Doctor Who_ The Taint - Michael Collier [65]
But it didn't matter what you did in this life. It was the life after that was important.
***
The Doctor drove through the streets of London, in another time, another body, he might well have appreciated driving in such an enjoyably primitive machine. If only he'd built interchangeable plates into the Bug he could've taken that; mind you, his road tax wouldn't be valid for nearly forty years.
He cursed. Faint energy emissions were registering, but every time he got a fix on them, they shifted. Now he'd gone down a dead end.
He shifted the Rolls into reverse and sped backwards the way he'd come.
***
Sam was lost. The pain was over but only because it had passed into something more profound than that, a deeper agony she guessed she didn't have senses well-developed enough to fully comprehend. It was just a vast disquieting presence that filled her like water, stopping any other sensation from registering.
Her sight was being restored in little splashes of colour. It was like looking at an old green-and-red 3-D picture with pinholes in the glasses, everything blurring, perspectives shifting. She felt she'd been there for ever. Her memories, her thoughts, they all told her that her head was working, that everything was functioning as it should. It was just her body that wasn't quite keeping up. This new feeling had taken its place, had tried to insinuate itself into normality, borrowing her eyes to do so.
Gradually, the speckles of light began to resolve themselves into monochrome, static-flecked images. It was as if she were watching an image fed from a security camera on a monitor that kept jumping, rolling, changing perspective. She thought it was the shadow of a man.
Then, as if someone had flicked a switch, colour bled into the image. She was still in Azoth's crystallised base, and Tarr was still standing there. The revelation was something of a disappointment after all that.
Then gradually, in colours she'd never even imagined, shapes began to appear all over him, as if superimposed. Dark, fuzzy, each about the size of a joint of meat... They seemed to be growing out of the air, fleshy little hoover bags attached to his skin by their spindly nozzle-mouths. Two small horns protruded either side of a range of big, bleary compound eyes. They were clustered all over him. She looked down, and, after a couple of seconds, saw that she was covered in the creatures too. Suckling, greedily.
Not a single inch of her was clear of them.
***
Azoth turned to Tarr as Sam screamed and screamed, and nodded as if in thought.
'Seems to be doing something, 'Tarr observed.
Sam's scream grew still louder, then fell to a whimper.
'Her sight seems affected,' said Azoth. 'I must know what she can see.
Locate the choroid processor.'
'Right,' said Tarr, taking a step forward then stopping. 'What does that look like, then?'
***
Roley wandered back into the drawing room, having made himself a cheese sandwich in the kitchen. He couldn't remember the last time he'd done something like that for himself .Thick hunks of white bread, Cheddar cheese and chutney, absolutely delicious. For a few moments, he'd felt like a young man again. He'd even considered breaking out something a little special from his cellar, but had worried that might be seen as bad form, given the circumstances.
Only Maria remained in the room. The sherry had gone down quite a way.
He looked at her, frowning slightly, and she smiled.
'I'd have made dial for you,' she said.
'It's all right. I wanted to do it myself. 'A thought struck him. 'Sony, rude of me not to offer.'
Maria snuggled back into the chair. 'Oh, come on now... No apologies. We know each other too well, don't we?'
Roley smiled, weakly. 'Where are the others?'
Maria put a finger to her lips as she frowned exaggeratedly in thought.
'Cynthia's gone for a walk in the grounds with the Krauts...'
'Really, Maria,' said Roley, becoming a little