The Empire of Glass - Andy Lane [103]
"Goodbye, friend," he murmured.
The skiff lurched to one side, and Steven turned to the hatchway.
The arthropod was pulling itself in, and having to turn sideways to get its shell through the narrow opening. "The meta-cobalt fragment out yet have not got you?" it asked as its wings furled beneath hinged sections of its shell. "A minute or so before this thing lands have only got we, and then finished are we."
"Look," Steven shouted, suddenly furious, "he was a friend of mine, and you desecrated his body twenty-two years before he died. He gave his life to save me. Haven't you got any decency at all?"
"None," said the creature, and reached forward with a claw. Before Steven could react it had pushed into Marlowe's chest and taken a firm grip on the metal device. "Not too late we are hope let us," it said, and pulled. The device came free with a sucking sound, like a foot being pulled out of mud, and Steven winced. It was a sphere, about the size of his fist, incised with symbols, and it seemed to be glowing. "Satisfy my curiosity," the creature whistled. "To the hypnocontroller in his head what happened?"
"Removed by a surgeon after a sword fight," Steven replied tersely.
"Because of a series of stupid little incidents, the best laid plans come to nothing of Jamarians and Greld. If that hypnocontroller still had he, at the island with the rest of them turned up would he have, the bomb gone off would have and happy everyone would have been. Or dead. There must have been some influence left, though, because to Venice at the right time did actually get he."
The creature scuttled towards the hatchway, then turned an eyestalk back over its shell to regard Steven. "When this thing lands, as soon as possible get out must you," it said. "Because one large explosion soon afterward will there be. Oh, and make sure the hatch so that it can't be closed before you go fix you. My hypnocontroller to order the humans carrying the meta-cobalt fragments to congregate on this spacecraft have used I."
"You want me to what?" Steven yelled, but he was too late. The creature jumped out into the air, still clutching the device. Steven saw its wings open wide, catching all the air they could, and then it had soared away out of sight. Turning his attention back to the landing pad, he saw that they were only a few hundred feet away and descending slowly. A group of painfully thin aliens with horns were gathered waiting for it, and beyond them a shambling mass of humans was heading for the touchdown point. Steven quickly ran his hands over the controls, looking for some way of fixing the hatch fully open, but he could see nothing that might help. Turning, he gazed around the cabin, hoping against hope that there might be something lying around that he could use. Again: nothing. He glanced back at the screen. Fifteen seconds perhaps to touchdown. He was close enough to see the mad gleam in the eyes of the thin aliens, and the melted eyes of the oncoming humans. He glanced frantically around, but there was nothing, nothing, that would do any good. Whatever plan of Albrellian's depended on the hatch being open was doomed to failure, and that meant they were all doomed.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Vicki raced down the aisle of the Great Hall after the Doctor, aware of the ripple of attention that they were attracting.
A small, broad actor was just saying, "The night is long that never finds the day," as the Doctor reached the stage. He turned towards the curtains, then turned back and cast a puzzled glance towards the Doctor, who was clambering up onto the stage.
Vicki reached the stage herself in time to hear the actor hiss: "You can't come up here! We're in the middle of the play!"
"I am a friend of the King," the Doctor snapped, low enough that nobody in the audience could hear him, "and he will be most displeased if I am not allowed to participate in