Doctor Who: Left-Handed Hummingbird by Kate Orman

Author:Kate Orman
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi, epub
Tags: Science-Fiction:Doctor Who
ISBN: 9780426204046
Publisher: Doctor Who Books
Published: 1993-12-15T10:00:00+00:00

* * *

Bernice began to ascend the pyramid. The air was hot and close, smelling of flowers and fresh‐cut stone, and something else, something metallic. She was speaking to the priests who helped her up the slippery steps. Her voice echoed away in the hot wind, incomprehensible.

The pyramid’s top was flat, its broad back supporting two stone houses, flanked by huge statues of idiot‐faced men gripping tall banners of feathers. The plumes danced in the wind, tracing coloured curves against the searing blue of the sky.

At the front of the shrines was a great chunk of stone like a truncated, blood‐stained bed. The priests led Bernice to it, her shoes slipping in the precious liquid. ‘One day they’re not going to fall for his tricks, his clever strategies, you know. They’re not going to join in the game. They’ll just crush the life out of him.’

They laid her down on the stone. Blood soaked through the back of her shirt as the priests gripped her wrists and ankles, bending her backwards.

There was a priest with a knife. He felt the texture of blue and black paint on his face, and the coarseness of the stone blade in his palm. The knife had a little face of its own, a toothy mouth and a beady white eye that looked up at him.

One of the feathers from the banner tore itself loose and whirled away on the hot wind.

He said something to her in the language like rain, something important, and snapped awake, the answer to the riddle flying away with the feathers, falling over the waters of the lake.

He was sitting at the writing desk in his hotel room. Benny was standing behind him. She had come into the room without waking him up. That was disturbing. So was her question.

‘How long have you known?’

His eyes tracked down to his own face in the mirror. He startled, just for an instant, as though… it were someone else.

He turned away from the mirror to face her. ‘How long have you known?’ he said.

‘Normally,’ she said, ‘you’re like a cat. Cats are completely relaxed all the time, except when they have something to do. Then they’re all purpose. They can snap from complete relaxation to complete tension.’ She put her head on one side, considering his face. ‘Even now, you’re trying to look as though you’re at ease. But you’re taut as a violin string. When you walk, you march. It’s someone else’s body language, not yours.’

‘What does Ace think?’

‘I haven’t mentioned it to her. I’m not sure I trust her right now.’

‘Please,’ he said, ‘don’t say anything.’

‘If there’s something wrong,’ said Benny, ‘I want to bloody know.’

The Doctor opened his mouth and shut it again.

‘You told me you’d never play games with me,’ said Benny. ‘If this is a game, I’m walking out. I’ll go and study the hippies.’ She turned on her heel.

‘Don’t leave me,’ he said.

She turned back. To her not inconsiderable surprise, he broke into a grin. ‘A game,’ he said.

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