Doctor Who_ The King of Terror - Keith Topping [96]
The process of revealing their domed heads was the worst aspect. If it felt half as painful as it looked and sounded, thought Lethbridge-Stewart, then they must be in agony.
‘No more disadvantages,’ rasped the thing that had been Bois.
‘It would seem not,’ continued the thing that had been Sanger. ‘You believe you know what we are. This is what we are.’
‘Never thought I’d see the pair of you alive again,’ Mel Tyrone told Paynter and Tegan as they stepped down from the UNIT helicopter that had brought them back from the desert.
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‘Rumours of our demise were greatly exaggerated,’ said Paynter as they clambered stiffly into the staff car which would take them to headquarters.
‘Any chance of a bath when we get there?’ he asked.
Tyrone laughed. ‘I think we might be able to arrange that.’ He turned his attention to the girl ‘And how’s Miss Tegan coping?’
‘She’s had better days,’ Tegan answered truthfully.
‘Well, at least I’m able to give you a bit of good news. Your friend Turlough was found by the LAPD on Sunset Strip. He was in a pretty bad way, but he’s basically all right. He’s getting checked over at the hospital now.’
The relief that Tegan felt was immense. So huge, so utter, that she scarcely believed it herself. ‘Thank you,’ she told Tyrone simply, and slumped exhausted back in her seat. Within seconds she was sinking into a deep, and for once untroubled, sleep.
The InterCom boardroom had descended into a tense silence in which the only sounds were the rasp of the creatures breathing and an occasional cough from Lethbridge-Stewart as his vocal cords adjusted to the thicker, more gaseous atmosphere. At last the Doctor broke the spell the Jex were creating.
‘A taste of things to come Brigadier,’ he said, pointing towards the dense purple mist that was seeping through one of the ventilator ducts. ‘It’s relatively harmless,’ he continued, noting Lethbridge-Stewart’s startled expression. ‘Trihexabenopolyethylochloride,’ he explained confidentially.
‘ What? ’ wheezed Lethbridge-Stewart.
‘Trihexabenopolyethylochloride,’ repeated the Time Lord. His voice seemed to the Brigadier to be coming from far away. ‘Looks deadly, but it’s actually nontoxic to humans,’ the Doctor continued, ‘although it’ll leave you a little short of breath until you get used to it.’
The thing that had been Paolo Sanger moved closer to the Doctor, its pincers clattering threateningly like castanets. ‘You know much about our gas,’ it said in a floating sibilant voice.
‘I know a lot about lots of things,’ the Doctor boasted. ‘I suppose you could say I’m an expert. And do you know what the definition of an expert is? It’s somebody who knows more and more about less and less, until eventually they know everything about nothing, do you see?’
‘Enough,’ growled the thing that had been Theydon Bois. ‘ What are you?’
‘An exile,’ the Doctor told him truthfully.
Before the conversation could continue the door of the conference room opened and Ryman stood silhouetted, an astonished look on his face as he glanced from the two visitors to the conglomerate members.
‘What the hell is going on here?’ he asked.
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‘Where have you been?’ the thing that had been Sanger hissed. A menacing question in answer to one of surprise and concern.
Ryman entered the boardroom and shut the door behind him, clearly startled to find that his colleagues were in their true form in front of the Doctor and the Brigadier.
‘We have guests,’ he said, looking at the soldier and the Time Lord. ‘This is all rather informal for guests.’
‘They know,’ the thing that had been Joyce told him.
The thing that had been Sanger waited for several seconds before adding,
‘Everything.’
‘Well, perhaps not quite everything,’ the Doctor told Ryman with a charming smile. ‘But we know what you are. We know why you’re here, and we know what you intend to do with this planet. And, I suppose, we’re