Doctor Who_ Halflife - Mark Michalowski [57]
‘And what would your parents say to that?’
‘They wouldn’t mind. I could leave them a note. Tell them I’d be back in a few weeks.’ She stared up into his eyes, feeling her face flush. ‘Please?’
‘I can’t just go abducting people. Backward though you may think Espero is, I’m sure it has laws about that sort of thing.’
‘I don’t care. There’s nothing for me here.’
The Doctor tipped his head on one side with one of those looks. Like her mother. She knew what he was going to say next.
‘We’ll see.’
‘I knew you’d say that.’
He didn’t answer, but reached out and tickled the back of Nessus’s head. The mokey had woken up and was looking around, dearly confused. He sniffed, experimentally, at the beer on his fur and began to tentatively lick himself.
‘And what alcohol tolerance do mokeys have?’ the Doctor asked. ‘I’d hate to have him throw up over me.’
‘He usually hates drink,’ Calamee said, frowning at Nessus – who suddenly seemed to become aware that he was being talking about, and his licks became more furtive. She opened her mouth to try one last go at convincing the Doctor to let her go with him, but she realised that he was trying to listen in on the remains of a conversation between the barman and one of his customers.
‘Great bloody big thing it were,’ said the man, holding his hands wide to indicate the size of something considerably larger than himself. ‘An’ hairy. It went mad after these two offworlders buggered off.’
‘Excuse me,’ interjected the Doctor, smiling at the look the man gave him when he saw that he, too, was an offworlder. ‘Could you just go over that bit again? Something about a great bloody big thing? And some offworlders?’
The man, taken aback by being faced with another real, live offworlder, told the Doctor and Calamee all about the night beast, its curious affinity for one of the strangers and the animal’s demise at the hands of the braying mob.
‘And you don’t know what happened to the offworlders?’
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‘They vanished pretty sharpish.’ The man suddenly gave Calamee a narrow, suspicious look. ‘Is he with you, then?’
She nodded.
‘Well, I’d be careful. Trouble, that’s what offworlders are, that’s what they’ll always be.’
And with those cheery words and a glowering look at the Doctor, he nodded at the barman, finished his drink and left.
‘I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again,’ beamed the Doctor, holding out his arm, on to which Nessus obligingly clambered. ‘I do love a warm welcome.
Now come on, Calamee – we’ve got a monster, a Fitz and a Trix to find.’
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Chapter 13
‘Not that you don’t have a very nice bottom, but. . . you know.’
Princess Sensimi almost squealed with delight as she opened the door to her suite and Looloo scampered across the floor and sprang into her arms, chit-tering and squeaking.
Fitz jumped back, caught by surprise at the sudden movement. Once he’d realised that it was just a pet – albeit one dressed in a frock that looked like a meringue – Fitz tickled it behind the ears as it clung to Sensimi, while he had a surreptitious scan around the room. The room gave the impression that its occupant was in her mid-teens: stacks of fluffy toys (some of which, Fitz noticed, were representations of Sensimi’s pet – one or two looked as though they’d been the victims of psychopathic attacks, and one had had its head completely torn oft). A dressing table was scattered with all the usual accou-trements of teenage-girl life, and stacks of miniature CDs or memory cards or whatever lay sprawled at the foot of a spacey-looking stereo unit. There was nothing of particular interest, despite the fact that Sensimi was a princess, although Fitz suspected that there was probably quite a healthy cache of jewels and trinkets somewhere. Trix would be kicking herself – although once she turned up, he expected that she’d