Doctor Who_ Original Sin - Andy Lane [110]
‘Find them?’ Farlander raised his eyes to the inhuman form that hung above him. ‘How, if we can’t trust centcomp?’
‘ISOLATE MEMORIES. COMPARE WITH MONTHLY BACKUPS FOR PAST
TEN YEARS. LOOK FOR ALTERATIONS. PUT RIGHT.’
When the Divine Empress had to speak at that length to the man who was supposed to be able to take one word of hers and translate it into complex actions, Farlander knew that she wasn’t happy.
‘Yes, your most Supreme and Puiss–’
‘NEXT.’
‘Your Surgeon Imperialis seems to have discovered that the violence and the riots sweeping the Empire are connected to body-bepple. Apparently every violent event can be traced back to a person who has undergone the process.’
‘STATISTICALLY INSIGNIFICANT,’ the Empress scoffed.
‘A message has been passed on by the Imperial Landsknechte. One of their provost-majors has intelligence that seems to back up the theory. He claims to have discovered a connection between the violence, body-bepple and some obscure form of radiation.’
‘REWARD. CROSS-REFER TO SURGEON IMPERIALIS. NEXT.’
187
‘The Hith delegation are down in an anteroom. They’ve been waiting for three days to see you.’
‘KEEP ALIENS WAITING. NEXT.’
Farlander felt sweat beading his forehead. There were five hundred points on the agenda. He might be there for some time.
The ship wasn’t in any condition to fly; Cwej could see that from the other end of the catwalk. The distorting effects of hyperspace, and the lack of any referents to aid perspective, meant that the ship alternated between being a huge shape millions of miles away and a small object hanging just in front of him. Despite the tricks his eyes were playing on him he could see that large areas of its almost organic hull plating had been removed to reveal its skeletal frame, leaving it like a gutted fish. Small bots were crawling over it, dismantling the plates with bright plasma lances. The area at the front – the cockpit, judging by the bulbous transparent canopy – was almost complete, as was the engine compartment at the rear. The ship’s middle – the cargo area and weapon emplacements – had been stripped away, leaving only the central backbone – like main spar. The catwalk led to an open hatch in the cockpit area.
‘I hope those bots aren’t watching out for intruders,’ Forrester muttered.
Cwej nodded absently. He’d seen something like it before, he was sure of it. The smooth, spavined surfaces were terribly familiar. Was it a Dravidian design? Shlangiian? Antonine?
‘Of course!’ He slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand as the memory came to him. Forrester whirled around, gun at the ready, then cast him a dirty look as she gradually relaxed. ‘It’s a Hith ship!’
Beside him, Powerless Friendless bobbed his eyestalks in agreement. ‘The Skel’Ske,’ he said, awed.
‘ Skel’Ske?’ Cwej tried out the unfamiliar syllables.
‘Skel’Ske is the sound made by the wings of JakkatKajjat, the twin-headed Goddess of Justified Retribution, as she passes overhead at dawn, tearing the souls of her enemies from their bodies.’
‘What’s wrong with Rosebud?’ Bernice muttered.
‘I used to have a model of a Hith battleship,’ Cwej said. ‘I made it myself.
Big thing, it was, with these spike things jutting out of the front.’ He waved his arms around, trying to convey to Powerless Friendless some impression of the size and sheer spikiness of the ship as if the Hith didn’t already know. ‘Big, big hyperdrive motors in a ring around its middle. I had it hanging above my bed for years. The cleaning bots used to hate dusting it.’
Powerless Friendless just nodded sadly.
188
‘The Gex,’ he sighed. ‘Flagship of the Hith Cosmic Fleet. Destroyed by the Imperial Landsknecht Fleet while defending Hithis during the Great Patriotic War. Fifteen thousand Hith dead. Less than twenty survivors.’
Cwej could almost feel the weight of the model in his hands. It had taken him almost a week to paint the concentric yellow and red Hith battle colours on the complex curves of the hull. He’d been so proud of that ship. ‘And what about the little things,’ he said excitedly, ‘the ones that