Part 6 (1/2)

'Hold.' Pyerpoint went off line. Shom wondered how the old man was going to handle the matter. Shom had noticed something odd about Margo in the last few months, but never thought she would disappear like this.

Pyerpoint came back on line, his voice more confident.

'Shom,' he ordered. 'I intend to take full responsibility for the chief of security. You are to take on her duties for the present.

I want no mention of the matter in any official report and there is to be no discussion of it within ranks, or outside. You understand this?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Furthermore, you are not to attempt to locate or contact the chief. I have known her for many years and I feel it will be better for me to deal with this, privately.'

'Yes, sir.'

Pyerpoint paused, then added, 'I hope I have done well to place my trust in you, Shom. Trust is an invaluable commodity. One ounce is worth a ton of belzite.'

Shom said nervously, 'I understand, sir. Your confidence is appreciated.'

Pyerpoint broke the link and sat back in his chair. The fingers of his left hand drummed anxiously on the desk.

A bleeper sounded from inside the desk. Pyerpoint pulled open a drawer and produced a small rectangular device that had a speaker built into the side. He pressed a b.u.t.ton and a familiar voice came from the speaker.

'Ah, Mr Spiggot. It's a lovely morning.'

Spiggot's hand was being shaken vigorously. Three seconds earlier he had been asleep, lying with his face immersed in the folds of the bounciest pillow that the station's launderers could provide. It took another few moments to identify the grinning loon that had shaken him awake. 'Er, good morning, Doctor.'

He sat up and pulled the silver sheets close to his naked form as he saw that the girl had also entered the room. Not that he had anything to hide from a woman.

'Hey,' he croaked, 'what time is this? I feel like a... like a...' He floundered for a simile as his hand stretched out, also searching.

Romana threw him a pair of briefs from a pile of clothes stacked at the other side of the room. 'Are you looking for these?'

The Doctor s.n.a.t.c.hed them away. He shook his head at the blue spotted pattern and handed them to Spiggot. 'I thought you were supposed to be in plain clothes.'

Spiggot covered his embarra.s.sment quickly and emerged from the bed. 'You two are the craziest pair I've ever seen Central put together,' he told them as he reached for more clothes.

Romana spoke. 'Perhaps we ought to explain. We're not from Cent'

The Doctor interrupted her, furiously gesturing for her to pipe down. 'Yes, well, what Romana means to say is that we didn't come directly from Central.' He leant conspiratorially close to Spiggot and whispered, 'Do you know, they didn't even give us a proper briefing.'

Spiggot raised an eyebrow. Held his gaze. 'They didn't?'

'No. Very irregular, I thought. So perhaps you'd like to give us details of our mission.'

Spiggot pulled his black sweater over his head and crossed to his cabin's food unit. He took a plastic cup and filled it with coffee, sighed a few times, took a few sips of the scalding fluid, walked back and forth, and then turned to face them.

'It started about two months back,' he began. 'Down on Five, one of the smart boys in the tech div labs picked something up.' He grinned. 'And that's pretty rare, I can tell you.' He waited for the Doctor and Romana to respond to his witticism but they only stared at him as if he had released a bad smell into the air and they were too polite to mention it.

'They were running a comparative systems check on their security computers using the system here. Nothing odd in that.

Except that it registered minor faults in the data core that backs up the Rock's security net.'

'What sort of minor faults?' the Doctor asked.

Spiggot sipped at his coffee again. 'Big ones. About as big as a minor fault can get before it becomes a major fault. In a nutsh.e.l.l, the security system at this place is cracking up. So far the damage hasn't advanced, but it could get a lot worse.'

Romana settled herself on a couch. 'Why didn't you just tell them and allow them to repair it?'

Spiggot pointed a long finger at her. 'There's the rub,' he said. 'I've got a contact down in the big smoke, worked in computers years back. He's pulled off a few frauds, but nothing too big. Deal is, I ignore him, he helps me when I need him.' He finished the coffee and crushed the cup. 'I guess we're both outsiders in a way.'

'Get on with it,' the Doctor urged. 'The computers.'

Spiggot decided to ignore the Doctor's rudeness. He probably couldn't handle the idea of a loner getting results by twisting the rules. 'Yeah, well, my contact is sharper than anyone in tech div. He can hack his way into deep compu-s.p.a.ce as easy as that.' To emphasize his point, Spiggot attempted to click his fingers but failed. Undaunted he continued.

'He took a look at the print-outs I smuggled out to him and said there was no way it was an internal fault. Someone was degrading the system. Someone clever. Someone more than clever.' He poured himself another coffee into another plastic cup. 'A genius.'

'Did you check up on the people here?' the Doctor queried.

Spiggot nodded. 'Every last one. None of them have form, but you'd expect that. Thing is, not one of the creeps has the nous to crash the system open. Whoever it is, we can't let 'em know we're on to them.' He took a huge gulp of the coffee.

'So I decided to come up here, to take a look about, on the quiet. But nothing seems to add up.'

'No, it doesn't,' the Doctor agreed. Suddenly he stood up and made for the door. 'Well, come on, Romana.'

The girl looked confused. 'Where exactly are we going?'

He stared at her as if she was a fool. 'To begin our investigations, of course. There's not a moment to lose.'

Spiggot stepped forward, worried. That wasn't the way he'd planned to use them. 'I wouldn't try computer control again, Doctor. Leave that side of things to me. I reckon you should just hang about, find out what you can.'

The Doctor fixed him with a manic stare. 'What, fade into the background, keep a low profile, listen out for vital clues, that sort of thing?'

Spiggot nodded. 'That'll do for the moment.'

'Good. We do that sort of thing very well, don't we, Romana?'

'Yes, I do, Doctor,' she said and led the way out.

Spiggot watched them depart thankfully. Things were going well. That pair of Romany crazies were fitting into his plan like they'd been part of it from the start. It was time to get on with the job.

He drained his coffee, crushed the plastic cup, checked his blaster, tucked it away in his jacket, and hurried out.

Pyerpoint switched off the listening device and replaced it in his desk drawer. He waited a moment, then snapped open a communicator channel.