Doctor Who_ The King of Terror - Keith Topping [92]
It had been a long, long day with a number of twists and turns that had given Giresse in particular more than just a passive headache. But the end was finally in sight.
On the floodlit runway they stood for a moment, looking at what Los Angeles in the distance had to offer. A city of lights.
‘I suppose we should be pleased with the progress,’ noted Luvik, walking to the aircraft steps. ‘After all, we’ve isolated the DNA gene. That’s been our 176
main priority for the last decade. We’ve come so far in just a few days.’
Giresse looked uncertain, and not a little tired. ‘ Qu’est-ce qu’il y a à voir ici? ’ he asked. And then repeated his question in English for Carter’s benefit.
‘What can you see?’ He spread his arms wide and indicated the city beyond the airport.
Luvik shrugged. ‘Los Angeles,’ he suggested.
‘Mankind,’ corrected Giresse, brushing past Luvik and reaching the door of the plane. ‘A race that shall soon be subservient and on their knees, grovelling for mercy. And, somewhere out there is a thorn in our side that would take them from us.’
‘The Canavitchi?’ asked Carter.
Giresse shook his head sadly, his doubts seemingly banished. ‘The timetable for invasion should be unaffected,’ he said. Then added. ‘More’s the pity.’
‘I don’t understand?’
‘Have you ever had the feeling that you’ve been shafted?’ Giresse asked.
The door of the aircraft closed and the three men turned to find the female pilot washing her hands in the basin behind the cockpit. She smiled at them, broadly.
‘Hi gentlemen, I’m Phoebe,’ she said as she shook her hands dry. ‘I’ll be your pilot on this trip. I shall also be your executioner.’
‘There are none so blind as those that will not see,’ said Giresse as he turned and tried to open the sealed door. Behind him, two rapid shots killed Carter and Luvik instantly. Giresse’s hands slipped from the slick surface of the fixed door handle and he stared, uselessly at them, and it. He turned to face death and looked deeply and with curiosity into her eyes.
Black.
Black as the tar pits in the Jexxian H’jang valley.
‘ Nous ne sommes pas responsables. ’
There was a coldness behind the black eyes that chilled Giresse. Froze him to the marrow. The last thing that he would ever see.
‘ Je suis désolé, je ne peux rien faire, ’ said Phoebe, pulling the trigger and shooting Giresse in the head.
‘It’s war in heaven, if you’ll excuse the melodramatic cliché.’ the Doctor told the Brigadier as they entered the lobby of the Intercom conference centre.
At the main desk a bored-looking reception girl provided them with security passes and waved them towards the elevators, without an escort, and with seemingly little interest in their conversation.
‘So, what can you tell me about the other race involved?’ asked Lethbridge-Stewart, taking comfort in the odious weight of the handguns and three 177
grenades concealed inside his jacket. He was astonished that they hadn’t been searched for weapons upon entry.
‘Decadent to the core,’ said the Doctor, reading his thoughts. ‘They don’t believe they can possibly be attacked in their own building. Come to that, neither can I!’ The elevator arrived and the Doctor peered cautiously into it.
‘Booby-trapped?’
‘I doubt it,’ said the Brigadier, stepping confidently into it. ‘That is the stuff of spy fiction and people with too much imagination! If they wanted to kill us, they could have done that twenty minutes ago at the security gate.’
‘You are, of course, correct,’ the Doctor said, joining his old friend in the elevator. ‘The other race are called the Canavitchi. They were empire-builders themselves for many thousands of years. Then they were conquered and became part of the Jex empire. But eventually they overthrew their oppressors and have been chasing them across the universe ever since.’
This news cheered the Brigadier up considerably.