"Let"s just hope there"s a friendly welcome waiting for us."
"Is that Torvin"s ship?" she wondered, spying a stubby, bullet-shaped craft.
"He made it, then," said the Doctor, as the Polar Lights Polar Lights limped home on the last of its power. "Jolly good. If one of his rescuers has turned up too we"ll have a four for bridge." limped home on the last of its power. "Jolly good. If one of his rescuers has turned up too we"ll have a four for bridge."
She looked wearily at him.
"You think I"m joking," said the Doctor. The ship shook slightly as it nestled into the docking bay. "We"re pretty much out of fuel. Had to swing ourselves twice around Leda so her gravity could push us on to this point. We"re not going anywhere else in a hurry."
106.
"Maybe Torvin will let us borrow his ship," said Trix. She pulled Klimt"s old jacket on over one of Falsh"s silky-soft shirts and trotted towards the exit. "Let"s see what he says."
He wasn"t saying much, lying slumped over a table in some kind of cafeteria area. His bald spot with its hairy mole glared out at them from his grey tangle of hair. There was a half-finished chiggock meal and a selection of pills scattered in front of him.
"Torvin!" cried the Doctor, running across to check his pulse.
Trix stared around the clinical white surroundings, wondering if the fish-thing had got here ahead of them.
"He"s in some kind of stupor," the Doctor reported, cradling the man"s head in his arms. He tugged open one of Torvin"s eyelids.
"Drink?"
The Doctor picked up a pill, sniffed it, and tentatively tapped it with his tongue.
"What is it?"
"How on Earth should I know?" he muttered.
Trix folded her arms. "T.J. Hooker, you ain"t."
"I"m glad you noticed." He sighed. "But from the state of him, it"s likely he"s taken a very powerful narcotic."
"Drugs!"
The Doctor shrugged. "Diamorphine, perhaps. . . "
"Hard stuff." Suddenly his detached behaviour back on Thebe, his dereliction of duty, his disa.s.sociation from the bad stuff; it all made sense. Trix came over to see, a sort of ghoulish fascination compelling her. "Don"t see any needles."
"I"m sure drug abuse has moved with the times like everything else."
Trix picked up one tablet set apart from the others between finger and thumb. It had been placed beside a gla.s.s of water. "He didn"t take this one."
"Show me." The Doctor took it from her and studied it closely. At length he reached a verdict. "Interesting." Then he popped the pill in Torvin"s mouth, threw back the man"s head and poured some of the water into his gullet.
Trix stared. "That might have been anything! Poison! You may have given him an overdose!"
"This is a labour-saving age," he said briskly. "If those pills I took from you are anything to go by, I"ve a feeling addiction isn"t given much shrift around here." Then he seemed to soften, and patted Torvin on the shoulder. "Stay with him. I"m going for a look around. Check we"re alone."
Shoving his hands deep into his trouser pockets, he walked off down the gleaming corridors before Trix could open her mouth to protest.
But then, there was a saving grace to her predicament.
107.
A HUGE telly stood in the corner of the room! It was superslim, barely a centimetre thick, and the screen was pretty much the size of a wall. Presumably the builders sat around and watched it all day instead of finishing the place.
She went over and hunted for an on b.u.t.ton, but there wasn"t a sign of one anywhere.
Suddenly it sprang into life. Some sporting event men in bodysuits running around a purple pitch slinging b.a.l.l.s at each other bulged out of the set with frightening clarity, like it was happening around her. Trix jumped, took a few steps back instinctively.
And caught movement behind her.
She turned to find Torvin holding a tiny remote in his palm, that funny smile on his face.
"You made it then," he said.
"We thought you you weren"t going to," said Trix, collecting her cool. It was weird weren"t going to," said Trix, collecting her cool. It was weird suddenly he was alert again, bright. Apart from a weird kind of woodenness about his features, he looked perfectly well. "You seemed kind of strung out, there. Feeling OK?"
"You gave me the pick-up," he retorted with a yawn and a stretch. "Was on an eight-hour comedown. Wasn"t expecting company for a while."
"Your friends are coming for you?"
"I sent a message from the ship." He sighed, rubbing his eyes. Trix noticed his hands were shaking just a little. "Arranged a rendezvous. Now, I"ve just got to wait. I hate waiting."
"So you thought you"d get off your head?"
"Better than just. . .
thinking about everything the whole time." about everything the whole time."
That haunted look came back into his eyes. "You know, I wasn"t expecting you to get off Thebe, let alone. . . " Torvin tailed off, staring at her chest. Trix was about to make a pointed comment when she realised it was the name badge on her jacket that had taken his attention.
"Klimt," Torvin read. "I thought your name was Trix?"
"Stylish, huh. Found it on that little piece of Carme your boys overlooked."
"So it does does exist." He swigged from the jug of water. "And what else did you find, Investigator?" exist." He swigged from the jug of water. "And what else did you find, Investigator?"
"Not much." She watched him as he started to put away his stockpile of tablets. "How does it work, Torvin? One minute you"re completely out of it, then a swig of water and a miracle pill and you"re back just like that."
He was looking at her like she was winding him up. "What stories have you been listening to?"
