Part 5 (1/2)

He watched Sam's reaction out of the corner of his eye. 'This controls the biodata around here?'

'Not exactly. The ReVit Zone was designed by humans, and humans didn't build this. The machine was planted here by someone else. Someone who wanted to protect their property.'

'Then this thing controls the leopards?'

'And the insects.' The forest kept growling. The Doctor wondered if he'd see a big cat standing in the entrance if he turned around. He made the point academic by not turning round. 'As soon as we stepped out of the TARDIS, I was bitten by something. So were you. If I know my biotechnology, the insects are programmed to take biodata samples from anyone who gets too close. If they decide the visitor's friendly, all's well and good. If not, they call out the guards.' But who'd use a security system this complicated, he wondered, and who were they trying to impress? 'This machine contains biodata samples from everyone who's authorised to be here,' he concluded.

'You mean, like a guest list?'

'Like a guest list. Ah.' The Doctor's fingers touched liquid, brushed the surface of a tiny reservoir deep inside the guts of the machine. A fluid bio-array, then. Perfect. The substance was sticky and rippled expectantly beneath his fingertips. 'Give me your hand.'

'Why?' said Sam. So he ignored her, grabbed her hand anyway, and locked it between his fingers. 'Ow,' she said, as he thrust both his hand and hers into the bio-array.

There was a moment of sheer bodily confusion, as the Doctor forgot exactly who he was and what he was doing. A side-effect of coming into contact with the array, he reasoned. He was becoming part of it, and it was trying to become part of him, trying to force its data into his biosystem. He denied it access, and told it to stay off Sam, as well. The bio-array obliged. It knew better than to argue with a life-form like him.

The Doctor withdrew his hand, and let go of Sam. His fingers weren't even wet. The array had backed down, and now it was keeping itself to itself.

Sam made a sudden gasping sound.

The Doctor turned. One of the panthers was standing at the threshold of the building, its musculature practically filling the archway. Though its body looked tense, there was a faintly bewildered look on its face, as if it had been in the process of doing something important, but had forgotten exactly what.

The Doctor stepped forward. The animal didn't react. He kept walking, until he was right in front of the creature, then reached out for its face.

After a moment's thought, the panther started licking his fingers. The Doctor smiled.

'We're on the guest list,' he said.

Mr Qixotl waddled along the pa.s.sageway at full tilt, wondering if he'd be able to retain that dignified, professional air even when things were falling apart around his ears. Not that anything had gone wrong, as such. The ”property” was safe, Homunculette hadn't got round to physically a.s.saulting him, and everything was going according to schedule.

From the point of view of diplomacy, though, things could have been better.

The humans had turned up at the ziggurat. Two of them, both from UNISYC. Mr Qixotl had been so busy arguing with Homunculette, he hadn't even noticed their arrival until he'd run into the man Kortez, his name was in one of the tunnels between the entrance and the conference hall. The trouble was, the man had left the other human rep back in the main corridor, and by the time Mr Qixotl had reached her she'd already stumbled across the guest rooms. At least, she'd stumbled across Trask's guest room. The girl had been at the ziggurat entrance when Qixotl had found her, retching her guts out.

He'd hustled the two humans into the c.o.c.ktail lounge, the female looking decidedly green around the glands. He'd left them there with a complimentary bottle of something he didn't think they'd find too toxic, saying he'd formally introduce them to the others soon, and a.s.suring Kortez that yes, actually, the chairs were exactly what they seemed.

Mr Qixotl skidded to a halt in the guestroom corridor. Yeah, OK, so maybe the human woman had a point. Trask wasn't an easy ent.i.ty to deal with, not by anyone's standards. Homunculette looked the same as any other humanoid, and you even got used to the s.h.i.+ft, after a while. Trask, though... it wasn't as if there was anything physically wrong with the man, as such. If you saw a photo of him, you'd think he was perfectly normal. It was only when you saw him, in the flesh, that you realised.

The signals he gave off. The zombie body language. He didn't move like a living thing. Mainly because he wasn't wasn't a living thing. a living thing.

Mr Qixotl steeled himself, then walked up to the doorway of Trask's room.

'Afternoon, Mr T,' he said, trying to sound cheery. 'I hear you had a little visitor.'

Trask was sitting on the bed, a skeletal smile fixed on his face. The girl had said he'd been smiling, Qixotl remembered. He wondered if Trask had changed his facial expression since she'd been here.

'Yes,' said Trask. 'This room has no door.'

His voice, like his face, had absolutely no trace of life in it. Qixotl had to concentrate just to figure out what the words he said actually meant. 'Yeah. Sorry about that. Design oversight. Not too much of a problem, I hope?'

'No. Mr Qixotl?'

'Erm, yeah?'

'I want to speak to you. In private.'

Something turned in Qixotl's stomach. 'Bit on the busy side right now, Mr T. Delegates turning up all over the place and everything. Maybe later on we can figure something out, yeah?'

'You know who I represent,' Trask creaked.

Mr Qixotl glanced around the room, hoping to find an excuse to end the conversation. Unsurprisingly, there wasn't one. Trask's room was bare, apart from the bunk. 'I know, Mr Trask, I know. Look, I won't tell any of the others, if that's what you're worried about. Discretion's a.s.sured, yeah? A lot of the other bidders haven't made their, er, their allegiances exactly public, if you follow me.'

'I want to make a deal.'

Qixotl stared at him. Then wished he hadn't. 'Well, yeah. I mean, you'll have your chance to make your bid '

'No. I want to make a deal. With you. Confidentially. Before the auction.'

'That's not exactly, y'know, regular,' said Mr Qixotl.

'I know,' said Trask.

There were a lot of guest rooms in the ziggurat. More, in fact, than would ever be needed. The lowest level was a veritable labyrinth of corridors, peppered with pseudo-stone chambers full of warm air and torchlight. There was absolutely no need for any more rooms to be added.

Nevertheless, a new doorway spontaneously appeared in the wall of one of the side-pa.s.sages, materialising with an ugly grating sound which according to one popular mythology, at least was the sound of Time itself groaning in agony. In defiance of the normal laws of spatial dimension, a new set of rooms appeared on the other side of the doorway.

After a while, two figures stepped out into the corridor, and stood there for a few moments, surveying their surroundings. The shorter of the two wore a Victorian funeral gown, heavy skirts sweeping the floor, a dark veil pulled across her face. The taller figure wore a suit, just as sombre in style. Not exactly elegant, but certainly formal. Ceremonial, even.

Beneath the woman's veil was a face of raw bone. The snout was sharp, the jaw was set into a permanent leer, and there were jagged holes on either side of the face, empty s.p.a.ces where the delicate mechanisms of the ears should have been. The features of a skeleton, the skull of an enormous bat. The man's face was, to all intents and purposes, identical.

The two figures locked arms, then turned, as one. They moved off along the corridor, at a pace that could only have been described as ”relaxed”.

Two more of Mr Qixotl's guests had arrived in the ziggurat.

3.