Part 2 (1/2)

'Pet.i.te, blonde, becoming if you care for that sort of thing?'

Again, the man nodded, and the Doctor checked the b.u.mp on his crown.

Nothing serious.

'What are those things in there?'

'In where?' The man frowned. 'Door's opened. Has something got in with the chiggs?'

11.'Chiggs?'

'The chiggocks.'

'Oh, chiggocks chiggocks. A pet name? Or a term for a dubious exercise in vivisection and low genetics?' The Doctor scowled. 'Why do you keep those poor things walking? They're trained to trot into the oven, perhaps?'

Now the man came to look at him properly. The Doctor counted the emotions lurching across the man's face: puzzlement first, then suspicion, realisation, fear and finally. . .

'Help!' the man cried. 'Help me, someone!'

With a sigh, the Doctor hit him on the head with the ladle again.

The man groaned and slumped forward on his face.

'Chiggocks,' the Doctor muttered, as he squeezed a blob of arnica from a tube in his pocket and rubbed it into the man's bruise. 'Chiggs. . . Chickens and pigs?' He snorted. 'And bullocks! Yes, nice bit of topside, most a.s.suredly.

How efficiently farmed. How practical.' He shut down the sliding wall. 'Butch-ers as well as vandals.'

Pulling on an oversized smock and a sterile mask, he ventured back out into the kitchen stores. He had to move fast, find some mercury and round up his friends before it was too late.

The signs of the Doctor's intrusion grew more obvious as Trix neared the boardroom. Various vapid-looking business types were walking shakily in the opposite direction. One pet.i.te woman was in tears, shrugging off the atten-tions of would-be comforters.

'They'll catch them, Kameez,' said a particularly oily stringbean in pinstripes. 'Don't you worry.'

So, thought Trix. They were still on the loose. And probably heading back to the TARDIS now, hopefully with pockets full of mercury She had to get back there herself as soon as she'd dropped off the nosh she'd sneak away. No point in drawing attention to herself by dumping the buffet right here.

She paused to let a moustachioed man inspect her white card, then the articulated table turned itself through an impressive-looking doorway, and Trix guessed they had arrived. She walked through and found that a huge gla.s.s window was set into the wall. Then she registered the view.

It was staggering.

Fringed by blackness and stars was a planet. It looked like Saturn, but it was so big, it was like she was staring through a telescope the size of Belgium.

It hung within its glittering rings like a colossal fruit, its myriad moons a cloud of lazy flies drifting all around.

The Doctor had said they were in the future. She wondered when exactly.

What was was this place? this place?

12.'You're new here, aren't you?' said a firm, female voice.

Trix started, turned away from the window. A woman with black flapper hair and a youthful but dispirited face was watching her from the far side of a very long table. Her cheekbones looked sharp enough to wound. She was putting on a shoe.

'It's obvious,' the woman went on. 'They're all like that when they first see the view.' She smiled icily. 'But do try to remember it's our view, not yours.

Gawp like that again and you'll be reprimanded.'

Trix nodded and gave a little curtsey. I'm gobbing on your your quiche, she thought. quiche, she thought.

A tall, broad-shouldered black man walked in. From the way the flapper stiffened he was someone important. Now that she came to look, his fine suit, dark and silky, his imperious gaze, the impressive rings stacked on his fingers like he was trying to outdo Saturn, all told the same story: this man was the boss.

He glanced at Trix for a moment, then snapped: 'Get the food ready to serve.'

Trix nodded meekly and started steering the table over to the back of the room.

'Tinya, do you have the revised rough cut for the infomercial?' the boss-man asked. 'Halcyon will be arriving any moment. I want to check it myself.'

'Right here, Falsh.' The slapper with the flapper smugly patted a credit-card-thin keypad, and a sort of bubble flickered into life above it. Quiet, scratchy little noises started up. Trix was intrigued to see more, but a trim little man with an elfin face and eyes too wide apart was waiting anxiously for her at the back. From his black-and-white uniform, he must be a fellow waiter.

'Thought you were never going to get here,' hissed the waiter reproachfully.

Contrition had never sat well with Trix; by now she was terminally bored with apologising. 'Well, you know, with the security alert and everything. . .

I'll just leave you to it. See you!'

'Very funny,' he hissed. 'Fix a chiggock salad for Falsh, and I'll prepare a plate for Halcyon.'

'It's a buffet. Can't they help themselves?'

'Where'd they s.h.i.+p you in from?' The waiter's look made it clear that while Falsh could doubtless help himself to most things, a buffet wasn't one of them.

Then he became conspiratorial. 'You know, I've served Halcyon before.'

Poached or scrambled, thought Trix. 'Oh yes?'

The waiter preened like the news made him c.o.c.k of the yard. 'He likes everything perfectly arranged. Well he would, wouldn't he an artist like him.' He had a distant, lovelorn look in his eye, which swiftly startled into a sharp focus on the doorway. 'Oh! He's here!'

13.Trix turned to see a bizarre figure walk in through the doors, escorted by two guards and a pear-shaped redhead. Bedecked in a peac.o.c.k-blue trouser-suit in raw silk, complete with a black sash and a conquistador's cape, he looked like some outrageous cavalier. He had a shaved head, and his scalp glittered with tiny gemstones of every hue. His features were slightly flattened and gave him a vaguely oriental look; Trix couldn't be sure as his eyes were hidden behind a pair of slim dark gla.s.ses.

Trix returned to the challenge of chiggock salad before she burst out laughing and wound up having to apologise all over again.

'Halcyon,' said Falsh warmly, rising up to greet this bizarre apparition. 'So good to see you again.' He smiled at the redhead. 'And Sook.'

'Greetings, Mr Falsh.' Sook smiled demurely and shook his hand. She wasn't pretty her features were sharp and too big for her face, and her red bob was so super-neat it looked more like a round helmet. 'And Tinya.'

'So good to meet with you both again,' said the fake-smiled flapper.

Sook pulled out a chair for Halcyon, who said nothing to anyone as he sat down at the table.