So Vile a Sin (31 page)

‘A shutterfly.’

‘You didn’t get that at Groenewegen’s,’ said Roz.

232

‘No. I appropriated it from a couple of JayJaxians who were trying to extract a psi embryo from me.’

‘Huh?’ said Chris. ‘When did that happen?’

‘Oh, ages ago,’ said the Doctor. ‘It’s a long story. I thought I’d better keep it handy. The JayJaxians use it for interrogating telepaths.’

‘I’d prefer a standard interrogation,’ said Iaomnet.

‘I’m sure she would, as well,’ said the Doctor. ‘Wake her up.’

Iaomnet screwed up her mouth, thinking about it. ‘Give it a try,’ she said. ‘But she’s my collar, all right?’

‘She doesn’t go with what you’re wearing,’ said the Doctor, as Iaomnet pressed another derm against the girl’s neck.

The assassin blinked, shaking all over. The shutterfly lifted from the Doctor’s hand, electric wings sparkling as it came to life.

It settled on his forehead for a moment. He closed his eyes, folding his hands in his lap, and suddenly relaxed, so completely and utterly that he almost fell out of the chair.

The shutterfly lifted back into the air. The assassin was just coming around, sitting up, trying to get her bearings. Iaomnet drew her stunner. The instant she got her act together, she’d be dangerous again.

The shutterfly jumped on to the girl’s face. She shouted with surprise and flapped her hands at the thing, trying to knock it off.

It crawled around the back of her head as she snatched at its wings.

She went stiff, suddenly, and fell sideways on the bed. Iaomnet craned her neck. The shutterfly was settling down on the back of the girl’s neck, its glittering wings folding.

She had a horrible, sudden vision of the thing pushing one of those tube-tongues into the girl’s brain.

Kuleya found herself in some kind of house. A very old-fashioned house, all wood and rugs and staircases. It reminded her of the boss’s house –

Don’t think about that!

‘You catch on quickly,’ said someone.

233

She spun. It was the Doctor. She hurled the biggest
orchestra
strike
at him she could manage.

He caught it with some alien technique she didn’t recognize, the blast of sound swirling around him like lightning and earthing into the carpet.

‘This could easily become tediously lengthy and symbolic,’ he said, ‘so let’s not mess about.’

Kuleya had had training to deal with this sort of thing. She thought hard of the desert, the place where she’d grown up, the water reclamation plant where her father had worked.

‘Tch, tch, tch,’ said the Doctor. ‘You don’t define the environment. I do.’ He walked towards her.

‘Stay away from me!’ said Kuleya. She didn’t like the pitch of her voice. ‘I’m just a kid, you leave me alone!’

‘Just a kid,’ said the Doctor, ‘fourteen years old, sold to the Brotherhood…’ He tipped his head to one side. ‘When you were seven. You manifested psi powers early. Or did they track you down through a genetic database, and pick you up before you even began to read minds?’

Kuleya screamed and ran up the stairs.

‘Got her,’ said Iaomnet, looking at her DataStream. She paused. ‘Got her twice.’

‘With a retina pattern?’ said Chris.

‘Zanape Kuleya,’ said Iaomnet. ‘Deceased. Died seven years ago, at the age of seven, in an industrial accident. And Tsitsi Kuleya, indentured colonist.’

‘Identical twins?’ said Chris.

‘No. Not with a retina pattern. Guess who Ms Kuleya is indentured to.’

The Doctor strolled through the corridor. ‘I don’t plan to spend long here,’ he called out. ‘It’ll be faster if you show me the door I want.’

He wrenched open a door. Inside, a young girl with light-brown skin was playing with a doll, on the barren floor of a standard worker’s apt. He shut the door and pulled open another.

234

Inside, the same girl, older, was crying while her father talked to a man she didn’t know who had come to take her away.

Kuleya was standing next to him, looking into her memory.

‘How can you do this so easily?’ she said. ‘I’ve tried
warding
, I’ve tried
backoff
, and I can’t stop you accessing my memories.’

‘You’re young and inexperienced,’ said the Doctor, ‘and you weren’t completely trained, were you?’ He closed the door. ‘I think the word I’m looking for is
expendable
.’

‘Get
out
of here,’ said Kuleya.

‘To tell you the truth, the reason I’m interrogating you now is that I don’t expect you to survive long enough to be interrogated by the good Ms Wszola.’

Kuleya bit her lip to stop herself from crying. ‘They wouldn’t do that. They’ve looked after me, half of my life.’

