"I'm sorry, my dear, but you are too small to pass yourself off as an Ivorite," the Doctor said as he and Kogrik stood over Mags. All three of them were looking into a mirror in Mags' luxurious suite. The Doctor was just the right height, and Kogrik was slightly too big, but Mags clearly was too short. She was roughly the same height as Sarah Jane, and this---as the Doctor well knew---was because even by Tark standards she was not yet full grown. She could pass herself off as a young adult human, but among her own people she would be considered too young to institute a household of her own: still a child.
She was displeased now at the practical objections that would keep her away from the action. "I could go as one of their children, then."
"Mauracine traders do not bring their children along, Mags," he said.
Kogrik gave a toss of his head. "Kogrik go!" he exclaimed. "Keep mouth shut. Help Doctor. Mags use brain instead." He glanced at her as she gave him a resentful glare. "That better. Mags have good brains. Smarter than pig-face Tuskers." He nudged her, a form of appeal from him. "Use brains."
"Well I guess I got no choice, not wi' you two gangin' up on me to keep me 'ome!" And she stalked away to the kitchenette. The Doctor would have followed, but Kogrik took his arm in an iron grip. It was meant to be gentle, but it effectively stopped the timelord. The Doctor glanced at the Ogron, and the huge alien shook his head.
The Doctor had never credited Ogrons with having any niceties of feeling, but Kogrik was proved right. After a few minutes of stamping around and angrily swigging lager from a bottle, Mags worked by herself at the small food preparation area. She produced a tray of drinks and a plate of fruit, bread, and vegetable pieces, and when she came back to them, she was ready to get back to business again.
"Awright," she said. "Gimmon the Hybranath can keep 'is mouth shut, and 'e's as fine a hand at face molding as we can get. Get down to 'is place and see what 'e can do. I been meanin' to research the mange plagues I heard of. I'll lookit that while you two are getting your tusks." She set down the tray and sat down.
Kogrik nodded as he and the Doctor also sat. Then he said, "Mange. What mange?"
"It's an outsider plague to you, Kogrik." She pushed the tray at him, and he took up a wooden mazer that suited his strong grip and huge hands. "Ogrons don't get it. Tuskers do, an' humans can if they ain't careful."
He took an enormous gulp of beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his other hand. "Kill?" he asked.
"Over time," she said. "Days and days. Weeks and weeks. No cure for Tuskers. That's what I'm lookin' for. A heap o' dead Tuskers."
He nodded and took another huge drink. He glanced at the Doctor and nodded to the tray. The Doctor helped himself.
"Everybody hope to see pile of dead Tuskers," Kogrik said. "Better by fighting."
"No fighting tonight," she warned him. "Get in, get the info, and get away. Cor, I wisht I was goin'."
"Good fighter. Ha! Ha! Ha!" Kogrik held up two fingers to indicate how many. "Mags kill two Tuskers! Ha! Ha!" Then he shook his head soberly. "But no fight tonight. Listen, mouth closed. Get away."
"Yeah, yeah," she said grimly. "Eat up and then get on your way to Gimmon. Make sure you take plenty o' money. Then Hybranaths expect to be paid in full."
* * * *
The great shadow of Athena fell across the trench. Sarah Jane had just enough strength to crawl back under the roof of the niche.
"Go to her," Jeanne said, the round eyes peering into hers through the spectacles. "Athena can help you. She is immune to the mites."
"I'm afraid of her," Sarah Jane gasped. "Jeanne, I'm not even sure that you're real. But I know she's real."
"She's cared for you. She won't hurt you. She understands more perfectly your limitations than she did before."
"I'm in such pain," Sarah Jane said. "Please, can't you help me?"
"Athena can help you. Please," Jeanne told her. "Please dear."
But it was Sarah Jane who turned away, not from defiance, but from fear. She came back to herself in the niche. The light was strengthening, and she could see faintly. The chills were worse. The mites were infested through her skin, everywhere, but especially in her eyes.
Athena's quick, darting tongue tapped her head and was gone. The breeze shifted as the enormous creature again lifted itself. It did not turn around. Rather, it backed away. The shadow receded. But the hard-tipped tongue effortlessly shot under the low roof and tapped her head again. Then it was gone. Sarah Jane realized that the alien creature's finely tuned senses and keen analytical mind had determined that her sounds were sighs and gasps of pain. Athena surely knew that her human captive was distressed. And she knew that Sarah was terrified of her.
