Doctor Who: Combat Rock (3 page)

Come and dance, Jamie, you gorgeous hunk of a Scot.

That’s the message she was giving him; Jamie positively smirked back, drinking in her perfect features, the long face with cheekbones that made him ache, the dark, dark eyes promising delights that made the whisky glass shake in his hand. He put out one leg, lured by her, then withdrew it as selfconsciousness returned to mock him. He couldn’t dance to this stuff. He’d just make a show of himself. This wasn’t clan music. He wouldn’t know what to do. The girl would end up laughing. Just like Victoria always did.

The girl was waving at him again, her feet barely touching the floor as she danced. Jamie waved back, shaking his head; then, struck with inspiration, beckoned to her to join him at the bar instead. The girl laughed and continued dancing.

She’ll come, he told himself. How could she resist? He was certainly the most eligible male specimen in the dance bar. He inspected the other masculine patrons and his complacent grin widened. Fat bellies, bald heads, spots – and that was just the humanoids! His attention was arrested by a white man, maybe from Earth by the look of him, who was standing at the bar not far away, talking to a local girl. He was dressed in combat fatigues, had hair that was short and spiky, maybe in his late thirties. His nose was prominent with flared nostrils set below piercing eyes, both features giving him a distinct devilish appearance. He noticed Jamie looking at him and returned the compliment. Jamie glanced away hurriedly.

He felt burned by the emptiness of the man’s glance. A soulless stare, yet rampant with naked menace. Jamie felt sorry for the girl in a leather mini-skirt who was clinging to his arm, staring up at the man with a dazzling smile and a toss of her shining hair.

Jamie concentrated on his whisky and the dancing girl. He almost choked again when he realized she had stopped dancing and was walking towards him.

She stood beside him, not facing him. Waiting for him to make the first move.

‘Er, hello,’ the Scot spluttered. She immediately spun to confront him and her beauty made his heart stumble.

‘Hello. What your name?’ she said in halting English.

‘Er, Jamie.’ The words came out barely recognisable.

‘Hello, Erjamie. Where you from?’ She was extending a hand for him to take. He noticed the way it flexed backward nimbly and held out his own stiff and clumsy hand.

‘No, just Jamie,’ he corrected her, enjoying the feel of her soft, small hand as he shook it, and conveniently forgot to answer her second question – although judging from the number of obviously alien visitors to this planet, it wouldn’t confuse her too much. Apart from maybe the bit about spinning through the cosmos in a police box. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Wina,’ she said softly. She seemed a little shy, and turned away from him again, while staying deliberately close to him and obviously waiting for him to make further conversation.

He could tell from her proud expression that she knew she was beautiful, but was not arrogant or conceited about it. She was gorgeous in an entirely natural and innocent way. If only Victoria could see him now, he thought, and wondered how long a man could remain grinning before it became a permanent fixture.

‘Would you like a wee drink?’ he asked her, and chuckled at her frown. ‘I mean, can I buy you a drink?’ She nodded happily and told him what to order.

At the bar he noticed the white man in fatigues had moved to stand next to him while he ordered his own drinks. They swapped glances again. The man’s eyes were green and the pupils huge. There was a violent madness there that made Jamie flinch away for the second time. The man chuckled, sensing Jamie’s weakness, and that made the Scot bristle. His never-ending grin faded.

‘You want see the rope bridges of Tangma? The grisly Mumis kept for hundred years, yes? You want see the tribesmen with their penis gourds?’

The man was of a different racial background to the majority of tradesmen and hagglers in the square, one after the other of whom had pestered the Doctor and Victoria as they sat on the restaurant terrace and tried to eat their meal.

The Doctor smiled warmly at the young man, handsome with his distinctive broad features and piercing eyes. He was obviously a rogue – the Doctor could tell that from the twinkle in the large, brown eyes and the too-wide grin, but he had a charisma that demanded attention.

‘The what?’ squawked Victoria. She looked from the haggler to the Doctor with saucer-wide blue eyes. The Doctor’s eyebrows lifted and he shovelled another forkful of some unidentifiable but very tasty sea creature into his mouth instead of replying.

The haggler seized his opportunity ‘Penis gourds, lady.’

His smile was one big flirt. ‘The people of my land wear them to – to show power in bed.’

