Part 26 (1/2)

'So it's not just in my head,' the Doctor said.

'Eh?'

'I had postulated a limited telepathic field. But if not, then how's it done?'

As if the cloud had heard him, its centre parted a fraction and revealed a sight so disgusting Fritchoff had to fight to keep his bile down. Suspended in the cloud's centre were the rotted remains of a human's lower head and neck. The mouth was open, the tongue flopped out grotesquely.

'Doctor' the voice said again, the Adam's apple on the dead neck pulsating, 'the Onememory knows you...'

'Good,' said the Doctor. He sounded genuinely relieved as he stepped from his hiding place. 'I know I'm a bit out of my way, but I was beginning to wonder if I'd been totally forgotten.'

'The Onememory says... you set aflame... our feeding grounds in the Zirbollis sector...'

'Really?' The Doctor scratched his temple. 'I don't recall that at all. My memory obviously isn't as good as yours.'

The cloud buzzed more loudly. 'Many void-times ago... no creature lives so long...'

'Well then, perhaps it was just somebody who looked a bit like me,' said the Doctor.

'No,' said the cloud. 'You are one of the... chosen of Gallifrey... the self-appointed masters of time and s.p.a.ce... a being of great power...'

The Doctor looked bashful. 'I bet you say that to all the Time Lords.'

'We have never... met one of your kind... before ... Not in person...' The tongue let fall a cascade of drool. 'Your people acted against us ...

destroyed hundreds of the hives...'

The Doctor spread his hands wide. 'I had nothing to do with that. Just look at my record. I don't hang about with the interventionists. They've always been rather too heavy-handed for my liking.'

The voice ignored him. 'We are the last of the great hives... We fled the Time Fleets... drifting after millennia of hibernation... until we found this place... a place of much feeding...'

The Doctor took a step closer. Fritchoff was startled by his boldness, and the casual way in which he addressed this gruesome creature; he might have been chatting with a friend. He held up a finger. 'Let me see if l'm right. You agitate the natural conflicts of a population and cause carnage, then swoop down and feed on the carrion. Am I on the right lines?'

'The feeding cycle... is necessary... for our survival...'

'A natural symbiosis, you'd say? You exploit the aggressive nature of h.o.m.o h.o.m.o sapiens sapiens.'

'As they they exploited us!' the voice said. 'The Earth was our world and they ruined it... We fled with them through s.p.a.ce, pus.h.i.+ng ever outward... exploited us!' the voice said. 'The Earth was our world and they ruined it... We fled with them through s.p.a.ce, pus.h.i.+ng ever outward...

expanding at their side... We learnt... Our intelligence grew... Our mind is strong now... We exist to feed and now nothing can stop us... There are billions waiting in the great hive...'

'There are herd animals you could use as well. Creatures of lesser intelligence. Why humans?'

'Their violence, their fruitfulness... They are ideal material...'

The Doctor snorted. 'You mean they do nearly all your work for you. Offer themselves up on a plate, you might say.'

[image]

The cloud came closer, hovering just before the Doctor's face. 'You escaped us once... but soon you will die ... and we shall be waiting... Your brain holds many secrets...' It started to split up and move away, individual flies pa.s.sing through one of the small airholes of the cave roof 'The choice rests with you... Leave now or stay and... we will feast upon you...'

A few seconds later it was gone.

Fritchoff emerged from hiding. 'There we are. It proves what I was saying.'

The Doctor was staring grimly up at the roof. 'It does?'

'The states of the major ancient s.p.a.ce powers have brought this disaster on us by flagrantly ignoring the rights of other creatures and exploiting s.p.a.ce for short-termist advantage and electorally related economic boom.'

Fritchoff was rather proud of this summation, but the Doctor ignored it. 'But why let me, one of their ancient enemies, go?' he said, chewing on a thumbnail. 'Did you feel the electrical aura, that tingle around them? When they're grouped together they must have enough of a kick to kill at least one person. It's how they must have got Seskwa. And I was just standing here, defenceless.' His good humour had evaporated. 'I have a horrible feeling I'm being manipulated.'

'Ah,' said Fritchoff 'Excellent. Awareness of your own coercion in the ways of the system is the first step on the upward path of consentientization.'

The Doctor seemed stirred by his words. 'You know an upward path? Yes?'

Fritchoff nodded and the Doctor patted him heavily on the shoulder. 'Good man. We must get up to the surface. Talk to General Jafrid. Lead the way.'

'Good thinking,' said Fritchoff as he led the way from the cave. 'We can join with him to throw off the shackles of our own people's crypto-imperialist discourse.'

Again, the Doctor's reply was pitched on an entirely different political plane.

'He's an intelligent fellow - he might just listen. We have to unite both sides against these creatures.'

Romana was gripped by a new fear as she walked hurriedly through the corridors of the dome. She paid little attention to the thundering of the riots, and even less to the occasional bickering of the orange lighting as another electrical connection was cut somewhere in the city. Her concern was with more abstract issues. If the people of Metralubit could not see their predicament because of some inbuilt programme, there was no reason for the Femdroids not to notice or take action. The reasoning's end was obvious. The Femdroids were part of it, deliberately standing back to let millions die.

The route back to the guest suite was easily memorized, particularly for a person with Romana's alertness, and so she was surprised when she turned a comer and found herself at a dead end, a simple white wall. 'I must have taken a wrong turning,' she said, although she was positive she hadn't.

She tried to move and found she couldn't. Her shoes, still grey and muddy from the war zone of Barclow, were gripped by the floor. At the same time an orange light began to flash from somewhere above her head, pulsing in a heartbeat rhythm and overlaid by an insistent, high-pitched electronic squeal.

She put her hands to her head and tried to keep conscious as static shocks coursed through her legs. A red blur descended over her vision and the squeal turned painfully loud, making her eyes water and her ears sing.