Doctor Who_ Beyond the Sun - Matthew Jones [12]
‘Well I wouldn’t jump to any conclusions on that score, Tameka,’ Bernice muttered and introduced Emile, who was staring up at the newcomer and smiling openly.
She turned back to her ex-husband. ‘So, what can I do for you? Money, I suppose? Or have you just travelled six hundred years and God knows how many parsecs to humiliate me again?’
The man, Jason, frowned at the bitterness in her tone. Tameka had never heard Bernice so angry. It was a shock to see her so tense, so obviously out of control.
‘A chat. In private. Please, Benny, it’s important.’
Bernice sighed. ‘You’ll have to be quick. I’ve got a pipe full of fossilized excrement to excavate and, appealing as you are, if it’s a choice between spending time with you or digging up an ancient toilet, I’m afraid the toilet wins every time.’
She raised her hand to him and after staring at it for a moment as if it might bite, he took hold of it and pulled her gently up and out of the pit. Bernice let go of his hand quickly when she reached the top as if touching him were painful. She turned back to Tameka. ‘Cover our discovery with a tarpaulin and then call it a day, all right? Go and get some food and I’ll see you in the morning. Usual time.’ She nodded goodbye to Emile and then left.
Tameka watched them make their way towards one of the tractors that were waiting to ferry diggers from the site to the student village. She found herself wondering what they were talking about.
She noticed that Emile was staring at the retreating figures, still smiling absently. Benny’s husband had clearly made an impression on the boy.
‘Tameka calling Emile, come in, Emile.’
‘Huh.’
‘Could you, like, put your tongue back in your mouth and help me clear up.’
‘Wha– I wasn’t . . . I mean . . . er . . . Sure.’
She rolled her eyes and waited for Emile to finish blushing. ‘So you want a beer or what?’
Apollox 4 had become the number-one destination for inexperienced archaeology students from a hundred or so universities, colleges and private institutes in this sector of space. The reasons were obvious. For one thing, it was close to the major travel routes, and secondly it had an abundance of ancient sites, which, thirdly and most importantly of all, no longer held any significant academic archaeological value whatsoever.
The last thing archaeology professors wanted were marauding gangs of undergraduates tram-pling over new sites which might yet yield valuable information.
Bernice led Jason away from the noise and bustle of the student village. ‘Village’ was one of those optimistic descriptions for which, Bernice had long since decided, marketing directors and image consultants should be shot.
It looked nothing like a village and smelt nothing like a village. It looked like a camp site and smelt like a music festival. Tents of all sizes and shapes littered the plain. Some of the recently pitched tents were still brightly coloured, little ridged structures of red and green. However, most had been here long enough to be coated with the grey mud that seemed to get everywhere. Little thought or planning appeared to have been given to where the tents were placed. They were just littered across the landscape, loosely erected around the buildings that contained washing facilities and several of the worst eateries on the continent. These establishments, which Bernice shuddered at calling restaurants, provided a steady stream of deep-fried meat, a fried potato-like vegetable and a rough beer that the locals studiously avoided. Needless to say, the thirty thousand archaeology students who were to be found in the ‘village’ at any one time adored the brew, drinking their fill every night before trying to find their tent or a better one.
Whenever Bernice came to Apollox 4, which was as rarely as possible, she made sure that she pitched her tent as far away from the main thoroughfares as she could. The first night she had stayed on the planet, a drunken couple had tripped over her guy ropes and ended