Not that it looked as if anyone had been using these – they seemed brand new, hanging from their racks. Ranks of cupboards – some refrigerated and some heated – offered up their contents for Bryony’s inspection: boxes, bags, bottles, cans, cartons, sacks, barrels, crates, jars – even some amphorae set into neat little metal stands – containing who knew what. Some of the containers were labelled, usually with what appeared to be outlandish script, or unfamiliar symbols – but when she looked directly at them, the jumbles of meaningless shapes resolved themselves into readable – if still pretty meaningless – words and phrases. Bryony read out, ‘Pinebreath…Toxic unless fried…Ophoron…Maxxt…Powdered Maxxt…Rehydrated Maxxt…’ Fortunately, over in the furthest corner, she spotted what was clearly the part of the kitchen the Doctor actually used. The work surface here was smeared with jam – among other less recognisable things – and there were toast crumbs, a toaster, half a loaf of slightly stale bread, a jar of carefully labelled homemade ‘rhubarb and vanilla’ jam – its lid missing – and a butter dish with enough smears and globs of butter left in it for Bryony to use it in the construction of an improvised jam sandwich. She couldn’t find any cutlery – and was too hungry to make an exhaustive search – and so she had to use her fingers for buttering and jam application. And she’d had to tear lumps off the bread. Still – it was the best jam sandwich she’d ever met. It was so delicious, in fact, that she immediately made another.
As she noticed the tell-tale crunch of sand – ironically – in her second sandwich, she was already considering where she’d get a really good scrub down with some nice hot water and then a nap, when she heard a noise behind her.
More accurately, it came both from behind her and above.
THERE WAS ONLY ONE thing for it. Before the spider could close on the Doctor’s face, he set his forefinger on the area where its eight legs joined its abdomen. The strength of the exoskeleton was plain, as was the power of the muscles within. This seemed absolutely like a real, genuine, enormous, giant, brain-dominating arachnid.
The Doctor swallowed with something close to a gulp.
Mustn’t believe in it, but I do have to…engage with it.
His touch had made the spider’s limbs jerk slightly in an ugly way, but for now it was still. He – gently, calmly, gently – rubbed his finger across the roots of its legs and then – slowly, delicately, carefully – he rubbed again. It felt like a vaguely oily machine – which wasn’t as bad as he’d expected.
‘I’ve never tickled a spider before…’ he explained as amiably as he could while his scalp tingled with unease. ‘I suspect you’ve never been tickled before, either…’ He withdrew his fingertip, crooked his finger and then used his knuckle to stroke along the spider’s fat, dangling abdomen. The harsh hairs bristled unpleasantly under his touch, but he kept on. He tried to imagine the thing was a dog – just a Labrador with a few too many legs. And threatening, glistening mouth parts.
‘I could try to fight you off. That would be a reasonable response. As you’re so well-finished and ready to do something thoroughly dreadful to me, I could grab hold of you before you get me and we could roll about on the floor and then I might tie you up with my scarf – which would upset you – or maybe I’d have to punch you. I’ve thrown a few punches before now…’
As he spoke, the Doctor stroked and soothed the pulsating curve of the arachnid’s body. Its legs seemed to droop slightly, almost as if it were enjoying what was happening to it.
‘But I have no intention of doing anything like that. A ready smile and a firm handshake – that’s me. I wouldn’t hurt a fly.’ The spider’s legs tensed again. ‘I do beg your pardon. Poor choice of phrase.’ He reached out with his other hand and began tickling the spider’s leg roots and stroking its abdomen, both at once.
And gradually, gradually, the spider let itself down on its silk until it was standing – its eight legs braced horrifyingly to either side of his own, its body above his knees – as if it might leap now, as if it might pounce.
The Time Lord looked at the spider.
The spider looked at the Time Lord – its many eyes blackly reflective and unreadable.
Then – remarkably – it settled lower, rested its weight across his shins and angled its cephalothorax upwards enquiringly.
