Honor said, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to shout. Shouting is terribly rude.’
Xavier agreed. ‘Yes, awfully. And we like you. We don’t want to hurt you. The Time Lord chap, though – he knows who we are.’
Honor looked sad. ‘And he knows what we do. Some of the things that we’ve done. And that always makes people cross with us. And we didn’t want him to be cross with us.’
Bryony blinked, stammered, ‘But you’re…’
Perfectly together, the twins said, ‘We were your friend and we would have given you anything. We still could. We could make you the jewel at the heart of the universe.’
This wasn’t in any way the kind of conversation Bryony was used to, but she decided that the Doctor would have expected her to deal with it, so she was going to. ‘You’re the Bah-Sokhar. That’s…You are, aren’t you?’ She was going to deal with it on her own.
The name seemed to depress the twins. They sighed and shrugged, slightly like two youngsters caught out in having made a mess, or broken something. Xavier glanced at Honor and she nodded. Then they both continued to open and close their mouths in unison, but the Bah-Sokhar’s thinking emerged. Bryony could sense that it was trying hard to be understood – it was used to speaking like storybook children – speaking as itself was more difficult.
WE HAVE MANY NAMES BAH-SOKHAR IS BAD NAME FEAR NAME
WE ARE ONLY US
I AM ONLY I
I AM I
I AM WE
WE ARE I
I
IF I AND WE HAVE NO NAME THEN WE CAN LIVE HERE HIDING HIDING AND BE ASLEEP
WE PLAY WE LIKE TO PLAY
I SLEEP AND DREAM OF PLAYING
HALF-ASLEEP PLAYING IS GOOD
I WANT TO PLAY WITH THE TIME LORD BUT HE DOES NOT WANT
I MAKE IT SAFE HERE FOR PLAY AND FOR WHOEVER IS OUR CONDUCTOR
I NEED A CONDUCTOR THE TIME LORD SHOULD BE OUR CONDUCTOR HE HAS THE BEST MIND BUT HE WILL NOT TELL US ANYTHING TO DO WE DO NOT KNOW WHAT TO DO
YOU TELL US BRYONY MAILER
TELL US WHAT TO DO
YOU TELL US AND I WILL MAKE ALL SAFE FOR YOU
I WILL REMOVE WHOEVER SHOULD NOT BE
TELL I WHAT YOU WANT
IN ARBROATH, A TENSE situation was rapidly getting worse. The crowd gathered along the West Port had grown and now lined the pavements on both sides of Keptie Street and Millgate Loan. There were hundreds of people – children in school uniform, housewives in slippers, traffic wardens, men in overalls who had clearly abandoned late work on farms, or about the city, tourists in bright holiday clothes, pensioners. They faced each other across the empty road and screamed hatred. In Common Brae, the High Street and Abbey Street, more and more people were stumbling and shuffling into place, their faces masks of fear and furious contempt. Some of them were crying while they yelled; some were holding their heads as if they were in agony.
A young policeman, surprised by the mayhem, made half a report on his walkie-talkie and then felt himself overwhelmed by a painful barrage of threats and gossip and memories and hopes and terror – by the wild thoughts of so many strangers, so many neighbours, so many people.
Suddenly he understood why everyone was shouting, why everyone wanted to harm everyone else. It was because they were terrible people. And he had to get rid of them.
The constable started looking around for something, anything that he could throw at any of the outraged figures around him.
He believed that perhaps destroying everyone he could see would make the horror and the invading agony stop. He wasn’t sure he would manage to do that, but he knew that whole planet would be a better place if he tried.
All over Arbroath, the shouting and jeering went on.
Then somebody threw a stone.
A ripple of motion ran out along the packed figures as somehow they all became aware of that first stone and its flight. Then there was a pause, as if everyone in Arbroath was breathing in.
Then everyone – men, women and children – all started hunting desperately for objects they could throw. There was the sound of breaking glass.
