The TARDIS disguised itself as a small but expensive yacht in Galway City’s
harbour marina. There was no reason why the semi-sentient ship should
have chosen such a disguise in the midst of an urban area with plenty
of street furniture to emulate, except that they were here to visit a
friend they knew from the crew of the RSV Wayfarer.
The TARDIS was being consistent.
The restaurant called ‘A Taste of Baiae’ was on the not very
Irish sounding Spanish Parade, not far from the marina. On its window
was a translucent painting of one of the mosaic floors beneath the sea
that the crew of the RSV Wayfarer had explored and mapped. Inside, on
the walls, were pictures of the ancient ruins of Baiae that lie within
the modern town on the sun-drenched Aegean coastline. Chrístõ
and Garrick remembered their adventures in both with fond smiles.
“My friends,” said a warm voice with a strong echo of Italy
mixed with a Galway lilt. The manageress came from her desk to greet them
both with Latin kisses on both cheeks.
“Good afternoon, Mrs Hanratty,” Chrístõ said
to her, noting how well she looked in a close-fitting black cocktail dress
and a short hairstyle. His greeting was not meant to be formal, but to
recognise that she was now a long way from being Licinia, the unhappy
abused wife of the Roman civil servant, Tibius Desticius Severna. Are
the children well?
“Lucy is in her first school year and Patrice at nursery,”
she answered." You shall see them, later, but right now you must
sit at a window table and Patrick will come to you.”
The restaurant’s lunchtime trade was brisk, but the best table had
been kept for them. While they drank lime soda to whet their appetites,
the proprietor and head chef, Patrick Hanratty, came to them personally
bringing bowls of his signature dish, Oyster stew, the oysters from the
waters off Galway, the combination of herbs and spices that flavoured
it from the Roman Empire in the first century AD.
“You’re doing well, here?” Chrístõ noted
as he sat with them." The restaurant is doing good business?”
“It is,” Patrick answered." At first, I worried it was
a novelty that would wear off, but we have three Indian restaurants around
us, the Siam Garden opposite and ‘traditional Irish cuisine’
up the road. We fitted in beautifully. We’re a big hit. And Li…
she has thrived here. Her old life is a distant memory. She doesn’t
even have nightmares about it any more.”
“That’s good to know,” Chrístõ told him.
Breaking the laws of causality was worth it when it resulted in a happy
family like this. “And I can assure you the oyster stew is just
as good made with Galway oysters.”
“I’ve got a lobster bisque to die for on my evening specials
menu,” Patrick told him." And a salmon linguini combination
that got me a very good review last year.”
“Then we certainly know where we're eating tonight,” Garrick
commented." I don’t know what we are doing for the afternoon.
I still don’t understand this idea of ‘tourism’ that
brings Chrístõ to Earth so often. Just ‘looking’
at buildings....”
“Not just looking,” Patrick assured him." Tourism is
my bread and butter.”
That food metaphor utterly confused Garrick. Chrístõ explained
that they were merely going to stroll around the Latin Quarter looking
at old medieval walls and a few antique shops." We need to start
thinking about gifts to bring back to our friends at home.”
Garrick’s expression didn’t change, but Chrístõ
felt a brief flash of emotion from his brother. He wasn’t especially
looking forward to returning to Gallifrey and his preparation for the
Prydonian Academy.
The Latin Quarter of Galway was also the most historic part of the city.
The afternoon passed pleasantly. The brothers returned to Spanish Parade
in the early evening, in time to meet Patrick and Licinia’s children
and see them off to bed, then enjoy aperitifs (non-alcoholic in Garrick’s
case) before their table for dinner was ready.
“Spain is part of the Iberian peninsula,” Garrick said as
they enjoyed the lobster bisque and watched the street outside slowly
darken as the sun went down over Galway City, if not actually the infamously
non-existent Galway Bay. “And Italy is the part of this planet usually
called Latin.”
“You don’t understand why this is Spanish Parade in the Latin
Quarter?” Chrístõ anticipated Garrick’s question."
I’m not exactly sure, to be honest. Galway’s Spanish connections
date back to the Spanish Armada losing a few ships on the coastline, but
I’m not sure that has anything to do with the modern place names.
Bridge Street has a bridge, Quay street is by the old docks. That’s
as much logic as you need to look for. Just enjoy the ambience.”
That was something Garrick wasn’t doing very easily. The restaurant
was crowded. The street outside, with restaurants, bars and a cinema complex
further down, was popular with tourists and locals alike and getting busier
as the evening darkened. Garrick had grown up on a country estate and
rarely mixed with such crowds. He wasn’t sure what to make of it.
