Sarah Jane opened her eyes, now moist, but aching slightly, with a lingering sense that they had been quite swollen and dry not very long ago. She was lying, wrapped loosely in a soft, thick covering, on the open cave floor near the lip of the trench. She looked around. Athena was gone, but Sarah Jane's clothing lay folded alongside her shoulder, a smell of perfume coming from the garments. Apparently Athena had been able to clean them as thoroughly as she had cleaned Sarah Jane. Next to the garments, two globes of honey were rolled together. Her breakfast.
When, at first, Sarah Jane had eaten the honey made by Athena's mouth and glands, she had been too ravenous to pay more than a faint intellectual heed to the fact that this food was excreted by an alien that seemed to be some giant arachnid. Later, the knowledge of where the food had come from had interfered with her ability to eat it.
Now, taking the honey-like substance from the waxy capsules was almost like receiving communion. Sarah Jane had never prayed much in her life, but receiving this food, which had come from the mysterious creature that inhabited the cavern, through Athena's own glands as Sarah Jane's protector, down to her, now seemed the most spiritually significant thing that had happened to her in her life. As she ate, tears of gratitude came to her eyes, and when she had finished she took up the remaining honey in her hands and buried her face in it. "Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you." She spread it over her face and down her throat. "Thank you, whoever you are."
Nothing interrupted these devotions. After she had finished, she left the empty globes for Athena in the center of the great cathedral and then went out to wash, wrapped in the great woven fabric and carrying her clothes.
* * * * *
The Doctor, his vision swimming in the superheated, enclosed room, got to his knees.
Kogrik, roaring and swinging a long sword-like knife from either hand, charged into the group that was bringing the offering to the Tusker guest of honor. The Doctor leaped to his feet.
The Tuskers themselves, at last, were reasonably drunk, and for a moment nobody knew what was happening. Then as Kogrik ran the priest through with one knife and used the other to slash open the face of one of the creatures who had hold of the prisoner, the Doctor regained his own feet and plunged after his comrade at arms, drawing his two longest knives.
For a moment it was assumed that he was a Tusker determined to kill the huge Tusker that was running amuck, and he unwittingly bought them another moment of time, for nobody interfered.
"Take him up! Take him up!" the Doctor shouted. "Don't try to untie him until we're out of it!" He whirled his knives at the befuddled and unwary Tuskers that were crowding them. Kogrik dropped his weapons, smashed a sledgehammer fist into the face of the remaining captor of the youth, and hoisted up the young Ogron as commanded.
The Doctor found himself confronted by a wall of Tuskers, all outraged as they perceived that it was a rescue attempt. Their knives flashed, and they caught in his cumbersome robes and on his belt. He felt himself be pierced, but he jumped back, not more than nicked.
"You take!" And Kogrik thrust the Ogron captive into the Doctor's arms. The young Ogron, though only half grown, was almost as large as a human adult, and the Doctor simply collapsed under this arm load of struggling, frightened, muscle and bone. They both crashed to the floor with the young Ogron on top.
But it was a lucky move, for it cleared the way for Kogrik. He bellowed, leaped over the Doctor, and rushed empty handed into his attackers, not minding their knives. He ripped off his Tusker garments as he came and with the same whirling motion flung his robes over the heads of the group, blinding them. He plowed into them with a roar.
The Doctor dragged the captive up, slung him over his own shoulder in a fireman's carry, and ran for the single entrance door.
Somebody grabbed his foot, and he went down again, but the struggle was sobering him up. He launched his other foot up into a Tusker snout, grabbed a knife from the attacker's belt, and pulled it free. Before he could do anything else, Kogrik sent the creature flying.
"Get the lad up," the Doctor gasped. Kogrik hauled them both up, and the Doctor took up the young Ogron as before. Their escape attempt had put them close to the tables on the side of the room near the exit. Kogrik seized up one of the long tables and ran with it like a plow in front of him, driving back the Tuskers. He snatched up a short sword from the floor, and as he raced back to the Doctor, he shoved aside the two protectors of the distributor and with a single blow swept the Tusker's head off. Then he picked up the robed body of the decapitated guest of honor and hurled it at the fire in the great furnace.
