Doctor Who_ Longest Day - Michael Collier [5]
He swallowed another gulp. He should take it easy: he didn't have much of the stuff left, and it would take days to brew more up. He didn't have much of anything, he thought with a drunk's self-pity. He looked at blinking pixelated Anstaar. Her picture would do until he'd worked out a way to have her.
He tried approximating her voice again. 'Never gone anywhere, never done anything.' That's what they'd said at home - bad enough his parents, but his friends too? They'd drifted away, good Homeworld boys, off to explore, to enlist, to work, to start being adults. In such a rush to start living. To grow old.
Well, it wasn't for him. Just look at Vost. He'd been places, he'd become the Monitor, here. His family and friends were probably very proud of him, thanked the deity for his success and for his safe return at the end of his duty period. And what did that count for? He was growing old in this place.
Right now, he was probably huddled up down in the docking lounge, drunk.
Blind drunk. Yeah, this place would drive you to that - if you weren't so inclined in the first place. He grinned at the thought, and took another swig.
Vost just didn't want anyone to know, that was it. It would undermine his authority. Imagine what Anstaar would say. Probably wet herself at the thought of two drunks for company. Maybe Vost could even turn out to be something of an ally.
The main screen juddered and the image spun and wobbled before the vision application abruptly cut out.Vasid cursed again, inputting a variety of basic query codes.'Stupid -'
Vasid punched the digitpad again in frustration as the screen filled with meaningless symbols that refused to clear. Then he punched the console surrounding it, and finally threw his cup at the screen. Thick yellow syrup dribbled down it on to the metal worktop beneath.
He jumped to his feet and kicked his chair. It rattled and shifted forward a little way. A cleaning drone hummed over to clear up Vasid's mess, but he lashed out another booted foot and sent the thing spinning into a bank of machinery. Undeterred, it simply righted itself and tried again.
Vasid sighed wearily. Leaning on the chair, he looked up at the wide screen. A false-colour image of Hirath squatted in its centre. In front of the central control dais - where the drone was quietly mopping up his mess -
Vasid took in the never-ending flickerings of the suggested probabilities and nano-possibilities the computer core was assimilating based on the readings from Hirath. He knew that each tiny one of those algebraic notions
- which no one understood in the slightest - could foul up half the galaxy if not allowed for and moderated.
If the tiniest turbulence was detected on the planet surface the computer core would explore it, allow for it, accommodate it or counter it while at the same time keeping in check forces that, if not properly balanced, could shred him - and everything else - into a million pieces over a thousand parsecs.
And now the computer was trying to freak him out.
He turned round and hit the intercom to Vost's quarters, and to the reception bay. So what if it was the middle of the night? Vost was paid to deal with this sort of rubbish. Responsibility. Vost and that prim little bitch could haul it between them.
There was no reply.
All he had to do was get hold of Vost, let the old man worry about it. Then he could go and get really drunk.
No reply.
The screen flickered, then filled with incomprehensible symbols. He spat at the cleaning bot, then hit the general emergency buzzer.
***
A ship that could go anywhere in time and space, visit any planet in any time, anywhere. And he made it look like a cross between an old cathedral and a music hall and filled it with junk.
Sam smiled, even while one hand fiddled with the still-petulant fringe. How could she ever tire of this? She wondered what the original