by Clive May (clive@cj4386.demon.co.uk)

The copy right of all things pertaining to the concept and characters of Dr
Who is the property of the BBC.  This Story is a work of fan fiction; it has
been written simply for the pleasure it gave me in writing it; and no money
has or will change hands with respect to the story.

The story and original characters are copyright Clive May 2001.


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Chaos Hunt.

Five.

The Lady of the Rains stared dumbfounded at what lay upon the Travelling
Stone.  There should have been a platter of food, and a pitcher of water,
crystal clear and icy cold to off-set the dry heat of her terrible prison.
These provisions had appeared faithfully on the fifteen-foot long block of
grey granite every morning of her exile.  It was the defining event that
began the day.  This morning, however, Instead of her daily provisions, there
was?..

What could this change in routine mean?  Was it some new devilish torment her
persecutors had devised?  Did her suffering in this arid place not provide
balm enough to soothe their outraged sensabilities?

Tentatively, she reached out and touched the tips of long graceful fingers to
the strap of the bag.  Then she traced out the strange runes on the side of
the satchel.  They meant nothing to her; so she turned her attention to the
other gift the Stone had brought.

Sprawled untidily across the block, on her back, was an unconscious woman.
She had a round, pretty face, and a mop of brown, curly hair.   Now?  What,
by the Roar of Mother Ocean, was she supposed to do with these things?
Frowning, Rain leaned down over the block and placed slender hands on the
surface of the grey granite.  Already, it was growing hot to the touch.
Carefully, she averted her sea green gaze from the unfathomable depths lying
just under the silken surface.  Staring too hard into those depths one
morning, she had become lost, only returning to herself when the heat of the
day had penetrated her maze of fascination.  She had been careful never to
stare into those treacherous depths again.  It was, she knew, some aspect of
the Travelling Stone's operation; but such secrets as these were withheld
from her kind by the Incarnators.

Shivering with the recall of her fall into infinity, Rain drew her wandering
mind back to the problem at hand.  What if the water did not come?  She
would be dead by noon .  Unless?...

Touching the cheek of the woman, she "called" in the special way given to all
the Selkie Folk.  A tiny bead of moisture formed under her fingertip.
Lifting it to her lips, she licked up the drop of precious water, savouring
the soul-scent of the woman, still lingering in the droplet of stolen water.
An open grin suffused her face.  In some magical manner, that grin
encompassed the essence of the young woman's features, whilst remaining the
face of Rain.  "So, Tegan?  Tegan Jovanka!" she mouthed, and deliberately
immersed herself in the life experience of Tegan.  Rain's expression soured.
This one had been nurtured in heat and dryness.  So!  She ought to feel right
at home in this hideous desert.

Rain licked the last drop of wetness from her finger, a dreamy smile
spreading over her face.  Nurtured in a parched plain, Tegan might have been;
but there was water enough to drown her own woes in for days here, locked up
in the woman.

Rain was sorely tempted.

It would, of course, be murder; but one more life set against the billions
she had already sent before at Kendron's bidding?  What matter one more?

The inchoate insanity haunting her mind, edged closer.

With a jerk, she broke that train of thought, appalled by the casualness with
which she had entertained the idea.

"I am not evil!" Rain declared uncertainly.

The whisper of sifting dust, blowing off the pans, gave the lie to her
declaration.  The bitter mist swirled like a shroud, wrapped about the
stick-dry corpse of the world she had made in the blindness of her unwise
passion for Kendron, Hunt Master of the Orion Brood.  The haze shone with a
glittering radiance, lit from above by the eternally hidden sun.

In the mist, she could just make out the tumbled obsidian statues of the Du
Lac Brood, marking the perimeter of the derelict Gateway Station.  They
marked out a circle, ninety feet across.  Her gaze travelled right around the
broken and tilted statuary, coming back at last to the supine woman on the
Stone.  Already a misting of dust had settled over the body in a shimmering
film.

