Doctor Who_ Transit - Ben Aaronovitch [71]
Damned if she was going to run out of the house naked.
The House
Blondie had soft hair on his chest. In the daylight it was so blond as to be invisible but in the darkness when touch became their primary sense it lit up like neon on Kadiatu's intimate map of his body.
They'd made love again, with him on top this time. Kadiatu locking her legs across his hips, her arms around his back, straining to drag him inside her, to make him part of herself. Serious sex this time, no jokes or laughter, just deep mammalian instinct ascending through a complex strata of emotions.
They slept afterwards, exhausted and loose-limbed, tangled into the bedsheets and each other.
Kadiatu dreamed that she stood shipwreck naked on a beach as a storm swept in from the sea. She was breathing hard and the rhythm of her lungs matched the rhythm of the water as it broke against the shore.
In her dream the family dead walked out from the sea towards her. They came up the beach as a chain of corpses, stamping out the death dance in the pale sand. The beating of their feet was the rhythm of the sea, the rhythm of her heart beating.
Death had robbed them of their faces and of the insignia on their uniforms. It reduced them all to a single nation, a single race of people without division or quarrel. They danced towards her and with the total certainty that comes in dreams she knew that they wanted her sacrifice.
'What can you offer?' they demanded. 'We gave our lives, some short, some long, some crying, some cursing. What can you give so that the children may live?'
'My life,' moaned Kadiatu, 'my life for the children.'
'Your life was pledged before you were born,' said the dead 'What else have you got?'
Lightning lit the hollow sockets of their eyes.
A rumble of thunder in the far distance made Kadiatu open her eyes. There was nothing but stars through the open window The thunder continued, resolving into a low continuous rumble that increased in volume until the glass panes rattled in their frames. Kadiatu got to the window in time to see it come over the hill
The aircraft was a wedge-shaped patch of black, running lights flashing on each stubby wing. As she watched, it dropped vertically on to the lawn, landing with a burst of blue flame. In the silence that followed she could hear the distinctive cracking sound of carbon fibre cooling down from a white' heat.
'Shit,' she said stumbling back to the bed and groping for her jeans. 'Blondie, get up.'
Blondie woke up when Kadiatu managed to find the light switch. He looked at her stupidly as she pulled her jeans on and jammed her feet into her trainers.
'Get dressed,' she told him. Her T-shirt had found its way under the bed; by the time she retrieved it Blondie was already lacing up his boots. Kadiatu wadded up her socks and underwear into a tight ball and stuffed them into a jacket pocket.
As they ran downstairs she tried not to trip over her laces.
The fuselage and wings bore a long-dead flag, a polar projection of the earth supported by oak leaves laid down with non-reflective paint. The Doctor was sitting casually on the wing's leading edge, talking to the pilot. The Doctor said something and the pilot turned her head in their direction. Kadiatu saw starlight reflected off white marble eyes.
'Hey,' said Blondie, 'isn't that ...'
The Angel Francine. Here and running taxi service for the little man with the weird eyes. Kadiatu felt a thrill of fear that had nothing to do with monsters or alien computer viruses.
A hatch whirred open to the rear of the cockpit, a metal stirrup ladder unfolding forward of the wing. The Doctor waved them in. 'Welcome to Deux Ex Machina Airways,' he said.
The rear section had four ejection seats mounted two by two. Kadiatu eased in beside Blondie and helped him buckle down the harness.
'I've never been in an aircraft before,' he said.
'Don't worry,' said the Doctor. 'Flying's as easy as falling off a bicycle.'
'Especially when the pilot's blind,' said Kadiatu.