Doctor Who_ Corpse Marker - Chris Boucher [19]
There were two things he liked about having Cailio Techlan as an executive assistant. First and most importantly she was too stupid to be a threat to him. Second and most pleasurably she was a member, a minor member it was true but a member nonetheless, of the twenty families and he very much enjoyed putting her in her place from time to time.
‘Still working on that stroke, Kiy,’ she said flatly. ‘You should try and be calm.’
‘I am perfectly calm,’ he snapped.
‘It was only one impertinent question.’ She smiled at him.
‘And it’s the one they’re going to ask me, that’s all.’ She got up and shuffled back towards the driving cabin where the communications unit was.
‘You can tell them what I told you,’ Uvanov said.
‘You’re the boss,’ she said in the robot-speak aristo monotone.
Uvanov scowled. Putting her in her place worked better some times than others. Sometimes it felt as though she was laughing at him. He tried to concentrate on the production sheets. Always it felt as though she was laughing at him. How did she do that? How did they do that?
If the production readouts were correct the raid had, was having, almost no effect. It was the usual ARF stuff - smash some equipment, crush some Dums, break a few Voc units -
publicity smoke and sparkle. Could it have been a coincidence after all?
‘They’re in the monitoring centre.’ She was back. ‘The technicians for Dome Six are in the monitoring centre.’
He didn’t look up. ‘So there was no one in there when everything locked down?’
‘You want me to ask them that?’
‘No. I was just thinking aloud.’
‘Is that a problem?’
Now he looked up, glaring. Was she trying to be funny again? ‘What did you say?’
‘Is it a problem that there was no one in there?’
‘No.’
It was a problem, of course. Cues were supposed to be imprinted immediately. If the first full-process batch went psychotic or showed out as Dum because there was no one on hand to give the first guidance patterns it was not going to reflect well on the Project. He realised abruptly that it could have been all the raid was designed to achieve. To keep them out of the Hatchling Dome long enough for the batch to go bad. But that really would mean there had been a major breakdown in security.
He stared hard at Cailio Techlan. Did she know? Had she found out and passed it on to some aristo cabal? He knew they would stop at nothing to keep him off the Board.
She noticed the look. ‘Is there something else you want me to do?’ she asked.
Either way, Uvanov thought, coincidence or plot, he needed this raid to be serious. He needed more than fireworks and fantasy if he was going to cover his back. ‘Any reports of casualties?’ he asked.
‘You want me to check that now?’ Monotone boredom with a hint of irritation.
Uvanov smiled insincerely. ‘That’s what I want you to do.’
‘We’ll be there any time. Even in this thing we’ll be there any time.’
Uvanov’s smile did not change. ‘You’d better hurry then,’ he said. She started back to the front of the vehicle.
‘You want to know their names?’
It gave Uvanov an absurd moment of satisfaction to hear the monotone sarcasm. ‘Just how many and which side they were on,’ he said happily.
The first thing Poul was conscious of was the pain in his knees and then in his hands and elbows. The bed was a lot harder than he remembered. And colder. Much colder.
‘Are you all right?’ the voice said.
Who was that? Who was that voice? The robot’s voice.
Ander Poul I have been sent to kill you.
‘Are you all right?’ the voice said again. ‘Do you want me to call a medVoc?’
A medVoc? A robot? Call a robot here to his apartment? To here where he was safe because they didn’t know he was here and they couldn’t get in here oh no, no no no... they couldn’t get in for any reason at all oh no, no no no... ‘No!’ He yelled loud enough to wake himself up and he opened his eyes and he sat up in bed and he was lying in the street.