Hands shaking and trembling, Sarah Jane crawled forward, reached up, and then peeped out of the trench. Stationed at the center of the cavern as though doing her best to remain as non-aggressive as possible, Athena once again shot out her stiff, stalk-like tongue to the young woman, but slowed it down. Sarah Jane could not repress a shudder as the intelligent, alien sensor hesitated, then lowered over her and brushed her face. But with the touch came a calming wave that stilled her fear, a whisp of sweet, subtle perfume that assured her she could safely come out. The message was clear. Whatever had prompted Athena to so savagely dismember the male humanoids who had entered the cavern apparently was not associated in her mind with Sarah Jane.
The appendage tapped her eyes, wanting Sarah Jane to allow a closer inspection that would be unendurable to the human if she should watch the great insect limbs descend on her. It was clear to Sarah Jane that Athena was suggesting she close her eyes. For it was also clear that Athena wanted to bring her in closer.
Sarah Jane's hesitancy lasted only a brief moment. In fact, the Insider decided it for her. He descended in a shimmering cloud over her, centered on Athena's stalk-like tongue, as though trying to determine what the great arachnid intended. Sarah could no longer endure the welts, the pain, and the itching. And she knew that he was waiting to seize her as soon as she weakened enough. Her eyes were her worst torment, and the darkness of her dimming vision filled her with fear.
As Athena's tongue, alive on one side with sensory membrane and stiff on the other with cartilage, traversed Sarah Jane's forehead, Sarah Jane's fear of her own condition and her impending blindness spilled out to the knowing creature. A responding wave of comfort and the compelling urge to close her swollen eyes swept over the human captive. Athena was communicating to her, an odd mixture of scents that transmitted assurances and some sort of basic telepathy.
But Sarah Jane's eyes were so swollen and painful that bringing them together made the pain worse. And she was afraid that if she closed them, she would never be able to open them again. She didn't know what to do. Even if Athena did not intend to kill her, there was no certainty that the arachnid could help her.
The smooth, soft side of Athena's tongue touched Sarah Jane's forehead, above the eyebrow, an odd, pressing touch that generated a strange vibration like a breeze or tickle that passed along Sarah Jane's eye. The eye suddenly stopped throbbing. Without thought, Sarah Jane forced her eyes closed and pushed her face toward the sensor, seeking relief.
Immediately she felt it push in reply on her eyes like a cold alien hand, felt the hum of a vibration, and felt the soreness decrease. The sudden cessation of her pain, the sudden hope that she might not lose her vision, and the sudden realization that Athena clearly wanted to help her brought tears that stung and hurt her dry tear ducts. She sobbed once and then stopped from the burning pain on the raw skin of her face.
A second wave of calmness radiated out from the foreign touching, and Sarah Jane suddenly stopped thinking of the insect appendage as something hideous and alien. With her own eyes closed, Athena's touch was firm, and yet as sensitive and as gentle as the nuzzling and pushing of an affectionate cat: cool and slightly moist and alive with curiosity and good will.
The pushing on her closed eyes became more firm and direct, and Sarah Jane felt a more pronounced sensation of ticklish vibration rushing out from her eyes and into her scalp. At first she thought this was Athena creating some kind of high frequency, but then she realized that the tiny mites that had infected her skin were not being killed by Athena's touch. Otherwise, she realized, she would suffer a second infection from them if they died in her skin. They were fleeing her eyes as fleas abandon a puppy when it is dipped, flowing into her scalp. But the sudden easing of the tightness and burning of her face made her cry again, and she clasped the appendage in gratitude, her tears touching the sensitive membrane in an instinctive communication to Athena of her thanks.
* * * *
"Oh my, what a lovely face you have," Gimmon the Hybranath said as the Doctor uneasily took his appointed place in the reclining chair and let it ease him back. "Now, now, don't frown. Keep the face relaxed, my good man. You know, you really have excellent bone structure for a human of your age."
