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Human Nature - Chapter One

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Don't Forget To Catch Me

Nine weeks later.

The bicycle sped down the little cobbled hill, the juddering motion making the items in its basket leap about, in imminent danger of falling on to the road.

Bernice didn't care. The sun was up, and, for the first time in weeks, so were her spirits. The little town of Farringham was basking in the glow of a balmy summer day, and the sweet smell of roses was wafting across it on the breeze. 'Good morning, Jill! Good morning, Jenny!' she called as she whizzed past a row of little cottages.

'Morning, Bernice!' the two housewives chorused. Then they resumed their argument across the fence. This time it was about an overhanging tree, tomorrow it would be about barking dogs. They liked to argue, it seemed, and whenever one of them met Bernice, the other would wander up, get involved in the conversation and end up disagreeing with the first.

The bike took the comer at the bottom of the hill far too fast, and she narrowly missed her landlord, Alexander Shuttleworth. He was a jolly, bearded fellow in a white colonial suit and a loud tie, the curator of the local museum. 'Sorry!' she called over her shoulder.

'Charmed, dear girl, charmed!' he boomed back. 'I'll take my medical bills out of your rent!'

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Mrs Windrush, her hair bound up in a headscarf and her mouth full of pegs, waved from her garden, where she was putting out her washing. She was proud of her little patch of grass, although she wished that her husband could afford a maid. 'Perhaps next year,' she always said when she and Bernice chatted. They'd been married a year, and Mrs W kept dropping hints about the pattering of little feet, so it was probably just as well that Mr W was up for promotion at his office job in Norwich.

Benny had to wait at the T-junction for Mr Hodges' wagon to trundle by, the horses already sweating in the sunshine. Hodges was a greengrocer, and delivered door to door every morning. His and Benny's routines had become so predictable that they had started to nod at each other, and complain if the other was late.

'Give you a penny for your boots!' he called out this time, winking. Benny smiled back, wondering just how vulgar the catchphrase was. She probably ought to have blushed.

Bernice's target was the Lyons teahouse in the centre of town. A convenient cycle-rack stood on the wall near by, which she reached, as she always did, just as the town- hall clock was striking its precise twelve o'clock. She dismounted carefully, remembering when she'd ripped the hem out of a skirt by catching it on a pedal. The fashions of 1914 were a lot easier to wear than Victorian gowns would have been, at least. There wasn't any upholstery under the skirt, and no bustle to deal with. Electing to be the paragon of fashion today, she'd chosen a (rather extraordinary) black and navy-blue checked skirt, with a buttoned jacket and lace collar. She had toyed with the idea of a mourning band, to hint that she was well-connected enough to miss the Duke of Argyll, but there was the possibility that somebody would think it was more personal than that and ask about it, and that would be too horrid. She untied the ribbon on her hat, and propped it on the handlebars, shaking her hair extensions to and fro. They still didn't feel natural, but her own short bob would have required some vast and incredible explanation.

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The teahouse served a wonderful fruit-cake. Benny ordered a slice with her customary pot of tea.

'Will that be all, madam?' the smartly uniformed waitress asked her.

'Yes, thanks. That's a strange accent, where are you from?'

'Germany.' The waitress giggled. 'I am from Baden Baden, and I am working here for the summer. Mr Condon, the manager, he is my uncle.'

'Oh, right, well, that's... good.' Benny flashed the woman a smile. She curtsied and went back to the till.

The other tables held groups of housewives, maids who'd saved their pennies for a weekly lunch date, and a travelling salesman, his case of samples on the floor beside him as he scanned the racing form in the paper. Benny flipped through a copy of The Tatler, making a mental calculation. It was April now, getting really hot and summery. Everybody was talking about holding dances, and whether or not one should offer favours to guests, and if looping the loop in a flying machine clutching two piglets was infra dig or not. The papers had scarcely a thought for matters further abroad than Ireland, where the Liberals' plans to give the whole island home rule had the Unionists threatening civil war.

The magazine in Benny's hands complimented the Kaiser's daughter on her grasp of English as demonstrated at various English social events that month.

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Benny shook her head and sighed. She put it out of her mind and tipped the waitress generously as she handed her her cake.