This act, apparently one of contempt that the Tuskers understood, called up a shout of both rage and horror, and the huge Ogron was run into by three or four different knives. Still snarling terribly, he dealt blows right and left, knocking aside his attackers. Tuskers were running to rescue the body of their leader or see to the slain priest. Kogrik picked up another great table and slung it down like a great club onto the final rush of Tuskers as the Doctor carried the prisoner up the hallway to the entrance door. He pushed against it, but as he had guessed early on, it was barricaded from the outside.
Kogrik, apparently unfazed by his wounds or his exertions, crashed his foot into the door, and when that didn't work, he hurled himself bodily at it. The doors burst open.
"Assassins!" the Doctor shouted.. "Come on! Come on! Assassins! He's killed the Guest! Restore order!"
In the darkness outside, the door wardens raced to the interior. "You two!" their leader ordered to two of the number. "Stay here and watch them!"
The two indicated nodded and raced up to the Doctor and Kogrik, drawing their longest knives. But before they could ask what the Doctor was carrying, Kogrik seized them and smashed their heads together, and the Doctor---somewhat hampered by his burden, closed the entrance door behind the other wardens. Kogrik and he managed to jam one of the halves of the shivered bar back into place. Then they legged it, both of them trailing blood, back to safer territory with their burden.
* * * * *
Sarah Jane was already more clean than she had been since coming here. But she washed away the annointing she had given herself, and there was a certain propriety in scrubbing herself thoroughly, then using the soft woven garment to dry off, and then dressing in her fresh clothes. When she felt as completely prepared as she could be on this world, she came back to the cathedral. Athena was still gone, and Sarah Jane waited, standing in the cave instead of retreating to her niche or sitting on her sunny perch.
After an hour had passed, the breeze kicked up around her: a sign that the massive creature was returning. The mouth of the passage that Athena guarded was blacked out, and then Athena herself appeared---her two front legs first, followed by the cluster of her dim eyes, and then she squeezed herself through. Like any insect, she was able to get through openings that seemed much too small to accommodate her. She lifted herself as she came through, and the breezes were stilled for a moment as she realized that Sarah Jane was standing and waiting in the cavern.
Sarah Jane had thought that Athena would tap her to question her, but the giant arachnid did not shoot out her tongue. Instead, she slowly and carefully, with that same delicate and yet terrible insect grace, lifted her legs in order and---as gently as she could---stepped forward to the exact center of the cavern. The sun beamed down on her, painting her black body brown down the sides, illuminating the thick cables of sensory hairs that covered her.
It is possible, Sarah Jane thought, for something to be good and yet terrible: terrible to behold and terrible to approach. For in spite of knowing that she owed her life to this creature, and in spite of knowing that this female had behaved in a tender and motherly way towards her, Sarah Jane’s knees still trembled when it came right down to approaching Athena.
The one comfort was in knowing that Athena---like the creature that was Jeanne---paid very little heed to time. Understanding that Sarah Jane wanted to be able to come to her, Athena would have patiently waited for decades.
I don’t have to look right at her, Sarah Jane thought. She lowered her eyes to the smooth cave floor, focused them on the very edge of the great shadow that fell against the glittering rock, and she made herself carefully stride towards it. Without any conscious directive from her mind, her gait slowed as she came closer. She could feel the enormous presence, even though she could not see Athena. And then she stepped into the shadow. It was cold.
Not as cold as the other, Sarah Jane told herself. But this comparison was no good. This shadow was quite cold and alien enough. But just as her steps slowed and she began to feel overwhelmed by the vast presence above her, a gentle fragrance of flowers touched her, just a hint. And she heard something. It was a sound she had not noticed when Athena had brought her in close the day before. Only now, in the silence between them, was it audible: a gentle whispering, a faint, very slow and evenly paced throbbing. Sarah Jane forgot to notice that she had stopped walking. She listened, her mind completely engaged by this quiet, slow, regular sound. It was the sound of respiration. And even now, when Athena was remaining motionless, Sarah still felt a continued faint circulation of air: the ingress and egress of breath from the creature, taken in through its body and gently expelled. This slow and even rhythm evoked a great sense of calm, a great peace. Athena, Sarah Jane realized, was the presence that filled this cathedral with that great, full, stillness. It emanated from her.
