several times over his legs but always regaining balance to keep moving. He knew not to look back but couldn’t help it when he heard a loud electrical crack – the star was shooting lightning bolts to the ground below. He faced forward again and kept moving as fast as he could along the flat open field toward the village. CRACK! Another bolt. He could feel the heat of them even after they’d gone CRACK! Another which knocked Carlen clean off his feet. He fell forward putting his hands out into the dirt to break his fall. One more bolt and he’d be dead, Carlen was sure, but his legs couldn’t go anymore and the more he thought the more scared he became. He took a few more deep breaths, but just as he was about to get up and carry on the flee, a square stone just in front of him started to glow, as if it was burning. More scared than he’d ever been, Carlen crawled up to the stone and watched it cool down, back to a grey slab, except for some writing across it, which seemed to have been melted into the rock. They read;
The fourth star signals the final day
The Wandering Stargazer shall be The Hero
The Doctor was skipping around the TARDIS with a childlike anticipation, in anticipation of what though Amy wasn’t sure. ‘What’s given you ants in your pants?’ she enquired leaning forward smiling, knowing that the next words to come out of his mouth would be the start of another adventure. Adventure! She felt like the only person in the universe, well, the only other person in the universe, to actually know what that word meant. ‘I’m nervous!’ the Doctor snapped back as if it should be obvious what was causing his anxiety. ‘Nervous? Of what?’ ‘Of what? You don’t know? The TARDIS controls! Look!’
Amy looked but all she could see were random buttons and flashing lights that made no sense whatsoever. She gave the Doctor a look of ‘Gimme a clue!’
‘I’ve set them to random! Who knows where we’re going!’
‘If it’s making you so nervous then why did you do it in the first place?’
The smile that always seemed to be on his face grew wider. ‘Well, it’s fun isn’t it?’ He jumped around the controls flicking more switches and pumping what looked like bicycle pumps as the TARDIS engines wheezed and groaned ‘Outside that door could be an exploding nebular’ he exalted ‘the depths of a hostile sea, or the set of 1980s soap Crossroads! Always something bad!’ ‘It could be something good? Like, I dunno, a beach in Ibiza in 1989?’ ‘Good? No no no!’ He dismissed waving his free hand in the air as the other was busy spinning a preposterously big telephone dial ‘This baby’s like a danger detector! Everywhere I go she seems to take me somewhere bad. Haven’t you noticed?’
‘Not always’ frowned Amy ‘What about when we went to that spaceship that was like a big new years party?’
The Doctor looked back at her, face dropped like an upset Bulldog and shoulders down from their usual strong right angles, and muttered ‘That drunk Vinvocci chased after me all night. They don’t give up you know. You can run all you want but…’ Amy’s eyes widened and a little laugh crept out of her tightened shut mouth ‘So that’s where you went after the Can-Can dancers finished!’
His whole demeanour suddenly changed as he seemed to shake off the thought, and he jumped back to the controls ‘Don’t get me wrong, I love it! It’s what I do and I wouldn’t change it for anything’
‘What? Flying round saving planets and species?’
‘I hadn’t thought about it like that! Makes me sound like a superhero! A superhero of the universe!’
Again Amy spat out a laugh ‘907 years doesn’t do much good for the old ego does it, eh?’
The Doctor let out his trademark laugh that reminded Amy of the brakes on her nans old car, then ‘DONK!’ the TARDIS shook to a stop. Amy and the Doctor looked at each other in a game of chicken. Who’d snap first? Who’d be brave enough to open the doors? They both made a break for it at the same time, the Doctor being nearer to the doors flung them both open to reveal that they’d landed in a small wooded area. ‘Ah!’ said the Doctor ‘I know this place! Green Lilch trees! Theres only one place in the universe you get Green Lilch Trees!’ ‘Where?’ asked Amy, automatically. ‘The planet Substeene!’ the Doctor said as he opened his arms and stepped through the door.
‘Whats that smell?!’ choked Amy, holding her sleeve to cover her mouth and nose from what smelt like egg and homemade brew. ‘That’ shouted the Doctor ‘is the smell of agriculture my dear. You’re so used to your cars and factories and restaurants making smells that you don’t know what real air smells like.’ He took a big deep breath in which nearly made Amy vomit down her red pullover. The Doctor continued ‘This is a farm planet, if you like. The natives here are simple people, using handmade tools and animals to work their land, just like your planet did not long before you were born. And whats more they’re peace loving! They like nothing more than to have a good drink and dance after a hard day’s work! Maybe you were right. Maybe this time there’ll be no danger!’ Amy managed to pull her sleeve away, slowly getting used to the smell ‘apart from the danger of my breakfast making a return!’
