Doctor Who_ Halflife - Mark Michalowski [39]
‘Like?’
69
‘Like the people; like the buildings and their construction techniques. Their religion – although, granted, that could be an extremely unlikely coincidence. . . ’ He pointed at the window display. ‘And the writing.’
‘OK, Braniac, so we’re on an Earth colony. Any idea when?’
‘Sometime in the future, I imagine. Come on – what’s going on over there?’
Fitz strode off, leaving Trix to pull another face at his back. She hoped he’d start acting normally soon: it was bad enough having the Doctor acting ditzy and absent-professorish without Fitz deciding to be his understudy. Trix wondered if he were doing it consciously, trying to make her feel reassured in the absence of the real thing. She wished he wouldn’t: she’d feel much more comfortable with the old Fitz – at least she knew where she was with him.
Besides, she felt awkward enough around the real Doctor: an ersatz one was the last thing she needed right now.
Trix caught up with him in a few seconds as he joined a crowd gathered around something or other. Standing on tiptoe, Trix could see a wooden trailer, painted dark green, at the centre of the crowd. It seemed like the kind of thing you’d see at a carnival: all twiddly bits on the top and hints of slightly parted curtains. And bars. There were definitely bars.
‘It looks like some sort of mobile cage,’ she said to Fitz. He looked at her.
‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ he said.
‘If it’s “Roll up! Roll up! See the Doctor From Another World”, then yes.’
She and Fitz excuse-me’d their way through the crowds – which, when they saw the two strangers pushing through their midst, were more than happy to move aside and let them to the front. Trix almost felt disappointed when they got there. The cage was, indeed, a trailer on four wheels. Standing in front of it was a tall, spindly man in a tatty yellow suit and a hat that looked as if it could have belonged to a pearly king, studded with little white gemstones. He was in the middle of some sort of spiel about the night breeding the darkest of things, but stopped short when his bright eyes alighted on Trix’s and Fitz’s faces. He gave a little nod and a broad smile before continuing.
‘We think we know this world,’ he said, his voice rich and sing-songy, like a Baptist preacher warning of hellfire and damnation. ‘But do we really? We travel out into the depths of space, like explorers setting out on the sea. We bring with us all the good – and the bad – in our hearts, and we set up a brand new home. Oh yes, ladies and gentlemen. We think we know this world, this rock in space. We have surveyed it, studied it and stamped our mark on it. But how much do we really know, eh? We’ve occupied a fraction of the land on Espero, seen much, much less than that of what it has to offer.’
His voice dipped low, forcing them to struggle to hear his words. ‘But there is another side to this planet. A dark side, full of shadows, populated by things we were perhaps never meant to see’ Trix gave a little sigh, but Fitz shushed 70
her. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, no doubt you have heard the rumours – rumours of creatures that stalk the wilderness outside the city; creatures that creep into your homes at night and steal away your souls. Or worse.’ The crowd murmured. He knew his patter, thought Trix. I’ll give him that. ‘But until this moment, you may only have seen pictures of these creatures. You may have heard rumours, or scraps of rumours. Believe me, though: the truth that I, Deel, am about to show you is more horrible than you can imagine.’ Someone at the back heckled him, shouting: ‘You gonna take your clothes off, then, are you?’ A nervous ripple of laughter spread through the crowd, but he just grinned and stepped to one side, reaching for a gold braided cord that hung down the side of the curtained cage. ‘Ladies and gentlemen. . . you may wish to take a step back before I reveal what I have here.’ He paused for a moment until he realised that the