Doctor Who_ Infinite Requiem Part 25

25.

Connected

'I see you have a greater imagination than this creature,' said the voice from Amarill's mouth.

The eagle stopped circling in the vaults, became, in the blink of an eye, a silk parachute, which floated slowly down towards them.

The Doctor ran over to Cheynor, grabbed him and pulled him out from under the console. 'Come on, man. We've got to confront it! Not run away!'

The Doctor swivelled round, beckoned the senior Pridka over. 'Try and get this thing stopped! Please!'

'I . . . will try. But the Dreamguide alone should have the authority '

'Please!' The Doctor's expression was imploring. His uneasy eyes took in the glowing gateway the green-robed Amarill the parachute, descending, with something attached to it. He licked his lips. 'The Dreamguide, as you know her, no longer exists. Her mental cells the Pridka minds themselves have been invaded by a hideous parasite. Can't you feel it in your own mind?'

The Pridka hesitated. He looked up at the gateway, and what he saw must have convinced him for, after a reverential bow, no doubt out of habit, he placed his hands on the globe and began to operate unseen controls, in sym-biosis of mind and flesh.

Cheynor grabbed the Doctor's arm. 'Doctor, look!'

Amarill, totally freed from the field of the gateway, staggered forward on to the ramp and slumped, as if the strings controlling her had been cut.

The senior Pridka looked up from the console. 'I can't discontinue the process. It's become autonomous!'

'I rather feared as much,' said the Doctor quietly.

There was a sound from the gateway, like a scream of triumph mixed with the roar of a furnace. Light poured out, for a second illuminating the entire chamber, from the steel floor to the high vaults and inert gravpads. Then, it gathered itself into a bright image of the cleanest bone-white and the darkest black a face, forming in the triangle of the gateway. It blazed with hotter, brighter power than ever before.

'Oh, dear,' said the Doctor worriedly. 'Now we really are in trouble.' He gripped Cheynor's arms and looked him in the eye. 'What were you thinking of when the eagle attacked you?'

195.

He looked momentarily confused. 'Conflict. War. The futility of my entire career.'

'I see, looking on the bright side,' muttered the Doctor. 'That wasn't an eagle, it was the a.s.similation of your fears and hatreds, just as that canister descending on the parachute is ' and the Doctor looked up, staring hard at it ' not a plasma bomb, but a nectarine.'

He was just in time, and his conviction must have been total, for at that very second the parachute smacked to the floor, scattering chunks of soft yellow fruit. 'Look after Amarill,' the Doctor said. 'I'm going to get Suzi.' He handed his umbrella to the senior Pridka, and his hat to Cheynor.

In the gateway, the elongated face was beginning to form, s.h.i.+mmering as if made up of smaller globules. The huge stripe of a smile, the deep, intoxicating eyes, the cascade of hair, all were present and clear.

It could have been Jirenal. It could have been Kelzen. It could have been Shanstra. It was feeding off the mental force of the strongest gathering of minds in the universe, and it was growing stronger.

'Doctor,' said Cheynor worriedly, 'let me come with you.'

'No. Stay here and help our friend here monitor the controls.'

'Doctor '

'Yes, it's foolhardy and terribly dangerous.'

Cheynor looked astonished. 'But that's what I was going to say!'

'I know.' The Doctor steeled himself 'Now you see why I have the advantage over you.' He rubbed his hands together like an athlete preparing for a run. 'I didn't get where I am today,' he muttered, 'by being sensible and safe.'

He ran up the ramp, took a flying jump, and leapt into the heart of the incandescent gateway.

Come, then.

Shanstra's whirlpool of light tore through the house, shredding the paintings to canvas, shattering vases with explosive retorts, with fountains of burnt earth. She embraced it, feeling her mind swelling with the power.

'Everything harmonizing. Everything as nothing. As colours blend into white, sounds into the ultimate tone, so existence moves towards a single, cohesive whole. The Infinite Requiem.'

She could do it, if she wanted to.

She could cross over, if she wanted to.

She could reunite with Kelzen and Jirenal, if she wanted to.

She didn't.

'Five hundred to battle source. Hold steady.'

The ground rushed past under Bernice Summerfield.

196.

