• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Bernice shrugged. 'Will she be all right for two days?'

'I think aM!xitsa can probably stop her from killing too many people in the meantime.'

'She's not that bad, Doctor.'

'No, she's worse,' he said. 'But it's not my problem now, it's yours.' He pushed the suitcase across the table towards her. 'You might find the contents of the folder useful. I downloaded it from the Imogen database in Zagreb.'

'What is it?'

'Kadiatu's user manual.'

Bernice glanced once into the suitcase and then gingerly, as if she was wary of touching it, snapped the lid shut. 'How long have we got?'

The Doctor checked the rose again; it was beginning to contract. 'Thirty seconds,' he said.

'My decision,' said Bernice, getting up.

'Your decision,' said the Doctor.

'Just you remember that,' she said and walked away.

The Doctor watched the black rose as its petals crumpled inwards. When it had become a tight bud he picked it calmly from the vase and ate it. He estimated that it would take just over two minutes for his gastric juices to break it down. Just let God try and figure out how it worked after that.

He fervently hoped that Bernice would be enough to tip the balance.

Otherwise he was going to have to kill Kadiatu after all.

The travel capsule was a flat-bottomed cylinder six metres long and two metres high. Comfy-fields ran the length of each side, coffee tables with scrolling menus were spaced between them. The capsule itself ran through a network of evacuated tunnels built into the foundation material of the sphere. Every house had its own lift down through the bedrock to a station below. So far, there had always been a capsule ready and waiting for them when they arrived at a station. It was just another aspect of the sphere's insane efficiency.

Roz and Chris sat next to each other with their feet up on the coffee table. Although they had decided against wearing their armour they had dressed similarly in dark blue trousers and padded jackets of black silk. Both of them had felt the need to look just a little bit official that morning.

'How long do you think this is going to take?' she asked.

'Depends on how fast we're going,' said Chris.

'How fast are we going?'

Chris glanced at the screen at the front of the lift which displayed a row of constantly changing symbols. 'Seventeen kilometres a second and accelerating,' he said.

'It's going to take ages to get to the Spaceport this way,' said Roz, 'especially if we have to go all the way around the circumference. We should have got hold of a shuttle and taken a short cut.'

She saw Chris's eyes light up at that thought. He'd wanted to use the biplane for the trip but Roz had pointed out that the flight would have taken six months to complete. Some sort of personal transport would have been good though. She'd never liked public transport; she preferred at least the illusion of control.

'I wonder why they don't use transmats? I can't believe they haven't got the technology.'

'Maybe they don't like them,' said Chris. 'They seem to like things that are real.'

'This is an entirely artificial world. You can't get much more unreal than that.'

'Yes, but it's unreal in a real way.' Chris thumped the side of the capsule. 'I mean you can touch it. You know what a transmat is like: you go in the door at one place and you step out in another. It's not like travelling at all.'

'Damn convenient though.'

'Dep says that travelling is part of the experience. If you don't travel, how can you know you've arrived?'

'Usually,' said Roz, 'because someone starts shooting at me.'

'That's not true,' said Chris. 'Sometimes they threaten you first.'

'How are you getting on with Dep?' asked Roz.

Chris blushed. 'Fine, fine,' he said vaguely. 'How are you getting on with feLixi?'

'He's interesting,' said Roz. 'Not that there's anything going on between us of course.'

'Of course,' said Chris. Roz glared at him. 'What?'

'Never mind.'

'How do you think we should handle this?' asked Chris.

'I haven't got the faintest idea,' said Roz. 'I've never interrogated