Cold Fusion - Lance Parkin [5]
It lifted a hand, slowly, then its fingers danced for a moment.
‘What is that? Sign language?’ The Doctor’s eyes were open again, he was staring at the figure, frustrated.
‘Come on, Doctor.’ Ziyou grabbed the Doctor’s shoulder, but the little man shrugged him off
‘I... It has something to do with my past. You go, I...’
‘Come on!’
‘Ferutu.’ The voice came from all around them, a scratchy sound like a quill on parchment.
‘My past. My future. I... don’t know. I’ve never... It’s so alien.’
The apparition watched the Doctor’s pained expression with scientific interest.
Simultaneously they reached out to touch one another.
Their fingers brushed together.
‘Is it solid?’ Ziyou asked, after a moment.
‘Yes,’ the Doctor noted. ‘But like a wall, not like living flesh. There’s a wall.’
‘arrivAL –’
The snowlock exploded inwards, most of the supporting brickwork above it cracking into rubble and crashing to the floor.
‘– IMMinent.’
‘DO NOT ATTEMPT TO MOVE. EVERYONE HERE
IS IN VIOLATION OF PLANETARY EMERGENCY
DIRECTIVE THREE. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO MOVE,’
a monotone voice boomed. Something huge stomped in, over the wreckage of the doorframe.
Ziyou had seen pictures of wardroids, he’d seen them march past in parades, but this was the first one he’d ever seen in action. It was seven feet tall, and almost as broad. It had heavy armour-plating on the shoulders and chest, but only spindly legs. Its cylindrical head swung from side to side, a single camera eye registering everyone in the room.
Behind the robot, the bitter night air was pouring through the new hole in the wall. Ziyou found himself wondering how the wardroid had arrived here. It must have transmatted in.
The waystation patrons were scrambling for cover, or grabbing their possessions and running for the emergency exit on the far wall. In front of Ziyou, one of the Shark People was raising his pistol. Before the gun was even waist-height, the robot s arm had whipped up and straightened. A mechanical fist clenched, and knuckle cannons fired, once. The Shark Person lurched back, sinking to the floor. There was a neat bullet hole above one of its eyes.
A panel on the robot’s shoulderpad flipped open and a grenade choomed from it, arcing over everyone’s head, almost touching the ceiling, before falling to the ground in front of the emergency exit. When it detonated, it brought down the roof, trapping half a dozen people in the wreckage.
Now everyone was blocked in, and there was no option but to stand and fight. Those with weapons reached for them, scrabbling through thick coats to get at them. Before anyone had found their gun, the robot’s arm swung around the room in a carefully measured circle, firing single shots.
Each bullet hit its target: a headshot for the humans; the dragonheart in the case of the Kosnax. Now everyone was screaming and diving for cover.
Everyone except the Doctor. Unnoticed, the ghost had disappeared. The Doctor stood his ground, deep in thought while the room exploded around him. Ziyou stayed close hoping that some of the little man’s calmness would rub off.
‘Doctor!’ Ziyou warned.
‘Although the robot has laser ordnance at its disposal, it is using only projectile weapons,’ the Doctor noted with fascination.
‘Er... yes. Very interesting.’
‘It leaves us in no doubt that lethal force is being employed.’ A bullet whizzed past the Doctor, hitting a snowship captain square in the chest. ‘An onlooker might mistake an energy beam for a stun ray, but a bullet is a bullet is a bullet.’
‘Doctor, people are dying.’
The little man’s head snapped around, taking in the carnage for the first time.
‘Well, I’ll soon put a stop to that,’ he promised. He whirled to face the robot, and waved his arm in the air
‘Coo-eee!’
The wardroid lurched forward, the ground reverberating to Its footfalls. It had fixed its gaze on the