'Excuse me,' a voice asked. 'Could I please sit down? There isn't anywhere else.'

'Of course.' Bernice glanced up. An elegantly dressed, painfully thin young woman in a very ornate lace collar was standing there. She could only have been seventeen or so, but her face, as well as being gaunt, was lined with experience. The odd thing was that, a minute before, Benny had been sure that there were lots of places free, on tables across the cafe. But now all the seats had bags on them. Even the travelling salesman had propped his case on the seat opposite him. A great many people suddenly seemed to be watching Bernice's table.

Oh no, she thought. It's one of those people.

So Benny did what she did whenever she encountered somebody who was generally despised. She said: 'Please sit down here, there's plenty of room,' in a rather loud voice.

The woman did so. The German waitress, obviously not understanding whatever cultural malaise afflicted the newcomer, came over at once.

'Could I please have three slices of cake, and a plate of scones, with quite a lot of cream?' the woman asked.

'Hungry?' Bernice asked when the waitress had left.

'I'll say. I'm on the Cat, you see. Got to build myself up'

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'I beg your pardon?'

'The Cat and Mouse Act. I'm on a hunger strike in Holloway. Every now and then, they release me, let me get my strength back. Then they arrest me again, and I go on hunger strike again. I've been in and out three times now. It's getting to be a matter of routine.'

'What did you, erm, do?'

'Stuck a pole through the wheels of the King's pony and trap. He nearly went flying. I suppose that God saved him. I'm a bit of an Emily Davison, you see, only not so brave.'

'Sorry, I'm being a bit dim, I know, but why did you do that?'

'To draw attention to the WSPU's campaign for universal suffrage. I'm an adult woman and thus deserve the vote. Goodness, you're still smiling. You've listened longer than most people do.'

'Because I agree with you. You're going to win, by the the way. I'm Bernice Summerfield.'

The woman shook her hand. 'Constance Harding. I was going to go to my first dance this year, but now, obviously, I can't. When did you come out, by the way?'

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A forkful of cake stopped halfway to Benny's mouth. 'Sorry?'

'Your accent gives you away.'

\x91My accent?'

'Yes, my dear.' Constance sighed. 'Do you know, I was hoping to go cruising before I came out ...'

Benny frowned. 'Isn't that rather the wrong way round?'

'I suppose so. My mother was going to come too.'

'Really?'

'Yes, she's very gay.'

'Obviously.' Benny ate her cake thoughtfully. She raised a finger to ask a question, then lowered it again. 'You know, I think we've been talking at cross-purposes...'

Constance glanced up. A plodding blue figure was moving down the street outside. 'Oops. Terribly glad to meet you, must be going.' She took off her hat, dropped the cake and scones into it and ran for the door. 'Do have the cream.' And she was gone.

Benny laughed out loud, once more incurring the displeasure of her fellow customers. She didn't mind paying Constance's bill at all.

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After lunch, Bernice returned to her lodgings at Station Cottage. She'd popped into the art shop where Mr Sangster had provided her with some oils that she needed. He'd regaled her with stories of the Boer War, straight, she suspected, out of some cheap paperback he was reading.

Station Cottage, as the name implied, was right next to the level-crossing over the branch line. Every two hours, a little train went past, carrying commuters to and from Norwich. The cottage had a little garden with just the right sort of light and facing, and Benny had set up her easel there, intent on painting the gentle hills above the town. Atop one of them was a monument of an old woman, sitting with her basket. This, she had been informed, was Old Meg, who, sometime last century, used to walk all the way to Shellhampton and back every day to sell her small goods. Good to be remembered, Benny thought, for something so everyday and difficult.

She made herself some sandwiches, and wandered out into the garden, putting a hand up to her brow to get a good, distant look at the work in progress. Quite good, really, for a novice.

'It's utterly wonderful!' boomed a familiar voice from the street. Alexander Shuttleworth was leaning on the fence, fanning his florid face with his panama hat. 'You must have been exhibited, surely? Have you sent anything to the National?'

'If I did -' Benny munched her sandwich, '- they would send it back with a note saying that it does not suit their present needs, and there would be a PS asking what it was actually of.'

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'Oh, you sell yourself short, Miss Summerfield. I had a lady friend once who was an art lover, and she taught me some of the basics.'

