"I see. Were there any problems?"
Qwaid swallowed uncomfortably. He didn"t like to admit what had gone wrong, but it was always safer to tell Alpha everything - well, almost everything.
"A couple of tourists crashed the party, boss," he explained.
"Hok had been going to open up and must have pulled the lock remotely and they just walked in. They started a ruck, but we could have taken them out too, only then somebody set off the fire alarm. I knew we couldn"t hang around then, so we finished Hok and got out before we drew a crowd. I"m sure n.o.body saw us, boss. We kept the place eyeballed after we got clear, and saw some big stooge slip out the back way. Gribbs thinks he"s seen him before up in the docking tower while he was working on the Falcon Falcon - he must have a ship there, too. Then the cops started arriving and we faded out. But I"m sure Hok"s out of it, and we had our masks on all the time, so the gads couldn"t have got much of a look at us." - he must have a ship there, too. Then the cops started arriving and we faded out. But I"m sure Hok"s out of it, and we had our masks on all the time, so the gads couldn"t have got much of a look at us."
"Apparently not," Alpha said. "I have been monitoring the police bands, and there have been no descriptions circulated as yet.
You have been lucky, Qwaid, but that does not excuse your inept.i.tude. You should have ensured you would not be disturbed."
For the first time Alpha raised his head so the light caught his eyes. They were totally black, without any iris or surrounding paler ball, and their unblinking gaze had the same terrible hypnotic quality as that of a snake. They transfixed Qwaid now.
"I picked you and your friends out of the dross of the lower levels because I believed you had some slight potential. Do not give me cause to regret my decision..."
Alpha continued speaking for almost a minute without repeating himself, raising his voice, using expletives or gross threats. Yet somehow this measured dissection of Qwaid"s character and ability shamed him far more than any such crudities ever could. It was at such times that Qwaid most hated Alpha, even as he envied the ruthless mentality that shaped the scathing words. He only wished that Gribbs and Drorgon were not present to witness the reprimand. Their continued respect mattered deeply to Qwaid, because, although he needed Alpha for the moment, one day he planned to be sitting behind the magnificent desk with the stars at his back.
Then it was over, and Qwaid said meekly, "Sorry, boss. It won"t happen again."
"I trust not, Qwaid. Now prepare the Falcon Falcon for departure." for departure."
Alpha"s cold eyes turned to Gribbs, who shivered involuntarily.
"Meanwhile, you will identify the ship belonging to the man you saw leaving Hok"s premises. There are certain precautions to be taken before we leave."
Inspector Myra Jaharnus, of the Astroville Police Department, frowned at the Doctor and Peri across the interview-room table.
Peri stared defiantly back into her yellow slitted eyes while the Doctor smiled with dreamy amiability. The inspector was a Tritonite, a humanoid reptile, with lightly scaled green skin and a short, bony-frilled crocodile tail which swished impatiently as it hung over the back of her chair - a gesture Peri found both intriguing and irritating. Jaharnus leaned forward and, with a clawed forefinger, tapped the desk screen displaying the scene-of-crime report.
"And you can give no more details about the three persons you saw in the shop, or this "Sir John Falstaff" you say intervened?"
she asked.
"For the tenth time," Peri replied wearily, "their faces were blurred - and this guy Falstaff did too intervene!"
"The problem is his name does not appear on our records either as a resident or visitor to Astroville."
"Then isn"t it possible he may have given us a false name?" the Doctor suggested gently.
"That had occurred to us," - Jaharnus glanced again at the unp.r.o.nounceable symbols on the Doctor"s ident.i.ty card and evidently decided not to attempt them - "...Doctor. However, another possibility is that there is no such person. In fact you stated earlier that he was indeed a fictional creation."
Peri gave another exasperated sigh and wished she had never tried to explain to people, who had evidently never heard of the Bard of Stratford-upon-Avon, about Falstaff"s mythical namesake.
"We mean he looked like a famous fictional character. He even spoke like a bad copy of him. But I didn"t mean we made him up!
Why don"t you put out a description? With his build and costume he should stand out like a sore thumb..." An image of the mult.i.tude of alien fashions and body forms she had seen in the main concourse caused her to pause. She reminded herself where she was and to stop thinking parochially. "Uh, I guess maybe around here he isn"t so unusual as all that," she conceded.
