Doctor Who_ Interference_ Book Two - Lawrence Miles [113]
‘Faction?’ queried the Doctor. At last, he looked worried.
‘That’s not what we were going to say,’ I.M. Foreman cut in. ‘Isn’t there something you’re forgetting, Father?’
‘Is there?’
‘Oh yes. There are only twelve of us here. My first twelve incarnations.’
Thirteen, thought Kreiner. Thirteen wagons. Again, he was sure the Remote ship was trying to communicate with him through the receiver, although he couldn’t tell exactly what it was saying. There was the sound of screaming being pumped into the back of his skull, and it was giving him a headache.
‘One of the people I found out in the wastelands wasn’t like the others,’ I.M. Foreman explained. ‘My last self was different. My final form wasn’t really a form at all. It was more like a force of nature than a person. Raw life energy, I suppose. It didn’t have a body, as such. It was the essence of all the biological data my regenerations had been collecting over the years. The ultimate Gallifreyan life form. My destiny. The final state of I.M. Foreman.’
‘But you locked it up,’ the Doctor’s companion said.
‘We had to,’ said the showman. ‘It didn’t see things the way we saw them. It just wanted to eat. To consume as much life as possible. To learn from as many other beings as it could swallow. The perfect geek, really. It was quite a job, capturing it like that. And, believe me, it wasn’t easy, knowing it was really me we were locking up. Knowing I’d end up trapped like that one day.’
God almighty, thought Father Kreiner. This creature, this Number Thirteen; it’s still alive, inside one of the wagons of the travelling show. It’s been trapped there for centuries, for millennia. For longer than I’ve been trapped in this useless, rotting, heavy-metal body. And it’s still there.
And I.M. Foreman must have guessed what he was thinking – or maybe Kreiner’s thoughts were leaking out of his receiver, who could say? – because suddenly the blind man was smiling again, a kind of I-told‐you-so smile that he must have been practising for years. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s right. Number Thirteen’s been growing. It’s been locked up ever since we left Gallifrey, but it can still sense things living on the planets we’ve visited. It’s been learning from them. Picking up new tricks from their biodata. We’ve worried about it getting out, sometimes. But it hasn’t ever managed to slip through the safety protocols of the show. Until today, anyway.’
The Remote troops started muttering. There were voices shrieking in Kreiner’s receiver, the media systems of the ship, finally telling him exactly what was happening on board.
The crew members were screaming. Being eaten alive. Father Kreiner’s nerves were ringing in sympathy with them.
‘We gave the travelling show a few instructions before we left,’ said the Doctor. ‘You can program it, you know. Just like you can program a TARDIS, although I believe my friend here uses meditation techniques instead of control panels.’
‘What-did‐you-do?’ Kreiner shouted. It was hard getting the words out through the pain in his skull, and he could sense the Remote troops looking at him as if he were going mad, but right now he couldn’t have cared less what they thought.
‘Simple,’ said I.M. Foreman. ‘We told the show to give us time to get clear. Then to open up the seals on wagon thirteen. To set Number Thirteen free. For the first time since Old Gallifrey.’
‘You could have explained this to me better,’ the Doctor’s companion mumbled, but everyone ignored her.
‘Why?’ Kreiner shrieked. ‘Why-do‐this?’
‘Don’t worry,’ I.M. Foreman told him. ‘We’ve got a plan.’
‘It’s coming,’ said the Doctor.
And, indeed, it was.
* * *
The Remote ship had been the first thing Number Thirteen had noticed, once it had been let out of its wagon. It had sensed life there, complex human life, and for the first time in thousands of years it had actually been able to reach its prey. So its first decision as a free life form – even