Absently, Rain's hand went to the large tear shaped blue crystal hanging
between her breasts on a chain about her neck. Thoughtfully, she stroked the
focus crystal.

"I am not evil!" she stated again, but with no more certainty.

A slight noise made her start.  Rain glanced down.  The eyes of the young
woman on the block were open.  They were a warm brown in colour, regarding
her in bewilderment.  A barely suppressed panic shivered in their depths.
Slowly, Tegan sat up.

In rising alarm, Rain gripped the pendant, ready to lash out with its power
should the woman prove a threat.  Though what use it might be in this arid
place without water to call upon, she knew not.

Tegan looked all around, then back at Rain. She spoke.

Rain winced at the stream of harsh syllables.  She drew back with a little
gasp of pain as the dissonance crashed against her sensitive ears.  An edge
of panic in the sound rang out clear from the chaotic tumble.  Made fearful
by that panic, Rain backed away another step, and then stopped in shock.  Her
mind went elsewhere, snatched thither by a powerful "touch" in her mind.
With a guilty jerk, she tore her hand from the crystal and sent her gaze away
over the dunes, seeking the source of that "touch", for it could mean only
one thing - The Incarnators had come for her.

The stream of incomprehensible sound issuing from Tegan's mouth suddenly
twisted itself into the liquid language of the Selkie Folk, snapping Rain's
attention back to the woman.

"...Bloody hells going on here?  Where the hell...?"

Rain grabbed Tegan's wrist and hauled her from the slab.

"You must come with me!" she exclaimed.  "A god has come into the
world and we must not anger him."

"Hey!" Tegan growled and tried to pull her hand free.  She wasn't about
to let this weird woman drag her off into this wasteland - not without a
 few explanations.

Rain gave her an unfriendly look.  "You must come with me now!" she repeated.
The grip on Tegan's wrist tightened.  A curious pulling sensation started in
her shoulder, flowed down her arm.  It felt as if something were being drawn
from her, moving from shoulder to wrist, leaving her arm slightly numb in its
wake.  She looked down; beneath the satin of the blouse the skin along her
arm was rippling towards the weird woman's hand.

Tegan let out a little cry of horror and snatched her arm away, managing to
drag it free.  She backed away a few steps, staring down at her wrist.

Where the woman had gripped her, the skin was shrivelled and dry, peeling
away in flakes.  On either side of the mark beads of moisture sparkled upon
her skin.  Tegan shivered and took another step back, her mouth dry; she felt
suddenly very afraid.

Rain glared at her. It was not a reassuring sight.  She lifted the hand that
had held Tegan, opened the palm to show a tiny pool of water cupped within.
Before Tegan's appalled gaze, the woman lifted the hand to her mouth, and
with reverence, drank.  She sighed.  It was a sound laden with a profound
satisfaction.

Tegan shivered, despite the heat.  She backed off another step, colliding
with the stone table.  "Jesus! Oh Jesus - what?  What kind of monster are
you?" she demanded in a shaky voice, cradling the violated arm against her
breasts.  She rubbed at the wrist gently, trying to work off the paralysis
and needle prickling that the woman's touch had provoked.

The woman drew herself up.  She cut an impressive figure against the hazy
backdrop of the stone construction which was faintly reminiscent of Greek
Classical architecture.  Her mane of blue, black hair floated about her face
in the bitter breeze.

"I am no monster, I am the Lady of the Rains.  The Storm Singer of Orion
Four.  The Mother of Tempest." There was something frightenly brittle in the
woman's voice.

"Yeah!" Tegan said; "and I'm old mother hubbard!"

Rain bridled at the defensive skepticism.  Scowling, she took several steps
back, lifting up her slender arms beseechingly to the hot white sky.  Her
chin tilted up, her mouth opened and a wordless song issued from her throat,
winding into the air.  Lightning scintillated in the heart of the blue
jewel.

An unearthly power moved in the world. Air about the ruined station trembled.
Dust demons created themselves, twirled in a momentary frenzy, before
collapsing back into the sand.

