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Dust billowed across the ashen landscape. Suzi Palsson was conscious of her-
self and Shanstra, like two figures in some tableau, the grey dust clinging to
them and turning them into living statues. One holding a gun to the other.
A thought was growing in her mind. A picture, in wild, angry technicolour.
She tried to suppress it, knowing it had been placed there.
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No, she said firmly. No!
She thought of the shattered library, the wisdom of a colony, a culture, lying
in ruins, even if the building was still near intact.
She saw the images had stabbed into her mind from Shanstra s the
destruction wrought by the huntress in Londinium Plaza. She knew what had
happened there: desire had been made concrete, and for all she knew, it could
have destroyed the girl.
She saw the face of Colm Oswyn hovering like the mask of a ghost on the
face of the woman in front of him. His hair rippled, soaking wet, and his eyes
stared whitely at her.
White light burst outwards from the eyes, engulfing her. She was aware
of the gun growing hot in her hands as the face of Shanstra-Colm, its eyes
gushing liquid fire, lifted up, hollow and horrible like a Hallowe en phantom.
The thought had penetrated into reality. And the gun in Suzi s hand sizzled
and melted to a stub of metal. She cried out as it burnt her hand, and it
dropped, scattering globules of metal.
There was silence.
Shanstra was above her, placing a hand on her quaking shoulder. You see?
she said gently. Your mind belongs to me now. There is really nothing you can
do about it. And when the time comes for the music of the Infinite Requiem,
you will hardly notice or care anyway.
Infinite . . . ? Suzi s throat was dry. Her lips felt detached from her body,
and she was aware of her limbs succumbing to cramp.
I have discovered the most powerful mental focus on this world. Shanstra
held up the soft globe of flesh, encased in its mesh of wires leading into the
remains of the Phracton. These cyborgs exist on a network of minds, a mental
grid. Their thought processes will be ideal for the refocusing of all my latent
powers. And then I shall be able to reunite, across time, with my other selves.
Shanstra closed her eyes.
She guided her thoughts like a heat-seeking missile into the web, tearing up
node after node of energy. Phracton minds, confused as to what was happen-
ing, reached out, but could not grasp the slippery intruder.
Shanstra s mental missile lodged home. It burst, scattering thought-
shrapnel, deep inside a cocoon of hatred, anger, xenophobia.
Deep in the mind of the Phracton designated 4Z-88* the Secondary Com-
mandant of the Gadrell Major expeditionary unit.
Go, my children, said Shanstra, a whisper, a light but inescapable sugges-
tion in the heart of the web. Let your hatred, your anger, emerge. Begin your
attack.
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And from the Secondary s mind, it cracked, shattered, spilled. Like one
domino, knocking a huge and intricate tree of more dominoes, sending pulses
out
Saying KILL>>>>KILL>>>>KILL>>>>
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Part Three
MIND CITADEL
Only those who have lived all their lives under the dark clouds of
vague, undefined fears can appreciate the joy of a doubting soul
suddenly born into the kingdom of reason and free thought. Is
the bondage of the priest-ridden less galling than that of the slave,
because we do not see the chains, the indelible scars, the festering
wounds, the deep degradation of all the powers of the Godlike
mind?
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1860)
16
Media, Messages
The TARDIS did not actually materialize close to its last landing place. It
shimmered into view on top of a rocky outcrop, and the Doctor was outside
almost immediately with his portable telescope.
The city squatted on the horizon in one direction, hazed by red smoke and
dust. The Doctor turned slowly, scanning the bleak, reddish landscape, until
Aha, he said. Terran ship, if I m not mistaken. The glassy pinnacle, which
had looked at first like a spar of rock, jutted up quite clearly now, incongru-
ously technological among the sunset-coloured rocks.
There was a rustle at his shoulder, a shift of molecules like a silk curtain
opening into another world.
The Sensopath, over two metres tall, stood at the Doctor s side and towered
over him. He looked up from the eyepiece, and did a double take. The alien
seemed to have appropriated another of the Doctor s old items of clothing: the
electric-blue cloak of mourning which he had worn on his visit to Necros. His
old shirt with the questioning lapels hung loosely over an unmistakably fem-
inine body, and lush cascades of hair fell to the waist. The spindly hands had
developed still further, and looked full of hidden strength. The Sensopath s
eyes were green, but dull, like unpolished stones, beneath the coronet of the
thought-wave damper from the TARDIS.
Well? the Doctor said grimly.
Oh, yes, I can sense her. The mouth moved like blood. She is so close.
Good. Stay there. No closer.
Doctor. Kelzen s voice was commanding. This is me we are dealing with.
I will find it difficult to resist communion with what is, essentially, my own
mind.
I know. But you must. The Doctor looked up at her, his fingers pressed
together in front of his mouth as he spoke. I need you here to help me, but
above all there must be no communion until I ve worked out the best thing to
do with you all.
From high in the sky, there came the growing hum of a drive unit.
And there, unless I m mistaken, is my lift, said the Doctor. I suggest you
get back in the TARDIS where I showed you right now.
Kelzen rounded on him. Why? she asked challengingly.
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The Doctor sighed. I m not running auditions for companions here. You ll
be falling over and spraining your ankle next. Just do as I say please!
Hogarth got the pilot to bring the skimmer in low, following the trace which
had just appeared on the ridge in Sector D. It should not have been there, and
it did not fit comfortably into Cassie Hogarth s world-view.
As the skimmer contacted with the ground, red dust sprayed up on both
sides, and some of it clung to the skimmer s hood like old, rusty bloodstains.
Hogarth, priming her weapon, frowned at the strange blue box and the incon-
gruous figure which stood before it. All right, she said to the pilot, get this
thing open.
The skimmer s top flipped up, and Hogarth s gun was instantly trained on
the intruder, a small man in a crumpled white suit.
I wouldn t try anything on, she called out.
Well, indeed, said the man, who, as far as Hogarth could see, was busy
trying to tuck an old-fashioned viewing instrument into his inside pocket. I d
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