'He's spilling the stuff!' Ben said.

'It doesn't matter,' the Doctor explained. 'Each Selyoid is self-regenerating, duplicated millions of times inside that liquid but comprised of one consciousness. Only some of each creature needs to be ingested for the individual Selyoid to live on.' Fletcher grinned.

'Stop it!' De Sande screamed, insane with panic. 'You don't know what you're doing!'

'Oh I know,' Fletcher smirked. 'You know full well that I'm right, that I'll become the supreme power behind these creatures. You're scared because you know I'm right, and you want to stop me,'

'No,' De Sande shouted. 'You're wrong. The Selyoid director will die inside you! In a living being it has no control, no power. Give it up, or I'll kill you.'

Fletcher started to gag as if the Selyoid he'd just swallowed was trying to escape from his system, but he kept his mouth tightly shut. His eyes were going red and his skin paled, but he held on to the Selyoid until it had no choice but to merge with him. Ben wondered if the remaining corpses would try to attack Fletcher, but they just stood motionless as if waiting for orders.

'That's the Selyoid leader, isn't it?' the Doctor said. 'The creature inside Fletcher... It's the one that controls everything else, the top mind...' he looked at De Sande and raised an eyebrow. 'That's why they won't attack him. They don't want to injure their leader! The Selyoids in you and Fletcher... they're the ones in charge.' The Doctor's face lit up. 'Which means they're the ones who can stop this before it's too late!'

Fletcher's hands were clasped over his face as he tried desperately to hold the Selyoid director inside his body. De Sande ran up to him and tried to pull his hands away.

'Give it up!' De Sande screamed. 'You're killing it!'

'It's too late,' the Doctor said. 'The Selyoids' leader is dying.

Their control is fading. You've lost, De Sande. You've lost!'

Chapter Thirty.

Polly drove Wallis's car as fast as she could down Western Canyon. She didn't know where she was going, but knew she had to get away from De Sande's marquee, had to get away from the chaos. She looked over to the passenger seat, at the drowsy form of Chate. He was silent, sleepy and far less aggressive and charismatic than he had been when she had first met him.

A long line of cars coming in the opposite direction continued to make the pilgrimage towards the marquee, but the numbers of people were beginning to thin out now. Polly winced as pain shot through her chest. No, shot through the Selyoids inside her. They were lost, disorientated. They were dying. Driving became too painful, so she pulled the car into a slip road and parked it. She got out and ran over to open the passenger door. 'How are you?' Polly asked, helping Chate out of the car. He smiled at her. It was a drained, battered smile, but one that said he wasn't beaten.

'What do we do now?' he asked.

Polly tried to think of something comforting to say. Tried to think of something that would ease the poor man's suffering, but nothing came.

'You don't look well,' Chate rasped, clearly fighting his own pain. 'Perhaps you should sit down?'

Polly rubbed her stomach. 'These things... they're dying.'

Chate nodded. 'I know. What little was left in me... it's gone now. All their energy was exhausted healing me. They've been cut off from the others and couldn't take the shock. I felt them go, felt them say goodbye.'

'Something awful's happened to them,' Polly said. 'I hear them screaming inside me. I can hear all their screams... They're lost, directionless. They can't survive.'

Chate and Polly walked to the edge of the main highway.

The reaction was the same everywhere. People couldn't drive because of the Selyoid pain they were feeling so they had abandoned their cars and were wandering around, totally disorientated.

'They're not going to the hills,' Chate said. 'The film's not working.'

Polly looked up at the billboards, at the screens that should have been displaying Selyoid instructions to the eager masses, but saw nothing but a simple film poster.

'I can feel them dying,' she said as the realisation hit her.

'Didn't you hear them speak to you? Telling you that they've lost their leader. Without it.. they're nothing. Locked in place they have no power.'

'And without that power no one will want to follow them.

No one will want to share the dream.'

Polly felt the creatures' pain ripple inside her, felt them ebbing away as their life source diminished until she wasn't even aware of their existence. 'It's over,' she said grimly.