Rain's wordless song ended abruptly.  The woman made a little sound that was
half sigh, half sob and dropped her arms to her sides.  She turned a bitter
look upon a stunned Tegan.

"Or I would be all of those things were there but moisture enough to drown a
flea," she confessed.

She turned away from Tegan.  "Come!  Or stay, as you please.  But a God of
Time has come to visit and we should not keep him?....Her waiting.

Tegan watched the figure flowing away over the patterned stone floor,
drifted with dust.  At last she grabbed up her trusty old flight bag and
hurried after Rain.  She was fearful of the strange woman and what she
might do; but she was very much more afraid of being abandoned and left to
wander alone in this wilderness of white dust.

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The thirteen shadows possessed a haunting quality of unreality, like
impressions caught in the periphery of the rousing mind, vague and formless,
hard to focus upon, but undeniably there.

Calling upon the last of her reserves of strength, Harmony scrambled to her
feet. As she arose, the shadows rotated into phase with reality, mutating
into thirteen identical black-robed women.  Their silken gowns rippled; and
their raven black hair lifted, coiling snake like in the arid breeze.

One of the women stepped forward, her face bearing an expression of
uncertainty.  She crossed arms over her breasts, and did a small obeisance to
Harmony.

"As the Lords required in the long ago, the Brood comes at command to the aid
of the Incarnators,"  the woman intoned in a formal voice, edged with
apprehension.

"You're too late!" Harmony cried.  "Too damned late!" The effort of using her
voice left her without resource to hold in the tears.  Sparkling droplets of
moisture collected in the corners of her eyes, and flowed down her dusty
cheeks.  Harmony half turned away, not wishing to show weakness before the
Brood.  She took a long moment to compose herself. Then, driving fingers
through her hair, she turned back to face the women.  They stood watching
her, impassive.

Grief driven hatred flared in her hearts.  These "creatures" hunted the
last vindictiveness of the Pythyre because her fellow Time Lords compelled
them to it - not out of any affection they bore their makers.  She was all
too keenly aware that they would not care that her TARDIS, her closest friend
of many centuries, had just been destroyed.

Mustering her best commanding tone, she asked: "You're Sedra?  Of the Earth
Station?  Why did you come?"

Sedra made another edgy obeisance. Her agitation ran like quicksilver round
the semi-circle of women.  She said nothing.

"What of the Orion Station?  They were closer in the Vortex.  Where are
they?"

"Your TARDIS called us," Sedra said defensively. She refused to meet
Harmony's accusing gaze.

The thirteen identical forms stood out, hard edged against the haze, ringing
Harmony in.  They remained as black as ebony, she noted, despite the swirls
of mica dust.  Her own clothing already showed a sheen of grey.  It seemed
even the dust of this desiccated world excused itself from contact
with the Sister-Selves of the Brood.

A tiny frisson of fear thrilled along Harmony's nerves.  What had the Time
Lords of the long ago wrought when they had brought these *things* into being
to police the Vortex?  She shook her head, understanding defeated by their
monumental stupidity; It was pointless to pursue that line of thought,
nothing now could be done to undo the past crimes of her people; nor, she
suspected, any will to do so.

She felt suddenly very vulnerable before these "creatures".  They had, after
all, failed to find the blessed relief on the hunt, and were probably feeling
quite desperate.  It occurred to her that the chronic energy that she had
built up in her millennia of travelling through the Vortex would be proving
quite a temptation.  At a pinch, she could provide them with a tasty little
snack to stave off the madness - and who was to know, in this forsaken place?

They seemed to sense the drift of her thoughts.  All thirteen Sister-Selves
shifted in that coordinated way peculiar to the unitary mind.  They began to
close the circle about her.  In real fear, Harmony drew both sword and
pistol, but entertained no illusions as to their effectiveness against the
Sister-Selves of the Brood.  At that moment of near panic, a wordless cry
drifted from the swirls of dust. By reflex, conditioned by centuries of
mayhem, Harmony spun about, ready for whatever new peril threatened.

