Chapter Seven

"Stoutly put, doctor," barked the cold, crisp voice of the Hem netjer, "but mere words alone won't save you now."

The two adventurers turned at the sound to find their only route of escape cut off from them by the gathering of the High Priest, his otherworldly 'gods', and the Pharaoh. The latter was eerily glassy-eyed and shuffled behind the others.

"Oh, I don't know," the Doctor smothered his sarcasm with a masterful layer of charm, "they have before, believe it or not; fused a Cyberman's brain once, simply by asking him just how much wood a woodchuck could chuck if it could, y'know, actually chuck logs about. Aww, yeah, that was a sight! One moment it's 'calculating this,' and 'computing that,'" he cast Martha a sly wink, but she didn't have to be told; she'd grown to read the signs when it came to his uniquely chatty ways of buying time. "The next thing you know, it's all 'ErrorErrorError-BOOOM'!" he threw his arms wide into the air, grinning maniacally. "But that's just me, you see. I'm clever like that."

"Long winded, too," growled the deadly beauty that was Isis.

"Ain't I , though?" his grin reached cheek-splitting proportions. Any further and it would fall off, Martha was sure. "Could talk for England, me – did, too," he added in afterthought, "once of twice, but that was before the good ol' Queen Victoria decided to banish me from the kingdom, an set-up Torchwood to make sure I stayed out. Didn't take to it for long, though, did I? was right back here before they even had the sense to scream for help! Can't be helped, I guess; these poor apes just seem to attract trouble from things like you, don't they? Misfortune-magnets, that pretty much sums-up the human race! I dunno…"

"Can we just kill him before he starts up again?" sighed Anubis, but he was instantly waved into silence by his mistress Isis.

"Not just, yet," she intoned. "This one…intrigues me; for all his babbling, he's mentioned a few curious details. What exactly do you know of the Cybermen, strange doctor?"

"Weeell, if you really don't want me babbling again, it would be quicker to ask me what I don't know about the Cybers," retorted the Doctor with a cheeky grin, "'Cos, y'know, that would keep me silent on account of how anything I would say counting as something I did know after all, ergo defeating the purpose. In other words, I know everything about the Cybermen – oh, but sorry! There I go again!" he playfully slapped his forehead. "So, what did you want to know? Tall silver chaps none too fond of gold, whose idea of upgrading sentient species is to bung their still-living brains into what is, effectively, a walking microwave with ideas waaay above it's station. They prefer logic over emotion, are so cold they make Siberia seem like the core of the Sun, and – just between you and me – they have a nasty habit of tapping you on the shoulder and frying you before they can even get around to letting you know you dropped your wallet…and those blank faces! Either it's meant to empathize that they're completely devoid of all emotion, or they were really created to become the universe's greatest poker players, in which case they've sorely lost their way…enough for you, is it?"

"You talk in puzzles, Doctor –"

"Hah, that's rich coming from the traffic jams," snorted Martha, her courage bolstered by the obvious consternation the Doctor's patter was having on the malevolent beings.

"- but, nevertheless," Isis continued, brushing off Martha's scathing remark, "you are very well informed. Id' ask you more about this Queen…Viktorea and her curious Torchwood, but I fear you'd talk us into the next century," the faux-goddess looked please with her caustic retort, but the Doctor wouldn't be outdone now.

"Quite possibly," he conceded softly, "I've got all the time in the world, after all – after it, too. Unlike you four, however, who don't have very long at all, do you?" In a heartbeat, his tone had taken on a more serious, business-like hardness. "Whatever you've got planned, it needs to be done right now, before the flooding of the Nile really gets going, am I right? Nah, you don't have to say anything, Scooby's snarling there tells me I'm hitting on the truth," Anubis continued to snarl contemptuously, although Martha highly doubted it had understood the cartoon comparison, let alone be offended by it. "Well," continued the Doctor, "from the looks of you I'm guessing your intentions are far from benign – about as far from being benign as you can get, I reckon, without having gone right around the world. So, any benevolent uses for the excess of water the inundation will bring are out of the question…which only leaves the bad uses; the uses I'd have to stop."

"It's only business," smiled Isis frostily, her frightening serenity chilling Martha to the core. "But you cannot stop us, curious doctor. You could not possibly hope to stop us, even were you in possession of all the facts."

"Oh, well, you'd be surprised what I could stop with far less," he retorted just as coldly, all good-natured humour evaporating in the heat of her threats, "MacGuyver can't hold a candle to me…but, let's assume that, just for one second, you're correct and there's absolutely nothing I can do, and my friend and I here are going to die anyway and your plan will succeed. What harm could all the facts possibly do, then? Indulge me."

"We gods do not have to explain our actions to you mere mortals!" barked Anubis vehemently, taking a step forward.

The Doctor met him with a step of his own, eyes blazing. "Oh, you're barking up so many wrong trees there, Muttley. More than you could possibly imagine. But let's just suffice to say that I don't believe you are the true Ancient Egyptian gods any more than I fervently believe the Daleks are the most peaceful race in the cosmos. So let's start with that; what exactly are you?" stony silence met his demands, and his patience was wearing thin. "Okay, you know what, you're really giving me no choice. I demand that you tell me your place of origin and species designation, as set down by the Shadow Proclamation! Tell me you name!"

This order seemed to have some magic over the four assembled gods as, stuggle all they wanted to keep their mouths shut, a reply was wrenched from their lips.

"We…are the…Braxlavax!"

End of Chapter Seven