Doctor Who_ Peacemaker - James Swallow [62]
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‘Doctor!’ Martha glared at him. ‘You can’t let them do that!’
Nathan backed away a step. ‘It’s Godlove, or that thing! He’s still got it in his head!’
The Doctor turned very deliberately to look at Martha and his frosty expression didn’t change; but ever so quickly, he winked at her. He turned back to the longriders. ‘Well? Do you want this or not?’
‘We do,’ said Kutter.
‘Then catch!’ With a sudden flash of motion, the Doctor threw the Clade weapon towards the yawning dark pit of the wrecked elevator shaft in the middle of the cavern. Panic flared on the faces of Kutter and Tangleleg. Both of the outlaws surged forward, bumping into one another in a scramble to grab the disconnected Command Unit before it fell into the bottomless hollow.
Hands reaching out, both men snatched at the Clade weapon and caught it between them. There was a glitter of blue-white electricity as their altered flesh touched the metallic frame, and, like a tidal wave of brass and steel, the Command Unit exploded open, spitting out thousands of fine wires and thick cables. The shimmering leads stabbed and curved into the outstretched arms of the longriders, pen-etrating cloth and skin.
The weapon itself began to throb, putting out a low, sullen pulse of noise. Kutter and Tangleleg stood on the spot, convulsing as the wires threaded into them. From their open mouths came a droning, clattering buzz that escalated in pitch. Martha realised abruptly that it was the Clade equivalent of a scream.
‘What did you do, Doc?’ said Nathan, his eyes wide.
The Doctor swept around, his coat flaring open behind him. ‘Ex-plain later,’ he shouted, as the pulsing sound from the gun grew louder and louder. ‘Run now!’
Martha felt the noise in her bones more than she heard it. Ultra-sound, she realised, as fines of grit and small pebbles began to trickle down from widening cracks in the stone ceiling.
The Doctor put the flat of his hand in the small of her back and propelled her forward. ‘Hurry up, Martha Jones, unless you want to be a permanent resident!’ They started running, as all around them 151
the rocks began to grind against one another, filling the tunnels with coils of choking dust.
Once he had been able to touch the web of the Clade command net-work with his mind, the Doctor found the key to defeating them there before him. The Godlove-Clade told him that the weapons had never taken a Time Lord as a host before and, once it had merged with him, he knew why. Any member of a race as advanced as the Time Lords could instantly fathom the structure of the intricate but straightfor-ward Clade programming – all it took was the ability to think beyond the conventional four dimensions, something as easy as breathing for the Doctor.
When the Clade looked into the Doctor, the Doctor looked into the Clade. All the time it was rummaging through the memories of his companions and past adventures, he was understanding how the weapons worked, how they thought. True, there had been a moment when he started to lose himself in there, deep in the non-space of the machine mind; but Martha, brilliant and daring Martha Jones, had brought him back.
A blank slate when it had emerged from its hard-pod after the crash, the Command Unit had slowly absorbed the pattern of its persona from Alvin Godlove. A man led by nothing but greed, that emotion imprinted on the Clade, blinding it to everything else. That greed made it want the Doctor’s flesh for itself, craving him as its new host-body without even stopping to think if it could master his mind.
The Clade had, quite literally, bitten off more than it could chew.
And now it would pay the price.
Locked in a feedback loop, programs cycling endlessly, spouting gib-berish and frozen in place, the Clades inhabiting the bodies of Kutter and Tangleleg could do nothing but follow the Command Unit into a spiral of repeating negative orders as a dangerous overload loomed.
Through the storm of chattering, colliding programs, the Clades united to force out one final word from their lips. They could do nothing