Emerging from the haze, not fifty yards distant, were two women.  As Harmony
caught sight of them, the taller one, with long black hair, dressed in a
shimmering pale blue gown, faltered to a halt.  She remained a long moment,
staring, while her brown haired companion ploughed on through the sand,
letting go another wordless cry.  At the shout, the taller woman started
forward again, trailing reluctantly in the other's wake.

Harmony failed to notice when the Brood silently took their leave.

The leading woman floundered up, belatedly noticing the weaponry held ready.
She stopped abruptly, several yards distant.  She looked Harmony over warily,
uncertain as to just how dangerous this situation was into which she had just
blundered.  The armed woman, she noted, was pale with fright, her hands
trembling like leaves in a gale.

"Are you alright?" she asked, touched by sudden concern.  "You're trembling.
You look like you've just seen a ghost."

Harmony lowered the weapons.  "Yes, fine." she answered in a shaky voice.
Then contradicted herself. "No.  I don't know?  I'll be fine in a moment."
Perhaps it was the adrenalin still pumping, but Harmony felt a strong urge to
explain herself.

"Actually, I've just done something rather foolish," she confessed with an
embarrassed chuckle.

"Yeah.  What's that?"

"Frightened myself with a fairy story used to scare children into good
behaviour." Her voice took on the scolding tone of an exasperated mother.
"If you don't behave, I'll get Rassilon to send his Brood to eat you all up."
She shot the other woman a thoroughly shamefaced look.

"Rassilon?  You're a Time Lord!"

"And you're an Earth Human, of the late twentieth century - unless I miss my
guess, who seems to know far more about us than she ought."

 The woman grinned. "I've been travelling with the Doctor, and -" she broke
off at the strength of the sudden animation that sparkled in Harmony's
violet-blue eyes.

"You know him!"

Harmony nodded slowly.  She looked the woman up and down appraisingly.  "Not
only are you an anachronism in this time and place, but you also keep very
bad company."

"Oh.  He's not that ba..." the woman began, jumping to the Doctor's defence.
Then she fell silent in thoughtful amusement.  The skin around her brown eyes
crinkled as a mischievous smile broke over her face.  "On second thoughts..."

Harmony could not contain a sudden gust of laughter at the woman's grinning
re-appraisal.  It swelled in her chest, starting more tears running down her
cheeks, as the see-sawing of her emotions sent the laughter whirling too
close to the boundary of tears.

At length she sobered and said.  "I'm sorry, I don't usually get all
emotional like this - I, I've just regenerated, and that's always a bad
time."

"Yeah.  Tell me about it!" the woman muttered with feeling.

"And I've just lost my TARDIS," Harmony went on.  "All in all, it's been
rather a bad day so far." To give herself a moment to collect herself,
Harmony holstered the pistol - only succeeding at the third attempt.  She
wisely decided not to risk the sword, choosing to thrust it into the sand.
She stuck out a hand in an unmistakable earth gesture of friendship.  My
name's Harmony."

The curly haired woman took the hand and shook it, noticing how it still
trembled.  She decided then and there that she liked this woman.

"Tegan.  Tegan Jovanka.  and you're right.  I'm from Earth.  Australia
actually."

"Well met, Tegan Jovanka," Harmony rejoined.  She looked all around at the
dusty plain.  There was something about the place that rattled the remnants
of her scattered personality.  Her eyes narrowed against the glare, as she
strove to make sense of the half-heard rumour echoing around inside her
fractured mind.

She gave it up for the moment, knowing that it would come in its own good
time.  She asked: "Have you any idea where we are?  Or how we're going to get
off this dust ball?  I don't suppose the Doctor's anywhere nearby - no?" she
grinned wryly.  "Didn't think so!  That'd be asking too much where Theta is
concerned.  He's the damndest person to pin down.  He's had the High Council
chasing their tails for centuries." She chuckled at the memory.  "But if he's
not here.  How did you get here.  He hasn't abandoned you has he?  He does
that sometimes to his companions you know."

