Doctor Who_ Psi-Ence Fiction - Chris Boucher [42]
Spart was frowning at the supervisor. 'I'm not surprised Zena chinned you.'
'Leela,' the Doctor said, wandering back to the supervisor's desk. 'Her name is Leela.' He leant across the desk. 'You didn't answer my question by the way,' he said and picked up the bottle of water. 'Do you drink a lot of this stuff?'
Chloe lay in the darkness with her eyes wide open. Not that it made any difference: open or closed, she could see nothing. The inside of the tank was almost totally dark and she was wearing light-excluding goggles just to be sure. Like a black cat in a sack in a cellar, she thought, only more relaxed because, unlike the cat, she could understand what was happening to her.
The warm water buoyed her up and gradually the touch of it was disappearing from her skin so that she was floating, hovering in the essence of the blackness. She could hear nothing but the pulse of her own blood soughing in her ears. She had never felt so completely detached from everything. She was free. There was no stress. She was awake and she was asleep at the same time. She smiled and sighed from the pure pleasure of it.
Then a thought drifted into her half-asleep mind. It struck her that she had not heard herself sigh. She repeated the sigh, slightly more positively, adding an element of extra throat-iness and a small uuh noise to it. She was still unsure whether she had heard the sound of that or not so she cleared her throat loudly. This time there was a noise of throat-clearing but it was oddly muffled and distant. It seemed to be coming from someone else.
While her sight had been deliberately cut off nothing had been done to affect her hearing, so why was she suddenly deaf, she wondered. 'Hullo,'
she said aloud. 'Can you hear me?' Again the sound of it was muffled or at least, as far as she could tell, it was not very loud. Of course, she realised, there was no way to tell how loudly she had actually said it. There was no objective measure of the volume. And the water would affect her ears wouldn't it? Her ears were under the water. Or were they? There was no way to tell that either, since she could no longer tell where the water was.
For all she knew she could be under the water. She could be drowned. She could be drowned and dead. Or this could be nothing but a dream, and any moment now the frightening weirdness could kick in and she would know that it wasn't happening and feel that it was happening and know that it was happening and feel that it wasn't happening: all at the same time.
How do you feel in there?' Barry Hitchins' voice was much louder than her own.
'All right,' Chloe said. 'I can't hear myself clearly. Can you hear me clearly?'
Yes, quite clearly.' The voice was warmly reassuring.
Everything's fine. I can hear you and see you quite clearly.
You can't hear clearly because of the tank's acoustic blanketing and because your ears are under the water'
That made sense, Chloe thought, but then what about the fact that: 'I can hear you clearly.' And so close: it was almost as though he was inside her head.
'Receiver taped in your left ear?' the voice prompted That's right, she remembered them doing that, of course she remembered them doing that. Pay attention, Chloe, she thought. Half-asleep obviously.
But then what about the fact that: 'It's under water then:
'Isn't technology wonderful.' The voice had a chuckle in it. Especially expensive technology.'
He shouldn't do that, Chloe thought. He shouldn't chuckle like that. He sounded insincere. Was he lying to her? Would an earpiece like that work under water? Wouldn't the water short it out or get behind it or would the signal work at all? Maybe it was the warped logic of a dream. She put her hand to her ear but somehow the movement got lost. 'Yes,' she said, barely hearing herself.
'If you're ready, Chloe,' the voice in her ear said.
'Yes,' she