Doctor Who_ Halflife - Mark Michalowski [19]
‘She’s perfectly housetrained. And she looks adorable like that, don’t you, baby?’ Sensimi crossed the kitchen and swept the confused little creature up in her arms, squeezing her so tight that Looloo’s eyes bulged, and a thin trickle of creamy drool ran out of her mouth and down the back of Sensimi’s blouse.
Javill tried not to laugh.
‘Mother’ll have her put down if she catches her in here.’
‘She will not,’ insisted Sensimi, whirling round, still gripping on to her precious baby. ‘I’ll tell Father. He’ll have you put down.’
‘Just wait, Sensimi,’ Javill warned. ‘Just you wait. As soon as. . . ’ He stopped.
‘When Mother’s in charge, things’ll be different around here.’
Sensimi’s eyes flared defiantly. ‘I know what you were going to say. “As soon as Father’s dead.” That was it, wasn’t it?’
Javill gave an uncaring shrug. ‘We both know he’s old, Sensimi. He’s not going to live forever. And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll stop being such a pain. You know the title will pass to Mother and then to me. It’d be awful if you pissed off everyone above you, wouldn’t it?’
‘He’s not. . .
he’s not gone yet,’ she said, heading for the door. Looloo squeaked and reached out over Sensimi’s shoulder for the rapidly receding bowl of cream. ‘And while he’s still here, you better be very careful.’
‘Ooooh!’ mocked Javill. ‘I’m so scared, little sister. Whatcha gonna do? Set the mokey princess on me? Get her to dribble me to death?’
Sensimi felt her face redden as she paused in the doorway, a cutting riposte almost on her lips.
‘Pig!’, unfortunately, was all she managed to come out with. ‘Bloody pig!’
It wasn’t until Looloo started squealing in earnest, halfway up the main staircase, that Sensimi realised how tightly she’d been squeezing her. As soon as she released the pressure, Looloo scrabbled to get free and climbed up on to Sensimi’s shoulder where she pointedly finished cleaning her paw.
‘Don’t worry, baby,’ Sensimi cooed. ‘We’ll make sure that nasty brother and that nasty mother get what they deserve, won’t we, eh?’ She reached up and stroked her mokey’s neck, and Looloo responded with a little throaty grumble, already forgetting about almost being hugged to death. ‘Daddy’s going to 33
outlive them all, isn’t he? Yes he is.’ And with Looloo grabbing on to her hair for dear life, she headed up the stairs to the bedrooms.
She passed a couple of the Palace staff, ignoring them as they bobbed and curtsyed, and deposited Looloo on her bed.
‘Be good for Mummy,’ she said, before slipping back out into the corridor.
Through the open windows that let out on to the courtyard at the centre of the Palace, she could hear the clanging and drilling and shouting of the work on the stage from where her father would make his birthday address tomorrow. Running through the details of her plan, she headed down one of the sets of back stairs to the main kitchens, away from the family kitchen where she expected Javill would still be. A few of the staff were still bustling about, most of them so tied up with making sure everything was in order for tomorrow that they hardly noticed her. Those that did tried their hardest to pretend they hadn’t seen her and quickly found reasons to be somewhere else.
So it was relatively easy for Sensimi to take a big pan into the meat store and to begin to help herself.
Imperator Tannalis shuffled along the corridor that ran around the courtyard.
He’d been advised to use a walking stick (having already turned down the idea of cybernetic callipers) but was having none of it. He was the Imperator, and if he couldn’t celebrate his 120th birthday on his own pins, then he wouldn’t celebrate it at all.
Alinti’s visit had raised his hackles, and he wanted to check that she hadn’t tried to sneak something tacky into the celebrations. He paused and slipped on to one of the numerous balconies that looked down on to where his stage was being noisily bolted together. There was something simultaneously sad and exciting about all