Doctor Who_ The Tomorrow Windows Part 29

'Do you think he's still got the wings?'

I've never seen the Doctor so excited. He's grinning like a kid at Christmas, his nose almost touching the shuttle window. His breath frosts the gla.s.s, so he wipes it with his sleeve, never taking his eyes off the view. 'It's. . . beyond imagination.'

At Charlton's suggestion, we've tele-doored to the nearest orbital station and booked a flight. We're the only ones in the first-cla.s.s cabin, surrounded by fifty or so beige chairs. Sunlight streams in through the portholes on the opposite berth, casting a sort of honey-coloured glow. I can feel its warmth upon my cheeks.

Outside our shuttle, suspended in the star-spattered heavens, are hundreds of asteroids. They are craggy and rough-hewn and scarred by meteorite collisions. The sunshine slides over them as they tumble and spin, picking out their ridges and dipping into their craters. According to Charlton they're all 153 about the size of the Earth's moon, but the light is so clear and the detail so perfect, I can imagine reaching out and grabbing one in my hand.

But that isn't the half of it. As they rotate, the heat of the sun warms the surface of the asteroids. Melting the ice.

The Doctor points to one of the spheres.

Its surface splits. Cracks scuttle across its surface like lizards. Chunks of ice float away. The cracks grow, creating a dawdling shower of debris. The rolling icebergs glitter in the sunlight like a chain of diamonds.

More cracks appear, then the crust shatters into a thousand fragments. It exposes a layer of dark, velvety green.

It continues to revolve, shaking off the last of the ice. On one side there is a bulge, probably thousands of miles wide, that tapers to a single point. Around the bulge, the surface is covered in fine fibres.

The bud bursts, splitting into five segments, each peeling back like a tongue.

It splays wider, turning to expose its interior to the sun. The segments twist as they open, like the aperture of a camera.

I'm holding my breath.

Within the sphere, there are a million churning fronds. It's a vast anemone, its tentacles undulating. Pods burst open to reveal glorious, glistening flowers, their petals unfolding in delight. I see swollen fruit, ripe and shiny, of a hundred different shapes. Like one of those speeded-up nature doc.u.mentaries.

I watch as shoots snake outwards and blossom, opening up to reveal fleshy blooms.

And tendrils the whole thing is a writhing ma.s.s of tendrils. Slithering out of the belly of the flower and drifting into s.p.a.ce like jellyfish tentacles, near-transparent but phosph.o.r.escent.

It's gorgeous. The astral flower opens to its fullest extent and becomes a chaos of beauty. The richest reds, the lushest greens, the most delicate whites, the most regal purples, the orangest oranges. Everywhere more petals are unfolding, more buds are popping, and more fruit are inflating.

It sprays out its seeds. Fragile lilac parasols puff out of its body in a cloud and waft away, dissolving to nothing.

Our shuttle pitches once more, and one huge astral flower fills the windows, obscuring our view of the others. It's much closer, so dose that I can make it out in perfect detail, but it's probably still tens of thousands of miles away.

As we drop towards its surface, the petals that had seemed so smooth are revealed as being covered in a patchwork of veins and cells. The husks that had contained the seeds are huge, green cathedrals and the tentacles are immense tubers, powerful enough to smash our shuttle.

It teems with life. Flourishes of colour erupt, more stems uncoil themselves.

Pulsing lights emanate from millions of dew-drop beads. There are chutes, 154 and funnels, and complex labyrinthine structures like coral.

'The astral flower,' Charlton reads from his guidebook, 'has a life cycle of ninety-one years. Once every ninety-one years, their elliptical orbit takes them close enough to the sun for them to enter the liquid water belt. The ice that has encased them over the previous nine decades melts, and the flower blooms. It's one of the natural wonders of the universe.' Charlton looks up from his guidebook to peer out of the window, as though to check.

Our shuttle rotates so the astral flower is beneath us. I begin to feel the tug of its gravity. We glide forward, through a forest of stems and ribs. I can't shake the feeling that we're underwater, even though I know outside there is the vacuum of s.p.a.ce.

'The period of wakefulness is relatively brief, lasting no more than a year.

During that time the astral flower reproduces, photosynthesises and gains nourishment from dark matter that will have fallen into its gravity well.'

More intricacies emerge. The corals are themselves covered in smaller organisms, something between a sea-urchin and a pumpkin. And below us, there is a fine mist.

