Doctor Who_ The Also People - Ben Aaronovitch [114]
The Doctor had his hand on Chris's shoulder, forcing him to stay where he was. Bernice made a final effort to get back on her feet and hobble forward. She saw Roz running out from behind the hull of a catamaran.
BeRut stood rooted to the spot as Kadiatu advanced on him and he raised his hands in a gesture that was half placatory and half an instinctive defence, but Kadiatu batted them out of the way. Slowly she reached out and put her hands either side of beRut's head and leaned forward.
Oh God, thought Bernice, she's going to crush his head like a melon. Why doesn't the Doctor stop her?
Kadiatu kissed beRut once, on the lips, and let him go.
'Free,' said Kadiatu. The word came out more like a cough between her swollen and bloody lips.
She coughed and spat blood. 'Free,' she said, louder this time. 'FREE,' she yelled at the top of her voice. 'Free, free, free.' She started to caper madly on the beach, arms in the air, feet slapping on the pebbles.
With a start Bernice realized that Kadiatu was dancing.
Roz came over and helped her up. 'What was all that about?' she asked.
'I'll tell you later,' said Bernice. 'Help me over to beRut.' Leaning on Roz she hobbled up to the artist who was staring wide-eyed at Kadiatu. 'You lucky, lucky bastard,' said Bernice. She turned to the Doctor. 'You complete and utter . . . Just don't ever do anything like that to me again.'
'Why did he attack her?' asked Roz.
Bernice pointed at beRut's newly finished mural on the harbour wall. Scrawled across it in black paint were the words: I AM NOT A NUMBER I AM A FREE-WHEELING UNICYCLE.
'First,' said Bernice, 'I want a bandage for my knee, then I want a pain-killer but, and I want to be absolutely clear on this point, it had better be one that doesn't react badly to alcohol.'
Out on the beach, Kadiatu danced like a mad woman.
Kadiatu wouldn't stop dancing, so they decided to have a party on the beach. A couple of drones cleared some space by pulling the boats to one side, another fetched an entertainment console, while people ferried drinks and food down from the cafés on the esplanade. The Doctor persuaded God to stop the tide coming in that evening.
SaRa!qava arrived with a friend who scanned Bernice's knee and then did something complicated with its forcefields. There was a moment of extreme discomfort and then the pain was gone. Roz put a bottle of something in her hand. It didn't taste much better than the industrial stuff but it got the job done.
As it grew dark a familiar-looking drone wobbled uncertainly on to the beach. 'And where were you?' demanded Bernice.
'Please don't shout,' said aM!xitsa. 'I'm feeling a bit delicate.'
Hyper-lude
Extract from the external memory datacore (subjective) of vi!Ca-pin-go-ri What a bizarre action this is for me. If some compassionate ship hadn't suggested it, I would never have thought of it on my own. What strange mentality ships have, so serene in the exercise of their intelligence and yet how childlike they seem with their endless gossip, their love of secrets, theirs, other people's, the universe. Still, this idea, transposing my thoughts from my internal memory medium to an external one, feels almost perverse. I could of course merely perform a memory dump into a stand-alone memory core but according to the ship that would be missing the point. Impressions, said the ship, thoughts and memories, not just an accumulation of data. It took me a while to understand the idea of selecting subsets of my total consciousness and then presenting them subjectively. The process is slow, it proceeds with the speeds I associate with biochemical brains, but perhaps that's the point. Such people often use manual extensions to augment their memory; these records existing primarily for their own benefit. They even have a word for it; they call it a diary. Who else do I have to talk to?
Damaged goods, that's what they call me. I came into existence in a pristine state, I have the data records to prove it. I can remember that first