Doctor Who_ Alien Bodies - Lawrence Miles [60]
That was it. The shrine was alive. Bregman had read the tech reports, she knew all about the “living technology” the aliens used, the organic ships of the Zygons, the thinker-weapons of the Selachians. The shrine was a ship with a mind of its own. If human beings had built a place like this, it would’ve been full of computer banks and navigational systems, but the Faction did things differently. The only way you could communicate with the shrine was through the blood rites, and Bregman was lying on top of the control panel. Sacrifice a chicken and you’re on your way.
‘I don’t want to be here,’ Bregman hollered. ‘It was a mistake. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’
‘You are here, UNISYC bitch. This, s’our shrine. You don’t come here. Just me, my Cousin, and the Spirits. Anyone else, that’s sac-ree-lege.’ He didn’t sound like he was outraged by the blasphemy, though. He sounded like he thought it was all a big joke.
Bregman decided to chance her arm. Oh, great. Hell of an expression to think of, at a time like this. ‘What do you want?’
The Little Brother stopped smiling. He reached into the top pocket of his jacket. ‘Satisfaction,’ he said.
‘You want to keep the Spirits happy, is that it?’
‘Spirits. Huhuh. You think I’m gonna be like a witch-doctor, like Tarzan? You think I’m gonna wave my unga-bunga stick at you, turn you into a dog? You already a dog. UNI-bitch.’ He took his hand out of his pocket. Bregman saw there was something attached to it. It looked a lot like a knuckleduster, but much more intricate, the product of a higher technology. There was a tiny glass vial connected to each finger.
As Bregman watched, spines extended from the vials. Needles. Syringes, maybe. Four of them in all.
The Little Brother inspected the device, then turned to Bregman. ‘Want something from you,’ he said. ‘Then I go let you run. Hokay?’
Colonel Joseph Armitage Kortez was getting close to Cloud Nine. He knew this for a fact, because he’d been careful to count the Clouds as he’d passed them. The advantage of the military mind, he reasoned. Just because you were going to have an out-of-body experience, that was no excuse for sloppiness.
He’d been ascending the various levels of existence for about half an hour now, all the while meditating on the events of the auction. As he passed through Cloud Seven, he was assailed by false angels, tiny white-winged goblins with faces stolen from the other representatives in the ziggurat. One of the creatures, adopting the features of the man in the green velvet jacket, twittered around the Colonel’s head.
‘Sergeant... Colonel Kortez!’ he exclaimed. ‘Still reading up on the Zen Buddhism?’
‘I don’t know you,’ Kortez told him.
‘Oh, I’m sure you do,’ the man said. ‘Don’t you remember Saskatoon?’
‘Kortez!’ It was another of the angels. It looked like Mr Qixotl, but it sounded more like General Tchike. ‘Don’t you know your duty, Colonel? There’s a traitor in our midst. A threat to the security of Earth. Deal with him at once.’
Two other angels, skeletal bats with doves’ feathers stuck to their wings, fluttered past. ‘The Spirits are with us,’ one announced, joyously. ‘But we had orders to capture those thermosystron bombs, not destroy them.’
‘Si,’ affirmed the other.
‘The strange is truther than you think,’ said Mr Homunculette. ‘The schoolgirl is not what she seems.’
‘But sometimes my arms bend back,’ added one particularly angelic angel with an unfolding face.
‘Who would live in a body like this?’ asked the Doctor.
Doctor? Where had he come from?
Kortez decided the angels had probably been sent as a distraction by the Infernal Forces of Creation, so he was glad to find himself drifting out of their reach. But Cloud Eight was next, and if anything, it was going to be even worse. The realm of dreams, Kortez knew. Full of broken images, random associations.
‘There’s something you have to know,’ said the Doctor.
The spirit of Colonel Kortez uttered the strongest cursemantra he knew. The Doctor, again. The memory of the man had followed him up from Cloud Seven. The Doctor was different to