Doctor Who_ Alien Bodies - Lawrence Miles [64]
The Doctor’s attention was fixed on him now. Which was a good job, Qixotl realised, because it meant he hadn’t noticed the way the pixscreen had changed. It now displayed a simple 2D image of the ziggurat roof. A small black speck had appeared in the sky above the building.
Qixotl kept talking. ‘Anyhow. This bunch of Time Lords... they call themselves the Celestis, right?... decided to get one over on the enemy. Really smart move, they made.’
The Doctor crossed his arms, as if to say “talk faster”. ‘Which was?’
‘They wiped themselves from the continuum. I mean, completely.’
‘What?’
‘Yup. The Celestis took themselves out of space and time. Scratched out all traces of them ever existing in the physical universe. Beating the enemy to it, kind of.’
‘That doesn’t make sense,’ said the Doctor.
‘Yeah, it does. Because – and this is the clever bit – when they took themselves out of reality like that, they put themselves on, y’know, another plane of existence. They kind of stopped being real, and turned into... ideas. Because you can kill a person, but you can’t kill an idea. Get it?’ Qixotl shot a quick glance at the pixscreen. The spaceship was growing larger by the second, its outline slowly filling the sky above the ziggurat. Qixotl hoped the Doctor wouldn’t see it. He’d probably recognise the design, the smug git.
The Doctor, however, looked like he was a million miles away. ‘I’m not sure I understand. The Celestis are Time Lords who put themselves into conceptual space?’ His eyes widened, and he slapped himself on the forehead. ‘You mean, like the Shift?’
Qixotl squirmed. ‘Erm, well... I’m not really supposed to tell anyone who the Shift’s working for...’
‘I see.’ The Doctor nodded. ‘Removal from the material plane. Using the same kind of technology that put the Land of Fiction together, I’d imagine. Ingenious. Totally mad, of course, but... Celestis?’ He was talking to himself now, Qixotl realised. ‘The Celestial Intervention Agency? It’s their level of insanity...’
He stopped murmuring, and glared at Qixotl, who quickly took his eyes off the pixscreen. ‘So. The Time Lords need my body to stand a chance of survival. But you’ve decided to sell it to the highest bidder.’
‘It’s like I said. The laws of economics. Business is –’
‘I know what you said!’ Instinctively, Qixotl ducked. The Doctor hadn’t actually thrown a punch, but the outburst had almost been violent enough to leave a bruise. ‘Do you have any idea what sort of fire you’re playing with? The fate of my corpse could determine the fate of the entire lifeline. This auction could turn out to be the most important event in the entire history of sentient life.’
Mr Qixotl cleared his throat. ‘Y’know, I was just thinking of my interests...’
‘Faction Paradox! The Time Lords! The Celestis! What are you expecting to happen? Do you think they’re all going to sit down around a table and talk about this politely?’
‘Well, yeah, actually. Look, Doctor, I don’t think you understand the kind of profit margins we’re talking about here.’
‘Profits! Profits! You’re playing with the Web of Time, and all you care about is how Time Lord biomass is doing on the FT index!’ The Doctor threw his arms wide, as if to call upon some ancient and terrible god of rhetoric. ‘If you’re so determined to put the whole universe in jeopardy, why didn’t you go the whole hog? Why didn’t you just invite the Daleks?’
Immediately, Mr Qixotl’s eyes shot back to the pixscreen. The Doctor noticed, this time, and turned to see what he was looking at.
The black