He indicated the bank of monitors surrounding him. 'Well, I was. Bit more of a freelance these days.'

  Clara gasped 'This is a computer simulation?'

  The man laughed. 'No! Please. I'm not some ruddy amateur.' He put his hands over his belly in satisfaction. 'Everything here is real. With a few modifications.'

  'You've gone rogue?' said the Doctor.

  'Best analyst in my division,' said Etienne proudly. 'Was just too good. Don't know how they thought they'd keep tabs on me.'

  'Are you a hacker?' asked Clara timidly.

  'The best. Hacked the Nestene Consciousness when I was 14. Resting

  Consciousness more like. Nestene Semiconsciousness, I call it.'

  Again came the peculiar barking laugh of someone who didn't spend a lot of

  time conversing with other human beings. The man took another large bite of something he had found on a plate beside him and belched loudly.

  The Doctor look around, nodding. 'So you're keeping this place secure?' he said. 'You were sent to hide this planet. And you did - even from the people who sent you?'

  The man sighed. 'Well, yes. I am brilliant. But I still get the odd adventurer

  turning up. The odd person who won't take a telling. Plenty of crashes of course

  - that's a hazard of not turning up on navigational equipment. Still got to stop you all. That's my job. Was my job.'

  'So, just to get this straight in my head,' said the Doctor, 'you're not here to protect us from the dangers of this planet.'

  Etienne laughed again. It was a horrible barking sound. 'No, mate.'

  'You made it this way.'

  The man wiped his greasy fingers on a filthy napkin.

  'It is unspeakable,' said the Doctor, 'what you have done to the people who landed here.'

  'Come on, are you joking? Camutium filament? It's brilliant! And it's not like I kill them. They die, and I just use the leftovers.'

  'But there's a million things here that can kill you!' burst in Clara.

  'Yes, because I have to protect the planet,’ said Etienne, as if explaining things to a slow child.

  'But those are people!' Clara was still horrified.

  'Were,' said Etienne. Ele checked his console. 'Oooh, acid rainstorm coming up. You don't wanna be out in that. You know, I've got the Camutium machine

  downstairs. Would be jumping the gun a bit, but it's totally painless, probably.'

  He looked at Clara. 'Or you can stay a bit, if you like.'

  'But why?' said the Doctor, almost to himself. 'Who wanted a whole planet hidden? Who wanted something off the map so badly they would send a nutcase

  like you to do it? Why not just blow it up?'

  Clara leant forward. The old photograph on the ID card was of a much slimmer, very young man - a teenager, really, all Adam's apple and awkwardness, the bare whisper of a moustache on his top lip, in a neat white shirt, looking for all the world completely and utterly normal.

  Etienne shrugged. 'Job's a job, innit. Then they started complaining about my methods, so...' He blew on his fingers and opened them up.

  'You disappeared for good,' said the Doctor.

  'And I want to stay that way,' said Etienne. 'Guards, take them downstairs!'

  he screamed suddenly, in a startling contrast to his laidback speaking voice, and immediately four skeletons came to the door.

  Once again, Clara flinched as the ghostly shapes emerged, their feet clacking on the floor. Then she saw the little one was with them, the child.

  Overcome, Clara forgot everything: her fear, her exhaustion, her

  surroundings; forgot absolutely everything, except the many children over the

  years and centuries who had been in her care; some she remembered, some who were nothing more than dreams: the new and certain knowledge that these too had been people once, even if they were only robot- operated bones now; even

  if, whatever the Doctor thought, nothing of them remained except the hideous mechanisation of this man who animated the dead.

  On pure instinct alone, she knelt down and opened her arms.

  There was a moment's pause in the hideous, stinking, oppressive cavernous

  room built of the bones of the dead and the lost, the fat discontented king on his dead throne in his charnel house, ruling an empty wasteland.

  Unsure it wasn't the last thing she'd ever do, she held her arms wide, shaking once more. And with a rattling and a clicking, its oversized pale white skull, the bones as smooth and cool as a snake's, breaking free of its programming, the skeleton child ran into her arms.

