Doctor Who_ Corpse Marker - Chris Boucher [57]
‘You mean he’s coming back for more?’ Con asked. ‘What is he, superhuman?’
‘In a way,’ the Doctor said, examining the power lines which had fed the wrecked workdesk.
Con picked up a comm unit from the debris and took it to the gap and flung it at the climbing figure. The robot swatted it away and continued to work its way upwards. ‘It bounced off him,’ Con said incredulously. ‘It’s him you know. The one who was watching us.’
The Doctor found what he was looking for and hauled a heavy cable to the hole in the wall. ‘Stand clear,’ he said and touched the end of the live cable to the workdesk. Power snapped and crackled across the surfaces. The Doctor held it there for several moments then he pulled it off and applied it to another spot. When he had repeated the process a third time he said, ‘That should do it, I think.’
Con said, ‘You obviously like your murderous psychos well done.’
‘In this particular case I’ll settle for burnt to a crisp,’ the Doctor said and went to the hole to check. This time he didn’t lean out to look. He’d had enough of heights for the time being.
That was the only reason he had time to react when the robot reached up at him from where it was hanging just below the bottom of the opening. The Doctor grabbed up the cable and shoved the end of it on to the palm of the robot’s open hand.
The hand closed round it in a reflexive spasm and power shorted through the robot. As its systems burnt out the deliberately unremarkable-looking figure, average height, brown hair, dressed in the plain smock and leggings of a man of taste and moderate wealth, lost its hold on the wall of the tower and hung for a second or two on the cable before falling, silent and smouldering, to the ground.
‘I’m no expert,’ Con said, ‘but I’d say he was definitely dead this time.’
‘Yes,’ the Doctor said, surveying the havoc that one killer robot had wreaked. Perhaps it was more than one. He was sure he’d seen something or someone moving away from the tower.
Not that it made much difference. One or a hundred and one, this was only the beginning. ‘We’d better go.’
Con gestured round. ‘What do we do about the dockodick -’
he started to say and then corrected himself slightly shamefacedly, ‘about all these dead people?’
‘You can raise the alarm when we get back to the flier,’ the Doctor said, ‘if it hasn’t already been done.’ He started towards the lift.
Con followed him. ‘Who would have done that?’ he said, looking at the corpses. ‘I don’t think these people knew what hit them.’
Only Ander Poul must know the Doctor thought. ‘This was a trap,’ he said, ‘and oddly enough I don’t think it was intended for us.’ He wondered if there was something obvious here that he was missing.
‘So why did he try and kill us then?’ Con said. ‘ I mean, he did try and kill us, didn’t he, or was he just having fun?’
‘We weren’t supposed to be here.’ The Doctor paused and went back to look more closely at the three corpses which were sprawled together. Perhaps there was a reason for the way they were thrown together. That was when he saw them. ‘Come and look at this,’ he said.
‘Must I?’ Reluctantly Con went to look. ‘I thought you said we should go.’
The Doctor pointed. ‘Do you see them?’
Each corpse had one of its hands twisted palm upwards and resting in the hand was a red iridescent disc.
‘Robot deactivation discs,’ Con said. ‘Corpse markers.’
‘I expect,’ the Doctor said thoughtfully, ‘that all the bodies will have them.’
Chapter Eight
The request to meet him at the docking bays had come from Uvanov himself, apparently, though Poul didn’t get to speak directly with him. The message was passed on by his executive assistant Cailio Techlan. It was her Poul had spoken to when he tried to make contact earlier and warn Uvanov that the robots were coming to kill him, that the robots of death were back.
That was how he knew the message was genuine. That was the only reason he decided to go. Uvanov might know what to do.
He might have a plan. He had been very resourceful that last time. He’d had a plan then,