Doctor Who: BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures [013] - Placebo Effect by Gary Russell

Author:Gary Russell
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science-Fiction - Doctor Who
ISBN: 9780563405870
Publisher: BBC Books
Published: 1998-07-14T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

Paradise Place

The man who had been Jean-Paul Cartwright was gone. For ever Now in his place were three hundred million other personalities, memories and experiences all combined into one being.

Beside its bloated body was all that remained of Cartwright’s seven former compatriots, encased in the mucus-encrusted rolls of Wirrrn pupae, crawling around the floor, preparing to spread their seed on to whatever flesh they encountered. But, as a Swarm Leader, that which had been Jean-Paul Cartwright was entrusted with the command of the batch and sent them their orders telepathically.

In response, the twenty or so pupae grouped there reared up, acknowledging their leader’s commands.

Then they crawled off into the tunnels, on their mission: to find new Wirrrn host bodies among the races on the surface of Micawber’s World and transform them into Wirrrn drones like themselves.

The Swarm Leader knew this was good.

It turned to the hybrids standing beside it, twitching its mandibles and antennae, sending questions into the brain of the less-dominated one – the one that could still work among the alien creatures above.

Mason, that was the designation it used with the aliens. Mason nodded slightly, horrible alien eyes with their limited vision and easily damaged parts staring pointlessly at the Swarm Leader. It pointed to the four forms beside it. Two of them were almost full pupae now, the last bits of their humanoid appendages retracting beneath the pupal chitin. The most recent conversion still wore shreds of its ridiculous outer clothing. The Swarm Leader looked into this new mind, sensing the time was right to absorb it.

‘Leave… me alone…’it was thinking. ‘I am… an individual…’

The Swarm Leader considered the futility of this. Of all the races the Wirrrn absorbed, humanoid ones were always the most aggressively independent ones, but even they surrendered in the end, adding their information and memory to the hive mind.

This one was no different. The Swarm Leader began to draw the consciousness into itself, automatically transferring it to every other Wirrrn everywhere. This was once a human male from Earth, like Mason. It had been Dev Jeol, a scientist among its people.

And the creature once called Mason had alerted the Swarm Leader to one particular item of information it possessed. There was a strange humanoid on Micawber’s World helping the humans – the intellect and physical strength it possessed would help the Wirrrn greatly.

It was known as the Doctor.

Despite Dev Jeol’s attempts at resistance, the Swarm Leader took little effort to finally absorb it completely, dominating its thoughts, making them Wirrrn thoughts and memories.

There was a brief flash of euphoria felt throughout the hive mind as Dev Jeol finally became a Wirrrn, and all his/its memories became shared and known.

And instantly the Swarm Leader knew it needed the Doctor.

The other Swarm Leaders on the planet knew they needed the Doctor.

The Queen, protected near the solar generator at the heart of the planet, also sent its message.

Absorption of this Doctor was to take immediate priority. It was time to attack the surface, to propagate and further the race existence.

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