Doctor Who Salvation Steve Lyons

[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.SALVATIONSTEVE LYONSPublished by BBC Worldwide Ltd,Woodlands, 80 Wood LaneLondon W12 0TTFirst published 1999Copyright © Steve Lyons 1999The moral right of the author has been asserted Original series broadcast on the BBCFormat © BBC 1963Doctor Who and TARDIS are trademarks of the BBCISBN 0 563 55566 1Imaging by Black Sheep, copyright © BBC 1999Printed and bound in Great Britain by Mackays of Chatham Cover printed by Belmont Press Ltd, Northampton Chapter OneCITY OF LIGHTSManhattan.A rash of UFO sightings broke out, after onlookers saw green lights in the sky above Midtown last night.A police spokeswoman said: ‘It seems that one or two people experienced an unusual optical effect.There is no cause for concern.’New York Ranger, Saturday March 20, 1965 (p17) An unpleasant drizzle ground a thin layer of snow into the dirt of the sidewalks.The sun was a cold ball draped in mist, unwilling to combat the entrenched frigidity in the air.A decade and a half before New York was famously labelled the ‘city that doesn’t sleep’, its lower east side stretched and yawned and thought about spending a few more minutes under the sheets before it braved an unwelcoming Sunday.The Bowery was particularly slow to rise from the torpor of the dawn.Henry Wilkes preferred it that way.Uptown, the glassy eyes of towering buildings would look down on his limping gait and filthy salvaged raincoat, and judge him without truly seeing him.He would feel them, burning into his back, though he stared resolutely at the ground and struggled to ignore them.He had lurked behind those eyes himself once, in a long-gone life.The city accountant with the apartment he could barely afford, the wife he could not, and the deep, insistent loneliness in his gut to which only a slug of whiskey behind his desk in the morning could bring relief.The Bowery’s eyes were concealed behind wooden shutters.And, though many had been torn open, the eyes themselves were dead, burnt out.Nobody watched him here.The cold bit into Henry’s skin, but it had done its worst already.His bones were chilled to the marrow, their brittle throb a constant companion.His nerves were dead, his lungs hot and coarse with illness.His thoughts were a barely cognisant haze.He had learned not to think; at least, not beyond his next bottle.He coughed up bile and trudged through brown slush, not knowing where he went, just marking time until people next filled the streets, perhaps taking pity on a down-on-his-luck bum and tossing a few coins his way.When he had scraped enough together, he would drink himself into a pleasant oblivion; not have to suffer life until the flophouse opened its doors again and he could sleep.Rare were the days on which Henry’s simple routine was disturbed.A night in the cells here, a knife to the throat there, steel toecaps in his ribs if sniggering, taunting thugs took offence to him.It didn’t make much difference any more.So, when somebody appeared in front of Henry, his first impulse was to shuffle on by.When another man blocked his path, and he turned to find himself surrounded, he simply came to a halt, looked glumly at his own battered shoes and waited for the strangers to do as they wished.If he felt fear at all, then the emotion was buried in a part of himself he had forgotten how to reach.Henry cared about his own fate no more than did anybody else.But, today, a remarkable thing happened.The first stranger spoke to him.To him, not at him, and expected an answer, which Henry was too nonplussed to give.He tried to recall the last occasion on which his vocal cords had been used for anything more than obedient grunts or yelps of pain.The stranger put his question again and, this time, Henry concentrated on deciphering the words, knowing that they would have meant more to him once.‘What do you need?’For the first time in his memory – and, he was sure, for days, at least, beyond it – Henry Wilkes looked up.He looked up, and saw a golden-haired, broad-shouldered man, his size impressive next to Henry’s stooped posture, his eyes a deep azure.He wore a spotless white suit, and seemed to radiate power in a way that Henry could not understand.He didn’t know why he acted as he did next, it just seemed the right thing to do.He sank to his knees, although his joints protested at the movement, and he turned his face away from the stranger’s perfection.His skin tingled, not unpleasantly, as the man reached down and laid a hand on Henry’s tangled, unwashed hair.‘You need not speak, if you find it painful.Your needs are clear enough in your mind.You called to us with your pain.’Henry had done no such thing – had he? It was so hard to remember sometimes, and this man would not lie to him, surely [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Pokrewne