Doctor Who_ Halflife - Mark Michalowski [58]
‘Right!’ he said suddenly, turning on his heel to face Sensimi. ‘Now would be a good time to tell me why you brought me here, don’t you think?’
He plonked himself down in a luxurious cream leather chair and realised
– incongruously – how sore his feet were. He reached up to run his hand through his hair and was surprised by the patch of missing hair at his temple.
Sensimi, too, clearly noticed it, but didn’t comment.
Sensimi’s pet leaped to the floor and paused to sniff at Fitz’s shoes.
‘Looloo!’ said Sensimi with embarrassment. ‘Leave him alone!’
But Looloo did no such thing and had to be snatched up by the princess and unceremoniously dumped on the bed. Fitz watched as the creature took to sullenly examining her own private parts. Nice one, he thought.
‘So. . . ’ said Fitz, stretching out his legs and crossing his ankles. Sensimi stayed standing, her mouth puckering up at the corner.
‘That creature,’ she eventually said, avoiding Fitz’s eyes. ‘The night beast.
What do you know about it?’
107
Fitz gave a shrug. ‘It’s big – was big – and hairy and probably not the kind of thing you’d want around the house. Why?’
‘Oh, just curious,’ said Sensimi, still avoiding looking directly at him.
‘“Just curious”?’ said Fitz, beginning to tire of all this. ‘Sorry Sensimi, but
“just curious” doesn’t cut it. Princesses don’t normally dress up as servants and go wandering around the streets rescuing people and smuggling them back into the Palace because they’re “just curious”. Can we stop all this arseing around and just get on with it? Why such an interest in these night beast things?’
Sensimi reluctantly began to explain how the night beasts had been wandering into Saiarossa over the past year or so; how they hadn’t actually done very much harm – apart from killing a couple of Esperons – and how they’d usually been subdued (i.e. killed) by the police or the Palace Guard. No one knew where they came from, although it was assumed that they’d come from some unexplored region of the planet, perhaps looking for food, perhaps drawn by the colonists themselves.
‘But none of that explains why you’re so interested,’ Fitz said with infinite patience at the end of it all. ‘You don’t strike me as the zoologist type.’
Sensimi still looked nervous and awkward, so Fitz sighed, got to his feet, and headed for the door.
‘Well, it’s been nice hob-nobbing with royalty,’ he said briskly, ‘but I have friends to find and a memory to regain.’
‘No,’ said Sensimi suddenly. ‘Please. Don’t go.’
Fitz paused, his hand on the door handle, and adopted his most sceptical stance, arms folded, weight on one leg. He tapped his foot for added effect (although he wondered whether that was overdoing it just a tad).
‘OK’ Sensimi sighed, and her whole body seemed to droop. ‘I’ll tell you’ She paused, clearly waiting for Fitz to sit down again, but he didn’t, so Sensimi went on. ‘When I heard that there was another sighting, I thought I’d go and have a look. My maid, Farine, lent me her coat and hat so that I wouldn’t be recognised, and I found you and the creature. But this time it seemed different, odder. It didn’t attack you, that was what was so odd. It. . . ’ She struggled for words. ‘It seemed to have some sort of bond with you.’
Fitz nodded and leaned back against the dresser. ‘I noticed that too. Animal magnetism, perhaps? New aftershave?’ He gave a shrug. ‘Maybe I was the first person that hadn’t tried to stab it or lock it in a cage. Maybe it just liked my face.’
They both jumped as there was a sharp rap at the door, and it opened to reveal a trim, elderly black woman with a face like an attractive hawk, staring at them. Her hair was drawn back tightly from her face, her eyebrows arching dramatically.
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‘Mother,’ muttered Sensimi under her breath, like hundreds of generations of teenage girls before her.
‘It’s late, Sensimi,’ said the woman, peering past her at Fitz who tossed her a cheery wave. ‘I don’t think you should be having strange men in here at this time of night.’ She lowered her