The Book of the Still by Paul Ebbs

Author:Paul Ebbs [Ebbs, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General, Science Fiction, Adventure, Comics & Graphic Novels, Doctor Who (Fictitious Character)
ISBN: 9780563538516
Publisher: BBC Worldwide
Published: 2002-04-30T07:00:00+00:00

Rhian had held her breath and then screamed.

Mob Dynamics

133

The aliens turned in unison from the Doctor and fired. The guards hadn’t stood a chance.

Everyone except the Doctor had thrown themselves to the floor as the guards were disintegrated, their bodies smeared on the wind, sprays of blood fanning out behind the smoking boots.

The Doctor kept his hands raised and spoke. There was a grim authority in his voice that Rhian could not have imagined being there before. ‘I want everyone to get up very slowly. Our visitors are willing to kill us if they are given cause. Gentlemen of the City Guard, you saw what happened to your comrades.

Do not think that you would be treated any differently if you were also to act so rashly.’ The Doctor licked at his lips. Rhian could see the calculations going on behind his eyes, the weighing of risk, as if his face were alive with possibilities and the paramount need to keep everyone around him alive. He spared no glance at the evidence of the dead guards; his concern was only with the living.

This savage act of violence had pushed him to another level; Rhian had seen it before at the crashed hoverbus. A determination that was absolute in its ferocity.

The Doctor turned back to the aliens. ‘We mean you no harm. I apologise for the actions of the guards; they acted without authority from their leaders and without thought. We understand your need to protect yourselves when threatened and hold no malice towards you for the actions you were forced into.’

The Mayor fixed the Doctor with a wide-eyed stare, his mouth a hollow ‘O’.

When he received no glance of acquiescence from the Doctor, he turned to the aliens and nodded his agreement.

‘You all die. Whatever. Only you choose method. Quick, clean. Drawn, dirty.

Choose. Still. Book. Now.’

The Doctor essayed the idea of lowering his hands but as the guns twitched towards him, he repositioned them high above his head.

‘You time traveller. Smell it. Cannot interact. Die too. Cannot leave here.’

‘Can you at least tell us why you’re here? What have these people done to you? Why do you wish to destroy them?’

‘No matter. Explanation irrelevant. Send bomb.’

A white marble ball, featureless and half a metre in diameter materialised in front of the alien. Rhian caught a movement in the flap of its garment and a flash from two dark liquid eyes as they shrunk back, blinking, into the darkness.

The ball hummed gently. Rhian couldn’t hear it, but she could feel it. There was a sick bass hum resonating through her innards.

134

The Book of the Still

The foremost alien let its left bunch of tentacles drop from the side of its gun and fall into the ball. Its surface was liquid, like milk, and the tentacles dipped in without resistance, swirling the surface tension of the ball.

‘Book. Still. Clean? Dirty?’

‘The Book has left Lebenswelt.’

The tentacles froze in the ball, stiffening at the Doctor’s words. With a slithering, whipping motion, they flicked out of the ball and reached inside the alien’s trenchcoat.

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