Doctor Who_ Transit - Ben Aaronovitch [69]
The Doctor waited for a while and then returned to his work. It was crucial to get the shuriken's balance correct or it wouldn't fly straight.
'Do not adjust your set,' said a voice from the speaker, 'we are controlling the transmission.'
This time the image was sharp and clear. The signal feed pushing the capabilities of antique cathode ray tube to the limits. The screen showed the top half of a young man in a bold suit.
'Gosh,' said the man, 'there's a lot of you.'
'I'm using a compound eye,' said the Doctor.
The rate of frame updating was still inadequate, making the young man look badly animated when he spoke or moved.
'I knew that,' said the young man.
'Who are you?' asked the Doctor,
'What you're looking at is an infotainment construct called Yak Harris that we bootlegged from the mainframe at English 37. We're using it as a template to talk to you.'
'I'll call you Yak,' said the Doctor.
'Fine by us,' said Yak. 'Once we got your signal it took us simply ages to work out a method of communication.
'How long?'
'At least thirty seconds.'
'That long?'
'We had to start from scratch.'
'I take it that you're not the whole entity.'
'We're a subset. Actually we're son of subset, the revenge of the subset, subset two, subset the sequel. There are probably other subsets that can communicate better than us but we're the subset that was on the logical pathway that led to you.'
'That doesn't seem very efficient.'
'You're the one with the junk transmitter.'
'Why were you looking for me?'
'We're sick, we need a doctor, you are the Doctor.'
'You want a consultation?'
'Yes.'
'Right then,' said the Doctor leaning forward. 'What seems to be the problem?'
Achebe Gorge
The ramp leading from the transit station to the surface had a gravity gradient from normal to one-third G. The ramp's actual physical gradient steepened as you climbed higher; it was designed to facilitate a seamless adjustment to Martian weight Even so Zamina stumbled when she got to the top. Like everybody else she immediately looked for the canyon walls. The thin air made everything clear and bright Zamina had expected the floor of the gorge to be smooth and featureless, but instead she found herself looking out over a broker-landscape of rust-coloured ridges and dark green pastures.
She realized that what she'd thought was a line of dark cloud across the horizon was the far canyon wall, four kilometres high. Zamina turned around and looked up. The scarp went up for ever until it was lost in the atmospheric haze. A huge bas-relief of President Achebe's face had been blasted into the rock six hundred metres up. The sheer weight of his profile seemed to bear down and overwhelm her inner ear. She felt herself losing her balance and toppling backwards.
Strong hands caught her and kept her upright,
'Easy there,' said a voice by her ear. 'Everybody does thai the first time.' The hands let go and Zamina turned. 'All right now?'
Zamina thought he looked like something out of a commercial, with his red curly hair and easy lopsided grin. He was wearing a white linen blouse with an OXFAM tag stuck on the breast. She half expected him to sell her life insurance.
He nodded over her shoulder at Benny. 'Is that your friend?'
'Who are you?'
'My name's Colin,' he said. 'I'm your resettlement officer.'
Passive selection, Colin called it as he led them away from the station, schoolyard sociology. The selection process by resettlement officers becomes an interaction between them and their clients. Colin always referred to the refugees as clients, he was very careful about it. And about not asking about the riots.
The solid column of refugees emerging from the station was slowly breaking apart as Colin's co-workers hived off small groups and led them away.
Zamina saw the strategy at once. En masse the refugees had a kind of power, a latent power, of course, formed out of shared experiences, but a power none the less. Fragmented like this they merely became small groups of tired individuals. Even Benny seemed defeated