Part 9 (1/2)

'Am I seeing things, or what?'

'It's like an optical illusion, isn't it?' Christine said beside her.

'What is it?'

'It's the Bridge.'

'You're winding me up.'

Ace tried to stop looking for for whatever was catching the light and tried looking at the whole scene instead. For a few moments the vision remained tantalizingly vague, with multicoloured glimmers appearing at random between Belial and Moloch. And then it was there, glittering in all its glory. Ace's brain, provided with enough clues, integrated all the information and filled in the gaps. An impossibly thin, impossibly straight line of light spanned the distance between Moloch and a blister on top of the dome, scintillating with all the colours of the rainbow. To Ace it looked like a strand of cobweb, spangled with dew and seen in sunrise. A cone of bracing threads seemed to rise from the dome to anchor it. whatever was catching the light and tried looking at the whole scene instead. For a few moments the vision remained tantalizingly vague, with multicoloured glimmers appearing at random between Belial and Moloch. And then it was there, glittering in all its glory. Ace's brain, provided with enough clues, integrated all the information and filled in the gaps. An impossibly thin, impossibly straight line of light spanned the distance between Moloch and a blister on top of the dome, scintillating with all the colours of the rainbow. To Ace it looked like a strand of cobweb, spangled with dew and seen in sunrise. A cone of bracing threads seemed to rise from the dome to anchor it.

'Are you impressed?' Christine asked.

'Nah,' Ace said, 'I'm from Perivale.'

'Bifrost,' said the voice beside her. She looked round. A small man stood beside her, barely higher than her shoulder. His hair was blond, his face young but deeply lined.

'I said Perivale, dogbreath.'

He smiled, revealing a set of perfect golden teeth. 'Bifrost. The rainbow bridge of the Aesir. The trembling path.'

'I must admit,' Ace said, 'I was hoping for something more substantial than a trembling path.'

'Speaking metaphorically,' the gnomish man added. 'Norse mythology. Speaking realistically, single trisilicate molecular filament woven into a tube. Lift interacts with it using linear induction motors. We think. Impressive piece of engineering.'

'This is Tiw Heimdall,' Christine said from beside her. 'He's the caretaker of the Bridge terminal. One of Alex Bannen's staff.'

'Engineer by profession. Mythologist by inclination,' Heimdall added in his staccato fas.h.i.+on. 'Spend most of my time down here. Fascinated.'

'He even sleeps down here,' Christine said, shaking her head. 'I worry about him.' When Heimdall smiled and turned to her she rapidly added, 'Professionally speaking, of course.'

'Lift due any moment,' Heimdall said, c.o.c.king his head slightly. 'I can feel it coming.'

Ace followed the line of the Bridge up to where Moloch hung like a balloon on the end of a piece of cotton. She couldn't see any lift. 'How long does the journey take?' she asked.

'Varies,' Heimdall replied. 'Sometimes half an hour. Sometimes two. No rhyme or reason. Sometimes stops half*way and comes back again.'

Ace frowned. 'I thought it just shuttled back and forth,' she said.

'No such luck,' Christine answered. 'It comes and goes when it wants to. The s.h.i.+ft on Moloch tell us when it sets off from their terminal, and we just have to wait until it turns up at ours. If it does.'

'Sounds just like British Rail,' Ace muttered. 'You mean we could be waiting hours for it to trundle down the Bridge?'

'Not quite. Tiw here seems to have some sort of sixth sense when it's near.'

'I can hear wool growing on a sheep's back,' Heimdall said with a perfectly straight face. 'I can hear gra.s.s grow. The Lift it comes now.'

'What's a sheep?' Christine asked.

'Extinct animal,' Heimdall replied. 'All died during Ozone Purge of twenty*one*oh*six.'

'If this lift's so unreliable, why not use Bishop's s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p to get down to Moloch?' Ace asked. 'It's a neat little piece of kit. If Bishop won't pilot it for you, I will. I'm good with small s.h.i.+ps like that.'

'We tried,' Christine said in a resigned tone. 'Piper worked out that it would save us hours each day if we could use the Adjudicator's s.h.i.+p as a shuttle, just whilst he was here. Miles asked him. ”No problem,” he said, ”so long as you complete an Increase in Crewing Levels of s.p.a.cefaring Vessels (Temporary) Form 3378b Increase in Crewing Levels of s.p.a.cefaring Vessels (Temporary) Form 3378b.” ”Fine,” said Miles, ”where are the forms?” ”Stored on the neural network in the s.h.i.+p,” said the Adjudicator. ”Can we come in and access one?” said Miles '

'Don't tell me,' Ace interrupted. '”Not without completing an Increase in Crewing Levels of s.p.a.cefaring Vessels (Temporary) Form 3378b Increase in Crewing Levels of s.p.a.cefaring Vessels (Temporary) Form 3378b.”'

'How did you guess?'

'You've obviously never claimed Social Security,' Ace replied.

Heimdall looked up towards Moloch. 'It's here,' he said reverentially.

Ace followed his gaze. A translucent ring filled with glinting metallic highlights slid down the cord of the Bridge like a jellyfish sinking slowly into the depths of the sea. Beneath it the blister on top of the dome parted in welcome and sealed behind the device like some kind of airlock.

'Well,' she muttered, 'they say journeys end in lovers' meetings.'

Bernice was watching the Doctor arrange his collection of pins when they were summoned by Miles Engado. The diminutive Time Lord had them piled up in front of him on the refectory table and seemed to be sorting them by date, previous owner, length, material and sharpness. Around them the morning crowd ebbed and flowed as they collected freshly cooked food from Tanetoa, Project Eden's Samoan cook, or stasis*sealed items from one of the food dispensers. The smell of frying bacon and pimentos was making Bernice feel hungry, despite the remains of two breakfasts already stacked on the table before her.

'Do you think they'll notice if I go and get another breakfast?' she asked.

'No, but your metabolism would.'

'What's wrong with my body?' she asked defensively.

'Ah,' the Doctor replied. 'The answer to that particular question rests entirely upon a number of culturally dependent a.s.sumptions concerning the philosophy of aesthetics and its relations.h.i.+p to physiology.'

'Sorry?'

'Do you know, for instance, that the inhabitants of the planet Delphon regard the surgical removal of limbs to be highly s.e.xually alluring?'

'Well,' said Bernice, 'that should raise a few eyebrows.' The Doctor wasn't listening.

'And that in the Axorc Sector it is considered to be the height of good manners to serve yourself up for dinner on special occasions?'

'Does that mean you don't have to do the was.h.i.+ng up?'

The Doctor was warming to his theme. 'And that the Rills of Galaxy Four have developed a political system in which the uglier they are the more power they are given?'

'Ah, the unacceptable face of politics.'

'And even your own culture fails to agree on what is and isn't attractive. Take the craze for duelling scars that ran through Imperial Germany some centuries ago.'

Bernice sighed. 'I guess it made them a cut above the rest.'

'Well, there you are.'

'I appreciate the sociology lesson, Doctor, but I'm still hungry.'