Dan Abnett - Border Princes

‘I want to help you,’ said Jack. ‘Can I help you?’

Mr Dine slowly raised his head. He heard the voice.

‘Please,’ said Jack.

Mr Dine sat up. His investment was ebbing away. He was starting to crash, and the crash would be a bad one. He had been seriously damaged.

He rose and slid down off the buckled car roof. On his feet, he rose and looked at Jack Harkness.

‘Please,’ Jack said. ‘I can help you.’

He held out his hand in the rain.

Mr Dine ignored it.

‘Please,’ Jack repeated.

Mr Dine turned and began to walk away. The damage overwhelmed him for a second, and he staggered, falling against the car. Jack shot out his hands to support him.

Mr Dine looked at Jack.

‘Contact is not permitted,’ he said. ‘Contact is not… advisable.’

‘I’m a broad-minded soul,’ replied Jack.

‘Contact is not permitted,’ Mr Dine repeated. Then he was gone.

Jack Harkness was left looking at the inky black stains on his hands that the steady rain was already washing away.

In the allotments, Toshiko was slowly leading Davey Morgan back down towards the path. A cat mewed quietly and Davey scooped it up.

‘There you are,’ he said. ‘You must be starving.’

Then, a moment before the blast lit up the row of houses behind them, Davey shuddered.

‘Oh,’ he said to her sadly, ‘it’s gone.’

Jack sat in the Boardroom. He idly checked the cleanly dressed injury to his arm, and then buttoned on a fresh shirt and waited.

One by one, Owen, Gwen and Toshiko wandered in and sat down. Toshiko simply sat and closed her eyes. Owen rolled back in his chair and put his feet up, as if he intended to snooze. Gwen flopped down, and sank her head over in her hands.

No one said anything for quite a while.

‘Go on, somebody,’ said Jack at length. ‘I got nothing.’

There was no immediate response.

‘Catalogue item nine-eight-one is pretty fancy,’ said Owen eventually, making an effort to say something.

‘What?’

‘Nine-eight-one,’ said Owen. ‘Bit sexy, that. I didn’t know we had anything like that in the Armoury.’

‘If you’d known it was there, I’d have worried,’ said Jack.

‘I’m just a bit disappointed I didn’t get to play with it. By the time Ianto arrived with it, it was all over.’

Jack muttered something.

‘Sorry?’ asked Owen.

Jack shrugged. ‘I said… everyone’s probably quite pleased you didn’t get to play with it.’

Owen sniffed and nodded. He sighed. ‘Everyone’s probably quite right about that.’

‘You put it away again, right?’

‘Of course.’

‘In the Armoury?’

‘Yes, Jack.’

‘Did you put it away or did Ianto put it away?’

‘He put it away,’ said Owen. ‘Give me some credit.’

‘Sorry,’ said Jack.

There was another long silence.

‘Anything else?’ asked Jack.

‘Davey Morgan’s going to be staying in secure accommodation until his house is repaired,’ said Toshiko. ‘I’ve moved funds out of the Institute’s accounts to cover the work he needs.’

Jack raised his eyebrows. ‘We don’t do that kind of thing,’ he said.

‘We do today,’ said Toshiko flatly. There was a firmness in her tone that Jack decided he was too tired to take issue with.

‘How’s James?’ he asked instead.

‘I’ve got him sedated,’ said Owen. ‘I opened up one of the care rooms downstairs so he could be comfortable.’

‘He looks awful,’ said Gwen quietly.

‘Will he be OK?’ Jack asked.

‘I think so,’ Owen replied. ‘He’s been battered about, but I think so.’

‘Shouldn’t he be moved to…’ Gwen fell silent.

‘To a what?’ Owen asked. ‘A proper hospital?’

‘That’s not what I meant,’ she said.

‘I know what you meant,’ said Owen. ‘I am actually good at what I do, you know?’

‘Owen-’ she began.

‘No arguing tonight, please,’ said Jack, holding up a hand.

‘Look,’ said Owen. ‘There are two reasons James is better off here. One, we’ve got better kit and technical medical support than any hospital I know of. Two… well, he’s not actually hurt that badly.’

The other three looked at him. Owen shrugged. ‘I know, he’s a mess. And you told me what he went through. But it’s basically just bruising and cuts and stuff. The blow to the head and shoulder were the worst of it, and even they were comparatively minor. Our beloved Captain Analogy was bloody, bloody lucky.’

‘Are you sure?’ asked Gwen.

‘I scanned him thoroughly,’ said Owen. ‘Some muscle tearing and a slight crack to the cheek bone, but no head trauma to speak of. At any rate, not the sort of head trauma you’d expect after being punched out by a mad killer robot.’

‘Just keep him under observation,’ said Jack. He rose to his feet. ‘Just now, Owen said it was all over. It isn’t.’

He looked at them. Their faces were solemn, waiting for him to continue. His head bowed slightly, thoughtfully. ‘When I realised what we were up against in Cathays,’ said Jack, ‘there was one clear upside to it all, as far as I could see. God knows, a Serial G is a big deal. As we chased around after it, I remember thinking, “At least this is it. At least we know what the warning was all about now.”’

Jack took the black tile out of his trouser pocket and held it up. It was still flashing.

‘If this doohickey is supposed to alert us to an approaching threat, or to an imminent war, the Serial G wasn’t it.’

Jack chuckled humourlessly to himself. He tossed the tile down onto the conference table. ‘I was so sure. When I saw that heap of junk stomping around, I was so damn sure.’

He looked around at them again. ‘So, we’re left wondering… What is it? What is it really ? Was it, maybe that strange grey thing that managed to be both invisible and kill a Serial G in the same afternoon?’

‘It didn’t seem like a threat,’ Toshiko said. ‘It was on our side.’

‘We don’t know that,’ said Jack. ‘All we know is that it wasn’t on the Serial G’s side. That’s not the same thing at all.’

Gwen got up. ‘I’m going to look around Cosley Hall.’

‘We’ve been through this, Gwen,’ Jack said. ‘There’s no point.’

‘I think there’s a point,’ Gwen replied.

‘I’ve done it. I’ve been there,’ said Jack. ‘There are no clues.’

‘That secret doohickey was doing nothing for years,’ said Gwen, pointing at the tile on the table. ‘Now look at it. What makes you so sure something hasn’t suddenly changed at this Hall place too?’

Jack hesitated.

‘Just because there was nothing to find last time you were there, doesn’t mean there’s nothing to find now. That’s logic, see?’ she said.

‘She has a point,’ said Toshiko.

‘She’s not going to Cosley Hall,’ said Jack.

‘Why not?’

‘Because it’s ten thirty at night and the place will be closed. She can go in the morning.’

Gwen stood for a second longer and then sat back down. ‘That,’ she admitted, ‘is also logic.’

A bridge, a river, a palace. Shades whispering along the tops of the high walls.

Below the old, fossil bridge, the boiling river torrent thunders along its deep, stone-cut channel. The river is a mile wide. The sides of the stone channel have been polished like glass by the action of the river, year after year. Violet moss, soft as velvet, fringes the channel and coats the underside of the bridge.

Starlight glows on the silver-green bricks of the high walls and towers. The palace seems as insubstantial as smoke, or like a translucent husk of brittle, scaled skin sloughed off by some vanished reptile. Pinpricks of fire stipple the fur-black expanse of the sky.