Ten Little Aliens Page 26

  Or you may withdraw from the neural net - but only after experiencing Frog’s perspective. Select section 27 on page 241

  27

  Frog

  We hear something. Something soft, a whirring kind of noise.

  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 glass is sparkling. Around where Roba shot at the stuff. You try and look at a piece and it shifts, becomes another piece. Like there’s a blindspot somewhere in our vision, and God 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 passage. 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 shifts just a little. We follow it with our eyes, wishing 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 bitch 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 says. ‘You’re not going to die, humans. You’re going to live forever.

  ‘We 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 glass 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 massive 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 bloody 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.

  ‘She has, after all, manipulated events very much to your advantage, has she not?’

  Haunt circled the platform and crept right behind DeCaster and the construct.

  But DeCaster must have heard her. He whirled round, bore down on her.

  And turned back, his smile even wider.

  Haunt pointed the gun at the Doctor’s head.

  ‘What is the meaning of this,’ the Doctor demanded hoarsely.

  ‘Can’t you guess, Doctor?’ Haunt spoke without any sense of triumph. ‘It was me who arranged all this. Not a training mission. A rescue mission.’

  There was a sudden clattering of feet from the narrow passageway outside the control room.

  DeCaster’s long, twisted ears twitched. ‘The humans should all be paralysed,’ hissed DeCaster ‘We transmitted the disabling pulse along the network. How can they still move?’

  Haunt looked uncomfortable. ‘I don’t know. A mistake in the ritual?’

  ‘Impossible,’ hissed DeCaster.

  The Doctor tutted. ‘I’m afraid you got rather ahead of yourself, didn’t you.’

  ‘You?’ DeCaster’s brow furrowed further as he stared at the Doctor. This is your work?’

  ‘Over here, Doctor,’ Haunt snapped. ‘Or I’ll blow your head off.’

  The Doctor didn’t move. He gave her a pitying smile. ‘But you’ve expended so much energy to keep enough of us alive...

  I really don’t think your master would be pleased if you killed me now.’

  DeCaster blasted out a hiss of breath from his snout, and stamped towards the Doctor with alarming speed.

  The Doctor shrank back instinctively, but a moment later the Schirr’s huge arms had clamped around him. He was twisted about to face his friends as they ran in to the room: Ben, Polly, Shade and Creben. The others must still be lying in dark corners, changing, unable to move.

  ‘Be still,’ DeCaster snarled, his breath hot and wet in the Doctor’s ear. ‘Drop your weapons or I kill this one.’

  ‘No!’ shouted the Doctor. ‘He won’t do it!’ Damp, fleshy fingers pressed down on his mouth and nose. He could barely breathe.

  ‘Haunt!’ Ben yelled, his amazement at finding her alive clear on his face. ‘Can’t you do something?’

  She fired just above their heads. A yellow bolt of laser fire smashed into the wall behind them.

  Ben looked shocked. ‘Not quite what I had in mind.’

  ‘Throw down your weapons like the Schirr says,’ Haunt bellowed. ‘And raise your hands!’

  The soldiers obeyed, bewildered. Ben hesi
tated, but Polly looked at him imploringly, and he followed suit.

  ‘What is this?’ Creben snapped.

  The Doctor managed to twist his face free of the thick, sticky hand ‘Your marshal has betrayed the people of the Earth and their empire,’ he shouted. She has used you all.’

  He heard the Schirr’s rumbling laughter behind him.

  II

  Polly stared in horror at the tableau before her. Haunt pointing the gun at them. The stone angel as it floated forwards and trampled the soldiers’ weapons into scrap. The dark bulk of what used to be Frog, lying silent in one corner.

  The huge Schirr bodies moving, swaying, breathing in and out, and the frail form of the Doctor caught in the grip of the biggest one of all.

  Shade was trembling beside her, his eyes fixed on Haunt’s.

  Creben was speechless. Polly wondered how it must feel for them, such a total betrayal.

  ‘Used us?’ croaked Shade. ‘Why?’ He still stared disbelievingly at Haunt.

  Haunt regarded them coldly. ‘I have my reasons.’

  ‘Our bodies have been weakened by the rituals,’ DeCaster said. The contrast between voice and appearance made him all the more repellent. ‘Worn out, unable to heal. We need...’

