Doctor Who_ The Paradise of Death - Barry Letts [48]
Sarah tentatively poked her finger at the first. Sure enough, the window opened. She leaned out. Far down the water a small boat drifted. She could smell the trees, almost like the fresh smell of pine, and hear the lapping of the wavelets below.
But how could this be? The guest house was surrounded by an acre or two of green parkland, in the middle of a large city. For a moment, Sarah thought she must still be dreaming; but no, this was as real as the view of Hampstead Heath from her flat. Had they been moved while they slept?
She pressed the next button to close the window. But instead the view changed, as if she had changed a transparency while she was boring somebody with her holiday shots. Now she was gazing across a moonscape (or that’s what it looked like) with a black sky filled with unfamiliar patterns of stars. A large round object, like a soft balloon six foot across, was rolling over the surface towards her. She took a step backwards as it arrived just outside the window, stared into the room with two plate-sized eyes, and rolled away again.
Of course! It was the same as the Kamelius setup.
However they did it, they were able to program backgrounds so natural that they were indistinguishable from reality. The other buttons, as Sarah soon found out, produced a crowded swimming pool; a grand boulevard leading to a massive arch; a formal garden as rectilinear as an engineer’s blueprint; all offering a package deal of sight, sound and smell, subtly enhanced to create a presence more sharply real than reality itself.
‘Hey, look!’
Jeremy’s voice jerked her round. Considerably more presentable, now that he had some trousers on (‘They were hidden behind the door,’ he said defensively, catching her glance) he was standing by a couple of reclining couches equipped with control panels on the arms and headsets like crash helmets.
‘Like the thingy the Brig was trying in Space World,’
Jeremy went on.
‘You’re right,’ said Sarah, crossing to him. ‘ER.
Experienced Reality. I was quite peeved I didn’t get a go.
Come on.’ She climbed onto one of the couches and plonked the headset over her cap of shining hair, where it automatically tightened to a snug but acceptable fit.
‘Do you think we should?’ said Jeremy. ‘The Doctor did say it was dangerous.’
‘No, no,’ Sarah said. ‘He was talking about the long term effects on society.’ She inspected the push buttons on the.arm of the couch. Standing apart was a solitary green button. She pushed it; nothing happened. She tried again, pressing the first one in the top row.
‘Blimey O’Riley!’ she exclaimed.
‘What?’
She could barely hear him. She was standing with a group on the side of a mountain. The sun on her face countered the crispness of the breeze and the snow crunched under her feet as she took a step forward. ‘Try the first channel,’ she forced herself to say.
She was watching ski-jumping, like at the winter Olympics, but it was ski-jumping with a difference. The jumper was wearing a single ski – a small one, like a longish skateboard – and as he (she?) jumped he stretched out his arms and grew a pair of bird-type wings. Sweeping into the sky, he turned and soared up the slope on the updraught of the wind, looped the loop, swooped down to within a few feet of Sarah’s face, and up the face of the mountain again even higher than the top of the jump itself.
Sarah could just dimly hear the excited exclamations stemming from Jeremy. It recalled her briefly to her real situation, and reminded her of the little green button.
With an immense effort, she could feel her body on the couch; the sensations were superimposed on the present reality of the mountainside like a reflection on the surface of a bubble.
She pressed the green button.
The ground fell away from beneath her feet; her arms had become wings; and she was sailing through the sky above the snow-covered slope. She could feel the wind pushing at her cheeks, and through the goggles she was wearing she could see deep into the valley below. But then
– right ahead – the next jumper in turn was soaring