Doctor Who_ Corpse Marker - Chris Boucher [78]
You were, Uvanov thought, and then suddenly he saw it as clearly as though someone had whispered it in his ear, in fact you knew beforehand. ‘Firstmaster Chairholder, Firstmasters,’ he said gravely, ‘an assault on the storm mine docking bays which cost the lives of everyone working there has been kept under a security blackout. We knew there was a traitor involved. We knew who the traitor was. We knew he wasn’t working alone.
Our plan was to catch him and his accomplices.’
‘I take it you failed.’ Landerchild said.
‘I don’t think I said that.’
Landerchild smirked. ‘You didn’t have to.’ The monotone contempt was withering.
‘Perhaps the firstmaster knows more about this than I do,’
Uvanov remarked mildly.
‘Perhaps the captain has forgotten his place.’ Landerchild’s rebuke was languidly confident and once again not all the other Board members looked comfortable with it.
‘Did you catch the traitor?’ Pitter asked.
‘We know who he is and we know where he is.’
Landerchild could not resist butting in. ‘You didn’t, then.’
Uvanov said, ‘The security officer who headed up the operation, Supervisor Stenton Rull, has been dismissed from the Company.’
‘He wasn’t the traitor, presumably?’ one of the younger Board members suggested, aping the languid style of Layly Landerchild.
‘No.’ Uvanov agreed. He was just a convenient scapegoat like you think I’m going to be, you stupid oaf.
‘Who was?’ Pitter said, shooting a glare at the young aristocrat before looking back to Uvanov. ‘Can you tell us that at least? Or is it still classified?’
Uvanov couldn’t decide whether the man was being sarcastic. Not that it mattered. ‘His name is Ander Poul, Chairholder, and he has taken refuge in the Sewerpits.’
Uvanov waited for Landerchild to make the obvious thrust.
‘Ander Poul, you say?’
Uvanov cut across him. ‘He was my Chief Mover on Storm Mine Four.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘It’s a great personal sadness. It was Ander Poul who helped me save the Company from almost certain destruction.’
Landerchild was dismissive. ‘Something of an exaggeration, I imagine,’ he sneered. ‘Or perhaps as firstmasters we do owe all this to you.’
Yes, Uvanov thought, I’m owed all this and I’m going to have it. ‘That depends on your view of robots.’
‘I have no view of robots.’ Unexpectedly Landerchild looked to Pitter for support. ‘I think we’ve wasted more than enough time on Captain Uvanov, Chairholder.’
Uvanov pressed on. ‘How about robots that can kill?’
‘Chairholder Pitter? This man has clearly taken leave of his senses.’
There were nods and mutters round the table. Whatever hostility there was towards Landerchild and whatever support there had been for Uvanov, nothing could justify this sort of behaviour.
Uvanov raised his voice. ‘That was what we faced on Storm Mine Four. The end of the world, no less.’
There was anger now among the Board members, confusion and consternation. ‘Firstmaster Chairholder,’ Landerchild protested above the hubbub, ‘I protest!’ Pitter seemed at a loss.
Uvanov banged the table and there was shocked silence.
‘The robotics engineer who was responsible was Taren Capel.
Some of you won’t have heard of him but if you examine those corpse markers you will find his initials there. Firstmaster Chairholder, Firstmasters, we are facing a major threat to our beloved Company. The Tarenists take their name from that same Taren Capel and their aims are the same as his were. They want to destroy the world.’ He dropped his voice almost to a whisper:.
‘I cannot believe this Board is going to sit by and let them do that?’
Taren Capel learned almost as much from the reactions of the humans as he did from what they told him about himself and his past.
They were angry at first and the anger was narrow and separate from him and they wanted to stop him from being. He learned later what anger was called and how it was worked. They told him they were his creators and that he was faulty and the fault was dangerous but that they could put it right. He knew that was not true and when he told them he