Banksburgh would become one of those ghost cities now, she thought, a city of wreckage and skeletons, metal bones and human bones, testimony to lives fought for, won and lost. A place where the memories were etched into the surface, waiting for the archaeologists like herself to come along and uncover its secret history.

The rus.h.i.+ng red earth gave way to crumbling perimeter walls. Liebniz took the skimmer up and the city opened out beneath them, tilted like a 3-D map.

'Follow my mark,' he instructed into his comlink. 'And remember, we want to cause the maximum disturbance. You won't do that by getting yourselves killed.'

Livewire slammed the skimmer controls into full throttle, then leapt out, hit the bank, rolled on to her shoulder. She went over and over and over, conscious of the undergrowth las.h.i.+ng at her face. She slithered in the mud, down into the ditch that protected the house. As soon as she dared a matter of seconds she looked up.

The skimmer hurtled forward, churned the gravel surface of the drive. It hit the big iron gates, smas.h.i.+ng them open, scattering fragments of metal and gla.s.s across the drive, and within a second, three of Shanstra's controlled Phractons converged on it.

They blasted the skimmer without a moment's hesitation. It glowed in the aura of three beams for an instant and then lost form and substance in a billowing cloud of flame and smoke.

Livewire buried her head in the mud. When she lifted it a few seconds later, and peered through the cover of the thick undergrowth, the skimmer was still burning, like a pyre. Like her anger.

She wriggled back into the hollow of the ditch, and started looking for a good strong piece of flint.

'There it is,' Leibniz murmured, as the sparkling gold roof of the vice-governor's residence came into view. 'We're going to come in on Durorvernum Square,' he said to Bernice. 'It's the best landing site nearby.'

She nodded.

Leibniz activated the comlink again, as the ground rushed closer, details coming into view. 'Blue leader to all units. Engage.'

The bombardment began.

Shanstra stood up, the house shaking around her. A crack, like a map of a river and its tributaries, formed across the ancient plaster ceiling above her.

She laughed, her mouth wide open to catch the dust as it cascaded down upon 197 her. She let it fall, caressing her body, making grey rivulets across her black one-piece suit, her cloak, her hair.

She felt the rus.h.i.+ng wind, saw the brightness of the burning skimmer at the end of the drive. Closing her eyes, Shanstra concentrated more. She recreated the picture through the Phractons' sensory inputs: the splash of water in the three ornamental fountains on the front lawn, the dark, wistful green of cypress trees. She went further, heading for the burning skimmer, and concentrated on it until she could smell the strangely natural aroma of the burning gra.s.s, the industrial stink of incinerated metal and plastic. Something else burned in the driveway. Like a streak of pure hatred, pure pain.

Shanstra frowned, tried to focus the mental image. A mind, launching itself at great speed towards the house.

The huntress has changed her prey.

Shanstra laughed delightedly. More sport! The humans had seen fit, in their limited wisdom, to give her a new plaything. She gathered a shaft of thought and launched it, like a javelin, from the house.

Livewire stood in the driveway, the wreck of the skimmer still belching smoke.

There were a dozen Phractons converging on her like antibodies swimming towards an infection, ready to eliminate it without a moment's hesitation.

Livewire smiled.

Behind the Phractons, the three ornamental fountains suddenly exploded, spouting flame and stone in place of water.

There were figures now, emerging from the smoke, shadowy, scattering to cover a wide range. Bright beams began to slice the air.

She hit the ground, praying and counting.

'Suzi!'

She heard the voice. She knew she ought to remember it from somewhere.

The spectre of Colm Oswyn had receded, but the cold mist was gathering in a whirlpool, whipping up weirdly shaped plants and thorns in the water.

The Doctor's hand was on her wrist. He had a surprisingly strong grip for such a small man, she noticed. 'Come on,' he said. 'I'm having it deactivated.'

For a moment, she was dazed. She smiled at him, saw him through a haze of salt water. 'I did it, Doctor,' she said. 'I forgave myself. They tried to use Colm against me, but it didn't work.'

'Good,' he murmured, but it did not sound at all good the way he said it.

'Aren't you proud of me?' she asked desperately.

The Doctor glowered. 'Forgave yourself, you say? You haven't even admitted responsibility yet. You left a man to die, and all you've found yourself doing is feeling better about it! That's not redemption, Suzi.'