The Doctor trudged his way through the leafy overgrowth, while Amy gazed, jaw open, at the trees that surrounded her. Some nearly 50 feet tall and thin, others like giant bushes as high as houses. They came to edge of the verdant jungle and the Doctor stuck his head out between the branches. ‘This isn’t right’ he said ‘Where’s the beautiful green vistas? The rolling hills covered in vegetation?’ Amy looked out and could see nothing but dry baron land, miles of it, all cordoned off with hedges like the fields she saw back home. ‘Maybe this isn’t the planet Substink?’
‘Substeene’ corrected the Doctor ‘and it is. Somethings wrong… and its not me. I’m right, I’m always right!’
The Doctor headed for a path that ran alongside the nearest hedge and started walking at his usually brisk pace that Amy struggled to keep up with. ‘So these people, what are they called? What do you call beings from Substeene? Substeeners?’ the Doctor slowed down for a second ‘Substeeners? That’s a rubbish name! That’s one of the worst attempts at naming a species I’ve ever heard! Err, well, its umm, Substeenlings? No that’s not right. Substeenees? I don’t know!’ The Doctor rambled away, his face was twisted as if he’d just licked a stinging nettle. They noticed, just in mid distance, smoke billowing from stone chimneys, adobe fronted huts with straw roofs and the unmistakeable noise of community, with its yelps of infant pleasure and natter of hushed gossip. ‘Whoever they are’ bellowed the Doctor ‘They’re over there! Come on, spit spot’ and he took off like a downhill soapbox cart along the dry, earthy path. Amy jogged behind, she loved visiting distant planets, she loved adventure, but didn’t think they’d find it here, on the Planet of Dust.
When she caught up with the Doctor he was beaming a huge smile, drinking from a clay cup surrounded by the natives. A group of young girls saw her and immediately ran over and started pulling and admiring her clothes and jewellery and marvelling at her make up’d face, all blusher rosy with her big eyes framed by her long eye lashes. ‘Amy!’ shouted the Doctor ‘nothing bad!’ he laughed, ‘nothing bad at all!’ completely believing that this was one of those rare good trips. A quick stop before Adventure. Amy pondered that adventure meant bad things, and vice versa, so she was more than happy to be at a boring old farm planet if it meant her life wasn’t in danger, and she crouched to smile and play with her new fans.
As the Doctor and Amy frolicked with the children, spoke to the natives and were endlessly bombarded with drinks, broths and various other food stuffs, Carlen watched from a distance. Where have these people come from? Is it coincidence that they’ve arrived now, the day after he’d discovered the message on the stone? His fear, the fear he’d felt growing ever since the first star appeared and reaching its apex last night, drove him to walk through the crowd of people and grab the Doctor by the arm and drag him away. The Doctor didn’t resist and went with Carlen. ‘Doctor!’ shouted Amy, and she followed them both.
‘Oi what you doing with him!’ shouted one lady ‘He’s only being friendly, he ain’t gonna hurt us, Carlen’ said another girl.
‘This doesn’t concern you! Leave us be!’ Shouted Carlen over his shoulder, stunning the crowd into silence at his usually calm, friendly countenance being broken by this abrupt and rude response.
They entered the field Carlen had ran from last night ‘Umm I’m all for being shown new things but I’d like to know where I’m going first! And I do have limits on what people show me in the middle of quiet fields!’ the Doctors voice high pitched in an attempt at a friendly reasoning.
‘Is this you?’ cracked Carlens voice, gesturing his hand to the etched stone slab on the floor. ‘Did you do this? Are you the Wandering Stargazer?’ His deportment was quite confrontational, the Doctor didn’t know whether Carlen was accusing him of something or begging for his help, and neither did Carlen.