With infinite caution – the spider’s obvious fangs were only inches away from his legs – the Doctor reached out once more. ‘I can’t tickle you between the ears, but how about behind the eyes…’ The spider wriggled, apparently happily under his attentions and eased higher, so that it was resting partly on his thighs. He could smell the dank, cave-haunting, musty reek of its fur. This was almost too much for the Doctor, but he kept his nerve. ‘Yes, there you are. Good spider. Yes, you are. I can’t complain at all about you – all you’re doing is being yourself. If I happen to find yourself rather difficult, that isn’t your fault. I mean, usually I would steer clear of you…If we were both at the same birthday party, perhaps I might stay in the kitchen…unless you were in the kitchen…you’d more probably be in the bathroom wouldn’t you…in the bath…?’
The Doctor was running out of spider-related small talk. (He never actually could see the point of small talk on any occasion – why offer a stranger you might never meet again all the most boring things you could possibly tell them?) But before he could guess what the weather was like outside and mention it – finally – the animal’s shape began to waver a touch, and then a little more. The Doctor’s hand began to pass through its substance where he was patting its back, as the spider became insubstantial. ‘That’s better. Much better.’ And with a liquid rush the whole creation dissipated. After flinching slightly, the Doctor was alone.
‘Or rather I’m not alone, am I? I’m with you. Bah-Sokhar.’ The surfaces around the Doctor heaved more strongly and he wondered if – now the game was over – he was going to be digested after all, just dissolved alive in gastric juices. ‘You’re only being yourself, too. I do recognise that. And, quite frankly, nobody even really knows what yourself is. I mean, I’ve read the sagas and the histories and so forth…I may have skimmed here and there on the detail, but it was mainly guesswork….because you’re so long ago…Who’s to say what you’re actually like? Although you do have a bit of a bad reputation, you know.’
Suddenly, the wall facing the Doctor stretched and convulsed, then – fully formed – the figure of a small old lady emerged from the reddish blackish purplish surface and stood, dressed in a heather and olive plaid skirt, lamb’s wool cardigan and anorak. Hooked over her arm was an imitation alligator skin handbag.
The Doctor suppressed any hints of fury, tried not to wonder who this woman might have been and casually murmured, ‘I see we’ve moved on from people I’ve met to people you’ve…met.’
The old woman spoke with a strangely echoing voice that didn’t suit her – it sounded like the cold, deep spaces between stars. ‘This is the form of Mrs Agnes Findlater. I know more about her now. My own form is no form. I am noform, or I am eggform when I am I. This form is better for you to speak with. You woke me.’ Her lips didn’t move and the Doctor understood that the Bah-Sokhar’s words were being placed directly into his mind.
‘I did nothing of the sort.’
‘Yes. The men who hit the ground with sticks, they wake me first. They get so angry and this…In the long ago, I would do what the hatethinks would ask of me and I would be fed. I am very hungry – even when I am only a little awake. The stick men hate. I wake a little for them. I wake because one of them wants me. I serve the hate stick man. Then I am hurt and I consume him. I know more about him now. But he is gone. I am lonely. I cannot serve. I need a mind to serve if I am awake all the way awake. You have big mind.’
‘Thank you, yes, I know.’ The Doctor could hardly take this as a compliment, coming as it did from the universe’s most legendary killer – something which made a habit of eating golfers, old ladies in anoraks and who knew who else.
‘
I shall serve you. I shall make you the jewel at the heart of the universe.’
The Doctor found this completely untempting. ‘Don’t be ludicrous. You think I haven’t been offered ultimate power and thrones and…all that nonsense. It wouldn’t suit me. I don’t really think it suits anyone and I’d suggest you stop offering – that kind of thing will attract some very seedy characters.’
‘I shall serve you.’
‘I’ve seen what your service looks like,’ the Doctor growled. ‘And, while we’re chatting, nobody on this planet would intentionally summon you. Nobody would know how. Nobody woke you. Nobody knew you were here…’
‘Long ago when I came here there were no minds. Then little minds. I have dreamed and been part of me awake. Not all awake. I have been dreaming. Your mind wakes me. You keep being in my dreams. I feel you. You have the largest mind. So I wake. You taste different. You wake me all the way wide awake.’
