Doctor Who_ Foreign Devils - Andrew Cartmel [10]
'Oh what bad luck,' said Roderick Upcott. 'Losing two in a row like that.'
Chapter Two
Roderick Upcott opened one of the long wooden chests and the smell of high grade opium wafted out. Sydenham watched with keen simian interest. 'Got to watch the little bugger,' said Upcott, of the monkey. 'He'll eat his death in Benares black earth if I let him.' 'Your monkey is addicted to opium?' asked the Doctor, in a nonjudgmental tone of voice.
'He will be if I give him half the chance. I try telling him that it's a mortal poison and a spiritual danger but he doesn't pay me any heed.' 'Not surprising,' said the Doctor. 'Patterned verbal communication being rare among the higher primates, except in humans of course.' He smiled and shook his head. 'And I've even met a few of those where it was questionable. Have you tried sign language?'
Upcott reached into the chest. It contained a wooden shelf filled with compartments, each holding a sphere the size of a small cannonball. The spheres were covered with pale dried poppy leaves. Upcott selected one and took it out of the chest.
'Of course he doesn't understand me and it wouldn't do any good if he did. Opium is a cruel goddess who insists on devotion. She is also a deadly poison. A stain on the mortal soul.' Upcott unfolded the blade of a gleaming bronze pocket knife with trembling fingers and began to scrape the dried leaves off the ball. From the streets outside there came the occasional sound of gunfire. Upcott ignored it. 'Nonetheless I feel the need to smoke, after our little adventure in the garden.' 'You weren't even present when it happened,' said the Doctor mildly. 'My God man, how can you be so cold blooded? Your two young companions have just been swallowed by the void.' He used his knife to slice a small piece off the sticky black cannonball. 'Have they?'
'Unless the servants here have failed to find them hiding somewhere among our own buildings. Which I truly doubt.'
'Nonetheless you seem to be taking it rather hard.'
'I hate this heathen sorcery. It gives a man the collywobbles.'
'So you attribute Zoe and Jamie's disappearance to some kind of magical attack by the man who has been wafting the scented gunpowder, the emperor's astrologer?'
'Do you have a better theory?' said Upcott, taking out a long ornate lacquered pipe decorated with red and black triangles. He set it down on a chest and opened a small cherry wood box which contained a tiny, beautifully fashioned spirit lamp.
The Doctor watched Upcott's activity with a frown that might have signified disapproval for the man's obvious addiction to a potentially lethal drug, or any number of other things.
He said, 'Is there nothing more you can tell me about your so-called spirit gate?'
Upcott was now preparing the opium over the spirit lamp prefatory to loading the bowl of his pipe. There was a mad light of anticipation in his eyes as he adjusted the blue flame of the lamp. 'I still can't believe they simply disappeared,' he whispered.
'There's certainly more to your spirit gate than meets the eye.'
'Such as what?' Upcott commenced loading his pipe.
'Such as an ancient teleportation unit drawing on an unknown power source.'
Upcott held the blue flame of the spirit lamp to the tiny lump of opium in his pipe. 'I still say it's the old emperor's magic,' he murmured. The pipe whistled as he smoked.
∗ ∗ ∗
'Luckily, the energy field around the spirit gate is sufficiently tenacious to draw us in, too,' announced the Doctor, speaking to himself, or perhaps to the living weave of energy that pulsed around him. He had left Roderick Upcott in the Concession, smoking himself into opium stupor, and now he stood alone before the control console of TARDIS.
'All it requires is a few simple modifications.' The Doctor drew aside his soup-stained tie and jabbed a hand into the pocket of his jacket, taking a small, complex plug board which he quickly and deftly attached to the console, using silver wires taken from a chipped teapot where the spare cables were kept in a fright