  He smiled again, bared huge square teeth. ‘We need your assistance.’

  ‘You’re taking our bodies to replace your own?’ Creben demanded. ‘One for each of you?’

  ‘No wonder she said no one dies without her say so,’ Polly murmured.

  ‘We appreciate human flesh,’ DeCaster told him, and licked his lips. ‘We have groomed your bodies, healed them, made them pure. Now we each shall be as one. Two of my disciples

  - you may have noticed their absence - they have been casting the prelude to the joining ritual. It is now complete.’

  He grinned over at the motionless stone cherub. ‘A lengthy piece but a most satisfying one.’

  ‘That’s the reason for all this deception,’ Creben realised.

  ‘The tableau, the mystery... once we were here, you needed time to prepare yourselves for us.’

  The Doctor nodded with some difficulty. ‘So they stayed hidden in plain sight... fooling us all.’

  ‘I thought you needed ten to make your magic work?’ Ben challenged. ‘You bumped off your mate. What happens once you get past the warm up and the match kicks off?’

  ‘We do not need the traitor,’ DeCaster hissed. ‘The neural network has united your minds. When we join with you, our minds will absorb yours. It will give us the power of many...

  enough for our purpose.’

  Polly felt brave enough to speak up at last. ‘Purpose? What is your purpose?’

  Haunt shook her head. She wasn’t saying.

  ‘So,’ the Doctor said, crumpled in the big Schirr’s crushing grip. ‘You always planned for the real-time neural network to be in place.’ He looked pitifully dejected. ‘And I made it possible for you.’

  ‘I had Shel marked out for that task,’ said Haunt. ‘But yes, Doctor, you were an excellent replacement.’

  ‘Well, we know how to balls up your little game, don’t we?’

  said Ben, and he pulled at his webset.

  It wouldn’t shift, no matter how hard he tried.

  ‘You’re doing this!’ Polly shouted at DeCaster.

  He laughed and nodded. ‘You cannot remove the websets now.’

  ‘And your ritual cannot proceed unless I allow it,’ the Doctor said. His composure had returned, it seemed, and with it his innate sense of authority. ‘You said yourselves, these people should be paralysed by your powers. They are not.’

  ‘What have you done, Doctor?’ Haunt demanded.

  ‘You expect me to tell you when so much is still a mystery to me?’ He chuckled. Then he winced, struggled feebly against the monster’s tightening grip. His simple bravery made Polly well up as she watched. ‘The moment I tell you, I have nothing to bargain with.’

  ‘There is no bargain to be made.’ DeCaster pressed his upturned snout against the Doctor’s cheek and inhaled.

  ‘Your mind is fresh, but your body is old. It is alien’. He glanced over at the statue, his pale eyes betraying a flicker of annoyance. ‘The Morphiean constructs should really have deliberated more carefully over who they culled.’

  Polly stifled a cry as the stone cherub moved smoothly into life, swivelled its head round to view DeCaster. ‘Our instruction was to bring the numbers down to nine.’ The statue’s voice was brittle and dry. ‘This we have done.’

  ‘There is much you must learn about the body, Morphiean,’

  DeCaster said, turning his attention back to the Doctor. He caressed the translucent skin of the old man’s cheek. ‘About the nature of flesh.’

  ‘So the Schirr gain Morphiea’s powers of the mind, and Morphiea regains the pleasures of the physical form.’ The Doctor laughed hollowly. ‘Is this your exchange? Hmm?’

  DeCaster abruptly released the Doctor, who gasped in pain as he hit the floor.

  ‘Your sabotage is negating the onset of the ritual,’ the Schirr leader hissed. ‘Tell us what you have done.’

  ‘I will not,’ the Doctor insisted, ‘until I know the truth. I will not be a catspaw in your game.’ His voice became sly. ‘But tell me and I may willingly assist you.’

  ‘Doctor!’ Ben protested.

  The Doctor wouldn’t look at him. ‘There’s nothing more we can do, my boy.’

  Haunt looked at DeCaster for assurance it was OK to speak. ‘All right,’ she said uneasily. ‘I came here with two doctored droids, neither able to kill, and nine personnel. Ten of us for ten of them. I didn’t know Pallemar had been executed until I got here. Whatever he told Pent Central about this place, or my involvement in setting it up, it must’ve been enough for them to check it out.’