'Really?' Benny arched an eyebrow. 'So do you think it's actually any good?'

'Absolutely topping. Sorry to intrude, by the way. I just popped over because I was bored. There's nothing to do at the museum, young Alec's sitting at the desk, and he's bored too, but I employ him to be bored so that I don't have to be. I wondered if I might watch you paint?'

'It's not exactly a spectator sport, but do come in. It is your garden.'

'Like a malevolent spirit, I can only enter where I am invited.' Alexander opened the garden gate and settled into a deckchair. 'Besides, that's the reason I started to rent the cottage when my sister died. I like meeting new people. Especially those down from Cambridge.'

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Benny bit her lip. So far she'd managed to avoid the topic of her supposed studies at Newnham College. 'I'm afraid that I've never been to your old college.'

'King's, it was. They rather disapprove of you roving about, don't they?'

'Rather. Oh, listen, I met a woman on the run from the police today...' And she told the story of her encounter with Constance.

Alexander humphed. 'Damn Liberals! Pardon my French, loved one, but it's really going too far when you're in and out of prison like billyoh. I don't know why Asquith doesn't just give them the vote, well, for householders, anyway. What do you think?'

'I think that grown-ups should vote, full stop.'

'Good for you. You ought to meet my chum Richard Hadleman. He's chairman of the local Labour group. Young firebrand, just in his twenties. It'll be chaps like him that'll lead us into the next decade.'

'Probably.' Bernice turned back to her painting, not wanting Alexander to see her face.

A great commotion arose from behind the cottage, and the gates of the level crossing were raised. A moment later, plumes of smoke rose from a tank engine as it chuffed past, the warm smell of its boiler drifting through the garden and mingling with the roses. Alexander glanced at his watch. 'Dead on two. The world may be changing, but at least the trains still run on time.'

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The scream caused some of the younger boys to look up for a moment.

The Upper School room in Farrar House had two balconies, each one with a cluster of chairs around it. One window was for the boys in general, the other for the Captains, four boys given special responsibilities for their house at Hulton College School.

At that moment, the Captains were beating Timothy with a tarred and knotted rope.

'Gag him, for God's sake,' Hutchinson, a tall boy with cropped fair hair, muttered. 'We don't want Wolvercote to think we're squealers.'

Timothy looked over his shoulder, clutching the cold metal of the radiator which he was bent up against. 'I had a dream, Hutchinson, a nightmare. Death was in it. We all died. We were all killed. The whole of Farrar.'

'We all have nightmares from time to time,' Hutchinson told him, 'but one learns not to wake up screaming. Only four more now. If you can refrain from making a noise, we shan't gag you. D'you think you can?'

Alton wandered in at that moment. He was rather laconic for the Captains' taste, but had passed the tests and pull-throughs designed for the new bugs with startling resilience. Especially impressive was his time on the gym rings, where he'd hung for a whole afternoon without the usual bleating. 'Excuse me, Captain,' he called, 'but form master's on his way up here. Saw him on the front stairs.'

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'What on earth does Smith want?' Hutchinson muttered 'Oh well, let's not disturb his fair senses. Let bug up, we'll finish him later.'

Dr Smith entered, his fingers tapping his lip thoughtfully, just as Timothy was skulking back to the boys' side of the room. He was a short, dark-haired man, wearing a brown suit and an outrageous tie. The design of that tie summed up what the Captains thought of their new form master. It was colonial in nature, a swirling and colourful pattern such as one might expect to see on some foreign woman's clothing. As part of a teacher's kit, though, it was frankly inappropriate. The younger boys adored him, because he was homely and full of childish things. That was desperately bad for morale.

Still, the Captains stood to attention and saluted him.

'House master in the Upper!' bellowed Hutchinson, and the boys stood up.

'Who's that?' Smith turned back to the door, as if some one had come in behind him, then, realizing they mean him, grinned for a millisecond and waved a distracted hand. He was still wearing his usual bemused expression, as if he was continually missing the point of some joke. 'No, no, sit down. I came to ask... about cricket.' He suddenly pulled a tiny rubber ball from his pocket, and bowled it over arm at a startled lad reading Boy\x92s Own in the corner. Gamely, the boy used the rolled-up paper to knock it back.