"I wish I knew," said Tegan.  "I remember a beautiful fountain and the next
thing...I'm laying on a stone slab in the middle of this desert with her
staring down at me."

They both turned to look at Rain, who stood a few yards off, regarding them
warily.  One hand kept edging towards the large pear-shaped blue crystal
between her breasts, but never quite reaching it.  The hot wind was dragging
her hair into a streamer of dark mist.  Offering up an uncertain smile, she
said: "There's a Gateway installation just over those dunes.  Perhaps the
Lady can operate it?" With a slender arm, Rain pointed off into the haze.

Harmony looked the woman up and down, eyes narrowing with suspicion.
"Perhaps," she conceded reluctantly.  "It's certainly active.  And it does
recognise me."

"What do you mean?' asked Tegan.

"I don't know what language you're talking Tegan, but I'm willing to bet
it's not Gallifreyan.  And she -" Harmony indicated Rain "- will be speaking
the Orion Dialect of the Selkie tongue.  I'm willing to bet you can't speak
that either."

"No," Tegan admitted.  "I'm speaking English."

"Which means the installation must be translating, because my TARDIS..."
Harmony faltered into silence, not wanting to walk where that thought led;
but she had already gone too far.

Moisture pooled in her eyes, gathering into fat tears on her eyelashes,
before sliding down her cheeks.

At starting of those tears, Rain, who had been engaged in a ferocious
struggle with ingrained fear and need, finally surrendered to temptation.
With a liquid motion, she flowed across the parched sand towards Harmony, and
cupped the weeping woman's chin in both hands.

Startled, Harmony half pulled away; but Rain's grip was iron.  The Selkie
leaned in close, peering with a frightful avidity at the water
streaming down Harmony's cheeks.

"Sweet, sweet water of life," she breathed.  Her long tongue slid from
between half open lips to delicately dabble, lapping up the moisture.

Harmony uttered a snarl of distaste at the affront.  She dragged her face
free of the enclosing hands.  There was scarce any resistance; for the Selkie
had drawn in a gasp of pure horror at first touch of Harmony's tears upon her
tongue.  The silk robed woman flung herself away, back-peddling in frantic
haste from Harmony, her eyes staring wide in horror, utterly undone by the
bitter revelation of suffering she could taste in the soul-scent of Harmony's
tears.

"that'll teach you!" Harmony growled, unable to control the vindictive tone
that edged her voice.  From within, the Source Priestess chided her gently
for her anger, but relented because the sense of violation had been
so overpowering.  It had threatened to send Harmony sliding down into more
tears.  At length, she mastered herself and turned from the stricken Rain to
Tegan.  "Can you remember the way back to the Gateway?  I want to get off
this world as soon as possible."

"Gateway?" Tegan questioned.

"The place where you arrived on this planet."

Tegan nodded.  "It's just over there.  We can follow the tracks.  It's not
far to walk."

Harmony took up the sword.  She managed to sheath it at the first attempt.
"Let's go," she said and set off, following the disturbed sand.  Tegan fell
in beside her while Rain trailed in their wake, staring reproachfully at
Harmony's back.  In minutes, they came to the station, and picked their way
among the fallen statutory, crossing the paving to the stone in the middle of
the circular area.  Dust gritted under foot, blurring the complex
inter-locking pattern of the tiles.

"Can you operate it?" asked Rain, stroking a finger along the edge of the
block.

Harmony gave the woman another slow, suspicious look.  "I can try." she said
at last.  "But what's that to you?  You're not going anywhere." she pointed
out. That new serenity so recently interleaved with her soul, grew appalled
at her capacity for vindictiveness;  but it was the look of naked panic on
Rain's face which shocked her out of her anger at the Selkie's violation of
her person.

