Doctor Who: The Also People Read Online Free PDF

demarcation mid point between the water and the heavens. Bernice supposed it gave the view the formal unity of a Renaissance painting, and allowed her to cope with the scale of it all.
    Leonardo would have been proud of her.
     
    It started as a dark smudge on her virtual horizon, then a line of black and then the leading edge of the storm was crashing down on them. Through the balcony window Bernice saw the first sharp actinic flashes of lightning in the distance. She shivered in the sudden chill, amazed at how fast the clouds were moving. It was darkening quickly; through the murky light Bernice could see brush strokes of white spray whipped off the ocean. She was glad she was safe inside.
    Lightning flashed, much closer this time. Bernice counted seconds, waiting for the thunder.
    There was a muffled thud behind her and the sound of a curse. Bernice turned to find Roz blearily getting up off the floor.
    'Hey,' she said, 'has it got cold or is it me?'
    'There's a storm coming.'
    'That's what it was,' said Roz, stretching her arms and back. 'I thought I was dreaming.'
    Thunder.
    The first splatters of rain fell on the balcony, those drops that hit the invisible barrier in the picture window frame performing abrupt right-angle turns and splashing away to the side. The barrier seemed designed to allow the breeze in, however, and Bernice began to feel cold.
    It was warmer upstairs. In her bedroom the rain clattered on the skylights. Her belongings were scattered all over the floor, just as she'd left them. The pixies had obviously not bothered to tidy up this time; perhaps they were still waiting for their bowl of milk. Bernice kicked the clothes around until she found the sweatshirt she was looking for, the one with I'M ACE AND THIS IS THE
    DOCTOR block-printed on the front above a big cartoon hand pointing to the left. Ace had bought it from a silkscreening stall at the Glastonbury Festival several lifetimes ago. Bernice had one with her own name on it but the ink had run. They'd got one for the Doctor which read: I'M THE DOCTOR
    AND THIS IS [DELETE WHERE APPLICABLE]. Ace had joked that she was DELETE and Bernice was APPLICABLE. Bernice had never seen the Doctor wear it.
    'Benny.' Chris's voice.
    'I'm in here,' she called, muffled by the sweatshirt as she pulled it on.
    Chris stood in the doorway, his fair hair slicked back by the rain, his soaking wet robe clinging to his arms and chest.
    'Have you seen the storm?' he asked.
    'Some of us were sensible enough to be under cover when it arrived,' said Bernice.
    Chris gave her a sunny smile, its effect mitigated somewhat by a lightning flash that briefly flattened out his features and turned his eyes into dark hollows. He said something but the words were drowned out by the thunder.
    'Here, you wally,' said Bernice, grabbing the rag-quilt off her bed and handing it to Chris. 'Put this round you before you get a chill.'
    Chris laughed. 'You sound just like Roz.'
    He pulled off his robe, briefly showing the width of his chest, the hard ridges of abdominals before they were hidden under the folds of the quilt. One day, thought Bernice, he's going to make some girl somewhere very cheerful. Not her, of course; it would have to be someone with stamina .
    It should have been Kat'laana but she was what? Dead? Not born yet?
    Gone certainly, taking a piece of Chris with her. A piece of his innocence that was forever buried below the Detrian permafrost. It had a horrible inevitability, this loss of innocence. It had happened to Ace on Heaven and to herself on King's Cross Station. I went into the time machine on my own two feet and I've been losing bits of me ever since. Like the broken Dyson sphere in the Varteq Veil, all hopes and dreams shattered.
    'No, no. I'm not a part of anyone's machine.' Ace had said that, in Paris, meaning not a cog any more, not a pawn, not a soldier .
    She couldn't bear the thought of losing Christopher Cwej. Not he of the wet nose and golden fur, the big stupid