Doctor Who_ Last Man Running - Chris Boucher [74]
The runner was a handsome young man; younger, the Doctor thought, than his voice had suggested up to now. He had a confident, superior smile, and he was wearing what appeared to be the same uniform fatigues as the investigators who were chasing him. ‘But as you say, Thedoctor,’ he continued, ‘that is what training does.’
In the inner dome something huge and multilegged reared up, roaring and lashing and smashing down trees. The noise was startling as it broke and, before the Doctor could move, Leela whirled round to face it. Pulling her knife as she went, she crossed the gallery and grabbed at the young man. As she reached for him he vanished and reappeared to one side of her. She dropped low and flashed a horizontal slash at the back of his leg with the blade, aiming to hamstring him. He was gone before the move was completed.
‘It’s no good, Leela!’ the Doctor said loudly.
The young man reappeared on the other side of her.’
Magic,’ he said chortling.
Leela stood up and sheathed the knife. In the inner dome the monster subsided and began to bury itself in the soil.
‘Where are you?’ the Doctor asked. ‘Where are you projecting this hologram from?’
The man smiled smugly and ignored the question. He looked instead at Leela with open admiration. ‘That was quick. It really does tune to you. It hasn’t responded to anything that fast before. You’re easily the best I’ve come up with. You have simplified my task enormously. I’m very pleased with you.’
Leela moved to stand beside the Doctor. She stared, eyes narrowed, at the image. The Doctor wondered if the young man realised how murderously angry the object of his admiration was. He didn’t seem to, because he did not react to her expression. In fact, the Doctor realised the way he looked at her was arrogantly insulting. It was the open admiration a hunter might show for the perfect companion animal.
‘Will you tell me at least what your name is?’ the Doctor asked politely.
The man considered for a moment and then said, ‘I don’t suppose it will matter, Thedoctor. You’re a clever toody, but not clever enough. My name is Monly. Assistant Chief Investigator Fosten Monly.’
The three ships got the priority go code for the inner-system jump as quickly as the normal single search-and-retrieval vessel would have done, even though three at once put a large and costly hole in the routine traffic patterns.
The navigation coordinator on Lead One was surprised to find that the go code for the inter-system jump was already contained and cleared within the first code for what amounted to a double jump. He recognised that somebody had to have pulled some serious strings and spread prime currency around to get that sort of clearance for this sort of mission.
The navigation coordinator had been in OIG long enough to know that knowledge might not be strength but lack of it was definitely weakness, so he passed the information on to the captain of Lead One. It had to be useful to know that there were wheels within wheels on this job. He was disappointed by the captain’s reaction, or rather his lack of it, but if he was honest it was no more than he expected from a toody. They did tend to be a bit slower to see the implications of things.
Basically they lacked imagination.
Tragically, the navigation coordinator was killed soon afterwards in a freak accident. Apparently the pseudo-gray kicked in between jumps and he broke his neck. The captain was obliged to replace him by promoting a less experienced toody officer on a full mission contract credit.
‘I thought you’d been eaten by lizards. In fact –’ the Doctor pointed at the constantly moving images on the wall – ‘it’ll be in here somewhere, won’t it? You being ripped to pieces.’
‘That’s what you were supposed to think,’ Monly gloated.
The Doctor nodded. ‘When did you substitute the copy of yourself? The copy that was set up to be lizard bait.’
‘Does it matter? When a team is as poorly led and shambolic as that one and you’ve made yourself as unpopular with your leader as I had, there are plenty of opportunities to