A Dance With The Dark Stranger.

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

Doctor Who is copyright BBC.

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Vicky sat, cross legged on a rock, by the side of the sea.

The mind of Vicky, like that sea, was vast, restless and deep.  It sucked
greedily at the edges of an undiscovered continent.  In their own unique
way, given time, they could both consume the world.

Behind her, crouched in concealment among boulders at the top of the beach,
a gigantic carnivore studied the young woman with intent yellow eyes.  It's
black nose twitched incessantly, testing the air.  It waited, the
incarnation of patience.  An old and biting hunger worried at it.  Soon now
it would be able to satisfy that need.

Vicky stared out over Ocean.  Her black eyes were full of an aching
emptiness.  They watched the dark rolling waters from a pale triangle of
face.  A grey white wrap was pulled in tight about the thin body.  A deep
cowl was thrown back on narrow shoulders.  A mass of silky, raven black
hair streamed in the salt breeze blowing over Ocean.

Before Vicky, God Cursed Sun was rising out of Ocean.  His light flushed
pink the sea birds that soared over that dawn dark sea.  Their cries, as
they wheeled in the air, were like the lament of damned sailors whose souls
remain ungathered to the Source.  The sound had power to rake the soul with
claws of regret, and score deep furrows in the hearts of men.

Vicky paid them no heed; for she was Vixen.   There was naught save a ghost
of humanity within her that might be touched by such sadness. Her six
fingered hands rested on her knees.  Each digit ended in a hooked claw,
steel grey and sharp.  No tears could brighten her eyes.  Vicky could not
cry; for she was not born of human kind.

Neither was she truly Vixen.

This in between state was her bane; a cruel thief of identity that robbed
her of what she was and what she might become.  It was the goad that would
drive her to consume the Others - whether or not she would have it so.

The trouble was that her feet had never been set upon Path.  Only by
treading Path could the Vixen kind come to the Dreaming Sea, led thither by
the Dark Stranger.  And there, on the shores of Golden bay, to look out
over that other Ocean, to the promise of Silver Island.

Before her, the great orange ball of God Cursed Sun cooled its rim in the
waters of Ocean, readying itself for its leap into Sky.  A rippling pathway
of orange fire reached towards where Vicky sat, wrapped in isolation.  A
pathway - of sorts?

It led not to Silver Island.

Setting foot to that path led only to the terrible and final oblivion, that
cruel destiny so stoically endured by the Others.  Vicky had no true
comprehension of that state; but the thought filled her with dread.

How could the Others bear it?

The susurration of the timeless rush of water up the beach was a sound that
soothed her soul.  Vicky sat listening to it, wrapping it about herself.
It filled up the aching emptiness inside with the song of Ocean.  Then,
distilling out of that sound was another.  It grew, rising and falling,
overmastering the whisper of the waves breaking on the beach.  The sound
ended with a solid thump.

Vicky paid it no heed.

The thing in the rocks half rose, suddenly alert.  A growl started deep in
its chest.  Before escaping into the world, that sound caressed ivory
fangs.

The sharp crunch of shingle advanced towards Vicky - stopped.  The newcomer
spoke.  The voice was that of a young female of the Others.

'Hello?'

Only then did the Vixen move.  As if surfacing from a trance, she lifted
her hands, clasped them together before her small breasts and bowed her
head in the direction of God Cursed Sun.  She looked across at the serene
faced young woman in dark robes standing a few yards away.

'You have come to show me Path?' Vicky inquired.  It was neither entirely a
question, nor completely a statement, but fell, wanting of certainty,
somewhere between.

'Show you Path?  I'm sorry?  I don't understand?'

The girl put a restraining hand to her brown hair which was streaming in
the wind.  Holding it from her face, she turned and called up the beach.
'Doctor?'

A tall man stood by a blue box.  He was pulling the door to behind him.  At
his side was a young woman of the Others, with a pretty face and a mop of
brown curls.

'What is it, Nyssa?' the man asked, sauntering down the beach.  A shapeless
hat was perched on the back of his head.  A fair fringe fluttered in the
breeze.

Nyssa glanced back to the woman wrapped in the grey robe, sitting on the
rock.  'There's some one here, Doctor.  She wants to know if we've come to
- eh - show her the path?'

The Doctor stopped abruptly.  He shot his left arm before Tegan, halting
her.  His youthful face became grave, blue eyes suddenly hard.

In a quiet voice, laden with warning, he said: 'Nyssa!  Move away from her!
Do it now!  Nyssa!'

Nyssa did not question.  She stepped away, moved to stand beside Tegan.

The ears of the concealed carnivore pricked forward, straining after the
alien lilt of the new voices.  The eyes hunted back and forth among the
people by Ocean, alive with a profound satisfaction.  Now it could begin.
The time to Dance was come!

At the edge of the sea, the thin berobed woman slid from the rock and
turned to face the Others.

'You are Vixen?' the Doctor asked.

'I am Vixen.'

The Doctor frowned in puzzlement.  'And yet, you do not see Path?'

'I do not see Path,' the woman confirmed.

'How can this be?' asked the Doctor.  Already he could feel the tug of the
"Take" inside his head.  He glanced at Nyssa, concerned.  The Traken girl
was blinking rapidly and touching fingers to her temples.  Tegan, too, was
feeling the subtle mental tension  of the bereft Vixen.  She was frowning
and kept twitching her head, as if trying to dislodge something inside.

He had to do something - and quick - or they would all be consumed.

'What of your mother?  Did she not lead you along Path?'

'Mother did not.  She went to the Dance with the Dark Stranger before I was
old enough to set my foot to Path.  Have you come to show me the way?'

A sharp surge of expectation stung the Doctor and Nyssa, like a hot needle
thrust into their souls.  Even Tegan flinched.  The tug of the "Take"
intensified.

'Surely you had blood relations?  Your aunts?'

Vicky shook her head.  'I know not.  I was brought to my time by the
Others.'

The Doctor looked grim.  'The Others?' he echoed; 'what happened to them?'

'I led them in the Dance.'

The Doctor nodded sadly.  A worried expression settled on his face.  'I
see,' he said, fingering his chin thoughtfully.  His mind was in a whirl,
seeking a path out of this deadly situation.  Ever and again, his thoughts
circled back to the realisation that without a blood relation to this Vixen
to hand, there was no solution.

He glanced quickly at Nyssa.  She looked very pale.  The expression on her
face was strained.  At least, he thought grimly, not one he cared to
contemplate.

Yet something had to be done, and done quickly.  This slim form before him
was a time bomb waiting to explode.  No!  He corrected himself - implode.
And when that happened, every Terran settler on this planet would go down
into madness and death.  He studied the small woman, knowing that this
tragedy could not be eschewed for long.  Something had to be done. But
what?

He said: 'We do not see Path.'

Vicky shifted her attention to Nyssa.  'This one sees the way.  She can
lead me to Path.'

Nyssa shivered and rubbed her temples.  'Doctor?  Doctor - I feel so
strange!  I -'

'It's alright, Nyssa,' the Doctor reassured her.  He said to Vixen: 'She
cannot show you the way.  She sees a Path but Her Path is not the Path of
Vixen.  And it leads now only to the void.'

In the rocks up the beach the patient Dire Beast rose.  Grey, Big as a
donkey, it resembled a giant wolf.  Emerging from the rocks at the top of the
beach, it padded towards the group of people by the side of Ocean, the clawed
paws making no sound on the shingle.

The moment the animal rose into view, Vicky turned her impassive gaze upon
it.

Tegan's eyes went wide with an old, instinctive, and deeply rooted fear.
Panic almost overwhelmed her.

Unhurried, the giant wolf stalked over and sat down among them.  It looked
slowly at each of them, its searching gaze full of expectation.

A tense silence lengthened, filled only with the sound of the sea, and the
gulls.  At last Vicky stirred, reached out a hand to the beast.  She
stroked the head.  A fond smile played about her thin lips.

'Now you can set my foot to Path,' she announced.  'Now that mother has
come.'

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The tiny cabin stood on the edge of two worlds, betwixt the dark pines and
the flat expanse of the Waste.  A sturdy no nonsense construction of stone
and wood, it huddled under a deep blanket of snow - the first of the
season.

The clear sky glittered with frosty stars.  There was no sound save the
sighing of an errant wind in the pines, the sibilant whisper of powdery
snow lifting and drifting under that breeze, and the eerie sobbing of Dire
Beasts as they gathered the pack to the hunt, far out on the Waste.