She knew that she must move forward again, for she had only gotten as far as the midpoint between the great front legs, and now it was even less easy to walk closer. But swiftness was not expected of her. In fact, she realized that moving too quickly might even be considered ill mannered. The overwhelming presence had to be combatted on some levels of her mind. But on another level, it was appropriate for her to contemplate the stillness as she entered it, and to understand that Athena possessed a greatness that had little to do with her sheer size. Such a profound creature could only be approached quietly, reverently, and slowly.
And so Sarah Jane walked more slowly and more carefully through the shadow, until at last she was directly under the cluster of eyes. Her mindset had been changing as she drew nearer. At first she had feared what would happen to her, for though Athena was good, she was also severe, and she was not possessed of human frailty. But the difference in their sizes, the great stillness, the great patience of the creature, worked on Sarah Jane. She began to sense that whatever happened to her would be what should happen, what ought to happen: the event that was in alignment with all the heavens. As she came under the great head, she still felt flooded by awe of Athena, but she also had a sense of peace and acceptance. Only the right thing would happen to her.
The great head above her did not bow to examine her. Instead, the tongue tapped her head in welcome, and covered her hair with sweet dew. Sarah Jane didn’t move, because she couldn’t. For a moment, she understood the great, profound stillness, its richness, its timeless waiting. She would have fallen onto her knees, but the arachnid’s front legs came back, and the clamps gently prevented her and held her up.
Whiskery limbs that sat on either side of Athena’s mouth, which Sarah had seen the arachnid use to fashion the globes of honey, came down and swept through her hair like stiff brushes, calming her, and yet also spreading the sweetness of the dew over her head and onto her shoulders. It was impossible to be a human and not reach out. Sarah’s hands found the hard cartilage of the bullet-like tongue, and she put it to her forehead and tried to communicate through her thoughts: gratitude, and a remorse for her own limitations, and her amazement at all the things she had never known. The great, quiet, brooding stillness, filled with breath and life and contemplation, filled her, until her fears were still, and even her awe was stilled, and she was capable of the inner silence that was the practice of this place.
* * * * *
In the TARDIS interior, the Doctor tried unsuccessfully to take a look at the gaping, raw wounds in the young Ogron's lower legs.
The boy snarled at him and kicked up, and the Doctor, still not entirely sober, and sporting only a crude bandage under his shirt to cover his knife nicks, barely avoided a kick in the face.
Kogrik, his arms still hairy with false Tusker hair, gripped the youth reassuringly and let him sit up on the cushioned cot that had previously held Sarah Jane. Kogrik spoke in the gutteral and tonal Ogron language, and the young boy stopped fighting, but he didn't want the Doctor to touch him. He was afraid, and this was entirely normal, but the Doctor felt his reserve of patience slipping away. He had to win this adolescent's trust in a hurry.
The lad was still clad only in a cloth garment, the clothing of a slave.
"Look," Mags said. "It's late, but I can get 'im some decent togs t'make 'im feel safer. Ogron stuff. Them friends a' yours, Kogrik. They got some children, right?"
"Yes. They give clothes," Kogrik said.
"I'm on me way. Don't either of you go bleedin' too much, awright? We got to get to that place in the Fomalhaut system to rescue your bird, Doctor."
"Right," the Doctor said. He left the bio lab and made a quick trip to the pantries. The empty hook on the wall where the rucksack had once hung reminded him of the urgency of the time. But he could not leave a child of any race traumatized and untreated. He returned with a bag of chocolate drops and a large container of water.
The rescued young Ogron had been very glad of water as soon as they had given him some, and he was glad to receive even more. At first he was suspicious of the sweets, but as Kogrik ate them with great appreciation, he tried one. He accepted more from the Doctor's hand, and then he took the bag and let the Doctor see to the wounds on his legs and arms. But he wanted Kogrik to keep hold of him, ready to snatch him away if necessary.
"He was bound with ropes in the temple," the Doctor said. He applied a numbing agent to the open wounds on one leg, and then a liquid bandage. The comfort startled the lad, and he swiftly straightened out his other leg so that it could be treated. He spoke briefly to Kogrik, apparently reporting that perhaps the Doctor could be trusted after all.
"But he's been wearing manacles," the Doctor said. "That's what these wounds and scars on his legs tell me. He was pulled from a line up of slaves, I imagine. Chosen as an offering to satsfy the monstrous appetite of that drug distributor."
