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she should be.
Then, oblong segments of the floor began to slide upwards, revealing them-
selves as bookcases stacked with ancient tomes, bound in leather of maroon
and red and ivy green. All books, Suzi knew, which she had not read. New
knowledge.
The library desk was a gigantic, hexagonal console, surmounted by a cylin-
der that moved up and down like a breathing creature. It rotated gently in
the rippling light.
The bookcases grew, looming over her. High up above her, bats screeched
and fluttered between the summits of the towering bookshelves. But it was
strangely calming for Suzi to be there, in her second home. She looked up,
smiling. The library ceiling could just about be seen; it was a disc, no, a dome,
rippling like water.
Books detached themselves from the shelves and floated down in front of
her, with smiling, cherubic faces.  Take me, they said.  Love me.
Suzi flung her arms out wide, caught the books, and embraced the dazzling
sunshine pouring through the dome of water above her.
" " "
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The Doctor had been carried upwards through spiralling columns of light, and
now he strolled through the foyer of the administrative globe. Everything was
a curve, a globe, or a circle, and every surface was suffused with gentle light.
He entered a large, circular space and was immediately greeted by two
attendant Pridka with highly developed crests of fins, one in a green robe, the
other in orange. They seemed to appear there in the centre of the floor, like
images activated by the Doctor s presence.
 May we help you? said the green-robed Pridka.
 I was wondering if I could see the Director of the centre? said the Doctor
hopefully.  Tell him the Doctor  a Time Lord  would like to speak to him.
The Pridka looked at one another, and something unheard by the Doctor
passed between them.  Is it a matter of some urgency? asked the Pridka
in green, with an attempt at a smile.  The Director has a full schedule of
appointments for this cycle.
The Doctor shrugged, looked slightly bashful.  Well, I don t like to shout
about these things, but actually it s to do with the fundamental stability of the
cosmos. Could you manage to squeeze me in today?
 It really isn t on, said Cheynor moodily.  Not on at all. He unholstered his
sidearm and checked the charges for the third time in five minutes.
The Phracton Commandant buzzed quietly to himself, his floating globe
casting an egg-shaped shadow across the roundels.  The Sens-o-path  is
commun-icating, he announced.
Cheynor hurriedly snapped his gun closed again and leapt to his feet.
 What?
 My sens-ory input  is vastly  more refined  than that of a Ter-ran. I can
hear  a com-munication.
Cheynor glanced up at the screen to check on Kelzen, and was startled to see
that the image had broken up. Instead, the monitor was displaying coloured
flashes, like the lights of an exotic ballroom, twisting and dancing. Were they
forming pictures? Resonances, in the back of Darius Cheynor s head?
With sudden, startling clarity he saw the face of his dead brother, Simeon,
the boy destined for success, for academia, for the mud of a battlefield  and they
hauled him out, the man with no face 
The Phracton was crackling. Smoke was pouring from the casing, while
blue sparks danced like demons in the dimness, strobing on Cheynor and the
alien. Horrified, Cheynor covered his eyes.
A sound  the rending of metal and the bawling of a baby, fused cyberneti-
cally into a grisly whole  burst outwards from the Phracton s grille, envelop-
ing the console room.
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The noise was unbearable. Cheynor dropped to his knees, his hands
clamped over his ears. There was a tingling in his mind It was urgent, like
a hand in the wilderness of noise tapping on his shoulder to show him a way
out. But he dared not look. What if it was the dead hand of his brother?
Darius Cheynor. Sound became solid, tore like curtains to reveal more
sound, an angrier mob of noise, behind it.
He was aware  in a dimmer, thinner physical world like a mere ghost
of itself  that the Phracton Commandant s casing shattered, that the limp
form within it slopped to the TARDIS floor like a dead baby, twitching and
writhing 
Darius Cheynor! I cannot hold her any more. Shanstra is breaking through to
Jirenal!
His eyes were clamped so tightly shut that they throbbed with pain. The
thought crackled like burning plastic in his mind 
What do you want me to do?
Stop the Dreamguide.
It was the voice of Keizen.
Stop the Dream. Stop Suzi Palsson or she will die!
The noise in Cheynor s head seemed to become a mere din, rather than
the brain-throttling cacophony it had been. He unclamped his hands from his
ears, staggered to his feet, blinking.
And stepped in the Phracton.
Horrified, he lifted his boot from the mess on the TARDIS floor. It came
away unwillingly, like cheese from a pizza, and there was a pungent smell,
ammonia maybe. Something fizzed in Cheynor s mouth and nostrils, as he
drew breath to gasp in horror. The pool of sticky flesh oozed from the ball
of wrecked circuitry, as if something had slipped in through the crack in the
casing and pummelled the creature to death with pure sound.
He backed away, bile rising in his stomach.
The irrational, wild thought bounced around in his head that they were
going to think he did it, that the enmity had flared up again and he had killed
his new ally in a burst of xenophobia.
Find her, Darius Cheynor. Stop the Dream.
With Kelzen s words like an alarm bell in his head, he operated the door
control and dashed from the TARDIS.
The books fluttered around Suzi Palsson, cooing gently. She saw the
Dreamguide, its giant Pridka face floating like a sunset above a meadow of
blue flowers. The Pridka were noble and beautiful, Suzi decided, with their
skins of damselfly blue, their soft, expressive features, and that elegant crest
of receptor fins on the forehead. Noble and beautiful. Suzi giggled. She must
178
be getting sentimental. The Dream Experience seemed to be having the same
effect on her as alcohol.
She remembered a party: on one of the Earth stations, with mostly Colm s
friends, no one she knew, really. At the start she had been restrained, de-
mure even, and after several hours of nervously knocking back the home-
made punch, she had been embracing these strangers and telling them how
lovely they were.
You have suffered, child, said the Dreamguide gently. Arrangements have
been made for you.
 Arrangements? Suzi, perplexed, heard her own query as if it were spoken
by someone else.
Your credit has been validated by an independent agent. You are now ready to
receive the Dreamguide s ministrations. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]