Doctor Who_ The Nightmare of Black Island - Mike Tucker [59]
He glanced up at Peyne. ‘They came for me during the Blitz. I was living in London at the time, working for a patent office, invalided out of the armed services because of my supposed “mental aberration”. I thought that a bomb had landed on the house, but they had used the bombing to conceal their landing.’
Peyne gave a thin smile. ‘An exhilarating flight. I had forgotten the pleasures of a simple, old-fashioned world war.’
‘How did you find him?’
‘Through meditation and patience. The Synod sent operatives to every corner of the universe, scanning the ether, looking for signs, scouring the psychic planes with our minds. The conflict on this planet attracted our curiosity, and it led us to discover Morton.’
‘Who led you in turn to the others.’ The Doctor nodded slowly. The long, sad history was now dropping into place.
‘Eventually.’ Peyne sighed. ‘It took a long time to piece Morton’s mind back together until he was of use to us. He was closest to the crash, so he holds the greatest part of Balor.’
‘A lifetime’s work, Doctor.’ Morton sounded tired now. ‘Year upon year tracking down the others, stealing them one by one from under the noses of the authorities, taking them against their will if necessary. Bringing them back here. Preparing them for this moment. Bringing them home.’
‘To the rectory.’
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‘Yes. The crash site area holds a residual psychic trace that is beneficial to the Balor entity.’
‘And keeping them in a vegetative state, that was beneficial too?’
‘For the protection of Balor, yes,’ snapped Peyne. ‘Their primitive minds struggle with the fragments they contain. One of the females had attempted suicide. We cannot risk losing a single part of his essence before we have renewed him.’
‘And that’s what all this is about!’ The Doctor waved expansively around the library. ‘Renewal. Removing all the pieces of Balor back out of the minds of the children that witnessed him crash all those years ago and putting those pieces. . . in here!’ He spun, staring up at the monster that hung before him. ‘Putting them back in a great big specially constructed body. A body constructed from psychic projections, from the nightmares.’
He turned back to Peyne. ‘Why? Why go to all the trouble of using the children, eh? Why not just use the memories of Morton and his friends to reconstruct the body of Balor as he was?’
‘We’re too old, Doctor, too weak,’ Morton sighed. ‘I still have some strength, but the others. . . ’
‘Besides,’ Peyne said, circling the Doctor slowly, ‘why stick to his old form when we could create something so much better? The children of this planet were perfect for our needs. It surprises me that the planet has survived so long. Do you know that they actively encourage their young to make war a game? Their culture is riddled with it. Toy pistols, toy rifles, toy grenades, war comics, action figures that hold knives and swords. Even when they avoid war, the young of this planet are exposed to horror comics, monsters under the bed, bogeymen, vampires and werewolves. Their nursery stories are full of demons and goblins and witches and kidnapped children. They enter the world screaming, and as soon as they can read or listen or learn they are made to scream again and again and again, before they finally realise that they have been lied to all their young lives. We didn’t need to influence the minds of these children at all, Doctor, we just needed to harvest their boundless imagination.’
‘Take them young, before they become tainted, is that it?’ The Doc142 tor spat the words.
‘Exactly! Have you listened to the adults of this planet, listened to the endless trivia they spout? Mindless, pointless, endless conversations about nothing. They lose everything that they have as children, ground down by the