“I once felt like that,” Chrístõ told him."
Earth is so busy. It frightened me a little. But you can get used to it.
I should take you to a music festival. Glastonbury, maybe. Or Slane Castle
in the 1980s. That’ll either cure you of your fear of crowds or
scare you into becoming a hermit.”
“We’re going back to Gallifrey after this trip,” Garrick
pointed out. “We don’t have time.”
“I’m a Time Lord. There is always time. That’s a plan
for your holidays home from the Academy. I’ll get you used to crowds,
all right.”
“I will be all right in any such place if you are with me,”
Garrick decided." I trust you.”
“You shouldn’t. I just remembered I have tickets for Live
Aid that I’ve never used.”
Garrick was on the point of asking what ‘Live Aid’ was when
he was distracted by a change in the happy atmosphere amongst the crowds
outside and a sudden swell of people coming towards the nearside pavement.
Chrístõ noticed it, too. He stood up urgently. Just as he
was moving towards the door he heard somebody call out the most urgent
and frightening word of all.
“Fire!”
The trouble was in the Siam Garden - the Thai restaurant opposite. As
Chrístõ used Power of Suggestion to clear his way across
the road he saw the patrons and staff evacuating safely as well as the
glow of a fire taking a very rapid hold on the restaurant interior.
Then above all the speculative conversation there was a cry of alarm.
It came from a man with far Eastern features who was calling out, in Thai,
for his wife and children.
“Are they still inside?” Chrístõ asked, in Thai.
He thought the man could probably speak English, but in his distress he
had reverted to his first language. He told Chrístõ that
his wife had gone to get the children while he took responsibility for
the people in his restaurant.
But they had not come out, and the fire was intense. Nobody was going
inside again by any normal ground floor entrance.
He turned to tell his brother to stay put, but Garrick wasn’t there.
A new rise in excitement amongst the onlookers made him turn back in time
to see the boy who was nervous about crowds climbing up the drainpipe
at the corner of the building and swinging himself towards an open window
in the private apartment above the restaurant.
He swore under his breath in language that would make Garrick’s
mother swoon and ran to use the same means of getting up to the top floor.
By the time he got to the window Garrick was ready to pass a small and
terrified child out to him. He slowly climbed back down the way he came
with the infant in one arm, thankful to find other helpers on the ground
to pass him down to before he climbed back again.
The fire had reached the bedroom. They needed to get the mother and the
other child out of there quickly. The fire engine sounded closer but it
might not be close enough.
“We need to go up, not down,” he said to his brother telepathically.
"The flat roof is quicker and easier. Give me the other child. You
help the mother."
“You know how to levitate, don’t you?” Garrick said
in reply. “Can’t you....”
“Not with fifty-odd people down there uploading this live to U-Tube,”
he answered.
But it wasn’t the worst idea. He could make it look like he was
clinging to footholds in the brick while imposing his will on gravity.
By that subterfuge he reached the relative safety of a roof on top of
a burning building and set the child down. Then he leaned over and reached
for the mother who was struggling to climb the drainpipe in the remnants
of the tight cheongsam dress she had been wearing to greet customers in
the restaurant. He grasped her hands and again forced gravity to obey
him as he inched back, followed by Garrick, who complained that the drainpipe
was hot.
“Yes, we're not much better off up here. There’s a bit of
fresh air, at least. But the professionals will be here any moment. We’ll
be safe. We might get told off by them for taking unnecessary risks."
“The top floor is alight,” Garrick pointed out." I’m
not sure it WAS unnecessary. But what started a fire like that. Don’t
restaurants on this planet have safety standards?”
“That’s a very good question,” Chrístõ
conceded. The crisis had developed very fast. But the fire engine was
here at last. A ‘cherry picker' was being raised to get them all
down to safety. There were other things to think about.
Later, there was time to reflect. The two children of Mr and Mrs Angchuan,
after being treated at the scene for minor smoke inhalation, were put
to bed with the Hanratty children. Meanwhile, Patrick and Garrick were
downstairs serving oyster stew to the patrons of the Siam Garden who had
been forced to abandon their meals. Licinia made tea for the traumatised
proprietors of the burnt-out restaurant and Chrístõ had
a chance to talk to them.
