Doctor Who_ Alien Bodies - Lawrence Miles [98]
E-Kobalt acknowledged the orders, and started weighing up its options. If it had to track down a Time Lord warrior, Dronid would probably be the place to start. Even if the battle had ended by the time the Fifth Lattice got there, the Time Lords might have left some of their dead or wounded units behind.
And the Time Lord must have guessed what E-Kobalt was thinking, because it squealed: ‘You won’t be able to get near Dronid. You won’t be able to. The High Council’s going to sterilise the planet as soon as the fight’s over. It’ll be off limits for years. You won’t be able to make planetfall. I’m serious.’
The tendril clenched. The Time Lord yelped. ‘YOU-HAVE-YOUR-OR-DERS,’ the Highest Brains told E-Kobalt. ‘RE-TURN-TO-THE-FIFTH-LATT-ICE. WE-WILL-BE-GIN-A-FI-NAL-BI-O-LOG-IC-AN-AL-Y-SIS-OF-THIS-TIME-LORD-UN-IT. YOU-WILL-BE-NO-TI-FIED-OF-AN-Y-DIS-COV-ER-Y-THATMIGHT-ASS-IST-YOUR-MISS-ION.’
‘Er, what does “final biological analysis” mean?’ asked the Time Lord. But the tendril was already lifting the alien high above the floor of the cavern, and new limbs were sprouting from the crystalline walls, scalpel-pincers poised, bio-intake tubes at the ready.
E-Kobalt turned, without a word. It wasn’t the Kroton way to salute. The Commander of the Fifth Lattice started the three-day trek back to its dynatrope, its objectives clear, its mind already formulating a search strategy.
Behind it, the Time Lord unit began to scream.
10
WHAT IS AN IDENTITY CRISIS, ANYWAY?
The Doctor ran his fingertips along a strand of the web. It was sharp, sharp enough to give him a wound the size of a papercut, and it shivered when he let go of it. Traces of life, the Doctor decided. He took another look at the web’s design. Clearly a retinal pattern, stretched across the top of the stairway that led down to the lowest level. Before he’d shut down the security systems, it probably would have responded much more aggressively. He imagined it wrapping itself around his flesh, cutting its way to the bone. Now he’d taken all the systems off-line, the web was dying.
He could have been more selective, of course. He could have only switched off the systems that threatened Sam and her new companion, but that would have taken time. So he’d deactivated the lot, from the roof to the vault. Presumably, Qixotl’s damping fields were off-line now, as well. The Doctor hoped no one would upset E-Kobalt too much.
He reached into his pocket for a penknife, but the knife failed to materialise. He was mildly annoyed by that. Perhaps it was the stress; according to old Yeltstrom, you couldn’t be at one with your pockets if you weren’t entirely calm. The closest thing to a knife he managed to find was his sonic screwdriver, and the mark one version, to boot. He couldn’t remember which features he’d built into the mark one, so he pointed it at the web, pushed the trigger, and hoped for the best.
The web began to shrivel, the strings blackening and dropping to the ground like pieces of old fettucini. Eventually, there was a hole in the web big enough for him to climb through without injuring himself.
He had to cut through another three of the retina webs before he reached the lowest level. The floor there was covered in mulch by the time he arrived. The slabs had been pushed aside, torn from the ground by sick-looking growths that reminded the Doctor of leftover spleens. Now the systems were down, the growths were starting to rot, filling the atmosphere with the scent of offal.
Sam lay on her back in the undergrowth, her body wrapped up in tendrils of crispy black biomass. The creepers had died and calcified, holding her limbs in stiff, unnatural positions. Her eyes were wide open, although her pupils were rolled up under the lids. Scattered around her body were the corpses of things the Doctor really didn’t care to look at too closely.
He crouched down by Sam’s side, then tried to pull her into a sitting position. The tendrils snapped as soon as he put pressure on them. Sam made a faint moaning noise, and her head lolled forward.
The Doctor brushed the back