Doctor Who_ Interference_ Book One - Lawrence Miles [108]
But now they were coming, the horsemen in black, the men who Magdelana knew full well must have been sent by the Remote. The sun was right behind them, so she could see the riders’ silhouettes against the light, shadows that blurred and wriggled at the edges. Magdelana had already pulled the dust visor down over her eyes, but the visor was cracked right down the middle, and the electronics that were supposed to tint the plastic had been wrecked. She had to squint when she looked into the light, but even so she could make out the features of the two horses, the rubber masks that had been stretched over the animals’ faces. She couldn’t see the faces of the Remote people, but then, that was what you’d expect. If they were wearing full armour, they’d be wearing their masks as well.
They wanted the town. Magdelana didn’t need to be told that. The Remote had been moving in on the other settlements ever since they’d come to Dust, ever since their ship had been pulled down into the desert like everything else on the planet.
She didn’t aim the shotgun, not yet. She put herself in the dead centre of the gateway, right between the two rotten wooden posts that held up the arch. She stood with her legs slightly apart, the same old firing stance she’d been using since she’d been eight, planting her boots in the sand and keeping one hand near the trigger of the gun. She made sure she kept her head down, with her hat tilted so the shadow of the brim covered up her face. So the riders wouldn’t be able to see her properly until they were inside spitting distance.
You don’t know anything about me, thought Magdelana. You don’t know who I am, and you don’t know what I am. That makes me stronger than you.
* * *
The Remote didn’t die. Or at least, you didn’t usually see any of their bodies lying around. You could always find the remains of travellers out in the desert, convoys of wagons and horses that had been ambushed by God knew who and left at the mercy of the dust, but nobody bothered trying to ambush the Remote. Too tough. Too well armed. Too hard to crack their shells open.
In fact, Magdelana had only ever seen one Remote corpse in the years since they’d arrived on the planet. The body had turned up in the dust about a quarter of a klick outside the town wall, although nobody had ever found out how it had got there, and the locals wouldn’t have spotted it at all if it hadn’t been for the satellite. The few people who still bothered making guesses about things had guessed that the Remote man had been killed off by the other Remote; the rumours always said that the offworlders ate their own, and the Remote’s leader was supposed to be so old and depraved that he could stay alive only by chewing the life out of other people. Must have been a shock to him, Magdelana had thought, to find himself on a planet like this one. A place that could suck him dry faster than he could get his teeth into his victims.
The Remote corpse had turned up about nine months ago, and it was the only time in the last year that Magdelana could remember the townspeople going anywhere in a hurry. Dust turned everyone into a carrion animal, of course. With the help of the satellite, Magdelana had watched all the skinny little people clawing and scratching at each other to get first pick at the body. They’d stripped off the armour first, maybe hoping it was some kind of metal they could melt