Doctor Who_ The Also People - Ben Aaronovitch [108]
She wondered if the prey had any inkling of its fate. Did it sense, just for a moment, that shadow falling out of the darkness before the world ended in a confusion of wings and talons?
Strange, she thought, how fast your life could unravel.
Chris was asleep upstairs with Dep, her hair tangled around his body as it had once, when she was small, tangled around saRa!qava's arms and as Dep's father's hair had caught at her that day up at the windmills. Over the years it had been easy enough to convince herself that stealing Dep was no big thing. During that time Dep's father had visited the sphere on only three occasions and never once visited iSanti Jeni or saRa!qava. She had grown so blasé it had almost ceased to be a secret at all, until the day vi!Cari had told her that it knew.
One scream and you're on your own; that was the saying. After that first scream, when you sucked in air for the first time, all your decisions were your own. Irritated with your parents, move out. Hate school, don't go. Don't blame society, society is not to blame.
And now she knew her daughter was perpetuating the sins of the mother, They said there was a pheromone release associated with pregnancy, whatever the mechanism was. SaRa!qava had watched them lying together in Dep's room and she had known.
In a morbid moment during the night saRa!qava had called up the average life expectancy of someone living under social isolation. It was thirty-two years, predominant cause of death auto-termination.
Who had told Chris about her skills as a hyperspace engineer? Why had she told Bernice about Dep's father? Did she have some kind of deathwish, did she want to be blamed?
No one to blame but herself.
She didn't want to live the half life of a social outcast.
'House,' she called, 'call Bernice, please.'
The Doctor looked up and down the beach. 'Why here?' he asked.
Bernice unfolded the blanket and laid it out on the sand. 'I think she wants to avoid any eavesdroppers.' She opened the hot section of the beer cooler and pulled out a flask of coffee.
'She doesn't want Dep's origins to become general knowledge.'
They sat down next to each other on the blanket.
'Why did she tell you, do you think?' he asked.
'I think she had to tell someone,' said Bernice, 'and she figured that what with me being a barbarian I wouldn't care. And she was right, I don't.' Bernice felt something sting her palm and brushed irritably at it with her other hand. 'Damn,' she said, 'sandfly. Someone is taking authenticity too far.'
Something wriggled unpleasantly against her skin and she looked down. A sandy-coloured grub thing had attached itself to the middle of her palm. It was less than a centimetre long with a segmented body, its head hidden by a smear of blood. Her blood. She realized it was trying to burrow its way through her hand. She gasped with the sudden onset of pain and shock, frantically waving her arm to try to break the thing's grip.
'Doctor,' she yelled.
The Doctor leaned over and, almost casually, seized the grub by its tail and yanked it free, leaving a small ragged hole in her palm. Bernice gritted her teeth and took the handkerchief that the Doctor offered her, making a fist around her hand to stop the blood.
'Shit,' she said. 'What was that?'
The Doctor gingerly held the grub's tail between thumb and fingertip and peered at it. The thing kept trying to twist upwards and bite him, tiny mandibles snapping at his fingers.
'Curious,' said the Doctor.
'I'm glad you find it so interesting,' said Bernice. 'That little bugger just took a chunk out of my hand.'
'Stand up,' said the Doctor quietly, 'but very slowly.'
Bernice got to her feet, wincing as her injured hand banged against the beer cooler. 'We're in trouble, aren't we?'
'Possibly,' conceded the Doctor.
Bernice laughed mirthlessly. 'I knew this place was too good to last.'
The Doctor threw the grub away with a fluid flick of his wrist. They watched it as it landed a few metres away and proceeded to burrow into the sand. 'It's a burrower,' said the Doctor. He shaded his eyes and scanned