Doctor Who_ Corpse Marker - Chris Boucher [44]
‘I’m not able to say,’ the Doctor said truthfully.
‘I understand,’ said the pilot.
Behind and to one side of the nine docking bays was the six-hundred-foot metal tower from the top of which the Dockmaster Control suite operatives arranged and coordinated the arrivals and departures of the storm mines and the work carried out on them. On the ground most of the routine procedures were handled by robots but oversight planning and overall supervision, load assessment and contract finalisation, and the negotiation and renegotiation of service agreements were all dealt with by human staff.
There was a feeling among the mine crews that it was because the Docko people - sometimes known as ‘dickos’ for not very subtle reasons - got to look down on the bays from the top of their shiny tower that they developed such a high opinion of themselves. From this exalted position they apparently saw it as their right to take any opportunity to skim off a share of the profits from the hard-working storm mines.
As far as most of the control suite were concerned the crews were lazy, paranoid ingrates who had no idea of the effort involved in giving them the chance to run around in the Blind Heart getting rich.
There were exceptions to this mutual hostility but routinely there was little love lost between those who rode the storm mines and those who worked the bays. There was one group of people they all mistrusted more than each other, however, and that was outsiders to the mining game, or in other words: everybody else. When the flier put down on the landing field and its passenger got out and stretched and looked around him interestedly there was no question that he was an outsider. The Doctor might think of his appearance as unthreatening but weird was the consensus and mining research was not going to be the easiest cover story to maintain.
The Doctor’s plan, such as it was, involved looking round one of the storm mines to refresh his memory. There was a difference between disappointingly familiar and accurately remembered after all. He thought he might then talk to some crew members. And finally he would have a quick chat with the people who ran the docking bays. If none of this offered anything like a clue as to what could be happening to Uvanov and what the Doctor might do next to find Leela, he would at least have a background understanding of this element of Kaldor. It was a vague rather general plan with one quite specific problem.
‘Research consultant?’
‘That’s what I’m here for,’ the Doctor said. ‘Research.’
‘Of course you are.’ The large security officer who was blocking the exit from the landing field pressed his panic alert.
‘Anyone can see that. Now get back on the flier and lift on out.
Do it now. This is your first, your last and your only chance.’ A squad of five robots padded into sight from the back of the bays where the assembly pens were. ‘Miss it and I’ll have the stopDums hold you here for Company arrest and interrogation.
You do understand what that involves?’
The young pilot had been given the distinct impression that it would be a bad career move - a future in the Sewerpits for him and his offspring and his offspring’s offspring had been mentioned - if any reasonable request his passenger made was unnecessarily delayed never mind denied. He was anxious therefore that the Doctor should be impressed by his efforts on his behalf. It was essential he felt that no possibility of blame could attach itself to him. Accordingly he leapt in and confronted the bullet-headed security man who was at least a foot taller and a stone heavier than he was. ‘Why don’t you explain it to us, dicko?’ he demanded.
The Doctor smiled and tried to look relaxed and friendly.
‘We do have security clearance, I think,’ he suggested, hoping to calm the situation. He glanced at the pilot. ‘It was called through in advance, wasn’t it?’ he asked.
But the pilot wasn’t listening. ‘And then,’ he snarled, poking a finger at the chest