Doctor Who_ Alien Bodies - Lawrence Miles [72]
Straddling the dead thing was a decidedly alive thing. At first glance, it looked a lot like a spider, a heavy body supported by narrow, over-extended legs. Most of these legs were planted on the floor of the control section, although a couple were draped across the display panels. The limbs, the Doctor realised, were shafts of flexible crystal, each one no thicker than a piece of rope. The torso was a shapeless lump of the same substance, much more dense than the legs, topped by a geometric “head” made up of precise triangles and rectangles. The thing had no face, although several delicate sensory extensions were arranged around the cranial unit, glassy blue feelers that swayed from side to side as if tasting the air.
A single tendril extended from the underside of the being’s torso, short but powerful-looking. The tendril had punctured the dead creature’s shell, and the Doctor could see transparent vein-like tubes running along its length, some pumping digestive acid into the corpse, others transporting liquefied biomass up into the crystal creature’s body. The biomass was green when it left the cadaver, but by the time it reached its destination, it had crystallised and turned bright blue.
Everything finally clicked into place.
The creature wasn’t really spider-like, not in its natural environment. But it was adaptable. The only solid parts of the being were the “head”, which contained the central nervous system, and the tendril. Whenever the creature moved from one kind of environment to another, it would shatter the rest of its body from the inside, then use the tendril to absorb fresh biomass – say, from any organic life-form unlucky enough to be in the vicinity – and use it to grow itself a new shell.
The being had attacked the ship, forced its way on board, and killed the original crew. The Doctor couldn’t see it standing up to the crew’s weapons with just its tendril, so he guessed the intruder had been armed. It had spent the trip here slowly absorbing its prey, saving up enough raw material for a new body when it arrived. The spider form was what it wore during space flight, ideal for low-gravity conditions, but looking more than a little shaky now it had reached Earth. Its legs trembled as it sucked the last of the organic matter out of the ship’s pilot.
The Doctor took in the rest of the control area, and noticed two things of interest. One was the look of sheer nausea on Qixotl’s face. The other was a small crystalline growth, attached to one of the navigational computers. The intruder had planted a sub-organic control device in the ship’s systems, making the vessel obedient to its own will.
The Doctor had expected this, for the simple reason that he’d met these creatures before. But the last time he’d seen them, they’d been wearing much stockier bodies, better suited to life on a high-gravity world.
The crystalline thing looked up, or rather, it twisted its feelers towards the hatchway. Its head spun on top of its body.
‘You-are-the-be-ing-called-Qix-ot-l?’ it groaned. Its voice was a monotonous electronic gurgle, like a man with a throat full of nails.
The Doctor pointed to Qixotl. Qixotl whimpered.
‘I-have-come-to-att-end-your-auc-tion,’ the intruder announced.
‘Erm... do you have an invite?’ The intruder’s head spun a little faster, so Qixotl raised his hands defensively. ‘I mean, not that you’re not welcome. But the security around here, y’know, if you’re not on the guest list...’
‘This-vess-el-was-int-er-cept-ed-in-mid-flight. I-have-taken-poss-ess-ion-of-the-in-vit-at-ion.