Doctor Who_ Alien Bodies - Lawrence Miles [61]
‘We are all of us living inside the bottle,’ the Doctor explained, while the worms of the astral plane began eating away his flesh. ‘And one day, the bottle will break. Then all worlds will be one world. The inside will meet the outside.’
‘But what about the auction?’ asked Kortez.
The Doctor considered this. ‘I don’t know. What have you got to offer?’
Kortez puffed out his chest, or at least, the part of his higher life-essence that was currently pretending to be his chest. ‘I’m not concerned about my bid, Doctor. It’s the other representatives I’m thinking of.’
The Doctor nodded. His shroud bobbed up and down. ‘For the record, most of them will be offering information. Technical data. Weapons specifications.’
‘Is that all?’ Kortez felt a swelling of pride in his pseudo-chest. ‘Then I have no reason for concern. What I have to offer Mr Qixotl is greater than any material reward.’
‘Really? What’s that?’
‘What’s up on Cloud Nine,’ Kortez replied. He very nearly smiled when he said it.
After a while, Cousin Justine had grown tired of squinting at the cracks in the walls. So she’d searched the rooms of the ziggurat for a better medium of communication, finally finding the newspaper in the anteroom. She opened it at the TV page, which supplied her with a listing of tonight’s programmes on the Bornean National Channel.
Television. She remembered that from Dronid. Fragmented pictures. Human faces, like her own. Bodies full of life, dancing to alien rhythms. Fabulous and incomprehensible.
20:00 News and weather.
20:10 The Week in Sport, inc. InterCam results service.
20:30 Evening movie. Harvey (1950), in ReMode 3D where available. Classic comedy starring James Stewart. Hello again, Cousin Justine. Are you well? You seem distracted.
Cousin Justine nodded formally. ‘I’m perfectly fine, Mr Shift. Thank you.’
22:30 Culture shock?
Justine felt herself bite her lip. ‘Is it really so obvious?’
22:45 Only to me, I should think.
‘Good. Now. We were discussing the new arrival. You’re concerned?’
23:05 I’m suspicious. I picked up a few of his notions, when he arrived. Did you know he’s a Time Lord?
Cousin Justine didn’t know, and the news surprised her. ‘I understood Mr Homunculette was here on behalf of Gallifrey.’
23:50 He is. Which begs the question, where does this interloper come from? One of the newblood Houses?
‘Don’t trust him,’ said a voice.
Justine looked up from the newspaper, to see an unfamiliar outline stumbling into the anteroom. It was a man. Or had been, once. He walked with slow, heavy strides, as if worried his legs might fall off if he moved too fast. Apart from her eyes, all Justine’s senses told her there was no one in the room except her and the Shift. At least, no one living.
‘The Time Lord. Don’t trust him. He killed me. Killed. Me.’
‘You’re beautiful,’ Justine whispered.
The man stared at her, without feeling. Justine knew what she’d said, and knew how undignified it must have sounded, but it was the simple truth. This man was pure, the way only the dead could be pure. In him, everything the family had taught Cousin Justine to respect was made flesh.
‘Not important,’ the man said. ‘Listen to me. The Time Lord. He killed me. I know him. I’m sure. He’s –’
He didn’t get the chance to finish the sentence. A cluster of gangling limbs rushed out of the corridor and into the anteroom, knocking the dead man to one side, and he keeled over, without any kind of complaint. Before Justine could even catch her breath, something was moving towards her face at high speed. She ducked. A blur of silver slapped the air above her head.
Homunculette. He’d bolted into the room, moving faster than someone as sickly-looking as him should have been able to move. Cousin Justine saw a snarl on his face, a wedge of metal in his hand. She felt the Shift stumbling around inside her head, looking for some way of communicating with her, but there was no way for it to manifest