Doctor Who_ Beyond the Sun - Matthew Jones [21]
‘How expensive?’
Bernice eyed the screen. ‘About a month’s salary. I’m trying to work out whether he’s worth it.’
‘Who?’
‘Jason, of course.’
‘You’re not serious? You wouldn’t really leave him in the hands of kidnappers, would you?’
Bernice could tell that Tameka was shocked that she appeared to be even considering leaving Jason to suffer his fate. ‘No, unfortunately.’ No one had been more surprised than Bernice to learn that she still harboured strong feelings for her ex-husband. Perhaps she was still in love with him in some perverse and cruelly unfair way. Best not to think about it. She’d deal with all of that when she found him.
If she found him.
She cursed him under her breath as she authorized the transfer of funds from her account on Dellah to the Butler Project. As ever, Jason was costing her an enormous amount of money. She grimaced as she glimpsed the heights to which her overdraft soared as the transaction took place.
There would be angry correspondence from her bank waiting for her when she returned home.
She smiled grimly. No change there then.
There was a short pause as the Butler Project acknowledged the receipt of her payment and then transmitted her newly purchased information. The screen of the ’puter filled with text and images. Bernice recognized it as fragments of a planetary survey report. Whoever had compiled the report had been thorough. Most of it was geological information. Bernice frowned, unable to make much headway with it. She was probably going to have to find a specialist, which would mean more money.
The search took her directly to the match it had found. The symbols on the cloth, which she had scanned into the ’puter, were placed next to a series of images which had been included as part of the survey. The images were holos of a large stone disc buried in the ground within a dark chamber. The surface of the stone was covered in the thin, angular symbols. The same symbols that adorned the cloth. There were two rectangular trenches cut into the surface of the disc. The pits reminded Bernice of –
‘Graves!’ Tameka exclaimed, looking over Bernice’s shoulder. ‘Hey, that’s so cool! Where are the bodies? Have they been robbed?’
‘Don’t leap to conclusions,’ Bernice admonished. ‘First rule of archaeology. For all we know the people who built your “graves” weren’t even humanoid.’
‘What planet is it? Where is it?’
‘There’s only a system code listed here.’ Bernice was still searching through the fragments of the report. ‘I can’t find any planetary coordinates listed at all. If I had the whole report it would be a different story. I fear that I may have just blown my wages on nothing. According to the tag, the report was initially purchased by the Ursu Group way back before the war. They sponsored several more. And according to this, there was an expedition too. But it doesn’t say who the Ursu group were.’
‘What system is it?’ Tameka asked.
‘I’ve only got the code. V15.’
‘V15?’ Emile said.
Bernice nodded. ‘That’s right. Does that mean something to you?’
‘When we were looking for flights out of here, a private ship left for the V15 system. I stopped to watch it leave.’
‘Bingo!’ Bernice cheered, clapping her hands together.
‘I’m sorry?’ Emile spluttered. ‘What’s Bingo?’
‘Never mind.’
‘But you think this is where Jason has been taken?’
‘It would make sense. If he did steal that artefact, perhaps someone from that system wants it back. Perhaps the Ursu Group or rather their descendants? Who knows?’ Bernice was aware that she was telling her students more than she really wanted them to know. It wasn’t going to do her reputation at St Oscar’s any good for them to hear her suspicions that her husband was a thief.
She tapped the ’puter screen. ‘We need to check this information against any of the other destina-tions of ships, but I find it difficult to believe that this is just coincidence. Thanks Emile,