  Clara knelt there waiting for a blow to fall, her eyes closed once again, but it did not. She glanced up. The Doctor and Etienne were both staring at her.

  'That's new,' said Etienne, still chewing. 'Huh. Hey, insensate matter!' He held up the white shining console, menacingly. 'Seize her! Down below!'

  There was a long pause. Then another skeleton, shorter than the other two, stepped towards Clara, foot bones rattling on the floor. Here it comes, thought Clara.

  Instead, the skeleton moved towards her - then knelt down next to her, and

  took the smaller skeleton in its arms, cradling it like a baby.

  'Aha!' shouted the Doctor in delight. 'Clara, you're amazing! Look at that.

  There is something left behind! Which makes you a monster,' he said, turning to Etienne.

  'They can't feel a thing,' groused Etienne. 'Sometimes I have to readjust the mechanism, you know, bit of a shock just to keep 'em in position, that kind of a thing. But they're just... it's just bones I find lying about. Did the same thing with the trees, and they didn't mind.'

  The Doctor looked at him, shaking his head, and turned to address the skeletons. 'You don't have to move for him, you know.'

  'Oh yes they do,' said Etienne, sweat popping out on his vast forehead.

  He pressed down a white button in the middle of the console, and instantly

  the crackle of white light pervaded the skeletons, causing them to stiffen and throw their heads back in what was clearly pain.

  'No!' said the Doctor, whipping out his screwdriver and pressing another button, making both devices squeal with feedback. 'No, you don't.'

  The remote exploded in Etienne's hand and he dropped it rapidly, swearing.

  He then looked up, his eyes full of fear, as he gazed at the wall of white in front of him.

  The Doctor advanced. 'Tell me,' he said sternly. 'Tell me what it is you're protecting that's so special.'

  Etienne gave them a twisted smile. 'Make me.'

  'You're a child,' said the Doctor, dismayed. 'How old are you, anyway?'

  The ruin of a man looked down. 'Dunno,' he said quietly, inching towards the

  remote control. 'But I am so good at my job.'

  The Doctor scowled, grabbed the remote from the floor and stuck it in his top pocket. 'Stay there,' he said. 'Skeletons, can you watch him?'

  One held up his finger.

  'No, don't do that! Just nod!'

  The largest of them nodded.

  'Come on,' said the Doctor to Clara. 'Let's figure this out.'

  Etienne cringed back a bit then sneered, grabbed one of his screen consoles

  and started typing feverishly on it.

  The Doctor took Clara out into the corridor, and told her to stay where she

  was. Then he went down to the basement. When he returned, his face was grim,

  and Clara knew better than to ever ask him about it.

  'Now,' he said. 'To business.'

  They explored the entire palace, each room more shocking that the one before it. One contained endless boxes of pre-prepared food in cardboard boxes, with a huge hole carved out of it, dirty containers and utensils thrown and scattered about knee-deep, new ones grabbed at will. The smell was unholy.

  Another was filled with boxes and boxes of seeds, fruit, vegetables, flowers, fertilisers, geodesic domes and water filters, all of it untouched.

  There was a room with a weather console, which as far as Clara could see didn't just tell you the weather; it created it.

  One room had a huge loom, which had never been used and was clearly falling apart. There was a thrumming cold-storage facility that contained frozen specimens of animals and plants. In one vast workshop, cannibalised parts of spaceships had been put together - beautifully, intricately - into new, sinister-looking machines. One room was full of old spacesuits from different planets and ages; personal documents tossed in as if a huge trash can; hundreds, thousands of them.

  One room had fresh linen, faded now and thick with dust: one had books, a

  huge library, everything one could ever need in any language, sitting in long, untouched rows except here and there, where one had been dragged out and thrown or despoiled or a batch had been burnt for whatever reason.

