Doctor Who_ Corpse Marker - Chris Boucher [69]
The Roof over the World was less impressive than Leela had expected from the name and from the way Padil had talked about it. It was no more than a long track along the tops of the jumble of buildings. Where there were gaps, they were crossed by rickety-looking wood and metal bridges. On either side of this track were the same sort of traders with the same carts and stalls as there had been at the intersection they had set off from. The Roof over the World had more lights and more traders and there were more people milling about but basically it was the same.
They walked along the track for a while. It was getting light and Leela found she was hungry as well as tired and depressed.
From one of the traders Padil bought them some grain cakes and a drink she said was made from cascade berries but which tasted nothing like the seasoning in the stew. As they sat and ate Leela said, ‘This is not like a village, is it?’
‘A village?’ Padil looked puzzled.
‘There is no tribal chief, no council hut.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘People normally form groups,’ Leela said, quoting the Doctor. ‘Groups normally organise themselves into hierarchies.’
‘I see,’ Padil said earnestly though it was obvious she did not.
‘A hierarchy is like a pyramid,’ Leela said, pleased that she remembered the Doctor’s words and understood them. ‘The most powerful, the chief, is at the top,’ she put the fingers of her two hands together to demonstrate, ‘and makes the decisions.
The least powerful, the ordinary people, are at the bottom and are told what to do.’
Padil nodded eagerly. ‘ You’re talking about the Company,’
she said.
The Doctor had told Leela that what she called a tribe was called by many different names in many different places but that they all amounted to the same thing. Here it seemed the tribe was called a company. ‘Where is the Company?’ she said gesturing around. ‘I can see nothing of the company. It is as though it does not exist.’
‘That’s what it amounts to,’ Padil agreed. ‘They never come in here. They recruit round the boundary. They pick up all the thugs and psychos there. They dump all their rejects there too.
The survivors make their own way in. Fugitives and escaped criminals run here but the Company never come inside after them. This is a Company-free zone. Company-free and robot-free.’ She smiled. ‘That’s why Capel, humanity be in him, chose it of course.’
Once again Padil had not understood her but, before Leela could make clear what she meant, they were interrupted by a distant rumble. It sounded to Leela like something metal being suddenly crushed. The building below them trembled slightly.
‘Does that happen a lot?’ she asked.
Padil shook her head and shrugged. ‘One of the bridges?’
she suggested.
Leela got up. She felt better. It was full daylight now. ‘I think it was an explosion.’ Down the track she thought she could see a faint drift of smoke and dust. ‘We shall go and look.’
For once Padil showed a reluctance follow Leela’s lead.
‘Why? Does it matter?’ she asked tiredly. ‘I’m tired. I think we should be getting back.’
‘Wait here,’ Leela said. ‘Or start back and I will catch up with you.’ And before Padil had a chance to object she strode off through the wandering groups of idling people.
As she loped along the track, Leela realised that apart from her no one was showing any interest in what had happened.
Either they already knew or they simply did not care. It was probably the sensible attitude, she thought, since there seemed to be no immediate danger and if there was then running towards it would