Doctor Who_ Beyond the Sun - Matthew Jones [44]
Eat it and be grateful, Summerfield.
Emile had turned to listen to Tameka and Leon, his large brown eyes glistening as he followed their animated discussion. She’d obviously touched a delicate spot. Bernice didn’t know whether her students had met on Dellah before the dig, but there certainly existed a strong bond of friendship between them now. Emile was watching Tameka closely, always nodding at whatever she said and laughing along with her barbed comments.
Tameka wasn’t paying Emile any attention at the moment. She was waving her heavily brace-leted arms in front of her and swearing at Leon, telling him that he was a dickhead. Bernice shuddered. Was the girl completely oblivious to the precarious nature of their situation? However, the tall reptile appeared to be taking her insults with his characteristic good humour.
‘If you think they’re wrong,’ he was saying, ‘if you think that they shouldn’t be operating in the way that they are, why don’t you do something about it?’
‘Don’t be an asshole all your life, Leon. Have you got scales for brains or what? You can’t fight the corporations. They’ve got it all sewn up. You try and fight a company and pretty soon you’ll wake up with a smoking blaster hole in your chest. It’s the same all over. There’s nothing you can do to change it.’ She shrugged. ‘That’s just, like, how it is: shit happens, you know?’
‘Shit never just happens. People cause shit to happen. It is not like that here. If you don’t like the situation, you change it.’
This was the first time Leon had raised his voice in the discussion. His gentle warmth had been replaced with a calm passion. ‘That’s the first duty of every Ursulan. First and last.’
‘Oh yeah? I don’t see you taking on the baldies from outer space. I’ve met politicos like you before. It’s just words.’
Leon looked a little flustered at this. ‘We are fighting the Sunless but . . . it is hard. They are so very cruel. So quick to violence and indiscriminate with it. In the year since they arrived almost half of the population has been killed. It was a massacre. Many died opposing the Sunless’s rule; more were executed.’
‘Hey, I’m, like, sorry.’
He smiled at her, his gentler manner returning. ‘I am sorry too. In the face of such terror, people have given up their choices. Where there is authority there is no freedom.’
Bernice remembered what Leon had said to her earlier. About telling the old woman what she thought of her, about not being a subject. She was going to ask Leon more about his society, but at that moment Scott entered the stone building and joined them at the table. He’d changed into an undamaged uniform. He patted Leon on the back and Bernice was reminded once again of the physical similarities between them.
‘Have you been trying to convert our new friends to the cause?’ Scott asked playfully.
Leon made his cooing noise, his forked tongue vibrating with what Bernice assumed was pleasure. He waved a claw at Tameka. ‘I don’t think we need to convert this one.’
‘Convert me into what? Get real! I think you’re all braindead.’
Bernice wanted to know about Errol. ‘How is he? Did you manage to get him back here all right?’
Scott slipped on to the bench next to her. Bernice noticed that both Tameka and Emile turned to look at him. He nodded a hurried welcome at them and turned to face Bernice, clearly missing their symmetrical expressions of interest.
There’s going to be trouble there, Bernice thought to herself before focusing on what Scott was saying.
‘The Sunless were moving towards the reservoir but we dodged them. They’re