Chate put an arm around her waist, seeking comfort in his grief. 'Do you think things would have been better?' he asked.

'Do you think we would have been happy?'

'I don't know,' Polly said, watching people drift off and fall to the ground as the Selyoids inside them died. 'All I know is that this wasn't their time. Fame is fleeting, as they say.'

Fletcher's hands stayed clasped firmly to his mouth, no matter how hard De Sande tried to prise them away. By shoving his weight forward he managed to send his opponent flying to the ground.

De Sande felt a sickening feeling surge through his stomach.

He felt the pain of the Selyoid inside him, felt its anger and frustration at the loss of its director.

Fletcher slowly removed his hands from his mouth and began rubbing his stomach like a man finishing a particularly satisfying meal.

'You're giving in?' De Sande asked hopefully.

Fletcher stood up, then smiled and shook his head. 'Not really. It's just that... Well, it seems this Selyoid likes me.'

'Impossible,' De Sande said, shaking his head. 'It can't.'

'Seems it's been in a dead body for too long. For once it's getting some life. It's forgotten what it's like to share itself with another. It's lost, it's confused. It's too helpless to leave me unless I want it to. It's picking up on my emotions and can't help but be affected by what it's watching. Guess my life must be a real tear-jerker, huh?'

De Sande tried once more to attack Fletcher, but the pain all through his body was too great. He'd been joined with the Selyoid for too long. Its pain was his pain and he couldn't ignore it. The Selyoids in both men were refusing to attack each other.

'They're dying!' De Sande cried. 'The Selyoids are dying!'

'It's too late,' the Doctor said coldly. 'You underestimated your dependence on other people, on the other Selyoids. You thought you could create the ultimate society. But you failed.

When stars fall they crush everything underneath them. Give up, De Sande. It's too late.'

De Sande's head pounded with tension. 'No!' he screamed, scrambling to his feet, 'We have to get it out of him. We have to get the Selyoid director back into one of the bodies!'

'It doesn't want to leave me,' Fletcher said smugly. 'If you try and force it out of me you'll kill it.'

De Sande struggled defiantly to ignore the pain inside him and pointed to Fletcher. 'What if we don't need that Selyoid to reassert control? If the director has betrayed us a new Selyoid must be found to take its place.' He smiled and rubbed his stomach gently. 'I'm stronger than everyone,' he said. 'I've been with the Selyoids the longest. I know them better than anyone.

They're more a part of me than anyone. I've been the leader of the humans who helped the plan. What if the Selyoid in me could become the new director? Yes, it's certainly strong enough. I will be the new Selyoid director!' He looked at Fletcher and grinned. 'How does that make you feel, eh son?'

'That won't work,' the Doctor said. 'Any sentience, any free will, interferes too much in the Selyoid thought patterns, gets in the way. The director needs a brain it doesn't have to share with a human. There are just too many emotions in a living person.

No Selyoid would be strong enough to suppress them.'

'But you don't understand,' De Sande said. 'If I block off my own thoughts, my own emotions. If I let it take me over, establish its control... It loves me, it needs me. It'll give me back my own free will once another suitable host for the new Selyoid director can be found... Yes, you know it might just work!'

'De Sande, you're crazy,' Fletcher said. 'You're too strong, the Selyoid will never break through your mental defences no matter how much you try and open up to it. You won't be able to hide your thoughts.'

De Sande shook his head and began to pace up and down the podium. 'What if there was a way to increase the strength of the Selyoid's control? What if there was a way to make it so powerful that it could drown out any interference from a human brain?'

He leapt down from the podium and went over to the table on which the vials of Selyoid essence stood. He quickly lifted each vial up and threw its contents down his throat.

'I will absorb as many of the Selyoids as I can,' he announced. 'Soon their influence will be so strong in me will dominate every one of my thoughts, every one of my emotions that there'll be no interference and through me they'll be able to control every Selyoid in the city.'