MEANWHILE, PUTTA PATTERSHAUN 5 had dragged his weary body to the edge of Fetch Lake and was lying back, breathless and close to passing out. Today had been more than he could take in so many ways. He’d almost been murdered by sand – twice – a pair of what he’d thought were lovely Earth children had also tried to kill him, he’d had a number of wonderful – and terrifying – adventures with Bryony, he’d nearly drowned, he’d attempted to save the day and been something very close to a hero…before he’d gone and poured the psy fluid into the lake and ended up being his usual failed self.
This meant, he was sure, that somewhere not far away everything was going wrong and it was completely his fault.
Over in the shadows, there was a small copse of trees and bushes and something rustled through the undergrowth in a way he might normally have found alarming. Just now, he didn’t care if it was a large carnivore. He was too tired.
Oddly, as soon as he thought of whatever was bustling about in the leaves, his mind was rapidly packed with a stream of images and impulses. He found that he felt determined, peckish, nervy and highly alert, all at once – and furry…He definitely felt furry. He also had the idea that he wanted to eat a kind of cold, slimy, small titbit which he believed was called a slug by English-speaking Earth people. (It was so inconvenient of Earthers to have so many languages – he’d only been able to learn four.) It was also called eine nacktschnecke and posta and seilide.
Putta was just wondering if the dietary habits of Earthers were even more depressing than he’d thought when a badger romped out of the bushes and barrelled into him.
‘Hwwaagh!’
This was not what he’d come to expect of Earth animals. Up until now they had all mistaken him for a human being and kept well away, as anything would, knowing how strange and violent human beings could be.
‘Ho, yur…now…steady…’
This badger, though seemed to have decided that Putta was somehow also a badger and a close friend badger, at that. It was pawing at him happily, nibbling his shirt cuffs – what was left of them – and rubbing its rough, hairy back against him while snuffling, grunting and making little sort of clucking noises. Meanwhile, Putta’s head was filled with slightly maternal-feeling sensations and a desire to eat worms. Apparently, this badger had decided he was her rather large and scrawny badger child.
A rather more scampering train of thought scrabbled through Putta’s head now, followed by a manic need to sit and shout while up a tree and/or bury things – it was hard to decide whether the burying or the shouting should happen and then again it was time for bed…only there should be more burying…As Putta thought these things, out from the evening gloom came three field voles and a squirrel.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ Putta protested as numerous tiny paws began clambering across him, grooming his hair and tattered tank top.
Obviously the psy fluid was having a slightly unpredictable effect on the wildlife around the lake. Putta was suddenly quite glad he wasn’t still in the water. He shuddered when he thought of the steely little fists of the twins and wondered if they were down there watching him – or if they would walk up out of the lake at any moment. The animals around him twitched in response to his fears, but didn’t seem to be aware of any threats. So perhaps Honor and Xavier had gone elsewhere. That just left whatever happened to all the other lake-dwelling creatures who might now feel he was a close friend, relative or indeed partner. The squirrel was being especially friendly and Putta could hear that branches and leaves all about him were restless with curious animal life.
As the sun set and another badger dunted against his bruised ribs, Putta didn’t know if he should try and get back to the TARDIS – which hated him. Or else, he could just maybe stay close to it, while avoiding the sand outside the vessel – which wanted to kill him. He thought he might be able to keep safe by sitting in a tree nearby. (The tree-sitting par
t of that inspiration may have been made under the influence of squirrel thinking.)
What would someone else do? Putta thought. What idea would someone who was good at ideas have? I’ve already had one plan today – that’s more plans than I’ve ever had before and it turned out terribly badly. I don’t have the right mind for planning.
And then Putta realised – if he was this good at being joined with the minds of animals – beings who were only concerned with feeding, foraging and, it had to be said, mating….What if he tried reaching out to more helpful minds. What if he could do that?
This did, of course, constitute Putta’s second plan of the day.
He lay down – because that seemed likely to help – and was immediately overrun by shrews, but he didn’t notice because – as he opened his mind inexpertly and nervously to the world beyond him…
‘Putta!’
An unmistakable sense of the Doctor’s presence swept through him and then was gone.
Putta couldn’t be sure, but it had felt as if the Doctor had been in trouble, as if he’d been, somehow thrown past Putta’s consciousness by some huge, swiping blow.
