Doctor Who_ Alien Bodies - Lawrence Miles [107]
The puddle had difficulty thinking of itself as Marie, even though it remembered being her. It remembered vanity, and knew Marie would never have wanted to be seen like this. A simple collection of memory acids, lying at the bottom of her own artron by-product waste-shaft. It was undignified. Distinctly undignified.
The puddle kept remembering. There was another gap in the experiences, and then –
And then she was in the vortex. She was shaking off her humanoid form again, folding it into the secret spaces of her body, keeping it safe while she went diving in the great spiral of everything. Her mate joined her, riding the spiral, extending himself through every point in space and time just to impress her. He was a type 105, younger than Marie, though admittedly more advanced. Usually, mating only occurred between like types, but the High Council had wanted to see if there was any chance of mating a 103 with a 105. They were interested in the mutations such a couple might produce.
In the past, Marie knew, TARDIS units had been manufactured instead of born, engineered in the great solar workshops of old Gallifrey. But the Time Lord archons had learned the importance of biodiversity even before the war had begun. If an enemy found a weakness in a TARDIS unit, the High Council argued, then that weakness could be exploited in any other TARDIS unit. If two units could reproduce like organic beings, though... mixing their circuitries, producing random mutations from generation to generation... well, who could possibly predict the weaknesses of such devices? Who could possibly guess at their capabilities?
The puddle kept remembering.
The Doctor was disappointed to find himself in the middle of a featureless black void, although, to be fair, it was more or less what he’d been expecting. He lifted his head, and focused on the expanse of limitless blackness that could, if you were feeling particularly prosaic, have been called “up”.
‘Well?’ he said.
There was a great booming, tearing sound. If there’d been a sky, he would have expected to see it opening at this point.
‘YOU’RE VERY CLEVER, DOCTOR,’ thundered the voice of the Shift. ‘I HADN’T EXPECTED THIS KIND OF RESISTANCE. NOT EVEN FROM YOU.’
‘You’re not the first to try and get into my head, I’m sure you won’t be the last. Could you stop that, please?’
‘STOP WHAT?’
‘Playing God. Come down here where I can see you. My neck’s starting to ache.’
There was a pause. Then another peel of thunder. The next thing the Doctor knew, someone was sharing the darkness with him. The man wore a bowler hat, while slung over one arm was a typical Englishman’s umbrella. He had his back turned, so all the Doctor could see of his face was a pair of sticky-out ears.
‘I don’t for a moment believe that’s what you really look like,’ the Doctor complained.
‘I DON’T “REALLY” LOOK LIKE ANYTHING, DOCTOR. THIS BODY IS HERE FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE, AND YOUR CONVENIENCE ONLY.’
‘Is that why I can’t see your face?’
‘I THINK IT’S BEST IF YOU THINK OF ME AS FACELESS,’ said the Shift. It didn’t turn around.
The Doctor folded his hands behind his back. ‘I presume you know where we are.’
‘YES. THIS IS THE INSIDE OF YOUR MIND, NOW THAT YOU’RE SHUT OFF FROM ANY EXTERNAL STIMULI. WELL DONE.’
The Doctor smiled to himself. He was quite happy with the manoeuvre, actually. He’d gone into sensory withdrawal while the Shift had been shunting ideas around in his mind, and as a result, the creature was effectively trapped here in his thinking space.
‘HOWEVER, YOU’RE SHUT IN HERE WITH ME,’ the Shift pointed out. ‘IF YOU REACTIVATE YOUR SENSES, I’LL BE SET FREE AGAIN.’
‘I know. But this gives us the chance for a nice quiet talk.’ The Doctor concentrated, and a wicker chair materialised in the middle of the void. Mind games, he thought. He hadn’t shared the inside of his head like this since that brain-wrestling match with Omega. He folded himself