Doctor Who_ Original Sin - Andy Lane [49]
‘We need to disguise ourselves,’ he said. ‘We’re alien in this place. Too noticeable.’ He looked around thoughtfully, brightening as his gaze fell upon a large blue flower shaped like a bucket.
‘Is there any liquid inside that thing?’
Bernice walked carefully over to check.
‘Yes. And some of those flying things Looks like they’ve drowned.’ She looked closer. ‘And they’re dissolving.’
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‘Thought so. Don’t put your hands in the liquid.’
‘I have no intention of putting my hands in the liquid. What is it?’
‘Digestive fluid,’ he said. ‘Probably gives off a scent that the things find attractive.’
‘Fine. Does this help us?’
‘It does. Interesting how evolution converges on so many planets. Where you get insects, or some equivalent, there’s usually some kind of plant that lures them to it somehow and kills them.’
He walked over to join her and tugged experimentally on the leaves that made up the bowl.
‘Quite tough, too.’
Bernice listened, trying to block out the sound of the jungle. The flitter seemed to be circling overhead.
‘They’re trying to track us,’ she said.
‘They won’t have much luck,’ the Doctor murmured, still testing the strength of the plant. ‘The jungle is about the same temperature as our bodies. We should be shielded.’ He smiled. ‘However, the military mind being what it is, they have to run through all the usual checks first. Ultra-violet, infrared, boson count, pheremonic trackers. Once they discover they don’t work, they’ll land and track us on foot.’
‘And our one chance – do we know what it is yet?’
He smiled sunnily.
‘We go on the offensive,’ he said. ‘Now, one of us has a little sewing to do, and the other one will have to catch some more of those flying things. Shall we toss a coin for it?’
From his elevated position, Baron Heddolli took a deep breath, and launched into another subordinate clause to a digression that he had started some twenty minutes before. Tiny camerabots with the words The Empire Today on their side stalked around him on long, multi-jointed legs, desperately looking for his best side. Behind him, the shuttle that had brought the Hith ambassadors to Earth lurched from the ground, causing acrid dust to swirl around the greeting party of minor nobles and the Landsknecht Honour Guard, covering silk robes and armoured uniforms alike.
‘. . . and it was Duke Marmion himself,’ the baron proclaimed in his dry monotone, ‘Lord Protector of the Solar System and its Environs, who, in his definitive marshalling of the sovereign degrees of honour, assigned the premier position to the Condirotores Imperiorum, founders of the Empire, without whose august and ever-vigilant hand . . . ’
Dweller In Sorrow Abandoned And Lost ran a pseudo-limb up her eyestalks, trying to perk them up a bit. ‘How much longer is that damned hu-85
man going to prattle on for?’ she whispered to her aide. ‘If I can’t get some time alone in a mucus bath soon, I’m going to go mad, and to Jakkat with the diplomatic consequences!’
‘He’s clocked up two hours so far,’ Avenging Injustice And Burning With Ire sighed, edging slightly away from his superior. ‘As welcome speeches go, it’s impressive. I’m not enjoying this any more than you are. Just retract your eyes and pretend you’re alone.’
‘Impressive my basal foot,’ Dweller In Sorrow growled. ‘That sun’s drying my skin out like leather.’
‘. . . we would be in a position diametrically opposed to the one we find ourselves in now,’ Heddolli continued pathetically. ‘Truly the strength of humanity is its ability to build up from the discordant elements of our nature –
the passions, the interests, the opinions of the individual human, the rivalries of family, clan, tribe and caste, the influences of climate and planetary position, the accidents of peace and war accumulated for ages – to build up from those oft-times warring elements a well-compacted, prosperous and powerful empire . . . ’
The two Hith stared forlornly at Baron Heddolli’s plump form. In the con-voluted hierarchy of ranks and positions that made up Earth’s peerage