Doctor Who_ Alien Bodies - Lawrence Miles [132]
E-Kobalt regained control of its sensory systems, and began to analyse the data the growth was feeding it. The dynatropes were trapped inside a box. The box was approximately two hundred metres along each side; the growth claimed that the surfaces were made out of an unidentified, and unidentifiable, material. E-Kobalt shifted its sensory apparatus a little, demanding a visual scan of the nearest wall.
It was decorated with humanoid remains. Skulls, they were called. There were thousands upon thousands of them, set into the wall at regular intervals, their faces painted with black dust and rotting biomass.
‘Commander?’
E-Kobalt spun its head. A shape had materialised by its side, a blue smudge, hovering above the floor of the control section. It was the face of one of the bipeds, the one with the blue visual apparatus and the excessive cranial fur. E-Kobalt vaguely remembered that it had discovered the unit’s identity, before it had left the ziggurat, but something seemed to be blotting the information out of its mind. The face was a hologram, according to the control growth, though the growth had no idea where it was being projected from.
‘I-den-ti-fy-yourself,’ E-Kobalt demanded, somewhat weakly.
The man in the hologram shook his head. ‘There’s no time, commander. You have to listen to me. I don’t want to have to hurt you.’
E-Kobalt wasn’t sure how to respond to that. ‘You-have-no-pow-er-to-harm-the-Kro-ton-Ab-so-lute.’
‘E-Kobalt, please. You’re not thinking. It’s the Shift. It’s in your head, it’s urging you to do things you shouldn’t be doing. Try to concentrate. You know I’m telling the truth.’
The Shift? Suddenly, there was a brand-new thought in E-Kobalt’s head. A realisation...
The central idea – the concept of absolute destruction, absolute aggression – rolled forward, thoroughly squashing the new notion. ‘You-are-ly-ing,’ E-Kobalt announced. ‘You-will-explain-what-has-happ-ened-to-the-War-spear. You-will-tell-me-where-we-are.’
The man’s eyes were tight shut, E-Kobalt saw, and small bubbles of salt-water were trickling down his upper cranial unit. It recognised these symptoms. The humanoid was under stress, possibly in a state of exhaustion. ‘You’re in the Faction’s shrine. I’ve materialised it around you. E-Kobalt, I don’t have time to argue. I can’t hold on to the control systems much longer. You have to listen to me.’
‘I-do-not-un-derstand.’
‘I told you. This is the shrine’s cargo hold. It’s like being inside a TAR... well, never mind.’ A hand appeared, and wiped the hologram’s brow. ‘You can’t attack the ziggurat as long as you’re here. You might as well listen. The Shift wants you to destroy us. It’s using you, commander.’
More new ideas popped up in the Kroton’s forebrain, but the aggressive instinct flattened all of them. ‘The-Kro-ton-Ab-solute-will-not-be-de-fea-ted!’ E-Kobalt roared. ‘You-will-release-the-dy-natropes!’
The man on the hologram let out a deep, sorrowful breath. ‘Very well. You leave me no choice.’
‘You-will-release-us!’
‘No I won’t, E-Kobalt. There’s no way out for you. You’re trapped.’
‘We-will-pre-vail!’
‘How? How are you going to get out? How are you going to destroy the ziggurat when you’re stuck in here?’
‘We-will-succeed!’
‘How, E-Kobalt? How?’
How?
E-Kobalt searched for an answer, but there was so little in its mind. In fact, it only had two ideas left to work with. One of them, the smaller of the two, was “get the Relic”, but that was hardly appropriate now.
The other, the thought that occupied almost every part of whatever E-Kobalt had for a soul, was “destroy”.
‘Destroy!’ E-Kobalt shrieked.
The vibration rippled through the nervous systems of every Kroton in the Warspear. One idea, one simple command, more powerful than any other. From dynatrope to dynatrope, E-Kobalt felt