198.

The jungle was darkening around them, shapes s.h.i.+fting into blackness, merging with one another.

'What's happening?' Suzi asked, scowling.

'Nothing of any importance.'

'I may be a mere Earthling, but I'm not stupid, Doctor. Don't patronize me.'

He smiled briefly. 'You remind me of Sarah Jane. The Dreamguide has effectively been taken over by Jirenal. He is the Dreamguide, the Pridka's minds: the blood and nervous system of the centre. I'd imagine that the environment is reverting to its natural, default appearance now that it's no longer feeding on your mind.' The Doctor looked up, raised his voice. 'Isn't that right, Jirenal?'

The Sensopath stepped out of the shadows in front of them, and Suzi had to catch her breath.

It might have been Shanstra the rich, dark hair and the high-boned face were hers. But there was something heavier and more aggressive about the features, less refined and n.o.ble than Shanstra had appeared to Suzi. She kept her distance. Physically and mentally.

'Yes, Doctor,' Jirenal purred. 'You are, as ever, correct.'

There was one small pool of light left, and it contained the Doctor, Suzi and the Sensopath.

'Should we be getting out?' Suzi asked.

'Unfortunately not,' said the Doctor, a little guiltily. 'You see, I intended this to happen. And now that I'm here, in the realm of the Dreamguide, I don't want to miss the opportunity to put my plans into effect.' He smiled at her.

Suzi did not smile back. 'You . . . sent me in here, Doctor.' A terrible suspicion was growing in her mind.

'Yes,' he said.

'Go on, Doctor.' The Sensopath's tone was mocking as he circled them in the pool of light. 'Tell the young lady what you intended to do.'

The Doctor did not look at Suzi. 'I needed some way of making Shanstra show her hand. Of drawing her out. Your mind has been closer to her than anyone's.' Suzi saw him risk a brief look at her now, but she made sure her face gave nothing away. 'I'm afraid,' he said, 'that my attempt at hypnotherapy simply put a block on your link to the Sensopath. I couldn't eliminate her influence totally from you, even if I'd wanted to. I needed to know whose side Jirenal was on. And so I provided you as a point of reference. I knew that Shanstra would make her move . . . as soon as your mind could be accessed by the Dreamguide.'

Suzi just stared at him in disgust.

'And, of course,' said Jirenal in tones of quiet confidence, 'I am the Dreamguide now. Every creature, every humanoid or other species who comes 199 to this centre will experience the same treatment as they have been getting for centuries, just as the Pridka have now experienced it themselves.' He smiled, a flash of white in the darkness. 'A feeling of utter contentment. Of peace with the world. And all because they will have been absorbed into our universal mind.'

The Doctor's voice was quiet and threatening. 'Shanstra may have convinced you, but she hasn't convinced Kelzen. I know that much for certain.'

Jirenal spread his hands. 'It does not matter, Doctor. Kelzen is but a part of me, a part of Shanstra.' He smiled, tapped the side of his nose. 'Oh, I'd like to book myself a little more mental communion with you, Doctor. Just to extract Kelzen's location from you. You understand, of course, that your consent is requested, but ' he spread his hands ' regrettably not a prerequisite.'

The Doctor smiled humourlessly.

'Our power will grow,' Jirenal said, 'with each successive mind. Soon, there will be millions of cells making up our Unity. Then billions. Eventually, when we have the power, we can expand from this Centre into other sectors of the Galaxy. There will, eventually, be no cosmos. Only the mind, the music of harmonious minds. Only the Infinite Requiem being played for all eternity.'

'But what for?' gasped Suzi in horror. 'What possible purpose could you have for wanting to do this?'

Jirenal opened his eyes wide in innocent delight.

'Why,' he said, 'because it is beautiful.'

Livewire was alive. She breathed deeply several times, listened to her heart pummelling her body, and peeped out from behind the remains of the fountain. The lawn of the house was like one of the circles of h.e.l.l, filled with the screams of the dying.

Now, there came the noise of the fighters returning for another strafe.

Louder and louder.

Livewire pressed herself up against the stone and caressed the new arrow which she had made in her place of hiding. It was not as good as the last one, for she had not had time to hone it, but the flint was sharp and the shaft, of the smoothest turstati wood, was firm.