‘Come on,’ said the Doctor. ‘We both know that once you were captured, you put the conspiracy into terrible danger. You’ll have to be killed before they can find out anything from you.’

‘I’ve been trained to resist the mindprobe,’ said Kuleya.

‘That’s for ordinary citizens,’ said the Doctor. ‘I imagine you’ll shortly be a guest of the Imperial Intelligence’s psi division. Or at least, they’ll be the ones who claim your corpse.’ He strolled down the corridor, knocking on each of the doors as he passed. ‘I expect they’ll try to use induction to pick up memories in your brain. They’ll have to be quick, though.’

One of the doors knocked back.

The Doctor hesitated. He looked back at Kuleya. She hated him, hard, but it didn’t kill him.

He opened the door.

Inside, she was talking to Duke Geoffrey Armand, Lord High Sheriff of Earth.

‘Armand,’ said Roz.

Chris shook his head. ‘I still say he’s too obvious. Especially since he’s Walid’s main competition for the throne.’

‘Assuming it is Armand,’ said Roz, ‘and may I remind you you’re going to owe me ten credits if it is, what are we going to do? We can’t just march up and arrest a duke.’

‘One law for the rich,’ said the Doctor.

235

‘In any case,’ said Iaomnet, tucking away her DataStream, ‘this is a matter for Imperial security, not two renegade Adjudicators and an alien with no official standing.’

‘And we can’t expose him,’ Roz went on, ignoring her. ‘The political situation is delicate enough as it is.’

‘Look,’ said Chris.

The shutterfly lifted from the sleeping girl’s neck. It stretched and flapped its jewelled wings and landed once more on the Doctor’s forehead. He blinked, raised a hand, and the mechanical insect alighted on his fingers.

‘Armand,’ he said.

‘Look,’ said Iaomnet. ‘Do you mind?’

‘OK, Doctor,’ said Chris. ‘What’s the plan?’

‘Oh, rhubarb to the plan,’ said the Time Lord. ‘Let’s just ask him.’

Iaomnet said, ‘What?’

Roz rolled her eyes. ‘How did I know you were going to say that?’

The Duke Armand was sitting around in one of his parlours. It had been decorated in a heavily ornamental ancient French style.

The name of the period escaped the Lord High Sheriff, who was sitting at an antique writing desk with his boots up on the blotter, dreaming of the Empire.

The Council – what was left of it – had voted to crown Duke Walid the Emperor. Surprising no one. He hadn’t heard from the Brotherhood since that bit of news had appeared on Centcomp, but they’d warned him that Walid might spend some time on the throne before their plans came to fruition.

Still, it was galling. Walid must be sitting in his palace on Callisto, smirking. Let him smirk, Armand told himself over and over. Smirk smirk smirk. There’d be nothing for it after the coup than to kill Walid and much of his house, eliminating the legal threat to Armand’s succession.

Once it was all sorted out, thought Armand, he was going to have a sim made about it. With a suitably aristocratic-looking actor in his role. Perhaps –

A servant knocked quietly on the door. Armand looked up.

236

‘Your Excellency,’ said the servant, ‘a visitor requests an urgent audience.’

‘Don’t they have a card to present? Who is it, then?’

‘Your Excellency, he says his name is Emil Zatopek, and that you would know who he was.’

Armand took his feet off the desk.

‘This should be interesting. Take him to the drawing room with the best view. And bring us coffee and condensed milk, and some fruit tarts.’

‘Very good, Your Excellency.’

The little man was waiting for him in the drawing room, looking out at the Alps with his hands clasped behind his back.

‘Are you well?’ said the Duke, taking a chair. This room had modern furnishings among the antique curtains and paintings.

‘I’ve been receiving your messages for some time. I’m glad to see you made it here safely.’

Zatopek turned. Armand could believe this was a telepath, cool blue eyes moving over him. He had an urge to finger the dampening bug he wore behind his ear, a sliver of technology which was supposed to protect him from psychic intrusion. Best not to give it away, even if Zatopek was supposedly only a psychokinetic.

‘Thank you,’ said Zatopek. ‘Our enemies have been close behind me ever since I escaped them. But I’m sure I’m safe now I’m here.’

‘Has there been any word from the Brotherhood?’

Zatopek shook his head. ‘Be patient, Your Excellency. Every kind of wheel is in motion.’

‘You warned me about your disguise,’ said Armand, ‘but this is a transformation. You’re a different man to the one I met in Zanzibar.’ He looked at Zatopek, considering. ‘Is it some kind of telepathic illusion, perhaps?’