More than a little ashamed at the way she was reacting, Harmony told herself
sternly that her feelings could not all be put down to regeneration shock.
She turned away, becoming brisk to cover her sudden inner turmoil.  "Right!
Let's see if we can start this old engine."

She moved to the block, laying her palms on the top surface. Ghostly outlines
of geometrical shapes shimmered in the surface of the stone.

Harmony smiled.  "Well!  At least it is an *intelligent* installation.  I was
worried that it might not accept my DNA patterns."

"How did you do that?" Tegan asked, taking a step forward and leaning down
to peer at the shapes.

"It is locked to a primary DNA pattern.  Any Gallifreyan in good standing
with his or her House ought to be able to activate the Stone.  I was worried
that it might not accept my *altered* patterns.  But I am fairly certain we
will be able to make a reciprocal jump, if nothing else."

"What does it do?" Tegan asked.

"Do you know what a transmat is?"

"Not really," Tegan admitted slowly.  The Doctor had mentioned the word a few
times, but she'd not really been paying attention.  "Is this a...Transmat?"

"No.  It's a Vortex Gateway device - but it can be used as a sort of
super transmat - by people with the right DNA structures -
which pretty much means Time Lords and a few...others."

The reticence in the way Harmony used the word "others" rang a note of
warning in Tegan.  She knew, deep down that she should let it pass, but tact
was an all but unknown country to her.

"Others?" she asked.

Harmony stiffened.  "It's not important," she said dismissively.  "There used
to be a Brood stationed here once.  This was their power source."

"Brood?"

Harmony compressed her lips, glanced at Rain then fixed Tegan with a hard
look. "Those black dressed women  - when you found me.  You saw them?"

At Tegan's blank look, Harmony said: "Never mind.  It's not important.
Getting off this planet is." She replaced hands on the block and closed her
eyes.  Her lips moved in a silent mantra.  A loud hum sounded in the stone,
seeming to come up from the depths of a vast chasm.  The dust filled air
around them vibrated unpleasantly.  From a point directly overhead, rainbows
unfolded outwards like an umbrella opening in reverse to form an eye dazzling
ceiling.  The down lifted along Tegan's neck.

Rain gave a shrill little cry of pain.  Harmony's hand moved and the dazzling
display died abruptly.

Harmony frowned.  She glanced across at Tegan, looked her up and down,
before turning to Rain.

"Are you wearing a Constraining Band?"

"What is that?"

"A metal bracelet.  About so big.  It fits on a wrist."

"Like this?" Rain drew up the hem of her skirts and held out a graceful foot.
About the ankle, was a dull grey metal band.

Harmony knelt to inspect the anklet.  She pursed her lips thoughtfully,
peering at it, but made no move to touch the thing.  "Yes.  That's a
Restraining Band.  " She straightened.  "The transfer will not take place
while the restraining band is within the translation zone.  You'll have to
move beyond the circle of influence."

Rain's hand flew to her pendant.  Panic flared in her eyes and her complexion
grew ashen.  "You...You can't leave me here!" she gasped.  "Please.  Lady.
Don't leave me here?"

"Why not?" Harmony seemed genuinely puzzled.  "I am not here on the authority
of the High Council to release you from your exile.  I am here by accident.
Now, if you don't mind...I would like to get on my way?"

"But...But you *can't* leave me here in this wretched place!  I will die!"

"I can't take you with us," Harmony said firmly.  "I have neither the
authority - nor the right.  Now...If you wouldn't mind?"

Rain shot a look of panicked appeal at Tegan, who had been watching this
exchange open mouthed.  No one deserved to be left stranded here in this God
forsaken corner of the galaxy.  The silk wreathed woman gave her the creeps;
but she was not too certain that she cared over much for the sudden apparent
callousness that Harmony was displaying.  Had the Doctor ever been like this?
Certainly he could be infuriating, aloof and distant at times, but she could
not think of him as being callous.

"We can't leave her here," she said at last.  "Not in this outback."

