Doctor Who_ Original Sin - Andy Lane [57]
‘They will be returned to Earth for mind probing,’ she said. ‘If, as a result of the information retrieved, centcomp finds them guilty, they will be sentenced accordingly.’
He nodded. ‘But if they have already been sentenced in accordance with Imperial Landsknechte law, then they have already been punished. Does that not satisfy your need for justice?’
‘That,’ Forrester said cautiously, ‘would depend upon the punishment.’
He smiled. ‘Rest assured,’ he said, ‘that it would be . . . apt.’
Cwej frowned. He was completely missing the words beneath the words.
‘Look,’ he said impatiently, ‘are they here or not?’
Beltempest’s face took on a slightly pained expression. ‘If they were here,’
he said, ‘then I would quite happily hand them over to you so long as the Imperial Landsknechte did not have a prior claim. If I don’t hand them over, it is either because they aren’t here., or because we do have a prior claim.’
Cwej frowned. ‘Was that a yes or a no?’ he said, baffled.
Time to put on a bit of pressure.
‘You mentioned jurisdiction,’ Forrester said.
‘Yes?’
‘According to interstellar fastline records, a call was placed to you from Earth while the Arachnae was still in flight, following which you placed a fastline call to Spaceport Five on Earth.’
She had his attention.
‘Now,’ she continued relentlessly, ‘the way I reconstruct the situation is: somebody here was alerted by some unknown person on Earth that these two were on their way here, and the somebody here checked back with the spaceport on Earth that they did indeed leave on the ship. As soon as the ship landed, they were arrested. Does that seem reasonable?’
‘No crime there, surely?’ he asked.
‘Well, it all depends,’ she said. ‘Protocol would suggest that if you were aware of two criminals on board an Earth-registered tourist ship you should have notified the Adjudication service, rather than wait until they landed on 98
Purgatory and arrest them yourself. It could be argued that your refusal to contact us makes you party to the crime they are suspected of committing.’
Beltempest thought for a moment. ‘And if we were just about to fastline you that we had your suspects in detention, but hadn’t actually got round to it?’
‘Then we would be grateful.’
He nodded. ‘Then we have them.’
‘And we’re grateful. Are they still alive?’
He checked his watch.
‘I wouldn’t put money on it,’ he said.
Private Fazakerli watched the woman’s face with feral, almost sexual pleasure.
She was scared. Terrified. She wasn’t showing it obviously, but he could see it in her eyes. She knew she was going to die, and he loved it.
The heat of the jungle was getting to Fazakerli. His head had started to ache, and there was something funny going on with his eyes. Everything he looked at was blurred and distorted. The fleshy leaves on the trees seemed to beckon him onwards suggestively, and the cold, blue glow of the acidic ice beyond the force wall was a purifying, purging energy, stripping him of concerns and worries. Ever since the under-sergeant died he had been paralysed with fear, but now he was fine. Now he felt like a deity.
His finger tightened on the trigger as he waited for Enquorian to give the order to fire. Goddess, was the guy going to wait for ever? Fazakerli wanted to kill something. Anything!
‘Wait,’ the little man in the white suit said, stepping forward and waving his hands wildly in the air.
‘Last requests?’ Enquorian sneered. Fazakerli realized with disgust that Enquorian was scared. He didn’t want to give the order. He wanted an excuse not to kill them.
The metal of the trigger was warm and silky against Fazakerli’s skin. He could feel the sweat trickling down his spine. Goddess, he was so turned on he thought he was going to explode.
The little man’s hands flapped as he tried to think up some pathetic excuse, and Fazakerli