Doctor Who_ Corpse Marker - Chris Boucher [97]
‘Find out what’s wrong with them and we find out what’s wrong with everything,’ Ging asserted.
‘Look, the Cyborgs are a one-off aberration,’ Tel protested.
‘If there’s something going bad in the standard robot population we can stick a stun-kill in each ear and smell the burning because we are finished.’
‘If we mention that possibility to Uvanov he’s going to panic.’
‘Why the hell not?’ Tel demanded. ‘ We are.’
They agreed finally to tell Uvanov what might be happening but, rather than do it in a confidential progress report, they would tell him face to face. When they tried to arrange the meeting, however, they were discomfited to discover that the Firstmaster was already on his way to the central service facility.
‘He knows,’ Tel said. ‘That has to be it.’
‘Typical,’ Ging raged. ‘An unannounced visit. How is anyone supposed to work under these conditions?’
The Voc trotted tirelessly on and Carnell found himself thoroughly relaxed and enjoying the renewed Ore-dream weather. The mild sunshine and calm air was named, it was said, for the good fortune it brought to the poor, among whom he could number himself after what he had laid out in fees and bribes. It was almost comforting, he thought, the predictability with which the cost of everything went up like an orbiter in his present circumstances. It had cost a fortune to set up the private meeting with Uvanov which at any other time would have taken pocket-change bribes to arrange. It must be an instinctive reaction. A pheromone excreted by fugitives perhaps. He was quite sure the low-level functionaries involved had no idea who he actually was.
At least at those prices people tended to keep their mouths shut. Uvanov’s executive assistant clearly had no inkling of her boss’s involvement in that little scene he had played out with her.
Worthwhile meeting with Uvanov. The new focus was an interesting variable. Now that he had spiked the sub-plot and roughly reassessed the probabilities, he could see there was a better than average chance that the man would end up running the whole show. He had been impressed with how easily Uvanov had understood why he had been targeted and how readily he had accepted that the decision to have him killed was merely a professional calculation. For someone so aggressive who took everything extremely personally it had been a remarkably balanced response. The man had come through more focused and much more dangerous.
If he had planned to stay around it might have been fun to work with Uvanov. The quid pro quo setting up that treacherous girl had been quite like old times.
The flier put down on the same field and the Doctor, Leela, Toos, Poul and Tani followed Padil to the same place in the security fence where the Tarenists had cut their way through before. It was still a vulnerable spot in the central service facility’s perimeter, blind to the scanners because of the topography. Padil cut through the repaired fencing.
‘Why have they not strengthened their defences?’ Leela said quietly.
‘No rush,’ Poul muttered. ‘Everyone’s dead who knew about this.’ ‘You think the Company’s behind everything, don’t you?’
Tani said. ‘Organised it all from beginning to end, right?’
‘It’s called a conspiracy,’ Poul said.
‘What do you think, Doctor?’ Toos asked.
‘I think it’s a mistake to assume everybody does what they do for the same reasons even in the same conspiracy,’ the Doctor said.
‘Praise for the words of Capel, humanity be in him,’ Padil muttered as she cut the last strand and stepped inside the fence.
Walking casually, they followed Padil’s route through the complex, and since they were doing nothing to draw attention to themselves they had got as far as the hatchling dome before they were challenged by a security patrol.
‘Stand still,’ the platoon leader said flatly. ‘Who exactly are you people and where exactly do you people think you’re going?’
‘I work for Firstmaster Uvanov,’ Tani began.
‘Shut your mouth,’ the platoon leader said threateningly. ‘I’m an OpSuper