Doctor Who_ Corpse Marker - Chris Boucher [41]
‘Working for?’
‘There are so many spies,’ he said. ‘Spies everywhere.’ He took a sip of the drink and looked at her over the rim of the beaker. ‘Spies where you least expect to find them.’
‘Isn’t that what makes them spies?’ she said. ‘Being where you least expect to find them, I mean?’
She looked uncomfortable. Was he making her nervous? he wondered. Was his behaviour bizarre? ‘So who do you think the Doctor’s working for?’
‘The Doctor? Is that who we’re talking about?’
She sounded amused and a bit relieved, as far as he could tell from that irritating monotone of hers. ‘Yes?’
‘I don’t think you’ll see him again.’
‘Has something happened to him?’
‘He got what he was looking for,’ she said. ‘You gave him money and transport. What more could any con man ask?’
The Doctor had always enjoyed flying providing the technology involved was reasonably reliable. He was not keen on experimental devices. ‘Groundbreaking’ was not, he felt, an appropriate word to be associated with flying machines of any kind.
The pilot of the low-level flier that Uvanov had put at his disposal seemed even less inclined to take chances than he was.
‘We don’t risk flying anywhere near the Sewerpits,’ the young man said at the outset, ‘so don’t bother to ask.’
‘Is there a reason for that?’ The Doctor peered towards the monstrous jumble of dilapidated buildings in the distance. It was hung about with lights and haphazard fires, the whole complex partially obscured by a pall of smoke and dirty steam. It looked to the Doctor like a linked series of termite mounds festooned with fairy lights and tiny flames.
‘You go down in the ’pits everything ends up as spare parts,’
the pilot said. ‘And I’m not just talking about the flier.’
‘Rough part of town?’ the Doctor asked.
‘Scum of the city hole up there,’ the pilot said, banking the flier away and winding up the power. ‘Why do you think it’s called the Sewerpits?’
‘I assumed it was something to do with the sanitary system,’
the Doctor said, raising his voice to counter the increasing engine noise.
‘Once maybe,’ the pilot said loudly and glanced at the Doctor. ‘I thought even zoners knew about the Sewerpits.’
‘Zoners?’
‘They told me you were from one of the outer zones.’
‘I see. Yes, that’s right,’ the Doctor agreed. ‘I’m from a long way out.’
‘What do you do in the Company?’
‘Research.’
‘Mining?’
The Doctor grinned cheerfully. ‘What makes you think that?
Do I look like a mining engineer?’
‘No.’ The pilot grinned back. ‘You look like a weirdo. But why else would you want to drag all the way out to the docking bays at this time of night?’
Because you have to start somewhere, the Doctor thought.
And in the absence of anything else the beginning seems like a good place. A sand miner was the source of all the trouble last time. Maybe there was a link with whatever was happening this time. ‘What do you think of Captain Uvanov?’ he asked in a conversational bellow.
The pilot immediately looked suspicious. ‘How do you mean?’
The Doctor shrugged and kept his tone noncommittal. ‘Do you like him? As a man?’
The pilot chortled loudly. ‘He’s not a man, is he. He’s a topmaster. Word is he’ll be a firstmaster before too long.’
‘You don’t know him socially?’
‘Oh yes,’ the pilot said wryly. ‘Uses the same refreshment arcade as us - him and the rest of the firsters, they’re in there all the time.’
‘He doesn’t mix with the workers then?’
‘Why should he?’ He laughed. ‘I wouldn’t if I had a choice -
how about you?’
‘I travel a lot,’ the Doctor said. ‘I don’t get much opportunity for socialising.’ He sat for a while looking out at the unplanned sprawl of the huge city flashing by below them and then he said,
‘Tell me, what does Captain Uvanov actually do?’
‘You ask a lot of questions,’ the pilot said.
‘Just making conversation.