Doctor Who_ Interference_ Book One - Lawrence Miles [20]
‘First‐contact situation,’ Sam offered.
‘Don’t be flippant,’ said the Doctor. ‘What is it they want?’
‘Good question,’ said Coldicott. ‘They say they want to open trade negotiations. They make a pretty good pitch.’
Sam couldn’t help but notice a dark look cross the Doctor’s face. Even given that it was already pretty bleeding dark in the room. ‘What are they offering?’
Coldicott just cleared his throat.
‘Weapons?’ the Doctor enquired.
‘Not exactly. Call it security equipment.’
‘I see.’
‘Look, you don’t need me to explain,’ Coldicott said. ‘Just watch the video. It’s their sales promo.’
* * *
Now
Sam waited a full half‐hour on the stairwell before she headed back towards Guest’s room. But it was a crisis half‐hour, which was probably about five minutes in normal time.
The hotel corridor was quiet now. No voices around the corner, no signs of trouble. The first thing Sam did was hurry to the corner where she’d dropped the binoculars. If anyone had followed her, they probably would’ve taken them, but it was worth a shot.
The binoculars weren’t there. There was a shattered ceramic plant pot, and that was all. Sam swore.
This wasn’t going well. Not well at all. When Sam had been with the Doctor, accidents had happened, but they’d always been ‘happy’ accidents. They’d stumbled across clues, been conveniently captured and told the plot before managing to escape again. Without the Doctor, there was no pattern to anything. When Sam messed up, she just messed up, and everything got slightly worse.
Still. He was gone now. Missing, presumed not coming back. Fitz was somewhere in Geneva, and hadn’t been in touch for a week, so either he’d ended up in prison or he was busy shagging his way through the UN’s typing pool. The point was, Sam was on her own now. She wasn’t just going to walk around the corner and bump into either of them.
Then she walked around the corner, and – as if to prove the point – bumped into someone else entirely.
‘Hello again,’ said Ms Bland, not quite holding the smile away from her face.
Sam looked down, at the binoculars cradled in the woman’s hands.
‘Oh,’ said Sam.
‘I think these must belong to you,’ Ms Bland concluded. ‘Fiftieth century, aren’t they?’
* * *
Travels with Fitz (I)
Geneva, 1996
There weren’t any windows in the room. That was what really got to him. The UN obviously felt that windows were a security risk, and they’d built a huge TV screen into one of the walls instead, as if filling the room with five‐foot‐wide adverts for Coca‐Cola would be a good substitute for a view. So Fitz lay on the bed, surrounded by tacky beige furnishings and polite air‐conditioning vents, watching the news on one of the few channels where the broadcasters still had a reasonable grasp of English. The reporter was describing a court case involving a company called Microsoft, and on the screen a pale, anxious‐looking man in glasses was saying that he was very, very sorry about any loss of life his software may have caused.
Fitz still wasn’t sure what ‘software’ was, although it couldn’t have been very soft if it’d killed someone. He saw the news report through to the end, then hauled himself off the bed, went to the door and poked his head out of the room.
The guard was still standing out in the corridor, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. Fitz wasn’t sure if it was the same man who’d been there yesterday. They all looked pretty much identical, which made him wonder whether the UN had made some kind of breakthrough in cloning and not bothered telling anyone. Padded suit, dyed‐blond military haircut, dinky little UNISYC insignia on the shirt pocket. The usual.
‘How do you turn the TV off?’ Fitz asked.
‘Big switch at the bottom of the set,’ the man told him, in his French‐but‐clearly‐taught‐English‐by‐Americans accent. Then he added, ‘Sir,’ just to be on the safe side.
‘Right,’ said Fitz. And he shut the door again.
It was a stupid question, natch. But Fitz made a rule of annoying the guards as often as possible. It was the only