Doctor Who_ Infinite Requiem Part 21

Shanstra settled herself into what had been the vice-governor's padded chair.

She swivelled in it experimentally, nodded, smiled. It was suitable for her.

The oak-panelled office was covered with portraits of past presidents of Earth. Shanstra found this conceited, so she directed a hard gaze at the painting directly above the gilded double doors until it crumbled into dust. She then went round each of them, replacing one with a colony of moths, the next with a sheet of melting ice, and so on until they were all gone.

Shanstra sighed with contentment and leaned back, placing her hands to her temples. She summoned the mental waves of her loyal Phractons, positioned on guard at strategic points around the house.

This moment was important.

She had sensed something in the Time Lord's mind, and guessed that he now expected her to make another a.s.sault on Kelzen. For which he would no doubt be prepared. So it was time to do the unexpected, instead.

Shanstra began to harness her power.

The Pridka drone, clicking and twitching its metal limbs, surveyed the new arrival on Grove Walkway. The object, a blue box slightly larger than a humanoid, was an unregistered vehicle, and had to be dealt with.

An extendable feeler emerged from the drone and stuck a small, round pad on the door of the box. A light began to flash bright orange on the pad.

Satisfied that its work had been done, the supervision drone bobbed on and upwards through the foliage of the grove. It had other important matters to attend to.

The Doctor was the first to come out of the TARDIS. His gaze took in the enormous, vaulted roof, the gushing foliage festooning the bright helices that spiralled up towards the top of the dome. Walkways spread out in all directions from the TARDIS, like the spokes of an enormous, white wheel.

Along the walkways, the blue-skinned, orange-robed Pridka moved about their tasks, seemingly oblivious to the unofficial arrival. Two of them strolled past, deep in conversation, consulting the black square of a portable information projector. The Doctor smiled and raised his hat, but the Pridka, a 165 single-minded race, pa.s.sed by without seeming to register his presence. The Doctor shrugged.

Cheynor, on emerging from the TARDIS a few seconds later, found the Doctor with his head tilted back, admiring the architecture.

'Typical of the Pridka's refinement and aesthetic judgement,' the Doctor said to Cheynor. 'I'd never seen their engineering in real life before, but I knew they valued the contours of light and s.p.a.ce.' He smiled briefly at the Earth captain.

'Oh, and don't worry if they seem rude. They do have about thirty-six senses, and they often don't acknowledge you in ways you can see or hear.'

Cheynor was gazing up in wonderment. The beauty of the place lay, as the Doctor had said, in the way the walkways, conveyor helices and vaults seemed to have been sculpted out of shades of pure light and darkness. The ornamental plants, pastel green and rose-pink, looked like Impressionist paintings come to life, and there was something crisp but soothing in the air, invigorating like coastal breezes, yet with all the comfort and hygiene of advanced civilization. The overall effect was one of paradoxical beauty: stylized but organic, pure but stimulating.

'Doctor, I'm amazed. And I'm not even going to ask how that that con-traption of yours brought us here.'

'You'd never understand, anyway, Brigadier,' the Doctor muttered absently, as he looked around, seemingly trying to decide on the best direction.

Cheynor frowned, but the Doctor, before he could be corrected, went on. 'You see, the Pridka like to keep the physical world restrained, and they like it to approximate as closely as it can to the beauty of the mind. They're a race of the most peaceful telepathy, and their physical existence is really of secondary importance to them.'

Cheynor nodded grimly. 'So we have to find Jirenal as quickly as possible.

If he's here '

'Then his influence could spread with remarkable rapidity, leaving the flood-gates open for Shanstra. Correct. But we have Kelzen. Don't forget that.' The Doctor spun round suddenly and looked up at Cheynor, his expression stern and serious. 'I want you and your new friend the Commandant to stay in the TARDIS. It'll see to your needs. Suzi Palsson and I have other things to attend to.'

Cheynor looked slightly taken aback. 'Ah, I see. The Commandant and I are the backup?'

The Doctor sighed and waved his hands in agitation. 'This is not a military operation, Trau Cheynor, please have that clear in your mind! If I get anything right at all, it'll cause barely a ripple. The last thing I want is for anyone to come in with guns blazing.' He tutted to himself, leaned on his umbrella and looked shiftily away for a moment, down at the receding, concentric levels of 166 the dream centre and the dots of its scuttling occupants far below. Then he looked back up at Cheynor. 'But be ready for my call,' he said, scowling as if he did not want to countenance the thought. 'Just in case.'

'Call?' Cheynor frowned.

'Through Kelzen. Don't worry, you'll hear. Are you familiar with the Venu-sian lullaby "Klokleda partha menin klatch"?'

Cheynor looked blank.

'No, I thought not. All right, I'll try and find something a little more modern.'

Behind them, Suzi emerged, and caught her breath.