‘Well, I didn’t intend to and, quite frankly I can’t imagine how – even if I do have the mind of a universal genius – I would have been able to…Unless…Putta Pattershaun 5 and his psy fluid…Amplifying artron energy randomly…That boy is a liability.’
The old lady form nodded stiffly. ‘Put-ta. I know more about him. And his friend who is from this planet. I know more about them both.’
The Doctor tried not to let the idea of Bryony and Putta being consumed overwhelm him, or make him lose his temper – the Bah-Sokhar was clearly highly sensitive to negative mental states. ‘If you want to serve me, then serve me by not knowing more about people. Stop eating people.’
‘Must feed,’ the creature continued in its rumbling and deep, but strangely childlike voice. ‘I wished to speak with you.’
‘I noticed.’ The Doctor winced as he remembered. ‘And thank goodness you’ve worked out how to turn the volume down – you could have killed me.’
‘I am…’ The voice paused. ‘This is regret for me. Same as you regret. When something is broken and over you say you sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry I am awake. I want to sleep. This is a quiet planet when I come here. Now here is covered in little minds. There is noise. I will make it hush and I will feed. Must feed before I sleep again. There is only me now left. Once bigger Bah-Sokhar. Once manymany Bah-Sokhar. I cannot hear any Bah-Sokhar who is now. Now I hear you. You are not loud, but you are enough. I will feed and then I will speak to you until forever while I dream. You will stay with me. I will sleep and you will stay here. I will keep you. I will keep you for all the time.’
‘But that’s…Look, I’m a reasonable chap and I do love a good chinwag and paying calls, but really you can’t…’
‘I go. I feed now. Hungry.’
‘No, wait!’
It was too late, though. The imitation Mrs Agnes Findlater was reabsorbed into the fabric of the Bah-Sokhar, and the Doctor was left, deep inside its formless form, trapped as it intended him to be.
‘WELL, OF COURSE, QUITE naturally, I agree that a person can’t simply disappear…’ Kevin Mangold was having the kind of conversation he always avoided. ‘And yet you do seem to be saying that…’ To be more accurate, he was having the kind of conversation that he always let Bryony manage. ‘Did he…ah…’
Mangold felt his voice wither while he faced Jim Palmer, the occupant of room 18 – the one with the nice view over the lake for which there should really be a surcharge.
The guest was insisting on being ridiculous. ‘He did exactly what I said. I was walking down from the top floor – he was in room 56 – and he was only a few feet behind me and then he wasn’t.’
‘He wasn’t what?’ Mangold could feel his allergies starting to prickle.
‘He wasn’t there.’
Mangold set his glasses straight to play for time, ‘And have you looked in–’
‘Yes, I looked in room 56. He’s not in 56. His missus is in 56. He’s not. He’s not in the bar, he’s not on the course, he’s not in the restaurant, or the bloody leisure place.’
Mangold had what he felt was an inspiration as his imagination scrambled about like a mouse in a greasy bucket for something to make this whole problem go away. ‘Oh, I know what’s happened!’ he blurted – immediately regretting it when Palmer eyed him with hope, or at least mildly suspicious optimism. Mangold felt sweat break out at the backs of his legs. ‘How might I put this…Not to take the issue lightly, but…Mr Palmer, did your friend perhaps not like his wife…?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘It’s not absolutely…’ This suggestion hadn’t gone down as well as he’d hoped. ‘Not…Just…One does hear of husbands wandering off…That is…’ He wasn’t supposed to deal with the public; Bryony Mailer was meant to deal with the public.
Jim Palmer thundered, ‘Julia is lovely woman and distraught at the moment! She’s had a headache all morning and now she can’t find the man she’s been married to for twenty-six years! A man who is my best friend! Do you want me to go upstairs and tell her he’s run away because he hates her?!’
Although Mangold knew this was a completely dreadful mistake almost as horrible as his initial mistake, he couldn’t help mumbling, ‘Not run away…not that…not necessarily…I was suggesting…He could have fancied a bit of a change…’ It felt for a few breaths that the floor was sinking under his feet and he fervently wished that it was and would hurry up and swallow him.
It wasn’t.
