Part 43 (1/2)

We stop singing.

Our eyes are stinging. Watering. We think that's why the ceiling seems to be blurred at first.

No.

No, there's something pretty weird happening. All the gla.s.s is sparkling. Around where Roba shot at the stuff. You try and look at a piece and it s.h.i.+fts, becomes another piece. Like there's a blindspot somewhere in our vision, and G.o.d knows, there probably is by now.

But then we see the angel come swooping into our field of vision and we know we ain't just imagining all this.

We can't move. Even if we could we'd be too scared stiff to move a muscle. We're helpless. That angel thing knows it.

Behind it there's a crack in the wall that was never there before. A black split, in and out of focus. Secret pa.s.sage. But it can't keep our eyes off the angel.

We watch, stuck like we're made of stone as it hovers just above us. Its wings flap. We feel the breeze they make, it's like a summer wind. The angel s.h.i.+fts just a little. We follow it with our eyes, wis.h.i.+ng we could fly too. Is this us thinking, or is this what we're becoming, but the angel thing's kind of beautiful.

It hovers above the bodies. Reaches out to what looks like a frozen drop of water sparkling in mid-air just above one of them pool ball heads.

The lights take a dip. And the Schirr on the platform start twitching like they got a few of them flea bugs under their nightgowns.

We wanna run screaming but we're stuck here watching.

And we hear the scary b.i.t.c.h voice of one of them speaking loud. We hear it in our head before we hear it in our ears, and then the echo of the voice after it. Like there's more than one Schirr talking. We're feeling like there's all kinds of stuff hiding in this web that we never knew about. And we wanna scream or something, but we know we'd never be heard over these words.

'Please remain still,' the Schirr says . DeCaster . DeCaster says. 'You're not going to die, humans. You're going to live forever. says. 'You're not going to die, humans. You're going to live forever.

'We are going to live forever.' are going to live forever.'

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Chapter Fifteen.

Partners in Crime

I.

The Doctor paused outside the control room, trying to focus.

Frog, of course, must be trapped inside with the emerging Schirr. He had tried to contact the others in the network, but without success. Still, he had done all he could for them. If they weren't here already, he knew they soon would be.

Where else could they go?

Steeling himself, he strode with all the dignity he could summon into the pentagonal chamber.

It seemed to have come alive. The golden trellises high in the walls glowed like neon, and the light was caught and reflected all ways by the gla.s.s in the ceiling, brightening the place considerably. The air was warmer, and shot through with a sickly-sweet stink like dustbins left unemptied for too long.

'Well, well,' the Doctor said. 'Quite a gathering, I see.'

The Schirr corpses on the sullen stage were heaving for breath, laboriously. They looked weak. Their pink-white eyes rolled in their sockets as they acclimatised to life again. It seemed to pain them.

In front of them stood DeCaster, an altogether more powerful creature in long white robes. His fleshy brows were knitted together in a dark frown. The red pinpoints of his pupils fixed on the Doctor. The nose was a jammed-up snout, like a pig's, except it waxily joined a huge, broad top lip that drooped down either side of his face. The chin was dominated by a thick, trembling lower lip.

Beside him, easily as tall but more ma.s.sive than the Schirr leader, stood one of the Morphiean constructs. It stood still as the statue it resembled.

'Of course.' The Doctor chuckled darkly with satisfaction.

'You didn't steal the secrets of the Morphieans' dark sciences.

They were supplied to you.'

DeCaster said nothing, but he watched the Doctor closely.

'Well, what of Denni?' the Doctor asked, stepping closer. 'As your accomplice, should she not be present here, at the end, hmm?'

DeCaster's fleshy lips stretched back into a wide smile.

'Denni,' he said. His voice was like that of a woman's, sensual and soft. 'Human female. She was offered in ritual, fed to the propulsion drives.' He pulled something from his robe and threw it at the Doctor's feet.

Blonde dreadlocks, still attached to a b.l.o.o.d.y slice of scalp.

The Doctor nodded sadly. 'I suspected she would be dead. I suppose she had outlived her usefulness.'

As he spoke, a long crack appeared in the far wall, behind the platform and the TARDIS. The secret door became visible to the Doctor as it opened, its edges blurred with strange energies.

Through it, silently, stepped Marshal Haunt. She raised a finger to her lips.

DeCaster's mouth quivered. 'Denni's usefulness was as meat.'

The Doctor endeavoured to appear undistracted. 'Er...

Come now, surely you undervalue her contribution to your cause?'

Rifle raised, Haunt stole closer behind the Schirr.