Doctor Who_ So Vile a Sin - Ben Aaronovitch [127]
They turned as one to gesture at the Nexus. This way, the human race will have been telepathic from the beginning. We are the lens that focuses the signal. You will help us modulate the signal, control the change. The liberation will occur. The aeons of silence will be ended.
Chris looked at the Nexus. Something was moving in there. It made his brain itch to look at it.
We need your help, Doctor.
The Doctor took a breath and said, ‘Take two aspirin and call me in the morning.’
‘If they threaten me or anything,’ said Chris, ‘don’t help them.’
He would not, said the Grandmaster. We know this is too important a change for Time’s Champion to allow. Even to save the life of his steward.
The light from the Nexus was making it hard to think. He was sure he could see something inside it, something that struggled. ‘I don’t understand,’ said Chris.
Ripples of laughter moved through the Grandmaster. Giggles coming from interconnected throats in some hidden geometric pattern.
It’s always been about you, Doctor.
‘Why? Why has it been about me?’
294
When the N-form attacked Earth, a millennium ago, it changed the Brotherhood for ever. We might all have been destroyed by that horror, from full psis to those with single recessive genes.
And we knew that we would face you, as we had faced you, again and again and again.
‘I just stumbled across you,’ said the Doctor. ‘It wasn’t intentional.’
We could not merely be a meeting place for the Gifted. We must gain power, protect ourselves. And later, the mission came.
The liberation.
‘GRUMPY was part of that process, wasn’t he?’ said the Doctor. ‘You were trying to learn how to make people telepathic.
Make them like you. Make them just like you.’
A good example of your interference in our plans.
‘Look at it from my point of view,’ said the Doctor. ‘You’re paranoid – you think I’ve been chasing you. Trying to expose you. But our paths have crossed at random. I’ve never sought you out.’ His shoulders fell. ‘We didn’t have to be enemies.’
And now?
‘Now I’ll do whatever I can to stop this insane plan of yours.’
Join us, they told him.
Chris felt the Doctor tense. ‘If you do have a plan, Doctor,’ he whispered, ‘now would be a good time.’
The Grandmaster fixed their eyes on the Time Lord.
Who are you, Doctor? they asked.
The Doctor cried out. Chris caught him as he lost his balance, arms thrown up in front of his face.
You’ve always been the one to change whatever needed changing. Join us.
‘I can’t block them!’ shouted the Doctor.
You’ve always been lonely. So lonely. Join us.
‘They’re getting in! Stop, I can’t stop it!’
Chris held him. Maybe he could do something once they’d sucked him into the gestalt. Maybe he’d think of something at the last minute.
He looked at the Nexus. It was shining brighter and brighter, as though sensing what was going on around it.
295
‘This can’t be it,’ shrieked the Doctor. ‘This can’t be how the story ended!’
Saturn orbit, 28 August 2982
Vincenzi came out of deep sleep an hour before their objective.
He’d set the timer for eight hours and a gentle wake-up. Instead, someone had snapped off the current. It was like being woken up with a faceful of nettles.
Vincenzi kept his eyes closed for a moment, making up his mind how to kill the soldier who’d just interrupted his rest.
When he opened them, there was a colonel looking down at him with an evil smile.
Vincenzi swallowed a rude word and leapt out of the sleeper in his singlet and shorts. ‘Ma’am!’ He saluted.
‘At ease, Lieutenant,’ she said, amused. She looked up and down the row of sleeping soldiers, resting as fast as they could after the engagements on Mars. ‘Get your togs on. I want a briefing.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Vincenzi, reaching for his uniform. ‘Erm, weren’t you one of the prisoners we picked up in the Agamemnon system?’
‘Secret mission, Lieutenant.’
‘Of course, ma’am. With all due respect, ma’am,’ he said,