Harry dumped his bag and took out his bolt-croppers.
He’d still have to play this cutely. Uncovering a racket like this would stand him in good stead, but he’d have to explain why he’d been on private property at the time.
No matter. First he had to release these poor wretches.
Heaven knew what conditions they’d been transported in. He lifted the tarpaulin. It was no surprise to see a registration plate originating from eastern Europe. Above this was a timber door-ramp fastened with chains.
‘Hey!’ he shouted. ‘Can you hear me?’
There was a renewed gabble of voices.
Harry fitted the bolt-cropper blades around a link in the first chain - only for a hand to grab the back of his neck with crushing force.
Harry Mossop was a big, heavy man, but now was lifted bodily into the air.
And then he was flung.
He somersaulted across the yard, landing on the tarmac with pile-driving force. He lay face down for several seconds, before looking groggily up. The tarpaulin at the back of the second vehicle had also been lifted, revealing another door-ramp - though this was lowered and of very different design from the first. It was made of smooth steel and oval in shape. The entrance behind it gave off a shimmering blue glow.
A massive silhouette stepped in front of it.
Harry tried to wriggle away as the figure came forward with echoing footfalls. It was a man wearing heavy-duty clothing - some kind of shiny body-armour, but he was at least two metres tall.
Once again Harry was grabbed and swung up into the air. His protests became meaningless blather on sight of the face that regarded him.
Firstly, it was so oddly angled that it seemed to have been stretched over an artificial skull. Secondly, it was in two sections, neither of which looked as if they’d been their owner’s original property. The left side of the face was that of a younger man who’d suffered illness and injury; its skin silver-grey in colour, but wrinkled and pockmarked. The right side might once have belonged to a woman; it was smoother in tone, its features more refined, yet it was pallid, in fact dead-white, as if it had never quite adhered to the tissue below. The two halves were joined in the centre by a line of lumpy scar-tissue -
the remnant of crude sutures - which ran up across the chin, through the mouth, bisected the nose and passed between the eyes, before continuing across the top of the hairless cranium, where tiny gaps showed glints of metal beneath.
Two eyes bored into Harry from different shaped sockets; they were like steel points, swivelling in unison as if attached to a machine.
‘Do you like my face?’ a bass, bell-like voice asked.
Harry could only stutter.
‘When it was blown off, they didn’t have a complete spare they could replace it with, so they had to cannibalise dismembered corpses. I could have had it replaced at a later date, more professionally. But I don’t know… I think battlefield repairs have a kind of romance about them.’
The two-faced horror snickered. ‘And they’re more than you’ll be getting.’
Harry was flung through the air again, but this time ripped at his assailant’s sleeve as he went, stripping it loose - revealing a limb composed of what looked like rods and springs. Harry never really had time to absorb this. He hit the perimeter wall with sledgehammer force, the blow to the back of his head jolting him out of consciousness. The last thing he remembered was a pair of giant boots stumping forward with enough weight and power to pulverise his flesh.
Rory and Amy were in the midst of an alien culture, but they were also in a gaming hall, and the emphasis here seemed the same as in gaming halls on Earth - in that everything was glitzy and tasteless. The predominant colours on the tiled floors, wall-hangings and tubular handrails were gold and silver. Earthenware pots were located at regular intervals, and from each one a towering mass of exotic but painfully imitation foliage reached up to astonishing height. Waitresses pirouetted everywhere on preposterously high heels, wielding trays overloaded with drinks. The noise was deafening, consisting of weird and, to human ears at least, tuneless music, but it was also filled with a clangour of bells, whistles and braying laughter.
Some games were instantly recognisable. A giant screen hung above a platform, and on it there were sporting events. Rory was fascinated by what appeared to be a steeplechase over a sandy plain, in which apelike jockeys rode the backs of lumbering sauropods. On the platform, an obese, bare-chested Torodon was giving the odds in classic bookie fashion. An excitable horde had gathered, waving wads of paper money. There were also Torodon versions of slot machines; players seated in front of screens on which images spun in kaleidoscopic fashion.