Kogrik spoke to the boy, received an answer, and translated for the Doctor. "He say Ogron children like him and older stolen by Tuskers and enslaved. They pickaxe metal ore for pig faces. Pig faces kill and eat Ogron slaves when they like."
An Ogron child like this, the Doctor realized, would be less able than an adult Ogron to fight back, and yet would present an enormous strength to perform sheer labor, far more strength than human adult slaves. "Where?" the Doctor asked. "Where was he enslaved?"
Kogrik spoke, and the boy answered at some length, but the Doctor knew it was too much to hope that a mere child, especially an Ogron child, could give clear space coordinates. But Kogrik's translated answer was helpful. "He taken from Ogron training in a raid. He and many others. They pickaxe metal on planet where only rock, few Tuskers, and slaves in chains. Say Tuskers stick each other all the time. With doctor tools. Come and go. Cannot stay long on planet or itchies get them."
"Itchies? The mange mites?" the Doctor asked.
Kogrik spoke again, and the lad scratched himself to demonstrate and then scratched his eyes.
"Mange mites," the Doctor confirmed. "This lad's come from where we're going. That planet that Mags traced is obviously a hub of Tusker activity. A silver mining operation."
"Must save Ogron children," Kogrik said.
"We will, old boy."
* * * * *
"Now for the next task," Jeanne said.
For this visit, they were seated in the cottage again, at the sturdy wooden table, empty coffee cups and discarded spoons before them. Outside the thickly paned windows, the moor sat bathed in sunlight. The high humps of rock, surrounded by the tall waves of rough grass, were black dots in the distance.
Sarah Jane realized that whatever Jeanne really was, this manifestation of herself was a concession to Sarah Jane's understanding and experience: a form that Sarah Jane could find meaningful: grandmother, mother, counselor, all the stereotyped qualities of the devout Scottish Presbyterian, the white hair like a halo, the quiet voice, the sparkling eyes. It suddenly embarrassed Sarah Jane.
"You know, I ought to be better about this," she said suddenly. "I walked right into the universe without understanding it at all."
This interruption of Jeanne's train of thought startled the old woman, but she instantly set aside her directives for Sarah Jane and answered her, instead.
"You were brought here against your will, Sarah Jane," she said gently. "And we do not begrudge your arrival. You're a sweet presence in the great cathedral."
But these words were not much comfort. It did seem that somebody who had experienced the savagery of the tusked people of this planet and the other worldly mercy of Jeanne and Athena ought to have a better understanding of everything. She realized that in spite of the grand communions she had been given, most of her life still revolved around eating enough, drinking enough, sleeping enough, and sitting in the sun as much as she could.
Her voice was small. "I must seem very primitive to you."
"No, no." Jeanne reached forward and smoothed down Sarah Jane's hair with a gentle, wrinkled, and skillful hand. "You were made one way, and Athena another. All your senses are so intertwined with your true self. You are a person like a fluid, always re-shaping, readjusting, reacting to what comes into you by your senses. At first Athena and I were perplexed, but we understand you better, now. She in her way, and I in mine."
"Athena's not this way?" Sarah Jane asked. "She's not a biological creature like I am?" For it occurred to her that Athena, like Jeanne, might just be a manifestation of something else.
"Oh, she is a biological creature. She possesses her true self intertwined through her physical form, as you do, but it is much more removed from what her senses perceive, and her senses are much less refined than yours. Except for touch and smell. But she can be hungry without being distressed, and she can eat without pleasure as you experience pleasure. She can be injured and not grieve, and she can be healed and not elated."
"She doesn't have feelings?" Sarah Jane asked.
Jeanne beamed at her through the thick glasses. "Of course she has emotions, little mouse. But even the word you use tells me that emotions are very physical to your kind. Always linked to your senses and perceptions and always expressed through them." She reached down to the floor and then straightened up, with her hand loosely closed. She opened her hand, and on the palm, a six-legged arachnid---apparently not very troubled---walked carefully across the flesh of her palm. "Athena experiences profound emotions and discoveries, but she would call them new awarenesses, even as you call them feelings. They come to her through her perception and reflection of Truth, from long and silent study of the way of the heavens and the world around her, and from deeply pondering these things." Jeanne smiled again and set the creature back onto the floor.
"And is that Athena?" Sarah Jane asked, astounded.
