Doctor Who - Bernice Summerfield - 09 - Tempest by Christopher Bulis

Author:Christopher Bulis
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Bernice Surprise (Fictitious Character), Idols and Images, Summerfield, Action & Adventure, Juvenile Fiction, General, Science Fiction, Adventure, Theft, Life on Other Planets, Fiction, Women Archaeologists, Railroad Travel
ISBN: 0426205235
Publisher: Virgin Books
Published: 1998-01-02T08:00:00+00:00

* * *

Bernice lay still for an hour as ordered. There wasn’t

anything she could do anyway and she needed to think, as

far as her medically dulled mind would allow.

Out of the surgery window she watched the landscape roll

swiftly by. It was growing colder and greyer. The light from

the perpetual overcast was noticeably dimmer than the day

before, signalling their progress over the curve of the world

and the steadily reducing arc of the invisible sun.

They were passing through a fan forest. Each tree was

formed out of radiating spiny branches filled in between with

a mesh of fine twigs forming a single semi-circular fan

ranging from one to five metres high, angled to stand side-on

to the prevailing wind. A flock of kites shivered and flapped to

and fro in their upper branches under the buffeting of the

wind. The kites looked uncannily like their inanimate

namesakes, having fiat rhomboid bodies and loose jointed

trailing tails with hooked tips. They were one of the few

native forms to have adapted to the winds which could carry

them halfway round Tempest in a few days. Despite their

tough skins and springy bones their mortality levels were

incredibly high, apparently, but as a species they somehow

survived. It was not a lifestyle Bernice envied, but it proved

once again that nature would always take advantage of even

the slimmest evolutionary niche.

Before her hour of enforced rest was up, Pell, Yorland and

Bassit entered the surgery. They commiserated with her

briefly, then, grim-faced, Yorland came to the point.

‘I’m ninety per cent certain Ferlane’s breathing unit was

tampered with,’ he said. ‘The main oxygen feed line to the

regulator valve was loose, so the effects built up gradually.

The monitor circuit didn’t warn him because the gas sensor

lead was also broken. It could just possibly have been the

result of his fall, but I doubt it.’

‘And it was his own personal suit, so there was no trouble

targeting him,’ Bernice mused. ‘How long would it have taken

anybody to fix it that way?’

‘Only two minutes, if they knew what they were doing. Most

people on Tempest who use their suits regularly and have

taken the usual maintenance course would know how.’

‘Which I’ll bet covers all our suspects in Car A, apart from

everybody who was part of the working party itself,’ said

Bernice. ‘And with everybody, including most of the crew,

cither outside or watching the work through the windows,

almost anybody could have visited the suit lockers unnoticed

before Ferlane came out. You’d find out if the rest of the crew

saw anybody was acting suspiciously just in case.’

‘The trouble is people were going in and out all morning,’

Yorland pointed out. ‘Who’d notice if it wasn’t their own suit

they were checking over unless they looked closely?’

Bassit was looking confused. ‘But why attack Mr Ferlane in

the first place?’

‘Because he must have been getting close enough to

frighten our murderer. He hinted to me that he had a new

angle, but he didn’t want to talk about it outside.’

Bassit frowned. ‘But if he hadn’t talked to anybody about

his suspicions, how did the murderer learn of them?’

Bernice blinked in surprise, then smacked the side of her

head. ‘My brain’s not working. You’re

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