Doctor Who: BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures [047] - The Slow Empire by Dave Stone

Author:Dave Stone
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science-Fiction - Doctor Who
ISBN: 9780563538356
Publisher: BBC Books
Published: 2002-03-14T23:00:00+00:00

In his newly fumigated apartments in the Citadel of Souls (apartments that still, distressingly, contrived to retain a marked vestige of old-man smell from their previous occupant) the High Ambassador Elect turned his eyes to the window as the night sky outside flared. It was a signal flare, the colour of which was more important than the actual detonation, the seeing of which might have given the position of the men – his men, now – in the forest below. The colour was green, for go.

The Ambassadorial Order had the final shard, now, and would be bringing it to him. The stage for Transformation was all but set. The High Ambassador fell into contemplation of the change that would come, considering what form he might take in achieving, at last, the dominion of worlds. The retaking and domination of one, in any event.

‘Well of course we’re going to go after them!’ said Anji hotly. ‘We have to rescue him. We have to get him back. If we don’t,’ the more practical side of her continued, ‘we’re stuck here for good – and I’m not at a place in my life where I feel like running off and joining the circus.’

She glared around the campfire at Professor Miribilis and his troupe, all of whom seemed to share a general sense of relief at having been left alone by monk-habited men with monstrous trifurcated lizards. None of whom seemed to be on the point of offering any actual help.

‘Are you lot going to do anything or not?’ she asked the clearing in general.

‘They don’t look interested, do they?’ said Fitz. ‘You can’t exactly blame them. I mean…’

‘If you’ll allow me, dear lady.’

This from Jamon de la Rocas, who moved forward a little and began to speak, declaratively, in ringing tones:

‘My friends! Much as I am unaccustomed to making speeches, I must at this point ask you a question that will cut to the very marrow of your interest, yea, to the core itself of good and sensible persons and what they may found on’t. That question is, what is the measure of a Man? Five-foot‐six, I hear you answer, and I’ll admit that is a worthy and quite noble dimension – but I speak, you see, of something rather finer. My friends, the quality of puissance to which I refer is that of courage, or pursuing the manly course of affairs despite all pricks and shocks the fates themselves conspire to throw. We have a man in peril, at the mercies of those with the very countenance of knavery. Are we to allow such an ignoble state of affairs to continue? I think not. Come, friends, and show us your mettle. Though we all shall, quite probably, die in futile misery and crying in the voices of small girls before a merciful lapse into the arms of death – broken and enfeebled by the torturous ministrations of those who would on all account slice our generative members from our bodies as soon

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