Smith caught it, grinning. 'Howzat? Oh yes, we'll put you in to bat.' There was general laughter.

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The Captains exchanged glances. Hutchinson said, 'If you wanted to ask about the cricket team, sir, you could have summoned me to your rooms.'

'Oh good, do you know about cricket?'

Yes, sir. I was team captain last year.'

'Only I was wondering - ' Smith threw the ball into the air, caught it in his mouth, appeared to swallow it, and produced it again from his sleeve, why are there only seven people batting? Couldn't we include everybody who wants to play?'

'I assume that's a rhetorical question, sir,' said Hutchinson.

In the corner of the room, Timothy was biting his bottom lip, trying desperately not to cry.

'Tell him,' urged Anand, his friend. 'He could stop them. He would.' Anand's father ruled a small independent state in India. He and Timothy were best friends, probably because the rest of the House seemed to hate them equally. 'Yes,' Tim whispered. 'That's the most terrible thing. He would.'

'It seems very odd,' Smith concluded. 'When I was away, in Aberdeen, we used to get a couple of planks, knock a ball about.'

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'Perhaps we could try that,' piped up Captain Merryweather. 'It might catch on, sir, and they'd all start using planks at Lords.' Hutchinson glanced at him warningly. His sarcasm had been a bit too obvious. But Smith was grinning that insane grin again.

'Yes... Well, I'll put the team up on the notice-board. We'll start with eleven and work up. Many hands spoil the broth, or not, as my father used to say. Or perhaps he said the opposite. Goodbye.' And he left, tossing the ball thoughtfully.

'Quiet!' Hutchinson called as soon as the door had closed. The laughter that man always left in his wake - what sort of example was that? 'We were in the process of beating Dean, if I recall.'

Timothy stood up, his eyes dark with pain, and stiffly walked back to the radiator. 'It will go the worse for you,' he whispered as he leant against it once more.

'What, bug?'

'I said,' Tim said, in a louder voice, 'it will go the worse for you.'

Hutchinson exchanged bemused glances with his fellow captains. The tone of Timothy's voice was resigned rather than scared. 'Dare say it will,' Timbo!' He laughed.' you're the one it's going badly for at the moment. Now where were we?'

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In the forest on the hills above the town, a red squirrel looked up, started, and ran.

In mid-air, a shape was forming, a flowing fractal vortex that grew out of thin air, swirling out from a point to become a spinning upright disc, the size of a barn door.

There were five figures in the vortex, in the distance, rushing towards the disc. They were frozen like statues in leaping postures. They became larger, larger still, and then the first of them fell straight out into the wood.

August got to his feet instantly, letting go of his nose, and caught Aphasia as she fell from the vortex gate. He left her to recover, and slapped the shoulders of Greeneye and Hoff as they stumbled out, carrying their large packs. 'Quickly, assemble the frame.'

The two of them started, with smooth, practised speed, to pull a metal structure from the backpacks. By the time Serif jumped from the vortex, hissing, they'd completed the job. They slammed the final connections together, and a thin metal ring encompassed the fluttering lightshow. Hoff's stubby fingers punched a series of buttons on the base of the ring. The vortex disc flexed, and a single clear note rang out across the woodland. The travellers held their breath. Then the disc stabilized, and a series of reassuring lights illuminated on the control deck.

'Vortex tunnel stable,' Hoff declared.

'Thank my ancestors,' August breathed. 'Now the area Greeneye - '

'I'm just doing it, Father.' Greeneye turned a slow circle, sweeping a handheld device across the ground. His circle complete, he flicked a control.

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A shimmering curtain of light rose from the circle around the group, arched itself into a dome above them, and, as soon as it had become complete, shimmered and blurred into an exact recreation of the woodlands around . Birds flew across the holographic dome, and the branches portrayed on its surface bent and rustled in he wind.

From the inside, the dome was transparent. August and the others sat down in a circle, paused, and then let out a deep sigh.

'This place smells,' Aphasia declared.

'Indeed!' Greeneye laughed. 'Most places do. But I, for one, am just grateful to be on solid ground, and move my limbs again. We might not have been aware of the passage of time in the vortex, but my bones ache with it. Where are we, anyhow?'

