Doctor Who_ Original Sin - Andy Lane [45]
77
‘Go forward,’ Forrester barked, but Cwej was already feeding instructions in. More pictures, slower this time. Grimy, graffiti-laden walls of crumbling brick. Flickering firelight upon an arched roof A group of underlife in the remains of a collapsed church, clouds rolling overhead. Two people, a man and a woman.
A fuzzy image of a securitybot.
‘Got it,’ Cwej murmured. ‘If I increase the sample rate to a memory every ten seconds . . . ’
It took five more minutes to focus down upon the last thing the old woman saw before she had been drugged.
‘And there they are,’ Cwej announced. ‘Prime suspects one and two.’
The image was sharp. Sharper than the rest. Forrester had seen the effect before. The low-life’s mind had been brought into focus by a powerful emotion. Love could do that, and hate. And fear. Especially fear.
The man in the image was small and dark-haired. He was wearing a crumpled suit and a battered hat. The woman was tall and fine-boned. Her hair was close-cropped. Her clothes were plain except for an embroidered waistcoat.
She was holding a dermal patch towards the old woman. The image was so clear that Forrester could make out the individual pores on the patch, through which the drug would be absorbed into the skin.
‘So,’ Forrester breathed. ‘Our murderers. Run the record on in real time.’
The image jerked into life. The woman’s hand disappeared out of sight. The image began to fuzz over.
‘Drug’s taking effect,’ Cwej murmured. ‘Must be a fast acting one.’
‘Wait,’ Forrester said, ‘she’s going to say something.’
On the probe screen, the woman turned to the man and mouthed something.
‘Can we get audio on this thing?’
Cwej frowned. ‘Audio’s usually difficult. The neural pathways it’s stored in are too fiddly to access from the outside. Smell’s the easiest, followed by visual. Touch and sound are buggers.’ He fiddled with the controls. ‘However,’
he said distractedly, ‘the memory is so sharp that we might be in luck.’
A blare of static. He turned the volume down quickly.
‘Replay,’ Forrester ordered.
The picture jumped back ten seconds. The woman turned to her companion.
‘She’s going under, Doctor,’ she said. ‘Give her the spike. She can kill the slug for us.’
‘Well,’ the man said, ‘we make a fine pair of murderers, don’t we my dear?’
78
Chapter 6
‘I’m Evan Claple and this is The Empire Today , on the spot, on and off the Earth. Today’s headlines: disaster strikes Spaceport Eighteen Overcity on Earth as an orbital laser platform malfunctions and destroys an entire accommodation block. Fifty thousand people are feared dead along with an unknown number of aliens, and damage is estimated at over one billion Imperial schillings. Earth Defence Coor-dinator Jim Hallis has promised a full investigation. Also, as official figures indicate that the murder rate on Earth is rising rapidly, we talk to Minister Stammatina of the Church of the Goddess. Offworld now, and latest figures from . . . ’
Wherever Bernice looked, the jungle seethed with life.
Fleshy purple leaves quivered like palsied hands at the end of branches covered in hair. Vines wound themselves tighter around the gnarled boles of trees, occasionally shifting position as if seeking the best grip to strangle them with. Flowers with vast, fleshy petals and twisted stamens seemed to distend then shrivel in a grotesque parody of respiration. Tiny animals with insane glints in their multiple eyes scurried, fought, screamed and mated their way from tree to tree and vine to vine. Through chinks in the oppressive canopy of leaves, flocks of flying reptiles with razor-edge talons wheeled through a fiery sky. The leaves were wet with condensation, which trickled down and fell to the spongy ground.
‘Let me guess,’ she said. ‘This isn’t the restaurant.’
‘That depends on who’s doing the eating,’ Provost-Major Beltempest said pleasantly. He was standing in the centre of the clearing made by the descending flitter, his tunic open to show his huge blue paunch, a blaster rifle loosely