Doctor Who: The Also People (30 page)

'Did you find anything interesting?' he asked.

She gave him a half smile. 'Nothing important,' she said. 'Filling in a few blanks and chasing down some leads. Ninety per cent of an investigation consists of digging away at a big pile of shit until you find something.'

'What's the other ten per cent?'

'Knowing what isn't shit when you find it,' said Roz.

'Do you trust me?' he asked when they stepped out at their destination.

'How long do I have to answer that?' asked Roz.

FeLixi put the hamper down on the platform, unclipped the lid and drew out the blindfold. Roz looked at him suspiciously. 'I want it to be a surprise,' he explained. 'You don't have to if you don't want to,' he said.

Roz hesitantly took the blindfold from his fingers and placed it over her eyes. 'You'd better not run me into anything,' she said.

Promising to be extra careful he put his hand on her shoulder and guided her into the lift. It took half a minute to reach the top of the shaft. He could feel the heat of her skin through the thin material of her top. The lift egress was camouflaged so that when they stepped out it was into direct sunlight. The lift vanished back into the ground leaving no sign of its presence except a discreet tag on a nearby tree.

FeLixi looked around, trying to recall the route; it had been thirty years since he'd come to this place. The trees were a little taller, the undergrowth thicker than he remembered.

'What's that smell?' asked Roz.

'Tree blossom,' said feLixi.

'It's worse than the inside of a knocking shop,' said Roz.

He took her hand, surprised at how small it felt in his, and led her carefully through the wild orchard. They had to take it slowly, feLixi telling Roz when to step over roots or around bushy tangles; the path barely existed any more. FeLixi was pleased because it meant that no one else had discovered this place. It was still his very own secret.

'How much further?' asked Roz.

'Almost there,' he told her.

They stopped at the edge of the orchard and feLixi slipped the blindfold off Roz's head. She looked around slowly. He wondered if he might have made a mistake, suddenly afraid that what had been magical for him wouldn't be for the strange, grim woman at his side.

'It's beautiful,' she said.

They were standing on the ragged fringes of a sheltered alpine meadow that undulated down to the banks of a river. A confusion of brightly coloured flowers grew amongst the long grass, clusters of pink nightwort and primrose droneleaf, yellowpetal and scarlet spindoctor. A single lopsided tree grew on the river bank, stretching gnarled limbs out over the cool green water.

Unbelievably feLixi saw that the rope he'd strung from the lowest limb all those years ago was still hanging, trailing its end in the water. Beyond the river the ground sloped steeply up to a ridge fringed with purple scree. The still air was heavy with the smell of blossom and the fragrance of the flowers.

'I'm almost afraid to step on the grass,' said Roz. She let go of his hand and bent down to pick a yellowpetal, her fingers hesitating a centimetre from the flower. 'I shouldn't take this, should I?'

'Why not?' asked feLixi. 'There are thousands of flowers.'

She snapped the stem and lifted the flower to her nose. She frowned. 'There's no smell,' she said, disappointed. He explained that yellowpetals had no fragrance. 'Oh,' she said. 'How typical.'

She tried to tuck the flower behind her ear but it fell out.

'Where would you like to sit?' asked feLixi.

'Down there,' she said, 'by the tree.'

FeLixi felt a tiny stir of disquiet: it had been aTraxi's favourite spot. 'This is the oldest landscaped part of the sphere,' he said, acutely aware that he was talking to cover his unease.

'None of this was designed – it all happened by deliberate accident.'

He reached out his hand. She glanced at him, her dark eyes guarded, but she let him take hers. He saw her delicate nostrils dilate and wanted desperately to touch them with the tip of his nose, to explore the streamlined contours of her face with his lips.

She turned away and pulled him down the slope towards the tree. They'd gone a few metres when suddenly Roz yelped and jerked her hand away from him. 'Look out,' she shouted,

'something just bit me.'

'Relax,' said feLixi quickly, 'it's just a thistle.'

Roz looked down at her leg. 'Oh, shit,' she said. 'What idiot put an aggressive plant there?'

'I told you,' said feLixi, – 'this area is completely natural. If you'd like to hop over there I'll pull the thorns out.'

He spread a blanket out by the tree and persuaded her to lie down and rest her leg in his lap.

The hamper had the usual integral first-aid kit; he removed the regen spray and laid it down by his foot.