Again, although they could speak English, it was easier for them to express
their feelings in their birth language and they didn’t question
that Chrístõ spoke that language, or that Licinia, having
travelled in the TARDIS and thus inheriting its gift of tongues, could
listen to them sympathetically.
What they heard was baffling. Both of the Angchuans insisted that the
cause of the fire was a burning man. Mrs Angchuan, whose first name was
Kanda, spoke of a thin, pale man who sat alone and ate soup. This man
had suddenly cried out and begun to glow. As fellow diners looked on in
curiosity, then horror, he became incandescent. The chair he was sitting
on caught fire. Then he stood and ran, setting light to everything he
touched whether it was fireproof or not. The alarms went off. So did a
sprinkler system, but it wasn’t enough to put out a man of fire.
Kanda ran to her children and would have been trapped but for Garrick
and Chrístõ, to whom she expressed her gratitude for the
hundredth time.
“I don’t know about ‘fire demons’,” Licinia
said in English, translating a colourful oriental word. “But there
have been many unexplained fires in recent weeks. Patrick can explain.
He has been keeping notes.”
“I’ll talk to him later.” Chrístõ turned
back to the Angchuans." I believe you. But I imagine the fire investigators
will look for a more usual cause, and I wouldn’t mention it to your
insurance company, either. I suggest you let Li sort you out a bed in
her spare room. Get a good sleep and try not to worry too much.”
The Angchuans were too weary to argue. They put themselves in the hands
of their neighbours. Chrístõ replenished the teapot and
waited thoughtfully until Patrick and Garrick closed up the restaurant
and came up to the private apartment.
“Yes,” Patrick said when Chrístõ asked about
fires." I make this the eighth in two weeks in the harbour area and
the Latin quarter. The gardaí don’t seem to have made any
connection, but...look."
Patrick brought out a map of Galway city and spread it on the dining table.
He had already marked several places.
“The first was here, where the old gasometers used to be. Its all
being redeveloped into high-end harbour front hotels and apartments. The
fire destroyed one of the works portacabins. Then a day or two later part
of this building was damaged. Its a seafood wholesalers. I've had to get
my fish elsewhere while it was shut. Then here... These are holiday flats.
Another bright idea to gentrify the old docklands. A fire started in the
laundrette in the basement. Another office, here, for a freight company,
a lorry parked by the harbour wall. Then a few days ago, the cinema over
here had a fire in a storeroom. Fortunately, its sprinkler system is state
of the art. Damage was minimal. They just lost a freezer full of ice cream.
But tonight was the worst... And the most potentially deadly. I keep thinking
if it was us, our kids in bed upstairs...."
“Don’t think about it. That will just drive you mad.”
“What about this ‘Fire Demon?. Are the Angchuans just overwrought
or did they really see a man spontaneously combust in their restaurant?"
“I don’t know," Chrístõ answered. “Which
is, as you recall, my least favourite phrase. I fully intend to find out,
later. You and Li should get to bed, soon. You’ve got kids to look
after and a business to run. If Garrick and I can crash in your living
room for the night, it would aid my investigation."
“No problem,” Patrick agreed. “I would have offered
the spare room, but the Angchuans have it.” He looked thoughtfully
at the map, then folded it again. "I feel a lot better about all
this for you being around. Your solutions to problems tend to be better
than anyone else's.”
That was as much of an endorsement as Chrístõ needed. He
and Garrick settled down on two comfortable sofas while the extended household
slept and the street outside fell into quiet after so much excitement
earlier.
When the quiet was fully set in, the two young Gallifreyans rose and crept
quietly out into the street. It wasn’t fully dark, of course. There
were streetlamps. And nor were they entirely unobserved. Several buildings
had CCTV overlooking the area.
Chrístõ adjusted his sonic screwdriver and pointed it towards
those hidden cameras. They would all experience a few minutes of ‘snow’,
long enough for him to cross over to the Siam Garden.
The burnt out entrance had been secured, of course. But not against a
Time Lord with a sonic screwdriver. Before his interference with the CCTV
wore off he and Garrick were inside the restaurant.
“Horrible smell,” Garrick remarked.
“A lot of different materials burnt,” Chrístõ
commented." If safety codes were observed none of them will have
produced dangerous chemicals. But if you can’t cope with the smell
this is a good time to practice respiratory bypass.”
“I’m all right,” Garrick decided." What are we
doing here exactly?”
“I’m going to read the room. Tomorrow a fire investigator
will be doing it forensically. But first I need to do it telepathically.
You can help. Join your mind with mine.”
“That's really advanced telepathy. I've never done it.”
