Doctor Who_ Byzantium! - Keith Topping [28]
The Culture Bunker, Part One —
Heliocentric
And he took the damsel by the hand,
and said unto he Tal-I-tha cu-mi,
which is, being interpreted, Damsel,
I say unto thee, arise.
Mark 5:41
The house was carved from the living rock; bare and gnarled sandstone hewn into habitable shapes by the combined efforts of man and nature. Two medium-sized square holes in the wall, covered by a gauze-like substance, were the only sources of light besides the roaring fire that danced and crackled merrily in the centre of the Spartan and undecorated room. Behind the fire was a small wooden table at which sat three curious people whose eyes were glued onto the new arrival into their home.
Vicki, meanwhile, feeling as if she were an insect being observed under a microscope, was sitting in the opposite corner, her knees drawn up to her chin, literally shaking with fear and trying hard not to cry.
Finally, one of her rescuers spoke.
It was the man.
`Be not afraid, child,' he said in a deep voice. Every kidnapper in every bad video film that Vicki had ever seen had used that as an opening line. She wasn't buying it in the slightest.
'Sorry but that's, like, pure dead easy for you to say,' she stammered in reply.
'I mean thee no harm.'
'I don't believe you. You're a liar.'
The man stood up from the table. He was in his late thirties, unshaven and with the dark, olive-skinned complexion of a Greek. Vicki had seen many of the indigenous population during her time in Byzantium and she was, she thought, getting fairly good at spotting the differences between Thracian Greeks and other cultures in the town, like Palestinian Jews, Mesopotamians, Macedonians, Nomadic Turks, Bedouin Arabs, as well as the Romans who, with their uniforms, all looked so different to everyone else.
Still, the fact that these people were from the civilised race that built the acropolis and produced (so Barbara Wright had told her) Socrates, Plato and Archimedes (whoever they were) cut no ice with young Vicki. Her present predicament was looking 'a bit iffy', to use one of Ian Chesterton's favourite phrases. Decidedly iffy.
`What do you want from me?' Vicki asked nervously.
`Want? I saved your life, little one. You were crying out for the help of anyone with ears to listen to your pleas,' the man replied.
`Thank you,’ said Vicki, and she genuinely meant it. 'Much appreciated, I'm sure. Now, how do I get out of here?'
`No, no, no'
It was the woman, still sitting at the table with a girl of roughly Vicki's age by her side, who answered. Well built and with arm muscles that looked as though they could sink a battleship, the woman's head was wrapped in a grey shawl whilst she wore the clothes of poverty. Her face betrayed a strange mixture of curiosity and apoplectic anger. 'You are not going anywhere to tell them that we were the hapless ones who helped you. What, and see us end up in terrible trouble all because of you?'
`Who is them?' asked Vicki, but her question was ignored as the woman turned to the standing man and began to berate him in their own language for bringing this, whatever she was, into their home and endangering them all.
Ì can understand every word you're saying,’ Vicki noted when the woman paused for breath. ‘I speak many languages. Apparently.'
All three heads in the room turned in her direction, including the still silent girl whose deep brown eyes betrayed a fear equal and opposite to Vicki's own, And Vicki's revelation had the effect of making the older woman not just angry but frightened as well. 'Get her out of here,' she told the man. `Get her out, now And make sure that she speaks to no living soul about us.'
`That sounds peachy-fine to me,' Vicki replied. Then the full implications of what the woman was suggesting sank in and she realised that this was not meant as a solution to everyone's problems, merely those of her rescuers. She shuffled backwards, scraping her hands and legs on the rough stone floor, until her back collided with the bare rock of the wall. She hugged her knees to her chest again. 'Oh God,'
said