The Doctor did not quibble about the mistake of his species. Gimmon, though a multi-armed Hybranath, had shaved half of his face and then colored and adorned it to look Salafian so that if he stood sideways to a person and kept his body covered, the person would assume a Salafian were before him. It was a little trick to impress customers with the quality of his work. But the unearthly hideousness of the Hybranath was made far worse by the addition of half a Salafian face alongside half a brown, furry, Hybranathian face. And, like all members of his species, he was possessed of a piercing, musky smell that could not be eliminated or covered up. His costume and tatoo parlor was filled with incense burners, candles, and air fresheners. Even the back room, where he brought the Doctor and Kogrik, was heavily scented, but nothing did much good.
Grimmon himself, like all Hybranaths, was pleasant natured and artistic and nimble with his many hands and arms. His furry body was clothed only with the legally mandated leather girdle that was worn in public, and several belts slung from his different shoulders and loaded with precise tools for applying different types of masks and make up.
"Strictly for entertainment purposes," he said as he produced a pair of calipers and began making measurements on the Doctor's face with one of his long, three fingered hands. A computer chip in the calipers sent the information to a screen across the room, and Gimmon glanced up at it ever now and then as he worked. "That's my business. Though of course I am honored to help a professional like Mags Hardbottle. That's why I've got you back here in the back room, where we'll have some privacy---" From out front, a human yelped in pain as a Rule apprentice began to apply a tattoo. Gimmon shook his head. "That boy will never know the finer touch. My next door neighbor's son you see. What can a man do. Family ties. Family ties."
Kogrik had promised Mags that he would keep his mouth shut, and so he sat in a chair that was too small for him and watched without comment, his massive legs jammed together in the tight seat. But his presence, perhaps, was one reason that Gimmon was slightly nervous. No matter how well behaved, an Ogron looming over everything was a presence that could be felt.
"And your friend wants an Ivorite likeness, too?" Gimmon asked as he shot a nervous look at Kogrik. The tip of one point of the caliper went into the Doctor's eye.
"Ouch!" the Doctor exclaimed. "Watch what you're doing, man!"
"I do apologize." Gimmon hastily returned to full concentration on the Doctor's face. He resumed his measurements. "Yes, yes, not too difficult. The hair and the tone of the skin are not difficult. It's that snout. There's a certain lift to it. I'll have to build up a framework on the face. Do-able, of course, for a master like me. You have nothing to worry about."
He got right to work, and the choking, stifling, musky smell of a Hybranath soon filled the room.
* * * *
Once again, Sarah Jane heard and sensed Athena lift herself and draw closer. The stone floor trembled, and a fine wave of dust swirled around the trench as the great insect settled her mass down carefully, a few feet closer than before. She wanted Sarah Jane to come to her.
Sarah Jane didn't know how to endure this. Her own loathing and fear of insects was too deep, and she had seen the great monster rip humanoids to pieces more than once. She had no idea why Athena had spared her and fed her. And even though Athena had already given her so much comfort, the very sensation of having her draw closer made Sarah tremble and shrink down.
A response rolled back over her like warm water from the sensor on her head; a wave of comfort passed through her, so powerful that for a moment she forgot her pain. A confused statement about intruders and danger half formed in her mind, associated with the male pursuers that had been ripped apart and flung away.
And then, not realizing that she was being lulled in a wave of sleep, Sarah Jane saw the old woman again: Jeanne. The old woman lifted her wrinkled hands and framed Sarah Jane's face. The cool hands eased the pain in her taut skin. "Don't be afraid to ask for mercy," Jeanne said. "Athena understand that very well." The image faded as Sarah Jane came around.
She was suddenly too tired and too unwilling to bear the pain and burning to resist further. She was able to send out a plea for help---as well as for mercy---from the incredibly strong limbs. And she pressed her eyes, now much less inflamed, closed. She hid her face in her arm so that she would not have to see the insect enclosing her in its many jointed legs and clamps.
She had expected that Athena would take her as the mighty attacker had descended on her former pursuers, lifting her high. But the only thing she felt was the single sensory appendage, again stroking her head and sending waves of assurance through her that gradually relaxed her in spite of her dread of being seized and lifted. And then, one of the great forelimbs opened its clamp-like appendage, reached towards her, and pressed against her forearm. She didn't see this, as her eyes were firmly closed, but she felt an unexpected and almost refreshing comfort, something that felt like a wooden paddle pushed against a bare patch on her arm. It relieved the burning sensation where it touched. It was only very slightly sticky, and Sarah Jane, eyes still closed, had a strong mental image of a wooden paddle with a drop of lanolin under it being pushed into her. The tickling vibration in her skin told her that it was driving the mites away, spreading some type of waxy liquid onto her skin that would protect her.
