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Genevieve had been bundled back to the palace by a couple of security guards. He figured she’d been told to take him somewhere secluded, but she had been as surprised as he had when Iaomnet turned up with her weird, weird voice.

258

Eventually they came to an open area, a lawn. There were rose bushes and a white gazebo. It was so quiet.

‘Have a seat, Chris,’ said Iaomnet in her choir voice. A very scared-looking Jeopard was waiting with cucumber sandwiches.

‘What happened to you?’ he asked, taking one of the chairs in the gazebo. The security guards stood just behind him, where he couldn’t see them.

‘I speak for the Brotherhood,’ she said. ‘We picked up Ms Wszola shortly after her return to Imperial Intelligence.’ The Jeopard looked so awkward, Chris took a sandwich just to make him feel better. ‘We were dissatisfied with her debriefing. There was too much she wasn’t able to tell us. We needed a closer look.’

Chris stopped with the sandwich halfway to his mouth. ‘You killed her,’ he said, aghast.

‘She is not dead,’ said the Brotherhood. ‘She is, however, not here. Chris, we are aware of your presence on Yemaya Four in the year 2257.’

Chris wondered what they’d do if he tried to fight. They wanted something from him – badly enough to keep him alive?

‘What about it?’

‘We know that you are a latent psi.’

‘I’m not a latent psi,’ said Chris. ‘I’ve got some recessive genes, that’s all. And the cure we came up with for the Yemaya virus has probably mucked those up anyway.’

The Brotherhood said, ‘Incorrect. You have immense potential with the necessary treatment.’

‘You want to make me telepathic again,’ said Chris. The Brotherhood just looked at him. Iaomnet’s eyes and face were blank. It was like talking to a robot – her eyes reminded him of something, he couldn’t think what. ‘You bastards. You think it’s OK to do whatever you like to people’s minds.’

‘We know you were traumatized by your experiences with telepathy on Yemaya Four,’ they said. ‘You will be similarly traumatized. Your mind will open like the flower you examined.

We will learn everything about the Doctor from you, and everything you know about the Nexus.’

259

‘And then I’ll end up like Iaomnet? Just a machine to do your talking for you?’

‘No, Chris,’ said the Brotherhood. ‘Iaomnet possessed no psychic potential. You are precious. You will be the first to be liberated from silence.’

Chris stared at them for a moment. The plan was suddenly obvious. ‘You’re going to make everyone telepathic.’

‘Telepathic. Psychokinetic. Pyrokinetic. Clairvoyant.

Psychometric. Precognitive. Capable of teleportation and psychic healing. All those with the potential will be brought to fruition.’

‘You’re going to turn the whole world on?’ said Chris. ‘You’ve got another virus, haven’t you?’

‘We do not have another virus,’ said the Brotherhood. ‘That technology could not do the work on the necessary scale.’

‘What, then?’ said Chris.

‘It is time,’ said the Brotherhood. ‘The conjunction is occurring.’

‘The conjunction? What do you –’

‘Shall we continue?’ said Professor Martinique. The pepper-haired professor waited for an answer from his guest.

The Doctor sat in a comfy chair in one of the private apartments. His arms rested on the chair’s arms, his head rested against the back of the chair. It took him a moment to get his breath back. ‘Yes,’ he said.

He shifted.

His body changed, stretching and altering, but it wasn’t some kind of grotesque biological movement, just a smooth, almost mathematical change.

‘Anything interesting?’ said Martinique.

It wasn’t Martinique. Martinique was very obviously brain-dead, his empty skull echoing with the voices of the Brotherhood’s leadership. The gestalt that consulted on every decision.

It wasn’t the Doctor, either. Not exactly. He was tall and imposing and blond, but he wore black, and a brightly coloured waistcoat with a golden badge in the shape of a cat.

260

‘This is who I would have been if I hadn’t regenerated,’ he said. ‘Or one of them. He seems