“I know. You don’t have to do anything. Just focus on what
I’m seeing.”
Garrick trusted him. He felt that as his mind joined with his. Both closed
their eyes and saw the blackened restaurant with their minds instead.
Then Chrístõ slowly turned back the clock, seeing the room
before they entered.
The fire was easy to read. The trauma was etched indelibly on the very
fabric of the room. Even the memory of it, viewed telepathically, burned
with an intensity that Chrístõ and Garrick both felt painfully.
“It isn’t real,” Chrístõ assured his brother."
We’re not really burning. But it is strange. I’ve examined
a room psychically before and never felt any physical sensation."
He pushed time back to before the inferno. Their bodies were soothed by
the warm ambience of the restaurant. They smelt the Oriental joss sticks
that scented the room, adding an exotic ambience and disguising the smell
of food being cooked.
They saw the strange, pale man Mrs Angchuan had described.
“He isn’t human,” Garrick remarked.
“No, he’s not,” Chrístõ confirmed."
Though humans wouldn’t realise it. We’re attuned to the differences."
They saw the stricken expression on the pale man’s face. They saw
him rise from his seat.
“He's trying to get out,” Garrick noted. He knows what's going
to happen and he wants to get away from here, away from people he might
harm. But its too late.”
They saw the nearly human figure turn incandescent and then become the
source of the all-encompassing fire that was very nearly a death trap
for the family above.
“That’s enough," Chrístõ said, bringing
them both back to the present, to the burnt out but silent room that was
a contrast to the noise of the fire.
“That was...."
“Exhausting.” Chrístõ held his brother for a
long time. They were both mentally and physically wrung out by the telepathic
effort.
“You did well,” Chrístõ assured Garrick."
In fact... You did amazingly well. You picked up the Firestarter's emotions.
You knew he was scared. You knew he wanted to get out of the restaurant
and get to where he wouldn’t harm anyone. I didn’t see that.
You did.”
“Does that mean....”
“It means you're going to have less trouble in telepathy class than
I had. It also means none of this was malicious. The Firestarter didn’t
want to make trouble.”
“So, what do we do now that we know? Do we try to find him?”
“We have to,” Chrístõ answered." For his
good and for the humans of the Latin Quarter. He doesn’t want to
kill, but next time he might not be able to help it.”
“Where do we look?"
“Around the harbour. The pattern of the fires on Patrick's map centres
on there. Which is handy because we left the TARDIS right there.”
They slipped out of the devastated restaurant and then walked along the
quiet city streets. A Garda patrol car passed them once and might have
been going to slow down. It was late at night and they may have looked
worthy of attention, but Chrístõ radiated Power of Suggestion
with all his might and the car accelerated away.
“That was hard work from this distance,” he admitted."
I'm having to use ALL my Time Lord ‘superpowers' tonight. Levitation,
room reading, POS. Usually I can go for months without needing any of
that."
“Those are abilities that are natural to our race,” Garrick
pointed out. "Why shouldn’t you use them?”
“Because I live so much among humans. I don’t want to freak
them out. People.. all people, not just humans... are scared of what they
don’t understand.”
“You could use POS to make them understand."
“It is better not to ‘make' anyone do anything with POS or
any other Telepathic skill. Free will is the most important thing any
of us have.”
Garrick nodded in the dark. He felt as if he had been given a very important
tenet to live by.
“You won’t go too far wrong even if that’s the only
thing you’ve learnt, kiddo,” Chrístõ told him
gently.
They reached the TARDIS in its yacht disguise and boarded it quietly.
Inside, Humphrey greeted them like a pet dog as Chrístõ
set to work at the environmental console.
“This must be the general area where he's hiding," he said,
studying a map of the harbour area created by the TARDIS itself. "But
how to pinpoint him? I'm picking up various life signs even in the middle
of the night. Security guards around the businesses… I think there’s
a huddle of rough sleepers in an old shed over here.... But would a shy
alien go among them?”
He looked at his brother thoughtfully. He knew there WAS a way to scan
the area for the Firestarter, but he wondered if Garrick would get it.
“You’re not thinking straight," his brother told him.
"The alien gets burning hot all the time. So, chances are, even when
he's not burning, his body temperature is higher than the humans around
here?”
That was exactly the conclusion Chrístõ was waiting for.
Garrick looked at him suspiciously, wondering if his brother had really
not thought of that or if it had been a ‘test’.