  At this, the Doctor's mouth turned into a thin straight line and he turned abruptly and marched back into Etienne's stateroom. Etienne was typing furiously in the comer, his fleshy mouth pouting, grunting as he heaved himself up. Sweat was dripping from his forehead, and he was drinking something from

  a long container. The skeletons lined the far wall, blocking his exit. They appeared frozen.

  'You could have built a paradise here,' said the Doctor furiously. 'You could have done anything and you have rendered this entire planet a blasted heath.'

  Etienne suddenly started to laugh a wheezing laugh. His vast belly heaved and wobbled with the effort. 'A paradise?' he roared. 'Ha! The one thing they are here to prevent. A paradise. Oh, Doctor, my only job is to not long for paradise.'

  The Doctor stared at him for a long time, his mind working furiously. 'Who

  sent you?'

  Etienne shrugged. 'Can't remember. It was a lifetime ago. A different life. A lot of these.' He held up a bottle.

  The Doctor strode forward and attempted to read the faded nametag on his filthy shirt.

  Etienne laughed in his face. 'Now you're getting desperate,’ he said, his breath foul. 'Doncha wanna know? Oh, I cut them loose. They were no use at all.

  But you really want what you came here to find? What my job - my job - is to keep hidden? You really want it?' Etienne stared into the Doctor's eyes for a long time. 'No way,’ he said. 'I can see it. I can see it in your eyes. You've been here before. Ha! You do know where you are. Well, well.'

  You would have had to have been studying the Doctor's face at very close quarters just then to see the tiny flash of understanding that passed across it. He immediately straightened up and backed away.

  'Oh, there it is,’ leered Etienne. 'You do know. Well then. Ha. No point in torturing you. You're there already. I thought we'd finally passed into myth.

  Well, well, well. There aren't many left like you these days.’

  'There aren't,’ growled the Doctor.

  'Well, why don't I show the pretty one? That's why you've brought her back,

  right?'

  'No!'

  But Etienne had grabbed another device from the clutter around his chair, a

  tiny one this time, and pressed a button. Instantly there came the clanging and groaning of an ancient set of chains.

  'Don't, Etienne,’ said the Doctor, his tone quite different. 'We'll go. We'll turn around and we'll go. Right now.'

  Clara shot round to look at him in amazement.

  'Hang on, where's the conquering robot-freeing hero now?' said Etienne, looking amused. 'Where's the liberator of this planet, huh? Where's the person who's come to tell off naughty Etienne for his naughty behaviour?'

  'Doctor?' said Clara, puzzled. The rattling noise continued.

  'Leave!' the Doctor shouted at Clara. 'Get out! Get out of here!' He tried to grab the tiny button from Etienne, who raised his eyebrows and, laughing, hurled it in his mouth.

  'Oh, for crying out loud,' said the Doctor, launching himself at Etienne and trying to pinch his nose. 'Clara, go!’

  But it was too late. Slowly at first, a door in the wall of the house of bones had started to lower itself, drawbridge-style, into the open air. Clara expected of course to see into the dark, cold and storm-ridden night of the Nowhere planet.

  Instead, a piercing shaft of glorious sunlight suddenly penetrated the mote-ridden fustiness of the shut-up scarlet room. A draft of fresh, clean, sweet air invaded the space. It was the kind of freshness you get on the first day after a long rainy spell, when it feels as if the earth has been washed clean. It was like waking up on a mountainside, or flying somewhere warm after a long winter.

  They heard something else, too, for the first time: the silvering tones of birdsong, the type of spring morning song that makes the heart clench. As the drawbridge drew down inch by inch, tiny wisps of cloud could be seen, floating across a Wedgewood blue sky; the golden light was soft and the sweet wind was scented with lotus flowers and apple. Beneath the birdsong, a fountain could be heard somewhere bubbling away merrily.

  'Clara, ignore it. It's a force field. You can't go out there, it's a trap.'

