Doctor Who_ Original Sin - Andy Lane [44]
The top of the block was approaching fast. Cwej took them arcing high above the rim and looped over, bringing them down softly on a stretch of grass. Forrester climbed out while he shut the systems down. The sky was a deep, glorious rose colour, dotted here and there with wisps of pure white.
Sunlight glinted from an alien craft as it came in to land at Spaceport Five.
Forrester couldn’t tell which race it belonged to, but she felt a sliver of hatred penetrate her heart none the less.
She looked around. The park stretched on as far as she could see, broken here and there by the blue, waist-high walls that marked the edges of the towers. A small grove of aspen trees provided some convenient shade nearby.
She started to walk over to them, but felt herself drawn to the nearest rim. The blue walls were merely a convenient marker: the real wall was transparent and twenty feet high. She placed her hands against its cold, slightly springy surface and looked over. The clouds rolled, far below, hiding the Undertown from the eyes of the Overcity.
‘You want I should set it up?’ Cwej called as he walked over, dangling the mind probe in one hand.
‘Know how?’ She walked over to the grove of trees, beckoning to Cwej to follow.
‘Can’t be that difficult,’ he replied. Forrester smiled at his brashness.
She watched as he looked around for somewhere to sit. Eventually he removed his robe and laid it on the ground. His body armour was bright and unscratched, complementing rather than contrasting with his golden fur. Forrester removed her robe and threw it down next to him. As she sat, she noticed him staring at her own body armour. Compared to his it was shabby and battered. Compared to anyone’s it was shabby and battered.
‘Seen some action, huh?’ His voice was oddly hesitant.
‘I’ve been around,’ she said neutrally.
‘Looks like you’ve been in some dangerous situations.’
‘The Undertown’s a dangerous place.’
His gaze was steady, and she couldn’t look away.
‘Ever thought of a transfer?’
‘To where? I’d be bored silly up here in the Overcity. Tried it, didn’t like it.’
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He smelled musky, warm, and she felt her head swim. She wanted to run her hands through his thick, silky pelt. Goddess, this was stupid! He was her squire. Her squire, for Goddess’ sake!
Like she had been Martle’s squire.
He reached out a paw and traced the path of one of the scratches across her breastplate.
‘How’d you get this one?’ he asked, his fingers lingering at the end of their path.
‘Never mind,’ she snapped. ‘Get on with what we came here for.’
He pulled his hand back. She took a deep breath, hoping he hadn’t noticed the shake in her voice.
‘Yeah. Right.’ Deftly he set up the mind probe, turned it on and angled the screen so that they could both see it. ‘Here goes.’ He quickly typed instructions into the probe. The screen dimmed, flickered, and went blank.
‘You’ve broken it.’
‘I have not broken it.’
‘It never does that when I use it.’
‘You never went to the lectures.’
She had no answer to that.
The screen began to strobe with scenes too brief for Forrester to identify.
Faces, places, objects . . . all fuzzy and none lasting long enough for her to place them in context. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked.
‘Well, we assume she was drugged, right? So that she couldn’t run away from the securitybot.’
‘Yeah.’
‘And that’s why her memories were fuzzy when we reviewed them earlier.’
‘I guess.’
‘So, if we go back to the latest point where her memories are clear, that’s when she was drugged.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘And whoever was around at the time is our major suspect for having drugged her.’
‘Seems fair. What’s your sample rate?’
‘I’m taking a memory every ten minutes.’
The strobing continued. Forrester was getting a headache trying to follow it. She squinted, and knelt closer to the screen.
A face, clearer than the rest.
‘Stop!’ she cried.
Cwej’s finger hit the button. The screen froze on a close-up of a bottle