18 - The Face-Eater

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2024-12-24 0 0 430.61KB 152 页 5.9玖币
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DOCTOR WHO
The Face-Eater
An Eighth Doctor Ebook
By Simon Messingham
Contents
Identity Parade
Chapter 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Ben Fuller
Chapter 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Clark
Chapter 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Proxima City
Chapter 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sam
Chapter 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Helen Percival
Chapter 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Rupinder
Chapter 7 . . . . . . . . . . . Marlowe and Sun
Chapter 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Joan Betts
Chapter 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Doctor
All Change
Chapter 10 . . . . . . . At the Mountains of Madness
Chapter 11 . . . . . . . . . . Tales of the City
Chapter 12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Dear Heart
Chapter 13 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Sushupti
Chapter 14 . . . . . . . Down in the Streets
Chapter 15 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Funhouse
Chapter 16 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jack's Back
Chapter 17 . . All's Right With the World
Chapter 18 . . . . . . . . The Friend Catcher
Chapter 19 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Waking Up
Chapter 20 . . . . . . . . . . Out With the Old
Dedicated, as ever, to Julie
I am indebted to Norman F. Dixon's brilliant bookOn the Psychology of Military Incompetence , more
mind-boggling than any work of fiction.
Also, Alexander Kirk for scripts and Comedy Nation , Caz for patient reading and rereading, as well as sorting
out xenoanthropology for me, Mike for the wide-screen telly, and Tim Bollard - 'nightmare angel of the
expressway'.
'... the party of explorers, at the extremity of their strength, had the delusion that there wasone more member
than could actually be counted.'
- From an account of the early Antarctic explorers.
In the year 2128, Terran interstellar colonists arrived on Proxima 2 to build a city. This was Earth's first colony
beyond the solar system. The economists of the New Earth Government and its corporate pioneers, the
Global Mining Corporation, estimated it would take another eight years for supralight travel to become cheap
enough to send a follow-up mission and begin deeper galactic exploration. The five thousand colonists, like
the first European settlers into North America, were on their own.
IDENTITY PARADE
Chapter One
Ben Fuller
His name is Lopez. He is a heavy-duty block fixer from the Mexico sprawl. His arms are nutmeg brown and
decorated with crawling blue and yellow snakes. Dark little eyes twinkle in the thickening evening gloom.
Light from Big Proxima spills in like liquid.
Lopez looks around, not pulling at the ropes with which you have bound him to the chair.
You stay very, very still. Sweat on your brow. Your limbs creak with cramp and pain. You hadn't had time to
conceal yourself, so now all you can do is wait, absolutely frozen, like those motes of concrete dust, caught
in the liquid light.
You are watching Lopez.
'Hey, hey, hey! says the man in the chair.'You let me free. I ain't go'n do nothing. You jus'let me go.
Comprende?'
You force yourself still. Can't move, not a muscle. That's how you fool them. You're certain of that now. It was
about patterns. Seeing the order in randomness. Like those antique 3-D pictures mother showed you as a
kid, souvenirs of an Earth you had never seen. Don't look at, look through. The patterns would emerge
swirling from the void. A dollar sign. A woman. A face. Red Mars.
Don't look at. Look through.
You try and you think about other things. Anything to avoid your aching, cramping limbs and the sweat
collecting in the small of your back.
You'd found Lopez at the Voodoo on Seventh. You'd been trailing him, him and two others. It was one of the
three. You hadn't wanted to act until you'd been sure. Why? Do you really think there's still time for quaint
notions like... like morals or respect or restraint?
Why Lopez? Not something you could define. Just that, when you had first seen him blinking in the neon
lights of the bar, you 'd gone cold.
Lopez had been by himself. Drinking teq, ignoring the whacking bass thump of the juke. The Voodoo was
dressed up like some old Hispanic taco bar - all red lights and neon crucifixions. You had never been inside.
It was strictly low-class, real Third World. The barkeeper was some old injured heavy labourer, probably
conscripted the same time as Lopez. If they knew each other, neither was letting on.
Your target had been waiting for someone. You were certain of that. Someone who was taking too long.
Two girls strolled in. Originally selected for support maintenance, you guessed, but now working a much
more profitable trade. Lopez barely spared them a glance.
You felt like someone was flossing your brain, extracting a spinning, senseless jumble of memories: the red
desert, your first swim through zero gravity on the orbital station, stroking Maddy's long black hair, a great
sheet of glass.
Lopez made his move. He slid his teq across the table, wiping his moustache with a braceleted arm.
Blinking, he stood and walked out.
You followed, fingering the pistol inside your ragged coat. And brought him here.
***
There had been an accident in Port Sector. Ben Fuller accelerated through the building site that was Proxima
City. His squad car flashed the blue and red emergency lights reserved for the city's Security Exec.
As the dusty pillars of half-built towers rushed by, he found himself reflecting upon the nature of human
achievement. For all their cleverness, for all the anticipated disasters of space disease and fanciful
Armageddon, still the most common cause of mishap on this new planet consisted of objects falling on to
people's heads.
Fuller braked hard and squealed off the flyover that provided the city's main communications artery. The
squad car bounced as he took the exit at too great a speed. He cut loose with the siren as he forced his way
on to the Port Sector slip road. Snarling wagons cracked their air brakes as they slowed. Already, thanks to
