Doctor Who_ Halflife - Mark Michalowski [60]
Of course, the Saiarossan Imperial Family had much less real power than they would like to believe: the real power here lay with the proper, elected government. But Trove had decided, as his ship had orbited the planet collecting data, analysing their radio and video transmissions, that contacting them and winning their confidence would be a long and laborious task. The Esperons were suspicious of visitors, isolationist in their outlook. Had he gone through all the proper channels, he would have been tied up in red tape and bureaucracy for weeks, by which time the device would either have been found by others, or would have been activated. And then it would have been too late. Saiarossa’s Imperial Family, Trove had realised from the extracts his AIs had pulled from the hours of transmissions, would be perfect: smug, in-fluential and arrogant. Just the kind of people he liked to deal with. They would be impressed with a few trinkets, a handful of technological toys and the promise of more. It was fortuitous indeed that the device had landed here instead of a more advanced world where he would have had less leverage.
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And if it had landed on an uninhabited world, it would have been nigh-on impossible to find: the soldiers were perhaps the device’s way of attempting contact with the locals. On an uninhabited world, the device would probably have just lain there. Trove, too, found it curious that, if the Doctor and his friends had responded to the same distress signal that had brought him here, their sensing devices were at least the equal of his own, which reinforced the Maker connection. But even if they weren’t, and couldn’t lead him to the device, they were worth observing closely: it may be that he could annexe their own technology for himself.
He’d seen nothing of Javill since their little chat earlier that evening. He smiled to himself as he remembered the barely concealed glee on the prince’s face when he had tossed him the light ball. This whole family – indeed, he imagined, as he crossed to the dresser drawer to take out the remainder of his flycams, this whole planet – was laughably easy to buy off. He doubted that he’d need Javill’s support, but it didn’t hurt to sow a few seeds, no matter how barren the soil.
The man had been right; the creature’s corpse had been removed. A huge and very messy stain on the pavement was all that remained. The Doctor crouched down, tutting and shaking his head as he drew his fingers through the drying blood. Nessus watched curiously from Calamee’s arm.
‘Is that healthy?’ Calamee asked. ‘The blood, I mean. Touching it.’
The Doctor didn’t answer. Calamee folded her arms against the encroaching chill of the night, Nessus now perched on her shoulder, and smiled in what she hoped was a disarming manner at the young couple, arm in arm, who were watching them as they walked past. Suddenly the Doctor jumped up and paced over to a nearby wall and began examining it again. He dug into his pockets, pulled out something, and began scraping at the wall. Moments later he was back, proudly brandishing a small, glass jar with a bit of monster in it.
‘As souvenirs go,’ she said archly, ‘it’s not exactly up there with a musical dancing Blessed Virgin Mary.’
‘It’s not a souvenir. It’s a sample.’ He broke off and stared at her. ‘ Dancing Blessed Virgin Marys?’ He stuffed the jar into his pocket. ‘Remind me to get one of those before I go.’
One minute he was the laid-back bon viveur; the next all dashing scientist and man of mystery. And the next. . . well, he was just a nutter. She wondered whether he was always like this, and whether this Fitz person he’d mentioned found it quite as exhilarating and draining as she was beginning to do. She glanced down at her watch – it was half past midnight. The idea of a warm 111
bed suddenly seemed infinitely more attractive than haring about the city in the dead of night looking for monsters. Or bits of them.
‘It may be that an analysis of this will tell me something. Anything, really, would be rather nice at this