'Planet called Sol 3, in the Stellarian Galaxy.' Hoff was checking the readings on his wrist scanner. 'Many, many library entries for it.'

'Near Gallifrey, then,' breathed Greeneye.

'It is not "near Gallifrey"!' August laughed. 'We're in an arm of Mutter's Spiral, Gallifrey's right at the core. If being in the same galaxy is near, then the Sontarans are near the Rutans, for goodness' sake!'

'No harm in being wary,' Greeneye replied, a dangerous glint in his eye. 'You know that those bastards specialize in the stab in the back.'

'You're right, son, you're right. We ought to change anyway. Hoff, activate that media scanner you got on Tauntala, give us a feel for the local culture.'

Hoff fished a screen from the pack and handed out headsets, each of the group programming theirs for their particular interests. Then they set to the business of examining the data that the media scanner was picking up. For some hours, the only sounds that could be heard in the forest were the usual movements of small animals and birds.

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Through the bushes crept a great hunter.

He was a tabby tom-cat, and his name was Wolsey. He was far from his own territory, and thus constantly on the lookout for rivals and new things to explore.

The dome was something very new indeed. It was twilight, and he had been about to turn and head home for some food, but the new thing caught his attention.

He approached it cautiously, skirting right round before venturing towards it. Visually, it was hard to see that there was anything strange there, but Wolsey didn't rely on sight as much as a human would, and he perceived the strange construction as a bundle of strange sounds and absolutely new smells. He stalked right up to the edge of it, and leaned his nose forward until his whiskers were nearly touching the mysterious surface. In a moment, the great hunter would mark the thing with scent from the side of his head, and then it would be his.

A sudden sound. Wolsey looked up. And jumped. Aphasia landed right where he'd been, her hands snatching at the air as the cat bounded off into the under- growth.

The little girl bared her teeth and stood up, brushing the dirt from her dress. 'A cat!' she called to the others. 'It was one of those cat things!'

'A cat?' Greeneye leapt out of the dome, his hand reflexively grasping for the top of his sword. 'A Gallifreyan creature!' He was dressed in relaxed summer whites and blazer, a pristine boater perched atop his newly cropped hair. The only strange things about him now were the two swords still harnessed to his back.

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'Would you please relax?' August emerged from the dome behind him, in a dapper business suit. 'You're making me nervous.' He slapped a control on Greeneye's harness and the swords vanished. 'We could only find test transmissions in the radio spectrum, remember? The media scanner had to concentrate on how the locals perceive their print culture. Unless they want to use it as an observatory, I can't see what the Time Lords would want with somewhere as primitive as this.'

'But the cat - '

'There are lots of worlds with cats,' Hoff muttered. He was wearing the medals and uniform of a Boer War veteran. 'Don't let it bother you.'

Serif was still in his long black cape and wide-brimmed hat. He turned his head silently, examining the foliage. 'I will explore with stealth,' he told the others, 'by night.' And he was gone into the forest.

'Serif - ' August called after him, but he was gone. 'Oh well, I'm sure he knows best. Hoff - '

Hoff was about to flick a wrist control, but Aphasia jumped up, shouting, 'Wait! Wait! Balloon!'

From out of the square panel that had opened in the dome, a red balloon floated, its string dangling. It hovered to Aphasia's hand, and she grabbed hold of it. 'You can close it up now.'

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Hoff did so. The construction hummed with power as a defence shield activated.

'Let's explore, see what we're about,' August decided, pointing vaguely in the direction of town. 'If anybody sees the subject, or this companion of his, then call it in. And there's a TARDIS about somewhere, remember, which is very probably where the target is.'

They set off, Greeneye tossing his boater from hand to hand. Glancing at some animal movement in the bushes, possibly the dreaded cat, he missed, and the hat fell to the floor. He winced, as if bruised, as the evening breeze sent it tumbling across the ground. He halted briefly, concentrating.

The boater steadied itself, and, on some unseen means of propulsion, ran back across the forest floor to Greeneye, hopping back on to his head.

'Whatever this Time Lord's doing here,' he muttered, 'I hope he's enjoying it, because, let me tell you, it's going to be his lifetime's work.'

'Miaow...' said Hoff.