Doctor Who_ Alien Bodies - Lawrence Miles [57]
Cousin Sanjira murdered the child, and was himself murdered, again and again and again. He felt his life being disassembled and reassembled, disassembled and reassembled, disassembled and reassembled, until his timeline swallowed its own tail, and there was nothing left of him but divine and perfect Paradox.
6
THE BODYSNATCHERS [REPRISE]
The black ship re-entered normal space about a thousand kilometres above the surface of the Earth, on the very fringes of the planet’s ionosphere. Its arrival sent shockwaves through the psychic aurora of the entire eastern hemisphere, causing people across India and Malaysia to see disturbing patterns in the static of their TV sets, and forcing images of impossible machines into the minds of Asia’s leading research scientists. For weeks afterwards, the continent’s New Agers would experience visions of bizarre planets made entirely out of crystal, but put it all down to something in the water.
The ship’s scanning mechanisms surveyed the island that had once been called Borneo, finding the expected tachyon disturbances at the heart of the bioengineered rainforest. In the control section of the vehicle, a two-pronged hand began wiring an invite card into the navigational banks, the pincers moving with surprising grace and precision.
A few minutes later, the vessel was brought into phase with Qixotl’s Brigadoon circuit, and the Unthinkable City became visible to the ship’s single occupant. Nonorganic sensory systems monitored the buildings with a sensation that might, if the observer had been human, have been called excitement. The black spaceship promptly dropped into Earth’s gravity well.
Sam peered along the corridor, but the decor was the same as far as the eye could see. Skulls, skulls, more skulls. She looked over her shoulder. Behind her, in the main part of the shrine, Kathleen was wandering around the raised section of the floor, looking completely thrown by the whole thing. Sam wondered whether there was some kind of reassurance she should have been giving the woman.
Then she remembered that Kathleen was about a decade older than she was. An officer in an international military organisation, for God’s sake. Sam made a mental note to ask the Lieutenant what UNISYC stood for, the next time they had a moment to themselves.
She turned her attention back to the passage around her. The Faction’s ship was a lot like the TARDIS, but more “open plan”. The TARDIS was designed as a vehicle, with all the rooms and corridors stuffed into one handy little box; but the shrine was more like a set of rooms, capable of sliding into other people’s architecture as it saw fit, a location rather than an object. The passage ahead was lined with blue lighting strips and dark ionic columns, the floor coated with muddy scratches and swirls.
Sam crouched down to inspect the markings. The darker lines looked like dried blood, but if it was real human bean-juice, a hell of a lot had been spilled here. Maybe the ship ran on the stuff, like in the stories the Doctor had told her about the Great Vampires. Maybe the skulls were the remains of the people the shrine had consumed. Yeuch.
‘Hell,’ said Kathleen.
Sam turned, and stood. Back in the shrine, Kathleen was standing frozen by the dais, staring at a second figure near the entrance. Before she’d even identified the shape, Sam had thrown herself against the wall of the passage, squeezing herself between two of the columns. There wasn’t much light here, she reasoned, so she probably wasn’t visible from the shrine.
She felt something press into her back, presumably the jawbone of one of the skulls. There was a vibration running through the skull, a humming of power. Sam held her breath. From the shrine, she could hear the sound of Kathleen’s feet, skittering across the floor. And something else. Breathing. Heavy breathing. Whoever had arrived in the shrine,