Doctor Who_ Halflife - Mark Michalowski [42]
The mokey reached out a grasping little paw towards Farine’s basket, almost losing her balance in the process.
‘Have you got everything?’ asked Sensimi. Farine nodded.
‘I think so. Your Highness, this is getting riskier – I was nearly caught by the Imperatrix.’
‘Yes, yes.’ Sensimi waved away Farine’s concerns dismissively. She pulled back the cover on the basket and checked that the clothing she’d asked Farine to get from Alinti and Javill’s rooms was there. ‘Come on.’
She pushed past Farine, who sighed miserably, and headed for the door to the cellars. Farine really wasn’t happy about any of this.
The crowds of vaguely disappointed onlookers had drifted away, and Deel had closed the curtains on the night beast. Once he felt sure that no one would come and start poking at it, he slipped away for a quiet drink and something to eat – he wouldn’t be gone for more than half an hour, and the creature, damn its hairy backside, seemed peaceable enough. Deel wondered if he shouldn’t just take the trailer out into the countryside and let the thing go – if it was going to be as unfrightening as it had been tonight, it would end up costing Deel money, never mind making it. He had to feed the thing, after all. Maybe he should try not feeding it: that might liven it up a bit.
With a final check that it was asleep, he let the curtains swing back, made sure that there was no one suspicious around, and headed for the nearest bar.
Even though the night beast had put on a show that would hardly terrify a small child tonight, he knew that the thing’s sheer size – and the reputation that it had generated – would keep most nosy gits away.
And Deel was right: the few people that spotted the trailer kept well clear of it. One or two lads, full of bravado and booze, came close. One even gave the bars an experimental rattle – but when the creature shifted around in its sleep, he soon ran.
So, soon, the night beast was left alone in the shadow of an office building. For a few minutes, nothing happened, but then the curtain twitched experimentally. Quietly and more gently than Deel would have imagined, the 76
creature reached through the bars and pushed it aside. Its glossy eyes scanned the street. And then, with surprising delicateness, it reached through the walls of its prison and began experimenting with the heavy padlock and chains that kept it there.
The wine and beer flowed freely in The Whore of Babylon – especially once the Doctor magically produced a credit chip which, to even his amazement, was accepted at the bar. Calamee moderated her drinking: she still didn’t really know the Doctor, and despite the fact that he was entertaining (if occasionally frustrating) company, she thought it was wise to keep her head. The Doctor had prevailed upon her, with much finger wagging and raising of eyebrows, to call her parents. She’d got through to Sierah, her house-mother, who’d been less than impressed by Calamee’s explanation of how she’d lost her parents in one of the arcades, and almost openly disbelieving of Calamee’s assertion that she was spending the evening at the house of her friend, Craich. But Sierah could do little – particularly as Calamee’s phone somehow managed to develop a fault halfway through the conversation and stopped receiving calls.
Calamee returned from the corridor to find the Doctor scratching his head and being roundly beaten in a game of cards by one of the bar’s customers.
In the hours that she’d spent with him, Calamee had been unable to forget quite how different the Doctor was from the rest of the Esperons, and not only because of his skin colour. He had a lightness, a casual disregard for formality and propriety that was at the same time dangerous and refresh-ing. She wondered whether it was something about the slog of life on Espero that had turned everyone here into tired, resigned people, or whether it was they who were normal, typical of humanity across the galaxy,