Doctor Who_ Alien Bodies Part 23

The Time Lord was looking at the casket.

'No,' Manjuele said. 'No.'

'Let's begin,' said the Doctor.

Mr Qixotl drummed his fingers against the surface of the table. He'd expected the auction to be tense, but getting the bidders talking was like getting blood out of a silicon-based life-form. He got the feeling both Homunculette and Cousin Justine were holding back.

'It's an insult,' Homunculette babbled. 'The weapons of the High Council are legendary. We've made defensive arrays the size of star systems, we've taken apart whole galaxies...'

'Hardly an imaginative form of warfare,' Cousin Justine pointed out.

'It works, doesn't it?'

'Let's calm down a bit here, right?' Qixotl cut in. 'We haven't heard all the bids yet, let's remember that. OK, then. Colonel Kortez?'

Qixotl had good reasons for asking the humans to the auction. Earth was a low-interest world, according to the techno-pundits, but it had a kind of political value. The place was a nexus world, just like Dronid, or Solos, or Tyler's Folly; insignificant on first sight, but when you looked at the bigger picture, you realised it was linked to the destinies of a whole host of intergalactic powers. If he could build a powerbase on Earth in this time zone, Qixotl knew a good half-dozen species who'd pay him to let them use the planet's facilities. Normally, the best way of gaining power on a planet was by squeezing yourself into its history inventing the wheel for the locals, setting yourself up as a G.o.d, the usual spiel but Earth's history was so full of alien interference, Qixotl didn't think he could mess about with its timestream much without causing a full-scale temporal embolism.

No, if he wanted power on Earth, he'd have to get it by dealing with the locals on a strictly one-to-one basis. UNISYC was a pretty good place to start. A low-power organisation now, yeah, but with enough little secrets to turn itself into a major political force, if you gave it the right kind of a.s.sistance.

Slowly, Kortez stood. The Colonel's eyes swept across the hall, apparently judging each of the other representatives in turn.

'I have something of great value to offer,' he announced.

Qixotl nodded encouragingly. 'Go on.'

'You're familiar with the principles of universal karmic consciousness?' Kortez asked.

Qixotl glanced at the bidders around him. None of them looked like they had any idea what Kortez was talking about. 'Erm, kind of.'

'I have, for some time, been exploring the mysteries of the inner self. And I've reached some startling conclusions, Mr Qixotl.' The Colonel was doing that irritating nodding thing again, Qixotl noticed. 'I've discovered the ultimate prize. The holy grail of all intelligent life in this universe.'

Qixotl cleared his throat. 'Is this, y'know, going to be something like the Faction's bid? Spiritual weaponry, that kind of thing?'

'Not weaponry. Something else. Something better.' Kortez looked around the hall again. Then he leaned forward, almost conspiratorially, his hands resting on the table.

'The secret of inner harmony,' he declared.

There was a long silence.

'Oh,' said Qixotl.

'Would you like a demonstration?' Kortez asked.

'Well, yeah, maybe...'

The Colonel collapsed back into his seat, but kept his palms on the table. He closed his eyes, and started going auuuuuuuummmmmmmmmm auuuuuuuummmmmmmmmm.

The other representatives watched him for a good minute and a half, but nothing else happened. The Colonel sat there aummm aummming, taking a new breath every twenty seconds or so, never opening his eyes. One by one, the bidders turned to Qixotl.

'Is that it?' scoffed Homunculette.

Mr Qixotl didn't know where to look. 'Humans can be, er, a little on the eccentric side,' he explained.

'Eccentric? The man's a lunatic.'

Qixotl chewed his lip. Displacer Syndrome, the humans called it. He'd known Kortez was half-crazy as soon as he'd seen the Colonel's biodata sample, but he'd a.s.sumed that being half-crazy would be an advantage, for a human being in this kind of environment. 'Yeah, well, anyway,' Qixotl mumbled. 'Maybe we'd better let the Colonel sort himself out for a bit. In the meantime, who's going to make the next offer?'

