Doctor Who_ Alien Bodies - Lawrence Miles [128]
There was a pause. Sam guessed the thing would be swivelling its head at him in a menacing fashion. ‘You-are-a-known-en-em-y-of-the-Kro-ton-Ab-so-lute. The-First-Lattice-has-gi-ven-orders-that-your-bo-dy-is-to-be-re-covered-at-all-costs.’
The Doctor spread his arms wide. ‘Well, here it is. That is, if you believe I really am the Doctor.’
‘Explain.’
The Doctor gave Sam a quick sideways glance. ‘Just a passing thought. I could be anybody, for all you know. Some poor deluded passer-by, desperate for attention.’
Then something dramatic happened. A crystal spike, presumably part of the Kroton, lashed out at the Doctor. Sam jumped. The spike had shot down the passage like a bullet from a gun, but the Doctor had side-stepped it almost without seeming to notice. It had flown right past him, and embedded itself in the wall.
It was a tendril, Sam saw. Flexible, but sharpened to a point. The tendril had splintered when it had hit the wall, leaving small flecks of crystal littering the floor around the Doctor, and now the extension was twitching, trying to pull itself free of the stone. There was a low groaning noise, which Sam interpreted as a Kroton wail of anguish.
The Doctor reached down, swept up the largest available piece of shattered crystal, and hot-footed it back down the passage towards her.
‘What...?’ Sam said, knowing full well she’d never get the chance to finish the sentence.
‘Biomass intake tube,’ the Doctor rattled. ‘It was trying to take a sample from me. Come on. Into the shrine.’
‘You-will-not-move!’ gargled the Kroton, around the corner.
‘Why...?’ Sam began.
He waved the shard of broken crystal in front of her face. ‘Kroton biomass. We’re holding our own ritual, and everybody’s invited. I said, into the shrine. Quickly!’
Mr Qixotl wasn’t dead. This surprised him as much as it would have surprised anyone.
It’s not as if I planned for this or anything, he said to himself, as he lay on the floor with his guts hanging out. It’s not as if I had some secret surprise force-field generator hidden under my vest, just in case. I’m lying here with a hole in my chest you could use as a punchbowl, and my legs all squashed where the Krotons rolled over them, and I haven’t a clue why I’m still breathing.
Then he noticed that, as it happened, he wasn’t breathing.
Damn.
Obviously, he was going through one of those strange time-slowing-down experiences people had when they were on the brink of snuffing it. Qixotl lay back, closed his eyes, and let himself go with it. There was no point agonising. The easiest thing to do was get some rest and wait for death.
But death only sent a representative.
‘Qixotl,’ said Trask. Mr Qixotl stared up at the walking corpse, and even now, even in his dying moments, he felt himself squirm. A nasty thought suddenly struck him.
‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘I’m one of you, aren’t I? I’m one of the living dead.’
Trask tried to shake his head, but the muscles must have been too stiff, because he gave up after a second or two. ‘No. Qixotl. Not dead. Mortal stasis.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Mortal stasis. My employers. The Celestis. They can hold off your moment of death. For a while. Not long. Long enough for us to talk. To finish the deal.’
Then Qixotl remembered. The deal, the one Trask had offered him back in the guest room. At the time, the offer had sounded like a bad head-trip, but all of a sudden it seem to make perfect sense. ‘You mean... now? You can actually...?’
‘Yes.’
Qixotl tried to laugh, but his diaphragm didn’t feel up to the task, what with the gaping wound in his torso and all. ‘OK, Mr Trask. You’ve got my attention. Let’s talk. Just make sure I don’t snuff it halfway through a sentence, yeah?’
The Doctor tried to forget everything that wasn’t important. The horrible decor of the shrine, the nasty itching sensation in his temples which he assumed was an allergic reaction to Paradox technology, the sound of the Kroton slowly rumbling down the passage outside... well, all right, the Kroton slowly rumbling