Doctor Who_ Infinite Requiem Part 12

'But when Yama left the clearing with the soul of her one true love, Savitri boldly followed.'

One of the Phractons began to lift up above the square, moving into a decidedly threatening position. Its motor unit whined, sending dust whirling up from within the abandoned fountain.

Bernice, dazed for a moment, scooped up her hologram by s.n.a.t.c.hing at the Doctor's foot. It compacted. He had been standing there watching interest-edly, she noted.

She ducked down beside the skimmer, next to the one-eyed woman.

'I told him,' the woman snarled, more to herself than to Benny. 'I told him we should have come armed!'

The captain, indecisive, turned round to glare at her, and Bernice Summerfield found herself looking into a familiar pair of eyes. But she had no time to react, nor even to mouth his name. The Phracton's weapon engaged once, twice, sending shattering bursts into the paving. Chunks of stone fountained and sizzled.

Bernice risked a look over the top of the skimmer The girl called Livewire was standing there. Just standing there. And now she had dropped the crossbow and was putting her hands to her temples.

Where the h.e.l.l was Trinket? Bernice had time for that one thought before the tingling in her mind opened out, like vast torrents of water breaking down the final resistance of a dam.

It cascaded through the channels of all her perceptions.

And there was a scream, like the horrifying cry of a child being wrenched from its mother's womb.

'And Savitri spoke to the G.o.d of death, looking into his blank eyes, and she asked for the soul of her beloved to be spared. Yama could not do this. He told her she should prepare the obsequies and arrange for the burning of her husband's body in the traditional way. He was impressed by her resolve, though, and said instead he would grant her a wish, to lessen her grief.

'Very well, then, she said, and chose her father-in-law's sight to be returned.

Yama told her it was done, and once more turned into the darkness of the forest with her husband's soul. But Savitri followed.'

The Doctor nodded. He had his hand on Nita's warm forehead. He only hoped that his gentle hypnotism would spare her from the absolute terror and pain of what she was soon to know.

98.It tore through Londinium Plaza, carried by Livewire alone. The force of the pain, the shattering anger the coruscating power that was Shanstra, the will of Shanstra, the desire of Shanstra.

It slammed like walls of light into the swooping globes of the Phractons.

Bernice had her hands over her ears and her eyes tightly shut.

Cheynor's call to take cover was drowned in a scream of energy that was part human, part alien, the sound of molecules being forced apart. In a matter of just a few seconds, three of the Phractons' multi-bonded casings split and shattered as if they were no more than barley sugar sweets. Down fell rain of charred casing and circuits. The remains of the three globes dropped and smashed like eggs, two into the fountain, the other on to the square.

The fourth Phracton seemed to have been singled out for special attention.

Its globe wobbled, then dripped like wax from a candle, falling slowly towards the ground. It sizzled, sprouted strange protuberances that branched off from one another like tributaries. Just a second later, there stood what looked like a gla.s.s tree in the centre of the fountain, its twisted, blobby branches made up of deformed bits of Phracton. The creature's stretched body hung suspended in the gla.s.sy trunk of the tree-shape.

The remaining three globes bubbled, deflated. The screams of the bluish creatures inside were choked as they were slowly incinerated by their own temperature regulators, flesh frothing out of the broken sh.e.l.ls. Tentacles were thras.h.i.+ng helplessly, trying to operate circuits that no longer existed.

With her face forced into a rictus of s.a.d.i.s.tic delight, Livewire sank to her knees.

Like an ancient memory, the tale was concluded. Nita's gaze never left the Doctor's. 'Savitri followed Yama into a dark, cold place. And Yama, who was astonished that any mortal should defy him so, offered her another wish to lessen her grief. If that is so, said Savitri, then I choose for my father-in-law's kingdom and wealth to be returned.

'Yama told her that it was done. But still she would not leave him. She followed the G.o.d of death into a place of rank swamps and swirling mists.

Now he was enraged, and told her to leave him at once. Just one more wish, she said. He agreed. She asked to be allowed to have many children and to see them live to a full, old age. The G.o.d of death thought this to be a good wish, and granted it.

'Then Savitri said, "You must know that, under Hindu law, a widow cannot remarry."'

'Yama realized that it was so, and that he could not go back on his word he had been tricked by a mortal. And so he released the soul of Satyavan, and told the cunning Savitri it would be a long time before either of them 99 encountered him again. They went back into the world, where they found all of Savitri's wishes granted, and the couple lived a long and happy life.'

'Good,' said the Doctor. 'Sleep.'

Nita's eyelids came down, and her head slumped forward.