Either way, the hunch proved correct. A heat detecting overlay showed
a being with a body temperature more than forty degrees higher than a
Human with a life-threatening fever. It had to be the Firestarter.
“Thank chaos he found this place now, and not twenty years ago,”
Chrístõ noted." That area used to be all gasometers.
He’d have blown this part of the city sky high. Now its a building
site. Another redevelopment of the old docks. Shops, hotels...”
“How many shops and hotels does one city need?” Garrick wondered.
Chrístõ had thought the same. The ‘gentrification’
of old industrial areas always seemed to follow a certain pattern.
But the point was that the site provided half completed constructions
where a lost alien could hide from a society that would struggle to accept
him on any level.
The TARDIS moved a mere quarter of a mile across the harbour and over
a very high security fence before materialising as a portacabin in the
development complex.
“At least its a cabin, not a ‘portaloo’ Chrístõ
observed as he and Garrick stepped out into the semi-dark area. "That’s
always a bit embarrassing.”
Garrick didn’t think the TARDIS's disguise mattered very much. What
did worry him was a sudden outbreak of angry barking somewhere close by.
“They have guard dogs loose at night,” Chrístõ
noted. “A surprisingly old school but effective method of security.”
“I'm not sure I LIKE dogs,” Garrick said, pressing himself
up against the side of the TARDIS.
“Dogs are great,” Chrístõ answered. "I
wish we had them on Gallifrey. But these ones might be a problem unless
I can manage to use Power of Suggestion on them.”
“Does it work on animals?” Garrick asked.
“We’re about to find out.”
Three large German Shepherds whose glossy coats and well toned musculature
would be admirable in other circumstances were approaching. Their snarls
and growls were unmistakable signs that they saw the two visitors as trespassers.
Chrístõ radiated Power of Suggestion with a desperation
he had rarely felt. He wasn’t entirely sure he could persuade animals
with such dedication to one purpose to change their minds.
But when the dogs were within biting distance they suddenly stopped making
threatening noises and laid down submissively. Chrístõ leaned
forward and scratched each dog behind the ears.
“Good boys,” he said. "You lie there and watch my TARDIS
until we get back.”
He wasn’t going to tell Garrick how uncertain he had been of that
working at all. But they were clear of the dogs. If there were security
cameras as well, he could only hope nobody was monitoring them as they
crossed a wide expanse of newly laid concrete that was bathed in strong
electric light.
They came to what was going to be a leisure centre with an Olympic size
swimming pool in a few months time. For now, it was a brick and steel
girder shell with a deep foundation dug out, presumably to enclose the
pool.
“Down there,” Chrístõ confirmed after sweeping
the area with his sonic screwdriver and focussing on the deep concrete
trough that was still a long way from being a luxury leisure facility.
"See that conduit passage where the water pipes will be going sooner
or later. The temperature in there is way higher than it ought to be.”
Chrístõ started to climb down. Garrick followed him cautiously.
“We’ve done an awful lot of climbing today,” Garrick
pointed out. "As well as trespassing.”
“Both of which your mother isn’t going to hear about,"
Chrístõ answered as he reached the rough floor and waited
for his brother to catch up.
The conduit was high enough for a man to fit into. There was still a lot
of work to do there before it was finished. It was narrow, though, and,
of course, absolutely dark. There was no reason to put security lights
in a conduit. They walked single file, touching the narrow walls as a
guide in the darkness only partially relieved by the penlight mode of
the sonic, both wondering what they were heading into.
Chrístõ wondered if he ought to have made Garrick wait outside,
or, for that matter, right back inside the TARDIS. This was dangerous
stuff for a boy to be involved in.
Garrick wondered if he was brave enough to be of help to his brother -
the war hero and adventurer who had tackled far more dangerous situations
than this.
The passage widened out into what would one day be the pump control centre
for the pool.
And there they found the alien Firestarter. His body as he hunched against
the wall was glowing like a humanoid nightlight.
They had hardly approached stealthily. The alien looked up at them and
his humanoid face displayed the very human emotion – fear.
Just in time Chrístõ turned and pushed his brother back
into the tunnel, diving to the ground as a tongue of flame scorched the
back of his jacket. He carefully reduced his body temperature to near
freezing, which prevented his clothes from catching fire and shielded
Garrick from the worst of the heat.
When it was over apart from the none too pleasant smell of scorched leather,
he stood up slowly, picking up his brother and brushing him down before
turning back into the future control room.
The alien was still glowing from within but much fainter, and as Chrístõ
approached he shrunk back helplessly.
