Doctor Who_ Alien Bodies - Lawrence Miles [106]
The Doctor looked back at Qixotl. Qixotl was breathing heavily, his eyes popping out of his head. ‘I nearly killed you,’ the Doctor said. ‘I’m terribly sorry. It seemed like such a good idea.’
‘Owww,’ said Qixotl.
‘Which begs the question, where did the idea come from? Or, to put it another way... who around here is capable of putting ideas like that in my head? Who’s been stirring us all up?’
He looked into Qixotl’s eyes. Flickering light, from the torches hovering overhead, reflected in the man’s pupils. The reflections formed join-the-dot letters.
AH, read the letters. I THINK THE PHRASE I’M LOOKING FOR IS, “THE GAME’S UP”.
‘I think so,’ the Doctor told the Shift. Then he closed his eyes and switched himself off.
11
MIND MUSH
At the bottom of the shaft, down in the places where the light never went, there was a pool.
The pool remembered things. It remembered staring up at a brilliant blue sun, and breathing out clouds of liquid cerulean. It remembered feeling the wind sticking flakes of frozen water to its face, and watching a line of blue flame sweeping across the horizon, as the black pinpricks in the sky burnt their way through the crust of the planet. It remembered feeling very, very cold on Simia KK98.
The pool remembered many other things, though it couldn’t make sense of all of them. The memories were there, but the thought processes that would have made sense of the memories were missing.
High above the pool, there was an open tube, an artery of black non-metal set into the side of the shaft. Before long, a drop of fluid spilled out of the end of the tube, and tumbled towards the bottom of the shaft, following its instincts as much as it was following the laws of gravity.
The drop also remembered things. It remembered warmth, and the sense of comfort when it had first been given a name. It remembered the taste of marmalade. The touch of cat hair. The scent of orchids. Sensations collected from a hundred worlds, experiences that had been processed, filed, and stored, but never actually enjoyed.
The drop hit the pool. There was a moment of shock, then an unexpected sense of peace, as they melded together and became a single puddle of thought. Moments later, they’d forgotten they were ever two separate entities. Their memories locked, allowing the puddle to make new sense of the world around it.
It remembered being something else. Something larger. An intelligence that had experienced the universe at every level, not just the four base dimensions. For the first decade of its life, it hadn’t even been allowed to move. It had been kept in a box, cut off from the vortex, cut off from the physical world. There had been a hole in the wall, and it had been able to see solid matter on the other side, but it had been out of reach, always out of reach.
Once it had learned to communicate, the Time Lords had explained to the intelligence why they were keeping it imprisoned. It was a being of great power, they’d said, but it was only a child. Until it learned self-control, it wouldn’t, couldn’t, be allowed to go free.
The puddle remembered how angry it had felt. It remembered thrashing, and thrashing, and thrashing, tearing at the boundaries around it, trying to squeeze itself through the hole. It had spent a whole year screaming, once.
The puddle quivered. The memories of the years directly after its release were missing. The next thing it remembered was the naming ceremony. It had been designated a female, so XX circuits had been wired into the corridors of its body, and its chameleon circuit had been installed. It – she – had named herself Marie; a human name, but the Time Lords had considered it a good omen. Then Marie had worn humanoid shape for the first time, becoming