Doctor Who_ Transit - Ben Aaronovitch [112]
'This utility is registered with me,' said the Minister. 'It is held in the directory of the Monarch. Why do you seek it?'
'The utility called Fred has bootlegged a program that belongs to me. I wish it returned.'
'This is a matter that is out of my purvue. You must take this matter before the Monarch,' said the Minister. 'But be warned that the utility Fred is held in high esteem by his Majesty who ranks him above all other programs in his directory.'
'None the less,' said the Doctor, 'I will take my suit to the Monarch.'
'Attend,' said the Minister of Primary Colours. 'These are the access protocols, you must divest yourself of all offensive programs and the colours Red, Blue and Ultramarine. Are these protocols acceptable?'
'No,' said the Doctor. 'But I shall abide by them. A moment as I prepare.'
The Doctor thought jazz, and back beyond jazz, stripping away the European influence, the instruments of varnished wood and cunning artifice. Back across the cramped and recking ocean to where the forest met the sea. Back to the drums, the human voice and the dance. Dance for joy, for sadness, for funeral, harvest, wedding and childbirth. Lover's dance, young feet stamping down the dust, children's dance, old men's dance, mother's dance.
Women's dance, secret in the forest or the society huts. Leopard agile: the feet barely touch the ground. The body becomes the instrument: infused with the spirits of the gods. The dance of which no woman will ever speak, that no male shall ever know. Save one.
There! thought the Doctor.
Spear-sharp and arrow-fast the thought sped away down the alien pathways.
He checked quickly. The Minister for Primary Colours hadn't noticed, nor had his Reds.
'Stay here,' he told the Aces, who pouted collectively but did what they were told.
'If I may make an observation,' said the Minister as he led the Doctor through the pathway, 'the number one is not an efficient base for a good attack program. I hope you do not rely only on that.'
Spear-sharp, arrow-fast.
'No,' said the Doctor. 'Of course not.'
Node Fifteen
Spear-sharp, arrow-fast.
The knowledge of Blondie's death hit her in the chest, just under the heart. The mind is the seat of consciousness and therefore the site of human emotion, but we feel it in our guts.
The knowledge seemed to wrench open a hole beneath her ribs.
The cat leapt from her shoulder, spitting in fear. It split apart as it flew across the node, becoming two cats, one silver, one green.
Kadiatu floated with her limbs outstretched as the hammer blows piled in. She saw the family dead come dancing up the beach again and the sky was filled with lightning.
'We came out of the sea,' chanted the dead, 'we came down from the trees. We walked upright across the plains and talked to the old gods. We picked up sticks and stones and fashioned them into tools. The spirit ran through us, mother to daughter.'
'What do you want with me?'
'A sacrifice,' said the dead. 'Your soul for the lives of the children.'
Kadiatu folded over the pain, rolling up tight and fetal. She saw an old woman suspended in a basket above an abyss from which clouds of incense rose. As she watched, the old woman spoke a terrible death-curse and cut the single rope that held the basket aloft. Woman and basket tumbled into the abyss.
The curse came out of the abyss, roaring and invisible as it streamed into the sky. Kadiatu heard thousands of mothers screaming as the curse sucked the creation spirit from the world.
Into the void went the curse, leaving the world only half alive behind it. As it streamed across the gaps between stars it left a bow wave in the metareality of time and space. In its wake even the stars began to dream.
Kadiatu saw the beach again but the dead were not yet born. She saw the curse as it fell from the sky and into the primeval ocean. The waters suddenly boiled with life.
The two cats warily circled each other, each an identical copy of the other save for its colour. Each with flattened ears and claws extended, slant eyes probing for any weakness.
A noise