On bare feet, a thin shadow of darkness detached itself from the darker
backdrop of the pines.  It paused a long moment as it came into the open.
With slender white fingers it drew a grey cloak tighter about the thin
shoulders, about the bundle nestled in the crook of an arm.  Where the face
should have been was only a pool of shadow under a loose cowl.

Desperate eyes looked out from that pool of darkness at the sturdy little
dwelling.  Then they lifted and went beyond to the waste.  The sobbing of a
Dire Beast swelled in the snow blanketed quiet.

'Patience!  Patience!' the figure breathed into the frosty air.  'Vixen
hurries to the Dance!  Patience Dark Lord!  For it will be soon
now...Soon!'

With a curious, expressive shrug of the narrow shoulders, the figure swayed
forward, slithering through the snow towards the cabin.

No help could be expected at a Hearth of the Others.  To go there was an
act of futility; but the Others hunted her this night.  There had been one
death too many.Their fear based anger demanded vengeance, demanded a
scapegoat.  They would see her dance with the Dark Stranger before God
Cursed Sun rose again.

And the madness would begin.

The fools!  They knew not that their childish wants would doom themselves
to madness and death, and perhaps take the Vixen kind down with them into
the dark - a gentle people long in life and as old as time!

No!  Vixen could not go to the Dance in the presence of the Others.  There
could be no avoiding the madness that would fall upon them as the Dark
Stranger led her in the Dance.  Out of the madness would come
misunderstanding and fear.  Then the anger and the need to avenge.  And
then treading hard upon this would come the genocidal war and with each
Vixen who Danced in the presence of the Others the madness would grow
apace.

And all this would flow from their desire to kill her.

Not once did Vixen consider abandoning them to their grisly fate.  Even
though it meant her baby, her lovely baby had to die.

But she was Vixen.  This last cruel stroke of fate Vixen would not bow to -
so Vixen had come to the cabin, standing between the world of the wood and
the waste, with determination, but without hope.

Vixen stopped a few yards from the door and waited with all the patience of
her ancient kind.

Inside the cabin a fire blazed in a stone hearth.  Its cheerful glow did
not entirely warm the cluttered little living space.  The lambent light of
the flames strove against the darkness in a battle with the shadows in an
endless war of rally and retreat.

Shapes crouched in the uncertain darkness, bereft of any terror by years of
familiarity.  There a table, there a chest and there before the fire two
large, comfortable chairs drawn up to the cheerful flames, both occupied,
between them an ancient brown dog sprawled luxuriously on a thick rug.

And there, off to one side, in a far corner that the insensitive light
insisted on illuminating, an empty crib crouched, nursing its air of lonely
futility.

It should have been thrown out long ago; but Mary had not been able to bear
the thought; and Joseph had not the heart to insist.  So it sat there, a
mute symbol of the bitter betrayal of expectation, of failure.

Mary looked away, not giving the memory a chance to gather its pain to
scourge her soul.  She turned her eyes down to the old dog.  A thin smile
crept hesitantly over her round homely face, deeply touched by time and
disappointment.

Ben was indulging in a favourite past time.  He was watching, fascinated,
the unformed shapes dancing in the flames.  He lay upon the rug, tail
curled, the constant twitching of his nose stilled.  It was a solace they
all three turned to more and more often now.  So many of their evenings had
been spent in watching the shapes that danced in the fire.  Never had the
allure of them waned.

They all felt it at the same moment.

Ben's ears pricked.  He came to his feet, nose twitching.  A soft whine
started in the old dog's throat.  Hackles rose all along the bony back.

Mary and Joseph looked at each other.  They did not speak.  Words were
unnecessary.  The look that passed between them screamed a single word in
silence and trepidation.

"Vixen!"

Joseph's lined features struggled with fear and loathing for long seconds,
settling at last into weary resignation, rather than resolve.  He pushed
his spare frame out of the deep comfort of the chair.  Reaching, he took
down a crossbow from a mounting over the fire place.

He cocked it.  Some steel bolts stood in a container on the hearth.  Joseph
selected one of the wicked little projectiles.  It slid into position with
a soft click.  He took up a lamp, lit it from the fire and turned to the
door.

'It'll only be a Dire Beast, sniffing around the hen coup,' he reassured
Mary.  He crossed to the door.  Ben had backed away from it and was
growling with his ears laid flat, hackles standing stiff.  He did not like
this any better than his two masters.  Less so, for he understood
instinctively what kind of terror approached the cabin.  He wanted none of
this; but he was more faithful than afraid.  He would stand with his pack.
The old dog glanced up at Joseph as he came to the door, trusting.

Outside Vixen waited, aware her presence would be known, knowing the fear
and loathing it would provoke.  Most likely Vixen was going to die.  Be
that as it may, there was at least the consolation that only these two
ancient, shunned Others would tread the Path of insanity when Vixen Danced.
And they were so ill-considered by their kind that there was even a chance
it might end here.  For who among the Others would seek to avenge them?

The door to the cabin opened.  Light spilled out onto the white mantel of
snow.  Almost as if it knew the importance of this meeting, the restless
wind held its breath.

Joseph took a step out into the cluttered farmyard.  He held up the
lantern.  The yellow light touched a thin form standing in the snow a few
feet from the door.  Though it was bundled up in a cloak, the hood pulled
forward to hide the face, Joseph knew.  It was something you felt inside,
rather than anything you saw with your eyes.  He recognised the creature
that stood in his yard; and he wanted nothing to do with it.

He brought up the bow, aimed it at the middle of the slender figure.  A
tiny voice deep inside warned.  "To kill Vixen is to invite insanity!".
With a curious distance, Joseph felt the bow lowered.  He was not sure if
it was by his own will.

From behind him Mary's fearful voice asked: 'Joseph?  What is it?'

'A Vixen.'

'What do you want here, Vixen?' Mary demanded of the figure in the snow.
She shuffled forward to stand by her husband.  Her voice was hard, full of
suspicion.  She folded the shawl around her slumped shoulders against the
chill.

The thing in the darkness stirred.  The head lifted.  'Vixen wants life!'
Vixen said.  'Vixen wants life for her baby.'

'Then why have you come here?' Joseph asked.  'There is no welcome here for
your kind.  You are not welcome here.'

When Vixen spoke, her voice was scornful.  'Vixen seeks no welcome at a
Hearth of the Others.'

'Then why have you come here?'

'Vixen asks nothing for herself - only life for baby.' Vixen stirred again,
letting the robe fall aside to show the tiny infant at her breast.  'See!
How pretty is baby?  Would you let her die?  Baby is so pretty!  Look!  So
pretty!'

The two humans felt a subtle pressure working on them.  An intense yearning
stirred deep inside both.  Mary took a step forward, before her mind
rebelled at the manipulation.  She hastily drew back, horrible fears
clouding her mind.

'Why should she die?' asked Joseph, his fingers toying with the trigger
mechanism.  He was deeply troubled.  He had wanted a son.  So badly, he had
wanted a son, to carry on his line.  Vaguely, Joseph was aware of the Vixen
shifting its attention to him.  There was a sharp intensification of that
yearning.

'Others - your kind - they will see God Cursed Sun rise on this Vixen.
Vixen cannot let that be.  When Vixen Dances with Dark Stranger, it must
not be in the presence of Others.  Your kind understand not the need of
Vixen to take the High Road to Golden Bay and come home safe at last to
Silver Island.  In their ignorance they will tread a dreadful road to
madness.  That must not be!  Alone, Vixen must go, across Waste to Dance
with Dark Stranger.  But Vixen cannot take baby with herSelf.  Baby cannot
tread Path.  Baby is too young.'

Though the words brought no meaning to the two in the doorway, images of
silver and gold hunted comprehension around the edges of their confusion.
The emotional surge that accompanied this deep stirring drew little gasps
from them both.  The emotional outpouring was alien and incomprehensible,
but the intensity of the naked emotion was shocking.

Mary clutched hands to herself, drew back inside.  'Kill it!' she croaked.
'Please, Joseph!  Kill it!' Her mind was whirling with the intrusion of
another's emotions, those of an alien mind, whose experience and desires
were so strange that Mary's own humanity had not equipped her to handle
them.

Joseph raised the bow.

The Vixen straightened.  A terrible sadness flooded the minds of the two
old people.  The only clear intent was a determination to walk tall under
the Moons, shot through with a bitter disappointment.

Vixen lifted her face to the star strewn sky.  Vixen would go well under
the benevolent silver light of Little Moons.  The slight straightening
detached the suckling babe from the breast.  It began to wail - a piteous
sound.