He raced up to the podium microphone and cleared his throat. 'Everyone,' he called to the groaning masses, all of whom were clutching their stomachs and sobbing with pain as life slowly ebbed from the Selyoids inside them. 'I can save you.' His amplified voice echoed around the marquee. 'I can save your new friends, but you'll have to make a sacrifice. You'll have to say goodbye to them, let them leave you.' The crowd gasped, and its wails got louder. 'It will only be for a short while,' De Sande reassured them. 'And all your friends will survive...' A pause for dramatic effect. '... In me! I will control you! The new world will go ahead as planned!'

He jumped down from the podium into the celebrity area and, one by one, began to kiss everyone he could see fully on the lips. As he did so, he felt the Selyoid essence inside each of them flood through his mouth and into his body. He felt the creatures surging desperately into him, knowing that this was their last chance at survival, their last chance at life in a form greater than a chemical stew.

He felt his stomach fill as he dragged more and more of the Selyoids from people's mouths. He knew that he'd never be able to get all the creatures inside him, knew that even if he could many of them would be dead by the time he reached the people they were living in, but he knew he had to try.

'Move and I'll shoot!' Fletcher said, raising a gun to the De Sande's chest.

De Sande laughed. 'And what if you do? The amount of Selyoids inside me now... They'll patch me up in no time.'

He saw Fletcher wince.

'See what you've done? The Selyoid inside you is dying. A piece of you is dying.'

Fletcher shook his head then staggered back and fell down, crashing into a row of chairs.

Most of the crowd were too weak to move but several people had managed to stagger over to De Sande and were hounding him, desperately trying to be the next ones to give him their Selyoids. He kissed one of them, but as soon as he had taken the Selyoid liquid into his mouth he retched it back up again. He couldn't ingest any more of the creatures, but as he felt his mind grow cloudy he knew it didn't matter. The plan was working. He felt the creatures take control and knew he had to get out of here. He had to get to safety, to a place where he could be worshipped, where the Selyoids could convert new people to their cause.

'The hangar,' De Sande said, shouting to a person he recognised as being one of the Star Light chauffeurs. 'Get me to the hangar, quickly!'

The chauffeur nodded and followed De Sande as he ran out of the marquee, ignoring the Doctor's shouts for him to stop.

'Come on,' the Doctor said, helping Ben to his feet. 'We must find this hangar. We must go after De Sande!'

Ben looked at the crowd of sobbing people, at the established celebrities and those who had only recently gained the Selyoid charm, all wounded and helpless as the creatures inside them died.

'But Doctor, what about this lot? We can't leave them.'

He sidled over to a middle-aged woman who was crying into her lap. 'Are you OK?' he asked.

The woman looked up at him, her face forlorn. 'There's something... missing,' she said. 'But I can't quite remember what.'

'You'll be fine,' the Doctor reassured her. He turned to Ben.

'They'll all be fine. Their memories will be cloudy, and in time all they'll recall about this is that they took a trip to the hills to see a motion picture. The casualties outside... I wouldn't be at all surprised if the police come up with some explanation for the media that will cover this up nice and neatly.'

Ben nodded and looked around at the bewildered masses.

'What about Polly?'

'She should be fine too,' the Doctor said. 'The Selyoid inside her will die and she'll remember very little.'

'That reminds me,' Ben said, turning to look back at the podium. 'Where's Fletcher?'

The cop was nowhere in sight.

'I don't know,' the Doctor said, 'but we don't have time to worry about him now. We must stop De Sande.'

Chapter Thirty-One.

Having learned the location of the Star Light hangar from one of the crowd, it hadn't taken long for the Doctor to find an abandoned car, hot-wire it and drive it away. The place was buzzing with activity when he and Ben reached it. A large number of engineers and technicians bustled around its edges.

Lit up, the building stood like a giant golden cube in the night.

The Doctor ran up to one of the technicians. 'Excuse me,'

he said. 'You haven't seen Mr De Sande recently, have you?'

The technician looked up and pointed to the runway in front of the hangar where a row of sleek-looking planes were being prepared for take-off. 'Over there,' he said. 'But you'd better hurry, he'll be taking off in a minute.'

'Which plane?' Ben asked.