Doctor Who_ The Also People - Ben Aaronovitch [30]
She snagged a glass of tranquillity off a passing tray and quickly stuck her nose in the bouquet that floated in the pale amber liquid. The fragrance calmed her a little. Perhaps holding the party here at the Windmills had been a mistake when she considered what had happened upstairs in the control gallery. Tossing the bouquet aside saRa!qava drained the glass in one go. She refused to feel guilty about that; it wasn't as if she'd had any choice in the matter. The tranquillity helped but not as much as saRa!qava would have liked. She threw the empty glass over her shoulder where it was intercepted by a tray before it hit the ground.
Feeling the need for a distraction, saRa!qava went looking for Bernice.
She found her outside, holding court by the buffet tables. She was surrounded by at least four men and a drone that had come in costume as a small jet airliner. The costume was a dead giveaway: the drone had to be one of Dep's friends from the Weird Aviation Interest Group. Since that type of jet couldn't hover the little machine was trying hard to remain in 'character' by maintaining a tight holding pattern around the group. SaRa!qava thought that it would have been better served coming as something with VTOL capability. The men were slow about opening their ranks, reluctant, saRa!qava thought, to let her into the conversation. Bernice thwacked one of the men on the chest with her fan, forcing him to step back and create a gap for saRa!qava.
SaRa!qava watched how Bernice manoeuvred the big skirt to maintain her personal space.
Perhaps, she thought, she might have misjudged Bernice's costume; if the fan could be used as a weapon then maybe the enormous skirt was more than just ridiculous ostentation, perhaps it could be used to transport concealed armaments. That would certainly gel with what Bernice had told her about this Paris place. 'Light artillery in the war between the sexes', Bernice had called the dress. SaRa!qava thought she understood; intragender warfare was uncommon amongst humanoids but not that rare. If human females were smaller than the males then the skirt would help balance out the weight disadvantage. She wondered what it would be like to make love to somebody wearing a dress like that, peeling away the layers one by one, hunting out the hidden skin beneath the silk.
I've been overdoing the tranquillity again, thought saRa!qava.
A man, dressed as a space pirate in an improbably skintight hostile environment suit and fishbowl helmet, asked if saRa!qava had seen aM!xitsa recently.
'I heard he was down the coast,' said the small airliner, 'looking after some mad alien female.'
'And there was me thinking I was the only one,' said Bernice.
'Who told you that?' saRa!qava asked the drone.
'Vi!Cari,' said the Drone. 'Who else?'
'You talk to vi!Cari!' said another of Bernice's admirers. 'You must be the only person who does.'
'Say what you like about vi!Cari,' said the drone, 'it always knows what's going on.'
'You mean you don't know?' asked the space pirate.
'Know what?' asked the drone.
'Vi!Cari managed to get itself disassembled last night.'
The drone was so stunned that it forgot all about its airliner costume and stopped dead in mid air. SaRa!qava stared; she'd never seen a sentient machine, even one as young as the airliner, lost for words before. She used the moment of distraction to try to suppress the feeling of guilty relief that surged through her.
With a sudden click the drone jettisoned its costume and shot away towards iSanti Jeni, wailing its distress. They heard the muffled boom of it breaking the sound barrier before its discarded plastic wings had hit the floor.
'You could have put that a bit better,' said saRa!qava.