Doctor Who_ Deep Blue - Mark Morris [95]
‘I can’t do that,’ said the Doctor firmly. ‘I’m going to see the queen. I’ve been told to see the queen. If you try to stop me, it will be bad for you.’
The Doctor could sense the hybrids’ confusion. They understood that he was indeed Xaranti, and that the Xaranti were all one. However they were unaware of the orders he claimed to be following, knew only that their instructions were to find and capture him. The Doctor knew he was fortunate that he had run into this group and not into one which was more fully integrated into the Xaranti communal mind. Not only would those in a more advanced metamorphic state have been aware that he was lying, but they would also have been able to send a telepathic message to every other hybrid and fully-fledged Xaranti in the vicinity, detailing his whereabouts.
‘You’re confused,’ the Doctor said gently, allowing a soothing telepathic pulse to accompany his words. ‘Your minds are still clouded. You are not yet fully Xaranti. You still speak in a human voice.’
The Doctor was taking a gamble that the scintilla of human reason that remained in the hybrid’s mind was still active enough to enable the creatures to understand his words, but no longer analytical enough to think them through. If it was, it would show the hybrids the loopholes in his argument - the fact that he himself was still in the very early stages of infection, for example, and thus presumably even more prone to confusion and misinterpretation than they were. He needn’t have worried. Almost immediately he sensed the hybrids struggling with his arguments. He stepped forward and spread his arms, pressing home his advantage. ‘The queen wants to see me. I’m going to her now. The only way you’ll stop me is to kill me. So if you’re not sure, kill me now, and face the consequences later.’
The female drew herself in and glanced nervously at her companions, her pink - still very human - tongue darting out to lick her lips. The other hybrids hung back, their minds a stew of conflicting thoughts and emotions. The Doctor looked at the leader, keeping his face impassive, trying to project an air of authority not only with his demeanour and his unblinking stare, but also with the steady, uncluttered thought-waves he projected towards them.
The leader groaned and rose from all fours to his feet; it no longer seemed his natural state. He stretched out an arm, the hand blackening, gnarling, and he pointed towards the sea.
‘You... go...’ he said.
Hybrids, both military and civilian, spread out into the streets around the Lombard Hotel, looking for Turlough. The Brigadier, scratching his chest, feeling the Xaranti spines rasp against his clothing, walked beside Benton. Benton had taken a long time to succumb, but now that the infection had taken hold it was rampaging through his system. His face was red and mottled where the spines were lurking beneath the surface of his skin, preparing to break through, and even his back was a little more hunched than the Brigadier’s, who himself had begun to feel a pleasurable tingling between his shoulder blades.
The Brigadier could not now understand why he had resisted the call of the Xaranti for so long. Trying to hang on to the disparate mess of his human thoughts had led only to fatigue and confusion. Finally allowing the Xaranti access had been like seeing the light, admitting a new and astonishing clarity into his life. He was born anew, felt a fresh and glorious future rising from the ashes of his past.
He was Xaranti. They were all Xaranti. They were all one.
Despite their failure to apprehend the boy, and the fact that the Doctor was still at large, the Brigadier felt that their plans were moving inexorably forward, coming to fruition.
The boy would be apprehended soon enough and he would lead them to the Doctor, or at least to the Doctor’s TARDIS.
With that in their possession it would only be a matter of time before the Doctor succumbed. And when that happened the Xaranti would be invincible. They would spread out across the stars,