Doctor Who_ Interference_ Book Two - Lawrence Miles [101]
Ah, youth.
He hadn’t jumped, in the end. He hadn’t had the guts. He’d slummed around Anathema for another couple of months after that, wallowing in his own misery and wishing he was dead as he screwed his way through the Remote population. Then Faction Paradox had turned up in Anathema again, two years after they’d left the Remote to their own devices. Mother Mathara had dropped in to check on the city’s progress, one last look before the Faction left the Remote alone for good. But he’d made his decision by then, and he’d insisted on seeing the Mother personally. The Faction would want someone like him, he’d known that. Someone who’d been close to a complex space-time event like the Doctor.
He’d told Mother Mathara that he wanted to leave Anathema. He’d told her that he’d do anything, anything at all, to get away from the place before its media swallowed him up for ever.
Which was how he’d joined Faction Paradox full-time. Which was how the Faction had inserted his biodata into Anathema’s ‘remembrance tanks’ – just so the city wouldn’t lose anything when he went, and the Remote of future generations would have carbon copies of him to use at their convenience – then taken the original away with them to the Eleven-Day Empire. Which was how he’d eventually risen to the rank of Father, and been put in charge of one of the last surviving Remote communities, and been cut off from the rest of the Faction after the Time Lords had started their great war, and…
And, finally, how he’d ended up here on Dust.
The tents of the travelling show had all been torn down by now, leaving a ring of flat ground between the wagons. The oldest of the Remote knew the wagons were the important things to watch. TARDIS technology, probably. He could have ordered his men to storm them, of course, but it was never a good idea to try fighting your way on to a Gallifreyan’s ship. The ship usually didn’t like it. For now, the Remote could wait.
He realised that one of his troops had stomped up to him while he’d been thinking all this through. The soldier was keeping his eyes on his boots, and trying his best to look respectful.
‘Father?’ the man said. ‘We’ve got the town under control. We’re waiting for your, um… ideas.’
Ideas. Not orders. Father Kreiner nodded anyway.
‘What’s the matter – you wanna live forever?’ Kovacs had asked him, back in 1944.
‘I dunno yet,’ he’d said. ‘Ask me again in five hundred years.’
‘We’re getting away from this planet tonight,’ he said. It was only when he heard the sound of his own voice that he remembered just how old he really was.
* * *
There was no chance of getting back into the town. There were Remote men all over the place by now, and Magdelana didn’t see any point in trying to use the shotgun against them. She kept her finger on the trigger anyway, just in case.
The dust storm had ended, now that the Remote ship had stopped moving. Magdelana was taking shelter in the space between two of the covered wagons, pressing herself against one of the doors, slipping out of the circle and ducking behind the vehicle whenever one of the soldiers came too close. Just watching. Just waiting. She wasn’t sure what she was waiting for, or even what she was meant to be watching, but she knew she had to keep herself alert.
She’d kept an eye on the soldiers as they’d gathered inside the arena, and it hadn’t been hard to work out which of them was supposed to be the leader. The rest of the Remote were men in armour, but the one they took their orders from was armour, a great big mass of spiky plates and black rubber tubing. He limped when he walked, just like Magdelana did, which made her wonder whether the implants in his leg were anything like as painful as hers.
And he had his back