‘Whats this?’ said the Doctor as he got on his knees, pressing his face right up to the stone so that his nose was touching it. He read aloud ‘The fourth star signals the final day. The Wandering Stargazer shall be The Hero. Wandering Stargazer?’ He pulled a magnifying glass from his jacket inside pocket and studied every millimetre of it. ‘Hmm these letters were scorched on. Must’ve been one hell of a hot branding iron. Seems pretty fresh too. Scary words huh? Carlen?’ Carlen stood staring at the Doctor thinking blank thoughts. ‘Scary words? On the stone? Aren’t they?’ the Doctor attempted to prompt a nod from Carlen by nodding at him in like, but Carlen wasn’t impressed with the Doctors comfort of the ‘final day’.
‘You haven’t seen them have you? The stars? You think I’m just scared by writing on a rock?’
‘Stars?’ queried the Doctor looking up. And there they were. 4 white shining stars in the sky, all of them easily visible in daylight. ‘Too big to be stars’ thought the Doctor and he gulped at the thought of what they could be.
‘What are they?’ asked Amy, slightly in awe.
The Doctor replied, gruffly ‘something bad’
The natives, whatever their collective name was, were all drinking and dancing, wearing absurd clothes . Well, not clothes as such -more like decorative pieces – made from huge red feathers glued to strips of soft wood, creating an odd amorphous frame resting on the wearers’ shoulders. This was how they celebrated every day. They weren’t thanking gods, or praying for good crops, or celebrating anything in particular, they were just celebrating. Celebrating life and happiness and existence. Even if there were 4 omens in the sky that could jeopardise this existence.
‘Storms?’ the Doctor asked, now stood in a small tepee style hut with nothing in except a small table, presumably for games and eating, and the Doctor, Amy and Carlen. ‘Like cloud storms?’
‘No’ Replied Carlen ‘just vicious, awful forks of lightning from the stars. They happen the first night one of the stars appeared, and then the night after, as if the stars can only manage 2 storms each’
‘So you’ve endured 8 vicious, awful lightning strikes, and let me guess, they’ve killed your crops and made the soil barren? Am I right?’
‘I wish that was all. These strikes are so strong that they kill our cattle, they even shift the land, crushing hills and mountains before our eyes’
‘These attacks move the land? Terraform?’
‘Attacks?’ responded Carlen, his face widening in sheer disbelief at the thought ‘Like someones attacking us? But no one from the village has ever died. Surely attackers would attack us too?’
‘Unless they need you for something’
The room fell completely silent. Amy stood back, feeling that fear creep up from her stomach up to her heart, forcing it to beat faster and faster. She was scared but didn’t feel the excitement she normally did. Maybe if they were running. Its always more fun to run from a monster than to look up and stare at 4, she thought. Carlen still looked shocked that these stars were attacking the planet. Why? Who? The Doctor looked round the room and saw that they were the only ones in it.
‘Carlen, why is nobody else concerned? Have you shown them the slab?’
‘Yes’ he mumbled looking at the floor ‘but no one listens to someone like me. It’s the hierarchy round here, I’m too far down. Everybody listens to what the elder thinks’
The Doctor peeped out of the canvas doorway to the cheering group outside and saw and man with a primitive, large feather decorated wooden frame on his head. Obviously the most senior figure in the village. ‘and what does he think?’ asked the Doctor
‘That they are just new decorations in the sky, and that the storms will pass. Doctor, we haven’t had 8 storms, we’ve had 7, the eighth one, the final one, is tonight. What are we going to do? Do you even have a clue? Or is all you have questions?’ Carlens body shook with anxiety.
‘Carlen, my friend, I’ve taken in all the relevant information, calculated in my massive brain, and PING! Do you know what I’ve come up with?’
‘What?’ said Carlen, scared stiff by this madman holding onto his shoulders and smirking at his own jokes.
‘A super hero! And lucky for you, ones standing in front of you!’
Carlens dry mouth closed shut. This man really was a madman. He didn’t know where the Doctor had come from, but he thought it would take a madman to take on stars in the sky.
‘What time do the attacks usually take place?’ enquired the Doctor, pacing around.
‘They take place just when the sunsets’
‘Well then, we’ve got about 3 hours to arm ourselves!’
The Doctor burst out of the tent and went straight to the Elder. Carlen and Amy were tasked with getting their hands on whatever materials they could find.
‘Elder’ the Doctor said stopping dead in front of the man with, in the Doctors own view, the quite ridiculous head dress on.
