Professor Bernice Summerfield and The Glass Prison by Jacqueline Rayner

Author:Jacqueline Rayner [Rayner, Jacqueline]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
Publisher: Big Finish
Published: 2017-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

10

Enforced Sobriety

I really need a drink.

11

Anticipation

DAY -1, MORNING

In the morning, I dismissed it all. Of course Claire wasn't a spy. Of course Claire wasn't part of the cult. Of any cult. Of course she was my friend. Don't you have times like that? Something seems the biggest deal in the dead of night, and you just think 'how could I have been so stupid?' when you've had some sleep and it's daylight again.

That's one thing you can say about the Glass Prison. We're not short of daylight. No worries about east- or west-facing windows, they face north, south, east and west, and all points in between. Strangely, even after my recent... experience, seeing the sun rise still cheers me up. I was beginning to think that perhaps I wasn't a natural late-riser, as I'd previously thought - having had this tendency to stay out half the night and then sleep until the afternoon - perhaps my natural rhythms were more in tune with Mother Nature and slightly less dictated to by alcohol consumption. For some reason, the feeling of relief wasn't the only emotion I woke up with. But I'm not sure how to describe what I felt. It's the sort of thing that I'm pretty sure you can only really empathise with if you've felt it; that defies description - but I'll try anyway. It's like... this was going to be the last day I was whole. Yes, I wanted to get to know my baby as a real little person. Yes, I wanted to be able to do all those things I used to be able to do, like run, or sleep on my stomach, or drink seventeen pints (were they available), but I would never, ever be this close to my child again. At the moment he or she was part of me. After tomorrow - assuming the Fifth Axis were right - we would be two separate people. I had to hang on to every tiny moment of this time, savour it, preserve it in my memory for ever. Every second was precious. Even the ones just lying here, listening to Sophia snoring over the other side of the room.

He or she. I did wonder which it would be. You know how people say, 'I don't care what it is, as long as it's healthy'? Well, I suppose that's true for me too. I mean, I can think of loads of reasons why I'd prefer a girl. But as I can also think of loads of reasons why I'd prefer a boy, it's not really an issue.

It's not like I'm a particularly girlie-girl, desperate to have a little daughter to dress in fairy frocks and silver shoes - which is just as well, because I'm now imagining a tiny female Adrian Wall in pink petticoats, reminding me uncomfortably of those long-outlawed chimpanzee's tea parties - but I can imagine bonding with this little version of me (albeit probably a bit furrier), teaching her the ways of women; giving her insights into the female condition; doing all these little mother-daughter things.

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