Harmony glanced at the stricken Rain, who was watching them with mute appeal.
The quality of wretchedness touched the soul of the Source Priestess within
her; but Harmony resisted the surge of compassion, knowing that to set foot
to that road would lead straight to the Vaporisation Chamber.

"Tegan.  I can't release her.  It would be high treason;  and while my people
are pretty slow to action, High Treason against their law usually gets them
moving.  They have very firm convictions about how to deal with treason."

She broke off to study Rain for a speculative moment.  "though they can be
condign and ruthless when they feel threatened, they would not have exiled
her here without good cause."

"Nothing could deserve this," Tegan said defensively.

"You think not?" Harmony asked becoming gentle.  She sent a significant look
around at the deserted station.  Her gaze lingered on the shattered statues,
half lost in the blowing dust, recalling to mind the rumours she had heard
whispered of the Storm Singer of Orion Four.  .  "Why not ask her what she
did, to make my people visit this cruelty on her?"

Tegan glanced at the stricken woman, but said nothing.

It was left to Harmony to put the question.  "Well?" she demanded.  "My
people did not imprison you here out of some whim, or any enjoyment of
inflicting pain.  What did you do?"

The awful panic in Rain's eyes made Tegan flinch.

"Please,  Lady?" she implored, looking like a hunted animal at
bay.  Her hands clenched in her robes. Her gaze went from Harmony's accusing
stare to Tegan.  She found no hope even there.

"Please?" she cried again in a tiny, helpless, hopeless appeal.

Harmony had to fight hard to hold onto her resolve against the surge of
compassion from the Source Priestess.  "Well," she demanded in a voice whose
firmness belied her inner struggle.

Rain drew herself up.  The gesture lacked conviction.  "I fell in love,"
 she admitted at last.

"Always probleematical for the Selkie Kind, I grant you;" Harmony observed.
"But they would not have set you here for that."  Harmony was remorseless.
For some reason she felt the honour of her people were under scrutiny here
and she was loathe to show her people in a bad light to this Earth woman.

The wretched woman faced them squarely for a long moment.  Her eyes hunted
back and forth between the Earth woman and the Time Lord, seeking some hint
of hope, considering whether a confession would get her off this forsaken
world.

The collapse, when it came, was sudden and shocking.  Her lips suddenly
trembled, tears started from her eyes, ran down her cheeks.  Her face fell;
her shoulders slumped;  and she crumpled up like a punctured balloon.

She looked down at the ground.  "Alright!  Alright!" she whimpered in a
defeated tone.  "I'll go." She turned and slunk miserably, head down, away
across the tiles towards the perimeter of the station.  Stepping from the
tiling, she turned to stand between two massive fallen statues, reproaching
them with a silent, forlorn accusation.

"Right!" said Harmony.  She addressed herself to the stone once more, careful
to avoid meeting Tegan's gaze.   She passed hands over the symbols.  Once
more the unpleasant sensations stirred the air.

No translation took place.

Harmony sighed, lifted hands and stepped back.  She looked around at the
barrens, a sour expression on her face.  "Well.  That's that then." she
observed quietly.

"You can't make it work?"

"No."

"Why - is it broken?"

"Not that I can sense."

What then?" Tegan demanded a rising note of panic in her tone.  The fear of
being trapped here on this arid world with the strange silk clad woman surged
up to choke her.

"I don't know," Harmony all but snapped back.

"So we're trapped here?  Like Rain?"

"It would seem so.  I'm sorry Tegan."

"For what?"

"For giving you hope.  And not being able to fulfil that expectation."

Tegan shrugged.  Vaguely, she wondered if all Time Lords suffered from
the same inability to fulfil even the simple promise of getting her back
where she belonged - like the Doctor.

From between the fallen ebony statues, Rain looked on.  Neither Tegan nor
Harmony were aware of the little smile of triumph, savage and secret, that
lit her pale features, while one hand stroked the tear drop, blue on blue
against the silks between her breasts.




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