Every so often they would shout a command, and the images would freeze. Some players would disappointedly lurch away, but others would laugh and shout as they hit a switch and received a plastic tab, which registered their winnings.
Once again, there were advertisements everywhere: electronic banners running back and forth across screens hanging from the ceilings, or even appearing as holographs, three-dimensional figures popping up in the middle of the floor, offering products or talking about the latest shows to hit town. One face Amy saw again and again belonged to a Torodon called Zubedai. She suspected he was a kind of pop star, as he was the only male she’d seen wearing facial make-up, and his white hair was styled; it frizzed out into a wild, 1970s-style afro.
A few seconds later, she saw him for real. He was wrapped in a heavy fleece and hurrying across the gaming hall, a Torodon female on each arm. Though a celebrity, he wasn’t drawing too much interest from the punters, which seemed to be the way of it on LP9, where informality was the rule. Interspersed with the raucous crowds, both Rory and Amy had spotted numerous Torodon who, by their dress and manner, were better heeled than the riff-raff surrounding them. As the Doctor had said, there was a big market for entertainment here. No doubt these were performers, managers, agents - and yet they moved freely without being harassed (unless you counted the attention of beautiful Torodon women as harassment, which Rory didn’t think he did).
‘Once you’ve seen one casino, you’ve seen ‘em all,’
Amy said. ‘Are we going?’
Rory nodded, but as they headed towards the nearest exit, he noticed an oval marble table with a raised rim.
A black cloth was laid over its surface, written with odd lettering and marked with a series of connected gold boxes. Another bunch of excited Torodon were standing around it, throwing what looked like dice. At one end of the table, a non-Torodon - a bipedal reptilian, with fawn-coloured skin covered in large brown blotches - but dressed in a bright blue uniform with gold braid, was acting as dealer.
‘Looks like Craps,’ Rory said.
‘And?’ Amy replied.
She’d been the keenest among them to come down here, but was already bored. She was half-wondering if there might be a show they could catch. She mentioned this, but Rory ambled over to the table.
‘Told you,’ he said. ‘I mean superficially it’s different, but it’s the same type of game. There’s the Pass Line, there’s the Don’t Pass Bar.’
The dice were not dissimilar to Earth dice in that they were small cubes, though they bore glyph-like figures rather than patterns of dots. The dealer watched calmly, his green tongue occasionally flickering. One particular player - a sleek, handsome Torodon, wearing a billowing silk gown similar to a kimono, and his long, white hair tied in a topknot almost like a samurai — rolled again and again. Other players placed their betting chips on different sections of the table; some were winning, others losing, but the ‘shooter’ - as Rory thought of him - was clearing up every time. Several other Torodon were with him; big, brutal characters in mismatched garb that looked more like space armour than work clothing. One by one the other players drifted away, but the successful shooter was hardly concerned. He’d now amassed a mountain of chips.
‘That bloke’s almost too good to be true,’ Rory said quietly, though
it wasn’t quietly enough. The shooter glanced across the table, suddenly noticing there were humans present.
‘You implying something?’ he asked, though he sounded relaxed rather than angry.
‘You keep on winning,’ Rory pointed out.
‘Really… I must’ve missed that.’
There were chuckles from around the table.
‘What I mean is… this is a game of chance,’ Rory said.
‘We have something like it on Earth. It takes a bit of skill, but it’s mainly about luck. Which makes it strange that you keep winning.’
Amy tugged at his arm. ‘Why don’t we just go?’
‘You accusing me of cheating?’ the shooter said. He still didn’t sound angry, but he now leaned forward, and Amy saw hard lines of muscle beneath his gown.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Rory said, backing away, but when he and Amy turned to leave, others of the shooter’s compatriots had circled behind them.
‘How exactly could I cheat?’ the shooter asked.
‘I didn’t say you cheated,’ Rory replied.
‘It’s clear what you meant. So I ask again… how could I cheat?’