  'Oh no, there's no more traps left, mate,' giggled Etienne. His odd glasses had turned completely black, protecting his eyes, but even wearing them he still kept his gaze averted from the trapdoor. 'No one gets this far. I can't believe you missed the crocodile swamp. Anyone who's got a way off this place generally takes it at the writhing maggots.'

  'Put that thing down,' said the Doctor. 'Put it down. I... I beg you.'

  'Well, I would have begged you not to try and cause a robot revolution, but

  you wouldn't have listened,' said Etienne, indistinctly as he continued to crunch

  through the plastic shell of the remote.

  The Doctor turned away from him in disgust and ran towards Clara. She was

  already walking out of the door into the space beyond as if sleepwalking.

  Etienne's barking laughter echoed in the Doctor's ears, but Clara heard none of it.

  Outside, the sunlight was golden like honey, the grass lusciously green and

  thick. They were on a path, looking ahead at a hill at the top of which was a vibrant orchard, with a wrought-iron fence around it. There was a gate, but it was open.

  Clara ran towards it at full pelt, light of foot and joyous of heart. Inside were apple trees, but the apples were silver and gold. Their scent filled the air; Clara had never in her life felt such utter thirst, such terrible hunger. She ran, the Doctor arriving behind her, just as she stretched out her hand.

  'Cla—'

  The snake in this tree was green.

  'Don't you see what this is?'

  Small, jade-coloured, like a slithering jewel, the snake raised its head. Clara jumped back, but not for long. Her hunger drove her forwards. The Doctor shook his head and grabbed her shoulders. She struggled against him.

  'Why on earth are you taking that form?' the Doctor shouted towards the snake.

  The snake flickered its tongue at him. 'Hello again,' it said. 'Yes, well, rather.

  I got it from the human. Between that and your documented fondness for the species, I thought it might rather work.'

  The Doctor looked wounded. 'Well, don't get me wrong, I like them and everything, but I've just spent thirty-five years working with the Sculptor Dwarves, and nobody ever mentions that.'

  The snake indicated Clara. 'Well, anyway, it's in her head. Got it off the psychic wavelength that's running those poor robots.'

  'People,' said the Doctor quickly.

  'Something about... "Sunday school"?' said the snake. 'A little church room, a nice lady teacher, the smell of oak polish and the felt-tip colouring on the wall.

  She loved it.'

  It coiled sinuously round a branch, rustling the thick, luxurious leaves.

  The Doctor looked at Clara in surprise, then redoubled his grip as she kept trying to pull away from him.

  'Nonetheless,’ said the snake, stretching its neck in the sunlight. 'It is a rather beguiling look, don't you think? If only I could smell.'

  'You're not having her,' said the Doctor, clinging on to Clara for dear life.

  She struggled against him, her feet trying to move of their own accord. 'You're not.'

  The snake shimmered, its scales lost in the light. 'But would you deny her everything? Come, my daughter. Come, taste it all. Every single thing, every last delight, everything there ever was to know or to understand; the fruit of knowledge, of everything. Doesn't that sound delicious? You will love it.'

  'It is not what he promises,' hissed the Doctor in Clara's ear, but she could not hear him.

  'I want it,' she said. 'I am naked without it.'

  'You aren't naked.' The Doctor tugged her again, but she didn't listen to him or even look at him.

  'He doesn't know everything about you, does he?' said the snake. 'He doesn't

  really know you at all, does he? Doesn't know how you bleed for him. But what would he do for you? Does he bleed for you, pretty maid?'

  'Clara,' the Doctor said. He glared at the snake, whose mouth was open, as if it were laughing. In desperation, the Doctor spun Clara round to face him, till she was forced to look at him, although her eyes strayed over his shoulder, her feet continued to move.

  'I want it.’ she said.

  'But you have to work for it,’ said the Doctor in anguish. 'You have to earn

  it.'

  She shook her head. 'I want it.'

  'You hate snakes, remember?'

  Her eyes were glassy as she stared at him in confusion. It was as if she barely recognised him.

 

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