Doctor Who_ Corpse Marker - Chris Boucher [24]
Bolon looked uncomfortable. ‘I’d have to check,’ he said lamely. ‘The big one was called Hudge, I think.’
Uvanov almost smiled. She might not have meant it as a put-down but it had the desired effect all right. So much for all that
‘good men’ rubbish. ‘What about them?’ he asked nodding at the three dead terrorists. ‘Any identification yet?’
Bolon shook his head. ‘They’re none of them known.
Nothing personal on them of course. Unless you count these.’
He proffered a robot deactivation disc. ‘They were all carrying these.’
‘Corpse markers?’ Uvanov took it and examined it dubiously.
‘What is it, some sort of joke?’
Bolon sniggered. ‘They’re not laughing any more, are they?’
‘Perhaps they got them here?’ Cailio Techlan suggested. ‘A trophy?’
‘They’re not ours,’ Bolon said. ‘If you look at them closely you can see they’ve got a sort of logo in the middle.’ He took another and tilted it backwards and forwards to catch the light.
‘See?’
She peered at it. ‘Oh yes,’ she said, sounding less than fascinated. ‘What is it?’
Uvanov looked at the one he had. There in the middle, etched inside the red plastic was a tiny design. It looked to him like a letter ‘C’ with a smaller ‘T’ in the centre. ‘CT.’ he said.
‘Cailio Techlan maybe. It’s not your personal logo, is it?’
‘No it is not,’ she said, the monotone unusually vehement.
‘We don’t have any idea what it stands for yet. We’re working on it,’ Bolon said.
We’re working on it? Uvanov almost admired the man’s self-important cheek. He and his thugs were working on it, yes, that would be right. ‘So who was it who authorised the use of stun-kills?’ he asked casually.
‘Stun-kills?’
‘Your men were using stun-kills.’ Uvanov made a small show of anger. ‘Where did they get them from?’
‘It wasn’t my idea, was it?’ Bolon said quickly.
‘So where did they come from?’ Uvanov asked more quietly.
‘They’re not in use at any of our other facilities.’
Bolon swallowed hard. ‘They’re not? Are you sure?’
Uvanov smiled silkily. ‘So what’s the story, Teech? Do you only hire self-arming thugs these days?’
‘I was told we were part of a test project. The stun-kills came in from central stores. I was told to issue them and that’s what I did.’
‘Why did they pick you?’
‘Pick me?’
‘For this test study.’
‘That’s the sort of thing I’m going to ask, of course.’ Bolon smiled. It did not make him look any more trustworthy. ‘I get an order, I carry it out.’
‘You’ve got an issue-and-use order?’
‘You know I have.’ Bolon was suddenly comfortable and confident, like someone who could see the way out of a puzzle maze.
‘Do you have a copy of this order?’ Cailio Techlan asked politely.
‘It’s in the office.’
‘Who signed the order?’ she asked. ‘Do you remember offhand?’
He gestured with his chin towards Uvanov. ‘Your boss did, of course.’
‘ I did?’ Uvanov did his best to keep the surprise out of his voice. ‘Are you quite sure about that?’
‘Oh yes,’ Bolon said, still smiling. ‘You want to survive in this man’s security service you make sure you know who’s giving the orders.’
‘Show me,’ Uvanov said.
Chapter Four
The Doctor crawled through the gap and out into the flat grey light of a slightly chilly day. He brushed himself down, wound the long scarf a couple of times round his neck, and took the felt hat back out of his pocket and put it on.
Behind him the first of the crowd of almost identical sextuplets began crawling out of the building and standing up to wait patiently, moving only when nudged in the back by others coming through the gap.
The Doctor looked around in every direction but there was no sign of Leela. She had obviously wandered off into what seemed to be some sort of industrial complex. There was no sign either of the fighting she claimed to have heard, and the uncharitable thought struck the Doctor that she was probably running about the place trying to start some. The trouble with the members of warrior castes, he had always found, was that they were never really happy unless they were fighting or preparing to fight. It was reasonable