Doctor Who_ Original Sin - Andy Lane [17]
As he walked, he scratched at his skin. There were new cracks there alongside the old scars – the ones that he couldn’t remember ever getting, but which covered his body – and he could feel the bites over his tail and mid-torso. Pests, creeping in from the spaceport. Terrestrial pests were like humans themselves; they tended to avoid coming into contact with offworld flesh. Unfortunately it seemed to him that, ever since the end of the Wars of Acquisition, during which the Earth Empire had grabbed whatever it wanted as quickly as it could, there were more and more multi-legged, multicoloured things taking up residence in his skin, and he was spending more and more of his hard-earned money at the autodoc trying to get rid of them. He knew of one old woman who dossed down a few streets away, and who’d been infested with some sort of protoplasmic parasite picked up from a passing alien tourist. By the time she’d got to old Doc Dantalion – well, by the time Powerless Friendless had taken her to him – it was too late. The things had been radioactive, and she only had a few weeks left.
Powerless Friendless had never asked what happened to the body. With Doc Dantalion, you never could tell.
The rest of the underdwellers had looked upon Powerless Friendless with some sort of respect after that. Looking after their own, that was the first rule of the streets, offworld or not. He hadn’t liked to say that he’d been worried about her ruining his trade with her weeping sores and her moaning. If he’d 29
known the things were radioactive he’d have been halfway across the city.
So preoccupied was he with his usual early morning litany of complaints that he hardly noticed the journey across the roofs and along ledges, alongside the flooded alleys and the sunken squares with the heavy weight of the Overcity forever pressing down. It was only when an Adjudication flitter droned across the sky above him, angling for a landing on the roof of a nearby building, that he realized where he was. Humans! He slid quickly into the lee of a tumbledown shack. He mustn’t let them see him! He wasn’t entirely sure why they mustn’t see him, but he hid anyway.
Powerless Friendless extended his eyestalks around the edge of the shack.
The flitter had landed next to a group of street life, and two black-robed Adjudicators had got out. One of them was a short-haired, sour-faced woman; the other was a tall, furry creature that moved like a human, not an offworlder. There was a securitybot as well. He cursed. How could he have been so careless? He had almost walked into them!
The bot was holding a woman he’d seen around in its metal paw. Annie She usually slept over beneath the INITEC Building, in the remains of a crashed Scumble ship. It was a well known doss – Powerless Friendless had used it himself, once upon a time. She was looking dazed, and she held a metal spike in her hand. There was blood on the spike, and . . .
Oh.
Powerless Friendless poked his head out, risking detection. He had to be sure.
It was Waiting For Justice. Waiting For Justice And Dreaming of Home, who, despite the notorious Hith dislike of company, he had sat up with on occasion, drinking voxnik they’d stolen from the warehouses at the spaceport.
Waiting For Justice, who had served on the Gex, flagship of the Hith Navy, during the Great Patriotic War against the Humans, and lived now amongst their filth in the Undertown. Waiting For Justice, who had earned the Red Stripe of Courage during the defence of Hithis. Waiting For Justice, the only other Hith that Powerless Friendless knew on Earth.
Dead.
Ripped to shreds.
The bot was leading Annie towards the flitter. The two Adjudicators were looking around for witnesses. Powerless Friendless slipped back into the shadow of the shack.
Perhaps it was time to be moving on again.
In the darkened room, a plump hand slowly passed across a desktop. Lights glowed deep within its translucent surface, responding