Doctor Who_ The Also People - Ben Aaronovitch [38]
She always called it 'the job'. Bernice, who'd often been on the receiving end of people doing 'the job', had never noticed it herself: too busy trying to talk her way out of whatever tricky situation the Doctor had managed to get her into this time. If Roz said the woman had cop eyes then the woman was a cop, which meant that the drone she'd come with was a cop too. 'Oh well, it was a nice holiday while it lasted.'
'They could just be checking us out,' said Roz. 'Can I borrow that muscle-bound top? This blanket's beginning to itch.'
'Help yourself,' Bernice told her. 'There's a pair of leggings that go with it somewhere. I think we can safely leave the pair of them to the Doctor. Besides, I'm starving.'
'Didn't you eat at the party?'
'Eat?' said Bernice. 'I could hardly breathe let alone eat.'
'Hey, stupid,' called Roz. 'We want some food – an unleavened bread base, base fifteen centimetres in radius, with a cheese, mushroom and tomato topping. I want it baked until the cheese is crispy.'
'And some coffee,' said Bernice.
'And some coffee, with milk and sugar in separate containers.'
'If we take our time with the food the Doctor should have them nicely baffled by the time we go down.'
'If they talk to him that long,' said Roz, 'they'll think we're the second coming.'
House took five minutes to fetch the food order, long enough for Roz to get her ankle bracelets off. She left the bracelets on her arms alone. 'I'm getting kind of used to them,' she said. They drank their coffee and ate the close approximation of a pizza. It was hot enough to burn their tongues. Bernice suggested that next time they should ask for anchovies but neither could remember what kind of fish an anchovy actually was.
Roz asked Bernice whether she'd noticed the square nipples.
'Square?' asked Bernice.
'Well,' said Roz, 'diamond-shaped then. You must have seen Dep's, they were pretty hard to miss. All the others I saw were square too, even the men's.'
'Is that significant in some way?' asked Bernice.
'Just that these aliens come in all sorts of shapes and the only thing I noticed they had in common was that they all had square nipples.'
'You,' said Bernice, 'are a deeply weird woman.'
'At least I've got round nipples.'
'Do you think we should tell the Doctor?' asked Bernice.
'He probably knows already,' said Roz.
They heard someone shouting downstairs, loud enough to overcome the villa's soundproofing.
Bernice checked her watch. 'They're early,' she said. 'They shouldn't be on to the threats stage for at least another five minutes. Maybe we should see if they need help.'
'We haven't finished the pizza substitute,' said Roz.
They compromised and took the remains of the pizza with them, padding down the staircase to the lounge, their mouths full of mozzarella analogue and giggling like schoolgirls.
There were two of them, a woman and a drone. They said they were from something called the Interpersonal Dynamics Interest Group.
The drone was the standard oblate spheroid a metre across with a little face ikon, a hologram that changed expression as it spoke; it called itself kiKhali. The woman was thick-set with mottled reddish brown skin and wearing a canary-yellow evening dress; her neck was long and her face somehow too small. Bernice made a point of studying her eyes which were small and slate grey.
She noticed that the eyes were constantly in motion, often in two separate directions. Like the eyes of a lizard, thought Bernice; that can't be what Roz meant. She really wasn't that surprised when a slim bifurcated tongue darted out between the woman's thin lips. When she spoke her voice sounded normal enough; Bernice had half expected her to hiss. She said her name was agRaven.
The Doctor was standing with his back to the balcony window. He introduced Roz and Bernice very formally as 'his associates'. Chris and Dep were sitting on one of the sofas. Dep's eyes were wide, but interested,