Doctor Who_ The Also People - Ben Aaronovitch [13]
Bernice leant to murmur in Roz's ear. 'Oh, great, machines with attitude.' The other woman smiled.
'Ah,' said God. 'Prejudice.'
They never did quite get to pin down how much of the storm was real. The Doctor and God got into a light-hearted philosophical argument about what reality was at a fundamental level. It escalated to the point where both resorted to logic symbols, glowing holographic tiles that got shunted around the living room at knee level.
Roslyn fell asleep again, her head resting on Chris's shoulder. It was funny watching how he was so careful not to disturb her. Three-quarters of his body remained its normal expressive self while his shoulder never moved, not even when a tremendous flash of lightning lit the world from sea to sky, illuminating a limitless expanse of boiling waves. A clap of thunder big and loud enough made even the Doctor and God pause in mid argument.
'Just a moment,' said God, and then resumed the conversation.
Later Bernice asked herself whether she might not have seen something in the sudden darkness after the flash. Just a speck of something reflective far out to sea, falling.
The storm abated, the popcorn was finished.
Bernice was tired again. Why? She hadn't done anything strenuous that day, if you didn't count trying to have a bath in a suspensor pool. Perhaps you could get tired even without constant stress; it was certainly a thought. She hadn't had much opportunity to experiment in that direction recently.
'This is the best bit,' said God.
The clouds parted to reveal the fabulous nightscape of the sphere. Artistically framed in the upper left-hand corner of the picture window was a blue and white planet, complete with continents and swirling clouds. It was the same apparent size as Earth seen from the moon.
Whynot. Home of most of God.
It took a special kind of confidence to build a Dyson sphere and then orbit a planet inside. The Doctor said they were lucky it was so close; the orbit was designed in such a way that Whynot passed over every part of the sphere in turn. 'Like a three-dimensional spirograph pattern,' he said.
Whatever a spirograph was.
With no appreciable effort Chris picked Roz up and carried her upstairs. Bernice found herself yawning and decided to follow. She left the Doctor deep in his conversation with God.
2
Life's A Beach
Wake up in the morning.
Baked beans for breakfast.
So that everyone can beef-head
Ooh, ooh, my ears are alight.
Chris Cwej
Morning.
Although it's hard to tell when the sun is nailed to the ceiling.
Bernice Summerfield hangs upside down in a perfectly spherical globe of warm water.
Fortunately she has managed to push her head into the air and so is in no danger of drowning.
She is thinking that there must be a trick to using a bath like this but it's something she's never learnt. She's been weightless many times but she's used to ablution facilities that minimize the problem, not simulate it.
She refuses to thrash about. To thrash like a hooked fish would be to lose the essential core of dignity that is central to her personality. She will remain calm and think of something.
The door to her bedroom is open, the pile of belongings she left on her bed clearly visible. As she watches an invisible force is folding her clothes one item at a time until they are piled neatly at the foot of the bed. There are no pixies, she realizes; instead, the machine that runs the villa merely uses a variety of forcefield projectors to do its daily chores.
It certainly gives her something to think about.
Just as soon as she can get herself the right way up.
There was a note from the Doctor. It should have read GONE FISHING but the word 'fishing' had been crossed out with heavy-handed pen strokes and the word SAFARI scribbled in above it. Chris wanted to know what a safari was.
'It means to travel,' said Roz, 'in Swahili.'
'No, it doesn't,' said Bernice. 'It's when you watch wild animals.'
'What wild animals?' asked Chris.
'Benny, I speak