Doctor Who_ Original Sin - Andy Lane [23]
With a deep sigh, he heaved himself onto the ledge that ran around the bottom of the INITEC building and lay there, panting. He could feel his lymph pump thumping against his gut and, a fraction of a second later, the thud of his pulse in his eyestalks. He was getting too old for this game. He’d once been a lot fitter than he was now. Hadn’t he?
Gradually his pulse returned to normal. He climbed to his foot, his muscles protesting, and slid around the ledge, looking for an open ventilation hatch.
It was common knowledge amongst the underdwellers that one of the robot caretakers took its cleanliness programming a little more seriously than its security programming, and regularly left a hatch open to air the place out.
He rounded a corner, and saw, a little distance ahead, a sliver of light. He was in luck! Shuffling forward, he bent down beside it. The hatch was open just a crack, but it wouldn’t budge when he pulled it and the control panel was on a wall inside. He put his ear to the crack – there was no noise from inside, no people, no robots, no showers running. If he could only reach in and hit the controls . . .
He lay down and extruded a pseudo-limb through the gap. The tentacles on the end of his pseudo-limb waggled in the air. He could sense the controls just out of reach. The cold, smooth metal taunted him. The edge of the hatch bit sharply into his flesh. Tingles edged down his tentacles, and his tendons strained until he thought that they would snap.
Powerless Friendless sighed and pulled his limb back into his body. He was going to have to ask Krohg to do it. He didn’t want to, but it was the only chance he had.
‘Krohg?’
Nothing. He tried again.
‘Krohg? Please?’
40
Something stirred deep in a pocket of his rucksack. Careful not to touch Krohg’s skin – it was always a bit on the snappy side when woken up – he slid a pseudo-limb into the pocket and waited until it had nestled moistly in his curled-up pseudo-palm.
‘Sorry about this,’ he said, pulling the limb out, ‘but I need your help.’
Krohg stared malevolently up at him. As usual, he couldn’t help wondering why he’d kept the creature. Not that he could remember how he had come by it; his memories became fragmented and diffused the further back he tried to push them. It was too ugly to evoke sympathy in the heart of any passing human. Most of them found its slimy orange skin and fringe of cilia repellent, and the gleam of nastiness in its three eyes didn’t help. Neither did its mouth.
Those cogwheel-like teeth had even given him a couple of nasty rasps. No, it had to be said that Krohg didn’t have many redeeming features. Occasionally, when it could be bothered, Krohg would help Powerless Friendless with fiddly things like half-open hatches and wallets in pockets. That was about it.
He pointed it at the crack between the hatch and the frame.
‘Good thing,’ he muttered. ‘Open the hatch for me.’
With a wriggle, Krohg eased itself onto the hatch frame and through the crack. A few moments later he heard the click of a magnetic catch, and the hatch sighed open. He found Krohg inside, curled up around the OPEN button.
He picked it up and slipped it back in his rucksack with a murmured. ‘Thanks.’
He slid through the hatch into the sports facility and slithered towards the showers, where he let the fingers of ultrasound caress his body and ease the ingrained dirt from his flesh. Shame it took all that lovely, protective mucus with it, but he was used to the sacrifice by now. After fifteen minutes he stepped out and slithered back into the dressing room. There was a full-length mirror field across one wall, and for a moment he stopped and stared at himself. He didn’t like what he saw. His skin was greyer than he would have liked, the fringe of cilia around his mouth trembled slightly and his body was so thin that his basal foot was wider than his waist. The nubs of his withdrawn pseudo-limbs were withered and misshapen,