Doctor Who_ Alien Bodies - Lawrence Miles [55]
‘Did I say you could touch it?’ drooled their leader.
Sanjira attempted to look pious. ‘Do I take it you’re going to ask for remuneration?’
The leader sniggered like a moron. He probably was a moron, though, so the Cousin couldn’t fault him for that. ‘Cost us lots to get into this place. Guns. Ammo. Organisational costs. Follow?’
Frankly, Sanjira was amazed he could say words like “organisational” without slobbering. ‘What do you want?’ he asked.
‘Want you to look into something. Want your help. Use those special bug-eyes you got.’
‘Look into what, precisely?’
The man grinned a saw-toothed grin. ‘Future. Our future. Corporation’s starting to notice us, follow? Ambushes. Set-ups. They say, either you work with us, or you don’t work. We want to know how they’re tooled up. Where they’re going to be moving in, when they’re thinking of playing bad little tricks on us. Don’t want to get snuck up on. Don’t want to work for them. Don’t want to work for anyone.’
‘I think we can come to some arrangement,’ Sanjira said. Justine looked horrified, but she didn’t speak. ‘Of course, I’ll need to inspect the casket before I can agree to anything,’ he added.
The leader glanced at his men. Then he shrugged, and got to his feet. ‘You can look. Don’t get too excited, heh?’ And, with another nasty little gurgle, the man sauntered out of the office, his two lapdogs in tow.
Justine waited until they were out of earshot before she spoke. ‘Cousin, you can’t... that is, with respect...’
Sanjira approached the casket, and ran his fingers across the lid. Yes. As he’d thought. A coffin, Time Lord design. ‘Is there a problem, Little Sister? Perhaps you don’t think we should do deals with our allies?’
Justine bowed her head. ‘Cousin, he wants us to use the techniques for his own benefit. The Spirits... such a thing would be disrespectful, surely?’
‘It’s wise to keep one’s allies happy, Little Sister.’
‘But the Spirits...’
‘The Spirits are a convenience. Their prime function is to be useful, not to be worshipped. Which is the greater weapon? The Grandfather himself, or the awe the people have for him?’
‘I... Cousin, forgive me. I don’t understand.’ Justine didn’t seem to know where to look. Obviously, she decided her best option was to change the subject, because she asked: ‘The relic. It’s what you expected?’
‘Yes. A body. Almost certainly a Time Lord.’
‘Is his biomass useful?’
Sanjira patted the lid of the casket. ‘We have all the Gallifreyan data we could possibly need. A corpse is of no value to us. We have no control over the dead, even if we have their biodata. That’s the way of the Celestis, not the way of the family.’
Little Sister Justine looked puzzled. ‘Forgive me, Cousin. If that’s true, why do you want to bargain for the casket?’
‘Because the dead must be given their due rites. Even the dead of Gallifrey. Besides which, I want to make our allies feel they’re getting something for nothing. If they defect to the Corporation, Dronid will never be ours.’
He thought about that for a moment. ‘What’s left of Dronid will never be ours,’ he corrected himself.
They performed the ritual back at the Mission, in the chambers of the family shrine. Cousin Sanjira let Justine speak the Parting Prayer. When the Spirits latched onto the casket, and pulled it away through the folds of space-time, the Little Sister actually jumped. She’d never been responsible for a dematerialisation before, Sanjira remembered. He tried not to smile at the look on her face.
She’d performed the rite well, though. One day, when she realised the true significance of the Spirits, she’d make a good Cousin. Perhaps even a good Mother.
They watched the progress of the casket on one of the shrine’s monitors, watched it tumbling away through the vortex, heading towards whatever destination the Spirits had chosen for it. Justine, as was traditional, prayed that the