Doctor Who_ Left-Handed Hummingbird - Kate Orman [61]
It was Benny who broke the silence. ‘Amongst all this weird weirdness,’ she said, ‘Cristián is the weirdest. Little Cris. It’s like looking at old hologram albums… what are we going to say to him?’
Ace put down her cocoa. ‘“Hey kid, don’t make any long‐term investments”?’
Benny gagged on her croissant. ‘That’s disgusting.’
‘Sorry. It’s weird for me too. My mother is twenty‐three years old, and sometime in the next couple of years she’s going to get pregnant with me. I wonder if I should visit her and gran.’
‘Time travel,’ said Bernice, ‘is like banging your head on a brick wall. Only someone keeps moving the bricks.’
‘At the moment I’m in Crook Meersham having a lousy Christmas. I feel like a paper doll – dozens of copies of me cut out and scattered about.’
‘Perhaps we should pop over to Woodstock,’ suggested the Doctor. ‘There must be at least two of me there already.’
Both of them started. He was standing next to the table, peering myopically at The Times.
‘We’re a bit early for Woodstock,’ said Bernice.
‘Oh? I’ve got my dates a bit mixed up.’ He grinned cheerfully and sat down. ‘I see Apollo 8 is ready for blastoff.’
‘Early spaceflight, Woodstock, hippies,’ said Bernice. ‘It’s like a sightseeing holiday.’
‘Perhaps we should pop over to Viet Nam,’ said the Doctor darkly. ‘You’ll have the chance to talk to the restless natives this evening.’
‘So we’re going to the Christmas party?’ asked Ace.
‘These particular hippies,’ said Bernice, ‘worry me greatly. One minute they don’t want us in their house, the next minute they’re all smiles and hospitality. What are they up to?’
‘Ah, they’re out of their heads,’ said Ace.
‘Think yourself back to 1994,’ the Doctor said. ‘Or forwards. I’m convinced that this is the “Happening” Cristián told us about.’
‘You mean the Happening he didn’t tell us about. I find myself confused. What happens if we run a mile and let the Happening take care of itself? In the future, Cristián told us that we were there. Now, does that mean he actually would have told us that we weren’t there, but then we wouldn’t have had a warning, so we would have gone anyway…’
‘Good grief, don’t start that.’
Ace began to systematically shred her napkin. ‘The enemy’s setting snares for us all over the place. This has to be another one.’
‘The only way to avoid all the snares,’ said the Time Lord, ‘is to abandon walking. No. Running a mile won’t tell us what’s up. And besides, Cristián needs help.’
‘He blew his mind,’ said Ace. ‘Like Achtli eating those little mushrooms.’
Benny sighed. ‘It doesn’t seem fair on the hippies,’ she said. ‘They just want to be free, they shouldn’t be caught up in this. I can’t think of two groups of people who are more different than Aztecs and hippies.’
‘Both of them use mind‐affecting substances to alter their states of consciousness. The hippies use marijuana, amphetamines, lysergide… the Aztecs did it with peyote, morning glory seeds, magic mushrooms. And those who had psychic powers could tune in to the Blue when they were turned on.’
Ace shot the Doctor a glance that said Molly? He returned it with a quiet stare that said Yes.
‘But drugs were an integral part of Aztec culture, with rules and traditions governing their use,’ said Bernice. ‘The hippies are deliberately stepping outside the bounds of their own society.’
‘So the game is not the same.’ Shred, shred, went Ace’s napkin. ‘Cris is going to keep dropping acid until he leaves his groceries at the supermarket.’
‘Which may be why he ended up in a mental hospital.’
‘We need to know what he’s sensing,’ said Bernice. ‘Before his brain melts under the onslaught.’
The Doctor nodded.
‘So we have to go to the Happening.’
The Doctor nodded.
‘Oh, goody gumdrops.’
* * *
Cris was lying on the floor between the window and the bed, a blanket wrapped around him. Looking