Cold Fusion - Lance Parkin [104]
‘You’re not the most experienced security guard, are you?’ Forrester asked the technician.
He chuckled at that. ‘I’m a particle physicist,’ he admitted.
He was only in his early twenties, with a floppy black hairstyle that made him look even younger.
‘You’ve locked us up in a room right next door to the transmat.’
‘We’ve changed the codes, so you won’t be able to use it.
Besides, you’re handcuffed.’
Roz nodded, accepting the answer. ‘There aren’t any Adjudicators here?’
The technician seemed gratified by Roz’s interest in him.
She had relaxed a little. He bent over her, refreshing her glass of water. ‘A standing order of the Chief Scientist. It was one of the preconditions laid down when the peacekeeping force arrived that this project would be allowed to continue without interference from Earth. We get the occasional observer or messenger, but by order of the Empress herself none bear arms. We’re eight kilometres underground here, and the only way in is the transmat, so we’re pretty safe from attack. The best type of security is secrecy. Only seventeen people in the universe know about this research station, present company excepted.’
Ron’s face and the technician’s were level, and only inches apart. ‘A cigarette’s out of the question, I know, but can I stretch my legs?’
‘Sure. You’re in handcuffs.’
He moved back, and watched as Forrester stood, her hands about level with her belt. She shifted from one hip to the other. ‘You don’t use those robot cuffs the Bureau use.’
‘No,’ he laughed almost apologetically. ‘I didn’t realize you were a connoisseur.’
Forrester clasped her hands together, as if she was trying to squeeze life back into them. ‘Autocuffs do have one advantage.’
‘Yes?’
‘Yeah. They wouldn’t have let you tie my hands together at the front.’
‘What’s wrong wi-’ Forrester threw her hands up like a club, catching the technician on the chin. He reeled, and was quite unprepared when the hands swung back down and connected with the back of his neck.
‘I thought you’d never ask,’ Forrester told him. ‘If my hands were tied at the back, I wouldn’t have been able to do that. Think of this as a learning experience, and be glad that I didn’t garrotte you.’ She bent down and fished the keycard from the prone technician’s tunic. Adric positioned himself so that she could release him, then reciprocated. Both sets of handcuffs clattered to the floor.
Forrester picked up one of the sets and cuffed the technician to one of the chair legs. ‘Let’s get back out to that TARDIS. There might still be time to save the Doctor.’
‘Wait,’ Adric warned. They stopped, listened as the transmat chamber next door activated with a whine.
‘Incoming,’ Roz noted. ‘We’ve got visitors.’
There were dozens of footsteps. Adric couldn’t see them, of course, but could hear the clattering of their plastic armour-plating. They were marching resolutely towards them, until the last minute when they turned a corner.
From then, the noise gradually subsided. Forrester had been listening intently.
‘Adjudicators,’ Forrester said. ‘Over a dozen of them.
That’ll make it more difficult to get to the Machine.’ A thought struck her. ‘Not impossible, though. We need to get to a computer.’
Next door, the transmat activated again. Another group of people in armour.
‘That man just said that your Empress banned Adjudicators from coming here.’
‘It looks like there’s been a change of policy.’
Part Six
Deus Ex Machina
16
The Empire Strikes Back
‘It looks like there’s been a change of policy,’ the Protector said.
He found Whitfield in the bunk in her office, woke her and told her about the Adjudicators. She was on her feet before he had finished speaking, sealing up her tunic.
‘Where are they now?’
‘All over the place, Chief Scientist. There are dozens of them.’ Sure enough there were a couple of Adjudicators in full armour at the end of the corridor, guarding the lift.
‘You there! Explain