Doctor Who_ Alien Bodies - Lawrence Miles [122]
‘That’s not true!’
I know, you’ve made a few small... let’s not call them changes, let’s call them improvisations. You’ve made sure a few people survived who wouldn’t have survived. You’ve saved the odd human colony here, the occasional endangered species there. But wherever you went, you always made sure time ran its course. Until now, that is. Until this regeneration. You’re not even thinking about the consequences anymore.
‘Meaning?’
Just after you regenerated, remember? You went back and visited all your past lives. Changed your own timeline by doing it, too.
‘It wasn’t exactly my doing,’ the Doctor protested.
You’re blaming Rassilion?
‘Well... if you like.’
Isn’t that a bit like a Christian blaming God for all his mistakes? Let me try another approach, maybe you’ll see what I’m getting at. Sam thinks of you as a function of the universe. Really, that’s the way she sees you. Not a person, exactly, more a kind of built-in feature of existence.
‘That’s not true,’ said the Doctor. Actually, he had no idea whether it was true or not.
Let me finish. Think back to that time when you went to see your previous selves. What was the first thing you did, once you’d finished playing with your timeline? What was the first thing that happened, once you were sure you’d got your identity back? I’ll tell you, if you can’t remember. You met up with Sam and took her on board the TARDIS. Almost as if some part of you knew what she represented, and had to complete the process.
‘I don’t understand. What does Sam represent?’
‘Who, me?’ said Sam.
‘Shhh. I asked you a question.’
You know what Sam represents. If a tree falls in a forest and no one’s there to hear it, does it make a sound? Stop me if I’m getting too abstract here, but if a Time Lord saves the world and nobody witnesses him doing it, does history care? She’s your witness. The thing you need to make you whole. Your heart’s desire. Maybe that’s why she was created in the first place. You and she were made for each other, she said so herself. Smith and Jones. It’s so obvious, it’s almost painful.
‘No!’ The Doctor felt a hand on his arm, probably Sam’s, but he shook it off. ‘I’m not listening to you. You’re the Shift. You’re putting all these ideas in my head to distract me...’
If you believed that, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Well, all right. Perhaps I’m partly the Shift. There have been so many alien ideas bouncing around your head, I’m not surprised you’re hearing voices. Your synapses are in a mess, believe me. Think of me as a kind of temporary psychosis.
‘A psychosis? You mean, I’m talking to my own dementia?’
Don’t worry. I’m sure it’ll pass.
‘THIS-IS-E-KO-BALT-PRIME-OF-THE-KRO-TON-FIFTH-LATT-ICE. WE-ARE-NOW-IN-CONTROL-OF-THIS-CI-TY.’
The Doctor opened his eyes. He was standing at the entrance to the vault, with the casket glowing smugly to itself on the other side of the dead kidney-garden. Around him, the others were clutching their ears. The Kroton’s voice had echoed through the walls of the ziggurat, the same way the toucan alarms had. The Doctor guessed the City had been built to conduct sound that way. E-Kobalt was probably using some kind of PA system outside the building.
‘YOU-WILL-SURREND-ER-THE-REL-IC-TO-US,’ E-Kobalt went on. ‘IF-YOU-O-BEY-YOU-WILL-BE-ALL-OWED-TO-LEAVE-THE-CI-TY-UN-HARMED. IF-YOU-RE-SIST-YOU-WILL-BE-DIS-PERSED.’
The Doctor felt his ears start to bleed. The voice was actually making the walls tremble, but at least it had blotted out the other voice, and for that he was grateful. He looked up at the ceiling. ‘Listen to me, E-Kobalt. I don’t know if you can hear me, but if you can, then listen. We can’t let you have the Relic. We’ll die before we surrender it. Do you understand?’
‘Er, what did you say?’ said Qixotl. He was crawling around on his knees, his hands still poised over his ears.
‘I said, we’ll die before we surrender the Relic.’
‘Uh. I thought that’s what you said.’
‘Don’t worry, it’s only a figure of speech.’
‘You think the Krotons know that?’
‘KRO-TON-UN-ITS-HAVE-AL-READ-Y-BEEN-DIS-PATCHED,