Doctor Who_ Sleepy - Kate Orman [66]
‘Can you help us?’ Benny had said.
‘Yes,’ said GRUMPY. ‘But I don’t fancy having my plug pulled, so I think I’ll turn you in instead.’
* * *
Zaniwe walked up to the trooper, picking her way through the huddled bodies on the floor of the common area. ‘Please,’
sighed the armoured man, ‘don’t ask me if you can see your children.’
‘I don’t have any children yet,’ she said. ‘But isn’t it true that there’s only one person who’s looking after all the kids in the colony?’
The trooper nodded. ‘It’s not really enough, is it?’ Zaniwe went on. ‘One of those kids is going to get hurt.’ He shrugged. ‘Or the poor person looking after them is going to get frazzled. It really is too big a job for one bod. Listen, would it be such a threat to security if a second person went in there?’
‘You volunteering?’
Zaniwe nodded. ‘Would you talk to one of your lieutenants about it? Please?’
The trooper nodded again. ‘Sit back down, will you? I’ll check.’
Zaniwe quietly went back to the wall where Byerley and Cinn were sitting together. She crouched down beside them.
‘I think they’ll let me go.’ She bit her lower lip. ‘I wish there was some clever spy thing I could do.’
Cinnabar shook her head, firmly. ‘We don’t have the skills or the resources to try anything. We’re just civilians surrounded by weapons. Look at them.’ Byerley glanced at the guards. ‘They’re not even nervous, even with so many of us. They know we’re no danger.’
‘What do you think the Doctor is up to?’ said Byerley softly. ‘Benny was sure that he had something up his sleeve .
‘Then he’s taking his time playing that card,’ whispered Cinn. ‘I just hope he’s all right. Cephas thinks he just stunned him, but... Zaniwe, you must try and find out what’s happening out there.’
‘That’s the worst of it, isn’t it?’ said Byerley. ‘Even if we can’t do anything about it, I wish we bloody knew what was going on.’
Benny lay on the gurney in Madhanagopal’s lab. The air smelt of recycling machinery and antiseptic and panic. She wanted to close her eyes so she didn’t have to see. She wanted to keep them open so she’d know what was going to happen.
And they’d been doing so well.
‘Shit,’ FLORANCE had said, as alarm bells started going off. ‘I’m outta here!’
Roz had just about jumped onto the terminal. ‘Get back here!’ she had snarled. But the AI was already gone, pumping her data through space.
‘Now what?’ said Benny. ‘Can we talk our way out?’
‘Not with that thing shining its beam into our heads.’ Roz reached into the jacket of her white uniform, plucked out a blaster, and blew a four-foot hole in the door.
Benny looked at her, raising an eyebrow.
‘The cruk with it,’ she said, shrugging. She turned the blaster on GRUMPY, who blinked his lights in distress. ‘I ought to blow you away,’ she said, ‘but what’s the point?
Come on.’
They crawled out through the hole. Roz took a pot shot at a trooper running up the corridor (must be the first of dozens), missed hopelessly. She rolled to her feet and pulled out her sword.
Automatically, Benny drew hers as well. She looked down at the blade as though it had suddenly turned into a singing eel. The trooper ran at them, skidded to a halt as Roz swung at hint, yelped and belted back up the corridor.
‘I thought you said you could use that thing!’ said Roz, grabbing Benny by the arm.
‘I can,’ said Benny. ‘Do you know what these things can do to human flesh?’
As it happens, yes.’
‘Let’s change the subject.’
‘Let’s get the hell to the docking bay! If we—’
Something grabbed Roz.
Benny took an involuntary step backwards. The Adjudicator was standing bolt upright, the blade half out of its scabbard, her arms and face frozen in position. She couldn’t breathe.
‘Stop it!’ Benny shouted. She looked frantically around.
Was it some sort of security system? Or was... ?
A huge fist closed around her. She was caught in a turn, hips twisted, an unbearable pressure in her eyes and ears and chest as the force crushed her.
Another guard had come stumbling