Part 16 (2/2)

'Hmmm, yes. I'm afraid that publicly accessible computers are some years away yet.'

'G.o.d forbid,' Bob sniffed.

'Ah! Stop!' Peri startled and braked rather suddenly, jumbling us about. 'Shangri-la!' he declared. 'Utopia! Solla Sollew!'

We stared out the campervan's windows at the damp grey wreckage of a gas station. It looked like it had been abandoned for months, maybe years long enough for weeds to carpet the concrete and a ragged forest of shrubs and s.h.a.ggy trees to have sprung up in the wasteland around it. Patches of snow lay around, mostly melted by the cold rain.

Peri piloted the campervan around a pile of rusting rubbish and parked it in back of the building. With the engine off, the silence was deafening.

'Some Shangri-La,' said Peri.

'There should be a phone line somewhere inside.'

'Come on, Doctor. There's not going to be a working phone.'

'We only need the line,' said the Doctor. 'Bob, your task will be to use a public telephone in the town to bring our borrowed line back to life.'

We hopped out of the campervan, stretching our legs. The back door of the gas station was shut with a padlock and chain. The Doctor fiddled with it for a few minutes, using an unbent paperclip and then a knitting needle. Then he sighed, stood back, and stiff-armed the door. It popped neatly off its hinges. He caught it by the handle before it could fall backwards into the station, and laid it neatly beside the dobrway. 'A somewhat unorthodox entry. Remind me to repair that before we leave.'

Peri looked around the inside of the station. 'Honestly, Doctor, I don't think anyone's going to care.' It was mostly empty, but trash was piled against the walls, yellowed newspaper plastered over the windows. An entire car engine had been left sitting where the cash register once must have been. The place had a rich smell of mouldy rags and oil.

We carried the computer equipment into the place in cardboard boxes while the Doctor ran a cable from the campervan's generator. 'You know what would be cool to have,' said Bob, hefting a box onto the counter. 'One of those computers you can fold up into a suitcase.'

The Doctor began to unpack the computer equipment, giving the deceased engine a look of annoyance. 'Phone jack's right here,' said Bob, crouched on the floor behind him.

'Very well. Young Bob, make me a miracle.'

Bob gave him one of his serious, frowning nods, and scooted out of the station. We were maybe ten or fifteen minutes' walk out of town. Privacy, just as the Doctor had ordered.

The Doctor fussed over the computer. Peri got bored and wandered out, and I followed her, in hopes of an uninterrupted smoke.

Behind the station, Peri sat scrunched in the open door of the Travco. She held the camp stove in her lap. 'All right?' I said.

'I'm fine,' she said, with an attempt at a smile.

'I bet you kick a police officer in the garbanzo beans and torch some house every day of the week.' I pulled out my ciggies. 'Got a light?'

Peri had to laugh at that. 'I was kind of thinking of making some coffee,' she said, turning the camp stove around. 'Or maybe a cup of soup.'

'Do we have any coffee?' I said.

'No, and we don't have any cup of soups, either.' She turned and dropped the stove back inside the campervan.

'What are we doing out here?'

'Staying invisible, I guess,' I said.

'It doesn't matter where we drive to, does it? Swan is always just a phone call away.'

She was right. The net was always there, in the same place. We could have dialled in from California and Swan could have called from Germany and the net would still have been in the centre. There's a Chinese proverb which says 'Heaven's net may look loose, but nothing can escape getting caught in it'. For a moment I knew how Bob had felt, looking up at those stars: we were surrounded, 'It's not gonna do any good, just talking to Swan,' Peri was saying. 'The Doctor always thinks he can talk people out of things. If they'd only listen to reason... but they never do.'

'Never?'

'Pretty much never,' said Peri. She held out her fingers, absently, and I pa.s.sed the cigarette to her. She took a drag and started coughing and wiping her eyes. I took the b.u.t.t back. 'I haven't done that for a few years,' she wheezed apologetically. She glanced at the station, like the Doctor might catch her smoking in back of school.

'What is it with you two?' I said.

Peri broke up, half-laughing and half-coughing. 'We are not not a couple!' I back-pedalled like crazy, but she didn't seem offended. 'I did have kind of a crush on him. once. He was a lot younger then... but it was like the crush you get on your high school teacher.' a couple!' I back-pedalled like crazy, but she didn't seem offended. 'I did have kind of a crush on him. once. He was a lot younger then... but it was like the crush you get on your high school teacher.'

I already knew they weren't together; all those little touches and glances and familiar words that two people build up, none of those were present. It wasn't even like an intimate friends.h.i.+p that also has that secret, shared vocabulary. But I said, 'No offence. It's just that you sound kind of like my parents used to.'

Peri gave a little laugh. 'I guess we do sound like an old married couple sometimes. But we're just good friends' She saw my quizzical look. 'The Doctor is the smartest person I know. I have a lot of respect for him. The problem is, he's also the smartest person he he knows.' She dropped into a gruff-voiced impression of the Doctor. 'I cannot agree with those who rank modesty among the virtues.' In her own voice she said, 'He just can't stand it when other people can't keep up. knows.' She dropped into a gruff-voiced impression of the Doctor. 'I cannot agree with those who rank modesty among the virtues.' In her own voice she said, 'He just can't stand it when other people can't keep up.

Mostly me,' she sighed. I nodded at her to go on. 'You know, mom used to say that I wanted to be a botanist because I wanted to be alone. Just me and the plants. It's a lonely profession, she said. I think she was really talking about archaeology, though. Just her and the artefacts. Listening to dead people.' She took another puff from the f.a.g and managed to keep it down this time. 'She actually called it that once.

Listening to dead people.'

'I get the same impression when I talk to hackers,' I said.

'They spend most of their time talking to computers.

Sometimes they're not so good at talking to other people.'

'Bob's like that, isn't he? He always gives me the feeling I'm wasting his time.'

'They can be a little wrapped up in themselves. A little impatient with everybody else,' I said. 'I think they get disappointed when the rest of us aren't as smart as they are.'

Peri took the f.a.g out of her mouth, which was curling into her slow, wry smile. 'I think I know somebody like that.

You're writing an article about us or something, aren't you?'

'I don't think the Post Post is going to be too interested in aliens from Epsilon Eridani.' She handed the smoke back to me and I took a puff 'Mostly I'm just curious, though. I can't pin the Doctor down at all. I can't pin down your relations.h.i.+p. is going to be too interested in aliens from Epsilon Eridani.' She handed the smoke back to me and I took a puff 'Mostly I'm just curious, though. I can't pin the Doctor down at all. I can't pin down your relations.h.i.+p.

You seem distant and close at the same time.'

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