• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

He was still a good six kilometres above sea level; perhaps he could think of something on the way down. After all, once you've reached terminal velocity it's not as if the extra height makes you land any faster. It's always best to adopt an optimistic attitude at these times, he thought, considering the alternative is long and dreary.

At an altitude of four kilometres the parachute finally turned up, riding the back of its remote-drone. It kept pace with the Doctor on his way down. They had plenty of time for a chat about vacuum horticulture before it was time to put the parachute on and pull the rip cord.

Once he was certain he was going to live his thoughts turned to the poor doomed !C-Mel. It had been a wretched act, to wreck such a fabulous mind and then use the confusion to blow its brains out with a microfusion grenade.

'You've gone very quiet,' said the parachute. 'Would you like some music?'

'Do you know the song that goes: "I'm just a poor boy from a poor family"?'

'No,' said the parachute.

'Oh.'

'Tell you what,' said the parachute. 'You start it off and I'll hum along when I catch the tune.'

Chris and Dep cooked them a meal with their own hands and using none of the villa's automation at all. Much of the food was edible; the stuff that wasn't they gave to Kadiatu. Most of her bruising had abated over the last four hours and the cuts had largely healed themselves up.

'Where's Roz?' asked the Doctor.

'Gone to see you know who,' said Bernice.

'You don't think she's thinking of staying?' asked saRa!qava. 'With feLixi, I mean.'

'Why on earth would she want to stay?' said Bernice. 'All she would have to look forward to here was a man who loves her, a vastly extended life span and an egalitarian society without want, poverty or too much violence. She wouldn't last a week.'

Dep ran out of the room, her hair coiling into bundles with distress. Chris looked stricken for a moment and ran after her.

'Well done, Benny,' said the Doctor. 'I don't know how you do it.'

'It's a gift,' said Bernice.

Roz met feLixi up at the windmills, waiting for him on the iron steps where they had first met. He came noiselessly down the steps and sat down behind her. He put his arms around her and she leant back against the warmth of his chest.

'Tell me about aTraxi,' she said.

His arms stiffened and she felt him shrug his shoulders.

'You must have loved her a lot,' she said, 'to name your house after her. I'm curious. Why didn't you call it Soo'isita? That was her name, wasn't it?'

'No,' he said at last, 'that was her cover name. Her real name was aTraxi. I just didn't want you to feel – threatened.'

'And the meadow by the river with the tree,' said Roz. 'That was her place too?'

'Yes,' said feLixi, 'but it was also my place, something that I wanted to share with you.'

She stood up, suddenly unable to bear the touch of him. He followed her down the stairs and she could feel the pain and confusion radiating from him, his eyes like a mute accusation against her back.

'Vi!Cari kept a diary,' she said. 'Did you know that?'

'No, I didn't,' he said. 'Roz, if something's wrong shouldn't you just tell me?'

'Vi!Cari messed up, didn't it? It saved you but failed to save aTraxi and you never forgave it for that, did you?'

'I tried to forget about it,' said feLixi.

'It was you who told !C-Mel that vi!Cari knew the truth about what happened over Omicrom 378,' said Roz.

'Of course I told it,' said feLixi. 'It had a right to know what vi!Cari was up to. But believe me I never thought !C-Mel would disassemble the drone.'

'If you thought !C-Mel wouldn't kill vi!Cari you were right,' said Roz. 'Vi!Cari might have been damaged goods but he'd had too many decades in the field to be caught like that in a thunderstorm with its sensors looking down and its shields inactive. But it'd have gone out into that storm for you, feLixi, its old shipmate and only friend. Gone looking for traces of the device that kicked up the micro-tsunami.'

FeLixi drew back from her. 'What device?'