Doctor Who_ Alien Bodies - Lawrence Miles [109]
The chair vanished. The Doctor created a bean-bag underneath himself, just in time. ‘Then the Celestis are working with the enemy? I assumed they’d be on the side of the Time Lords. Blood being thicker than water.’
The Shift seemed amused. ‘Politics, Doctor. Officially, the Celestis are neutral. If they’d wanted to get involved with the war, they wouldn’t have left the material universe to begin with. But for a while, they did lend some support to the Time Lords, it’s true.’
‘And then the Time Lords started losing,’ the Doctor murmured, more to himself than to the Shift.
‘Nobody likes to be on the losing side. Besides, the Time Lords aren’t nearly interesting enough for the Celestis’ liking. Think of it this way. You’re a carbon-based life-form, the Krotons are tellurium-based life-forms, and the Celestis are idea-based life-forms. They need new ideas to survive, but the High Council hasn’t had a decent new idea for thousands of years. The Celestis are starting to side with my employers, largely because my employers are so much more... how shall I put it? More imaginative. More dynamic.’
The Doctor slapped his forehead. Of course. Qixotl had said that some of the Celestis were going over to the enemy, but so much had been going on, he’d missed the significance of it.
‘My employers felt it necessary to stop the High Council obtaining the Relic,’ the Shift continued. ‘In fact, the Celestis weren’t happy about me attending the auction at all. They have a personal grudge against you, Doctor. They wanted your body for themselves.’
‘Then why didn’t they send an agent?’ the Doctor asked. The Shift didn’t answer. The Doctor suddenly realised what he was missing. ‘Trask.’
‘Yes. To an extent, Trask is a product of the same science as myself. But I’m an intelligence without a physical form, and Trask is an intelligence forced back into a physical form. The Celestis have agents all over the material universe. Thousands of corporeal beings, each one bearing the Celestis’ mark. When they die, their minds are transferred to the Celestis’ own realm. They call it Mictlan, I believe.’
Mictlan. The land of the dead, in South American folklore. The Celestis were getting some of their ideas off humans, then. ‘That’s tantamount to soul-stealing,’ the Doctor protested.
‘True. Trask was a Celestis agent while he was alive. The Celestis recorporated him specially for this auction. Although, from what I can gather, they didn’t bother telling him what he was actually bidding for. They felt he’d be an appropriate choice to attend the sale of your body, bearing in mind that you were the one who killed him in the first place.’
‘Was I?’ The Doctor tried to look sheepish. ‘I’m sorry, I had no idea.’
‘It was a long time ago. Incidentally, I did plant a reminder of you in Trask’s mind, when you arrived. I changed his memory of the way he died, as well. Just to make it a little more dramatic. I was hoping he’d deduce your identity by himself and try to kill you out of spite. Obviously, I wouldn’t have expected him to succeed, but it might have distracted you for a while.’
‘And Qixotl? A minute or two ago, I remembered meeting him before somewhere, but now I can’t quite recall the details. Did you plant those memories, too?’
‘I can’t plant memories, Doctor. I can only adapt them. Memories can be reshaped by ideas, as easily as emotions can. As for your past acquaintance with Mr Qixotl... well, that’s between you and him.’
The Doctor stood. The bean-bag, forgotten, faded into nothingness behind him. ‘I think I’ve heard enough.’
The Shift stood, as well, and allowed its chair to slip away into the void. ‘Curious. You sound like you’re expecting victory. Might I remind you, you can only keep me here as long as your senses are closed off to the outside world.’ The Shift considered its next words carefully. ‘Besides which, you’re assuming I can’t kill you now.’
‘Even if you could, you wouldn’t. If I die while you’re inside my mind, you’ll be stuck here forever.’
‘Not at all. Your body is destined to end up inside