DW VNA [044] - The Also People by Ben Aaronovitch

Author:Ben Aaronovitch
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science Fiction, General, Fiction
ISBN: 9780426204565
Publisher: London Bridge
Published: 1995-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

'She's become very dangerous.'

Bernice laughed. 'I don't remember her ever being exactly what you'd call safe.'

'It's what's in her head that makes her dangerous,' he said. 'She's already designed one time machine just as a school science project. With the knowledge the Ship downloaded into her brain she's probably the most competent temporal engineer this side of Gallifrey.'

'Should we be talking about this sort of thing' – Bernice made a vague motion with her hands, indicating the rest of the sphere – 'out in the open. I got the strong impression that you didn't want God to know about certain things.'

The Doctor glanced at the black rose; it was still in bloom. 'We're safe for the moment,' he said. 'It'll take God at least five minutes to penetrate my jamming signal, after that we'll have to be careful.'

'Will we be able to talk about this again?'

'Not until we're back in the TARDIS.'

'Which is currently –?'

'In a defensive picosecond forward displacement.'

'You don't trust God then?'

'Let's just say I'd rather not put temptation in its way.'

'What an interesting theological concept. We must discuss it some time,' said Bernice. 'But not right now. How dangerous is Kadiatu?'

'Very, very dangerous.'

'To what?'

'I'm trying to think of a way of explaining this without getting too metaphysical,' said the Doctor. 'People who travel in time are not like other people. To travel in time is to step out of the normal course of history and by doing that you become vulnerable, let's say, to the influence of the other things that also exist outside of linear time.'

'Gods,' said Bernice, 'you're talking about Gods, aren't you?'

'I prefer to think of them as extremely powerful trans-temporal beings,' said the Doctor primly.

'Because of their extreme nature it's actually quite difficult for them to intervene in the mundane day to day world so they're always on the look-out for suitable agents.'

'Like Kadiatu?'

'Time travel is a form of power and power without responsibility is very dangerous.'

'So what are you planning to do about her?' asked Bernice.

'I don't know,' he said. 'She may have to be put to sleep.'

He forced himself to watch her face change. Interest giving way to shock, to anger, to betrayal and then, most painful of all, to an expression of profound disappointment. All these emotions, the entire course of the conversation up till now, he had predicted the night before as he stood with aM!xitsa looking out over Kadiatu's cove, but that didn't make it any easier to bear.

There would have been a time, long ago, when Bernice would have asked him if he was joking, or assumed that he meant 'put to sleep' in a literal sense. A time when she would have made enquiries about stasis capsules or jokes about spinning wheels. Since then, he knew, she had lost most of her illusions about him.

Bernice was looking at him with something close to loathing, unconsciously shrinking back from him in her chair. He wanted to reach out to her and explain what it was he was trying to achieve but that would ruin everything.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.