Doctor Who_ Transit - Ben Aaronovitch [36]
Kadiatu straightened her shoulders and tried to look like back-up. Whiteriver's left hand had automatically slipped down to the weapon tucked into the waistband of her skirt. The detective opened her mouth to speak again but the Doctor held up his hand for silence. Kadiatu could see a tiny LED blinking on the comer of the clipboard, indicating that the machine was accessing outside data. Text files went streaming up the screen too quickly for her to read.
Some of the campus cops had stopped piling Max's belongings on the floor and were watching the scene with interest. Any moment Detective Whiteriver was going to recover her balance and start trying to reassert her authority. The watching eyes of the cops and the crowd demanded it.
'Did you get clearance for this arrest?' asked the Doctor without looking up.
'We went through normal channels,' said Whiteriver. There was a hint of belligerence but her hand was drifting away from her gun.
'But not from me,' said the Doctor. The text on the screen was practically a blur, he couldn't possibly be reading it.
'I wasn't aware of any flag on the suspect's name.'
The Doctor looked up from the clipboard and gave her a thin smile. 'Of course not,' he said. 'Our mistake.' He handed back the clipboard, the arrest form back on its screen. The smile became confidential. 'These jurisdictional things are always a problem, aren't they?'
'Yes, sir,' said Whiteriver. 'What should we do with the suspect?'
'Turn him loose,' said the Doctor, 'but not here. Mustn't lose face in the eyes of the public, must we?'
Whiteriver looked grateful. 'No, sir.'
'Oh and by the way, Whiteriver, this conversation never took place.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Carry on.'
Kadiatu's stomach complained all the way back to the throughway.
'I love dealing with hierarchies,' said the Doctor as they left the plaza. 'They're so easy.'
South of the plaza was the student centre and the permanent flea market. Kadiatu followed the Doctor as he slipped through the stalls. He had a way of turning comers as if inertia didn't apply to him that made it difficult to keep up. When he stopped Kadiatu almost ran into his back.
The stall sold second-hand archaeological equipment. The Doctor was staring at the mud-covered soil-acidity probes and ground sonar receivers as if he'd just remembered something.
'We have to go to Pluto,' he said.
4: The Stupid Dead
The Stop
Mariko's razvedka krewe ran in silence through the dripping dark, feet slapping on the puff concrete floor. One of them scampered on all fours, weaving between their legs, streaking ahead with sudden bursts of speed until Mariko shooed him back into line. It was too narrow to run in more than single file and every so often the krewe had to jump the vertical shafts that yawned unexpectedly in the floor. That's why Mariko let the Reverend Cyclops run ahead. The halogen lamp jammed into his left eyesocket lit the way for the rest of them.
Cyclops had been riding an empty southbound train on the new route that linked the suburbs of Crepe Town with the centre of South Polar. The lamp had been perched on a shoulder rig, all the better to sniff out sinners in the dark comers of the godless. After his conversion Mariko knew that he was nothing more than a maintenance worker going off shift. She didn't know why she had taken him for a priest. But that was reality. Fantasy was more fun.
And the lamp, installing the lamp had been fun too.
She heard the band before she saw the lights. The music rolling down the arrow-straight passage, bass notes shaking the walls, rim shots cracking off the ceiling. They picked up speed. Naran started to hoot, a fluting sound that emerged from around his tongue. The rhythm was picked up by the rest of the krewe as they charged the last twenty metres.
The passage terminated in a large natural cavern with a levelled floor covered in arctic moss. A couple