She refused to blush. "The Doctor said that was diamorphine you were taking."
108.
"Very formal of him."
"I thought that stuff really hit you."
"You never tried it? Everyone"s Everyone"s tried it!" His eyes looked just a little wild. tried it!" His eyes looked just a little wild.
"You want to see now? While we"re waiting?"
"No, thanks."
"Thought you were an investigator."
"On this occasion I"m only curious."
"We"re all curious. Why else are we put here if not to learn?"
"You"re very calm about it all, I must say."
"Not like there"s a law against it, is there?"
Trix almost flung away her cool and asked, Really? Drug abuse is legal in Really? Drug abuse is legal in this century? this century? She reflected on how some of the guys back home would punch the air if they only knew. She reflected on how some of the guys back home would punch the air if they only knew. The future"s bright. The future"s cla.s.s C. The future"s bright. The future"s cla.s.s C.
"So what have you got here?" she asked.
"Let"s line them up." Torvin seized on the distraction and started sorting through his pharmacological a.r.s.enal, dividing pills from pills like Trix had sorted Smarties into different colours as a kid. "This is your basic H pill. This, your chaser, is the most important your SE-limiter."
"Side effect, you mean?"
"Keeps the pleasure to the pleasure centre no craving, no comedown. Only that makes you urinate, so you want the dry dose " he tapped another pill "but that"s a mean little pill, so to avoid the cramps you need to take a rehydration tablet to correct the imbalance. And to play double safe, if you need bringing around in a hurry, you have the pick-up handy." He paused, the shadow of that smile on his face. "But you know that bit. That bit you gave me."
"And there was me thinking drugs were a recreational thing. Sounds too much like hard work to me." Trix smiled. "Unless you"ve got a gin-and-tonic pill on you?"
Torvin tutted. "That stuff"s incredibly bad for you, you know."
"Guess I"ll stick to medicinal purposes only." She turned to watch the enormous TV. "Do you like sport?"
"Not much," Torvin murmured, separating his pills into the compartments within a neat pillbox the size of a fountain-pen case.
"Then let"s flick channels. Hey, you don"t know when that big Aristotle Halcyon special is coming on, do you?"
He stared at her, the slightly s.p.a.ced-out smile back on his face. "You haven"t had enough of exploding moons?"
"Mine is a professional interest," she a.s.sured him.
"Let"s check the ten-one-one news." Torvin started flicking channels. "That"s bound to be covering the whole circus."
109.
The Doctor wandered along empty corridors, wondering at which point in its construction a luxury conference podule became luxurious. There was little sign of it so far just bare plastic bones and panels. It was like walking through the sunbleached skeleton of some vast monster adrift in s.p.a.ce.
He had the uncomfortable feeling he was about to make a terrible discovery.
Peering in on so many white, unfinished room-sh.e.l.ls it seemed inevitable that one would be splashed crimson.
In fact, the largest room of the lot was splashed a good many colours. They pulsed and glowed as if the walls were alive, spelling subliminal messages through strange, glowing hieroglyphs and primal pictures. There was a small stack of empty paint containers in the middle of the room, and he read the labels.
"Halcytone. . . " He smiled. "By Aristotle Halcyon. Nice to know Falsh is loyal to his own."
The patterns reminded him a little of the glints and glimmers of light playing behind the charred black walls of the ruined Carme Inst.i.tute. Perhaps this stuff was all the rage.
To one side was a vast window looking out on to the stars. Once constructed, he supposed the podule could be piloted to anywhere that afforded a spectacular view.
The walls themselves were spectacular enough, but there was something about them the Doctor found oddly unsettling. He dabbed one with a hand-kerchief, and it came away damp and glowing. Still wet. Where were were the builders? Perhaps Torvin would know. the builders? Perhaps Torvin would know.
Strangely unsettled by the endless, engrossing patterns on the wall, the Doctor wandered back out to continue his search.
In his office on the station, Falsh sat at his desk, contemplating his upcoming schedule. He had to be on Callisto for the vidcast, but there were several other matters vying for his attention too.
Suddenly his PA barged into the office.
"What is the meaning of this, Nerren?" Falsh asked coldly.
"The newscast, sir," he babbled. "The discovery on Leda. Channel 313. You have to see this, sir."
" You"re You"re telling telling me me what I must do?" what I must do?"
Nerren fumbled with the tiny remote. "Yes, sir."
Falsh watched as the report came up, all screens. A few seconds later he started swearing.
110.
Chapter Fourteen.
". . . Shock news of an apparently new form of alien life discovered on the Jovian moon of Leda. . . "
"Doctor!" Trix yelled. "Doctor, quick! You have got to see this!"
"The creature, which resembles a slug crossed with a caterpillar, apparently has no need of air or moisture and has a body built to withstand the freezing vacuum of s.p.a.ce. . . "
"Doctor, you"re missing it!"
". . . Nicknamed the s.p.a.ce slug, the new life form was discovered by Gaws Murphy, a known political agitator believed to be affiliated with the militant wing of the Empire Trust, known colloquially as the Old Preservers. . . "
Falsh couldn"t believe what he was seeing, what he was hearing. "What in the name of. . . ?"