The Doctor was impatient. 'Come on, then, Suzi,' he said, looking towards the nearest helix. 'Can't hang around, I've got a job for you.'

As they were about to leave, the Doctor noticed the circular pad with its orange flashing light which was affixed to the TARDIS door. He detached it, looked at it disparagingly.

'What is it?' Suzi asked.

'Parking ticket,' the Doctor muttered, turning it over in his hand. His eyebrows shot up. 'I can't afford that much!' he exclaimed, and slipped the object into a pocket. 'Time for that later, I think. Come on.'

The Director of the Pridka Dream Centre was worried. He had been unable to contact many of his key personnel for several hours, and important monitoring of some dream-active races had been left incomplete.

He would think about the problem over his rest-break. Maybe there was a simple explanation.

In his office, the drone bobbed in with a sparkling drink on a tray. The Director's crest of fins shook in antic.i.p.ation. He noticed that the drone had mellowed the room specially for him, calling up restful plants, fountains, and a well-known symphony on the audio emitters. This was the kind of thing he appreciated during his relaxation period.

Attention lights on his desk, however, were not at all what he appreciated.

And there was one, very bright and very irksome.

'What's that?' he asked the drone crossly, leaning forward and peering at it with big, round eyes. 'Get me someone in that hall, now.'

A call-image of an orange-robed minion appeared, a young Pridka with a mere triangle of tiny fins on his forehead. 'Yes, Director?' he said in a rather awed voice.

'What's going on? What's happened to the Yzashoks?'

The young Pridka smiled. Ah, I see, you are concerned, Director. Well, you need not worry. Everything is under control.'

'What?' The Director slammed his gla.s.s down on to his desk with force enough to break it. 'Are you mad? Investigate the problem!'

167.

There was a shifting of pixels in the image, indicating that the focus was changing. The Director blinked as a familiar figure stepped into his line of vision, smiling benignly. Black-suited. Black-gloved. Long, rich black hair cascading over his shoulders, framing an elongated face that was somehow handsome and grotesque at the same time. The Director, appalled, recognized his earlier visitor.

'Jirenal,' he spluttered, 'what is the meaning of this?'

The alien appeared amused. 'Meaning, Director? Do your brief and puny lives have meaning, now?'

'What is going on?'

'Show him,' commanded Jirenal, to someone out of the line of vision.

The viewer panned up and down the tank that had contained living, breathing, dreaming Yzashoks, communicating unknown, sublime reflections on art and literature through their amniotic fluid. The fluid that now formed a giant iceberg, trapping the creatures. Trapping their mind-bodies and their elevated thoughts.

The Director blinked. He was beginning to get a nasty feeling in at least three of his stomachs.

Jirenal, black-gloved hands folded neatly in front of him, was once more back in the sights of the viewer. Behind him, the Director could see lines of impa.s.sive Pridka, young and old, their gazes strangely blank, as if they were awaiting a command.

'I'm glad you got in touch with me, Director,' Jirenal said. 'You see, I would like to be able to have complete control of this centre, rather than just the little army of minds I command at the moment. I want the Dreamguide.'

On the giant screen in front of him, Jirenal could see the enormous, angry face of the Director peering out. He smiled briefly at Amarill and the other Pridka next to him. They all smiled back. In perfect harmony.

'Impossible!' The Director was standing up, glowering at the screen. 'The Dreamguide is the eldest and most highly developed dream therapist of our entire race. No one can share its powers '

'I can!' Jirenal interrupted. 'You will do as I say.' He turned to the Pridka who had first answered the transmission. 'You will demonstrate to your Director,' he instructed, 'one of the many imaginative methods by which the Pridka will die, if my demands are not met.'

The controlled Pridka minion nodded obediently to Jirenal.

The Sensopath lifted his hands to his temples and dragged the thought, screaming, from the Pridka's mind, up into the physical world.

The minion stood perfectly still for several seconds. Then the small, developing crest on his forehead peeled elegantly back and curled over on itself, 168 emitting wisps of blue smoke. From the top of his head, other folds of skin began to unpeel and crinkle, then, in the s.p.a.ce of just two seconds, the top of the Pridka's head blossomed into a flower of skin and bone, opening the brain to the air.

The Sensopath's eyes glowed. The Pridka's fellows turned their heads as one, and saw a beautiful, white dove flutter from the young minion's skull and soar high up into the vaults of the chamber, out of reach. The Pridka's head, totally emptied of all organic material, was now a dried, cracked-open pod of blue flesh. The body, drained of any controlling influence and now just so much meat and water, fell to its knees, then keeled over on to the floor.

The glow in Jirenal's eyes faded.

The Director's face was frozen with horror on the viewer.

Jirenal spread his hands. 'Apologies, Director. I like to encourage young people to keep an open mind.' He placed his hands on his hips and glowered up at the Director's image. 'Now shall we talk business?'