Once they'd managed to get Kathleen to the top of the stairs, the going got easier. Sam supported the Lieutenant's left side, the Doctor taking the right. Between them, they dragged her along the central corridor, towards the heart of the ziggurat.

'So you're telepathic now?' Sam puffed. 'I mean, really telepathic?'

'Well, my abilities have never been very well developed. Susan was always the psychic one in the family. But it wasn't just me working on the Little Brother. The body in the box wanted Kathleen back in control of herself, as well. It's been using her as its agent here in the City.'

'Wait, wait.' Sam stopped, forcing the Doctor to stop, too. 'There's a body in that box?'

The Doctor looked as though he didn't want to talk about it, at least not right now. 'Yes. And it's still psychically active. It must have latched onto Kathleen when she arrived. Typical, really. Always an affinity with humans.'

'Who?'

The Doctor didn't answer. He looked around the corridor, his eyes finally falling on a doorway nearby.

'Empty guest room,' he said. 'Stay here and look after Kathleen. I have to get back to the auction.'

They dragged Kathleen's unconscious form into the guest room, and laid her out on the bunk. Sam wondered if the bunk would have a nibble at her biodata and grow an appropriate duvet. The Doctor gave the Lieutenant a quick once-over, but he looked anxious to get away.

'You're sure she'll be OK?' Sam asked.

The Doctor nodded. 'Her personality's been pushed to the back of her mind. She needs time to recover. To find herself again. Keep an eye on her, come and get me if her condition changes.' Then he turned back to the doorway, and promptly disappeared.

Finally, Sam let herself relax. There were no chairs in the room, so she slumped down onto the bunk next to Kathleen. The woman was still as death, her eyes tight shut.

Sam still didn't know exactly what had happened down in the vault. There were bits and pieces of the dream floating around under her scalp, memories of doing things she couldn't imagine doing. Dying her hair, even though she knew she was a natural blonde. Going to a family planning clinic a month before her sixteenth birthday, even though she'd never... had to.

Another life. A life without the Doctor. No, more than that; a life the Doctor was never destined to be a part of. Now the dream was over, he felt alien to her. Like a virus. Something that had worked its way into her system but didn't belong there.

Another life. A life in the real world.

She wasn't sure whether the thought was exciting, or horrifying.

Little Brother Manjuele scratched, and scratched, and scratched. There was an itch, somewhere inside his face, and he was determined to get at it. Above his head, everything was black. Part of his mind, the part that wasn't squirming, realised he was back in the shrine, in control of his own body again. The rest of him didn't care. It just wanted to scratch.

He felt his nails sc.r.a.pe against his skull, but he kept scratching anyway. No, wait. Those weren't his nails. He had the biosampler strapped to his knuckles, and for the last five minutes he'd been using the p.r.o.ngs to score away the flesh on his cheek, trying to get at the itch. He'd cut his face right down to the bone. There was blood trickling across his skin, dripping onto the control dais under his head. The skulls hummed a lullaby at him, but he could tell they were trying not to laugh.

He'd been lying here, ripping his own head open, not even noticing what he'd been doing. He didn't mind the pain, particularly. He was used to cutting himself.

Scratch, scratch, scratch.

He'd never met a real-life Time Lord, not before today. Now he'd met two. Homunculette was a walking joke, but the guy in the green velvets was different. He'd poked something into Manjuele's head, and he hadn't even broken a sweat doing it. Hah. No wonder the family was scared of the Time Lords, if they could do that kind of damage. What had the girl called the guy? Doctor?

Doctor. Justine had said something about a Doctor.

Manjuele stopped scratching.

The Doctor. Doctor.

He remembered. What Justine had told him, about the Time Lord who'd once almost wiped out the whole family on Dronid. And he remembered what she'd told him about the Relic. The body in the box.

Manjuele was on his feet in a second. His suit was covered in bioma.s.s, great splashes of it, sticking to the cloth where he'd fallen onto the dais. The blood from his cheek started dripping onto the floor of the shrine. The Little Brother felt the biosampler slipping from his fingers, falling to the ground at his feet.

