Doctor Who_ Alien Bodies - Lawrence Miles [144]
Then his head jerked back. There was a tiny noise from the back of his throat. Bregman looked towards the top of the stairway, and saw Trask, standing motionless, his grin still in place, his eyes fixed on the Doctor. The mark, thought Bregman, that was what he’d said. The Doctor was being branded, turned into an agent of Mictlan. Trask was reaching into his skull, scratching something across the surface of his mind.
She didn’t move. Couldn’t move. She stood and watched until, eventually, it was all over.
The dead let go of the Doctor’s limbs. His head lolled forward, and his arms dropped to his sides. The zombies moved away, leaving him to stand on his own two feet. He wobbled for a few moments, but he managed to stay upright. Finally, he opened his eyes.
The first thing he did was look at Bregman, and Bregman would have screamed, if she’d been alive enough to really care. There was something tearing and thrashing inside his head, you could see it in his irises, something trying to gouge out his memories and rip up his personality. There was no emotion on his face. No trace of feeling.
‘Interesting,’ he said.
He spun on his heel, to face Trask. The rest of the dead were stumbling away, being swallowed up by the darkness at the top of the stairs, but Trask didn’t move.
‘Concentrated Celestine consciousness,’ the Doctor went on. ‘Planted directly in the mind of the subject, without any need for surface psychic or psionic penetration.’
‘Yes,’ said Trask.
‘Doctor?’ Bregman said. She wanted to say something caring and considerate, like “how are you?”, but she knew how stupid it’d sound. Besides, the Doctor was ignoring her.
‘What should I do?’ the Doctor asked Trask.
‘Go back to Earth. Return to your TARDIS. You will be given orders. When we need you. The Celestis can contact you directly. Through the mark.’
‘And the Relic?’
The casket was hovering at Trask’s feet, anxiously bobbing up and down on its antigravs. ‘Worthless,’ Trask declared. ‘Your timeline has changed. The Relic is a paradox. Too dangerous. Too dangerous to use. Could strengthen the Faction. Can’t be allowed.’
‘Shall I destroy it?’ the Doctor asked.
Trask nodded, his head creaking on top of his rigor-mortis neck. The Doctor put two fingers in his mouth, and whistled. The casket obediently wobbled down to his level. It seemed glad to get out of Trask’s presence.
Satisfied, Trask turned away, and began climbing the stairs. Seconds later, he disappeared into the darkness, along with the rest of Mictlan’s elite.
The Doctor caught Bregman’s eye again. There was a fraction of a smile on his lips.
‘Wake up,’ he said. And he snapped his fingers.
‘Isn’t there any way we can scan the City for him?’ asked the human girl. Sam, Qixotl reminded himself.
‘Treat me with a little kindness and understanding here, OK?’ he said. ‘I’ve already died once today. Y’know, a thing like that doesn’t get you in a great mood. Anyway, the Doctor’s going to be fine. Really. I mean, wherever he’s got to.’
‘Right,’ Sam murmured.
Actually, Qixotl had a pretty good idea where the Doctor had got to. As soon as the Time Lord had found out about Trask, he’d stormed out of the conference hall, turned the corner... and vanished. Sam had searched the corridor, but there hadn’t been any sign of him. Which kind of suggested the Doctor had gone to Mictlan after Trask, though Qixotl couldn’t for the life of him figure out how.
And if that were true, then he probably wouldn’t be coming back. By rights, Qixotl should have been on his ship and out of this solar system by now, but he had the horrible feeling that if he left the City without debriefing the other bidders, they’d be following him around until doomsday, demanding to know what he’d been trying to pull. So he was lounging around the conference hall with Sam, waiting for the others to show up, and wondering exactly how many of them had been killed by the Krotons.
‘I could do with some help,’ the Doctor said.
Qixotl yelped, and fell off his chair. The Doctor had reappeared in the archway, his face all twisted