Doctor Who_ Interference_ Book One - Lawrence Miles [135]
It was while she’d been puzzling this out that the dust storm had started. She’d heard squawking noises from inside the show, the sound of the townspeople complaining about the weather, and the ones whose skins hadn’t yet been turned to leather had started drifting away from the site. Sarah had squeezed herself between wagons twelve and thirteen, squashing herself into a little ball next to the ropes that tethered the caravans together, partly so she wouldn’t be seen and partly because she felt safer that way. Now she sat with her arm across her face, trying to peer into the middle of the circle without letting the dust get under her eyelids, telling herself that this morning’s no‐mascara decision had probably been a good one. The dust storm was starting to blot out her view of the people in the show, but she could still see their shadows running past her, big black shapes limping out of the circle.
Terrific. There was no way she could get back into town without being cut to bits by the dust, and the townspeople seemed to be telling her that, if she stuck around much longer, the shelter of the wagons wouldn’t be enough to save her bottom from the storm. She peered up, over the edge of her sleeve, and found herself looking straight at door number thirteen.
Well, it was risky. Technically trespassing. But then again…
‘Wouldn’t do it if I were you,’ said I.M. Foreman.
‘Why not?’ asked Sarah.
‘We don’t let Number Thirteen out of his wagon. Not very stable. Happy enough if he stays still, but it’s best not to get him excited.’
‘Oh,’ said Sarah. ‘Um, how long have you been standing there, by the way?’
‘Not long.’
‘Mmm. And why wasn’t I surprised when you started talking?’
She tried to look up at his face, but all she could see was his silhouette, a blur of brown against the yellow of the dust clouds. The showman was standing between her and the inside of the ring, stretching out his arms to the storm, playing to the weather like he’d play to any other audience.
‘There aren’t any surprises here,’ he said, and the dust didn’t make him cough or splutter at all. ‘Haven’t you noticed? This is the final frontier your people were always waiting for. All the filth and squalor of life on the edge of civilisation. A whole world turned into the last outpost of the Old West. Just what the human race has been expecting all these years.’
‘I’m sorry?’ said Sarah.
‘This is the very edge of your galaxy,’ I.M. Foreman went on. ‘As far as the human empire ever stretched. As far as human signals ever came. All those old transmissions about frontier life, about gun law and survival of the fittest. All those films and sketches and stories, buried deep down in your culture. All those ideas ended up in one place, and that place is here.’
‘Er…’ said Sarah. She wasn’t altogether sure that now was the right time for this sort of thing.
‘See the human race, transmitting its way across space and time,’ rattled I.M. Foreman. Putting on his best showman’s voice for the benefit of the storm. ‘This is the Dead Frontier. The transmissions of a collapsed and corrupted culture. The legacy of the twentieth century. A world based on the principles your generation laid down. Men in black organic body armour instead of men in black hats. Congratulations.’
Sarah would have stared at him, if her eyes hadn’t been so full of grit.
‘My generation,’ she repeated.
The silhouette shrugged. ‘You’re from the twentieth century. 1970s or 1980s, bard to be sure. They both smell the same. Early media age, whichever way you look at it.’
‘Oh,’ said Sarah. ‘So you know.’
‘I told you, didn’t I? No surprises here.’ He reached out with one hand, apparently offering to help Sarah up. Sarah didn’t take it, mostly because she was worried that it may start bleeding again.
‘We’d better get inside,’ I.M. Foreman added. ‘My wagon, I think.’
‘Your wagon?’
‘Number one. Just across the way. We’re running out of time.’
He was looking up now, Sarah saw.