Shadow on the Crystal

Doctor Who - Shadow on the Crystal

  The crystals split the light from a neighbouring star, refracting the billions of particles of radiation to make a glittering pattern against a vast mountain side. The mountain made entirely out of wind cut diamond smooth and lustrous absorbed the patterns breaking them and scattering them a further million times until the whole canyon felt alive with light. This show would have been a fantastic spectacle for anyone to enjoy except there was no one around. In fact there was no human life on this planet at all except for a few hundred nestled in a crater encased under a huge glass dome. Some interplanetary holiday makers were enjoying swimming in the phosphorescent waters, drinking cocktails with ingredients imported from the jungle planets close by and dancing in the Glitterball dance halls. A handful were queuing to buy tickets for a trip to the shimmer valleys of the west, getting ready to board the Space land rovers with its protective radiation shields and inflight entertainment.

   Back out in the glassy wilderness the night bore down permanently on the ghostly silent planes. Nothing moved and nothing could live here according to the humans. Too much radiation for any living thing to survive they had said. So what was that skittering over the sleek peaks? Fast and without form something passed through the radiation from the sun. Something with no body, yet with intelligence, something curious, something invisible, something hungry. Mischievous, confused, clever and impossible it felt more than it thought but that would change soon. One day it too might drink cocktails, swim in the glowing pools of water, laugh and dance under the dome looking out onto this dangerously beautiful world. But today was not that day. Its chance would come tomorrow when it finally got to meet the other inhabitants of these desolate and lonely planes; the humans. When contact is made, then the evolution of its species would begin...