The Doctor had accepted one of the black info-projectors from a pa.s.sing drone, and activated it as he and Suzi ascended the helix on their pad. Visitors pa.s.sed them, and Suzi looked curiously at the mix of races. There were humanoids, reptilians in purple cloaks, and many in pressure suits of varying shapes and sizes. Indeed, a whole group floated past them wearing wedge-shaped helmets the size of boulders, with spindly bodies quivering underneath.

'The Borsii,' said the Doctor casually. 'Conquered a whole galaxy a few millennia ago. Got rather big-headed about it.'

The projector was obviously intended to be interactive with their conveyance, as a smiling, blue-skinned face, the size of a shuttlecraft, appeared in the rushing light above them, like a face reflected in a pool. It travelled with them, speaking calmly and rea.s.suringly. 'Welcome to the Pridka Dream Centre, in geostationary orbit around the second world of the Taprid System.

A full programme of facilities and special events is available.'

'An appointment with the Dreamguide,' said the Doctor. 'For my young friend here.'

Suzi looked up sharply. 'Are you not coming with me?'

'I have to find someone, remember. The Dreamguide is one of the most experienced dream-healers in the cosmos according to the TARDIS databanks, anyway and it can finish what I started with you.' The Doctor's face creased with one of his rare and radiant smiles. 'Your recovery.'

'And can it see me straight away?'

'I should imagine so,' the Doctor said. 'There's room for more than one guest in the consulting rooms of the mind.'

169.

'I don't like it,' said Darius Cheynor. 'Sharing the Doctor's ship with that thing.'

He gestured towards the scanner, which showed a constant image of the blue-cloaked Kelzen, bobbing on air in the Zero Room. Her legs were crossed, her eyes were closed and her long, bony face was tranquil. The Doctor's thought-wave damper, combined with the effects of the Zero Room, seemed to be doing the trick.

The Phracton Commandant hissed quietly to himself in the corner of the console room. 'The creature is not in a threatening position,' was his verdict.

Cheynor was not happy. 'The Doctor's had contact with the other, with Shanstra. I mean, she it is an empathic being, after all.' He sighed, slumped into the basket-chair. 'The Doctor's taking a bit of a risk, isn't he? If the creature probes deep enough, it might sense his deception.'

'A fallacy,' stated the Phracton.

Cheynor raised his eyebrows. 'What's that you say?'

'The Doc-tor is more cunning than you allow.' There was a throaty gurgle from the speaker-grille, and the translucent globe hovered up over the console, bobbing above the time rotor. 'Deception Trau Cheynor is not something felt. It is something done. It is possible for all kinds of emotions to be experienced during deception.'

Cheynor had to admit to himself that he hadn't thought of it quite like that before. This uneasy alliance with the Phractons was giving him new perspectives on life rather earlier than he had expected.

'Well, I only hope you're right, old chap,' he said. A thought occurred to him. 'What can you sense, now? In the rest of the Swarm?'

The Phracton gave a deep, shuddering breath like the release of steam. 'My link is not as strong as it was. There are breaches. There is faint-ness from some quarters. I feel '

There was an unbearable pause. It seemed to Cheynor that even the TARDIS held its breath, the constant hum becoming no more than the hint of sound.

' dissssent,' the Phracton exhaled. It seemed to shudder, the lump of dark-blue flesh inside the globe wobbling like jelly.

Cheynor frowned. 'What sort of dissent?'

'The Swarm is no longer a uni-ty. There have always been elements within us speaking of rebellion. The messages grow stronger a-cross the web as I speak to you.'

Cheynor folded his arms, leaned back in his chair. 'You have an intricate society. The fact that you don't all agree is a healthy sign, surely?'

There was a long silence.

'Perhaps,' said the Phracton Commandant, and turned away from Cheynor to watch the scanner.

170.

Jirenal stepped through the interface between the Director's office and the foyer, and light meshing closed again behind him He seemed to cast shadows in many directions, to the corners of the pastel-hued office. And on to the terrified face of the Director himself.

'How pleasant to see you again, Director,' said the alien. 'We are going to see the Dreamguide, you and I.'

'Why, exactly, may I ask?'

'I wish to introduce the Dreamguide to some new and interesting concepts,'

said Jirenal with a smile, and spread his hands.

The Director stood up, trembling, his face a vivid shade of royal blue. Pridka body temperature tended to lower when they became angry or upset, and indeed the first signs of a sheen of frost had begun to form on the Director's cheeks.

'You cannot do this,' he said. 'For macrocycles we have been here, renowned throughout the cosmos, the dream centre attracting visitors from all solar systems '

'Macrocycles! You speak as if such things mattered,' said Jirenal dismissively, and snapped his fingers.