‘I don’t understand it myself,’ said Zatopek. He sank into a chair, a servant proffering a tray with coffee. He took a cup, spooning condensed milk into the strong stuff. 'Not fully. It’s as though someone else’s existence has simply been imprinted over mine. It took a long time to regain control of myself. I’m not sure 237

even the Brotherhood is prepared to deal with technology that powerful.’

‘And the enemy?’ said Armand. ‘You’ve told me little about them.’

‘Oh,’ said Zatopek, ‘They’re too busy looking for me to worry about what’s really going on.’

‘Yes,’ persisted Armand, ‘but who are they? You said the Brotherhood had encountered this Doctor before.’

‘They have,’ he replied. ‘Many times throughout our long history.’

‘How is that possible?’

‘Because compared to the Doctor,’ said Zatopek, ‘the Brotherhood are a bunch of half-witted, incompetent meddlers who ought to know better than to cook up vast schemes to conquer the universe.’

Armand stared at him. Zatopek picked up a fruit tart from the tray. ‘Well, it’s true,’ said the psychokinetic. ‘They’re not even holding up their end of the deal, are they? Are you the Emperor yet?’

‘When we first met,’ said Armand, ‘you were full of praise for the Brotherhood. All the things they’d accomplished, their secret positions of power and influence. You sold them to me, Emil.’

‘It wasn’t hard,’ said Zatopek. ‘You wanted to be Emperor so much your teeth hurt. Didn’t you?’

‘You know,’ said Duke Armand, ‘I’ve never been to Zanzibar.’

‘I have,’ said his guest. ‘I was there when Vasco da Gama sailed into the harbour in 1499.’

‘I knew it was you, Doctor,’ said Armand. He drained the last of his coffee. ‘Even before you made that little slip.’

‘Did I omit a coded greeting?’ said the Doctor. ‘Does the real Zatopek hate coffee?’

‘No,’ said a voice from the doorway. Armand watched as the Doctor looked up, raising an eyebrow.

‘Hello again, Emil,’ he said.

Emil Zatopek walked into the room, slowly. He was supported by one of Armand’s nursing staff, a woman in a stiff white 238

uniform. She helped him into a chair, and stood behind it, managing not to stare at the Doctor.

Armand looked between them. At first glance, you might not realize they were identical. Zatopek wore a loose-fitting, dark-red suit, stylish in comparison with the Doctor’s battered tweed.

But it was much more than that. Zatopek had aged. His hair was rich with grey, his face heavy with wrinkles. The irises of his eyes were flecked with white, and his hands shook as they held the arms of his chair.

‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ said Zatopek. ‘I knew you’d be drawn here to me.’

‘You were wrong,’ said the Doctor.

‘Look at me!’ insisted the psychokinetic. ‘You must feel a connection with me. When the Nexus exploded, your timeline shattered. Every possibility of your life, past and present, exploding outwards in your own personal Big Bang.’

The Doctor glanced at Armand. The Duke felt as though he was being measured, evaluated – could he understand this bizarre talk? He sat forward in his chair, listening intently.

‘And I caught one of them,’ Zatopek went on. ‘I didn’t want to.

I felt that possibility reach out and grab at me, desperate to become real. Wrapping itself around me. Suffocating me.’

‘You’re dying,’ said the Doctor. ‘You’re dying because you fought your way free of it.’

Zatopek nodded. ‘This possibility is dying, its probability falling back to zero, its time burning up.’ His cloudy eyes were fixed on the Doctor. ‘Can you get this thing off me? Can you tear this shroud away?’

The Doctor shook his head.

‘Do you want to know how he was different to you?’

‘No,’ said the Doctor.

Zatopek grinned, a crooked, insane grin, out of place on the Doctor’s face. ‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘Because I’m not going to tell you.’

Armand said, ‘So he can’t help you?’

Zatopek glared at the Duke, as though he was a child who’d spoken out of turn. ‘He can’t help me,’ he said.

‘Then I’ll have him killed. That’ll be one less problem.’

239

‘Sit still, Geoffrey,’ said Zatopek.

The Duke stared at him.

‘He can’t help either of us. He’s not our enemy any more.

We’ve both been betrayed.’ Zatopek’s voice quivered with rage.

‘I gave them the key to ultimate power, and they left me here to die.’

‘No,’ said Armand.

‘They’ve forgotten about you, Duke,’ snapped Zatopek.

‘Walid’s coronation was never part of the plan. At least, not the original plan.’

Armand got up. ‘If they want a war,’ he said, and realized he was shouting, and damn it, he had reason to shout, ‘they’ll have one, by God!’