Carya of Cíeló is a story that features on Chris Campbell, after a couple featuring his brother. Both of them are having an interesting time in their love lives in the next few stories. Chris, of course, with his celibate, monklike demeanour, doesn’t even know he HAS a love life.

But followers of the New Lords of Time know that he DID have one, very briefly. He had a romantic, if chaste relationship with Firinne, the SangC’lune handmaiden who he met on one of his trips to that planet. She, of course, died, and her tomb is within the ruined temple that he pays regular visits to. Having had his hopes dashed so completely, he gave up on the possibility and devoted himself to his Sanctuary, and teaching young Gallifreyans and other telepaths his ‘Way’.

But now the possibility is re-opened when he meets Carya of the tribe of Céiló. The word, by the way, is Italian for sky with a couple of extra accents for exotic alien style.

The glass igloos were initially a way of having some kind of variation in the dwellings of the natives, especially since they didn’t seem too obviously different from the SangC’lune people in most respects. Actually, I really could do with some stories soon involving monsters and non-humanoid species, but for now we have the tribe of Cíeló, who seem nice and hospitable.

Chris is, of course, being incredibly naïve about the attention Carya gives him. He obviously never saw any episodes of Stargate SG, where that sort of thing seemed to happen on at least one occasion to a cast member. But his great-grandfather, The Doctor, definitely should have warned him about the dangers of accepting gifts of food and drink from attractive women! It happened to him in The Aztecs, of course, when the lovely Cameca took a shine to him. His more worldly students figured it out, anyway!

That Chris would refuse Carya’s charms when she came to his bed was never in question. He is not the sort of young man who would take advantage of the situation.

Which was his downfall, because now we find out why it is that Carya is the only fair-skinned blonde in a tribe of dark-haired, dark complexioned people. The females of this species turn dark after they have ‘known’ a man! As Chris himself points out, it defies everything that has ever been known about DNA. It’s an alien trait in an otherwise perfectly ‘normal’ girl. And the idea just fitted so well. I needed something that would make it perfectly obvious that Chris had not had sex with the girl.

The reaction of the tribe, including her own family, seems extreme. But there are precedents in literature. In the book ‘Coral Island’ by R.M. Ballantyne, a young native girl is offered to a man either as a wife or as ‘long pig’ – in other worse, to be killed and eaten. In a similar frame of mind, Carya’s father condemns her and Chris to a painful death.

When I was thinking up that particular method of killing the two of them, I was reminded of the way the two female vampires were killed in the film Interview With A Vampire – by exposing them to the sun. Of course, Chris and Carya would not turn to ash in the midday sun, but under glass, in a enclosed space, with no shade, they would die a slow, agonising death if Chris didn’t have a few amazing skills.

Now, everyone seems to have enjoyed the fact that Chris and Carya were both naked, and his proposal to lie on top of her – without any kind of sexual idea involved. His ability to freeze his body, thereby cooling her and protecting her from the killing heat could only possibly work that way. Of course, after a whole day of it, they must have been practically glued to each other by the condensing sweat from their bodies. But I think it is just possible that the two of them could have survived that way.

I originally thought of his students bringing the TARDIS and materialising it through the glass. But shattering it was more dramatic. It gave Chris another opportunity to be the hero by protecting her with his body from the flying glass. As he was unconscious at the time, it was an accidental heroism, of course.

I did toy with the idea of Chris giving in and making love to her once it was dark and they didn’t have to stay cool, then decided it would not be in character. But I did decide that something could be done about the ‘darkening’ and showed that the process began even though he didn’t have sex with her. The science of it is very dubious. But just suspend disbelief.

But what to do with her? SangC’lune is the obvious answer. A people who worship the night and day are not too different from her own and they are very nice, accommodating folk. The best solution all around.

Except when this story went online I was inundated with people saying that he SHOULD marry her. So I think Chris will have to bow to the inevitable and fall in love again. But be warned, the sequel is going to be shamelessly romantic.