Doctor Who_ Beyond the Sun - Matthew Jones [0]
A D V E N T U R E S
* * *
BEYOND THE SUN
* * *
Matthew Jones
First published in Great Britain in 1997 by
Virgin Publishing Ltd
332 Ladbroke Grove
London W10 5AH
Copyright © Matthew Jones 1997
The right of Matthew Jones to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Bernice Summerfield originally created by Paul Cornell
Cover illustration by Mark Salwowski
ISBN 0 426 20511 1
Typeset by Galleon Typesetting, Ipswich
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Mackays of Chatham PLC
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall
not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired
out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior
written consent in any form of binding or cover other
than that in which it is published and without a similar
condition including this condition being imposed on the
subsequent purchaser. So that’s why her lips looked a
little red and puffy.
Scanned by The Camel
For Marsha, Alan and Emma,
names that mine fits so well beside,
with so much love.
CONVERSATIONS WITH THE ENEMY
Kitzinger slipped down to the deep pools in the basement of the university. The shadowed subterranean chamber was empty of people. With no swimmers to disturb it, the water was dark and still. The surface appeared solid, like clear resin.
Through the water, Kitzinger could see the Blooms nestled at the bottom of the pools like clam-shells on a seabed, their huge, dark, ribbed surfaces lit by the underwater spotlights.
Kitzinger stripped off her clothes and waded down the gentle slope on the near side of the pool.
The liquid the Blooms produced was soaked in oxygen: there wasn’t any need for breathing equipment. The water was thick and felt creamy next to her skin. She looked down at her naked body in the low lighting in the room. Her fifty-year-old legs were muscular, but hadn’t escaped the rav-ages of time and cellulite. It had been years since she had done anything but tend to the Blooms.
She would take some exercise, she told herself as she did at least three times a month – maybe involve herself in a new project, something more physical than caring for the children that grew like sea anemones in the bottom of the pool.
She paused when the water reached her mouth. Her body tensed as she allowed the water to lap over her tongue. She forced herself to open her throat and breathe in the sweet liquid. She tensed as she felt herself start to gag; some instinctive part of her mind refused to allow her to drown herself. But her body relaxed as her lungs drew the oxygen out of the liquid. The water closed over her head and the sound of the chamber disappeared, replaced by the intense quietness of the pool. With no air in her lungs to give her buoyancy, Kitzinger began to sink slowly to the bottom of the pool. She rested on the sloping floor for a moment, staring up at the lights of the chamber above her, distorted by the water. When she felt comfortable breathing in the thick liquid, she swam down the underwater slope towards the deepest part of the pool.
The Blooms were slightly open, like mussels after boiling. A leviathan marine creature sieving the sea for food. She swam up to the lip of the shadowed bulk: a middle-aged woman kissing a whale.
As Kitzinger slipped through the metre-high gap, she experienced a childlike fear that the Bloom might suddenly snap closed, breaking her in two or else trapping her inside for ever. It was ridiculous of course. The Blooms weren’t sentient, not according to every test and examination.
There was certainly nothing that could be described as a brain dwelling inside them. In fact, they had more in common with a chunk of crystal than an oyster, belonging to that small group of sil-icon life forms scattered throughout the galaxy.
They were artificial, that much was known, although no knowledge about