"Yes. And though now you seem very big to her, and she very small, you are each of you exactly what you are. Nothing has changed except your perspective, dear mouse. You are astounded, but she is not astounded. Her senses do not bear such a strong rule over her perceptions as yours do."
Amazed as she was, Sarah Jane made a quick mental note not to move her feet at all. She paused and tried to consider it, then said, "But I must seem like an animal to her, like something witless, always running to and fro, looking for food and water all day long, every single day. And I'm nearly always afraid."
"You were made for one purpose, and Athena for another." Jeanne's voice was judicious. "There is a charm in your busyness, little mouse. Your contentedness is like a song in the morning as you wash, and then eat, and then clean your niche, and then enjoy the sun, and then repeat it all the next day. And your gratitude comes quickly, like summer fire. It blazes high, and is forgotten in your mind until it comes again, just as strong and high."
The fact that this changeable quality might actually be engaging to a higher creature had not occurred to Sarah. She did recall once, as a child, feeding cheese puffs to a squirrel in the park. It had advanced to her close enough to receive one cheese puff, nibbled it, and then run off with it to store it away, only to return a moment later empty handed, ready to receive again, eager, alert, and hopeful. It had charmed Sarah Jane to feed it all the cheese puffs in this way, for each simple gift had filled the squirrel with purpose and happiness.
Jeanne was smiling at her. "If you learn by your senses, then your senses will teach you, and if you must overcome your senses, then only you can overcome them to learn higher things. One creature does not make the rules for another. We must assist, and let the perfection work." She was silent for a moment, letting Sarah Jane think this through, and then she asked, "Are you ready for your next task?"
"Oh yes, anything!".
"The enemy of which you spoke has come to realize that he cannot control Athena, and he has divined that she is nurturing you and has healed you. But he does not sense me at all, and when I call for you, he does not understand what happens to you. Your body becomes still and quiet, and more than once he has hoped that you were becoming weaker. He even tried to enter you, once, which was how I finally perceived him. But he cannot take you when I call you, though he fails to understand your experience. Now, before he decides to leave this place and seek a new victim, he must be prevented. I have seen his mind, and there is no remorse in him for choosing to weaken others so that he can inhabit them."
"What can you do?" Sarah Jane asked.
Jeanne's eyes softened. "Little mouse, there is nothing I can do until you first choose to fulfill your task."
She began to be afraid, but she asked, "What should I do, then?"
"You must travel closer to death so that he can enter you, and then---through you---he will sense me. He will know in a way that you cannot know, that I see the heavens around this place, that I am vast and still, that I can afford him an everlasting existence if he can but enter me. He will think, because I am possessed of a frail physical form, that he can control me."
"Can he?" Sarah Jane asked. She was suddenly alarmed. "He controlled the Doctor, Jeanne! And the Doctor didn't think that the Insider could do that!"
"Of course he can control me, little mouse. I already told you that in and of myself, I am not a powerful creature---"
Sarah Jane jumped up. "Jeanne, he's horrible! He's only supposed to inhabit dead things---"
"Sarah Jane." Jeanne's voice was quiet and firm. "Sit down."
At this, Sarah Jane immediately dropped back onto the bench, subdued at the authority in the low tone of voice.
"The flow that I continually accept will destroy him," Jeanne said. "For he will try to master it, and it will sweep him to nothingness."
"It hurt the Doctor," Sarah Jane said. "I think it may have killed him. What will happen to us?"
Jeanne's eyes were softened again, as one who remembers the frailty of a small child. "I don't know. You and I experience pain differently. I expect that we will both suffer pain."
"Will we die?"
"I'll do my best to see that you are spared."
The answer shamed Sarah, for there was not a trace of reproach or self consciousness in it. This creature knew that Sarah was afraid of death, and she wanted to protect her. But Jeanne herself did not fear death.
But even though Sarah Jane felt some embarrassment for her fear, she felt a desperate inner dissatisfaction. First those horrible tusked creatures, and then the mites, and then the terrors of the cathedral, and now that she was finally doing well again, this dreadful task.
"It just doesn't seem fair," she said.
"But you were the one who intervened when the parasitic creature might have been destroyed. You trespassed into your friend's work against his will." Jeanne's voice was mild, not accusatory. "You are responsible to protect others from the terror that you yourself unleashed."