"Inspector," the Doctor said evenly, Hok was killed by a gunshot, yet neither I nor my companion have a gun, nor was any found on the premises, so logically there must have been some third party present to have removed it."
Jaharnus appeared unimpressed. "And perhaps you"re giving a false description of him, or them, to help cover their trails."
"Look," said Peri impatiently, "didn"t anybody else see anything that backs up our story?"
Jaharnus flashed the scene-of-crime interviews up on the screen and glanced over them once again. "Several pa.s.sersby and occupants of adjacent shops were alerted by the sounds of items being broken inside Hok"s establishment and then the fire alarm, but it was too dark inside to see any details through the window. n.o.body else entered the shop until the extinguisher vapour had cleared, where they found only you two and the victim."
"I suppose n.o.body was watching the back door while all this was going on?" said Peri.
"Unfortunately, no."
"You don"t really believe we"re killers, do you, Inspector?" the Doctor asked. "What motive could we possibly have?"
"We know Hok occasionally dealt with goods of, shall we say, dubious origins. And I don"t just mean antiques. He"d trade anything for a profit. Now you stated earlier that he spoke just before he died: a few garbled words and a string of figures. The combination for something, a set of coordinates or a code possibly? They must have been important for him to use literally his dying breath on them. Perhaps that"s the motive." She looked at the Doctor and Peri narrowly. "I don"t suppose you remember what the numbers were?"
"We could hardly be expected to in the circ.u.mstances," said the Doctor reasonably.
"No, I suppose not. Nevertheless, we"ll have to keep you here until we"ve completed our investigations. Meanwhile, Doctor, I understand you have a ship berthed here."
"Yes, well, sort of."
"Sort of?"
"Its not a regular model," Peri said helpfully.
"Well, whatever it is, I"ll have to look it over. Purely routine, you understand." Her slitted pupils widened. "Unless you"ve got something to hide."
"If I did, you"d have a job finding it on my ship," the Doctor remarked idly.
"He means it"s surprisingly s.p.a.cious for a compact," Peri added quickly.
"I"m sure they"ll be room for one more."
"Oh there"s plenty of room," said Peri. "That"s what you"ve got to be prepared for."
Thorrin and Rosscarrino had been hunched over the navigation table and its inbuilt computer for an hour, calling up star charts and plotting complex curves in its pseudo-three-dimensional depths. Eventually the lines intersected at a particular glowing dot among the millions within the machine"s memory. Thorrin read the short string of numbers and symbols that tagged the pinpoint and beamed at the Marquis, who nodded solemnly in return. Arnella, who had been un.o.btrusively watching from the back of the control room, felt the breath catch in her throat.
"Will!" Thorrin called out loudly.
His a.s.sistant appeared. "Yes, Professor?"
"Prepare to take us out of here. I"ll give you a precise course once we"ve cleared local traffic s.p.a.ce."
Brockwell took his seat at the flight controls and opened a communications channel. "Tower control, this is the ESS Newton Newton, bay 37.We request a departure vector and clearance for undocking."
The inner airlock doors of bay 37"s docking tube closed automatically. Through the observation window the securing clamps could be seen retracting as the compact dumbbell form of the Newton Newton edged away, impelled by short bursts of its manoeuvring thrusters. As it did so, the flying eye silently detached itself from its place of concealment and glided up the docking tower. At bay 53 it slipped into the open airlock of a compact grey ship, which closed immediately behind it. edged away, impelled by short bursts of its manoeuvring thrusters. As it did so, the flying eye silently detached itself from its place of concealment and glided up the docking tower. At bay 53 it slipped into the open airlock of a compact grey ship, which closed immediately behind it.
Two minutes later the grey ship departed from Astroville on a course almost identical to that taken by the Newton Newton.
Qwaid was waiting impatiently by the Falcon"s Falcon"s secondary airlock as it cycled and filled. The inner door opened and Gribbs emerged, unsnapping his helmet. secondary airlock as it cycled and filled. The inner door opened and Gribbs emerged, unsnapping his helmet.
"OK? n.o.body saw you?"
"Kept to the shadows. Set it just like the boss wanted."
"It"d better be, unless you want him to give you the eye as well.
We can"t have another duff-up on this job."
"It"s as good as done," Gribbs insisted indignantly, as though his competence was being called into question.
"OK, let"s get going."
The Falcon"s Falcon"s main airlock closed and the docking tube retracted. Shortly after, the main airlock closed and the docking tube retracted. Shortly after, the Falcon Falcon, too, had left Astroville"s traffic s.p.a.ce.