Victoria was now a violent purple shade. She gaped at the Doctor in horror, waiting for him to defend her modesty against this rascal. The Doctor swallowed his mouthful and hastily intervened. ‘These Mumis sound rather interesting, don’t you think so,Victoria? Would you care to tell us about them?’ He gave the dark-skinned man one of his most charming smiles.

‘Maybe you want Wemus show you them...’ The man was a born salesman, and was already taking an empty seat at the table, fishing a battered pack of cigarettes out of his pocket as he did so. Evening had descended and the square was alight with candles and strings of gaudy lights set above the stalls and shop fronts. ‘I promise strange sights and marvels.’

‘I wonder,’ said the Doctor with a childlike look of curiosity on his face. Victoria frowned, sensing trouble ahead.

‘Are these marvels far from here?’

Wemus grinned even more widely, and Victoria was amazed at how that was possible. ‘Mumis are in Papul, my homeland,’ he said proudly. ‘It is only a few hours journey by sea. We can go first thing tomorrow. I am official Papul Guide.’

‘Indeed,’ said the Doctor ingratiatingly. ‘And Papul is very different from, er, from... here...’ Victoria looked down in embarrassment. He was obviously fishing for some clue as to where in the Universe they were.

‘My... Uncle... is a hopeless amnesiac,’ she interjected quickly, as if the guide with his stained Earth-style T-shirt, old jeans and halting English would understand such a term. ‘He doesn’t know where he is half the time.’

Wemus sat back, pulling contentedly on his cigarette.

‘How you get to anywhere if you not know where you are?’

The idea seemed to amuse him. ‘But everyone know when they in Batu. It is island of pleasure.’

‘Batu...’ the Doctor repeated ruminatively. He was about to ask another question when he noticed two soldiers approaching the table.

They wore dark-green combat fatigues and had what appeared to be advanced pulse rifles slung over their backs.

They were finer-featured than Wemus, though their faces were far less friendly as they stopped next to the guide. One of them shoved him on the shoulder quite brutally and said something in a language the travellers could not understand, but which was obviously antagonistic. Wemus spread his hands appetisingly and replied in a rather cowed, apologetic manner.

The soldiers surveyed the Doctor and Victoria with hard, mistrustful glares and then carried on across the square.

The Doctor watched them depart, noticing the obvious change in Wemus’s demeanour. His smile had gone, and he was sitting slumped and subdued in his chair, gazing at the end of his cigarette as if he had forgotten the two travellers were there.

‘I take it they are not friends of yours,’ the Doctor asked gently.

Wemus looked up and there was a momentary hardness in his eyes that soon evaporated as he caught the Doctor’s grave expression. Once again he was all smiles and charm.

‘Oh, they are just Indoni military. No worry. So you want come Papul tomorrow, see the Mumis? I give good price.’ It was evident he was hiding something under his false cheer.

‘Indoni?’ The Doctor was not about to let the subject drop.

And what might they be exactly?’

Wemus looked behind his shoulder. A surreptitious gesture that might have meant nothing. ‘They are the people of Batu and Javee and the other islands, except my island, Papul.

But even there they rule. But come, meet with Wemus by the quay in morning. He take you good journey to see his home.

You like very much, I think.’

‘They didn’t seem very friendly.’ Victoria too had grown curious about the soldiers and their behaviour towards Wemus. He was trying so hard not to be concerned that he only drew attention to the matter more keenly.

Wemus smiled blandly. ‘They invade Papul with their army.’ Again, a quick glance over his shoulder. At the next table, a dark-skinned couple of the same race as the soldiers and the majority of the people they had seen were eating quietly. They didn’t seem to be taking any notice of the Doctor,Victoria and the garrulous guide. ‘But is not so bad.

Some of us make good living. Tourists come to Batu and from Batt also to see my home land. Races from the skies too. Papul has much to offer the curious, and the Indoni allow them to come see.’

The Doctor leant forward. ‘From the skies? Well, yes, I had noticed. I suppose many aliens come to Batu and Papul?’

‘Aliens? You mean the Different Ones?’ Wemus smiled, and the twinkle had returned. This was obviously a disingenuous attempt to act parochial and unsophisticated. The Doctor wasn’t fooled for a minute. ‘Many strange peoples from the skies come. Some also come see Papul, to see primitive peoples and animal, so my people can make honest money from them. Like you come. You want see Papul, no?’