The paddle sensation lifted and deftly pressed itself against the side of her neck. It pushed into the skin of her neck, kneading with a thorough and quiet kneading, but not gripping her. Gradually its surface area widened as Sarah Jane became less frightened. The sticky fluid, once worked into her skin, felt as though it were closing the welts. It stopped the burning of the infection and relieved the itching and tearing sensations.
She still could not open her eyes for dread of the creature, but she suddenly yielded, unable to believe that anything that could comfort her so carefully meant to destroy her. Athena had been as tender as a mother with her, patient and generous.
Eyes closed, Sarah Jane reached up with one arm, still hiding her face in the other, took hold of the rim, and tried to lift her knee over the top of the trench to move towards her captor. This was what Athena had been waiting for. One of the great clamps circled Sarah Jane's outstretched arm and another clamp fastened around her upper leg. Rather than lifting her high, Athena gently dragged her in, just above the stone floor, all the way under her scimitar-shaped mandibles and cluster of dim eyes. Sarah Jane felt the shadow of the beast fall on her and she stayed still, face down, not daring to move, keeping her eyes hidden in her arm. There were suddenly several appendages that felt like wooden paddles, pushing into the exposed flesh on the back of her neck, her forearms, and her ankles, each bringing comfort. The burning and itching receded sharply, and she shivered as she felt the tingling of the mites abandoning her. She still didn't dare open her eyes. But she let out a sob of relief and tried to form some sense of thankfulness.
* * * *
While Kogrik and the Doctor were being fitted with their masks, the galaxy's foremost detective was squinting at a text screen at the medical research section of Library Hall. Most of the inhabitants of this part of the library were human. Statistical research tended to appeal to a certain type of human mind, with occasional Rules becoming interested if they could figure out how to make the calculations work for them.
The human research technician guided the text along. "Yes," she said to Mags. She was dressed in a white lab coat, though there was no lab, and she wore glasses, an honorary token that spoke of her high academic status.
The technician pointed to the screen. "There is a medical pathology record of a localized dying off of several Ivorite populations from mange infestation. Unverified, of course, as the Ivorites do not recognize the Federation reporting system. One planet in the Sadelmelik system saw a significant plague, and two planets in the Fomalhaut system. Looks like evacuation in Fomalhaut." She cocked an eyebrow at Mags. "Let me see, that would be stars number---"
Mags waved it away. "I been around enough to know where Sadelmelik and Fomalhaut are. Far from the Tusker home planet in Agena. What's Tuskers doin' on them planets?"
"That's another category entirely," the human woman said as she returned to the home screen. "I don't see any shipping references. The planets in those systems are not especially amenable to technological or agricultural civilization---"
By habit, Mags reached for a cigarette, and then stopped. "The planets musta' been hospitable to mange mites."
"Unless the Ivorites brought the infestation with them. Here are mineralogical surveys of the planets, all updated two years ago by Federation time." She pushed a button to slow the transfer of information and make it readable to Mags. "Some water. Some extremely low levels of vegetable and yeast life. The planets could sustain the mites over a certain appreciable time span if they were introduced by the host species itself."
"So the Tuskers already had the mites on them. They went to these planets. Why?"
"That information is not available." She glanced at the detective. "Ivorites, after all, have always resisted supplying what the Federation considers normal flight and research information."
"And there's nuthin' on the planets to suggest a likely reason to colonize or explore?"
The researcher shook her head. "No. And apparently the colonies did not survive."
"But 'ow could they have expected to survive, even without the mites?" Mags asked. "No tillable soil, no natural crops. Why settle on barren planets? What's the mineralogy?"
"All similar," the woman told her. "Granite. Traces of metal ores. Nothing worth developing. No significant deposits."
Mags leaned back in her chair. Around their work station, other jacketed researchers hurried back and forth, some of them carrying folders of magnetic tapes, each filled with coded information.