'The astral flowers are believed to have developed from a variety of in-terplanetary fauna there are well-doc.u.mented cases of planets where the foliage extends out of the atmosphere to geostationary alt.i.tudes, and where seed propagation has occurred between orbital bodies. However, the origin of the astral flowers, which now only exist within the Galactic Heritage protected solar system of Sirius Omega, is thought to be long-since lost to the mists of time.'

We descend through the fog. Below us, I can make out sloshing water.

And beneath that, there is a layer of permafrost, in which more of the flower's foliage is embedded. As the frost melts, more shoots thrust themselves eagerly into the light.

'The astral flower is frozen during its long period away from the sun, and preserves itself by a chemical it secretes into the surrounding ice. This chemical provides almost perfect cryogenic storage, meaning that it can be used to keep alive any creatures held within the ice. This is why many astral flowers are now used as retirement homes for the elderly.'

After the shuttle docked, Charlton, Trix and the Doctor made their way out of it through a sliding door, along a floral-printed corridor, and into an arrivals lounge decorated with chintzy statues of gormless cupids, muscular Greek heroes and Botticelli Venuses perched in clams. Something rather like Bach played in the background.

The lounge bustled with activity, staff collecting luggage from carousels, laughing and exchanging toothpaste-billboard smiles. The nurses and doctors 155 had an efficient manner, reflected in their austere, mushroom-coloured gowns.

Cleaners wiped the windows and pushed about machines that dried the damp carpets. The mood was one of business as usual. People were here to do a job, not admire the scenery.

Charlton, however, could admire the scenery. He wandered over to the observation window, his jaw dropping with each squashy step. He stared out over the surface of the flower. His heart sang.

The Centre for Posterity had been constructed in the middle of what appeared to be a mangrove swamp. It was a though they had been shrunken down to a microscopic size, everything was now so ma.s.sive. Stems were impossibly high towers and petals were the size of flapball pitches. The water lapped and splashed in a slow-motion but exaggerated manner due to the low gravity. That was, the low gravity outside the base inside the base, the gravity had been enhanced to the standard ten sec per sec.

Charlton watched as shafts of sunlight plunged through the canopy and illuminated the drizzle. The water level receded further, revealing straggly, coiled-up tendrils and roots.

He thumbed through his battered copy of The Galactic Heritage Foundation The Galactic Heritage Foundation s.p.a.ce Travellers' Guide s.p.a.ce Travellers' Guide. At the back, it indexed all the planets and moons protected by the Galactic Heritage Foundation. Sirius Omega was the only instance of them awarding Grade 1 status to a whole system. And looking out of the window, Charlton could understand why.

It looked just like the photo.

Of course, the idea of building cryogenic storage centres in the flowers didn't quite tally with the Foundation's policy of non-development. However, as the centres were being used to preserve heritage of a different kind, it had been felt that the rule demanded an exception. It was a complete coincidence that many of the residents were some of the Foundation's most generous bene-factors.

To think he was part of the Galactic Heritage Foundation. This was what he was fighting for. It was moments like these that made it all worthwhile.

'Prubert Gastridge Gastridge,' the Doctor's voice cut across the lounge. 'We're here to see Prubert Gastridge. Vargo, King of the Buzzardmen?'

Charlton joined the Doctor and Trix at the reception desk. The Doctor was drumming his fingers on the plastic while reading the ' Welcome to the Centre Welcome to the Centre for Posterity for Posterity' board.

'Any luck?'

The receptionist, a lime-coloured girl with a snub nose and dreadlocks, went to check something on her computer. Her fingernails clicked on the keyboard.

'We've pretended to be relatives,' said the Doctor. 'Distant. . . descendants.

We're looking up grandpa!'

156.

Right. . .

'People don't tend to get the same visitors twice,' said Trix.

The receptionist returned and gave an automatic smile. At least, the muscles in the corners of her mouth tightened. 'He's awaiting revivification. If you would like to come this way ' She indicated a sliding door.

Exchanging wary glances, Charlton, the Doctor and Trix followed the receptionist through the maze of corridors. She had a prim way of walking that reminded Charlton of an android.

As they progressed further into the base, they pa.s.sed some of the residents.

They were like zombies. They hobbled behind zimmer frames, every step an effort, their rheumy eyes blinking in the brightness. They wore check-patterned flannelette pyjamas and carpet slippers.

Charlton noticed the residents were all heading in the same direction the salon. Each of the residents had scabby, corkscrew-like fingernails and a shock of white hair. The men stooped under the weight of their beards and some of the old women had feathery moustaches.

