Free Doctor Who: Combat Rock by Mick Lewis Page B

the arm of his chair and rolled at his feet. Pieter gaped at it speechlessly. He recognized the man (the man? the head!): an Indoni trader whose name escaped him. The figure was moving again, approaching Pieter who pushed himself back in his chair, still semi-paralysed by shock and fear.
    ‘We are free,’ the figure whispered and stopped again, no more than three yards away from the missionary. And now Father Pieter was reeling from more shock, because he knew the voice, knew the man to whom it belonged, and that was even more inexplicable, even more godless, because it belonged to a man Pieter trusted, respected, loved .
    ‘Julius?’
    His voice was small, like a child’s.
    This could not be.
    This could not...
    ‘Free to kill. Free to regain what we have lost.’ The words, like the entire incident, made no sense to Pieter. He put out a shaking hand, but whether it was to stop his friend from approaching, or to seize him and shake some sense out of him, even he didn’t know. The bloody figure backed away, and then was clambering through the shattered frame.
    Father Pieter remained in his armchair, staring vacantly at the window as if expecting the glass to flip back into place, for the entire incident to rewind, never to have happened.
    But of course, the head was still there at his feet, like a gruesome pet, to remind him that it had.
    He had often thought about marrying an Indoni girl. They were so beautiful after all, and he’d never found a Papul girl that appealed to him in quite the same way these slight, sinuous beauties did. Especially the one not far behind him now. Wina. Yes, what a rare beauty. Was Wemus deluding himself or had he actually caught her sending him some interested glances throughout the day, first of all in the canoe, and later as he occasionally stopped the group to inform them about the various wildlife that scurried, slithered and hopped incessantly around them?
    No, he was fooling himself. Although he prided himself on being a handsome Papul man, he also knew that it was rare indeed for one of the haughty Indoni women to ever look twice at the thick-bodied, heavy-featured islanders. Perhaps that was what made him want one so much. But then, the young man from Earth with the peculiar skirt obviously had something going on with her. The other girl was attractive too, in, a somewhat coarser manner. Her clothes, her body, face, voice, all were less refined than Wina’s. He’d let that slimy Drew character continue to make advances on her, it really didn’t bother him. Of course if he made any more moves on Wina...
    Then there was the white girl. Companion to the Doctor.
    No. He didn’t like white. Too blotchy, too bumpy, too... too white .
    He hacked at a hanging vine until it dropped neatly at his feet. The Doctor was right behind him, slightly out of breath but obviously taking a great interest in the journey. Wemus grinned at him and the Doctor smiled back, mopping sweat from his brow.
    ‘Wemus can carry coat for you?’ he offered, puzzled as to why the alien should want to continue wearing the garment in the steamy temperatures of the rainforest.
    The Doctor shook his head. ‘No thank you, Wemus. I wonder,’ he looked around him at the dense, glistening vegetation,‘are there any particularly dangerous varieties of wildlife we may be likely to encounter?’ He clasped his hands before him, his face full of a childlike wonder. Was he really as simple as he liked to make everyone think? Wemus scrutinised him with interest before replying. The alien was definitely strange, but there was something about him that generated respect too. There was a strength and a great sense of compassion about him that was unlike anything the Papul had ever sensed in anyone before.
    Before he could answer, and as if to validate the Doctor’s question, a violent smashing of vegetation came from their left.
    The others had all arrived at the same spot now, and they too paused as they heard the