Doctor Who_ Beyond the Sun - Matthew Jones [104]
It looked from her to Michael slowly, as if sizing up the threat they posed. Its flat industrial-grey eyes gazed upon her without interest.
It was going to kill her. Bernice realized that she had absolutely no idea what to do. She froze as she remembered the attack on the roof of the car. The Sunless were unstoppable. Far stronger than she was. She couldn’t see that there was any point in trying to fight one of them hand to hand.
Michael obviously didn’t share her view. He took the opportunity to move first while the Sunless sized them up. He leant on his left leg and then kicked it hard in the groin with his right foot. The Sunless staggered back but didn’t fall. Michael followed through quickly, not giving the Sunless female a moment to recover, punching it hard in the face. Bernice heard the soft sound of car-tilage tearing. The Sunless doubled over, blood streaming from its nose, but still it didn’t fall. It only appeared to be a little uncertain on its feet, and then it reached up for Michael. Its thin pale hands grabbed hold of his head, its thumbs pressing against his heavily lidded eyes.
It was going to push Michael’s eyes into his brain. Bernice was just beginning to think about trying to grab hold of its wrists, when she glimpsed a flash of metal in Michael’s hand. A knife?
Where had he got hold of a knife?
A spray of blood hit him across his face.
He had stabbed the Sunless woman in the eye.
The Sunless tumbled over backward and was still. Its right eye socket flooded with dark-red blood, which spilt over and ran down to pool on the floor.
The knife in his hand was covered in thick dark blood. ‘Where did – ’ she began but then stopped as she realized it wasn’t a knife: it was a fork. Part of the battered set of children’s cutlery they had found at the bottom of the pit.
Michael wiped his hand on his trouser leg. ‘They’re strong, but they’re not fast. They don’t feel fear and they don’t feel anger. It slows them up.’
Bernice was speechless.
They dragged the body without a word into the nearest empty room. Michael helped Bernice to strip the Sunless of its uniform. They worked in silence. Bernice didn’t want to talk or even to think about what had just taken place in the corridor outside. Removing the uniform from the dead weight of the corpse was hard work and took a long time. It was messy too. The blood got everywhere. Out of its uniform the Sunless appeared more human, and disturbingly, more like a woman. Her skin was pale and hairless, muscular but pasty.
Bernice examined the corpse’s arms, squeezing the hard muscle, before pressing her hands against the dead woman’s stomach, searching for any indication of augmentation.
‘What are you doing?’ Michael asked.
Bernice gave up her examination. ‘I had wondered whether they were cybernetically altered somehow. You know, part human, part machine. There’s a lot of it about in this part of the galaxy.
But she’s just your basic humanoid who has adapted to her environment.’
‘Does it make a difference?’
‘I don’t know. I think maybe it makes a difference to me. I would just feel better if they had computers for brains or a biomechanoid exoskeleton or something.’
Michael seemed to understand this. ‘Something that would make them separate from us.’
‘From me, anyway.’ He didn’t miss the accusation. ‘Yeah, but I’m afraid to say that the truth is you don’t need a bionic rebuild to put on a uniform or abandon your feelings.’ Bernice took one last look at the woman’s body.
She clambered to her feet and hugged herself tightly. ‘Still, I think her uniform will fit Jason.’
Michael nodded. ‘Scott’s uniform is striped. He’ll need another.’
‘The stripes come off. He did it once before,’ she added, remembering the night she had crashed on Ursu. That seemed like such a long time ago now. Dragging Errol into a pressure suit and then into the airlock, before scaring the young Ursulan half to death beneath the surface of