Doctor Who_ Original Sin - Andy Lane [30]
‘Gentlebeings,’ it said in a comforting artificial voice, ‘the Arachnae is about to leave hyperspace and enter orbit around the planet Purgatory, home of the Imperial Landsknechte. Please do not eat or drink anything in the next ten minutes, and secure all loose articles. Any passengers who wish to observe the event, please be advised that the main viewing gallery is now open. For human passengers of a nervous disposition, medication is available by pressing button A on your autodoc. Any –’ A slight but noticeable hesitation. ‘– off world passengers wishing medication should contact the medical orderly. Will those passengers who wish to disembark please ensure that their documenta-tion is valid. Thank you.’
Within moments, a number of passengers had scuttled into the viewing gallery, ready to oh! and ah! and take simcords of the entire event. The wide-eyed, eager ones in the lead were tourists, taking in a quick tour of the Imperial Landsknechte facilities. Purgatory was, after all, one of the Eight Wonders of the Universe. The majority of the funding for the Imperial Landsknechte came from tourism; that and the taxes paid by the worlds that they had conquered during the Wars of Acquisition. It kept the tax burden on humanity down, and helped the Empire to grow in power and prestige. That was what the guidebooks said, anyway.
The dead-eyed, crew-cut ones with the matt-black, shell-like skins saunter-ing on behind the tourists were Landsknechte returning from furlough. Although the journey had only lasted a few hours, Bernice had already had to lay three of them out in the bar. The rest had left her alone after that.
The tourists were taken aback to find Bernice in the best position. She could hear them, murmuring and muttering as they jostled for position, but her attention was absorbed by the spectacle.
The viewing window was twenty metres long and ten high. It wasn’t a real window, of course, just a virtual screen, but the effect was the same. From where Bernice was standing, she couldn’t see the edges, it was as if she was standing in hyperspace itself.
53
Hyperspace was a blur, a blind spot that covered her entire vision. Tendrils of grey writhed against a grey background, but out of the corners of her eyes Bernice could see colours flashing and spiralling everywhere apart from where she was looking. The minute she turned her head, the colours vanished. The longer she looked, the deeper she could see into the unreality, and the more hints of colours she thought she could make out. It was hypnotic.
‘Impressive, isn’t it?’
She turned her head. The ship’s purser was standing beside her: a bot of relatively advanced design, slim and elegant, with an unobtrusive logo embossed upon its carapace. Bernice tried to recall which company used the logo – a hand with an eye in the centre – but there were so many of them around that she couldn’t distinguish one from another any more.
‘Is it?’ she responded, surprised at its forwardness. Bots didn’t usually initiate polite conversation.
‘It always fascinates me. You know the mathematics behind it, I presume?’
Its voice struck her as being oddly rich in tone: plummy, rather overbearing, slightly old-fashioned. Bad choice for a bot whose main duty was reassuring hysterical tourists who’d left Earth for the first time.
‘A multi-dimensional realm of which our ordinary three-dimensional