Doctor Who_ Longest Day - Michael Collier [1]
Vost laughed drily. "The party never stops on Hirath.'
'Won't for us, either, once it's properly exploited.' Taaln was smiling.'Think of the money...'
"That's a young man's dream.'
'I'm young enough to dream it.' Taaln pulled hard at the lead shell of the chronal assessor, exposing the connections within.
***
The veins seemed to push through the backs of Taaln's tanned hands now, but Vost realised that the skin was simply paring away layer by layer, fluttering off, tugged by a thin breeze. It ruffled his hair.Yes, things were returning to normal here. His device was still functioning, the data display reading massive chronal activity.
Just rumblings.
He stayed watching as Taaln's painted statue continued to peel under the bright light of the sun. In another few hours the pick-up would surely come, steering its calculated path through the time streams. Perhaps by then there would be nothing left of Taaln.
You had to take what you could while you could. You had to make your own future. Vost carried on watching as the sun beat down.
Now
He's still watching over Hirath, way up in space he can see it all. It's given him a good, if meaningless, living over the years but he's been so distracted of late. He remembers the day Taaln died and the years he seemed to spend watching him. He's tired, worn out now. He's sick of knowing too little and accepting too much. He may have made a mistake.
He thinks of his future but he's uncertain.
Somewhere in a dark corner things untouched for hundreds of years are stirring, like responding to like. They're thinking about the future, too.
ONE WEEK LATER
Chapter 1
A Dark Sky
The door slid open with a rasping hum. He wasn't here. Good. The last thing she felt like dealing with right now was more of Vasid's weird behaviour. Waking up in the middle of sleep break to find him trying out different entry codes on her bedroom door was bad enough. Finding things had been taken from her wardrobe rated pretty poorly, too. But enduring him in the rec room, the comments, the snide remarks, the stupid forced discussions on sexuality and frigidity - well, in the mood she was in now, she felt she would smash his teeth in and ask him to discuss that with a surgeon. Or a vet, more likely - slimy little rat.
She pictured him with an involuntary shudder. Sharp, pointed nose sniffing the air as she walked by. Wide eyes just crafty enough to avoid seeming gormless. A smile with no warmth, hovering hopefully like a premature apology for whatever stupid conversation would follow.
'Come on,' she muttered, looking at her own shadow lying thick and black in the rectangle of light in front of her, spilling through from the corridor.
She slapped a palm to her forehead and watched the shadow do the same.
The lights weren't working. Again.
She moved into the darkness of the room, silent save for a low hum from the drinks machine in the corner and the soft, comforting whine of the base generators. The emergency lighting usually cut in, but it looked like that was out too.
She stepped through the doorway. On the far side of the room was the observation window, a huge rectangle of glass set into the wall. Feeling around the area beside her, she located the window shield control and turned the ball in its socket. A low grating rattled the shutters back and spilled a little more light into the shadows. The outside world revealed itself through the glass at a ponderous pace, but she stood patiently by the door until, with a final, unhealthy clang, the shield was fully retracted.
She stared at the grey brightness of the planetoid's surface -craters, mud flats and mountains vying for a bored onlooker's attention under the stars and blackness.Why was the sky dark at night? She could remember asking the question when she was younger, but found it hard to imagine she'd ever actually cared about the answer.
Sighing, she padded softly over