Doctor Who: Virgin New Adventures - Bernice Summerfield [081] - Tears Of The Oracle by Justin Richards

Author:Justin Richards
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science-Fiction - Doctor Who
Publisher: Virgin
Published: 1999-06-27T22:00:00+00:00

LINKS

Braxiatel read through the reprinted document in the book slowly and carefully. ‘Hmm,’ he said when he had eventually finished, and handed Living Archaeology back to Benny.

‘Is that it?’ she said. ‘Just hmmm?’

‘What more do you expect?’

‘Well, don’t you see it?’ she asked, waving the book, which given its weight was not an inconsiderable feat in itself.

‘I see the report of another archaeological expedition that got into some sort of trouble.’ He shrugged. ‘You, Benny, more than most people ought to know that this is not a unique scenario.’

‘But the similarities,’ Benny protested. ‘The links between Watkinson and Mikelz, between this expedition to Paracletes and our own…’ She tried to stare him down, but failed.

‘Don’t you see it at all?’

Braxiatel said nothing. Instead, he stood up and crossed over to a small cupboard in the corner of his cramped room, and opened it up. Inside was a collection of bottles and glasses. A moment later he was handing Benny a glass of wine.

‘Thanks,’ she murmured. The liquid was cool, slightly oak-flavoured, and very dry.

‘I’m not convinced,’ Braxiatel said as he poured himself a glass of the wine, ‘that there is anything to see.’ He turned to face her. ‘Truly I’m not. So an expedition had some sort of problem, Watkinson was by all accounts never the same again and soon after that he set off on his final journey to…’ he waved his free arm in an all-encompassing are, wherever.’

He sat down opposite Benny at the small table. ‘But that’s it, I’m afraid. There are coincidences, maybe. But we can’t tell from this,’ he tapped the book, ‘whether there’s any more to it.’

Benny was blinking back tears of frustration. She riffled through the book until she found the right page. ‘But look – it talks about “the state of the bodies”,’ she said, pointing to the words. ‘And here it mentions the suspicion of a bio-hazard.’

In answer, Braxiatel ran his fingers through his hair and gave a short, mirthless laugh. ‘So what does that mean? It doesn’t say what state the bodies were in. Maybe they were burnt, or frozen, or mutilated, or knifed in the back with a knitting needle.’

‘Or mummified.’

He nodded. ‘I admit that could be the case. But we can’t tell, not from this alone. They could have been in penguin fancy dress wearing yellow top hats from what this tells us.’

‘And the bio-hazard?’

‘Again could mean anything. In fact they say there wasn’t one, so far as they could tell. It’s a term to cover ignorance or incompetence. In this case I suspect ignorance.’

‘We don’t know what killed Follett,’ Benny said emphatically. ‘There is a link, I’m sure of it.’

‘Then tell me how you are sure. At the moment we don’t know for certain that there is anything to link Watkinson with the Oracle apart from a couple of letters from Mikelz. Let alone mysterious deaths. Give me more evidence than supposition and intuition. Something we can work with, build on. Research.’

Benny drained her wine and stood up abruptly.

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