other game, or shealready knew. And that meant Kik the Assassin knew more than Peter did, which was more troubling.
One of the advantages that Peter had over other teenagers was that his Killoran heritage meant that, like most canine species, his hearing was very good, way better than an average human’s. So when the TARDIS dematerialisation sound occurred, he heard it.
He sighed. More covering up to do while the Doctor took his mum to God knows where…
8
All She Wants Is
It was 22 December 1934, and Tomas G. Schneidter was not having a great day. Truth was, he wasn’t even having a good one.
For a start, it was raining. All the time he had spent aboard the ship that had brought him here, all he heard from the British and Americans aboard was ‘Oh, you’re gonna love Australia, it’s sunshine all the way’ and ‘I say, Australia’s a jolly marvellous place, awfully warm and green. One can never understand why, when Captain Cook arrived, he didn’t just send the convicts back to small, dirty, cold Britain and move the upper classes to Australia instead, what?’ But no one had pointed out that when it rains in New South Wales, it really rains. And in the famous Blue Mountains, the rain runs down into all the gullies and valleys, turning everything into quite a mess of mud and sludge with very little cover. The trees seemed to have evolved leaves that, rather than keeping the rain off you, actually bent down at an angle guaranteed to ensure the water poured down the back of your collar.
The other reason his day wasn’t turning out the way he had anticipated was the presence of his wife. He loved his wife. Absolutely. No, really, he did. After all, she was charming, attractive, witty, elegant and above all incredibly rich. Which was great for parties, fundraising events and getting into the best restaurants in Dachau and Munich.
She was also demanding, spoiled, and utterly useless on a fact-finding expedition into untamed terrain. If she talked about complaining to her father just once more, Tomas knew he’d snap and send her packing back to him. Probably in a crate. Nailed down. With a note to have it stored in the deepest archives of the
Pinakothek
as an example of Aboriginal artwork, not to be opened until he returned. Which, if he had any sense, wouldn’t be for another few years.
Rain or nagging?
Poverty or
Papi
’s money?
Tomas wasn’t proud of this, but the old Graf Feldner’s money went a long way, so Roderika had to be tolerated.
Her didn’t love her that much, after all. And he was pretty certain the (lack of) feeling was reciprocated.
Certainly today they were.
She had moaned at two of their workers for not covering her hair, and shouted at their long-suffering
Diener
for not supplying her with sensible footwear (the poor man had actually tried that morning but she had been adamant that going out in flat soles was unbecoming of a lady). Now she had a broken heel, her feet were caked in dirt and herhair was no longer fashionably up, but hanging damply down her shoulders and covering one eye. In any other situation, Tomas might have found this funny, but he had learned not to laugh at his wife’s misfortunes.
The trouble was he had made the mistake back at the Colby Hotel of telling their son that he was going to find treasure in the mountains. He was looking for a rock that many years of research, poring through ancient texts, the aboriginal writings (such as they were, being mostly modern transcriptions of generational folk tales) and studying the ancient texts both at the Neues Museum in Berlin and the British Museum in London had confirmed was somewhere in the Katoomba area. Echo Point, in the shadow of the legendary Three Sisters to be specific. There were ancient stories that there had been a Fourth Sister once, another colossal prong-like rock formation, but that it had been destroyed by the arrival of the object Tomas sought.
On hearing the word ‘treasure’, Roderika had
One of the advantages that Peter had over other teenagers was that his Killoran heritage meant that, like most canine species, his hearing was very good, way better than an average human’s. So when the TARDIS dematerialisation sound occurred, he heard it.
He sighed. More covering up to do while the Doctor took his mum to God knows where…
8
All She Wants Is
It was 22 December 1934, and Tomas G. Schneidter was not having a great day. Truth was, he wasn’t even having a good one.
For a start, it was raining. All the time he had spent aboard the ship that had brought him here, all he heard from the British and Americans aboard was ‘Oh, you’re gonna love Australia, it’s sunshine all the way’ and ‘I say, Australia’s a jolly marvellous place, awfully warm and green. One can never understand why, when Captain Cook arrived, he didn’t just send the convicts back to small, dirty, cold Britain and move the upper classes to Australia instead, what?’ But no one had pointed out that when it rains in New South Wales, it really rains. And in the famous Blue Mountains, the rain runs down into all the gullies and valleys, turning everything into quite a mess of mud and sludge with very little cover. The trees seemed to have evolved leaves that, rather than keeping the rain off you, actually bent down at an angle guaranteed to ensure the water poured down the back of your collar.
The other reason his day wasn’t turning out the way he had anticipated was the presence of his wife. He loved his wife. Absolutely. No, really, he did. After all, she was charming, attractive, witty, elegant and above all incredibly rich. Which was great for parties, fundraising events and getting into the best restaurants in Dachau and Munich.
She was also demanding, spoiled, and utterly useless on a fact-finding expedition into untamed terrain. If she talked about complaining to her father just once more, Tomas knew he’d snap and send her packing back to him. Probably in a crate. Nailed down. With a note to have it stored in the deepest archives of the
Pinakothek
as an example of Aboriginal artwork, not to be opened until he returned. Which, if he had any sense, wouldn’t be for another few years.
Rain or nagging?
Poverty or
Papi
’s money?
Tomas wasn’t proud of this, but the old Graf Feldner’s money went a long way, so Roderika had to be tolerated.
Her didn’t love her that much, after all. And he was pretty certain the (lack of) feeling was reciprocated.
Certainly today they were.
She had moaned at two of their workers for not covering her hair, and shouted at their long-suffering
Diener
for not supplying her with sensible footwear (the poor man had actually tried that morning but she had been adamant that going out in flat soles was unbecoming of a lady). Now she had a broken heel, her feet were caked in dirt and herhair was no longer fashionably up, but hanging damply down her shoulders and covering one eye. In any other situation, Tomas might have found this funny, but he had learned not to laugh at his wife’s misfortunes.
The trouble was he had made the mistake back at the Colby Hotel of telling their son that he was going to find treasure in the mountains. He was looking for a rock that many years of research, poring through ancient texts, the aboriginal writings (such as they were, being mostly modern transcriptions of generational folk tales) and studying the ancient texts both at the Neues Museum in Berlin and the British Museum in London had confirmed was somewhere in the Katoomba area. Echo Point, in the shadow of the legendary Three Sisters to be specific. There were ancient stories that there had been a Fourth Sister once, another colossal prong-like rock formation, but that it had been destroyed by the arrival of the object Tomas sought.
On hearing the word ‘treasure’, Roderika had
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