Doctor Who: Virgin New Adventures - Bernice Summerfield [071] - Walking To Babylon by Kate Orman

Author:Kate Orman
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science-Fiction - Doctor Who
Publisher: Virgin
Published: 1998-02-27T23:00:00+00:00

6

THE EVENING AFTER THE AFTERNOON BEFORE

You have to assume God always tells the truth. Let’s face it, if God lies to you, you’ll never know about it.

– AgRaven, Interpersonal Dynamics Interest Group

Lafayette dreamt of the river. He rushed along with it, helpless as any leaf or twig, freezing-cold water in his mouth and eyes.

The countryside was a wet green blur. A morning mist hung in some of the lowlying fields, fat white droplets obscuring dark trees. The water carried Lafayette past it, slowing as the river became wide and fat, the current turning into a tidal pulse.

Finally the river became the ocean. Lafayette whirled and bobbed on its surface, soaked through, squinting up at the sky. It seemed to him that the sky lay on the sea, pressing softly down on it, each of them reflecting the other. Neither of them noticed him, a spot of flotsam rising and falling with the waves.

He floated.

Benny dreamt of the ocean. She was standing on the shore, watching the surf.

Further up the beach, her parents were trying to keep the sand out of the picnic food. It was the late afternoon, and the worst of the crowds had dispersed for the day, jamming the single transport rail back to town. Beta Caprisis was sinking behind the buildings, turning them into square shadows against the orange sky.

She hadn’t liked swimming in the ocean, knocked over and thrown up the beach by the breaking waves. The water tasted bad, and the sand hurt her feet, especially where tiny purple shells had collected in a long line, rolled over and over in the same spot. She could see the line from where she stood, just out of the reach of the water. She was collecting shells, especially ones with holes in them which she could string on a necklace, but she didn’t want to wade into the surf to pick them from that purple and black line.

A little further out, she could see a round, dark shape. She squinted at it, wondering if she had imagined it. Then a long, black spike broke the surface of the water, a hint of back or shell rising above the surf and then disappearing! again.

Benny stared, taking a few steps back. She could see the dark shape clearly now, moving under the green water, heading away from the shore. They had been on holiday for a week, but this was the first time she had seen anything living in the ocean. Everything else was dead, washed up, clumps of seaweed or bits of wood, the limitless shells.

Another wave broke, forcing the round thing back up the beach. Its whole body lifted out of the water for a moment, turning. She got a glimpse of a brownish underside, thick, stubby limbs struggling against the water.

The whatever-it-was patiently turned and started heading out to sea again. Benny realized that it had come too close to I shore, and now every time it tried to get back out into the sea, the waves would push it up the beach.

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