Doctor Who_ Alien Bodies - Lawrence Miles [54]
‘The Little Brother should have consulted me first, as well he must know.’ Sanjira tried to sound angry, but the effort made him feel very, very tired. ‘Nevertheless. I should like to examine this item at first hand. And the smell that’s troubling you, Little Sister, is my own urine. I’ve wet my bed. Does that bother you?’
Justine kept her eyes fixed on the floor. Her face was too pale to blush, though. ‘No, Cousin Sanjira.’
‘Good. We shouldn’t let these small things worry us. Now. Leave me. I need to dress.’
It took them the best part of a day to reach the city from Smithmanstown. The family owned an automobile, one of the few that had survived the “Cataclysm”, although its bodywork had been eaten away by the clockwork bacteria the Time Lords had introduced to the planet, and its engine pumped thick black smoke into the atmosphere wherever it went. There were no roads connecting the towns any more, so the machine trundled over the mounds of debris that had once been the suburbs, stopping in the shanty-towns whenever Justine became travel sick.
They passed fewer and fewer people as they drove into the city centre. The place was poisonous, and everyone knew it; you just didn’t live there, unless you could afford the alien medical equipment the Corporation peddled. The stronghouse, when they reached it, turned out to be a rotting three-storey building that had once been an administration office. Apt, Sanjira decided. The cults and the criminal groups were the only government Dronid had left. The Corporation made its home in the capital, while Faction Paradox was busy trying to rebuild its powerbase in the smaller towns around it.
Briefly, Sanjira wondered if the planet was really worth fighting over, but he put the thought out of his mind.
On the inside, the building wasn’t much different to the Mission, all bleached walls and dirty cracks. Evidently, the attack on the stronghouse had finished some time ago. There were bodies in the foyer, fallen Corporation security guards, half a dozen or so arranged in a messy, blood-flecked heap by the doorway. Some of the family’s city allies hovered in the shadows at the edges of the room, giggling among themselves and eyeing up Justine as she walked past them.
All men, Sanjira noted. Many of them had teeth sharpened to points. At least, Sanjira hoped they’d been sharpened, he certainly hadn’t heard of the city atmosphere causing DNA mutations like that. Most were dressed in suits, the kind that had been popular among the upwardly-mobile underclasses before the Time Lords had arrived, with gold medallions dangling around their scrawny necks. The usual tribal identifiers, thought Sanjira. Their forefathers had probably belonged to the ghetto gangs, before the cities had fallen.
They’d all be dead by thirty. Still, if they made useful allies, so much the better. It was good to have disposable people on your side.
They found the relic in an office, which Sanjira assumed had belonged to the stronghouse’s commander-in-chief, while he’d been alive. The room was, like all the others, white-walled and grubby, but there were no windows, the only light coming from a paraffin lamp nailed to the ceiling.
In the centre of the office was a desk, and perched on the desk, more than a little precariously, was a casket. It was metallic, with two symbols Sanjira didn’t recognise etched into its lid, and it pulsed with a soft silver light, which the Cousin guessed would probably be hypnotic if you stared at it for long enough. One of the Faction’s allies slouched in a chair by the desk, his squinty little eyes searching the room for something to rest his feet on. Two of his underlings hovered nearby, looking distinctly uncomfortable.
‘Got your box,’ the leader said, when Sanjira stepped forward. The man’s face was long, his features were lumpy, and he dribbled when he spoke. Sanjira presumed some sort of genetic deformity was involved.
The Cousin moved to inspect