Doctor Who_ Alien Bodies - Lawrence Miles [0]
LAWRENCE MILES
BBC BOOKS
Other BBC DOCTOR WHO books include:
THE EIGHT DOCTORS by Terrance Dicks
VAMPIRE SCIENCE by Jonathan Blum and Kate Orman
THE BODYSNATCHERS by Mark Morris
GENOCIDE by Paul Leonard
WAR OF THE DALEKS by John Peel
THE DEVIL GOBLINS FROM NEPTUNE by Keith Topping and Martin Day
THE MURDER GAME by Steve Lyons
THE ULTIMATE TREASURE by Christopher Bulis
BUSINESS UNUSUAL by Gary Russell
ILLEGAL ALIEN by Mike Tucker and Robert Perry
THE ROUNDHEADS by Mark Gatiss
THE BOOK OF LISTS by Justin Richards and Andrew Martin
A BOOK OF MONSTERS by David J Howe
DOCTOR WHO titles on BBC Video include:
THE WAR MACHINES starring William Hartnell BBCV 6183
THE AWAKENING/FRONTIOS starring Peter Davison BBCV 6120
THE HAPPINESS PATROL starring Sylvester McCoy BBCV 5803
Published by BBC Books
an imprint of BBC Worldwide Publishing
BBC Worldwide Ltd, Woodlands, 80 Wood Lane
London W12 0TT
First published 1997
Reprinted 1998, 1999
Copyright © Lawrence Miles 1997
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
Original series broadcast on the BBC
Format © BBC 1963
LAIKA © Organization for the Ethical Burial of Space Animals
Doctor Who and TARDIS are trademarks of the BBC
ISBN 0 563 40577 5
Imaging by Black Sheep, copyright © BBC 1997
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Mackays of Chatham
Cover printed by Belmont Press Ltd, Northampton
Scanned by the Camel
...a body will remain in motion until
another force acts upon it.
A QUICK NOTE ON CROSS-SPECIES
TRANSLATION CONVENTIONS
In Alien Bodies, the word “man” is used to describe any male sentient life-form, and the word “woman” is used to describe any female sentient life-form, even when the life-forms in question aren’t technically human. This may not be strictly accurate, but it does get rid of awkward sentences like “the male multi-armed semi-humanoid Kelzonian fish-person shook his head”.
Similarly, the word “humanoid” is used to describe any life-form that resembles a human being, even when a non-human is speaking; a Time Lord would actually describe someone as “looking Gallifreyan” instead of “looking humanoid”, but this looks clumsy and slightly embarrassing on paper.
Anyone requiring further information about cross-species translation conventions should consult Preface III of Professor Thripsted’s excellent Genetic Politics Beyond the Third Zone. Ask your local library if they can order you a copy. But only if you enjoy wasting people’s time.
CONTENTS
Prologue: Last Rites 1
1 Dramatis Personae 4
Homunculette’s Story 14
2 Strange Men and Their Companions 20
3 Loathing the Alien 29
UNISYC’S Story 38
4 Death, Death, and – Good Grief – More Death 43
5 The Continuity Bomb 53
The Faction’s Story 62
6 The Bodysnatchers (Reprise) 68
7 Surprised? 77
Mr Qixotl’s Story 87
8 The Body Politic 92
9 Enfant Terrible 101
E-Kobalt’s Story 110
10 What is an Identity Crisis, Anyway? 116
11 Mind Mush 126
The Shift’s Story 136
12 Shiftwork 141
13 A-Les-son-in-An-a-to-my 151
The Dead Man’s Story 161
14 Final Offer 166
Epilogue: Last Rites 176
LAST RITES
[THE PAST]
The Doctor had said he’d wanted to conduct a funeral. Well, whatever made him happy.
He’d been standing at the console for over an hour now, never moving from the spot, never looking up from the controls, never even bothering to check the scanner. Occasionally, the TARDIS would dematerialise, but the trips would be short and the ship would groan its way back into reality after a second or two. Every now and then, Sarah would wander into the console room to see how things were going, although there was never anything worth looking at on the screen. Far-away star clusters, and the spaces where star clusters couldn’t be bothered forming. Eventually, after a hundred or so short hops, something interesting finally appeared.
“Interesting” being a relative term, mind you. It was a silver smear, hanging in the vacuum