Doctor Who_ Blue Box - Kate Orman [62]
She was right. The net was always there, in the same place. We could have dialled in from California and Swan could have called from Germany and the net would still have been in the centre. There’s a Chinese proverb which says
‘Heaven’s net may look loose, but nothing can escape getting caught in it’. For a moment I knew how Bob had felt, looking up at those stars: we were surrounded,
‘It’s not gonna do any good, just talking to Swan,’ Peri was saying. ‘The Doctor always thinks he can talk people out of things. If they’d only listen to reason... but they never do.’
‘Never?’
‘Pretty much never,’ said Peri. She held out her fingers, absently, and I passed the cigarette to her. She took a drag and started coughing and wiping her eyes. I took the butt back. ‘I haven’t done that for a few years,’ she wheezed apologetically. She glanced at the station, like the Doctor might catch her smoking in back of school.
‘What is it with you two?’ I said.
Peri broke up, half-laughing and half-coughing. ‘We are not a couple!’ I back-pedalled like crazy, but she didn’t seem offended. ‘I did have kind of a crush on him. once. He was a lot younger then... but it was like the crush you get on your high school teacher.’
I already knew they weren’t together; all those little touches and glances and familiar words that two people build up, none of those were present. It wasn’t even like an intimate friendship – that also has that secret, shared vocabulary. But I said, ‘No offence. It’s just that you sound kind of like my parents used to.’
Peri gave a little laugh. ‘I guess we do sound like an old married couple sometimes. But we’re just good friends’ She saw my quizzical look. ‘The Doctor is the smartest person I know. I have a lot of respect for him. The problem is, he’s also the smartest person he knows.’ She dropped into a gruff-voiced impression of the Doctor. ‘I cannot agree with those who rank modesty among the virtues.’ In her own voice she said, ‘He just can’t stand it when other people can’t keep up.
Mostly me,’ she sighed. I nodded at her to go on. ‘You know, mom used to say that I wanted to be a botanist because I wanted to be alone. Just me and the plants. It’s a lonely profession, she said. I think she was really talking about archaeology, though. Just her and the artefacts. Listening to dead people.’ She took another puff from the fag and managed to keep it down this time. ‘She actually called it that once.
Listening to dead people.’
‘I get the same impression when I talk to hackers,’ I said.
‘They spend most of their time talking to computers.
Sometimes they’re not so good at talking to other people.’
‘Bob’s like that, isn’t he? He always gives me the feeling I’m wasting his time.’
‘They can be a little wrapped up in themselves. A little impatient with everybody else,’ I said. ‘I think they get disappointed when the rest of us aren’t as smart as they are.’
Peri took the fag out of her mouth, which was curling into her slow, wry smile. ‘I think I know somebody like that.
You’re writing an article about us or something, aren’t you?’
‘I don’t think the Post is going to be too interested in aliens from Epsilon Eridani.’ She handed the smoke back to me and I took a puff ‘Mostly I’m just curious, though. I can’t pin the Doctor down at all. I can’t pin down your relationship.
You seem distant and close at the same time.’
‘We are close. But more like... I know. Once mom and I got stuck in the subway in New York. The power went out, there were no announcements or anything, and we were there for about two hours with a couple dozen people who didn’t know each other. We all ended up talking like old friends, though – we even sang “happy birthday” to an old lady who just turned seventy-eight. We were all best friends because we were going through a bad thing together.’
‘They call that “crisis syndrome”.’
‘Yeah. That’s it. The Doctor and I are always going through one crisis after another.’
Bob rounded the corner and glanced at us. Peri looked awkward