Joseph hesitated a split second - and a world was lost.

Mary shouldered the hesitant old man aside.  She ran to the half naked
mother, standing in the snow, cradling her baby.

Mary held out her hands.  'Here!  Give her to me!  I'll protect her.  I
promise.' Her words came out in a babbling rush.

Vixen lowered her gaze from Sky and fixed the suddenly desperate woman
before her with a searching stare.

Mary felt the "pressure" inside her head, knew that the thing was examining
her soul.  Oddly, there was no sense of violation.  Mary stood proud under
that scrutiny, suddenly needful of showing her worthiness to this alien
mother.  Abruptly the intrusion withdrew.

Vixen lifted the child, pressed lips to its forehead in a fiercely
passionate kiss, before holding the wailing baby out.

Mary received the bundle, like a precious gift of the Gods.  Opening her
shawl, she folded it around the cold pale scrap of life.  At once, the baby
began to clutch at her breast, nuzzling up against it.  Soft mewing sounds
of contentment filled Mary with a profound surge of maternal affection,
made the more powerful by their long absence.

Eyes shining, she looked up at the Vixen.  The small woman wrapped her robe
closed about her thin body.  The look on her face was pain and loss
incarnate; it drove a dagger of anguish into Mary's heart.

'I will protect her as if she were mine...She IS mine!'

vixen nodded.  Vixen knows.  Such is the way of things.  Vixen, Others - we
are all of us who are strongly in life called to motherhood.  And who among
us, Vixen or Others, can resist that gentle strength?  Who among us can
deny that imperious demand?' Vixen took a step back into the encroaching
dark.  'Vixen must go now.  Others - your people, will come.  They are bent
on destruction of Vixen; and perhaps it is with just cause?  Vixen knows
not?  Vixen must seek Path to Silver Island.  And if they take this Vixen
here - two worlds may be lost.'

'Why not come in?  We can hide you until -' Joseph was amazed to hear his
own voice, for he was certain that they were not his thoughts.

'No.  They have Can-Hounds.  They will be drawn to this Vixen like the Zill
to the silver of Little Moons.  They will find Baby.' In a sudden flowing
movement, Vixen crossed arms over her thin chest and bowed towards them
once, twice, three times.  'May the light of three moons bless you ever,'
Vixen intoned formally.  'And now Vixen must go.'

'But where will you go?' Joseph asked.

Vixen looked to one side, out over Waste.  'Vixen shall go west.  westward
to Mountains, westward to Sea.'

Joseph frowned.  'There is no sea in the west?  The sea lies eastward?'

A thin sound that might have been laughter ascended in over lapping tones
in to the frosty air.  Her high voice drifted back to him from the grey
snow-lightened dark.

'Vixen goes to an older sea than Ocean.  Far, far older.  A sea whose tides
lap upon shores so ancient that God Cursed Sun has never risen on them.
Vixen goes westward to Sea, to look out over Golden Bay to gaze upon the
promise of Silver Island adrift in that eternal sea.  And, perhaps, even to
cross to it and come home at last to the joy of the eternal afternoon.
Westward, it lies, across Waste, and it calls this Vixen - How it calls!
Vixen goes to that sea now.  Protect Baby!'

And with that she spun about and walked away into the dark, into the west,
into the winter cursed wasteland - westward.

'But that's madness!' Joseph cried after the dark shadow flitting, half
seen, across the snow.  'No one can cross the Waste in winter - not dressed
like that, and without supplies.  Not even a Vixen.'

From Vixen came no answer.  Instead, far out on the Waste, a Dire Wolf
howled.  The sound rose up and up, straining to caress the glittering
stars.  More joined in, climbing, climbing to a crescendo beyond the
resolution of human ears.

Joseph paused, undecided, looking after the vanished figure.  He looked
inside to where Mary was cradling the tiny baby in her arms.  He was
utterly at a loss to know what should be done.  He had always looked to
Mary for guidance; he did so now.

'Mary?'

'Hmmm?' She did not look up.  Her fascination with the child was complete.
She had forgotten his existence.

'Should I go after her?'

'Who?'

Joseph bit his lip, fighting down a fierce surge of jealousy.He vacillated
for several more long seconds, staring out into the dark.  Then he stepped
inside and shut the door on the icy night.

The next morning Joseph watched Mary fussing over the infant, suffering
under her indifferent attention.  Finally, unable to stand the inchoate
itch of jealousy any longer, he pulled on his thick woolens, set the riding
cloak about his shoulders and went out to saddle the horse.

It was not entirely clear to him why he did this.

He turned the big brown mare's head into the west and urged her forward.
The tracks of the Vixen lay clear and sharp in the even expanse of white.
They went away into the west, unwavering, straight as an arrow.  The words
of the Vixen came back to him.

westwards to Mountains.  westwards to Sea.'

She had spoken so matter of fact, as if the crossing of the Waste in
winter, on foot and dressed only in that odd wrap around cloak they all
wore, was a thing as simple as crossing a room.  Now, seeing the straight
line of her bare foot prints in the snow, he could easily believe that one
such as she might manage the staggering feat.

For a while, he let the mare have her head, and galloped off the energy
good feeding and enforced idleness had instilled in the horse.  Later, he
reined her in to canter, finally to a steady trot.  All the while, the foot
prints went ahead of him, determined and resolute, into the west.

After a couple of miles, her tracks were joined from the north east by
several horses, and alongside, the unmistakable spoor of the Can-Hounds.
Joseph shuddered and made the sign of warding off evil.  Those half human
half alien trackers made his blood run cold.  They were as bad as Vixen,
worse, for they were imports to this world, brought here by the Corporation
as guards for their various installations, not native like the Vixen.  This
somehow emphasised their "wrongness" and set them apart from Vixen, though
they both had that same disturbing effect on the minds of men.

For a mile or so the Vixen's marks were overridden and obliterated by the
tracks of her pursuers.  Then the mangled snow marking the track of the
pursuit halted abruptly.  The tracks of the horses and Can Hounds turned
away north west, towards the fringes of the pines.  They had given up the
chase.

It took only a moment for Joseph to discover the reason why.

The tracks of the Dire pack came up from the south, closed to within fifty
yards of the Vixen's spoor, and turned west, keeping a parallel path to the
prints of Vixen.

He felt the mare's rising panic and patted its neck to reassure the nervous
animal.  He permitted it to edge north, away from the scent of the giant
killer beasts.  He spoke to the horse softly, urging it onwards.


About five miles out, the Vixen had gone down.  Joseph paused to survey the
muddled snow from the saddle before he urged the mare on again.  It was
another four miles before she fell once more.  In the next two miles the
Vixen went down six more times.  After the seventh, she did not rise but,
amazingly, began to crawl, leaving a furrow to mar the smooth perfection of
the snow.

She crawled for another two miles.  Joseph came up to her body just after
noon.  For some reason, she had cast off her grey cloak a hundred yards
before.  She lay face down in the snow.  Her long hair spread about her
shoulders.  To either side the snow had been disturbed where arms had
pushed ineffectually at it, trying to row her body onwards towards the
west.  The paw marks of a single Dire Beast came right up to the body, had
circled around it once, and then gone back to the pack.  The body was quite
untouched by the carnivores.

Joseph sat in the saddle a long time, shaking his head in disbelief at the
sight.  Such determination dedicated to such a futile and pointless cause
unmanned him, touched him to the core.  With the back of his hand he wiped
away a stinging wetness from his eyes.

What the Devil was up with him.  It was only a dangerous alien creature.
He ought to be happy that it was dead.  But he was not.

He sighed sadly and dismounted.  Taking the shovel, the one he did not even
remember packing, he scraped at the snow.  For an hour, he laboured at
making a hole in the stony, frozen ground.  Eventually satisfied, he
gathered up the body of the Vixen, laying it gently in the shallow grave.
He marvelled at how light and frail it seemed.

He said no words over the grave.  He knew none to say.  Anyway, it did not
seem appropriate for the alien thing.  Instead, he took up the shovel once
more and began to scrape the sterile sand of the waste into the dark hole,
covering the pale form laying in the bottom.

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Mary listened to the steady grating of the shovel on the stale ground from
the Waste side of the cabin.  The grave would not need to be deep to
accommodate her age wasted body.  Soon it would be ready to receive her
corpse.

Vicky worked steadily at digging the grave, possessed of a determination
Mary's own kind could not comprehend.  She had been at it for a couple of
hours now without rest.

Vicky had told her: 'It is the time for the Deep remembering -' whatever
that was?  So Mary sat in her favourite chair before the hearth straining
to recall every detail of all the long evenings she had spent here with
Joseph in the other chair.