"You say these mineralogical surveys was updated two years ago," Mags said. "'ow about, can I see the previous mineralogical records?"
"I'll have to retrieve them from the archives."
"I can wait."
The woman nodded, stood, and hurried away.
When she returned, she gave a nod to Mags. "I loaded the information from the archive input slots." She called up a screen and then frowned. Mags frowned, too.
"Looks like information corruption," the technician said. "The disk is damaged."
"Can't you make out anything?"
"The planet in the Sadelmelik system has a record of fuel ores having been mined to depletion. One of the Fomalhaut planets shows no significant difference from the updated report. But the information on the second planet has been erased."
"Who by?" Mags asked.
The technician shook her head. "Either a very clumsy researcher who violated archive rules and set down a magnetic object on the tape. Or it was done purposely." She glanced at Mags.
* * * *
Sarah Jane's tears of gratitude may have confused the great arachnid, for Athena's tongue dropped down and again lightly touched Sarah Jane's head several times, and the massaging of the paddle-like surfaces became more gentle. But after a long moment, as Sarah Jane relaxed and quieted her own breathing, the creature resumed her work with strength. Eyes still closed, Sarah Jane felt herself yielding to the comfort. The substance, now more oily and less sticky, was poured onto her hair and groomed through it, then worked onto her scalp and head and down to her shoulders. She suddenly stretched without thinking, a long stretch of cramped muscles seeking relief from pain. As she did, the expert limbs and appendages gently took hold of the hem of her jacket, and one appendage slipped up the back, applying a gentle traction. Sarah Jane understood and straightened her arms behind her. The jacket was lifted off of her.
With a skill and care remarkable for such huge limbs, the creature peeled away Sarah's other garments and covered her with the comfort of the liquid bath. The paddles pushed into her shoulders and back, working down, forcing out the mites. She winced as the pressure was applied to the painful area where Dhunlup had struck with his spear. And then, as Athena did not sense the wince, Sarah Jane gasped from the pressure, and a red hot wave of heat shot through her. The pushing instantly abated, and Athena's great head came closer. There seemed to be a moment's inspection by something as delicate and frond-covered as a feather duster. Gasping from the suddenness of pain from the injury, and sensing the closeness of the razor sharp mandibles, Sarah Jane didn't dare to move, but the paddles continued, knowledgeably treating the injury very lightly. At last, she stretched again as the paddles worked down her legs, and she let her feet be taken up in the clamp-like appendages, the liquid squelching between her bare toes. She rolled onto her back and then dozed off into sleep as Athena strongly and carefully kneaded the skin of her chest, abdomen, and thighs, and cleaned away the welts and soreness of the mites.
Some time later, now filled with the sense of compliance with her great guardian, her skin and scalp scrubbed and dry and wonderfully softened again, her hair silky and groomed, Sarah Jane felt something cool and soft spread across her, as though a human hand had drawn a soft sheet over her. A new, confused fear of a spider's web in her sleepy thoughts was quickly adjusted by Athena's tapping tongue into an image of silk from a silk worm. It spread over her, and without thinking she rolled into its softness. It spread across her back and over her feet. Her head was pillowed in softness. She was more comfortable than she had been since coming to this planet. And she felt safe and at home.
For the first time, she was consciously aware of the transition into the other place. She found herself lying face down on the straw filled mattress, covered with the soft sheets. She was still just as comfortable and content. Not only could she see again, without the tearing, itching pain in her eyes and skin, she felt that a great terror had been taken away. She no longer had to dread Athena.
It was daylight in the tiny bedroom, and the window had been opened to let in clean, fresh air. Jeanne rested a hand on her head and bent down to peer at her face. "Sarah."
"Thank you for saving me," Sarah whispered.
"You're welcome, my sweet mouse. But you've been injured. Why didn't you tell me?"
"I didn't think you could make it better. Can Athena do something?"
"Not Athena. She can impart immunity against the mites, but I must repair the cutting. And for that, I must directly contact you."
"All right."
"So Athena has made you sleepy to help you. And I have found a way to limit my presence so that you won't be completely overwhelmed. If you feel any fear, you'll remember that I've come to help you, won't you?"