The Doctor was here. Somehow, the stiff had climbed out of his coffin, and if what Justine had said was true, he wouldn't be happy until everyone here was dead.

The Doctor made sure he had a big smile on his face before he strolled back into the conference hall. All heads turned in his direction as he entered. In fact, one of the heads turned all the way around, twice.

'I hope I haven't missed anything,' he said.

Qixotl coughed. 'Nothing's been settled yet, if that's what you mean. Er... the humans. Are they...?'

'Quite well, thank you.'

The other representatives exchanged suspicious glances. 'The security systems?' enquired Cousin Justine.

'Not all they're cracked up to be,' the Doctor informed her, with a disdainful glance in Qixotl's direction.

'Well, good,' Qixotl bl.u.s.tered. 'Glad everything's settled. OK, if you'd like to take your seat...?'

The Doctor moved towards the table. Before he could reach his seat marked with a piece of folded cardboard, onto which Qixotl had scrawled "MYSTERY GUEST" in ballpoint pen Little Brother Manjuele appeared in the doorway.

'It's him,' Manjuele shouted. He was screeching hysterically, his arm waving in the Doctor's direction.

'Little Brother ' Justine began, but Manjuele ignored her.

'It's him him,' he repeated. 'Ask him. Ask him who he is.'

The representatives looked at each other. Then they looked at the Doctor. The Doctor saw a look of pure gut-twisting horror cross Qixotl's face.

'Oh dear,' said the Doctor.

'You never gave us your name,' Homunculette growled. 'That's a good point.'

'Erm...' said Qixotl, but he seemed unable to add anything to that.

'This-un-it's-i-den-ti-ty-is-of-no-int-er-est,' E-Kobalt said. 'We-will-proceed.'

'Ask him!' Manjuele screamed. He looked a mess, the Doctor noted. His clothes were covered in patches of red-brown slime, and there were deep gashes across his face, apparently self-inflicted. Still, at least he was wearing his own body.

'Would you believe me if I told you my name's Smith?' the Doctor tried.

'It's him him!' said Manjuele. 'It's the Doctor the Doctor!'

There was the kind of silence that can swallow worlds.

Then everyone started talking at once.

All the representatives who had feet got to them. On its noticeboard, the s.h.i.+ft made several uncomfortable anagrams of itself. Qixotl raised his hands. 'Hey, look. Everybody? h.e.l.lo? Let's try and sort this out rationally '

'Shut up,' snarled Homunculette.

'Ladies, gentlemen, life-forms, please!' The Doctor loaded his voice with all the authority he felt he could muster, and finally succeeded in quietening everyone down. 'I'm sorry, I seem to have startled you all a little. I'd like to a.s.sure you, I mean none of you any harm.'

'You're really him?' asked Cousin Justine. She sounded impressed, more than anything else.

'Which regeneration?' Homunculette snapped.

The Doctor felt the question worthy of an answer. 'Seventh.'

Homunculette turned to Qixotl. 'Get him out of here. It's too early for him to know what's going on.'

'A bit late now,' muttered the Doctor.

'You-must-be-de-stroyed,' said E-Kobalt.

The Doctor turned to face the Kroton. 'Oh, must I?'

'You-are-a-known-en-em-y-of-the-Kro-ton-Ab-so-lute.' It turned its gun-arm on him. 'You-must-be-el-im-in-at-ed-at-once.'

'Don't make it any worse,' Homunculette told the creature. 'Causality's taken enough of a battering already.'

Cousin Justine cleared her throat. 'Our situation requires careful thought. Clearly, we have to approach this problem with some degree of tact and subtlety.'

The Doctor raised an eyebrow at her. 'Really? You've changed your tune.'

Cousin Justine looked uneasy. 'Meaning?'

'A moment ago, your little Brother over there was trying to steal the Relic from the vault. Using the Lieutenant as a puppet.' The Doctor faced the Colonel, who stood on the far side of the table, making aummm aummm noises in spite of the crisis. 'Hardly tactful or subtle.' noises in spite of the crisis. 'Hardly tactful or subtle.'