Doctor Who_ The Also People - Ben Aaronovitch [21]
'Beni?' said saRa!qava.
'Sorry,' said Bernice. 'Mind wandering. Just thought I saw a gap in the market.'
'Ah yes,' said saRa!qava. 'Markets. I remember them from school. Third most inefficient method of resource distribution ever invented.'
Roz watched the water for a long time before taking off her armour. This far up the beach she could no longer hear the sound of the children playing. Chris's laughter in particular had followed her along the sand, the girl's lighter tone fading much faster. She should have introduced herself after she'd woken up and seen them in the water. Just strolled over and –
What exactly?
Instead she slipped away from the beach-bar and marched back up the sand until she couldn't hear them any more. At this end the sea had scooped a shallow depression out of a line of big dunes, hidden from the main part of the beach and the hill path inland. The surf broke on a sandbar further out and the sea water that filled the depression was relatively still and perfectly clear.
Roz did a three-sixty turn to make sure no one was in sight before removing her cloak. She folded the heavy fire-retardant material in half and laid it down flat on the sand. Then she reached up and snapped open her shoulder catches. The one on the left gave her trouble. She slapped it hard with the heel of her hand, an automatic movement perfected over twenty years, and it sprang open. The cuirass cracked apart down its side seam, giving Roz access to the catches that anchored the pauldrons to her shoulders. The cuirass and pauldrons eased off as one unit. Roz reached inside the cuirass and switched off the battery pack before placing the pieces carefully on the folded cloak. There was a discoloration on the cuirass where it had been caught by a Kithrian fifty-megawatt laser and then relaminated by the Adjudicator's artificers. Roz idly scratched at the corresponding point on her chest, a patch of skin under her left breast that always itched in hot weather. Purely psychosomatic, the medics said, all the nerve endings having regenerated seamlessly. It's all in your mind.
She knew better; the body always remembered.
With the top half of her armour off it was easy to free her legs from the tasset, cuisse and greaves. She piled them neatly next to the cuirass making sure all the buckles, straps and studs were tucked away in the recesses provided. Then she unsealed the padded undertunic and slipped it off her shoulders and over her hips. Roz folded the tunic in the prescribed manner and placed it on top of the cuirass. She reached awkwardly behind her back to unclip her sensible goretex bra top and shrugged out of the straps. They'd been a present from an admirer, the manager at the local branch of Drop Dead Gorgeous on Overcity Five. He'd showered Roz with underwear for two months until she'd gone round to the boutique and threatened to arrest him for attempted bribery. Most of his gifts went unworn, slight items of silk and Martian lace that spent their days wrapped in tissue at the bottom of Roz's wardrobe. Mind you, there had been a swimsuit made of skin-sensitive micropore that would have come in useful right now. She considered leaving her briefs on but changed her mind and slipped them off, figuring that she'd only have to dry them out later.
Roz walked naked down to the edge of the pool. Cautiously she tested the water with her toe; it was cooler than she'd expected.
Roz had once read of a ritual like this. An adjudicator would strip themselves of their armour and bathe themselves in a pool of clear water. Afterwards one of the Untouched would clothe the adjudicator in a surplice of