This warning at last penetrated Sarah's overwhelming sense of well being. "Is it going to hurt dreadfully, Jeanne?"
"No. No pain. But my real person may stun you." Jeanne stroked her head. "I want you to close your eyes and fix your mind on what you have comprehended today. I am a good creature, Sarah Jane, but I will seem very powerful. You know that I mean to be kind to you."
"Yes," Sarah said clearly. The sweetness of the air creeped closer to her, and she felt sleepy again. She knew that she ought to be more concerned, but she felt much more inclined to close her eyes, and so she did.
* * * *
The problem with using the expert services of the Hybranath was that his smell was so penetrating that the Doctor and Kogrik had been obligated to leave their cumbersome Ivorite garments back at the suite. They would have to apply the stiff, reddish guard hairs to each other's arms, legs, and chests well away from the musky smell of the Hybranath.
Once they had their new faces, made by carefully overlaying narrow films of latex-like material over carefully constructed frameworks that were strapped over their real faces, they spent a few minutes admiring their long snouts, pig-like eye sockets, and decorated tusks. Everything worked perfectly, and the customized masks were perfect and enabled them to express certain emotions in a limited way.
But when it came down to figuring out how to hail a cab and get back to the suit, there was no alternative.
"I think the only answer is that you will have to wear bags over your head," Gimmon said as the Doctor ruefully surveyed the street outside. Kogrik, his head encased in the Tusker mask, had crammed himself back into the tiny chair. The overtaxed chair finally exploded outward from the massive thighs crammed between the frail wooden arm rests. Kogrik landed on the floor, unharmed, among the flinders. "Sorry," Kogrik said.
As he picked himself up, Gimmoon said, "Look, there's no hope of subtlety when you've got an Ogron masked as an Ivorite."
"A bag over my head?" the Doctor asked.
Gimmon made his voice assuring "It's been done before."
"No it hasn't."
"All roght, it hasn't. But it ought to have been. You've spent loads of Miss Hardbottle's money for the best disguises that can be made. You mustn't ruin it by walking out in public dressed as one species with the head of another."
There really was no alternative, and Gimmon clearly wanted Kogrik taken away. And Kogrik was less worried about the bag idea than the Doctor. Gimmon the Hybranath dug out large garment bags made of opaque white paper, and he cut eye holes into them and trimmed them down. Gimmon had his ham-fisted apprentice hail a cab for them, and they departed the costumers as quickly-and with as much dignity---as they could manage with bags over their heads, each of them clutching a dark parcel of synthetic red hairs and costumer's glue.
But when Mags returned to the suite and doffed her visor to reveal an intensity in her green eyes and her forehead puckered in deep thought, she gave a startled little jump when she saw the two male tuskers in front of her. By that time, the Doctor and Kogrik had adorned themselves with the guard hairs and donned their Ivorite garments, complete with the array of four knives on the belts. The Doctor was showing Kogrik the typical Tusker way of standing and walking.
"Mother of Pearl!" Mags exclaimed. "You give me a turn, the both of you!"
"So we fooled you?" the Doctor asked. Though he spoke behind a mask, the snout moved and the lips pulled back. It was almost perfect.
"Yeah! Now all you gotta do is full a few dozen Tuskers!"
"That's our part of the bargain," the Doctor said. "How about you? Find anything?"
"I found missing information is what I found," she said. "Tuskers flying out of their normal routes, whisking around SF00004-Mag2."
"Fomalhaut?" the timelord asked. "Now what drew them out there?"
"Hard to say, but if I find a trace of silver on the planet in question, then we'll know." She drew out a cigarette and put it in her mouth.
"A good survey report would tell you that."
"The most recent one didn't tell me nuthin'." She fished out her matches and struck one. She lit the cigarette, then shook out the match. "And the report before that 'as mysteriously disappeared from the research archives. So I'm on me way to the Bureau of Surveys to question one Parman Nehven, the chap who wrote up the recent batch."
"Salafian," Kogrik barked.
"Yeah, just like Rainbow Behni. Now ain't that a coincidence. Wonder if this little feller's got a habit."
The mask prevented the Doctor from shooting a frown of concern at Mags. "It may not be wise to go alone, Mags."
