Doctor Who_ Alien Bodies - Lawrence Miles [82]
‘A Kroton?’ the witch-woman said.
‘Shee-it,’ smirked her companion.
The curly man bowed. ‘May I present to you all, E-Kobalt-Prime of the Kroton Absolute. Fifth Lattice, apparently.’ He stretched out a hand, as if to usher the Kroton into the room. ‘I think you all should know, E-Kobalt’s already called in the reinforcements. So please try to be polite.’
The crystal monstrosity shambled into the room, its head spinning stupidly on top of its body. Homunculette noticed that someone had scratched letters into the thin layer of dust on the floor in front of him. I’VE GOT TO ADMIT, I’M SURPRISED, said the Shift.
Kortez cleared his throat. ‘On behalf of the people of Earth –’ he began.
‘We-are-read-y-to-be-gin-the-auction?’ queried E-Kobalt, not waiting for the human to finish the speech. The Colonel looked slightly insulted.
Cousin Justine stepped forward. ‘E-Kobalt-Prime. Faction Paradox welcomes you here, in the name of the Grandfather, and by the will of the Spirits.’ The Kroton’s head spun all the way around, as if searching for these Spirits it was being introduced to. ‘Please excuse us, but we weren’t expecting a being such as yourself. Your people aren’t known to be time-active, and your empire is many millennia away from here. We understood you posessed only theoretical knowledge of the Spirits of Time.’
‘The-time-corr-i-dor-to-this-loc-a-tion-was-op-ened-by-the-al-i-en-vess-el-I-int-er-cep-ted. The-War-spear-I-have-summ-oned-will-fol-low-the-same-corr-i-dor.’
‘But even so. To find you interested in the Relic...’
‘What she means is, nobody takes you seriously,’ slurred Homunculette. ‘We were expecting someone dangerous. The Cybermen or the Sontarans. Even the Voord are more frightening than you people.’ The other Faction cultist sniggered at that, but it didn’t stop him kicking Homunculette in the guts.
The man with the curls smiled. Homunculette got the feeling he was laughing at all of them. ‘I can see we’re all going to get along splendidly. Mr Qixotl’s gone to shut off the alarms, by the way. Until he gets back, does anybody feel like a quick game of chess? I’ve got a pocket set with me, and I think I’ve got the hang of the way the horsey things move now.’
Bregman wasn’t sure where the labyrinth had come from. The last thing she remembered, properly remembered, was the vault. The Relic had been behind her, and her own face had been staring at her from the buds of the flesh-plants. She vaguely recalled seeing the entrance to a tunnel somewhere nearby. She seemed to remember trampling through the flowers, crushing her own head under her boots as she’d made for the exit.
The walls of the labyrinth were smooth and fleshy, made of a substance that seemed almost transparent, if you stared at it hard enough. There were dark shapes moving on the other side of those walls. The architecture of the vault had crumbled, letting the maze grow up in its place. The floor was carpeted with rubble and biomass.
Another bunch of flowers exploded from the ground in front of Bregman. They were larger than the others she’d seen, the buds almost touching the ceiling, each stem the width of one of her thighs. She skidded to a halt, slipped, and fell onto her back. Half a dozen crude copies of her own head swung down at her, blinking in a dazed fashion.
Jesus. Did she really look like that? The faces were so bland, so lost-looking, so... stupid. Dumb animal faces. Cows on the way to the slaughter-yard, hedgehogs ambling across motorways. Yeah, and wasn’t that the truth? Lieutenant Kathleen Bregman, a proud example of the human race, the sentient cattle of the universe. Around here, even the furniture was smarter than she was.
The heads swung this way and that, taking in the labyrinth around them but not understanding the first