the accident, traffic was backing up. Ahead, Fuller saw the dirty grey haze of the Proximan ocean. Within a
second, it had gone as the road dipped and the gigantic construction wagons blotted out the view.
Feeling like a minnow among whales, Fuller manoeuvred his nippy squad car around, between and even
beneath the monstrous vehicles. The air was full of dust and exhaust, looking like fog in the Proximan
morning sun. Fuller noted how quickly humanity had made its presence felt.
The Port Sector deputy, Jeffries, was overseeing the removal of the stanchion from the crater it had impacted
into the tarmac. He wore his ever-present white cowboy hat. A good old boy right down to the Lone Star tiepin
and pointed boots.
A wagon lay sprawled across the carriageway, like the sprawled bones of some fallen dinosaur.
Fuller switched off his lights and jumped from his car. A group of security cops saw him, threw down their
cigarettes and started to look busy. Just as Fuller reached the wreck, a hard-hatted supervisor clicked a
chain on to the spilled stanchion and waved at the crane operator to pull it clear. The chain tautened with a
metallic shriek and began to rise. Immediately, Fuller saw the blood - a minute stain against the vast chalky
white of the concrete. As the stanchion swung away, he saw the man in the crater. The medics had sedated
him. Thank God. It was obvious he would never walk again.
Fuller wiped his mouth with his gloves. He was already seeing the outcome of this accident, the rest of the
injured man's life. Once he had recovered, he would be reassigned to the Installation, stuck in some
administrative post, given duties more suited to his newly acquired physical condition. Percival didn't tolerate
waste. There simply weren't enough people.
Already, Fuller felt tired of this accident. He had better things to do. He strolled towards the delegation of
angry workers. Clark was with them. They were watching their injured colleague being shunted into the
ambulance. Impassive paramedics slammed the doors shut and sauntered round to the cab. In the distance,
Fuller heard the bleating of the stalled traffic.
'Jeffries!' he shouted. The deputy snapped shut his electronic notebook and jogged over to him.
'Chief?' The Texan drawl seemed exaggerated, a parody of the fat lazy lawman. Fuller always expected
Jeffries to end his sentences wtih, 'Boyy -'
'Get your men working. That traffic needs clearing.'
'Uh huh,'Jeffries replied unhurriedly. Fuller wondered just what his Port Sector deputy did all day. They should
have had the wagons rolling ten minutes ago. He watched impassively as Jeffries turned to the idling squad.
'Al! Yoss! Break out them cones. Let's get this show on the road.'
Not for the first time, Fuller wondered just how mistaken he could have been about this duty. Adventure,
excitement. Wasn't that the idea? And here he was, traffic clean-up. Not to mention that other stuff, the real
police work.
Leary.
The squad were starting to erect the usual props: signs, bollards, lights. This was going to be some day.
Fuller made his way to the workers' delegation. Clark and his cronies looked angry. Fuller understood. He
guessed they had every right to be. But not about this.
'What's going on, Mr Fuller?' Clark snapped at him.
'Just what it looks like, Mr Clark. Another accident.'
The workers' representative was a big man, Hispanic like so many. Pulled from the slums of Central America
and now finding his niche. 'Working Together for Excellence'. The slogan. Humanity's big gold dream.
Fuller liked Clark. He liked his tough talk, his tattoos. He liked Clark because he cared about his men. They
were more than human-resource units. Something Percival would never understand.
'You know what I mean,' said Clark.'Ain't no such thing as an accident . What the hell was that wagon pulling
a rig like that for? That's class-A cargo.'
Fuller refused to take the blame for Percival. He was aware that his English accent must sound snobbish,
old-fashioned even. 'What do I know, Clark? I'm a cop.'
Clark smiled sympathetically. His gold tooth shone in the sun. 'What do you know...' He bent his head to the
departing ambulance. Around them, the wagons were starting to rumble. 'Phillipe. Desk jockey now I guess.'
One of the gang, a Nigerian giant Fuller knew only as Marlowe, pushed Clark forward. 'What 'bout that other
business?' he whispered. It sounded like a prompt.
Fuller knew what was coming. Weariness washed over him.
'Yeah,' said Clark. Fuller detected what he thought was reticence in his voice.'What about it?'
Fuller pulled the electronic notebook from his tunic. 'Not now. You better give me details of the ace-'
Marlowe strode forward and knocked the notebook from his hand. It hit the tarmac and shattered, uttering a
shrill cry as it died. Someone gasped.
'What about it?' Marlowe said coldly.
Fuller sensed Jeffries and the others behind him. They would be pulling stun guns.
'Leave it!' he snapped at them. He looked down at the smashed machine. He knelt and ran his fingers through
the components. 'You owe me a notebook, my friend.'
Marlowe was still angry. Clark pulled him away. 'We'll pay; he said quickly. 'He's just wondering what you and
Percival are doing about that murderer.'
'Why don't you askher ? said Fuller. 'Before this gets out of hand.'
Marlowe was moving back now, eyes firmly locked on Fuller. Clark wiped sweat from his gleaming forehead.
"This ain't no good. Something's gonna happen.'
Fuller nodded. 'I'll arrange a meeting. You just keep your boys under control.'
They stared at each other as the wagons moved round them. The air was full of their ozone stink.
Fuller was trying to think of something to say when Jeffries yelled out.'Chief!'
Clark nodded and Fuller turned back to his deputy. Jeffries was leaning into his squad car, mike in
hand.'Chief!' he said again, unable to keep the excitement out of his voice. Suddenly Fuller knew what this
was about. 'It's Leary.'
Fuller was already running towards his car.
***
摘要：

DOCTORWHOTheFace-EaterAnEighthDoctorEbookBySimonMessinghamContentsIdentityParadeChapter1...................BenFullerChapter2.......................ClarkChapter3...............ProximaCityChapter4........................SamChapter5..............HelenPercivalChapter6....................RupinderChapter7...

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