Doctor Who_ Interference_ Book Two - Lawrence Miles [77]
Touch me, said the Cold.
So Guest touched, reaching out for the centre of the darkness, nerve endings wrapping themselves around the heart of the Cold. His thoughts joined with its thoughts. Guest gasped, and the rest of the Cold gasped too.
‘And now?’ asked Guest.
Your choice, the Cold told him.
‘Can I set you free?’
Oh yes. If you want to.
* * *
The Doctor rushed out of the TARDIS without even checking the scanner. Sam hurried after him, to find herself back on the top level of the transmitter building. She could hear gunfire from the ground floor, and the tower trembled slightly as she stepped on to the platform, so the fighters were obviously still having a go at the place.
The Doctor hardly seemed to notice. He stared up at the media globe, a look of absolute concentration on his face.
‘It’s telepathic,’ he mumbled. ‘It’s got to be. All part of standard TARDIS design. Come here!’
He shouted those last two words. No sooner had he spoken than the sphere began to pulse, and expand, the surface stretching towards the platform. Sam shrank back, only to bump into Kode and Compassion, hovering in the door of the TARDIS.
‘It’s going to absorb him,’ Compassion said.
‘No,’ said the Doctor. The sphere was huge now, almost touching the top of the TARDIS, but it stopped growing before it could swallow him. He reached up, carefully placing his hands against the surface. The globe rippled as he touched it, the blackness slurping at his skin. Sam saw the kink in the Doctor’s right arm, and wondered what had been happening to him recently.
‘There,’ muttered the Doctor. ‘There. Now. You can hear me, can’t you? You can hear me.’
Down below, the sounds of gunfire subsided. Sam wondered if everyone in Anathema had heard the Doctor’s voice, if they were already tuning in to the new signals from the media.
‘Guest,’ the Doctor said. ‘Can you hear me, Guest?’
* * *
Guest opened his mouth, or what he thought was his mouth, to give the Cold its instructions. Odd, really. He’d expected it to order him around, not the reverse.
Then he noticed it.
Something was coming through the receiver. Something from outside the Cold. A signal, filtered through the transmitter. A will strong enough to make ripples in the media just by brushing its surface.
Well? said the Cold.
* * *
‘Listen to me, Guest. Listen to me, because I’m about to tell you the most important thing you’ve ever heard.
‘It’s like this.
‘Many years ago – or sometime in the future, from my point of view – the Time Lords went to war. I don’t know the details, because it’s not my place to, but the Time Lords made some very powerful enemies, and it didn’t take long for the fighting to start. And the Time Lords knew a thing or two about high-level technology, so the weapons they built were very, very advanced. I know that much. Not because I’ve seen the future, but because I know how the Time Lords think. I know how Faction Paradox thinks, too, so it’s not hard to put the pieces together.
‘The Time Lords built a ship. A warship, capable of destroying whole planets. Your city was built on that ship, but I suppose you know that. Now, I don’t know what planet the ship was aimed at. The enemy’s homeworld, possibly It’s not important right now.
‘Sam, shh! I’m busy.
‘The important thing is, the warship was armed with what the Time Lords considered to be the ultimate weapon. Think about it, Guest. How do you destroy a planet, when your enemies know as much about weapons technology as you do? It’s no good trying to just blow it up. There are devices that can prevent that kind of physical damage. No. The Time Lords fitted their ship with a weapon that could remove things from the continuum, remove entire worlds, beyond any hope of recovery.
‘You see, they remembered their own past. They remembered how Rassilon had punched holes in the universe, and let some terrible things