But he had departed long since.  Now, Mary's mind quested back through the
years past, experiencing again the madness that had come into her world on
that fateful day.  It abided with her still.

It was contained in the form of a small, pale girl - her adopted daughter,
Vicky.  After that day, Mary had never been able to look at the Vixen girl
with an easy heart.  Her maternal feelings had withstood a thunderbolt that
fateful day on the Waste.  They had not broken; but after that day, there
could never again be the easy closeness of a loving mother and a dutiful
daughter between them.

It was all true, all the tales told of the Vixen.  She had discovered this
on the day Joseph died.  Crouching over his contorting body, Mary had
finally understood what she had known instinctively from the beginning.
That there could be no meaningful meeting of minds between Vixen and
humanity.  And yet when Vicky had come to them out of the dark pines on
that night fifteen years ago, she had seemed a gift from the Goddess of
motherhood, a salve to sooth the ache of disappointment, to push aside the
empty bitterness that nestled in the crib, the fine crib that her mother
had given to them so long, so very long ago.

For a while Vicky had displaced that negative emotion and for a while, all
too brief a while there had been joy in Mary's heart, and a purpose to her
life.

Even the jealousy she had seen flaming in Joseph's eyes could not spoil her
joy of those first years.  She remembered that joy now, gathering the mist
of memories to her, drawing them tight about her withered shoulders.

If only Joseph could have understood her joy, have taken his rightful share
in it?  His diffidence was her sole regret of that time.  Mary turned her
thoughts away from those memories.  Regrets were pointless now that she was
to die in a few minutes.

Vicky had assured her the Dance was not like the dying of the "Others" - as
she insisted on calling the people of earth who had colonised this world in
the centuries gone before.  It was something more - and yet less.  But,
Vicky's vocabulary was woefully inadequate to realise in words of the
Others the Dance with the Dark Stranger.

They had not spoken of it often.  In truth, Mary did not want to know.  For
years now she had watched with growing trepidation for the signs of
womanhood in Vicky.  She understood that this change would precipitate the
crisis.

A week before she had been doing her ritual inspection of the sheets of
Vicky's bed and had seen the spots of blood and had known that the day of
her own death was not far in the future.

And now it had come.

Mary grew aware that the sounds of shovelling had stopped.  A tiny frisson
of fearful anticipation ran through her wasted body.  It would happen now.

'Mother?' The thin alien voice spoke close to her left ear.

Mary drew in a sharp breath.  She tasted the peculiar body odor of her
daughter, the Vixen spawn.  It was not unpleasant, just different.  A vast
surge of love welled within Mary's heart.  It had found her frustrated
maternal feeling a fertile earth in which to grow.

A pale hand fell on her shoulder.  'Mother.  The grave is deep enough.'

Mary reached up a raddled hand and laid it over that unhuman paw.  She
stroked it gently, a caress full of love and regret.  She squeezed hard,
turning her head to look into that sharp angled face.

As ever, it was ghostly pale, with a vague reptilian cast.  The eyes were
black, round, and separated by a sharp blade of a nose.  Below was the
small thin lipped mouth and finally the unnaturally pointed chin.  The
alien arrangement of features was framed by the lustrous black mane, which
had never known the touch of scissors.  It spread out over the shoulders.
Fell down over the small budding breasts, filling out the yellowed shirt
that had once been Joseph's.  It was the only garment Vicky would wear,
since she had been old enough to make the choice.

Mary looked deep into those alien eyes.  Does she really love me?  she
thought.  Suddenly it was important for her to know this.  Or is love so
alien an emotion to my daughter that it has no meaning.  Have I just been a
convenience, a foster mother of need?  Has she no human feeling for me at
all?

Mary remembered from her schooling the story of a bird of Old Earth that
had laid its eggs in another bird's nest.  When the egg hatched, the chick
threw out the other nestlings to die while it grew plump on the endeavours
of the foster parents.

What had it been called?  Mary was desperate to know.  She searched her
fading memory.  At last it came.

Cuckoo!  Yes, that was it!  A Cuckoo!

Mary was suddenly afraid of what she had nurtured to her bosom.  Had her
frustrated maternal feelings fattened a monster?  What had she loosed on
the world?

A slightly cruel smile settled on her lips.  A shaft of pure spite thrust
into her soul.  It would serve them right.  After all the threats, the
shunning and everything.  It would bloody well serve them right if she had
made a monster to prey on them.

'Is it time?' Mary asked, knowing that it was.

'Yes.  Mother.  It is time for your Dance with the Dark Stranger.'

'Will it hurt?'

'I do not know, Mother.  And what if it does?  We all must Dance with the
Stranger in the end.  Will you come outside and stand by the grave.  I am
not strong enough to carry your body there.' '

The matter of fact tone of voice drew the first intimations of fear from
Mary's soul.  For God's sake!  They were discussing her murder at the hands
of her daughter.

No.  Not murder. - something that was not murder something that Vicky had
not been able to explain.

'Come.  Mother,' Vicky urged.

With a great effort, and with Vicky's help, Mary got out of her chair for
what she knew would be the last time.  Standing, she pulled the small form
of her daughter into her arms and hugged her fiercely, stroking the silken
hair.  Vicky permitted this for a long moment.  She did not hug her mother
back.  Mary pretended she could feel the loving arms about her - and felt a
profound content.

Vicky stepped back, holding Mary's hands in her claws.  She gazed up into
Mary's face.  'It really would be easier here, Mother.  When I burn the
house, your body would be consumed.  What is this strange desire to lay in
the cold ground beside the body of Father?  What does it mean?'

Mary half shook her head.  'It is like the Dance with the Dark Stranger.  I
do not understand that.  I think I am not able to understand.  I don't
think it is in you to understand this.'

She fell silent a long time watching the eyes regarding her with that
questioning look.

Oh dear God!  What had she nursed to her bosom.

The lengthening silence began to grow awkward.  Suddenly brisk, Mary began
to shuffle towards the door.  She said: 'Come on child.  The day is
wasting.'

Hand in hand they went out into the hot light of God Cursed Sun as Vicky
was wont to call it.  Lending a gentle support, she helped her foster
mother around to the Waste side of the cabin, to the side of the open
grave.

The shock of seeing it made Mary's legs tremble with more than the effort
of walking.  So as not to have to look at the dark hole, she turned her
gaze to the filled grave next to it.  there was a small cairn of stones
piled at one end.

'Joseph?' she mouthed silently.  Joseph?  I'm sorry.  I should have
listened to you.  It's all my fault.  If only I could have had children?
If only I had told you I was barren before the choosing?'

Vicky stood to one side watching the wetness leaking from her mother's
eyes.  She had long since given up trying to understand what it was for.
She had noticed that it happened when mother was in a state of emotional
arousal; but what it was for had baffled her entirely.

'Mother?' she said.  She reached out and laid her fingers on the thin arm.
'Mother.  It will be alright.  It is the destiny of all that live to Dance
with the Dark Stranger.  It is not a bad thing.'

She doesn't understand, Mary thought, stabbed by a keen blade of failure.
Oh dear God - she doesn't understand!

Once, Mary had entertained a hope of making her Vixen daughter human.  The
desire had persisted for a long time; but Vicky's responses had grown
steadily more strange and frightening. At the last, Mary had turned her
gaze away; if she could not discover in her daughter the humanity she
sought, then she would NOT see the alienness.

When Vicky was ten, and Joseph had died so strangely, she had been forced
to acknowledge the unknown.  Since then, Mary had squared her shoulders and
faced with as much stoicism as she could muster the enigmatic and dreadful
reality of her daughter's Vixen inheritance.

The memory of that terrible day leapt upon her from the darkness of her
soul.  She tried to push it aside; but it pressed forward, demanding her
attention.  With a little sigh, she let the horrifying memory flood back.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Dark Stranger came to the Dance with Joseph, unbidden as it ever was
with the Terrans.  He came, far out on the Waste, arriving in the form of a
Swirligan.  It was a stomach, attached to writhing scarlet tentacles.  Each
one was lined along its length with poisonous barbs.  The thing
erupted from among the rocks.

They had been out as a family, gathering the grey-green mineral nodules for
sale in the town, to supplement their efforts to grow enough food in the
fringes of the Waste.

Joseph dug among the rocks and sand with the shovel, uncovering the
treasure.  Mary came behind with a bucket, gathering up the bounty.

