Doctor Who_ Halflife - Mark Michalowski [90]
‘The device has been located,’ he said – which was not far from the truth.
‘Recovery proceeds?’
‘As promised.’
‘Timescale?’
Trove paused: a white lie here and there – and a black one when absolutely necessary – was acceptable when dealing with customers such as the Oon.
They operated on very literal principles, very polarised. Everything was black and white to them: either the mission was on target or it was not. There were no shades of grey for them in their dealings with outsiders, although Trove had never been sure how they operated among themselves. He knew little about them, really, save that they were from a vast, frigid world, scoured by tremendous halogen storms. He’d heard tales of immense, crystalline cities, crumbling and being rebuilt as the winds ripped away at them; living cities, as much a part of Oon society as the Oon themselves. There were even rumours that the cities themselves were the Oon – immense, intelligent constructs, coral-like. Powerful, intelligent – and implacable. But the reasons for their in-terminable conflict with, well, with every species that they encountered, were unknown to him: it couldn’t be simply about territory – most of the worlds 162
that the Oon disputed could not, because of their geology and atmospheres, have been of interest to them for colonisation, and they seemed uninterested in military power or economic conquest. It had been suggested, when Trove’s contact had let him know that they were in the market for a bounty hunter for a very particular job, that the Oon were motivated by something that, in other races, might have been called ‘faith’ or ‘religion’. But it was not something on which the Oon had been the least bit forthcoming, simply refusing to discuss it when Trove had brought it up. And he had only brought it up once, purely as a matter of professional curiosity. He was a bounty hunter, and if he’d started to ask too many questions of his employers, he’d have found himself out of a job very quickly. If, indeed, the Oon were engaged in some kind of jihad, then the stakes were raised that much higher.
‘Twenty hours,’ he said.
‘Acceptable. No delays.’
‘No delays,’ he echoed, knowing that the Oon were particularly poor at picking up the nuances of non-Oon voices. He could have laughed, or delivered the two words dripping in sarcasm, and the Oon would have taken them at face value.
The channel suddenly went dead, and Trove was left feeling slightly sick, slightly giddy. The Oon were, by reputation, unforgiving of failure. If he failed to deliver, he did not know exactly what the consequences would be, but he did know that they would be severe. Of course, that wouldn’t be a problem.
Trove had no intention of failing.
As he turned off the now-silent channel, he realised, more by instinct than by evidence, that there was someone in the room with him.
‘It seems,’ said Imperatrix Alinti silkily, almost seductively, ‘that my husband has been remiss in keeping me appraised of your situation.’
Trove stayed where he was, facing the communications console.
‘Your Imperial Highness,’ he said softly, trying to imbue the words with a deference he most certainly did not feel. ‘My apologies if the Imperator was not totally forthcoming about. . . our arrangement.’ He turned slowly and inclined his head in a little half-bow. Alinti was standing, hands clasped, looking at him with cold, avaricious eyes. Had Trove been telepathic, he couldn’t have read the Imperatrix’s mind any more clearly than he did then.
‘I’m sure he had his reasons.’
‘He is an old man,’ said Alinti. ‘His reasons are not always. . . reasonable.’
She smiled at her own joke, but there was no humour in her smile.
‘I bow to your wisdom. I cannot hope to know your husband as well as you do, Imperatrix.’
Alinti moved to his side, her eyes caressing Trove’s communications console as if she’d never seen its like before.
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‘This technology