Doctor Who_ Wetworld - Mark Michalowski [53]
‘Is that right?’ said the Doctor archly, folding his arms. ‘Well excuse me if I decline your very kind offer. I rather enjoy being me, actually.’
Pallister – or the thing that controlled him – seemed to consider the Doctor’s words for a moment. Water dripped from the man’s clothes into the river, sending little ripples out across its surface.
‘It’s processing,’ the Doctor whispered to Ty out of the corner of his mouth. ‘The thing that’s operating poor old Pallister is using his brain to translate. Much quicker than time-sharing the otters’ brains, I imagine.’ ‘Why?’ came the reply, after what seemed like forever.
‘Why?’ said the Doctor indignantly. ‘Why? Why d’you think? I was born me, I’ve lived my life – well, most of it – as me, and I’d rather like to carryon being me. That’s the way I am.’
Pallister’s body twitched as one of the creature’s tendrils jerked.
‘To work as one,’ it said slowly, ‘is better. Unity is better than diver-sity.’
‘Says who?’
‘Pallister thinks that. It is in accord with me.’
The Doctor blew a raspberry.
‘I wouldn’t take much notice of poor old Pallister. Bit up himself if you ask me. And if you had better access to his brain, you’d see that there’s a big difference between “unity” and “obsessive single-mindedness”.’ He paused and leaned forwards slightly. ‘But you can’t, can you? I mean, you weren’t exactly at the front of the queue when evolution handed out brains, were you?’
Pallister blinked slowly with a cold superiority. He said nothing.
‘See!’ cried the Doctor smugly. ‘You haven’t a clue what I’m talking about! All your intelligence is just time-shares, isn’t it?’ The Doctor turned to Ty with a grin. ‘What did I tell you? This thing’s just renting rooms in other people’s heads.’
‘Well,’ Ty muttered dourly, ‘the landlord isn’t going to be too pleased about what his new tenant’s done to the property.’ She looked at Pallister, his skin puffed and bloated, the holes in his head where the creature’s tentacles fed in.
‘Interesting evolutionary tactic,’ the Doctor mused, peering at Pallister again. ‘Just squat in the brains of the creatures on whatever planet you find yourself on. Shame that I’m here to hand out an eviction notice to you. You’ve got exactly ten minutes to vacate the property before I send the bailiffs in.’
Pallister said nothing – and Ty suspected that the creature controlling him hadn’t understood a word of it.
‘What the Doctor means,’ she added loudly, ‘is Get your miserable ass out of there!’
The Doctor looked at her, a hurt expression on his face. ‘That’s what I said!’
‘Like you said,’ Ty whispered, ‘it’s not the brightest of things.’
‘No,’ he agreed, ‘but it’s bright enough to trick us into coming here, I think. What’s that all about then?’ He was addressing Pallister. ‘I mean, you obviously need these people to do some dirty work for you. But you’d programmed the otters to bring us to you before we even arrived, otherwise they’d have torn us to pieces by now. Why?’
‘To assess you,’ Pallister said. ‘He and the others knew you would come to me. Pallister thinks that you are intelligent, that you might serve my purpose.’
‘What d’you hope to gain from using Pallister, anyway?’ Ty asked the crumbling husk hanging before them.
‘Yes,’ agreed the Doctor. ‘What’s the point of this ridiculous puppet show? Not going to bring on a crocodile with a string of sausages, are you?’
‘Sausages?’ said Ty.
‘Never seen a Punch and Judy show?’ sighed the Doctor.
‘Normal communication with you is inefficient,’ Pallister intoned, ignoring the Doctor’s ramblings.
‘Well it would be,’ agreed the Doctor. ‘We’re not well equipped for your particular brand of chemical chat.’
‘This mode will facilitate the extraction of information useful to reproduction.’
The Doctor pulled a face.
‘You do realise that you’ve put images in my head that even industrial-strength mind bleach isn’t going to erase, don’t you?’ he said. ‘How many of you are there, then? How many of you came down with that meteorite?’
‘I am one.’
‘Just the one? Well, you have been putting yourself