‘Yes’ said the Elder. He was an elderly man, as you’d expect, but unlike you’d expect he didn’t carry any inflated sense of self worth, nor did he think that he knew more than anybody else, or that he harboured special powers that made him see reason, as so many Elders that the Doctor had come across had.
‘Your village, your whole planet, is in danger, and I’m the only man that can save you’
The Elder stood up slowly from his chair, his weak body trembling as he used all his strength, and he stepped toward the Doctor. ‘We know you’ve made it from another village, we know you think differently to us, but please, don’t scare us with your fairytales’ and he promptly dropped his body back in the chair and continued clapping to the singing and dancing, as if the Doctor had never approached him.
‘I am from another village, a village about 2000 light years away, on another planet! And I think I’ve been sent here to save you! Have you seen the tablet? In the north field theres a stone with a transcription on it and it says the…’
The Elder interjected ‘The fourth star signals the final day. We are a simple people. We don’t believe in Deities. We know our place in the universe, it is said other Stargazers have visited us before, but they didn’t harm us. We have nothing here to offer anyone. If you are from the stars, then return, leave us be, we are a conservative race. 10,000 years of history hasn’t changed our ways and neither will you’
The Doctor felt his breathing get faster and faster, building a crescendo deeper and deeper and faster and faster until he finally blew from the top of his lungs ‘You are all going to die, tonight, unless you help me! This isn’t a joke, its not a fairytale! I am from another planet, the planet…’ the Doctor paused for a second to add effect to the next word, the Mighty word, that he’d say ‘Gallifrey!’
The villagers looked at each other with blank expressions, expecting each other to understand what he had just said, but none of them did.
‘OK….’ said the Doctor, dragging out the K. ‘So no mention of the Time Lords in your Universal folklore? Ooh, I was sure that was going to work. Tell you what’ he said calmly, holding his lapels with his hands, almost conceding defeat ‘I’m going to save your planet, then I’m going to go back to my ship for a cup of tea’
He slowly walked off in the direction of Carlen and Amy, punching his hands together purely because he didn’t know what else to do with them.
Carlen and Amy had managed to collect wood, feathers, scraps of metal left over from building tools and other bits and bobs. ‘Right’ said the Doctor ‘we need a weapon each, grab what you can and build! And they must look menacing!’
They all jumped into it, tying bits of wood to feathers, putting sharp bits in needless places to make them look as convincing as possible. ‘Doctor’ Amy asked ‘Why don’t we just fly up in the TARDIS and tell these aliens to sod off?’
‘It’s a nice idea’ he replied, snapping a balsa rod over his leg ‘but the second the TARDIS goes into flight they might see it as a hostile act and tear this planet apart. I can’t even scan them on the scanner, that stone in the field isn’t just a stone, it’s a communication device, and if the TARDIS interferes with their lines then who knows how they’ll react. We’re lucky the TARDIS managed to land at all!’ and then said, putting his hands on his hips ‘and anyway, I’ve got a damn good plan as it is!’
Night fell. The sun was completely down. The 3 future saviours of the planet Substeene all walked toward the stone, and could see, even from 200 yards away, that the stone was active and giving off a fiery bright glow. The Doctor turned to Amy and smiled. ‘Adventure’ she thought ‘its not all its cracked up to be’
They reached the stone, all holding their make believe weapons - the Doctors a cheap wooden rifle, Amy’s resembling a stupidly chunky double barrelled shotgun, and Carlen’s being 2 fierce looking sticks (that, naturally, the Doctor had poked fun out of earlier). They stood directly in front of it as the golden blaze grew brighter, bright enough now that it could be seen from the village and was attracting attention from the natives, so much so that they came over, wearily, to see what was happening, all dropping their façade of ignorance, and now feeling real fear for what was happening, or about to happen. As they all stood staring at the light, a figure began to form out of it. The Doctor clutched his wooden gun.
The figure was now completely visible. It was a woman, still in the fire being blasted from the stone, but everybody could see it was a woman. She was fair faced but seemed old, and was floating perfectly still in the blaze. ‘What?!’ thought the Doctor. This wasn’t what he was expecting. Deciding it was best not to deviate from his original plan, the Doctor started his speech.
‘This planet is defended! We give you one warning to turn round and leave us, or we will use all our force to stop you!’
The lady in the flames interrupted the speech ‘This planet is defended. Not by you, loud man. But by me. Lower your weapons, they are useless.’
