Doctor Who_ Interference_ Book Two - Lawrence Miles [123]
Yes. All you had to do was go through that door, and you’d be inside the planet, inside the laws that held the planet together. The Remote had used their machines to tap into the local ley lines, but you could do so much more than that, if you knew what you were doing. If you were adaptable enough, you could go through that door and become the planet.
Number Thirteen was probably the most adaptable life form that had ever lived.
It passed through the door. Well, it couldn’t resist the challenge.
Suddenly, it was stretching, flowing and expanding, reaching into the roots of every cactus on Dust, working its way into the biodata of every animal that had been born here. It was a pregnant sand snake, sheltering from the sun in the shade of a rock. It was a tree that had been reared by humans on the other side of the planet, now being torn out of the ground for its wood. It was an old woman in the town where Number Thirteen had arrived, shutting herself away inside her home, waiting for the storm to pass. It was a leech that had attached itself to a small child’s leg, and wouldn’t let go.
It was everything, everywhere, and everyone. It was the world. It was Dust.
Except that Dust, in Number Thirteen’s view, was a terrible name for a planet. It was a name for a place where life was dull, dry and hopeless. Where nothing changed, and nothing varied.
Number Thirteen objected to that. So it reached deep into the bowels of the planet, and tried something else.
* * *
The Doctor stood in the square for some time after Number Thirteen vanished, just to make sure it didn’t come back again. It didn’t. The lure of the biosphere had been too much for it, just as I.M. Foreman had predicted. More than once, the Doctor spotted signs of movement from around the square, as the locals noticed that things had returned to normal and started peering out from behind their boarded-up windows.
No. Things hadn’t returned to normal at all, had they?
The Doctor knelt down, and ran his fingers through the dust. It could have been his imagination, but even the dust felt different now. As if it no longer wanted to cling to everything it touched, as if it no longer felt the need to suck the life out of anything that moved. And then there were the shoots, of course. They hadn’t broken the surface yet, but their life patterns were so strong that the Doctor could already feel them growing. The plants were taking root in the dirt, getting ready to burst out into the square.
This time tomorrow, thought the Doctor, this town’s going to be covered in grass. Grass, or something very much like it. One of the many plant species that I.M. Foreman had ingested into his body over the years, and that had been stored inside the biology of Number Thirteen.
‘It wasn’t such a bad sort, really,’ the Doctor told the dust. ‘It didn’t want to hurt anybody. It just wanted to be everybody. And it got what it wanted. How many people can say that, eh?’
Then he stood, and clapped the dust off his hands.
There was someone standing in the square when he turned round, and at first he thought it was Sarah, disobeying instructions as usual. But Sarah didn’t carry a gun, and he’d never known her to wear a hat, either.
Magdelana stepped out into the square, and stopped a few yards in front of the Doctor. She still had both hands clamped around that shotgun of hers. Her face was as taut as ever, with the ever-present grey dust ground into the wrinkles around her mouth. Even if her hair hadn’t been tied back behind her neck, the dirt would have kept it in place anyway.
The Doctor smiled at her. Magdelana didn’t smile back.
‘It’s over,’ he said.
Magdelana’s expression didn’t change. ‘Over,’ she repeated.
The Doctor nodded. ‘The Remote won’t be bothering you again, Magdelana. And I think you’ll find that this planet’s a much more hopeful place to live, after today.’
He glanced around the square, seeing blank,