Vicky, wearing only the yellowed old shirt of her foster father, sat on the
side board of the dilapidated cart, directing the horse.  This she did with
only an occasional look and gesture.

The air thrummed with that indefinable "tug" of Vixen.  It was a thing you
could never quite get used to and had to consciously resist during
wakefulness, and which brought strange and dreadful dreams of falling
during the night.

The old mare first recognised the Stranger.  She shied and squealed as the
red knot of scarlet came hissing through the air to land with a soft plop
on Joseph's shoulders.  The old man straightened, his shout of surprise
turning to a scream of agony as the poison barbs struck home.  The scream
died as the writhing tentacles went about shoulders, head, and about the
madly working throat of Joseph.  He dropped the shovel.  His hands clutched
at the constricting threads.  Weakening fingers scrabbled at the ropes of
red about his throat.  His eyes bulged.  A terrible certainty gripped him.

he was going to die!

In seeming slow motion, he pitched forward on to his face.  Already the
poison was taking effect.  Muscular spasms rippled down the length of his
spare frame.  A small cloud of alkali dust puffed up.  The Breath of the
Waste took it, tearing it into streamers.

Mary screamed.  The bucket fell from lax fingers.  It landed on its edge
and tipped over, spilling the tediously gathered mineral back to the
stones.  For several long seconds she stood there, frozen while her husband
of forty years twitched and shivered in the grip of the mindless
stomach. She might have stood there forever, while the thing consumed her
man, had not Vicky hissed a command to the terrified horse, struggling in
the shafts.

The command, though meant to quiet the animal, also cut like a knife
through the bonds of horror walling in Mary's mind.  She started forward,
reaching for the dropped shovel.

Twenty yards away, a wolf like shape rose from concealment in a shallow
depression.  The creature exploded into a run.  It came over the stones
like a bolt of grey lightning, straight into the midst of the tragedy.

The horse screamed, broke from Vicky's hold.  It reared, and bolted.  Dust
and stone flew up from under its hooves.  The wagon bounced and jolted
behind the fleeing animal.  The contents scattered.  Vicky plunged from the
wagon in a flutter of material, to land cat-like on her feet.

The grey streak went past her, dragging in its wake a banner of dust.
Without pausing, it lunged for the red mass on the shoulders of the dying
man.  Great fanged jaws closed with a succulent crunch.  Then it was over
the body, weaving around Mary and pulling up in a cloud of pebbles and
sand.

Instantly, the red thing sent tentacles about the head and neck of the Dire
Beast.  The huge creature shook its head in a fury of agitation.  The
Swirligan came apart with a wet tearing of flesh.  Bits and pieces of
tentacle flew in all directions.  Wherever they landed the dismembered bits
of the Swirligan writhed and coiled about whatever they touched.  about
stones, around the bucket, and the scattered tools.  Other pieces entangled
in a grisly embrace about other bits of itself.  Gobbets of flesh, and a
thick orange ichor sprayed everywhere.

Vicky went to her knees beside the body of Joseph.  Gripping a still
twitching arm, she heaved at the dead weight trying to turn him over.

Mary collapsed beside the body in a whirl of skirts and dust.  She was
making little inarticulate sounds of despair in her throat.  She dragged at
the body, succeeded in rolling it over.  She stared down at the face,
already beginning to purple and swell with the effects of the poison. Livid
red marks ran across the face and around the neck where the tentacles had
gripped.  The eyes were wide, staring, full of terror.

A few yards behind them, forgotten, the gigantic wolf creature sat.  Its
ears were pricked forward.  The nose twitched, tasting the hot breath of
the Waste.  The eyes observed with a dispassionate detachment, the macabre
tragedy playing itself out on the grey sterility of the Waste.  Its jaws
dripped orange blood.

Mary was stroking the pain lined face.  Gripped by helplessness, she was
still making impotent whimpering noises in her throat.  Her tears dropped
to the swelling cheeks, splashed onto the barren ground.  She was rocking
back and forwards in her despair, unaware of the intense way Vicky looked
from her to Joseph, unaware of anything, save the end of her world.

Gently Vicky took her by the wrists.  'Mother.  Please.' The girl said in a
low thrumming voice which penetrated to the core of the mind.  'Mother.
Stay quiet.  The Dance is upon father.  I must lead him in the Dance.'

Mary sat back on her heels, fell silent.  The world had taken on a dream
like quality.  In detached fascination, she watched her daughter lean over
the body of her husband and place slender white palms on his temple.  The
skin was slick with sweat.  Vicky leaned down further, until her face was
inches away from Joseph.

'Come!  Come!' Vicky called in an urgent whisper.  'You must dance with me,
father.' The voice was low, yet so powerful it trembled the foundations of
the mind.  'Father!  You must come to me.  NOW!'

Somewhere in the dark, the shrinking bundle of memories, desires and
emotions that was Joseph, acknowledged the dominion of that voice.  He
stopped his mad struggling against the "tug" of his Vixen daughter's mind.
He allowed it to gather him up, to draw him forth.

The wind blowing over Waste made a strange music in his mind.  Slow, low
and haunting, it fluctuated with a mournful and timeless rhythm.  The
sighing sound stirred half forgotten thoughts and feelings, lifting them
from the depths of Joseph's dying mind.  Vicky was there.  As the mental
essence of Joseph rose into the light, she gathered them up in a loving
embrace and whirled him away in a waltz to that music of time.

Mary looked on, feeling a tight clenching in her chest as the life went out
of the man she had loved too well.  Whatever the spell was that held her
thinned away and she could move again.  Slowly, she moved a hand down to
stroke at his sparse hair.  She called out silently to the soul of the old
man.  But the withered form on the sand was now only an empty husk.  Joseph
had gone.

Mary lifted the hand to Vicky, not knowing whether she sought succour for
herself or to comfort the girl.  At touch of the hand on her shoulder,
Vicky shivered, sighed and drew back, taking her hands from the dead face.
She lifted her gaze to Mary.

And for Mary, the madness began.

------------------------------------------------------------------

At the side of her own grave, Mary asked: 'will you show me Joseph?  Just
once more before - before -'

'Mother!  It is hard to bring father - and it does no good.  It makes the
wetness in your eyes.  I feel this is not a good thing.'

'Please?  Vicky - just once more,' Mary pleaded.

The cool scrutiny of her daughter made Mary's heart flip flop.  For long
seconds she thought the girl would not grant her this last gift of the
Vixen magic.  But then, without any apparent change taking place, the
essence of Joseph was there.

Mary let out a long sigh, and stretched hands out to the mirage of her
beloved husband, shadowing the shape of her daughter.  But, even as she
stretched out to him, she saw that it was only a Vixen child.

'Thank you.  Oh!  Vicky!  Thank you.' Mary sighed gratefully.  'I am ready
now.  Now I can lie in the earth in peace.'

Mary looked again at the gaping grave.  'Do I get down in there?  I don't
think I can manage that.'

'No, Mother.  It is not necessary.  I can roll your body in afterwards - I
think we should get on now.'

'Yes,' Mary answered meekly.  She drew in a long calming breath, to still
her pounding heart.  She looked from the Waste, to the wood, and back to
the Waste.  Joseph and she had lived their whole lives betwixt the two
worlds, belonging truly to neither.  It had been a profoundly dissatisfying
existence.  Mary had no regrets at leaving it behind.

She shifted her attention back to the alien eyes of the Vixen.  They
regarded her without apparent emotion.  She nodded.  'Yes,' she murmured,
it is time to go.  Oh?  Vicky?'

Vicky's eyes flamed suddenly with a silver light as she tilted her head and
God Cursed Sun caught them.  The girl reached up, placed her palms against
Mary's temples, who shivered at the unnatural coolness of those six
fingered paws.

'Close your eyes, mother.  You must close your eyes.'

Mary did so.  The last thing she saw in life was the pale, angular face of
her foster daughter, framed by the black hair and dominated by the eyes
which seemed to have grown huge.

There was a touch like gossamer threads settling in Mary's brain.  The
"tug" that she had known since the first moment of cradling Vicky in her
arms intensified.  She had resisted it, waking and sleeping, instinctively
every moment since then.

Now, with a profound sense of relief, she put aside the struggle and
surrendered to its gentle straining tension.

She was aware of the Forever Wind of the Waste sighing through the nearby
pines.  The slow, sad music it drew from the trees thrummed and beat in her
being, quickening her heart.  The rhythm was slow and strong.  It sang in
the very deepest places of Mary's mind, stirring a fine dust of memory.
Like mist, those memories rose up, to swirl in the void.