Amy saw the Doctors mouth get wider. She’d never seen this look on his face before, and didn’t know what it was. Fear? No, not that strong. Confusion?
The lady continued ‘I am the Elder of this village from 300 years ago. We were also attacked, in this same way, by the same stars. They come to us one after the other, and destroyed our land, taking what they wanted from us.’
‘And what was that?’ shouted the Doctor
‘We do not know. They came down and took stones from under our soil, then they left. Only they left behind a broken ship, and from it we salvaged this device from which I speak to you. It took 50 years to work out its use, but we finally managed to imprint my consciousness onto it to warn you all and to awaken the Wandering Stargazer’
‘That’s me!’ said the Doctor, high pitched and lifting slightly off the ground as he said it.
‘No!’ Boomed the ancient apparition. The Doctors heart sank, even when he was powerless he never felt it, there was always a way. Always. But not today. He didn’t know what was going to happen to this planet but whatever it was, he wasn’t going to save the day, he wasn’t going to be the hero. He wasn’t even going to be involved.
‘While this device holds my consciousness long after I have died, we also managed to use it to affect anothers consciousness. When they strike starts the Hero will know what to do, for they have dreamed it, again and again, and only now will it be a waking memory’
The blaze quickly died to nothing and the image of the lady was gone. Silence fell. Nobody said anything. Nobody knew what to say. The Doctor looked up at the deadly stars, still thinking, still trying to hatch a plan to save everyone even though events were now out of his control. He breathed in and opened his mouth as if to talk when out of nowhere CRACK! A bolt of hot aggressive lightning shot straight over their heads. CRACK! Another CRACK! The ground around them was shifting; the floor splitting into pieces. The Doctor ran toward Amy and had to jump over several holes in the ground to get to her. The Villagers fled, running in all directions to avoid the fierce storm, mothers picking up their children, men running as fast as they could back to the village, tripping and falling over the moving ground.
Carlen stood still. With all the panic and commotion around him, his body being shook about with the ground beneath him as it quaked, he just stood there. The Doctor spotted him and shouted his name ‘CARLEN!’ but he didn’t hear. All the fear that Carlen had felt for so long now, the heart numbing life stopping fear, and gone. Completely. Now he knew what to do. He didn’t care how he knew or what the dangers were, he just did it.
He went over to the stone, which was now completely charred and cracked from the blaze earlier, opened it and lifted up a large red gemstone, bigger than his hand could handle completely, and held it above his head. The Doctor froze for a second, and then ran toward Carlen, trying to stop him, from what it seemed to the Doctor, sacrificing himself. But it was too late. Before the Doctor got there a bolt of lightning shot from one of the stars and was attracted to the gemstone, then the next star shot out a bolt, then the next. All the stars were now shooting constant electrical bolts at Carlen and the gemstone he was waving in the air. He started to scream out in pain, the gem glowing brighter and brighter and hotter and hotter, until finally BANG! All three stars exploded in the sky, like giant roman candles, starting with a bang and ending with fizz as all the debris caught fire as it fell to ground. Carlen was on the floor, unconscious.
The Doctor and Amy finally caught up with him. His clothes and skin were slightly burned and smoke was snaking from him up into the air. He opened his eyes
‘Wandering Stargazer?’ asked the Doctor, looking deep into Carlens face for any signs of serious injury.
Carlen smiled, shrugged his shoulders and fell limp again.
They’d finished the long walk to the TARDIS, this time alone. They’d left Carlen to being tended to by the people of the village.
‘I hope he’ll be ok’ Said Amy, looking over her shoulder.
‘He will’ answered the Doctor ‘He’s just had a small electric shock. The stone took the brunt of the force’
‘Maybe now they’ll start believing in Gods and Magic’ wondered Amy.
The Doctor smiled and unlocked the TARDIS door.
‘It’s ok you know, to not be the Hero. To not be the God that they believe in now’ Amys was trying her best not to point out to the Doctor that this is what it feels like to be ‘normal’. ‘Its ok that you weren’t the Stargazer. Its nice that they didn’t need you isn’t it?’
‘I suppose’ he shrugged ‘I just’ he turned toward Amy, looking up ‘I just… I Just feel… I just feel like… a cup of tea!’ and he held the door open with his arm and beckoned Amy through.
