Doctor Who_ Halflife - Mark Michalowski [59]
‘Particularly not offworlders. We have quite enough of those around here.’
‘Yes, Mother,’ Sensimi said charmlessly. ‘Thank you, Mother. He’ll be going home soon. Honest.’
‘Anyway, your father wants to have a word with you.’
‘Now?’
‘Yes, now. Before he goes to bed.’
Fitz could almost hear the growl that must have been rattling around in the princess’s chest. She threw him a look of resignation and rolled her eyes. Fitz shrugged.
‘I’ll be here when you get back,’ he said. ‘Don’t forget our little chat, will you?’
A flash of something passed across Sensimi’s face as she left – and Fitz realised that, whatever it was that she was going to tell him about the night beasts, even a late-night chat with her father was preferable. As the door closed behind her, Fitz put up his feet on a footstool and closed his eyes.
Looloo was annoyed that Sensimi had told her to stay, and had left her in the room with the smelly stranger. She had sullenly begun to pluck the stuffing from the neck of the decapitated toy mokey, ignoring the stranger who was snoring noisily, when something else caught her attention: a tiny, buzzing insect that was spiralling around in the air above the bed.
With a screech of glee, Looloo leaped into the air, snatched at the insect and crammed it inside her dribbling little mouth – before it fizzed and sparked and burned her and she spat the nasty, crunched-up thing back out. It lay glittering on the bed, its legs twitching for a few moments before becoming still.
Mr Trove thumbed the spycam controls off. This was becoming more than an irritation. He sat back in his chair and drummed his fingers on the desk –
both hands, both with the same rhythm. He was convinced that these newcomers, these aliens, whether knowingly or not, had the key to finding the device. How much of a coincidence could it be that the Doctor had disabled the spycam assigned to him and that the one following Fitz had also been de-commissioned? It had been sheer luck that he’d heard about the night beast and had sent out a flycam to follow it, only to discover two more offworlders in the crowd. And, not a great believer in coincidence, he’d decided that they 109
were more worthy of following than the beast – which was clearly destined for an unpleasant death at the hands of the crowd anyway.
Were the offworlders all pretending to know less than they did? When Sensimi had managed to separate Fitz and Trix, he’d been torn as to which one to set the flycam on, but a moment’s thought had confirmed that it ought to be the man – the one who seemed to have an odd rapport with the night beast. It was possible – although unlikely – that Fitz had some connection with the Oon, or perhaps even the Makers. If that was the case, then it was likely that Trix had, too. But she’d seemed less enamoured of the night beast.
If he could be bothered later, he might dispatch another flycam to see if she could be found. It seemed unlikely that they were Oon agents: he’d had them under surveillance from the moment they’d left the soldier to its fate at the hands of the mob, and although there had been a clear reticence on their part to talk to Princess Sensimi openly, he didn’t suspect that they were holding back anything of import from her. And besides that, the Oon wouldn’t be so stupid as to employ a parallel operative. Trove’s contract with them had been specific about his being the sole agent.
He had to admit that he was curious about the reason why Sensimi should have brought the offworlder back to the Palace. If it was true that she knew more about the soldiers than she was admitting, then perhaps he had mis-judged her. Perhaps, indeed, it should be her who he should pay more attention to, and not that raddled, senile old father of hers. The mother and son, although he hadn’t discounted them completely, were of minimal interest: Imperatrix Alinti, although believing that she held the reins of power here, was of no great use to him, and the son, Javill, was just an irritation, more concerned with supplanting