'I don't know, Roz,' he said, 'a meadow full of flowers and you have to step on the only thistle.'

A cluster of arrow-headed thorns had pierced Roz's calf. Gently he took hold of the first between his thumb and forefinger and plucked it out.

'You said none of this was designed,' said Roz. 'Was it transported from your original homeworld?'

'We didn't have an original homeworld,' said feLixi. 'Or rather we had several; the original people were an amalgam of different species. We all achieved starflight about the same time and ran into each other here, at this star system. That's one of the reasons we built the sphere here.'

Roz winced as he yanked the last thorn. He wiped up tiny beads of blood with a napkin.

'It was a white dwarf at the time,' he said. 'We had to tinker with it a bit.'

'And yourselves?' asked Roz. 'You must have tinkered with yourselves as well, so you could interbreed. It would be too much of a coincidence that different species which evolved out of different biospheres would be biologically compatible. That would be taking convergent evolution too far.'

FeLixi sprayed regen over the cuts. The spray was perfectly capable of dissolving the thorns on its own but then he wouldn't have had the chance to touch her leg. 'It was a long time ago,' he said. 'We have a saying: "The more alternatives you have to fighting the less likely you are to fight." Especially if the alternatives are more fun.'

He replaced the spray in the first-aid kit. Roz slipped her leg off his lap. Carefully, so as not to spook her, feLixi lay down beside her on the blanket. Roz didn't make any objections. 'So what's natural about this place then?' she asked.

'When the sphere was first constructed there were only twenty billion or so people so God figured it had some room to experiment. It set aside six million hectares, gave it only a minimum of landscaping, just the mountains and some bacteria to break down the rock into soil. All the flora and fauna here migrated in from the surrounding landscaped areas over thousands of years.

God let the area form its own ecosystem and calls this place the Wilderness Recreation Area. It won't let anyone live here.'

Roz sighed. 'Where I come from,' she said, 'there are no wilderness areas, natural or contrived.

We have parks at the top of the overcities, beautiful ones, but it's not the same as this. Hard to believe that anything so beautiful could have arisen spontaneously.'

'You did,' said feLixi and then really wished he hadn't. As a chat-up line it was incredibly inept.

Roz obviously thought so too; he heard her laughing. 'Men,' she snorted. 'Why do you always talk such bullshit.' He felt her shifting beside him, lifting herself onto her elbow to look down on him.

'You don't think it's true?' he asked.

'I've seen myself in the mirror,' said Roz.

Her face was so close that he could feel her breath on his cheek. 'No one,' he said with absolute conviction, 'ever
really
sees themselves in the mirror.'

Roz, as if suddenly realizing how close their noses were, pulled away from him to scrutinize his face from a distance. FeLixi resisted the urge to reach out and pull her back down. She wouldn't resist, he knew that; she could feel the attraction between them, but he knew that it was too important that Roz came to him in her own time.

Turning her face, Roz picked up his hand, pressing her thumb into his palm, feeling out the myriad small bones under the skin as if examining it for defects. 'I saw a hologram of you yesterday,' she said. 'You had an extra thumb on both hands.' She let his hand drop back onto his chest and traced a finger up his forearm, pausing when she reached the inside of his elbow.

FeLixi tried to keep his breathing under control.

'Your elbow joint was different too,' she said. 'Looser and more flexible.' She turned back to look him in the face. 'Your eyes were pink.' It sounded almost like an accusation.

'I was doing a mission on a barbarian planet during the war,' he said. 'The locals were extremely xenophobic so the ship had to modify me cosmetically to fit in.'

'There was a woman with you,' she said.

'She was part of the mission too,' he said, wondering how much he dare tell Roz. 'She was an agent we recruited locally. We were friends.'

'What was her name?'

'Soo'isita,' said feLixi. 'In her language it meant "laughing bird".'

'Where is she now?' Roz's eyes looked strange, both shuttered and suspicious at the same time. FeLixi knew that look.

'She stayed behind when we left the planet,' he said.

Roz nodded, apparently satisfied with that answer. A sly, almost mischievous look came into her eyes. 'I'm going to kiss you now,' she said. 'You know what a kiss is?'

FeLixi smiled. 'The thing with the lips.'

