Doctor Who_ Beyond the Sun - Matthew Jones [102]
There was a shocked silence from the others in the room. Bernice was suddenly very aware of all the eyes upon her. Her cheeks were hot and she could feel her scalp prickle with sweat beneath her hair.
‘And have you thought about the consequences if you’re wrong?’ Jason said quietly. ‘Well have you? What would happen if a completely ruthless race like the Sunless gained the power to travel across the whole galaxy or to destroy a planet from space?’ Bernice was silent. ‘You know what would happen, because you’ve seen it happen before. You and I have seen stuff, stuff that no one else gets to see. We’ve been witness to Armageddon. Can you take the chance that it’s not going to happen here?’
‘I can’t,’ a quiet voice said from the other side of the room. Scott was moving towards them, refusing Tameka’s offer of assistance. ‘What Jason says is true, Bernice. If my sister thinks the power is here then she is right.’
‘What do you know about it?’
‘I’ve seen it in my dreams all of my life. All my family do.’ He glanced at Michael for the first time since he had become conscious. His brother looked away. ‘A blinding, searing heat that consumes everything. It exists, I know it does. I’ve felt it. If Iranda has been stupid enough to search it out, then I’m going to try and stop her giving it to the Sunless.’
Jason put a hand on her shoulder. ‘If you want to take a ship and go, that’s fine.’
‘Oh thank you – your permission is so important to me.’ She shrugged his hand off and moved to the doorway of the room. She felt lost. Why was it so much easier to think clearly when Jason wasn’t around? Was she really only refusing to get involved because she was angry with him for falling in love with someone else? Maybe it would have been easier if the woman he had fallen in love with wasn’t bloody eighteen. Why did men have to go and do that? she asked herself. You never heard about women doing that sort of thing, did you? She suddenly remembered Doran.
Ah, yes, Doran, the student with the floppy fringe. Well she hadn’t actually had sex with Doran or fallen in love with him or anything ridiculous like that. Well, not really. And anyway, that was entirely different.
She felt the beginning of a wry smile creep across her face.
She looked across the cavern. Green lamps spotlit the crisscross supports embedded in the rock walls. Although the pits where they had been imprisoned were obscured by the darkness, she could work out where they were. There was no one in sight, which probably meant that their escape hadn’t yet been discovered. Which meant that surprise was still on their side.
The only thing that was on their side, mind you.
It was only then that she realized that she wasn’t going to abandon Jason and Scott to their heroics. She was going to stay and stop Iranda as well. The realization made her feel slightly giddy.
‘Crikey,’ she whispered to herself. ‘I had only suspected it previously, but Bernice Summerfield, you are certifiably insane.’
The children were kneeling on the floor, facing forward. They were all dressed in identical grey outfits, heads shorn, chanting the same words over and over. They were staring at the far wall.
Bernice couldn’t see their faces, but she imagined them blinking at the same regular intervals.
There was no teacher or adult in the room. No windows or cameras: no obvious means of sur-veillance. Her eyes searched the children for some indication of disobedience or individuality, but there was nothing. Just six rows of conformity. From where she stood in the doorway, it was impossible even to tell whether the children were boys or girls.
From the back, if their hair had been half a centimetre longer, any one of them could have been Emile.
She heard a noise from the corridor