Casting many anxious looks about him, sword and sheath collapsed and coat reversed to display a sober black, Falstaff approached the docking-tower pa.s.senger tubes. He had made his way from the service pa.s.sage at the back of Hok"s shop by a circuitous route, just in case he was being followed. With a final apprehensive glance around he practically leapt into a clear slot in the tube traffic and let the paragravity fields waft him up the shaft. He disembarked at bay 86 and hurried for the lock of his own ship. Only once its hatch had closed solidly behind him did he draw in a deep shuddering breath and let it slowly out in relief.
For a minute he rested against the inside of the hatch, recovering his composure and dabbing the sweat from his forehead with a fine lace-edged handkerchief. Then he hauled his impressive bulk upright and made for the control cabin. Once seated in the pilot"s seat, he slid down his shirt cuff, and began entering the figures he had scrawled upon it into the ship"s autopilot.
Myra Jaharnus looked about at the s.p.a.cious console room of the Doctor"s craft in disbelief. Shaking her head, she walked back out through its open doorway, across the short docking tube and into the docking bay itself. The constable who had accompanied them looked at her curiously as she peered out of the bay"s observation port. The end of the docking tube still appeared to connect with a battered rectangular blue box not exceeding three metres in any dimension. It could have been an oddly designed station shuttle or escape pod. At the most it might have held four people. She re-entered the craft"s impossible interior where Peri and the Doctor waited patiently.
"What did you say it was called again?"
"A TARDIS," the Doctor said brightly.
"And how does it all..." She waved a hand uncertainly at her unlikely surroundings.
"Ah, well according to hyperdimensional engineering theory, s.p.a.ce-time continua can be folded by the application of -"
"Enough - I shouldn"t have asked."
"I did say it was s.p.a.cious, didn"t I?" said Peri with a grin.
"Nothing illegal about having a s.p.a.ceship that"s bigger inside than out, is there?"
"No... I just haven"t seen anything quite like it before."
"You"re welcome to search for anything linking us to Hok or his killers, said the Doctor, waving a genial hand at the doorway that led to the rest of the ship. "Any antiques you find are mine."
"Can you prove that?"
"Inspector," the Doctor said with quiet dignity, "I"ve had some of them since they were new."
Myra couldn"t tell whether he was joking or not. "You two stay right there," she said firmly, and disappeared through the doorway.
While Jaharnus was making her inspection, Peri turned anxiously to the Doctor.
"Is that ident.i.ty card of mine you gave the cops OK? I didn"t even know I had one for here and now until you handed it over.
Suppose they check back with Earth and find I was born over a thousand years ago?"
"Don"t worry, Peri. Both it and the data on Earth will show your real place of birth and all the other necessary details, but simply with appropriately adjusted dates."
"But where did you get it made up? And how did you fix the records back on... oh. Dumb question. Did you drop in there while I was asleep?"
The Doctor smiled. "The details are unimportant. For now let"s just say there are certain optional benefits to travelling in time of which I have decided to take advantage."
A new thought struck Peri. "But what about your doc.u.ments?
You"re not from Earth."
"No, but I did live there for a while in your century - as a resident alien, you might say - when I was provided with official ident.i.ty papers. I"ve simply ensured they"ve been kept up to date over the intervening years. You never know when the right references may come in useful."
"Did you ever think of the killing you could make on Wall Street with tricks like that?"
The Doctor looked appalled. "Really, Peri. That wouldn"t be cricket."
Inspector Jaharnus returned to the console room.
"Just how many rooms are there in this ship?" she demanded.
"Well it varies," admitted the Doctor. "I had to shed a few thousand tonnes a while ago, but the TARDIS has regenerated most of the lost ma.s.s, I think -"
"Forget I asked. You can lock off the controls if you want, but I"ll have to ask you to hand over the main hatch key. Just in case, may the G.o.ds forbid, we have to search this ship properly."
"But the key is sensitised to my body pattern."
"Very security conscious, Doctor - now desensitise it."
The Doctor sighed, pressed the key to his forehead and closed his eyes for a moment, then handed it over to Jaharnus.
"We"re going to have to check both of you out properly; Jaharnus said. "That means putting a request through to Earth for your records.
"Well why don"t you get on with it?" Peri said lightly. "We"ve got nothing to hide."