Doctor Who_ Trading Futures Part 12

'You will serve us, you will '

Fitz took the opportunity to reach out, and pull the control box from the man's hand.

There were only a few controls. One of them would beam him back down to Earth, he was sure.

A second or two later, he wasn't so sure. No doubt, one of the little square b.u.t.tons activated the teleport... but what did the other ones do? He pressed one, but it just seemed to spray perfume at him.

The two men, or Onihrs, or whatever, were keeping their distance, circling him.

'Hand that back.'

'There is no escape.'

They were edging closer. Fitz realised he was going to have to press another one of the b.u.t.tons and worry about the consequences later.

He plumped for one, and tapped it.

A smell like rotting fish burped out of the device.

The two Onihrs paused, just stopping in mid*step, like they were on film which had got trapped in the gate. He'd found the stun setting, Fitz thought for a moment. Then they began to melt, hair blurring into skin, skin blurring into eyes and teeth.

Fitz coughed. 'I'm sorry...' he said softly.

But now they were straightening up. Their bodies were fizzing, fading, and it was clear that there were other shapes in there, superimposing themselves.

Large, dark shapes. Humanoid stubby legs, slightly longer arms, that bent in the wrong place. Their bodies were top heavy, with wide torsos and hunched backs. Their heads were long, with a blunt snout, tiny eyes. And horns. Horns growing from the end of their snout and between the eyes. Their skin was grey dark grey.

Their human disguises deactivated, they stepped forward, right at home in the heavy gravity. They were about seven or eight feet tall.

The nearest grabbed the control box from Fitz's hand. The other grabbed Fitz himself, lifting him easily.

'If you won't tell us, we will take the information by force... Doctor,' it spat.

'Take him to the pain inducer,' the other one gleefully agreed.

Fitz gulped.

Anji had slipped out of her suit and shirt, and was down to her bikini. She'd felt embarra.s.sed to do that in front of Baskerville and Dee, even though she was already wearing the bikini underneath her clothes, so she'd gone below to her cabin. When she stepped back up on to the deck of the yacht, she saw her hosts had also changed. Dee was in a three piece swimsuit. She looked skinny, Anji thought, almost unhealthy. She was very pale, too. She still looked poised and confident, though.

Baskerville was in a cotton shirt and bermuda shorts. He looked appreciatively over his sungla.s.ses at Anji. The East European guy was, presumably, driving the boat, or piloting it, or whatever it was you did to boats.

The midday sun was hot, but the sea breeze was very pleasant indeed. The sea was dark, beautiful. Baskerville's yacht was even larger than it had appeared from the air. The six*man helicopter sat on a pad at the stern of the boat.

Dee checked her watch, a rather chunky thing. 'GPS says we're well out of the danger zone.'

Baskerville nodded. 'You're feeling better, Malady?'

Anji knew he was talking to her, but it took her a moment or two to remember she'd been ill. 'Yes. Thank you. I was over the time lag before I'd left the sending room.'

She glanced at her watch. It was midday.

'Athens has been destroyed,' Baskerville said solemnly.

Despite the midday sun, Anji felt cold. 'The death toll?'

Dee was looking downcast. 'Too early to say, of course. The first newscopters have only just arrived on the scene. But it's clearly in the many thousands. Here.' She pressed a control on the small table in front of her, and a screen appeared over it. It showed devastation a city a storey deep in filthy water, waves washing against and churning over the concrete buildings, fires burning. Cars, trees and rubble washing by.

'Did they evacuate the city?'

Baskerville looked puzzled. 'They had no warning.'

'You warned them.'

'I told Jonah Cosgrove it would happen. He, being a good servant of the superstate, would have told his lords and masters. And then they all sat back and waited.'

Perhaps they did, Anji thought. But the Doctor knew, and he'd gone to warn them, he'd gone to evacuate the city. He'd had two hours to do it. More than enough time for him. Plenty more.

He hadn't prevented it, though. Anji could think of only one circ.u.mstance in which he wouldn't have done.

The Doctor was dead.

Chapter Eight.

Time and Tide The Onihrs had led Fitz out of the reconstruction of Earth. It was some sort of solid projection the Onihrs said it was really advanced technology, but as it hadn't fooled him, Fitz found it difficult to get that impressed by it. They led him along a transparent corridor, and Fitz had finally seen where he was on board some sort of s.p.a.ce rocket, or s.p.a.ce station. One star was larger than all the others, and looked like the Earth's sun, only about a quarter of the size. There was no sign of the Earth, but Fitz was sure it was around somewhere.

He also got to look out over the Onihr s.p.a.cecraft. It was quite elegant, particularly for something built by eight*foot rhinos with hands the size of hams. Fitz had a.s.sumed the Onihr ship would be bulky and gunmetal grey, like its owners. Thinking about it, there shouldn't be a correlation between how a race of aliens and their s.p.a.ceships looked aeroplanes and ocean liners and bicycles and motor cars didn't look anything like people. s.p.a.ceships came in all shapes and sizes, depending on the technology available. This one was crisscrossed with gla.s.s corridors, like veins, and the hull was curved, and looked more like blue porcelain than metal. As for the shape... no human object looked much like it. It was the product of an alien race, so it didn't look like a saucer, a rugby ball, a pepperpot or anything. Why would it?

