Doctor Who_ Beyond the Sun - Matthew Jones [34]
Kitzinger nodded at the ’puter. ‘A complete record of all of our work is recorded there. You could have accessed it from – ’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Don’t you want me to come and visit you?’ he interrupted, a smile flickering across his thin mouth.
Kitzinger froze. She could feel beads of cold sweat between her shoulder blades. He was teasing her. She was dangerously close to a beating. ‘Yes. Yes I do want you to come here.’
Nikolas shot Aric a look of mock surprise – the first time he had acknowledged the other man’s presence since he had entered the hut that evening. Aric only flinched in reply. ‘Aric, my friend, I didn’t realize I was so popular, did you? If I had known I was so welcome I might have come more often.’
Kitzinger swallowed. She had once received a sharp kick in the kneecap for trying to flatter him. ‘You’re not popular here. Not with me, I mean. I can’t speak for Aric. But I do want you to come, because I hope that one day you will come to tell me that I am to go home.’
Nikolas stared at her neutrally for a moment, appraising her. Deciding what he wanted to do with her. ‘So honest,’ he commented. ‘So principled. You’re a model for us all,’ and then he grinned. ‘You will go back to Ursu, of course you will. But only when the work is finished here. Not before.’
Kitzinger swallowed. He was lying of course. He always grinned when he said something that was an out-and-out lie. Like most teenagers, he couldn’t disguise his body language, which was quite easy to read. But she didn’t need to pick up non-verbal cues to know that he had no intention of making good his promise. Why would he go to the trouble of arranging for the two of them to be taken several light years across the galaxy? It would be so much easier just to kill them both. The promise of a return home was just to ensure her complicity. Preying on her hope, on her desire to live, on her willingness to accept the tiniest chance of a reprieve from this hellish place.
And it worked. Oh, how it worked.
‘I don’t have time to read the report now,’ he said dismissively. ‘Tell me, what progress have you made now that the device is almost complete, now we have replaced the equipment that was removed?’
He was referring to the Blooms. It didn’t really surprise her that he didn’t like to mention their name. A month after she had been brought to the ice planet, Kitzinger had been woken by the sound of heavy machinery. She had stood at the plastic window of the hut, open-mouthed as she had watched the Blooms being lowered into the chamber. She had never seen them out of water before. They were like enormous clams, their ribbed, fan-shaped bodies blocking out the deep-red sunlight that invaded the crystal chamber as they descended towards her.
Like all Ursulans, Kitzinger and Aric – and even Nikolas – had been born from the Blooms. For as long as she could remember they had nestled at the bottom of the pools in the university on Ursu. Her whole society depended upon them – no, more than that, the Blooms were the foundations upon which Ursulan society was built. Without them no children could be born and Ursu would surely die.
And Nikolas had scooped them out of the water and brought them here, destroying her whole culture with one casual theft. It was horrifying that one of her own people was capable of such a betrayal.
Nikolas was speaking. She looked up at him and saw that he was impatiently waiting for a reply from her. ‘Well?’ he said.
The threat of violence in his voice stirred her out of her musings. Well what? What had he been talking about? She’d been so caught up in her thoughts that she’d stopped listening to him. She felt a sinking feeling in her stomach as the likelihood of another beating loomed. Filling her voice with as much confidence as she could, she guessed, and said, ‘The Blooms are now connected to the rest of the artefacts in the chamber.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘You’ve made a lot of progress since I was last here.’
She’d guessed correctly. She was tempted to take the credit for the work but it would be dangerous to