Rory shrugged. ‘On Earth, they sometimes use weighted dice.’
The shooter rolled the dice across the table. ‘Do these feel weighted to you?’
Rory didn’t bother to pick them up. ‘I wouldn’t know.
I’m not an expert.’
‘But you talk as if you are.’ The shooter now gazed at Rory with eerie intensity.
‘Look, pack it in with the tough-guy gambler act, eh!’
Amy snapped. ‘Can’t you see, we’re not interested?’
The shooter smiled again. ‘This one lets his woman fight his battles for him?’
There was ribald laughter. Rory felt his cheeks flush.
‘Come on.’ Amy grabbed Rory’s arm and led him from the table, shouldering her way through the heavies half-blocking their path.
‘You had better walk away, friend,’ the shooter said after them. ‘You’re way past any help we can give you.’
Again, there was laughter. Rory’s brow burned, and before he knew it he’d spun back around. He wasn’t the inexperienced wimp he’d once been, he reminded himself. He’d seen things that even space rodents like these couldn’t dream of.
The shooter feigned surprise. ‘Whoa… so you’ve got some fight in you, after all. Enough to take me on?’
Rory licked his lips. He was still aware of Amy tugging at him.
‘No need to look scared,’ the shooter said. ‘I mean across the table. And if you doubt my dice…’ he indicated a bowl where some spare dice were kept, ‘we can use different ones.’
Rory was tempted. He was so tempted. But he didn’t
know the rules of this game. ‘I’ve nothing to bet with,’ he finally said. ‘We’re not carrying Torodon money.’
‘He doesn’t fight his own battles or carry his own money,’ the shooter proclaimed. ‘We must be in the presence of royalty.’
There was more laughter.
‘We’re just visiting,’ Rory said through clenched teeth.
‘You don’t have to explain yourself to these people,’
Amy hissed.
‘I think he does,’ the shooter said. ‘Look at him… He yearns to accept my challenge. He’s itching for it. Xurgan, loan him some credits.’
One of the shooter’s lackeys pushed a handful of plastic chips across the table.
‘On which well owe you 600 per cent interest, no doubt,’ Rory said.
The shooter regarded him carefully, maybe realising that this Earthman wasn’t such a dullard after all. ‘In that case… this isn’t a loan, it’s a gift. You hear that everyone?
This is a gift.’ He smiled at Rory again. ‘Now you’ve got no excuse.’
Rory groped the chips towards him.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ Amy said. ‘You can’t play this game.’
She indicated the alien symbols. ‘You don’t even know what these figures represent.’
‘I have a translation device, sir,’ the reptilian dealer said. He produced what looked like a pair of sunglasses, though they were rimmed with complex instrumentation.
His fingers had soft pads on their tips, but he ran them nimbly across a row of lights on the device’s left arm, and handed it over.
Tentatively, Rory put the glasses on. Everything he now saw was slightly shaded - but when he focused on the table he was looking at recognisable Earth numerals.
On the dice, the glyphs had given way to straightforward numbers, one through to six.
‘This is great,’ he said.
‘For heaven’s sake,’ Amy retorted.
‘Well?’ the shooter asked. ‘Do we play?’
Rory glanced at his wife. ‘How hard can it be?
‘On your head, Rory Williams. And those goggles are ridiculous. You look like Elton John.’
‘You’ve got yourself a game,’ Rory said to his opponent.
‘Excellent,’ the shooter replied. ‘Dead Man’s Duel…
You understand?’
‘No, of course we don’t!’ Amy snapped, not liking the sound of that at all.
The shooter stared at Rory. ‘Only two of us can play.
No one else may bet.’
Rory nodded. ‘That’s fine.’
Amy wondered if it was her imagination that their audience was suddenly holding its breath. Surely that wouldn’t be their normal response to a measly game of Craps? Even one of the grey-skinned menials - a shrivelled figure wearing a work-belt hung with tools, was leaning on a broom to watch.
The shooter rubbed his hands together. ‘Good. Let’s play.’
