Doctor Who_ The Infinity Doctors - Lance Parkin [65]
‘You have committed murder. The murder of a Time Lord,’
the Rutan stated, body tensing, adopting a combat form. ‘It is a fact of nature that those that kill Time Lords themselves die.
The Time Lords are very particular about ensuring that. By killing the Time Lord you have killed yourself.’
‘Now I will kill you,’ the Sontaran said inelegantly, bringing its ungainly body nearer the Rutan.
‘The death of this Rutan will not help your cause. The Rutan are without number. Now you have killed a Time Lord, all of Gallifrey is your enemy. The Sontaran race is finished.’
The Rutan paused, new concepts flushing through it. ‘The Rutan race swears revenge for this dead Time Lord. We will ally ourselves with Gallifrey. You will be erased from history.
You will never have existed.’
The Sontaran was within half a metre of the Rutan. Its fist was raised.
The Rutan unfurled a tentacle, whipped it around the Sontaran, and into the probic vent at the back of his neck. It found the orifice, forced its way in.
Sontar flailed, tried to reach behind itself with its unmalleable limbs.
The tentacle developed the muscles to lift the Sontaran from its feet. Sontar struggled, but the tip of the tentacle was half a metre within its body, now, developing spines and barbs to keep itself there. To the Rutan, the Sontaran was a collection of electrical and temperature fields, concentrated in the torso. It began to drain the energy from the Sontaran’s body, sucking it into itself. A satisfying method of execution.
The Sontaran clearly felt pain during this procedure, that was clear from the form of its face, with its bulging eyes and the screeching wideness of its mouth.
‘Your corpse will be a peace offering to the Time Lords,’
the Rutan told Sontar. ‘All the secrets of the Sontaran Empire are mine. The electrical patterns of your meat-brain, those things that you assert to be your thoughts and memories will be absorbed into the Rutan. That will be our prize. The Sontaran race will be a race of slaves, or of cattle. You have lost. You are lost.’
It was drinking the Sontaran’s thoughts now.
One memory was foremost. Sontar had stood in the laboratories as the scientists – the Rutan could remember each and every one of their names – had made their proposal. The War had been running badly for centuries. His clones had fought bravely, they were numberless, tactical geniuses, but they were losing. The propaganda broadcasts still told of magnificent victories, but even the feast perceptive foot soldier must have noticed by now that the magnificent victories were taking place closer and closer to home. The Rutan fleets were now less than fifty light years from the Throneworld.
(The Rutan remembered this time from the race memory.) Every one of the trillion Sontarans had to eat, had to be kept warm. Most of the space aboard their warships were given over to providing food and water. The scientists had shown him a new clone. One without a digestive system or sex organs, one with easily synthesisable mineral solutions rather than blood. A stripped-down Sontaran, one that could be fed raw energy. They’d simplified the structure of the brain at the same time, streamlined much of the nervous system.
Redundant features such as eyelids and fingernails had been removed. It would have no toes and only three fingers. This body would be easy to duplicate and maintain.
With heavy heart, Sontar had signed the order. From now on, every Sontaran would be like this. He had wept that night.
‘You have lost so much,’ the Rutan said.
The Rutan was unsure what to think, so it analysed its surroundings instead as it digested this new piece of information.
The column at the centre of the control console had stopped moving. There was a resonant chime, far below them.
‘Stop!’ a voice ordered.
No further analysis of the environment was needed. This was the Doctor. He was a powerful presence.