If the Doctor was in trouble – and Putta couldn’t quite work out why he wasn’t dead – that was completely terrible news because the Time Lord seemed to be the only one who had any idea about what was happening at the Fetch Brothers Golf Spa Hotel – the only one who had any idea about how to deal with it…
Doctor? Doctor?
Putta couldn’t pick up any trace of the Time Lord.
But he must be here. I mean, I heard him.
Putta concentrated harder.
DOCTOR?
There was still no response.
And the wider Putta opened his mind, the more it seemed to fill with the same terrible darkness he had seen in the twins’ eyes. There was also a hint of fury, not far away – that and a taste of pure, lonely horror. Putta realised that as he looked for the Doctor, called for the Doctor, he might simply lose himself in what felt like a vast pit of bleak emotions.
But he couldn’t stop. He had to find the Doctor. He had to risk it.
Putta clenched his fists, held his breath and – while the animals which were assembled round him froze, their small hearts racing with alarm – he sent out his consciousness as hard and fast as he could and hoped that the psy fluid’s effects would push him on to reach the Doctor.
The dark crushed in, it seemed that his skull would crack into pieces and Putta was aware of a high, sad wailing – perhaps from him, perhaps from some other creature, perhaps from the ultimate blackness which rushed towards him.
And then.
‘Well, it took you long enough.’
And Putta was slowly able to feel the idea of the Doctor – the Doctor’s idea of the Doctor – all that warmth and mischievous intelligence. There was fear there, too – Putta hadn’t realised before how scared the Doctor could be – but there was courage answering the fear and a huge sense of relief.
Doctor?
Putta couldn’t see much beyond a wavering outline in his mind’s eye, which could have been the Doctor or almost any other humanoid, but that unmistakeable, plush purr of a voice was clear. ‘The Bah-Sokhar knocked me halfway into next week…which, believe me, young Putta, at the moment would not be a welcoming place. If we don’t get tonight readjusted, then next week will be past saving.’
Putta shuddered and thought, Bryony…She’s…?
‘Yes, Putta – she’s in the mindspace we’ve created, alone with the creature. I underestimated its strength which was stupid of me.’ Putta could feel a quieter part of the Doctor whisper, ‘And it was unforgiveable.’ Meanwhile, the rest of the Doctor’s consciousness continued urgently, ‘While the psy fluid is still active I need you to stop wasting time playing with your animal friends and get me back to the TARDIS – you’ve drawn me in this far…I was rather drifting in the wrong direction and…being lost at the margins of a mindspace isn’t fun at all – you can cease to exist as a mind at all – just end up a physical shell with nobody home…Much like you, you silly Yakt. Now pull yourself together and help me get back to the TARDS.’
Putta’s mind flinched. What little was left of his self-confidence crumpled.
The TARDIS doesn’t exactly like me, Doctor.
The voice purred in, completely reassuring and even effusive. ‘Oh, come along now, Putta. I do thank you, you know. You saved me from eternal drifting in a virtual darkness, or being lost in the Bah-Sokhar’s consciousness. I mean it’s not clear where we might still – not to worry about this – end up. But you can do it, Putta. I know you can. You can save the day.’ Putta felt the idea of a smile soaking through him. ‘The TARDIS can be a prickly old girl, but she knows a friend when she sees one…Trust me. I’m not going to make it back in there without you, you know. So do stop fussing and generating negative emotions – it’s such a waste of time. Our minds are joined, Putta – you know perfectly well that I’m as scared as you are – if not more so. I am a genius, after all – I have a lot more thinking space than you do that I can be afraid with. But I’m deciding that my fear isn’t useful and I’m walking round it. I am imagining it is a very small wall and I’m walking round it.’
Putta received an image of a ludicrously small wall made of crumbly, cakey brick which wouldn’t worry anyone. It was slightly comforting.
So Putta calmed himself as best he could and imagined sort of turning and reaching out to the Doctor. He imagined shaking hands. Which was OK. He imagined smiling. Which was fine. He imagined perhaps stepping to one side and then the other as if they were kind of dancing to the same tune. Which was fine, too. And then Putta imagined letting the Doctor take over his mental energy. Which felt a bit like volunteering to drown.