She gave herself over entirely to the music, joining her essence to that
insistent song.  It was an achingly sweet melody.  She swayed and stepped
to that stately pavane, treading with certainty that ancient measure.

And then!

And then!  HE was there!

Tall and straight he was, just as she remembered him from their first
meeting.  Now, as then, a wry half smile twisting his mouth.  He spread
wide his arms in invitation.  With a great cry of joy, Mary flung herself
into Joseph's embrace.  He pulled her in close; their bodies merged
together into a single whole, and they whirled away into the void in a gay
waltz to the music of time.

At the grave-side, Vicky rolled the lifeless body into the shallow grave.
To her Vixen sensibilities it seemed a pointless act; but she had given her
word to mother.  For several seconds she leaned over the grave, peering
down into the wrinkled familiarity of the face.  She searched there,
seeking explanation for the great surge of joy that had swelled in the
moment of the Dance.  But she could not discover any answer there.  Perhaps
it was a thing of Others and was not something comprehensible to Vixen
kind?  It almost felt as if mother had trodden Path.

Vicky gave an expressive shrug of her shoulders.  Well, it did not matter.
She straightened and stripped off the long shirt, bundled it up, threw it
aside.  She gathered up the grey robe of her real mother Joseph had kept.
She wrapped it about her skinny body, pulling the hood up over her head.
Taking the shovel, Vicky scraped up some of the sand, and paused, troubled.
She set the shovel down again.  After a moment's consideration, she bent,
picked up the shirt and rolled it up.  With tender care, she pressed the
rag bundle into the crook of Mary's arm.  It nestled there, resembling a
baby at her breast.

Vicky had no understanding why she had done this.  But she no longer felt
troubled by the thought of shoveling sand over the body.  When the grave
was filled, Vicky drove the shovel into the ground at the head of the
grave.  It stood there, an incongruous monument.  It felt "right" to Vicky,
in that instinctive way that she knew things.

She folded hands over her breasts and peered out at Waste, back to Woods,
back to Waste.  There was no Path.  Others did not know Path, and not
knowing it, could not set the foot of Vixen to Path.  She would have to
find her own way to The dreaming Sea.

She left the grave-side.  The oil stood ready in a bucket.  In a moment
bright flames leapt up to consume the little cabin betwixt the worlds of
Wood and Waste.

Vicky watched it well alight, then without a backward glance, turned and
walked away into Waste.  Somewhere was Dreaming Sea and Golden Bay studded
with the jewel of Silver Island - the holy destiny of all Vixen kind.

forever Wind from Waste streamed her silken tresses, brought the sobbing of
Dire Beast.  Behind her a plume of black smoke rose into the air, strained
away westward, bent thither by Forever Wind.

------------------------------------------------------------------

'But!  Doctor!  You said it yourself - if Vicky is not shown how to tread
Path she will consume the world!  I can -'

'NO!  Nyssa!  It's too dangerous especially for you!'

'But Doctor?' Nyssa protested again.  'It must be done.'

'But not by you.'

'Why not?  You know I understand how to create Union.' Nyssa considered the
Doctor then Tegan, assessing.  She nodded to herself satisfied with her own
certainty.  'You know that only I can make the bridge.'

'NO!  Nyssa.  The temptation will be too strong for you.'

Rare anger flared in Nyssa's eyes.  'How dare you!  Who do you think you
are to know what temptations I might give in to?  How I might choose.' She
turned away, struggling with the unfamiliar emotion.

The Doctor winced at the anger and hurt.  He knew that he'd just broken
something precious, fragile and important, not only to Nyssa, but to
himself.  And he knew that it might never be mended.  He half reached a
questioning hand to her rigid back, then let it drop.

The Vixen looked on seemingly indifferent, expressionless.  The Doctor
sought moral support from Tegan; but the young woman was glaring at him
tight lipped.

'Nyssa?' he said softly.  'Nyssa?  I - It's just - what I meant was -'

Nyssa turned slowly to look at him.  Her face was once more controlled,
though her mouth was a little pinched and there was an uncharacteristic
hardness in her eyes.  She said: 'It's alright, Doctor.  I know what you
meant.  I'm touched by your concern.  And you *are* right.  To tread the
path to Silver Island will be a sore temptation.  But what else can we do.'
She shot a look at the Vixen.  'It must be done - or she will consume the
world.  It would be far better that I went hand in hand with Vixen along
Path to Golden BAy than to do nothing and let the people here be
destroyed.'

Nyssa fell silent.  She gazed around, at the sea and the lightening sky, at
the rocks washed pink in the light of the rising sun.  The scene had a rare
and wild beauty that excited her aesthetic sensibilities.  She sighed.
However beautiful, however deeply it touched her soul, she experienced no
great regret at the thought of leaving it behind.

She was careful not to look at the Doctor or Tegan.

'And anyway, Doctor.' she went on.  'Such a journey would cause me no pain.
You know that to come at last to the peace of Silver Island would be a
joyous homecoming for me.'

The gulls cried over Ocean.  The Doctor watched them soaring.  He nodded
mutely.  His life long love affair with truth had given him nothing but
trouble.  Sometimes he wondered if the price was worth it.  He did not know
the answer to that question.  When he did, he felt, he would be truly wise.

A stillness descended on the group at the sea shore.

Tegan broke the spell.  She had been listening in growing incomprehension.
Now, irritated beyond endurance, she folded arms under her breasts and
spoke.

'Well?  Isn't anyone going to explain to poor dumb Tegan what's going on?'
Sarcasm was her long suit - it never let her down.

The doctor winced as the edge of Tegan's voice bit deep.  He frowned at her
and said: 'This -' he indicated Vicky - 'is a Vixen.  They are the natives
of this world.  They have a sort of race memory.  It goes right back to the
beginning of their kind.'

'It's a bit like the Traken Union used to be,' Nyssa put in.
'Before...Before...'

The Doctor stepped in quickly to ease the moment.  'The Vixen pass this
race memory on from generation to generation.  The children take in all the
memories of their parents along with mother's milk.  To begin with, they
can only "Take" the mind essence.  Like a baby suckling at the breast, it
is an instinctive thing.  As they grow, they learn how to incorporate all
the stored memories into a whole, into their own individual part of the
Race Mind.  It is similar to how the Traken Union used to be.' He broke off
to glance at Nyssa who was once more knuckling her temples and looking
strained.

He hurried on.  "Only when they have done this can they give back that part
of the Race Memory that they carry.  When they have children the process
begins again and with each Vixen that is born the Memory is both divided
and remade.  At the end of their lives, and at a time and place of their
choosing the parents Dance with the Dark Stranger.'

Tegan looked puzzled.  'What does that mean?'

'It is their way of referring to the death of their physical bodies.  They
call death the dark Stranger because they can never truly know that final
extinction that is the fate of those who do not have race memory.  They can
never really suffer true death in the proper human sense for they live on
in the minds of their children.'

'So what went wrong with "Vicky?'

The Doctor fingered his stalk of celery thoughtfully and studied the small
raven maned woman.  'Vicky's parents must have died while she was still a
very young baby.  She must have been too young to lead her parents in the
Dance.  Normally this would not matter for there would have been other
blood relations around to nourish her mental life as she grew so very
little or nothing of the race memory of Vicky's line would be lost."

He paused a moment then asked Vicky.  'You said you were brought up by
humans?'

'It is so,' Vicky answered.  'Mother told me often of how it was.  I was
brought to the cabin of Mary and Joseph in the dead of winter by Vixen
Mother.  Why she did this I cannot know as Mary nor Joseph understands the
mind of Vixen.  Just as they do not see Path.

The Doctor again plucked thoughtfully at his celery.  He considered the
wolf beast seated patiently at the side of the girl.  'I don't suppose you
can throw any light on how your Vixen mother got herself into the mind of
this animal?'

The girl said: 'Vicky cannot know this.'

'Oh well.  That's not important but I'd have thought that was a pretty
desperate and dangerous thing to attempt.  She must have appreciated the
possibility of being subsumed and lost in the instinctual patterns of
behaviour.  I wonder how she has avoided that?'

'Vicky cannot know this.

'Of course not.' the Doctor chided himself.  'Your foster parents could
only sustain your physical needs.  Being Terrans, they were not equipped to
feed the mental hunger.  I imagine you've not been near enough to the Vixen
kind to discover how to construct the proper psychic framework that you
need.  to enable you to cope with the mental essence you're absorbing.'''