“We’re not here to harm you,” Chrístõ
told him, kneeling down and spreading his hands to show he was unarmed.
"I don’t think you can harm me, now. That wasn’t your
strongest burst of heat, and I think you're worn out, now.”
The alien nodded weakly. Chrístõ had guessed correctly.
“I think you’re probably an Ogien, from the Antares sector.
A mutable species, hence the more or less human shape you're holding at
the moment. You’re like my TARDIS, changing shape to fit your environment.
But THIS environment is no good for you. It’s too warm. You can’t
control your temperature. That’s why you’ve been starting
fires all over the place. I know they were accidents. You were just trying
to find somewhere safe. Tonight, you tried to fit in amongst people, but
it went terribly wrong."
Again the alien nodded. There was no need for him to say anything. His
story was clear enough.
“How did he get here?” Garrick asked.
“That I’m not sure,” Chrístõ admitted."
I'm guessing you're not trying to invade the planet all by yourself. Besides,
who would start an invasion in Galway? Don’t worry. That’s
a bit of humour. I guess you were off course, somehow. Like the Spanish
Armada you came here by accident.”
There were still details he couldn’t fill in. He waited patiently,
looking steadily and reassuringly at the Ogien.
Slowly, in a near whispering voice, the alien spoke at last. He described
his mission to find new environments for his people. Ice worlds, polar
regions.
“I’m not sure Earth's polar regions would do for you,”
Chrístõ told him. "The humans are always exploring
them, measuring them, trying to stop them from shrinking. I can recommend
a couple of frozen worlds with no pesky indigenous species. But I think
you probably need a lift home, first.”
The glow from within flickered hopefully.
“Yes, I can help you. Absolutely no problem. The Antares sector
is a couple of hours away in my ship. We can drop you off and be back
here for breakfast. Come on with us, now.”
Slowly the Ogien stood up. He followed Chrístõ back through
the tunnel and up out of the future swimming pool.
They had almost reached the TARDIS, still guarded by the three placid
dogs, when a voice called out to them. A security guard stepped in front
of them. A flashlight dazzled their eyes and they were commanded to explain
their presence in no uncertain terms.
“Oh, not again,” Chrístõ groaned. "More
Power of Suggestion? I just can’t be bothered."
He took a step forward into the full beam of the flashlight.
“I am a Time Lord from Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborus.
My brother is also an alien from Gallifrey, but he isn’t a Time
Lord, yet. The other chap is a lost alien from the Antares sector. We're
taking him home in my ship which is just behind you. Does that explain
why we’re trespassing? Is there anything else I can tell you?”
“Aliens?” The guard looked, not surprisingly, sceptical of
his explanation.
“Yes,” Garrick said. "I mean... Look at this one. Does
he look human to you?”
The Ogien was glowing faintly again. Chrístõ looked at him
warily, but he didn’t look as if he was strong enough to go incandescent.
He was anxious, though, and the glow was a symptom of that.
It was enough for the security guard. He stepped back as quickly as a
human without eyes in the back of his head could walk backwards. The three
aliens carried on walking to their unlikely looking ship.
Chrístõ wasn’t sure if the security guard was still
watching when the TARDIS dematerialised. If he was, that would undoubtedly
be one more thing he wouldn’t be putting in his log book about tonight’s
encounter.
He set their destination in the Antares sector and turned to look at his
passenger. He was sitting on the thoroughly fire retardant sofa with Garrick.
He wasn’t glowing, which was reassuring.
“He's all right, now,” Garrick said." He’s going
home. He's not alone and scared. He won’t set us on fire.”
“Antares sector in one Earth hour. Time for a couple of iced drinks.”
The tidal locked ice world on the edge of a solar system that the lost
alien called home was worthy of a full survey for the TARDIS database.
Chrístõ made a promise to himself to do that soon. For now,
they had a very quick drop off to do and then back to Galway.
It was a little past dawn when the TARDIS resumed its place in the marina.
The sun cast a golden streak across the still water of the harbour. A
blue sky with just a few wisps of white cloud arced over the peaceful
Latin Quarter of Galway.
The brothers walked back to Spanish Parade, arriving just before Patrick’s
morning delivery of fresh fish and seafood.
“Have you two ever had creamed oysters on wholemeal toast for breakfast,”
he asked as they helped carry the load into the kitchen.
“No,” Garrick answered." But new experiences are what
I'm here for.”
“At least this one we CAN tell your mother about,” Chrístõ
added.
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