Thief of Time - Vs Auditor

She stopped. She picked up a length of rubber hosepipe that was coiled on a hook by the glass jars and looked hard at it. Then she tossed it into a corner and stared at it as if she had never seen anything like it before.

'Don't say a word,' she said quietly. 'They have some very acute senses. Just ease back among those big glass vats behind you and try to look inconspicuous. And do it NOW.'

The last word had odd harmonics to it and Lobsang felt his legs begin to move almost without his conscious control.

The door moved a little and a man came in.

What was strange about the face, Lobsang thought afterwards, was how unmemorable it was. He'd never seen a face so lacking in anything to mention. It had a nose and mouth and eyes, and they were all quite flawless, but somehow they didn't make up a face. They were just parts that made no proper whole. If they became anything at all it was the face of a statue, good looking but without anything looking out of it.

Slowly, like someone who had to think about his muscles, the man turned to look at Lobsang.

Lobsang felt himself bunch up to slice time. The spinner groaned a warning on his back.

'That's about enough, I think,' said Susan, stepping forward. The man was spun around. An elbow was jabbed into his stomach and then the palm of her hand caught him so hard under his chin that he was lifted off the floor and slammed against the wall.

As he fell, Susan hit him on the head with a wrench.

'We might as well be going,' she said, as if she'd just shuffled some paper that had been untidy. 'Nothing more for us here.'

'You killed him!'

'Certainly. He's not a human being. I have... a sense about these things. It's sort of inherited. Besides, go and pick up the hose. Go on.'

Since she was still holding the wrench, Lobsang did so. Or tried to do so. The coil she'd flung into the corner was knotted and tangled like rubber spaghetti.

'Malignancy, my grandfather calls it,' said Susan. 'The local hostility of things towards non-things always increases when there's an Auditor about. They can't help it. The hosepipe test is very reliable in the field, according to a rat I know.’

***

The Thief of Time - p245-246