Doctor Who_ Lungbarrow - Marc Platt [6]
He weighed the device in his hand and sniffed its surface. 'Classified,' he observed. The captain, resplendent in his scarlet and white uniform, had not moved.
Hofwinter grunted, 'Thank you, erm...'
'Jomdek, sir.'
'Yes, thank you, Captain Jomdek. No response necessary.'
'The Castel an instructed me to wait until the transduction was complete, sir.'
'Eh? I can't think why. The subject wil be transducted direct to the destination specified in the orders. You won't see anything up here.'
'I think that's the idea, sir.'
'Oh, I see.' The ancient actuary shuffled across to a window that overlooked the Capitol. On the courtyard far below, several guard squads were undergoing intensive ceremonial drill practice. An unlikely event at this hour.
'They're keeping everybody busy,' he said. 'Must be up to something Downstairs.'
Ignoring the captain, Hofwinter set the crystal cube on a receptor pad by the observation port. The object was instantly diffused with green light.
He waited for the hunter codes to initiate.
***
There was someone following Dorothée. She couldn't see anyone specific among the shoppers in the aisles of Marks & Spencer's food hal , but he was there. She knew it by instinct. An awareness that he was watching her.
She said he, but it could just as easily be a she or even an it.
She got into the queue for the checkout and glared at the fat Parisienne who was scrutinizing the contents of her basket. Above her, a security camera on the ceiling swivelled to stare straight at her.
Too obvious. Couldn't be that.
She started to check the francs in her wallet, making sure they were the right year. - She'd had this same feeling two days before. But that had been at the Café Momus in the Latin Quarter. It had been Christmas Eve well over a century before and she had been there with friends. Just as the chaussons aux confitures à la crème anglais arrived (jam turnovers with custard, her treat), she was aware of someone watching. The sound and atmosphere of the café seemed to drain away as she turned to look for the presence. Maybe at one of the other tables, among the honking beaux from the Jockey Club and their gaudily crinolined danseuses fresh from the Opera Ballet. He could have been anywhere in the milling crowd outside the café windows. She hardly noticed a brass band passing by. She could see snow falling in the gas lamps' glow.
Then the thought had passed as the wine and the attentive looks of Monsieur Seurat had got the better or worse of her concentration.
11
But now here it was again. Over a hundred years later on a warm June morning in a Paris department store.
The queue was taking an age, so she tried to think about other things while she waited. The Doctor had been on her mind a lot lately. She hadn't seen him for over a year in any time zone and it amused her to imagine him let loose in a food hal like this. She reckoned he would soon be bored with looking at the range of foods and start juggling avocados. She didn't suppose that Machiavelli liked shopping much either.
She reached the checkout, paid up and left the shop. But even on the street she could sense the presence. Either it had the wherewithal to time-jump after her, or she'd brought it with her herself.
That time-jump made al the difference. Suddenly He had become It.
She hurried back to the Rue Massine and turned into the side alley. 'Damn!' A tall gendarme was walking round the bike. By 2001 standards the machine wasn't as hi-tech as it once had been, but its attachments could stil draw attention. Why else had she parked it up an alley? She prayed she'd get to him before he set off the field alarm and half Paris came to gawp.
He crouched to examine the black-box jump committal device with its multi-lingual ALERTE symbols. The box started to zub angrily at him.
Dorothée pulled a pin out of her hair and shook it out into a tangle. She hefted her Marks & Spencer shopping