Doctor Who_ Interference_ Book Two - Lawrence Miles [42]
‘Er,’ Llewis began.
One of the workers, a man in a one-piece blood-red uniform with impossibly sharp creases, turned to wave at him.
‘Can’t stop,’ he said. Then he went back to whatever it was he was doing.
Llewis glanced over his shoulder. The three vans had come to a stop behind his car, and from here he could see the driver of the nearest vehicle staring out at him through the windscreen, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel in a ‘what-are‐we-waiting‐for?’ kind of way. Llewis clenched his teeth, and turned back towards the workers.
‘I’m here for the Cold,’ he tried.
That got a reaction. Mr Blood-Red exchanged glances with one of his comrades.
‘I’m sorry,’ Mr Blood-Red told Llewis. ‘That won’t be possible.’
‘Won’t be possible? What won’t be possible?’
‘The Cold. I’m afraid we can’t let you have it.’
Llewis felt the Sweat bubbling up to the surface of his skin, and heard, somewhere off in the distance, the ghostly sound of Peter Morgan calling his name. ‘You don’t understand. The Cold. We did… I did a deal. With Mr Guest. We’re supposed to take delivery, it’s all arranged –’
‘The plan’s been changed. Sorry.’ Mr Blood-Red shrugged, and turned back to the machinery
‘Wait a minute!’ Llewis exclaimed.
‘Yes?’
‘What do you mean, the plan’s been changed? We had an agreement. Mr Guest said so.’
‘Oh, I believe you. It’s all right. We’ve just changed our agenda, that’s all.’ Mr Blood-Red nodded to himself, and smiled cheerily. ‘The plan was to give the Cold to Earth. To change the, ah… what do you call it? The political balance, that’s it. Maybe even set off a war. I mean, we’re not really sure what would have happened, but it would’ve been something like that, I should think. As long as there was a bit of damage to the timeline, that was the main thing.’
The man tapped his ear. Llewis saw there was one of those radio-valve earring things set into the lobe.
‘But we don’t have to do that now,’ he continued. ‘There’s already a TARDIS on Earth.’
‘A… TARDIS?’ said Llewis.
There was the sound of a van door opening, then slamming shut. The next thing Llewis knew, the driver was standing next to him, chewing the end of a Silk Cut. The driver was a big man, flabby but powerful-looking, with the kind of muscles you get from loading trucks all your life, not from working out at the gym. Bizarrely, the man was wearing a baseball cap, as if he thought it’d make him look younger.
‘We got a problem?’ the driver asked.
‘No,’ said Mr Blood-Red, quite cheerfully. ‘It’s like I said. There’s already a TARDIS on Earth. That’s all we need. So we don’t have to complete the deal.’
‘Right, then,’ said the driver, clearly not understanding a word. ‘Shall we be off?’
Llewis felt a bloody great sigh burst out of his lungs. Why not? Why not turn around and go home? He didn’t want anything to do with the Cold anyway. Let them take it back to their own planet or wherever. It was no skin off his nose.
Except…
What would they say back at the office? What would they say if he came back empty-handed? If he admitted that, yes, just as Peter Morgan had expected, the deal had fallen through?
‘Hold on,’ said Llewis, not really knowing what he was going to say until the words plopped out of his mouth. ‘Hold on, hold on. What’s this TARDIS thing?’
The uniformed man seemed happy to talk about it. ‘Oh, it’s a complex space-time capsule. We can’t reach the Cold without it. That’s what Guest says, anyway.’
‘Relative 101 by 4E,’ one of the other workers added, unhelpfully. Llewis looked at the boxes around him. ‘But… I thought the Cold was here.’
‘Well, this is just the skin of the Cold, really. What it leaves behind. We can’t reach the real Cold, because it’s not in this dimension, or something like that. We need a