‘Who are you?’ the two-faced giant roared. His voice was deep and, again, bell-like - as if issuing from a pair of iron lungs.
Harry was fastened onto an upright rack, his wrists and ankles held in vice-like rings. He was inside the second vehicle, though plainly it was no HGV. Powerful blue lights glared from all sides, preventing him seeing clearly. His captor wasn’t alone - he had a sidekick -
a short, stocky version of himself, without the facial scars and with a mane of white hair cut square at his shoulders.
‘I’ve already told you,’ Harry wept. ‘Harry Mossop. I used to work here as a security guard.’
‘Why are you here now?’ the terrible voice demanded.
‘I… suspected Pangborne was up to something,’ Harry stammered.
This was a lie of course, but Harry felt he had to tell them something they’d believe; in the face of this aggression, his real reasons seemed too pathetic to be true.
‘ Why did you suspect?’ his interrogator bellowed.
T couldn’t think of any reason why Pangborne would have got rid of me and not replaced me.’
‘How did you know he hadn’t replaced you?’
‘Look… please, what is this?’
:‘Answer the question!’
‘I’ve been observing his operation.’
There was a brief silence as his captors exchanged glances.
‘Observing?’ the shorter one queried. ‘How long for?’
‘What does it matter?’
The giant leaned down until his mutilated nose was less than an inch from Harry’s. ‘It matters because we need to know if you’ve passed information to anyone else!’
‘I haven’t.’
‘I’d like to believe you, Earthman… I really would.’
‘I promise you I haven’t!’
‘Tell us the truth!’ the shorter one shouted, producing a loose wire, the end of which was glowing hot.
‘I am telling the truth!’ Harry wailed.
The short one gestured with the wire, and, for a hellish second, Harry imagined it was about to be plunged into his right eye. But this never happened. The would-be torturer contemplated this act, but at length turned to his giant companion. ‘We’ve no time for this, Zarbotan. Any security breach is a breach too many.’
&nb
sp; ‘I agree.’
‘So we leave straightaway, yes?’
‘No.’ The giant tapped out digits on a hanging screen.
‘Zarbotan!’ the other objected.
‘Don’t be a fool!’ Zarbotan replied. ‘Krauzzen would want us to be thorough.’
On the screen, swirling static coalesced into an image.
Harry blinked at the sight of Grant Pangborne - now, for some reason, wearing silver face make-up. He was dressed in a fluffy gown and reclining on a couch, probably in his penthouse in Docklands.
‘What is it?’ Pangborne asked tiredly.
‘Xorax!’ Zarbotan said. ‘What do you know of this fellow?’
Pangborne sat up. Harry realised that he was looking back through the screen at them. ‘That’s Mossop. I had him at my depot as a security officer.’
‘We now have him at your depot as an intruder,’
Zarbotan said.
‘An intruder?’
‘It seems you’ve been getting sloppy, Xorax. We caught him snooping.’
‘I should have known better than to employ an ex-policeman.’
‘A policeman!’ the smaller captor exclaimed.
Pangborne tried to play this down. ‘It’s nothing to worry about, Zalizta. Mossop was the worst kind of policeman.
Lazy, incompetent. I inquired into his background, and when they terminated his employment they were glad to see the back of him.’
‘Nevertheless,’ Zarbotan said, ‘if he’s spoken to other policemen…?’
‘He won’t have. He has no contact with them any more.’
‘He claims to have been investigating you,’ Zalizta said.
Pangborne laughed. T sincerely doubt that. Knowing Mossop, this will have been some ham-fisted attempt to get his old job back. I wouldn’t worry.’
‘It’s you who should be worried, Xorax,’ Zarbotan replied.
Harry struggled to comprehend what he was hearing; none of it boded well.
‘Now, wait.’ Pangborne said, looking alarmed. ‘I’ve kept my end of the bargain. There were always going to be risks on a planet like Earth. I’ve told you before. It isn’t easy to make humans disappear without questions being asked.’
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