Fairly good concept and story.  Some of it reminds me of Douglas Adams' writings but maybe a little more forced.  This Doctor acts more like the 4th Doctor should.  I cannot remember the ending.  Perhaps I was asleep.

The capital world of the Bel system was a planet of light.

The northern hemisphere of Belannia VIII was currently shrouded in night, but millions of lights blazed in the darkness, sketching the skeletal shapes of cities and skyways, shining through a scattering of dark cloud in threads of fire, the connections of life across the planet never more easily shown.

Night here was a thing of legend, banished generations before by the combined efforts of the Hanakoi, to whom the Belannian refugees were now turning for help.

Help.

Not a thing to be lightly sought, nor easily given.

Not from the Hanakoi.

Father Denadi stood alone in the observation lounge of the private yacht pressed into refugee service by the Belannia VI government and stared out at the glimmering bulk of the planet that hung above him.  He leaned against the window, resting his face against the glassite and trying not to surrender to the confusion he felt in his mind.

Alive.

Eldred Saketh was alive.

Father Denadi watched the lights of Belannia VIII brighten as the yacht dropped down from orbit and thought back to his first meeting with the man who had come back from a molten world on which he should have died.  Father Denadi made the sign of the Ankh to atone for his blasphemous thought.  Saketh should have attained his Endless State.  Instead he'd apparently brought a blasphemous new religion to the people of Bel.  A new religion for them - and fear for Father Denali.


Fear was not a stranger.  He had brrn taught to embrace it.  To love it, to cherish it.  Fear was the motivation that drove all to their Endless State.  It was fear of life that drove them.  Fear of death was no fear at all.

Denadi could resist peeping out from beneath his acolyte's robes.  The church was silent.  All prayer was done now.  The only sound was the sputtering of candles among the cold stone arches and the distant drone of the police flyers surrounding the church.

Twenty-three people sat, heads bowed, on the stone floor.  Not for these the comforts of modern churches.  No pews offered pain bringing relief for tired muscles.  Tiredness was a product toxins, the pain bringing their Endless State.

The acolytes were young adults ranging from sixteen to twenty five.  They were silent now - not even their breath disturbed the chill stone grotto.

Denadi watched them.  As he watched the Priest administer the last rites.

Saketh was a tall man, with piercing eyes and a neat beard.  His body was taut; even beneath the robes he wore it seemed fit, a body that could carry a soul far indeed.  For ever, maybe.  When he broke the silence in prayer his voice was the roll of timpani, sunrise across noble mountains.  His words went almost unnoticed among the rich timbre of that voice - but then it was not the words that were important.  The words were simply the messengers.  The message was the soul, the desire to attain Endlessness.

Outside the drone of police flyers increased.