The argument that she had not understood died in her throat. She had already admitted to herself that she had been very foolish. But she also realized that this other creature, though not angry and not shocked by her former behavior, was adamant that she must set things right.
"Are you going to force me to accept it into myself?" Sarah asked. "Do I have no choice about it?"
"There are three possibilities," Jeanne told her. "First, that I should overwhelm you with my coldness and emptiness, so that it takes you. Second, that you refuse to do this and are allowed to leave with the task undone. Third, that you accept the task and do it. But only one choice is the right choice. For if I forced you, I could destroy the creature, but I would destroy your will in the process, and then I would be ruined forever, and the great flow from the water bearer would have to stop, for I would have closed my mouth to receiving it by dictating my will over another. And if you refuse to do what you know is required, then you would be destroyed in your spirit, and the joy and knowledge you had in the cavern would be lost to you, and it would become a horror and a burden to you for the rest of your life, and others would suffer at the hands of this creature. You would spend your whole life in misery, defending your cowardice but haunted by it."
These words were like arrows, and Sarah realized that they were true. There was only ruin for both of them if they did not willingly cooperate to destroy it.
"If you choose to accept the task," Jeanne said. "You at least will know in your mind that this is the right thing to do, and no matter what you feel or sense, you already know my nature and the nature of this place. Whatever you suffer, you can endure it because of the knowledge that I've given you."
Sarah Jane did not entirely believe this, for she knew that this creature was entirely different from herself, that it did not fully comprehend change and death as a human did. But she no longer argued. The truth was, she had played a part in empowering the Insider, and this was the one place where he could be destroyed. Whatever happened, she had to accept this task.
"Yes," she said. "All right."
* * * *
At last the Ogron boy, who told them his name was Grag, permitted Kogrik to release him and accept medical treatment from the Doctor.
Kogrik had been wearing his tunic and breeches under the cumbersome Tusker robes, and these, the Doctor realized, were a carefully engineered cloth---much finer than the woven Teflon fabrics of twentieth century earth---that was designed to turn away projectiles and slow the penetration of bladed weapons. The Ogron had been scored much more deeply than the Doctor, but Ogron metabolism withstands a few slices much more readily than almost any other creature on two legs. The Doctor cleaned out the wounds as Kogrik stood patiently and let him work.
But as patient as Kogrik was with the painful cleaning, he was impatient to effect a rescue of the Ogrons enslaved by the Ivorites.
"We go soon?" he asked the Doctor. "Take the Scorpio?"
The Scorpio, as any avid fan of detective fiction knew, was Mags Hardbottle's private ship. It did not surprise the Doctor to realize that his young Tark friend actually owned a space ship. He did not doubt that she was an able pilot.
"We can try to take the TARDIS," the Doctor told him. "I think I've recovered enough to operate her, if Mags can set the course for me." He straightened up. "There you are."
Kogrik nodded brief thanks and buckled the broad belt of his tunic. He looked none the worse for wear. On the medical cot, Grag swung his legs over the edge. He had finished all of the chocolates.
"Let's see what's keeping Mags," the Doctor said.
Kogrik turned and spoke to his young charge, and the Ogron boy hopped off the cot and followed them out.
Meanwhile, the dark street was quiet and empty. Guardian City was not a place where crime occurred, at least not in the center of the city. With the Ogron garments slung over her shoulder, Mags lit a cigarette and then passed through the glass doorways of her own building and made for the elevator. She knew that the Doctor was in the TARDIS, which was down in the storage area, but if they were going on a trip to a Tusker silver mine, she wanted to pick up her contraband blaster and holster and be properly armed for whatever they might find.
The elevator door opened, and to her amazement, two Tusker males, clad in the familiar leather kilts, faced her. They were equally startled. She recovered first and took to her heels in the opposite direction. One of them threw his shortest knife after her, and it caught her in the back. On a human woman, it would have been a mortal blow, but on Mags' Tark physique, slender as it was, the blade had wedged into the complex tendon, muscle, and bone of her inner shoulder mechanisms.
But she fell forward onto her face. And just then, the entire building shook. The glass walls on the building facade and around the elevator shaft exploded outward. A tremendous roaring drowned out her call for help. The two Tuskers, unaffected by the great series of explosions, raced to where she had fallen, drawing their weapons to finish her off.