Vicky nodded slowly, a very self consciously human gesture.  'I can only
take in my immature psychic state.  But my physical maturity gives me great
power, but only to take.  Only when I am psychically mature will I have
control of the Take and be able to begin the long giving back.  And I
cannot come to that maturity on my own.  Vicky is forever insufficient.
But Vixen Mother can make Vicky whole again.  This Other can show Vicky
Path.  Until then nothing can prevent me from stealing the mental essence
of those about me.  It happens even now.'

Tegan shot the Vixen a suddenly fearful look.  She felt her head.  'Is that
the tugging I can feel in my head.'

The Doctor nodded.  'Yes.  And it will get worse unless Vicky gains access
to the reservoirs of memory of her mother locked into the mind of this
animal.'

'And Nyssa can do that?' Tegan asked.

'Yes.  She is the only one who can do it.'

'But it's dangerous?'

'For Nyssa, yes.'

'Why?'

The Doctor explained.  'In order for the transfer to take place Nyssa will
have to form a link between them.  She might be caught up in the transfer
and carried along with it.'

Tegan studied her friend.  Nyssa was holding her head in trembling hands.
Her mouth was slightly open, her eyes closed.  Tegan asked.  'Why can't
Vicky just "take" what she needs from the wolf?'

'Because in her present mentally immature state Vicky has no apparatus for
incorporating it into her own personality.  She will not have that talent
until she is re-united with the mind of her mother, and that cannot b done
until she is able to incorporate what she receives or she will become
insane.'

Tegan shivered at the terrifying thought - an insane woman roaming around
free with the power to suck the minds out of every living thing on the
planet.

'It's what is known on Earth as a Catch 22,' the Doctor.  explained.

'I can act as a bridge,' said Nyssa.  'I can show a Path for the stored
mental life of vicky's mother and can guide her in the task of
assimilation into her own personality.  When that is accomplished Vicky
will be a mature Vixen and completely in control of her destiny.  If it is
not done she will continue to consume, willy nilly, all the mental life
around her.'

Vicky, who had been standing impassive, arms folded, trembled through her
frame.  She unfolded her arms in a graceful motion and pushed back the
streaming raven tresses from her face.  She looked hard at the Doctor.

'If it is to be done,' she observed.  'Then 'tis a thing best done
quickly.'

The Doctor's lips drew into a thin line.  He studied Nyssa for a long
moment.  He nodded.  'Of course.  Nyssa?'

'I am ready Doctor.  You will have to help.  You have some talent and the
TARDIS will anchor you in the world.  I shall cling to the rock of your
certainty.  Let us begin.'

The Doctor and Vixen both touched a hand to the head of the Dire Beast.
Nyssa stepped between them and placed hands on the temples of the Vixen and
the Doctor.  She began to croon a wordless song.  The sound had an
unearthly, haunting quality that raised goos bumps down Tegan's neck.  The
song mounted into the air, flowing in and out of harmony with the song of
the sea as it sent grey water swashing up onto the stones.

Suddenly, the Vixen added her own voice to that ascending sound.  The two
voices twisted together, platted themselves into a single strand of sound
that weaved in and out of reality.  The wordless song rose and rose to
discover a sweet consummation beyond the bounds of the physical world.

Tegan felt the world move, Reality shifted and settled.

The Vixen cried out, in a long, nerve trembling ululation of joy and
consummation.  She seemed suddenly to tower in the bright morning light.
Tegan stared open mouthed at the small grey garbed woman.  It appeared to
Tegan's incredulous gaze that the little woman took on the aspect of a
thousand a million personalities all at once and yet remained the same
small young woman.  Each one of them seemed a separate identity and yet was
subsumed in a shimmer of overlapping mirages.

Nyssa stopped singing abruptly.  The sudden quiet was like a thunderclap.
Even the gulls had stopped crying.  Then Nyssa let out a long moaning cry
of the most heart aching loss and despair.  she crumpled to the stones
along with the Doctor and the great Beast.

Nyssa's cry of despair broke Tegan from her trance.  She knelt beside the
fallen bodies.  'Will they be alright?' she asked.  She straightened from
her crouch

Vicky shrugged.  'Vixen does not know.  They are Others though they see
Path, each in their own way.  Vixen cannot say what is right for Others,
even those who see Path.'

'And you don't care, either?  Do you?' Tegan cried, a rising note of anger
and desperation colouring her voice at the impassive demeanor of the woman.

Vicky met Tegan's accusing look with that steady black gaze, full of an
alien indifference.  'No.  Vixen does not care.'

She knelt by the great body of the Dire Beast, reached out, laid a pale paw
on the head.  'Up,' she commanded.  'Up, and follow your own Path.'

Tegan watched aghast, as the huge carnivore trembled throughout its length
and rose.  A vicious snarl started in its chest.  Tegan took a step back.
Attracted by the movement, the head swung in her direction.  Pale eyes
measured her chances, found them wanting.  Tegan stared back, fascinated by
those eyes that spoke to her of a death, painful and bloody.

Smooth muscles bunched under grey fur, readying for the spring.

Tegan just stood there, eyes wide, frozen with terror.

She was going to die.  Oh dear God!  She was going to die, horribly!

And the Vixen was just going to let it happen.

A polyphonic tangle of sound, overlapping and ascending, overrode the rush
of water up the beach.  It silenced the gathering growl of the beast.  It
rang in multiple echoes of melody in Tegan's numbed brain.  The song
shocked stilled thoughts into motion.

Ignoring the great grey beast, she turned to look along the beach.  At the
edge of the water stood an old woman.  She was bent and wrapped in a
ragged, dark shawl.  The eyes in her lined, homely face blazed with an
inner fire.

Tegan stared, her mouth gaping open.  She did not notice when the beast
loped away up the beach to disappear among the boulders.

Tegan's mind stuttered into motion.  She frowned as her mind missed its
step.  Sense seemed to have fled from the simple seaside scene before her.
Concentrate as she might, comprehension would not come.  She sought
understanding from the bent old woman.

But there was only the Vixen, going away down the strand, with her hair
streaming and her robe flapping madly in the wind from Ocean, quite
unconcerned.

Tegan blinked stupidly for a moment.  It did no good.

At her feet, something stirred.  She looked down to see the Doctor kneeling
over Nyssa.

'Doctor?  Doctor?'

'Hmmmm?'

'Doctor?  I - I can't -'

But the sense of unreality was drawing off with the departing Vixen.
Sanity crept furtively back into the world.  In seconds, it was as if the
strangeness had never been.

Tegan shrugged and turned her attention to what was happening at her feet.
There were more pressing matters than the mystery of a strange old woman
standing between the sea and the land who had saved her from a ghastly
fate - and one who was not even there.

'Is Nyssa alright?'

'No.'

'Can you help her?'

'Not here.'

The Doctor gathered up the limp form of Nyssa and came smoothly to his
feet.  Without a backward glance to see if Tegan followed, he began to run
towards the TARDIS.

Mere seconds later, he pounded into the medical facility and laid the
comatose girl on a couch against one wall.  He stood back, studying her lax
features, his own face a mask of concern.

Tegan pushed past him and sat down on the edge of the couch.  She gathered
up one of the limp hands, clutched it to herself.  She shot a fearful
appeal to the Doctor.

'Well?  Aren't you going to do something?'

'There isn't anything I can do.'

'There must be something?' Tegan's eyes implored him not to fail her now -
not now.

'She has glimpsed the eternal joy of the Vixen.  She will not want to come
back.  I did warn her.'

With a free hand, Tegan brushed a straggle of brown hair from the cool
cheek.  'There must be something?  Please?  Something -'

The Doctor fingered the celery in his lapel. He watched Nyssa's face
thoughtfully.  It shone with an inner joy.

'One thing, perhaps?'

'What?'

'We can try to make her a better offer.'

'A better offer?  What do you mean?'

'Give her a reason to give up the dream of Silver Island.  Give her a
reason to come back to us.  It will not be easy, she lost much when the
Union died.'

Tegan leaned over the still figure.  She gazed earnestly into that peaceful
countenance.  In a voice full of a desperate fondness, she urged gently.
'Nyssa?  Nyssa?  Please don't leave us?  Please, Nyssa?'

There was no change in the serene set of Nyssa's face.  Her breathing grew
softer and shallower as she settled deeper into the joy of the eternal
afternoon of the Vixen, away from them, from the world, from the grand
sadness of her life.

'Doctor!  Please!' Tegan pleaded, tears glistened on her cheeks.  'She's
slipping away.  Oh!  Please!  WE must help her!  Oh!  Doctor!  Please do
SOMETHING!'

'We might try telling her we love her.' he offered, but he did not sound
hopeful.