It didn’t.
Jim Palmer – dumbstruck by rage – simply reached across with a swift and confident fist and made a slight rearrangement of Kevin Mangold’s nose.
BACK IN THE TARDIS kitchen, Bryony heard a distinct thrumming sound and a voice which said, ‘I suppose that I couldn’t expect any better – evolution can only do so much and Earth is essentially inhabited by primates with a flair for interior design…’
‘Doctor?’ Bryony choked on her last mouthful of bread and span round. Then she span round again. But there was no monitor, no screen, there was no one to see. ‘Doctor?’
‘You’re a splendid girl, but there are a few more pressing things than simply shovelling Robert Frost’s best jam into your face. People think of him as a poet, I realise – but he had a gift for preserves. Can we get on now?’
‘Doctor? You’re answering me?’ She couldn’t suppress a rush of relief and excitement.
‘Well, I’m not giving myself another frankly dreadful headache for the fun of it. This isn’t easy, you know.’
‘But I don’t understand.’
There was no sign of the Doctor himself, but his voice was definitely very present. And annoyed.
‘Don’t just stand there gawping about like a stunned owl – I’m up here.’
And there, indeed, the Doctor was. In the high corner where the walls and ceiling met, Bryony could see the wavering and translucent outline of that familiar scarf, the disreputable shoes, the louche jacket – and the face she had longed to see.
‘Why?’
‘Bryony Mailer, of all questions you could ask…’ The image became exasperated and bounced lightly against one wall. ‘Why? Why what? Why am I bothering to use the Bah-Sokhar’s psychic field to amplify my own telepathic abilities and even – which is immensely tiring – projecting an image of myself for you, so you’ll know it’s me and – you’re in my kitchen. I just aimed for you – or what might be left of you…Remarkable…You’re in the TARDIS kitchen. How on earth did you manage that?’ The image managed a half-grin. ‘And well done for still being alive, of course. I am very pleased about that.’
‘Well, likewise. And I don’t know how we managed that. I think…the sand was eating us and there was this blue box and we nearly died and then…we were inside. We’re inside the box, your TRADIS.’
‘No. You’re inside the TARDIS.’ The Doctor allowed himself a laugh and then obviously regretted the amount of energy that required. ‘She’s a sly old girl.’ He looked much more serious. ‘When you say we…You mean…?’
‘Me and Putta.’
/> ‘And where is Putta?’
‘Back in the hallway.’
‘I don’t have a hallway.’
‘The place with the screen and the front door and—’
The Doctor tugged his hair in frustration. ‘My dear girl, you left him there!’
‘He was too scared to go anywhere else.’
‘You left possibly the clumsiest being I have ever encountered in the nerve centre of a beautiful and delicate…If he touches anything…If he breaks anything…I’m assuming you triggered the defence message…?
Bryony was about to nod when a bell began tolling somewhere far away, deep inside the ship. The sound was melodious but also melancholy, it even suggested a note of warning. The kitchen light flickered for an instant and the air seemed to grow slightly colder.
The Doctor’s image flailed in mid-air, then descended and tilted until it was standing upright, its see-through brogues only a couple of feet off the ground. ‘What’s that? Ah!’ As soon as he’d asked the question, the Doctor grimaced with pain. ‘The TARDIS is…when my mind is this open and this…enhanced…She’s terribly unhappy. She’s even…She’s scared. I’ve never known her be afraid…I can hear a bell. Do you hear a bell? Tell me you can’t hear a bell.’
‘I can hear a bell.’
‘A rather musical regular chiming…? Clear chimes? That kind of bell?’
‘That’s right. It’s quite nice.’
‘Of course it’s not nice!’ The Doctor’s translucent arms thrashed in irritation. ‘It’s the cloister bell. That’s not nice, that’s…It’s always bad news. Bad news on a planetary scale. I think the Bah-Sokhar was able to hide from the TARDIS, but now I’ve…now I’ve done just what I shouldn’t and let her know it’s there. I am sorry. And –’ His face convulsed with pain. ‘I’m being…the Bah-Sokhar doesn’t want even my thoughts to escape, I…’
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