Doctor Who_ Transit - Ben Aaronovitch [55]
'Who did you serve with, friend?' asked Old Sam.
The African's hand snapped away from his temple. 'I don't remember my unit, I have forgotten the war.' He said it quietly and it sounded to Blondie like an incantation.
Old Sam said nothing, then he turned and ran up the platform, Blondie glanced back as he followed. The African's hand was back at his temple, finger running around the ceramic ring of his jack. An itch he couldn't scratch.
'First in.' muttered Old Sam as they reached the end of the platform. 'Day one, boy,' he said to Blondie. 'Third Tactical Response Brigade, Irish and Ethiopians. Dropped on to the mountain and got cut to bits by the Greenies on the way down. First in.'
There was a two-metre hole in the far wall.
'Listen,' said Old Sam.
Blondie heard sounds, metal sounds reverberating down a long tube.
'Visors down boy,' said Old Sam, 'and in we go.'
Blondie sealed the helmet, the charger whine scaled up into the ultrasonic and the world went videogame again.
'First in,' he heard Old Sam mutter again. 'And he wants to forget, damn.'
The Stop
His mind was like an orchestra after a mix-up at the printers, each section playing from a different score. Someone, perhaps a flautist, was playing a clear lucid solo that spoke of life as organised patterns of energy. He could believe that, hadn't he met the occasional intelligent energy field in his time. It might be living in the tunnels, a pattern superimposed over the carrier waves - was that possible?
Hey Doctor.
The string section was playing a single chord, endlessly repeated in a thumping rhythm - Stravinsky's 'Rite of Spring'. Subterranean forces gathering out of sight, the pitch spoke of power, the rhythm of danger.
Hey Doctor. Why don't you?
The woodwinds were playing honky-tonk, gaily improvising around the polyphones. Spirit music percolating up from old Africa, work music, wedding music, funeral music. Smoky dens full of life in the orchestra pit of his imagination. He would have to get back on that one.
'Hey Doctor. Why don't you just stick your head up ...'
Sharp sounds from the percussion section, rim shots and rolls. Firecracker sounds with zips, whirrs and ricochets. Below that a drumming sound, coconut shells on damp earth. / was sent to military academy as an orphan. Horses' hooves on the overripe fields of Heaven. I wasn't very good at it, though. Because I was such a bad shot. Some mad drummer hit the rim a bit hard because wood splintered. There was a smoking hole in the upturned trestle table six centimetres to the left of his head. I've got much better since then.
'Hey Doctor. Why don't you just stick your head up so I can blow it off?'
Benny.
This is not the time, thought the Doctor, for extended metaphors.
There was another bang and another hole, this one to the right of where he was crouching and lower down. Whatever it was that Benny was firing at him, it went through wood. The trestle table he'd dived behind was only protection because she couldn't see him. He looked around for Kadiatu, but she was out of sight. She'd jumped in the other direction when the shooting started.
'Come on. Doctor,' called Benny, 'I haven't got all day.'
The Doctor judged from her voice that she was about thirty metres away, a little to the right. Standing by the entrance to the cavern. Somebody else was with her, he could hear another pair of feet shuffling on the floor.
The Doctor considered his options. If he stood up Benny might shoot him; on the other hand there was nowhere to run to and Benny could just walk over and shoot him anyway.
The Doctor sprang to his feet.
'Don't shoot,' he shouted. Not very original, he was the first to admit, but it had worked in the past.
'Why not?' asked Benny. She held the pistol in a one-handed grip, arm extended, elbow slightly bent to absorb the recoil. There was a trick to dodging bullets; it involved a detailed