The Outcast Read Online Free PDF Page B

what it was,” he said.
    â€œAnd how long before it’s safe to wake him?”
    â€œYou could wake him now, but I’d rather let him sleep on for a while. This must have been traumatic for him. It would be traumatic for someone in a much better physical condition than his. If you’re planning to question him, I think you should wait a couple of hours.”
    â€œNo sooner?”
    â€œI can’t stop you waking him. But he’s my patient and you claim he’s your friend. Leave it for a couple more hours.”
    Nergui nodded. “You’re the doctor,” he said. “I just hope you appreciate the implications.”
    â€œOnly the medical ones,” the doctor said. “But that’s my job. I can’t speak for any other implications. Maybe you can. Maybe that’s your job.”
    â€œThis way, sir. You can come around the back. It’s quicker.”
    Doripalam blinked up into the shadow. Batzorig was at the top of the stone steps above him. He had been there for some time, awaiting Doripalam’s arrival.
    â€œWhere is it?”
    â€œIt’s at the back. It’s a kind of delivery area. A loading bay. I’ll show you.” Batzorig bounded down the steps with his usual slightly uncontrolled enthusiasm, and jumped past Doripalam into the street. Doripalam hesitated for a moment, wondering whether Batzorig was going to tumble backwards into the passing traffic.
    â€œThis way.” Batzorig turned and disappeared around the corner, down the side of the museum’s imposing entrance. Doripalam stepped after him, finding himself in a narrow passageway. Batzorig was a few steps ahead, looking back. “Down here.”
    â€œWhere’s Solongo?” Doripalam asked, walking with some nervousness into the shadowy alley.
    â€œShe’s upstairs with a museum director,” Batzorig said. “I thinkshe’s okay. It was a bit of a shock for her. But she seemed to be coping all right when I saw her.”
    In any other officer, Doripalam might have suspected an undertone of irony, but the concept was alien to Batzorig. “She’s not easily fazed. But it might have been more of a shock than she’s realised. I’ll go up and see how she is once you’ve filled me in.” It suddenly occurred to him that he hadn’t stopped to think about what the impact might have been on Solongo. He was accustomed to assuming that she could handle anything, but perhaps some things were beyond even her capabilities.
    â€œI think anyone would have been disturbed,” Batzorig said. “It isn’t a pretty sight.”
    They were too much alike, Doripalam thought, he and Batzorig. It probably wasn’t a good idea to have as your putative deputy someone who thought and acted pretty much as you would have done. He could recognise in Batzorig the same combination of naïve enthusiasm and considered thinking that had characterised his own early days in the service. It was a potentially powerful combination, he thought, but then he would, wouldn’t he? Perhaps he needed something different, a different set of traits, to challenge his own preconceptions. Doripalam thought back to his previous deputy, Luvsan—a different kind of enthusiasm there, certainly. A loose cannon. Far looser than they could have imagined. Pointing in entirely the wrong direction, in fact.
    â€œIn here, sir.” Batzorig was standing in a doorway. He ducked back, and Doripalam followed him into a courtyard surrounded on three sides by the internal walls of the museum, with rows of blank windows. The fourth wall opened on to one of the main streets leading to the central square. In the wall opposite the street, there was a loading bay, designed to accept large-scale deliveries.
    â€œThis is the place.”
    Doripalam stopped and looked around. There was sufficient space for large delivery trucks to back into here to offload exhibits or other