Doctor Who_ Interference_ Book One - Lawrence Miles [51]
One day, he’d made the mistake of telling them about the Doctor. Which was when he’d found out who really controlled this colony, and why they thought Fitz was so interesting.
After that, they’d started to answer more of his questions. Even apart from what was happening on the colony, he still wanted to know what had happened to him in Geneva, and who’d sprayed him with the Cold in the first place. But nobody had been able to tell him. It hadn’t been anything to do with the colony people, after all. When he’d asked how the figures in black could have turned up in the middle of a top‐security UN installation, or how they could have even known that Fitz was there, the colony’s secret rulers had consulted the historical records and discovered that twentieth‐century UNISYC had been riddled with corruption. All sorts of people had wanted control over the organisation, they’d explained. All kinds of generals and marshals had plotted and conspired against each other, all trying to end up on the throne of the UN’s alien‐research wing. It was quite feasible, Fitz’s new ‘friends’ had told him, that one of these conspirators had wanted the Doctor and his companions out of the picture. That someone inside UNISYC had bribed the attackers to hit Fitz with the Cold.
So there it was. The reason why Fitz had been surgically removed from Earth, from the TARDIS, from Sam, and from any place he might have been able to call home. For purely political reasons. Because of a power play by some general who’d now been dead for centuries, and whose plans had all come to nothing anyway, judging by the history books.
Which left Fitz on his own. Which left him stranded on a world whose true rulers obviously wanted the pleasure of his company for some time to come, and who were currently doing their best to recruit him to their cause. Which left him with very little to do, except sit back and watch the news.
So that was what he did.
* * *
7
The Smith Report
(getting to the bottom of things, the old‐fashioned way)
28 April 1996 (Research Notes)
Hiatt’s still making cuffs in Birmingham. Check out address for article. Company claims to have been supplying leg irons since slavery; possible story angle? ‘Slave‐trade not dead’? Scratch that. Hard to find slaves these days. Torture victims, prisoners held without trial, police executioners. No slaves. Call Amnesty and check numbers!!! Maybe get map made up of torturing states. Black and red, double‐page spread. Should be good attention‐getter. IF I want this to go to Metropolitan.
Correction: NOT MAKING LEG IRONS ANY MORE. Leg irons illegal since 1983 (?double‐check date). Technicality. Firms still making handcuffs big enough to go round legs. One way of getting past the export regs.
COPEX in August. Any way of getting in? Security meant to be tight. Have a word with some old friends.
Remember. Paul coming over tonight (not relevant, but will forget it otherwise). Staying in London to make documentary for Channel 4. Get food in. Lock K9 away somewhere. NO EMBARRASSING SCENES WITH DOG. Take him to Morton for weekend? (K9, not Paul.)
* * *
18 August 1996 (8.45 p.m.)
After a while, the Land Rover stopped working. Sarah managed to make it cough its way to the next service station, coaxing and cajoling it in the kind of squeaky, high‐pitched voice that cars were traditionally supposed to find appealing. K9 protested, and claimed this was an irrational superstition with no basis in scientific reality, but Sarah responded