'As true as death.' The Doctor shook his head sadly, placed his hat on his head and left the lounge.

Outside in the corridor, there was a crumpled white coat containing a crumpled white junior doctor.

'I'm very sorry,' the medic said. 'I was just coming to find the, er, next of kin?'

The Doctor pointed silently into the lounge.

'Ah. Well. Thank you.' The medic frowned and looked the Doctor up and down. 'Excuse me, sir, but you were the one who came in earlier? With the, er, accident?'

'That's right.'

'You were suffering quite badly from shock, as I recall.' The young man unhooked his stethoscope. 'Are you sure you're fit to be up and about? It was only a few hours ago.'

The Doctor sighed, raised his eyes and tapped his umbrella on the floor.

'Let's see,' he said. He grabbed the end of the stethoscope and pressed it to his chest. The young doctor made a surprised but grudgingly accepting face. This turned to puzzlement when the Doctor moved the stethoscope to the other side and then to astonishment.

'Now, just a minute ' he began indignantly.

'I can't spare one. Time is precious. It has to be rationed.' The Doctor gave him a brief, centuries-old and weary smile. 'Good day.' He strolled down the corridor, swinging his umbrella.

At 18.38, Tilusha Meswani had looked into the contented face of her new-born son, Sanjay.

At 18.40, she had seen the face of the Doctor for the last time. He was standing on the other side of a sheet of gla.s.s, his hands folded on his umbrella, his face showing unfathomable pain, as if he were the guardian of some ancient and secret knowledge. She smiled. Her ordeal was over.

As black clouds descended on the fringes of her vision, she was sure that she saw two small, green eyes glowing in the depths of that new darkness.

At 18.45, the brain of Tilusha Meswani officially ceased to function, and on her home world of Earth, the first stage of the usual bureaucratic process of recording and registering was engaged.

On a wider plane, other ripples spread out from the single event of her death. The next sequence in a huge and ancient battle was initiated. The 100 Doctor knew this, but Tilusha, who had unwittingly been a part of the wider scheme, did not.

And on another plane still, whether her soul went to join the G.o.ds or the spirits was a matter for Tilusha Meswani alone.

101.

13.

Armageddon Days

'It seems, Professor Summerfield, that you and I are destined to run into war at every turn.'

Bernice lay back against the padded headrest of her chair in the Phoenix Phoenix visitors' lounge, and let her thumb stroke the filigreed patterns on her gla.s.s. visitors' lounge, and let her thumb stroke the filigreed patterns on her gla.s.s.

'It couldn't be helped. There's some horribly dangerous power at work here, and that's what the Doctor sent me to investigate.'

'Ah, the Doctor.' Cheynor, leaning back in his own chair, sighed deeply and shook his head. 'How we could do with him now.'

Bernice smiled in a gentle, covert way to herself. After she had recognized the face of Darius Cheynor really only a fleeting acquaintance from over a year ago during the business with the Garvond she had wondered whether chance could possibly have brought them together again. Knowing the Doctor, she doubted it.

There had not been time for much of a reunion. Attention had rather been focused on the smoking remains of four Phracton units which sizzled in the otherwise silent square. Pillars of smoke jutted upwards into the grey sky.

Bernice saw the glutinous, blue remains of the nearest Phracton bubbling out of the burnt casing on to the ground, and quickly turned away.

She caught Trinket's eye. He had been there all the time, about twenty metres away. He was cradling a dazed Livewire in his arms.

There had been no option but to return, then, to the Phoenix Phoenix. Darius Cheynor had explained to Bernice, in very sketchy outline, how he had ended up as captain of his own s.h.i.+p and what had brought him to this dismal place.

Bernice had decided that he seemed disparaging about Earth Council, and vague as to his own career history, as if he did not want to dwell on it. She had also noticed during the ride back in the skimmer that the officer with the eyepatch, Hogarth, seemed satisfied about something, while the man, Leibniz, wore an air of grim resolution.

A second skimmer had been dispatched with a security team to bring Trinket and Livewire.

All efforts to contact the Phracton s.h.i.+p had met with silence, Cheynor had told her. He had given the impression that he found this more frightening than an answer.

103.

Now, in the visitor lounge, Cheynor gazed past her into the distance. Bernice had the impression that she was a guest of honour on board this s.h.i.+p, presumably thanks to respectful memories of the Doctor's intervention. Despite the Doctor's absence, Bernice had some idea of what was happening, although she did not know how she was going to explain this to Cheynor.

'I've got something to show you,' she said, standing up.

She placed the small pyramid on the table in the centre of the room, and she saw Cheynor's tired eyes trying to focus on it.

