Doctor Who_ Cat's Cradle_ Warhead - Andrew Cartmel [61]
She woke up instantly when her flight was called. All around her dazed passengers were getting up like the recently raised dead, groping for their belongings. Ace walked down the sloping umbilical tunnel to the jet, feeling numb. Tired stewardesses stood in the doorway of the plane, smiling and welcoming passengers on board while jet engines screamed beyond the thin plastic membrane. The plane smelled like hotel carpets and air conditioning. She found her seat and leaned over to the window, trying to look out at the dark airstrip. All she saw was her own breath fogging the plastic.
‘I’m sorry but there’s been a mistake with your ticket.’
The steward had to repeat himself twice before Ace realized he was speaking to her. People in the seats nearby were beginning to turn around and look at her. She could feel their eyes on her as she fumbled in the overhead locker for her carry‐on bag, then followed the steward up towards the front of the plane.
The first‐class compartment was a small bubble set into the top of the jet. You entered it by climbing a thickly carpeted spiral staircase. Inside it was dimly and discreetly lit, like an expensive bar, and half empty. Ace didn’t have to check her ticket to find out where she was sitting. He was waiting for her, looking up from a book he was reading. She sat down beside him, trying to get a look at the title of the book, but he’d put it away already.
‘They serve free champagne up here. You can have mine as well if you like.’
‘Thanks for the ticket,’ said Ace. ‘I assume you were behind that scam.’
‘I just asked the airline computer nicely and it upgraded your reservation.’
‘Didn’t expect you to meet me. I dreamed about you, though.’
‘I thought I’d come to see how you are.’
‘Knackered.’
‘I can imagine,’ said the Doctor. ‘You’ve done very well. While I was talking to their computer I checked the cargo manifest. The item you obtained for us is secure in the hold.’
Secure? Secure from being damaged or doing damage? This was news to Ace. She’d imagined the ‘item’ travelling back by some separate route. A slow passage by sea, perhaps. Now she could see the ribbed grey plastic barrel in the belly of the plane, not at all far from where she was sitting. She suppressed the image.
‘You were showing me carpets. In my dream.’
‘Really? That reminds me. How is Miss David?’
‘She can keep her ada gayi. I’m dying for a decent cup of tea.’
‘She used to have a different name, you know. She’s an old friend of mine.’
The plane was moving now, taxiing for take off. A stewardess patrolled the aisle, checking that seatbelts were fastened. She gave Ace a mechanical smile, her eyes cold. Ace saw herself from the stewardess’s point of view. The sunburnt young woman with dirty feet and beat‐up clothes, sitting beside the neatly dressed old gentleman, drinking his champagne.
Well, cheers. Ace poured the complimentary champagne into the plastic airline tumbler and drank the bubbles off it. They burned in her nose and throat as the huge aircraft gathered speed, engines audible now through all the first‐class soundproofing. Gravity pushed Ace back in her seat, a big gentle hand. She sipped the last of the champagne as the plane came off the runway and kept going, rising into the night.
‘In