After some minutes, the receptionist brought them to a sliding door that opened on to what seemed to be a cavern. Beneath them, much of the chamber was lost in darkness. A few phosphor lamps had been arranged in a fairy ring, casting an organic green hue.

Charlton's breath misted. The air was sharp with the cold. He followed the receptionist down the metal staircase, his fingers sticking to the frost-covered handrails.

Water dripped from the ceiling in large, icy plops. Charlton felt one land in his hair and trickle down the back of his neck like a slug. He arched his shoulders as he shivered.

The chamber echoed to the gush of an underground stream. Water seeped down the walls, which Charlton realised consisted of a fibrous substance covered in pale veins, like dock leaves. There was also that dock-leaf smell.

Charlton looked up warily for any more streams of droplets. The roof was a ma.s.s of capillaries and plate cells. And, looking down, there was a criss-cross of inclined gutters leading to a central grille to drain away the water. Beneath the grille, a river rushed.

Charlton shivered, partly from the cold, partly from the blobs of icy water that splattered in his hair, and partly from the eerie atmosphere. Despite the fleshy smell, this place was a tomb. The walls were divided into alcoves, some still blocked up with ice. The receptionist directed them towards an alcove where the ice had started to thaw, its surface becoming smooth and wet.

Inside the ice Charlton could make out scratches and bubbles. And, half hidden in the gloom, there was the shape of a man. It looked like a corpse in checked flannel pyjamas.

157.

The receptionist d.i.n.ked some b.u.t.tons in the keypad on the wall beside the man. An LED began to count down the seconds. Other lights flashed self-importantly.

The corpse stood bolt upright, his eyes and mouth wide open as though shouting. His hair had grown into a wild tangle and his beard was spiky with frost, but Charlton knew at once who it was.

'Prubert Gastridge,' said Trix.

'It's amazing what you find at the bottom of your deep freeze,' observed the Doctor. 'Old lollies, fish fingers and thousand-year-old film stars.'

'How did it die?'

'We don't know, for sure,' said Dittero.

It was like a furry deflated football. Fitz touched it the first time he had come into physical contact with Question Intonation and ran his fingers through the coa.r.s.e hair. The surface beneath was spongelike and rubbery.

Question Intonation had been annoying, yes. It had been one of those most irritating aliens Fitz had ever encountered. But he would've preferred the irritation to seeing it like this.

'What do you mean, you don't know for sure?' said Fitz.

'He means,' snarled Vors.h.a.gg. 'We know why why Question Intonation died. We just don't know how they did it.' Question Intonation died. We just don't know how they did it.'

Fitz straightened up. 'What?'

'Question Intonation consisted of two spheres,' said Dittero from the other side of the sun lounge, Poozle floating at his side. 'Each dependent upon the other for survival.' The lounge glinted with the sunset, shadows rising among the tropical ferns. The warm air smelled rich and fresh and greenhousey.

'Right,' said Fitz. 'So where's the other one?'

'There lies very much the rub,' Dittero answered. 'We remain unappraised of that information.'

'You don't know?'

'We've had the Zwees doing a complete top-to-bottom environment scan, but it seems to have vanished.'

'So without it, this half died. And presumably, wherever the other half is, it's dead too?'

'One can only presume.' Dittero collected his clipboard from the table.

'When did all this happen?'

'While you were on Estebol. The delegates adjourned to their suites, while I endeavoured to locate your good self.'

'You were on your own when this happened?'

Dittero nodded.

'Vors.h.a.gg?'

158.

The lizard stamped its feet. 'I was alone.'

'Poozle?'

'I was arone,' chirped the cylinder.

And I suppose Micron and Welwyn were too. . . So we have lots of motives, and no alibis.'

'Motives?' Dittero disapproved.

'Oh come on, it's obvious, isn't it?' said Fitz. 'The less compet.i.tion the better.

Am I right or am I right? Get your rivals out of the way am you've got yourself one tidy bargain,' he turned and pointed, 'haven't you, Poozle?'

The lava lamp hovered uneasily but did not reply.

'This is murder, gentlemen. Plain and simple,' said Fitz. Except it wasn't.

He still had no idea who the murderer was.

That said, he'd already guessed how Question Intonation had been killed.

That had been the easy part. He even had a good idea why.

Fitz smiled back at Dittero. 'When's the auction for Estebol kicking off?'

'Yes, we should ploceed!' agreed Poozle.