'Think of this as a game,' said Roz, 'and the rules are these: no contact except at the face, no touching anywhere else. First person to break off or touch something they shouldn't has to pay a forfeit.'

'What's the forfeit?'

Roz looked around the meadow. 'They have to jump in the river.'

'That river comes right off a glacier,' said feLixi. 'It's freezing.'

'Better not lose then,' said Roz. 'Ready?'

'Ready.'

Roz leaned down until their lips were nearly touching. He could smell the chocolate smell of her moisturizer, the oily tang of her hair conditioner.

'No prisoners,' she murmured softly.

'No prisoners.'

When dusk came they lay together, naked under the blanket, and watched the world come out.

From this point on the sphere Whynot was visible high up in the sky, a tiny perfect jewel hanging against the bright blue waters of the Endless Sea. Their clothes flapped from the branches of a tree, dry for a long time but forgotten.

'You were right about the water,' said Roz.

'You didn't have to jump in,' said feLixi.

She shifted on to her side and rested her face on his shoulder. 'Yes, I did,' she said. 'I made the rules so I had to stick by them, hoisted by my own petard. I guess I just thought I had more self-control.'

'I'm flattered.'

'You should be,' she said. 'I wasn't even drunk.'

Roz's fingers dug into his chest. 'What are you doing?' he asked.

'Counting your ribs,' she said.

'I've got thirteen,' he said. 'Eleven anterior and thirteen posterior.'

'I can't hear your heart,' she said.

He showed her the correct place, on the centreline of his chest, protected by his sternum plate.

'Slow,' she said. Her palm slipped down to his abdominals. 'Faster now.' Her fingers brushed through his pubic hair. 'Much faster. Now this is familiar.'

FeLixi swallowed.

'I've never been this close to an alien before,' said Roz. 'You're not so different.' She took his hand and placed it on her hip, an invitation he realized. Rolling on his side to face her, feLixi eased his leg between her thighs, feeling the heel of her foot press into the back of his calf. Her bracelets rattled, gently scraping the skin of his waist as her palm slipped around the small of his back. He felt her nose brush against his cheek, the hollow of his eye, her teeth catching at his lower lip.

'Not so different at all,' she murmured.

The Doctor and Bernice dined alone that evening, the figurines of Roz and Chris standing on the table between them. The Doctor found their resemblance to large chess pieces disturbing. He was careful not to communicate this to Bernice. A third figure was missing from the table, he thought.

Kadiatu.

'Where's Roz?' asked Bernice. They both had a pretty clear idea of where Chris was.

'Walking out with feLixi,' said the Doctor.

Bernice muttered something under her breath.

'Pardon?'

'It's all right for some,' said Bernice and then looked embarrassed. 'I suppose I just didn't expect her to get "distracted" in that way. Now, Chris I understand but Roz?'

'All work and no play makes Roz a compulsive monomaniac,' said the Doctor. 'Are you jealous?'

'Christ, Doctor, what a question,' snapped Bernice. 'I'm very happy that Roz is going to get her end away. If you must know I've had a few offers in that direction myself.'

'SaRa!qava?'

'And others,' said Bernice. 'I'm just not in the mood.'

'You have a lot on your mind,' said the Doctor.

Bernice's fork clanked down on her plate. 'Well, thank you so much,' she said. 'I was trying not to think about that.'

'You have to tell me your decision tomorrow.'

'I'm quite aware of the deadline,' said Bernice. 'Now if it's all the same to you, I think I'll retire for the night.' She stood up and walked away from the table.

'Not as easy as you thought it would be,' said the Doctor.

Bernice paused at the bottom of the stairs and looked back at him. 'No,' she said, 'not easy at all.'

The Doctor sat all alone with two unfinished plates of food. All alone, unless of course, God was eavesdropping through the villa's comm system.

If she ever works it out, he thought, I'm going to be an ex-Time Lord.

Mind you, if I'm lucky, Kadiatu will kill me first.

'AgRaven. Wake up!'

AgRaven fell out of bed. The last time kiKhali had used that tone of voice had been during the war. It took her a moment to realize that she was safely in her cabin on board the !C-Mel. The fluid bed was rippling with the speed of her departure, disturbing the other occupants so that they rolled over. Gingerly she lifted the covers and checked: a man and a woman, neither of whom she knew. What in blazes had she been doing last night?