Doctor Who_ Original Sin - Andy Lane [33]
‘Address?’
‘The Undertown. That’s all it says.’
Forrester looked grim. ‘That’s all there is,’ she said. ‘You should have learned that by now. Question is, why did the bot tell us that the victim didn’t have a biochip when he did?’
Cwej’s face was serious. ‘Because the bot didn’t bother checking. Because the bot wasn’t expecting the victim to have a biochip. Because the bot got the wrong offworlder.’
‘What do you mean, “got”?’ Forrester asked.
‘What do you think.”
57
‘You can’t mean . . . ?’
‘That the bot killed the offworlder thinking it was another offworlder?’ His face was set. ‘Yes, I do.’
‘Well,’ she said, leaning back in her chair and sighing, ‘I guess they all look the same. So, we’ve got a murderer who isn’t a murderer and a victim who isn’t a victim. What else can go wrong?’
‘You’ve forgotten one thing.’
‘Oh yeah? What’s that?’
‘Two investigators who aren’t investigating.’
She looked meaningfully over at him.
‘Let’s rectify that, at least.’
‘You mean . . . ?’
‘I mean, college boy, that we’re going to solve this case despite all the shit they can throw at us.’
He stared back. ‘What’s with this “we”?’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘Requesting a new partner this soon could look real bad on your report.’
He grinned. ‘And besides,’ he said, getting to his feet, ‘where could they find someone else stupid enough to work with you?’
‘That,’ murmured Forrester as she followed him from the room, ‘is my line.’
The hands on the desk suddenly jerked into life as the fastline link to the Arachnae was severed.
‘So, Doctor,’ a voice murmured, ‘you’re getting away from the trap I laid for you on Earth. You think that you can escape me? Think again. I have tame Landsknechte as well as tame Adjudicators. If you don’t wish to be brainwiped on Earth, perhaps it’s best to have you killed on Purgatory.’
Quivering for a moment, like insects surprised by a light, the hands gradually began to scuttle across the surface of the desk, sending a message along the fastline towards a planet named Purgatory and a man named Provost-Major Beltempest. That done, the hands paused as their owner digested events that had occurred in his absence. The hands requested more data from centcomp records cross-referenced to an Adjudication lodge. The hands clasped like lonely animals and began softly to caress each other.
‘And you, my friend,’ the voice said. ‘I thought that I had killed you, but I see I made a mistake. Not something that I am prone to do, and not something that remains unaddressed.’
The hands rested. Their owner waited.
In the privacy of his office on Purgatory, Provost-Major Montmorency Beltempest ran the tip of his trunk over the now-darkened viewscreen. The blue tip 58
of his very expensively beppled trunk, he reminded himself. Money could buy an awful lot, and over the past few years he’d managed to indulge a number of tastes that he hadn’t even realized he possessed. He’d got used to having lots of money to play with, and he wasn’t about to give it up. Not for anything.
But still . . . murder? That wasn’t really his line. Information, yes. He would pass on secret information with no qualms. Nobody could trace the leaks back to him, he was certain of that. And contracts. Assigning new weapons development contracts to a specific firm was piss easy. No risk there.
Even that business with the Hith ship and its crew hadn’t bothered him overly.
But murder?
He eased himself out of his chair and crossed to the window. With one massive blue paw he moved the lace curtains aside. It was night, and Purgatory’s one scarred moon was casting its reflected light upon the buildings of the Imperial Landsknechte HQ. The albino lawn trembled gently to itself and, high above, particle beams glowed as a mock battle was fought.
Beltempest sighed. He had no choice, of course. Even if he wanted to give up on his regular second income, he