  ‘They sent Shel,’ Polly whispered.

  ‘But when you arrived, one of your squad was considered surplus to requirements and executed,’ the Doctor deduced.

  ‘Poor Denni. Fed to the propulsion units I suppose.’

  ‘You can’t have been happy when we turned up,’ Ben said cockily.

  ‘The presence of any excess organisms in the complex would destabilise the ritual,’ DeCaster said in his flesh-crawling voice. ‘Three more had to die.’

  ‘It might’ve been Frog if she’d managed to kill herself.’ Polly murmured. ‘But when Haunt saved her, you killed Joiks instead.’

  Creben turned to Ben and indicated the giant angel. ‘Lucky for your party those things couldn’t distinguish between us and you.’

  Haunt nodded, her voice still devoid of any feeling. ‘Denni’s webset was destroyed with the rest of her. I didn’t think we’d need it.’ Now she actually addressed Polly directly: ‘When the construct took Lindey instead of you, I made sure we kept the webset safe.’

  ‘And once it became apparent that Shel was an artificial intelligence, he was next to be slaughtered,’ the Doctor said, looking sickened. A cyborg simply wouldn’t do.’

  ‘It turned out well that the three of you came here from nowhere,’ Haunt admitted. ‘You could wear the web as well as anyone else.’

  ‘And a good thing for you that the cleansing process happened to drive out your cyst, hmm?’ Haunt didn’t react, but the Doctor nodded. ‘You fell desperately ill. A most ingenious way of diverting suspicion away from you. Yes, you’ve been very clever,’ he proclaimed graciously, as he painfully stood back up. ‘But are you really so keen to give your body to one of these creatures, hmm?’

  ‘There’s been no going back for me, Doctor,’ Haunt said coldly. ‘Not for a long, long time.’

  The Doctor clicked his tongue, then turned his back on Haunt and addressed DeCaster as he would a waiter who had given poor service. ‘But isn’t all this a little small-scale, hmm? I can believe your ragged band of Schirr dissidents might need to skulk in the shadows like this, but the Morphieans have the might of an entire quadrant...’ He tailed off, a wily smile on his face. ‘Onl
y they don’t do they?’ He turned to the construct, gripped his lapels and tipped back his head. ‘You’re dissidents yourself, aren’t you!’

  The cherub looked at him blankly.

  ‘The old links between our peoples never truly died,’ said DeCaster. ‘Certain factions in Morphiea have been pressing for the expansion of the Morphiean empire on a corporeal level. We have let them taste the feel of flesh. Naturally, they want more.’

  The Doctor would not look at him. He concentrated on the giant stone baby. ‘Will you not speak to me, sir?’

  ‘Our rulers are not mindful of the Earth’s expansion.’ Polly shuddered at the return of the angel’s dry, dead voice. ‘They would let humans seed the entire Quadrant, content to operate on the intangible planes.’ The statue’s face remained blank - clearly the Morphiean hadn’t got much of a handle on emotion - but it made a horrible crackling sound, like bones breaking, that Polly took to be laughter. ‘We shall not surrender all claim to the physical for all eternity to make way for animals.’

  ‘There, you see?’ The Doctor looked at Polly and the others.

  ‘It is some wayward faction only that has been making these terror attacks on the Earth. In league with the Schirr all along.’

  Creben had already cottoned on. ‘The rest of Morphiea couldn’t give a damn about us.’

  ‘This complex will travel to the heart of the Quadrant,’

  DeCaster continued in his purring voice. ‘We will use the renewed strength your lives will give us and the amplified power from the joining ritual to crack the Morphiean mindforce wide open, to suck out its secrets...’ He licked his lips with a fat leathery tongue. ‘With our allies then in dominance over all Morphiea we shall begin our assault on humanity in earnest.’

  Polly saw two more Schirr had appeared in the new doorway behind the TARDIS, their raw, shiny skin gleaming in the bright light.

  ‘The prelude to the ritual is complete,’ said one.

  As if this was some ominous signal, the rest of the Schirr shifted down from their platform, slowly and painfully, eyes sunken and white. They tramped past Haunt, who did not flinch, and took up positions at the various consoles. Polly held on tight to Ben’s hand, shrank in to him as the creatures lumbered by.