Doctor Who_ Deep Blue - Mark Morris [94]
hospitals, supermarkets, factories - had been targeted and attacked en masse. In other areas of the country the attacks had been swift and invidious, creating ever-expanding clusters of new Xaranti. There was now a lull before the next storm, the streets (around here, at least) quiet because the newly infected, driven by their strange, new alien instincts, had retreated into darkness and solitude to gestate, metamorphosise.
Half a mile from the promenade the Doctor stopped the truck and got out. The new Xaranti, their work done for the time being, had congregated in this area, having felt an instinctive urge to be close to the force controlling their minds. To their queen. To Xaranti Prime. To the brains of the operation. There was no Xaranti word for it, only inadequate human equivalents. Understanding their instinct, the Doctor slipped through the streets, keeping close to the walls, hugging whatever shadows he could. He ducked from one shop doorway to the next, crouching behind parked cars and litter bins, listening and watching not only with his eyes and ears, but also with his mind.
His internal radar - ironically a gift from the Xaranti themselves - allowed him to remain undetected for some considerable time, but at last his luck ran out. The problem was that he was able to detect the presence of other Xaranti only at close-quarters - half a street away at most - which gave him little time to find a hiding place. On this occasion he sensed several Xaranti in the street to his right, heading his way, and so turned to run back the way he had come. As he ran, he realised - too late - that there were more Xaranti approaching from the other end of the street. He skidded to a halt just as this second group came around the corner and saw him.
There were four of them, three males and a female, all relatively young. They were in the mid-stage of transformation, their eyes black, their faces changing shape and bristling with spines, their Xaranti legs and altering musculature causing them to hunch over. Despite this, they moved swiftly, their leader - a shaggy-haired man in a now-ragged denim shirt - actually dropping on all fours to approach the Doctor. The Doctor took a step back, then thought better of it and drew himself up to his full height.
‘Good afternoon,’ he said.
The denim-shirted hybrid hissed at him, which prompted the others to do the same. All four moved in threateningly.
The Doctor stood his ground, looked at them as imperiously as he could, and said, ‘Don’t you know who I am?’
As he asked the question, he mentally gathered up a sample of the Xaranti thought-patterns that were still roaming through his mind, mixed them with his own, and telepathically threw the whole bundle towards them. The leader flinched and blinked and the Doctor knew that the message had stuck.
The hybrid’s mouth opened and in a slurred, guttural voice it said, ‘Doctor.’
That’s right,’ said the Doctor gently as if speaking to a nervous but potentially dangerous animal. ‘I’m the Doctor and I’m one of you now. We are all Xaranti.’
Though he could feel the infection making inroads into his system, for the moment the Doctor was able to control it, to use it. He made his eyes go black simply by letting go, giving in to it for a moment. ‘We are all Xaranti,’ he repeated softly,
‘and I’m on a very important mission. I’m going to see the queen.’
The four hybrids looked mesmerised for a moment, then the denim-shirted one shook his head like a dog with a flea in its ear.
‘No,’ he growled, the effort of talking apparently