Doctor Who_ Alien Bodies - Lawrence Miles [18]
‘We look for whatever it is the person responsible for the thing we’re looking for doesn’t want us to find.’ The Doctor paused, to let that sink in. Or possibly for breath. ‘While we were materialising, the TARDIS noticed something. Something out of phase with the normal event chronology. Have you seen Brigadoon, by the way? Big family spectacular. Lots of Scottish people with unconvincing accents.’
‘Er... I’ve seen Braveheart, if that’s any good.’
‘No, it isn’t.’ The Doctor finally finished shaking his head, as if he’d only just noticed he was still doing it. ‘The point is, somewhere around here is an object which only exists at specific predetermined times. I convinced the TARDIS to materialise in phase with it, so whatever the object is, we should be able to find it whenever we like. In theory, anyway.’
Sam clicked her fingers. ‘I get it. So, when you said we were being watched...’
‘I was talking about Somerset’s leopard.’
‘Come again?’
‘Somerset’s leopard. Genetically enhanced panther. Developed on Earth during the 2050s, used as guard dogs by the very rich. Quite a status symbol in Japan, I believe.’
Sam realised his eyes were fixed on something behind her. She duly turned.
She didn’t see anything much, but then, in an environment as full of stuff as this one, there was plenty you could miss. Lots of colour, lots of detail. Saplings with brilliant green leaves, overripe fruits that looked like exhausted mangos, sparkling yellow blooms sheltering between the trees...
Yellow blooms. Perfectly circular yellow blooms, each with a black slit running from top to bottom. Yellow blooms that only grew in pairs, and only in those heavily shaded areas where the forest canopy stopped the sunlight reaching ground level.
The yellow things moved. Staying in pairs. Several wide, cat-like faces began to emerge from the shade, the “blooms” twinkling in their sockets. The background noise of the rainforest, the twitterings and scratchings of the insects, was backed up by a bassline of low growling.
‘Not the kind of wildlife you’d expect to find here,’ the Doctor went on, helpfully. ‘In fact, the ReVit ecosystem isn’t designed to accommodate any large predator, although usually –’
‘Doctor,’ said Sam.
‘Hmm?’
‘What exactly are we going to do?’
The Doctor cleared his throat. ‘Very good question. Remind me, did I ever tell you about “Plan B”?’
***
Lieutenant Bregman looked up at the ziggurat, and tried to remember how to be impressed. Being impressed was harder than it sounded, right now. Partly because she was exhausted after the trek through the forest, but mostly because – having seen an alien Lost City appear out of nowhere in the middle of a mapped ReVit Zone – it was going to take more than smart architecture to make her go funny at the knees.
And wasn’t that the first sign of Displacer Syndrome? Accepting the bizarre, the alien, the downright stupid, without question? After the first couple of Cyberman incursions, most of the poor sods who’d managed to get out of UNISYC had ended up either founding religious cults in LA or developing what the military psychiatrists called “extended Quixotism”. Seeing windmills as giant alien attack robots, believing tiny little men were living inside their TV sets, that kind of thing.
All of which made Bregman think of her superior officer. Kortez was standing at her side, staring up at the stone frontage of the ziggurat. Every centimetre was covered in tiny little ideograms. Bregman wondered if the Colonel was trying to read them all.
‘Sir?’ she said. He didn’t respond. ‘Sir, there’s nobody here. We were supposed to be met. The invitation...’
‘There’s somebody up there.’
‘Sir?’
‘On the roof. There’s someone standing on the roof.’
Bregman looked up, but she couldn’t see anyone. All she saw were the huge stepped layers of the building, towering over the rest of the City. All of a sudden, she felt incredibly nauseous.
When she looked down again, Colonel Kortez had vanished.
‘Lieutenant?’
Bregman jumped. There was a tunnel in front of her, a rectangular opening