‘We’d love to, wouldn’t we Victoria?’ The Doctor clenched his hands together and sat back, his face a picture of innocent delight. ‘But first of all we’d like to know which planet we are on.’

Victoria winced. However, Wemus seemed only amused by her companion’s eccentricity and not at all put out. ‘You are on Jenggel, my friends.’ He threw his cigarette butt away and patted the Doctor’s arm. ‘So maybe you want buy Wemus a drink and we discuss tomorrow, yes?’

The white man was looking at Wina.

Jamie could sense it as he handed the local girl her drink, and tried not to let it annoy him. It was natural the man should stare. Wina was the most beautiful girl in the club, and while the girl the older man was with was also very sexy, she was not in Wina’s class.

The man was obviously aware of this, and did not like it.

Not one bit.

Wina accepted her drink with a smile, looked down for a moment coyly, then caught his eye again, waiting. Jamie groped for words. He was not normally so inadequate when it came to chatting up the lasses. There was something about Wina that made him feel bashful. ‘So what d’ye do here, Wina?’ he asked in an effort to take control.

‘I work in shop furrniture,’ she purred in reply, and Jamie melted at the way she rolled her R’s. His rapture was pierced as he glanced sideways. He could see from the corner of his eye that the man in combat dress was looking at
him
now, and not in a pleasant manner. His female companion was trying to attract his attention and he was blatantly not listening. She tugged at him, and he slapped her. Not too hard, just a little cuff to make her stop. Jamie tensed. He did not want to stand by and watch that. His clan pride would not let him.

‘Wait a wee minute,’ he said to Wina and handed her his whisky glass to hold. She looked puzzled as he turned away and marched over to the spiky-haired man.

They confronted each other. The stranger did not look surprised to see Jamie approach. He smiled cruelly and contemptuously.

‘Yes, boy? What in Whore’s Hell do
you
want?’

He wore his sadness like a cloak. It went with him wherever he
travelled. He didn’t know what he’d done to deserve this fate.

Maybe it was because he’d killed. Let’s face it, he did precious
little else. And he enjoyed killing; or at least, he always bad
done. So why should be be sad?

He remembered the boy he once was, and the first kill.

Some hole of an educational institution for rejects in a carbon
monoxide-saturated suburb on Earth. That was when he
roamed with gangs – leader of the pack, of course. But his first
kill (the best) had been in the institution itself. Dinner time
behind the hover cart sheds. Smoking crack and feeling up the
post-pubescent girls – he’d only been fifteen himself. One of
the boys made some slur. Tried to fasten onto the whore he’d
chosen for himself. Bad move. He’d used his cigarette lighter
on him – the one with the flick blade. Burnt him and cut him.

Let the other boys and girls see of course. Worth the stretch he
did. Because he was bad.

Everyone had to know: he was bad.

From prison he’d worked space trawlers for a while,
mainly so be could satisfy his penchant for whores of as many
different racial and planetary origins as he could find.

Whoring was his life. Apart from killing of course. What else
was there? Whorin’, drinkin, killin’...

Whores. Bless ‘em.

But inside there was always the sadness.

The man’s voice was brick-hard and tinged with an accent Jamie vaguely recognized. Somewhere from Earth. Maybe south-west. It didn’t matter.

‘You shouldnae treat the lasses that way.’ Was he mad?

The man looked like he could tear Jamie apart with just his thumbs. He knew Wina was watching, and that spurred his courage. Now the other girl was staring at him too, her hands still clutching the Earth man’s arm. Her eyes lit up when she sensed the trouble that was obviously brewing. Her lips parted with excitement, showing perfect white teeth. Jamie tried not to look at her, attempting to stare out the taller man... who was laughing.

‘Boy! I like your spirit. You’ve got balls. Now go on back to your mummy before I hurt ya.’

Jamie stretched himself to his full height, which was still a good few inches shorter than his opponent. ‘I’m just asking you to be a bit more careful with yon lass here. That’s all.’ He was damned if he was going to back away. The skein dhu in his ankle sock suddenly felt very reassuring.