Doctor Who_ Combat Rock - Mick Lewis [91]
‘I should dearly like to speak to him,’ the Doctor continued. ‘It’s just so much more satisfying face to face, rather than conversing telepathically, don’t you think?’
Tigus’s eyes were huge. ‘You hear voice of Krallik too?’
Then he paused, as if listening, his head cocked to one side.
There was a note of awe in his voice when he spoke again.
‘You honoured. You will be first man Krallik ever ask to meet.’
‘Indeed?’ The Doctor had a silly grin on his face as if well pleased with his own cleverness. Then he frowned, and trepidation replaced the grin. ‘Oh dear. I hope he’s in a good mood.’ He looked about somewhat helplessly as Tigus snapped his fingers and one of the guerrillas herded him towards the ladder in the centre of the room. Nobody offered to come to his assistance. Wina was still asleep, and Wemus looked decidedly timid. Kepennis shrugged at him and commenced rolling a cigarette.
This was it then. He was on his own. ‘All right, all right,’
he said grumpily to the guerrilla who was prodding him forward. He placed one foot on the lowest rung, heaved his body up, then lowered his foot back onto the floor, turning with an apologetic, simple look on his face.
‘I’m really not dressed for the occasion,’ he twittered.
‘Perhaps we ought to call it off in favour of a more suitable time. After tea, perhaps.’ A prod in the backside from a spearhead persuaded him to cease his babbling. He skipped forward, letting out some almighty, indignant bellows.
‘Well, there’s no need to be so rude about it, is there?’ He cried, trying to retain some dignity, while straightening his jacket and puffing his cheeks in and out. He peered up the ladder to the hatch above. ‘Oh well, nothing ventured...’ he said cheerfully, and put his foot back on the ladder.
Sex with a stranger was always better than committing.
You taught me that, didn’t you?
That commitment meant nothing when it came down to it.
You and me, baby. We had it all. And you burned it. As if smearing some rude biker was such a bad thing to do? The look of horror and fear on your face said it all, though, baby.
You remember how I tried to reach out, and take you back, to promise you that this didn’t matter and nothing had changed and I wasn’t no psycho killer but just a man with a short temper.
Didn’t listen. Didn’t try.
Just the screaming. And you knew how I felt about that.
So...
Back to the loneliness.
Back to the whores.
Whores had no claims. Whores had no feelings. You used
‘em and you tossed ‘em.
They couldn’t see into your heart, and they couldn’t touch you where you were really naked.
Bless ’em. Love ’em.
Whores had no feelings, you see. That’s why be loved ’em so...
Pan was about to break into song when the signal came through. It would have been a cynical song of course, not a joyful parading of the soul. But the rest of the Dogs were spared it anyway, because the monitor light was flashing on the instrument bank.
‘Looks like our man has located the target at looo-oong last,’ he contented himself with crooning instead. He reached over and patted Victoria’s knee.
She was sitting rigidly next to him, tired and afraid of these bad, bad men. One of them – the big fat one with a beard and the dislocated eye – had already tried interfering with her, but the evil brute with the tattoos had stopped him. He seemed to hold a little power over the others, although why he had spared her the indignity of being molested she wasn’t sure.
However, she was absolutely convinced it had nothing to do with any finer qualities he might have. She was quite, quite sure he didn’t have any of those.
‘Let’s go, boys’
Twist let his fingers dance over the control keys and the cruiser lurched, vibrated worryingly and then shook itself like a dog before steadying itself into relatively smooth flight again.
Twist hunched over the monitor, triangulating the signal source.
Pan got up and moved to a large screen set in a bank on the starboard bulkhead of the cruiser. Victoria watched him.
He moved like a panther, all stealth and easy violence,