Doctor Who_ Transit - Ben Aaronovitch [80]
'We got the KGB down here?' asked Lambada.
'Fucking battalion in the galleria,' said the Dogface drone. 'Didn't you smell them?'
'His drones don't get any better with old age, do they?' said Credit Card.
They all looked at the unpleasant greasy colour of the gateway and the power line crawling upwards on Lambada's monitors.
'Hey Sam,' said Lambada, 'you got any spare guns?'
Arsia Mons Military Nest
The warriors of the third clutch were invariably barracked on the outer rim of the nest. They would form the first line of defence if the nest were attacked. The next circle was the preserve of the older, more experienced warriors of the fourth clutch. This was evidenced, said the Doctor, by a growing maturity of the scratch marks. The entrance tunnel formed a descending spiral through the circles. The Doctor called this the Xssixss, the path of easy virtue, leading any attacker the longest possible way from entrance to centre. Concealed doors from the barrack galleries allowed the defenders to chop up the attacking column every step of the way.
Kadiatu had to take this all on trust. All she could see was the remorseless curve of tunnel as it coiled further into the nest. Occasionally the Doctor would translate the graffiti. Nxi of the third clutch kept turning up. There was one section thirty metres from the entrance in which he engaged in a protracted scratching debate with another Ice Warrior about the desirability of large dorsal extensions on females. It was either that, according to the Doctor, or a coded political argument over the proposed invasion of Earth.
Kadiatu began to visualise Nxi as a thin nervous Ice Warrior who was picked on by his larger clutchmates. Scratching his views on the walls might have been his only means of expression. The whole descent into the nest took on an unreal quality. Her, the Doctor and Nxi of the third clutch who either went for dorsal extensions in a big way or wanted peace with Earth. A thousand metres into the tunnel she began to feel Nxi walking ghost-like beside her.
Daddy would have shot him, she decided, and Francine would have done him from three thousand metres with a half-kiloton groundbreaker with 'Love from Paris' written on the casing.
Perhaps they had.
'What if she's left?'
'She can't,' said the Doctor. 'A military nest doesn't have any other exits. All the other tunnels radiate from the queen's chamber at the centre.'
'What's in the queen's chamber?'
'High noon,' said the Doctor. 'She'll be waiting for us there.
The Doctor was right. Benny was waiting in the high-ceilinged hemispherical chamber at the centre of the nest. The entrances to other tunnels were set round its circumference like open mouths. Benny stood in the immediate centre, arms held slightly akimbo by the bulk of the suit.
'Why didn't she run?' asked Kadiatu. 'She could have lost us in there.'
'No,' said Benny. The suit radio made her voice flat and artificial. 'The Doctor would have sniffed me out with his long nose.' Her face was hidden behind the reflections on her faceplate.
'Fight it, Benny,' said the Doctor.
'Always the optimist,' said Benny.
'Always,' said the Doctor. 'You're out of the transit system now. You broke the conditioning once, you can do it again.
'It's not going to happen,' said Benny, but there was a trace of doubt in her voice. 'I'm wrapped up snug as a bug in a rug.'
'I know you, Benny,' said the Doctor. 'I have your memories inside me. I know you 're strong.'
'Help me. Doctor,' said Benny, 'help me!' The set of her shoulders changed from defiance to dejection. 'Help me,' she said and it was a little girl's voice, 'it's so strong ..."
The Doctor took a step forward.
Benny was fast, but Kadiatu was faster. Something in the way Benny had flexed her hand as she raised it had struck a discordant note. By the time the metre-long muzzle flash ripped open the palm of Benny's gloves Kadiatu was already pushing the Doctor down. They rolled over together to the left. She noticed in a detached way how the gun barrel protruded