Doctor Who_ Cat's Cradle_ Times Crucible - Marc Platt [99]
Ace went on the defence. "It was attacking the kid. I had to stop it. Do you want to make something of it?"
Pekkary bowed his head in awe. "Shonnzi was right about you. We should have listened. On my world, such a deed would be foretold in legend."
Ace kicked the ground awkwardly. "On my world, it wouldn't even make the Ealing Gazette." She eyed him cautiously. "When you were guards, in those helmet things, did you know what you were doing?"
"Our bodies were puppets, slaves to the Process's will. But we knew. And we felt every blow we inflicted on ourselves."
"Gross," said Ace. "Sorry."
"Now that torture has been entrusted to another."
"I know," she said quietly. "Like wheels going round. Pekkary and Pekkary Unlimited. And Pekkary and Pekkary and back to Pekkary . . . And you never get out of the loop."
"The details are changing." He knelt and touched the glowing flowers with his brutal claw. "There are many things I do not remember. So I may not live long. I am only a possibility on one branch of the Tree of Infinity."
He was still a cold fish, thought Ace. But he wasn't so morbid as he once had been — or still was somewhere across a mercury stream. This old Pekkary, faced with utter despair, was some-bow fused with a new hope.
"Where are the others?" she asked. "And what about Shonnzi? Was he released?"
Pekkary turned away. "I am the only one."
"They're still Guards then. But if you're free, they can be freed too!"
He was silent.
"Well?"
"No."
"No? What do you mean, no?"
He shook his head. "There are still possibilities to save them. On the First Phase of the City."
"Jesus. They're dead, aren't they?" The words sounded impossibly flat for what she felt.
"Where is Wilby the Doctor?" he said.
She was too stunned to answer. She listened to the ground rumbling its protest. The buildings had begun to creak as if terminal subsidence was setting in. Again she heard, but did not register, a brief burst of animal panting.
"But we let them go," she said. "They just walked away."
"That was a long time before. The summons cannot be broken. Where is the Doctor?"
"I don't know," she despaired. "I couldn't stop them. Vael took him off somewhere. It was a trap." She pointed to the Process. "But that thing was attacking the kid . . ."
She stopped. The monster's flank was undulating slightly. Its fins twitched.
Pekkary was looking up at the light tracery on the City above them. "We must find the Doctor quickly," he said. "Vael has his own games to play. And the younger Process intends to assert a new regime. The City is already changing."
"Pekkary," called Ace, and she darted back in fright. The dead Process was slowly raising its head. Its voice came as a gurgled whisper. "The younger Process, its plan will fail! This world, it is ruined. A new world will replace it. A new Beginning has already begun!"
A fresh tremor shook the ground. At the far end of the street, the walls supporting the isolated TARDIS attic caved in.
The Process's body convulsed as it started to struggle up. It snarled out its rage, proclaiming the threat of its recovery.
Ace grabbed Pekkary's claw. As they ran from the street, she saw a distant flash of light and something like a giant beanstalk coiling into the sky.
The Doctor's knuckles whitened as he crouched on the insane structure. The speeding air tore at him, trying to rip him from his perch as he watched the spinning City drop away beneath them.
Vael was spreadeagled on the stone steps below, too terrified to move. His eyes, somebody's eyes, were fixed on the Doctor.
The spiral stairway corkscrewed into the dark sky, its thread of steps growing on fresh beyond its broken end, swaying out unsupported into the abyss overhead.
The Doctor fished a pair of enhanced opera glasses marked "PROPRIETA DI VERONA ARENA" from his back pocket. He swung his knees round and lay prone along a step, his head jutting over the edge, watching the