Tegan lovingly squeezed Nyssa's hand.  She gazed desperately down at her
friend.  'Nyssa?  Oh, Nyssa?  I know you can hear me.  We love you Nyssa -
please don't leave us.  We love you so much.'

A troubled expression fought its way onto Nyssa's face.

Encouraged, Tegan hurried on urgently.  'Please, Nyssa.  We love you.  We
both love you so much.  You mustn't leave us.  We would miss you so much.'

The troubled look hardened, became edged with guilt.

'Please, Nyssa,' Tegan coaxed, straining for all the fondness she could
find to colour her voice.  'We love you Nyssa.  We both love you.'

Nyssa grew restless.  She rolled her head from side to side in denial.

'Doctor?  It's not working?  Please, you must help?'

For long seconds he stood there, wracked with indecision.  The joy he
sensed nyssa was experiencing seemed a biting condemnation of his earlier
failures.  What right had he to deny Nyssa the joy of a new Union?  What
right?

'Doctor!  Please!' Tegan wailed in acute despair.

The cry started him from his abstraction.  In a second he was on his knees
beside the couch.  He laid his hand over Tegan's which were clutching
Nyssa's hand, as if she might, by main force, hold their friend in life.
His other hand he laid gently on Nyssa's brow.

'Please, Nyssa,' he cried softly.  'We both love you.  We love you so much.
Please don't leave us alone.  Not alone.'

That troubled countenance relaxed.  Nyssa stopped breathing.  There was a
long, unendurable moment of suspension.  Then, with a gasp, Nyssa drew in a
long breath, releasing it with a world weary sigh.  Her eyes opened.  She
smiled a small sad smile, full of regret.  She drew up their intimately
enfolded hands and pressed them to her lips.

'Oh, Doctor, Tegan.  I would never leave you alone.  Not ever leave you
alone.' She looked from one to the other.  'Do you both *really* love me?'

Tegan began to cry.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

The old pines endure, seemingly forever, rooted secure in the fertile body
of mother earth, straining up towards the benevolent light of God Cursed
Sun, watered by the weeping clouds, caressed by nature's breath, moaning
their torment in the gale, whispering in the breeze, standing silent in the
still air, rearing straight and proud under the golden eye of Big Moon,
shadowy and secretive in the silver light of Little Moons, slow to grow and
long in life.

Not so Vixen kind.

By comparison, the lives of Vixen are short.

The tree against which Vicky leaned, knees drawn up, chin resting on hands,
was old - even for a pine tree.  It had been growing here, a mere sapling,
when the Others had first come to ground on Vixen world.  It was a noble
tree.

Vicky had grown old in its shade.  Of all the trees in the forest, Vicky
counted it a particular friend.  It had sung to her at the birthing of her
babies, sheltered her from storms, was her pillow when she was weary,
listened to all her troubles and now would sing its special song, just for
her, while Vicky and Husband Danced with the Dark Stranger.

That time was at hand.

At her side, Husband sat close, shoulders touching.  His knees were drawn
up, his cloak pulled tight about his age wasted frame.

Off among the trees, shadows moved.  Silently, they closed in on the old
people.

'See, Husband!' Vicky exclaimed in sudden excitement.  Vixen pointed into
the shadows away under the trees.  'See!  Old Man!  Dark Stranger comes at
last to lead these Vixen in Dance.  See Husband?'

'Husband sees, Wife.  Do Wife and Husband go to greet him?  It is the
custom.'

Vicky laid a hand on his withered arm.  'Nay, Old Man.  Let these
Vixen tarry here awhile.  Vicky and Husband will dance soon enough and
tread High Road to Golden Bay and come at last to Silver Island - as is
Destiny of Vixen.'

'But there is no reason to tarry, Old Woman.  Husband is eager to be upon
the journey.'

'Patience Old Fool.  Wife begs a moment only.  There is a matter which must
be settled between these Vixen.'

Old Man turned a sharp look upon her, laden with suspicion.  Husband loved
her as dearly as Husband loved Path, but it had ever rankled with him that
Wife had never stopped thinking of herself as "Vicky", that strange and
unpleasant appellation of Others.

Old Man sighed, deferring to wisdom of Wife in this - as Husband had in all
things.

'What matter is this that presses so, Path of Life?  May it not be set
aside with all other doings of living?

'Nay, Husband.  For it concerns the journey to Silver Island and must be
said before these Vixen embark for Vixen go not alone along Path.'

'How may this be, Wife?'

Vicky made no answer.  Instead, Vixen rose and moved away to greet
the shadows.

The shadows paused at the edge of the clearing.  The radiance of Big Moon
transformed them from darkness into beings of light.  They were four in
number.  They were the children of Vicky and Husband.

The Forever Wind stirred and drew a sighing song from the trees.  It was
the oldest melody it knew, the only one fitting for the Vixen to go to the
Dance with the Dark Stranger.  It was the song of life itself, sung to the
music of time.

Vicky's children moved to the centre of the clearing.  There they paused,
to await the pleasure of their parents.

Two sons and two daughters, all slender, graceful,pale and black haired.
They stood straight under the stars - a pleasing testament to the strength
with which Vicky had answered the tender call.  She stopped a few yards
off, her heart filled to bursting with pride.

Oldest Male held up a hand in greeting.  'Mother?  Father?  Will you dance
with Dark Stranger before God Cursed rises anew?'

'That is our intent, First Born.'

'And is it that you will set out together?'

'These Vixen will,' said Husband, coming to stand by Vicky.  Husband took
her hand, pressed it to his lips, then held it on high.

'These Vixen Dance!'

Oldest Male smiled warmly, intoned:  'let Dance begin!' As one, the four
children shrugged shoulders.  Four grey robes slid to the ground.  The
light of Big Moon made their naked forms shine golden.

With flowing grace they moved, swaying to the rhythm of the music of time.
The Forever Wind surged.  The ancient song of life soared, flowed in the
trees, thrummed in the good earth, until it seemed the whole world vibrated
to the beat of life.

The children stretched out hands, brushed fingertips to the wrinkled brows
of the elderly pair.  The music sank suddenly.  The whole world held its
breath - waiting.

In that pregnant silence, the transition came to pass.  The bounds of the
physical strained, snapped.  There was a profound release, a giving and
receiving, a separation and a coming together.  It moved the world, which
shifted and settled back into a new pattern.

the children stepped back.  The two wizened bodies crumpled untidily to the
ground.  Second Son and Second Daughter each stooped, and took up the cloaks.
With their clawed fingers, they started a tear in the tough weave of the grey
material.  First Son and First Daughter took a handful of cloth.  Four heads
nodded similtaneously.  They all pulled.  The cloaks tore in half.  Each
holding a portion, the four Vixen moved to stand back to back.  In that
position, they remained motionless for a long time; while the only sound was
the sighing of Forever Wind in the pines.  Then, on some silent impulse, the
Vixen children began to walk away from one another, each travelling along a
cardinal point of the compass.  They could never come together in one place
again during their lives; yet so closely were they joined in the Dance that
even death now was powerless to tear them apart.

Slowly, they faded away under the trees.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

In a place that was nowhere - yet everywhere that Vixen were, six figures
stood in a group.  Before them a strip of silver shimmered.  It led away
into a vast distance; and at its far end a golden haze promised.

Vicky's gaze moved from each to each in turn.  At each she gave a small nod
of satisfaction.  At last her attention came back to Husband.  Vicky said.
 'Husband!  This is Mother.  This Vixen has tarried here long awaiting to
set her foot to Path.'

Vicky drew Husband's attention to a trio of Others.  'And this is Mary, and
this is Joseph, and this is Nyssa.  All are of Others.  All shall go
together, hand in hand, Vixen and Others, along High Road to Golden Bay.'

Vicky turned to study the face of Mary, then Joseph.  Sadness suffused her
face.  'Perhaps Others may not come home to Silver Island.  But for certain
sure, they shall come to Golden Bay and the joy of the eternal afternoon.
And, looking out over Oldest Ocean, shall, perchance, glimpse the glory and
the grace amid the sea, and sleeping, dream a path to the eternal peace
of Silver Island.'

So saying, Vicky held out her hands.  They formed a line, with Vicky and
Nyssa in the middle.  To Vicky's right was Husband and to his, Mother.  To
Nyssa's left was Mary, and at the far left, Joseph.  The centre point of
the chain was the joined hands of Vicky and Nyssa.

'Come!' commanded Vixen.

And Vicky set foot to Path.

------------------------------------------------------------------

The End