"Against a Salafian? Who's likely a mauracine user? Spare me, Major. I can manage 'im. It's you two that are doin' the dangerous work." And her voice was wistful. "You better get on your way. And be careful."
* * * *
Sarah Jane sensed that she was back in the warm and silent cavern. The sweetness still covered her and filled the air, and the sunlight was gentle and yet warm against the silken sheeting on her back. She didn't know if she dozed for a quarter of an hour, or for hours on end. But there came a point when the breeze shifted, and she knew that Athena was lifting herself. With great care, the enormous creature retreated from her, leaving her in the quiet, rich sunlight. Another stillness slowly filled the cavern, seeping in as though sudden, low snow clouds had blocked out the cavern opening overhead. But there was no wind, and there was no darkness, only a great coldness that came over her and settled down on her, weightless and yet almost unbearable. A vast isolation, much more austere than the silent stillness of the cathedral, moved over her. Sarah Jane knew that this was not anything generated from Athena. It was something much more powerful and still, completely remote from biological life. And yet it was a conscious life.
She had been lying face down, and had lifted her head at the change, but now she instinctively put her head down and, without thinking, held her breath. As the coldness and emptiness rested on her, she sensed it as weightless and yet almost unbearable in its intensity, and she quickly covered her head with her arms. Her bare toes scrabbled, and for a moment she almost tried to get up and run, but suddenly she couldn't move under the unbearable, cold emptiness. She couldn't lift herself. A brief, cold whisper touched her cheek. This chilled her even in the sunlight, and it daunted her senses, but she thought it might have been meant as some type of assurance. Even so, the cold vastness, instead of merely resting on her, next settled into her with its emptiness. It was too much for her. She felt swept up in its isolation. This was not the tenderness of the sweet, elderly Scottish woman, but something almost purely intellectual, and profoundly still.
"I'm too ashamed," Sarah tried to say out loud, but her heart was beating too hard to let her speak. And then, with the same dexterity Athena had showed, the cold presence focused itself like a knowing hand on the exact place where Dhunlup's spear, blunted by the pack, had cracked her ribs and caused her to bleed inside.
Even as the accurate pressure caused her to gasp with sudden fear of worsened pain, the pain did not flare up, but instead was checked. The cold vastness seemed to fill with knowledge, and then it became a wave of gratitude and wonder, but that of another creature, not herself. This gratitude eased the emptiness and over bearing stillness of the presence, and a wave of delighted wonder passed over her like warm water. And then the coldness was gone. The presence vanished. And with it, the pain of her wound disappeared. Her dazed, sleepy senses smelled the faintly sweet scent of Athena's handiwork again; the sun worked its rays into her soft covers and warmed her, and the rich stillness of the cathedral closed around her.
* * * *
As darkness fell over the gleaming city, the Tusker enclave was already inky black. Kogrik, though not adept at language use, had mastered the Ivorite manner of walking. He was carrying his few inches of extra height well. As they walked through the dark streets, the Doctor noted that more and more hooded and robed tuskers were converging. They were moving towards a non-descript grey building. This building, unlike the Guardian City architecture around them, was purely Ivorite in design, with no windows and a single broad front door studded with glittering bits of gems. Their temple.
Several of the groups and individual Tuskers were being admitted by a well built door guard who stood without robe or hood, and the Doctor noted that an honor guard stood at several points along the block, ready to seize intruders. At intervals, the door warden would point his longest knife at the throat of a perspective entrant and say something. There would be a brief reply, and the entrant would be admitted.
"He's checking passwords," the Doctor whispered to the Ogron. Kogrik grunted to indicate understanding, but he did not speak. He was ready to go forward with the Doctor and take whatever might come.
The joined the cue and moved slowly to the door. The Doctor counted the intervals at which the guard questioned entrants. He did a quick calculation and realized that chances were in his favor of being passed through unchallenged. It was a good thing, because he realized that the honor guard was actually positioned so that it surrounded those lined up to enter. The guards could make short work of intruders, and it was certain that the other tuskers would willingly help.
But he had neglected Kogrik's unusual height. The disguised Ogron attracted attention.
As the Doctor and his partner would have entered, the Doctor---the nearer of the two of them to the guard---found the door warden's broad knife at his throat.
"I don't recognize you," the Tusker growled. "Give the new password! Your life hangs on it!"