Whoo-hoo-wughghgh…
Putta didn’t like drowning, and it seemed he’d been doing it a lot lately.
‘It’s all right, Putta. It’s all right. Breathe. Think of breathing. That’s all. Breathe.’
And so Putta pictured himself breathing and being alive and not choking on horror and pressing dark and then he felt something like being gripped by helpful hands, being pulled along by a lifeguard across risky waves, being safe. He felt safe.
Uagh- ughuguhugh…
Then Putta panicked again
‘There’s nothing to be afraid of. My dear Putta – everything is going to turn out very well.’
As Putta had access to the Doctor’s thinking, he was fully aware that the Doctor was very much less certain than he sounded about whether anything was going to turn out well – but the idea of them both being brave anyway and going on anyway and rescuing Bryony anyway meant that he relaxed and set all his remaining focus and affection and purpose and – even – love into aiming his virtual self where the Doctor was aiming the virtual Doctor – right towards a dim, but lovely bluish light, far away in the mindspace’s thick night.
The more Putta thought of the light, the closer it got, and the further he moved from his body where it lay on the wet lakeshore with a number of puzzled animals fussing at it or nuzzling against it. He could no longer feel them.
Putta was heading for the TARDIS.
Fast, fast and faster – here it came.
‘Come on, Putta – nearly there.’
SITTING GLOOMILY BEHIND THE reception desk of the Fetch Brothers Hotel was the hunched Kevin Mangold. He stared at the non-working clock. The whole place was going to rack and ruin as far as he was concerned. He’d just broken up a fight in the bar and there was a strange atmosphere in the whole place. This was undoubtedly the fault of that Bryony Mailer excuse for a receptionist, who was going to find herself out of a job – just as soon as he could find her. It was typical that she’d disappeared. She was always doing that. She’d probably started this ridiculous fashion for doing that.
For a moment, Mangold recalled the inconvenient facts that Bryony only ever disappeared when she was off duty and that she did a lot of unpaid overtime – but he forced those though
ts away and then went on being angry with her.
And Miss Pitcairn said Bryony was waltzing around with that Doctor person and one of the guests in the Spa. They left the jacuzzi room full of dirty sand. What on earth would cause that, I can’t think – hippy rock and roll carrying on, that’s what would cause it. I always knew she was trouble. Her attitude was all wrong. Not like Miss Pitcairn. Lovely hair, Miss Pitcairn has…
While he pondered the Spa manageress, Miss Pitcairn, in more detail, Mangold didn’t notice the surface of the reception desk bubbling, then swelling. It was only when it started to actually swallow his hands – almost tenderly – that he looked down in horror.
He had just enough time to say, ‘Wha—?’
BRYONY COULDN’T HELP IT. AS soon as the Bah-Sokhar had mentioned people she might want to be rid of, the quick thought and image of Kevin Mangold had slipped out and away before she could catch it.
And even though he was a huge pain in the neck, she really didn’t want him to stop existing or for anything dreadful to happen to him – anything like what had happened in the Spa…
‘No, no, no,’ she told the creature. ‘I don’t want you to hurt anyone.’
I HAVE BEGUN REMOVING THE MANGOLD PERSON
YOU HATE THE MANGOLD PERSON
‘Stealing biscuits isn’t a capital offence. Neither is being annoying. Stop it. Stop what you’re doing. You can stop it, can’t you? You’re a big all-powerful thing.’
I MAKE HIM NOT BE
FOR YOU
‘But I don’t want you to make him not be, and I didn’t ask you to.’
YOU ASK
I FEEL YOU ASK
YOU HATE AND I FEEL AND I REMOVE I FEED
Bryony tried – and this was, in a way, her most difficult challenge yet – to extend courteous and warm thoughts towards Kevin Mangold. She tried to like him. She tried to think that if she couldn’t like him, then maybe his mum liked him. Or maybe he was horrible because his mum didn’t like him. Or just that on some days he didn’t pinch her biscuits and left her alone and he had given her a job when she’d been feeling quite depressed and needed to get away from it all and – until the Doctor arrived – you couldn’t really have said that the Fetch Hotel was anywhere other than away from it all.
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