Doctor Who_ Alien Bodies - Lawrence Miles [120]
‘Outside. On a mission to recon the area surrounding the ziggurat, with special regard for traps, ambushes, or enemy emplacements. As ordered.’
‘Ordered? Ordered by whom?’
Everybody looked at Qixotl, again. Qixotl shrank back even further. ‘Look, I just said it might be a good idea to check out the rest of the City, right? I mean, y’know, you can’t be too careful.’
The Doctor shot daggers at him. Not literally, of course, although Qixotl could easily imagine how he’d look with cybernetic bolt-firers grafted into his skull. ‘You mean, you wanted to see if the Shift would shoot at anyone who left the building.’
‘Don’t look at me like that,’ Qixotl mumbled.
The Doctor turned back to Kortez. ‘Apparently, the Shift wants us to stay right where we are. I’m sorry, are you all right?’
‘Pain is not an issue,’ the Colonel informed him.
‘Oh. Good. Well, anyway, we’ll have to find another exit. My TARDIS is somewhere out in the rainforest, I’m afraid.’
Homunculette snorted. ‘Don’t look at me. Marie’s not going anywhere.’
‘We weren’t looking at you,’ Cousin Justine pointed out.
Homunculette rounded on her. ‘What about you, then? How did you get in here? One of the Faction’s little TARDIS mock-ups, was it?’
Qixotl clicked his fingers. ‘Yeah, right! Your, what d’you call it, your shrine. It can get us out of the City, yeah?’
By Justine’s side, Little Brother Manjuele clenched his teeth. ‘No way,’ he growled. ‘No way you comin’ with us.’
The Doctor held up a placating hand. ‘Needs must when the devil drives. Cousin?’
Justine dabbed her face with a black silk handkerchief. Her skin was still speckled with blood, after the four-way fight earlier on. ‘Very well.’
‘What about the Relic?’ asked the Doctor’s pet.
The Doctor looked pleased with her. He was probably training the girl, thought Qixotl. ‘I hadn’t forgotten, Sam. We can collect the Relic before we leave.’
‘Who can collect it?’ demanded Homunculette.
The Doctor sighed. ‘We can all do it together, if you like.’
‘Just as long as the Krotons don’t take it,’ Sam added. Qixotl got the impression she’d only said it to make herself feel like she was part of the conversation. The Doctor gave her an encouraging smile.
‘Yes. Although, to be precise, there is only the one Kroton here –’
He froze in mid-sentence. The smile dropped off his face.
‘Qixotl,’ he said.
‘Er, yeah?’
‘Do you remember what E-Kobalt said, when he arrived?’
Qixotl blew through his lips. ‘Don’t ask me. I didn’t understand most of it. Oh, yeah, I know. He said he’d intercepted that black spaceship, but he’d already sent for... oh, hell.’
‘I knew we’d forgotten something,’ the Doctor muttered.
And at that moment, with a sense of timing that could only have been called impeccable, there was an ominous rumbling from outside the ziggurat.
E-Kobalt ceased its reminiscing, and listened to what the control growth had to tell it.
Kilometres above the surface of the planet, the sky was unfolding, revealing things that had travelled here under the skin of space-time, unseen by the universe-at-large. The ships were made of crystal, grown on the looms of Quartzel-88, their shapes unmistakable. As they came into contact with the Earth’s atmosphere, their engines caused wild fluctuations in the planet’s psychic aurora, as superspatial drives often did. E-Kobalt thought of the effects the disturbances might have on the bipeds here, and found the notion amusing. As much as anything could be found amusing by a Kroton.
The ships – the dynatropes – descended. They moved fast, faster than the vessel E-Kobalt had arrived in. Soon, they were within visual range. E-Kobalt watched them through the sensory apparatus of the control growth.
There were ten of the dynatropes, arranged in an upside-down tetrahedron, with the spearhead craft at the bottom of the formation and the six long-range artillery craft at the top. They were pale and jagged, like enormous pulled teeth, and they spun as they fell, filling the air with a deep, discordant warbling, loud enough to