Doctor Who_ Match of the Day - Chris Boucher [46]
He halted his drift at the nearest one. ‘Are you going to kill me?’ he asked. If he knew precisely where the man was then not knowing which hand the knife was in wouldn’t matter.
Most of the knifers he had come up against were ambidextrous and fought flicking the weapon from hand to hand, probing for weaknesses. But was this a fighter, and how would weightlessness affect the technique?
‘The money,’ the voice said.
Keefer made a show of reaching for it. His opponent’s position still wasn’t exact enough so he closed his eyes and said, ‘I said are you going to try and kill me?’
There was a fractional pause. ‘Try and kill you? No problem. Money. Money!’ The last word was louder, fiercer, and Keefer knew the man would be thrusting his head forward to speak it.
The human ear picks sound direction poorly but with the source close and with breath-smell to supplement the sound data, Keefer could place him now exactly. He opened his eyes. Got you, his mind exulted. He flipped the wad of notes over his right shoulder, and when they passed out of his peripheral vision he grabbed a safety handle and pivoted, twisting himself to the left.
The man was short and thickset with a Western-zone cast to his features. He held the laser blade in his left hand and with his right was hesitating about reaching for the spinning cash. He had been ready for any move but his attention was divided and it marginally slowed his lunge. That was all Keefer needed. He parried the stiletto, pushing it outwards so that it missed his chest and seared a neat hole in the plastic wall.
As the man tried to draw back for a second stab, Keefer used the momentum and the superior purchase from his hold on the safety handle to turn the moving blade. He didn’t waste effort struggling for possession but simply braced the man’s grip on the knife and jerked him forward.
The laser punched through the man’s side and severed his lower spine. A helpless spasm clenched through him and he began to twitch uncontrollably. Keefer barely looked at him as he took the knife from the nerveless hand and dispatched him with a single blow up through the jaw and into the brain.
Without really thinking about it Keefer swapped IDs with the dead man, shoved the corpse into one of the cubicles, and carefully sealed the curtain. He retrieved the money and then, when he had satisfied himself that there were no obvious signs of a struggle and that he looked normal, he left the washrooms and headed for the Geewin system embarkation zone.
The stocky young man with the white streaked, shoulder length hair was clearly furious. ‘You did what?’
‘They wouldn’t have come otherwise.’ The driver looked to the Doctor for confirmation and, oddly, for support. ‘You wouldn’t have come otherwise, would you?’
They were standing by the parked runner in an area of small, single-storey houses squeezed onto narrow, individual plots of scrubby land. The buildings were little more than shacks and here and there along the dusty access road a straggly tree struggled to remain upright and alive.
‘Given the choice,’ the Doctor said rubbing his wrists to emphasise the point, ‘I do normally prefer a less binding invitation.’
‘I cannot believe you pulled a gun,’ the young man raged,
‘and then wrist clamped them, you stupid old scuffwit.’
‘Hey!’ The driver jabbed an angry finger at the young man’s face. ‘You do not talk to me like that. I am your father and I did what I did for you.’ He turned his back on the young man. ‘And anyway the gun wasn’t loaded.’ He went round to the other rear door of the runner, to where Leela was still sitting with her wrists tightly secured to the seat arms. ‘The gun wasn’t loaded you know,’ he said to her. ‘If that helps at all.’
‘It does not help at all,’ Leela said through gritted teeth.
‘I’m sorry if I affronted your dignity,’ the driver said. ‘Not if, I didn’t mean if, I mean obviously I did affront your dignity.
I’m sorry I didn’t mean to be -’
‘Release me,’ Leela interrupted. ‘I have no use for your apologies.’
He leaned in through the front door and flicked