As Fitz reached this new plateau of understanding of alien culture and aesthetics, he and the Onihrs had reached the interrogation chamber. They went out of the corridor into a dark chamber. It was narrow (although nothing in this ship was that narrow), and high*ceilinged, and once they were inside, the Onihrs had strung Fitz up by the wrists, let him hang about a foot from the ground while they'd gone off somewhere. The higher gravity didn't help one bit.

Twenty minutes later as far as he could tell, in the dark, unable to reach his watch Fitz was beginning to wonder if they were ever coming back for him.

Twenty minutes after that, they did.

The two of them had changed clothes. They'd been wearing spiky black armour before. Now they wore billowing heliotrope robes ones that were far too small for them. They had ceremonial collars really badly cracked and damaged ones. The matching skullcaps rested, rather ludicrously, on their top horn, the one between their eyes. The whole ensemble seemed thick with dust, and the robes were frayed and crudely patched in places.

'So, Doctor,' one of the Onihrs rumbled, 'have you decide to relent, and to teach us the mysteries of s.p.a.ce*time travel?'

'I could tell you,' Fitz suggested. 'But first I have to know what you would do with that knowledge.'

The Onihrs leaned in. He could feel their breath. It was warm, and smelled of meat.

'Conquest,' one of them rasped.

Jaxa's wristband had started to chime.

'We must leave,' Roja insisted.

Jaxa was searching Baskerville's desk. 'We must locate the time machine.'

'Baskerville and his a.s.sociates will have removed it when they left.'

'Possibly.' Roja was checking his own wrist computer. 'There is no temp trace. Why isn't there a temp trace?'

'It is possible to shield against our time detectors.'

'With great difficulty, Madame Jaxa. They conducted a time test while we watched, yet we didn't register it. And if Baskerville is shielding his machine, that means that he's expecting Agents.'

'You think he is from my era?'

'If he can shield his time machine from us, he may even be from your future future, Madame. We have to a.s.sume that he knows about the impending disaster.'

'How long, now?'

'It is three to twelve.'

'Program a one hour time transference, same spatial location. This building is well constructed, and some way from the sh.o.r.e. It will survive the disaster.'

'We can't be sure of that.'

'No, but we do know that an illegal time machine was operating here a matter of hours ago. The destruction of this city must not be allowed to interfere with our investigation.'

'I have prepared the time transference.'

'Activate.'

An hour had pa.s.sed. They lurched a little, as the floor had shifted slightly. The windows all had cracks running down them.

'The building survived,' Jaxa said. 'Now, we have to locate the time machine. We can't disintegrate the rogue time travellers without that evidence.'

Roja was looking out of one shattered window.

'Everyone's dead,' he said softly. 'We knew this was going to happen. Baskerville knew. The Doctor knew. So many people could have prevented this.'

Jaxa put her hand on his shoulder. 'So it was written.'

A little over an hour earlier, the Doctor and Malady had emerged from the CIA safehouse, the midday sun making them both blink, after the dingy cellar. The crowds were quite light it was getting too hot to be outside.

'We're in the Plaka,' Malady told the Doctor, unnecessarily it was obvious from the surroundings that this was the oldest part of the city. 'We should get to the high ground.'

She pointed over to the Acropolis. Everything felt strange, dreamlike in just a few minutes, the streets would be... she just couldn't think like that.

'It's nearly a mile away,' the Doctor said. 'We just don't have that long. Ah*ha in there.'

He started jogging across the street to a branch of Medusa Bank. Malady followed. 'The safe?'

'That's right.'

They pushed their way in, past an old couple.

They got straight to the counter. The Doctor looked around in vain for a teller.

Malady pointed at the speaker. 'Autoteller,' she told him.

'I'd like to see the manager, please.'

'I'm sure I can help, sir.'

'No, I'd like to open an account, but before I do, I'll need to ' the Doctor screwed up his eyes. 'What was that?'

A small plastic card plopped out into the tray on the counter. 'Just taken a retinal scan, sir. Your new account is open, and your access to the IFEC is enabled. You have... no... euros in your account.'

The Doctor pocketed the card.

'I really have to see the manager. It's very urgent.'

'Here at Medusa Bank, we're committed to full customer service, sir, but I can '

'This is a robbery!' the Doctor declared, jumping up on to the nearest service desk, frightening the autoteller.

Malady ushered the old couple inside, before they could leave. 'In here,' she insisted. 'You'll thank me in the long term.'

The Doctor was playing to the crowd. 'Anybody moves, and my colleague here, Malady Chang, will wave her gun at them.' He bent over. 'You did bring your gun?'

'Never leave home without one,' she a.s.sured him, drawing it. 'And, for the record, I'm not sure it's the done thing for bank robbers to shout out their names.'

'I didn't,' the Doctor reminded her, 'I shouted out yours. You'll have to forgive me, I've done most things in my time, but I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've robbed a bank.'

The manager was coming out of his office, behind the counter and its protective gla.s.s screen.

'Open the safe!' the Doctor demanded. 'Hurry up!'

'There's no need for anyone to get hurt,' the manager called out in Greek. 'We'll co*operate. Just don't hurt anyone.'

'Wouldn't dream of it,' the Doctor a.s.sured him, without the hint of an accent. 'But we've only got about five minutes.'

Malady had just seen the wall clock. 'We've got about three, Doctor.'