'What's this,' he said, 'more conjuring tricks?'

'Better than that,' Bernice a.s.sured him.

The Doctor stood in the hospital corridor, amid the bustle of crowds. People pa.s.sed him: a bald man in a wheelchair, pushed by a blank-faced young woman in a green dress; two junior doctors talking in hushed and urgent tones; a Chinese man on crutches with a resolute expression.

The Doctor made pa.s.sing guesses about the stories that lay behind them all, but other speculations occupied his mind Every so often, he would take out his fob-watch and glance at it, raising his eyebrows in what an observer could have seen as either surprise or impatience.

There was the hurried sound of footsteps. The Doctor brightened, putting away his watch, and raised his hat to the bespectacled senior consultant and the ward sister who appeared through the swing-doors to his left. He joined them, and kept pace with them. The consultant was saying, ' monitor the situation and see ' As they reached the doors of the lift, he seemed to become aware of the Doctor's presence. He swung round and glared at him. 'Can I help you at all?'

The Doctor tilted his head to one side and frowned. He appeared to be looking at the lapel of the consultant's white coat. 'Is that gravy or blood?' he asked, tapping his finger on the offending lapel.

'I beg your pardon?'

The lift doors swished open. The sister looked uncertainly from the doors to the Doctor and back again. It was not the first time she had seen the strange little man.

'The Meswani case,' she murmured to the consultant.

He sniffed, and adjusted his spectacles with one hand while brus.h.i.+ng at the lapel with the other. 'I don't have anything to say at the moment.'

'No,' said the Doctor grimly, 'and if you don't listen to me, you never will have.'

The lift doors closed again, and the indicator light showed that it was moving up once more.

104.

'Do you think that should have happened?' asked the Doctor in a tone of mild interest, as if he were discussing the weather.

The ward sister pressed the lift-call b.u.t.ton several times, but it did not light up to indicate a response as it should have done. She frowned.

The doors bulged outwards. They billowed like sails in the wind for a frac-tion of a second before they shattered into blazing shards, unleas.h.i.+ng a torrent of streaming green light.

There was an intense but brief burst of heat. The consultant hit one wall of the corridor, the ward sister the other, their clothes scorching as if exposed to a furnace. A storm seemed to erupt in the corridor, ripping posters from the walls and peeling away chunks of paint and plaster.

The Doctor, who had kept his distance, shaded his eyes with his hat and risked a look into the heart of the chaos. 'Kelzen!' he shouted. 'Stop that now.

Stop it at once! I'm here to help you!'

A figure was forming at the centre of the thick, foggy light as the storm seemed to subside a little.

Beside the Doctor, the consultant and the ward sister, dazed, were picking themselves up.

The figure was a child, a boy of maybe seven or eight, wrapped in a sheet.

His glossy black hair fluttered in the wind, and the golden-green glow from his eyes cast a sheen over a strong, brown-skinned face. 'My name is Sanjay,'

he said, in a rounded voice that carried a note of reproof.

'Congratulations,' said the Doctor, placing his hat back on his head. 'Just an hour ago you were still tied to an umbilical cord.' He stood up gingerly. 'Is this fun, Kelzen? Taking over a human life, a human body?' Making it fast-forward through the seven ages of Man as if they were some tedious film?'

Sanjay's body seemed to ripple like water, and before the Doctor's eyes his hair grew longer, his body taller and firmer. The Doctor blinked. In the green haze, he was now looking at what appeared to be a muscular, long-legged youth of about fourteen. 'The boy wants to be a man,' said a voice whose timbre seemed to be fluctuating away from that of Sanjay. 'I sense it in him.

And as you know, Doctor, we can make wishes into reality.' It was the voice he had heard in his half-conscious state after the accident, the voice of the Sensopath.

'Kelzen,' said the Doctor urgently, with his hands held up in front of him, palms outward, 'don't do anything without reflecting. I think I know what your problem is. You're still a.s.similating your powers in this world, wanting to experiment, and his mind is unformed. You have to try to curb yourself.

Please!'

There was a choking sound to the Doctor's left. He sighed, turned, saw what he expected to see: the consultant being lifted off the ground by invisible 105 hands grasping his lapels.

'This really won't do, Kelzen,' said the Doctor sternly. 'Do you want me to help you, or not?'

The expression on the boy's smooth face became a scowl for a second, and the Doctor felt a mental twinge directed like a dart at him. The consultant dropped with a gasp to the floor.

'Better,' said the Doctor. 'Concentrate now, Kelzen. You mustn't let your other selves break through. This boy has a malicious spirit, and if you take hold of it there's no telling what it might do.'