Doctor Who_ Beyond the Sun - Matthew Jones [121]
25
BEYOND THE SUN
And waited. And still nothing happened. Silence filled the room. The chamber was now so full of flickering changing lights that it was as if they were all standing inside a kaleidoscope or superim-posed against the background of a spangly music promo.
But no one here looked like a pop star. With their shaved heads and vampire complexions, they looked more like death-camp victims. The red-haired woman, Iranda, was looking maniacally around the room as if she might spy her prize at any moment. She had completely lost it. ‘Where is it?’ she cried. ‘I need it!’
From the other side of the room, Emile heard a slow clapping sound. He turned to see Bernice rubbing the ice and snow from her hands as if it were flour. The woman Bernice had been fighting with broke out into a fit of coughing and then started to climb a little uncertainly to her feet. Bernice stopped tidying herself up in order to help the woman.
‘You see,’ Bernice said to her companion. ‘What have I been saying all along?’
‘It is here!’ Iranda screamed at her. ‘I can almost taste it. Come here!’
Bernice rested her hands on her hips and turned to acknowledge Iranda for the first time.
‘Release Jason,’ she said coolly, ‘and we’ll talk.’
‘Attend to the device! Why does it not function?’
The louder Iranda shouted, the calmer and more controlled Bernice appeared to become. ‘Isn’t it a bit late for all that? Anyway, why should I? I presume you’re going to kill us all anyway?’
However, Bernice walked over to the stone disc. She sat down on the edge of one of the graves, dangling her legs down inside. The light in the chamber rippled over her face in such a way that it looked to Emile as if she was bathing her feet in a tub of luminous water.
‘Have you translated the writing in these pits?’ Bernice asked Iranda in a chatty voice.
‘Yes, I did,’ Kitzinger cut in. ‘Only on the other grave, though. I haven’t seen this one before. I think the message is the same, though. I recognize the order of the symbols.’
‘Really? This message was also with the figurine Jason entrusted to me. What does that suggest to you?’
‘The repetition, you mean? I don’t know,’ Kitzinger replied. Emile noticed that she kept glancing nervously at the young red-haired man. Emile wondered if they knew each other.
‘It suggests to me that it’s all we need to unravel this problem.’
‘And do you understand it?’ the young man asked, moving to stand beside her.
‘Almost,’ Bernice said and then paused before adding, ‘Hello, I’m Bernice by the way. In all the confusion, I’m afraid formal introductions have been overlooked. You must be Nikolas.’ Without looking over to her ex-husband, she said, ‘Jason has been without a respirator for about five minutes now. Any longer and he will begin to suffer severely. Much longer and he will die. Call off your dogs and I will tell you what I know.’
Nikolas exchanged glances with Iranda and then gestured to the Sunless. At first the silent creatures didn’t respond. And then Nikolas said something in their language – it didn’t sound like an order. More like a request. Even a plea. The female Sunless released Jason.
Jason sank slowly to his knees, gasping in the thin atmosphere. Without thinking about his own safety, Emile hurried over to Jason and fixed his own respirator over the man’s face. He knelt by Jason, resting the palm of his hand on the older man’s back, which was trembling violently. Emile remembered the first time he had seen Bernice’s ex-husband, at the dig on Apollox 4. Jason Kane looked about a hundred years older. Mind you, it felt about a hundred years since then.
‘Thank you,’ Bernice said very quietly. She smiled gratefully at Emile and he felt her appreci-ation wash over him in the cold room.
‘We’ve done what you asked. Now tell us!’ Nikolas was almost begging now.
‘All right, but you won’t like it. Kitzinger, what did you make of that section?’
Kitzinger peered at the side of the pit where Bernice was pointing. ‘Oh, I do recognize that, it says: “The vision