Doctor Who_ Beyond the Sun - Matthew Jones [47]
He was brought out of his private world by Bernice, who was holding another of the fruit in her hand. He took a bite. The skin was quite thick and mottled, although the sweet flavour of the flesh inside was surprising and delicious. But it failed to dull the ache in his chest and left his lips sticky and greasy.
‘Enough?’ Bernice asked, and he nodded, not meeting her gaze. She was too good at sensing his mood and he didn’t want to have to explain himself. Particularly not this, particularly not to his lecturer. He lifted his shoulder to wipe his face on the collar of the suit, and nudged the stretcher forward, a little harder than he had really meant to.
Tameka looked over her shoulder. ‘All right, all right,’ she scolded, a frown cutting across her powdered face. ‘What’s the hurry, boyee?’ She swung a thick clump of her hair out of her eyes and shook her head at him wearily, but she started to move forward all the same. Scott waved at him for a moment and Emile managed a weak smile.
He started to feel guilty for pushing Tameka. He was being really childish. In fact that was exactly how he felt – like a little kid. Left behind with his bloody mum while everyone else got on with the interesting stuff. He resolved immediately to be really cool and fine about the situation. If Tameka got it together with Scott, that was going to be all right with him. Out of the corner of his eye, he became aware of Bernice looking at him thoughtfully.
‘So,’ she said brightly, ‘are you up for the sixty-million-dollar question?’
He almost lost his footing in reaction to this. ‘Wha– What do you mean? What question?’
‘Hey, take it easy, I was only going to ask why you chose archaeology as a degree.’ She paused. ‘Why, what did you think I was going to ask?’
He let out a breath. ‘Nothing. Doesn’t matter.’ He hoisted the stretcher in his hands. He could feel sore patches developing on his palms. ‘Do you really want to know, Professor S?’
‘Well if I didn’t want to know the answer . . .’
‘I mean it probably doesn’t matter now anyway,’ he sighed. ‘I mean you can’t exactly give me detention, can you?’ He paused for a moment to collect his thoughts. ‘Tameka was right – about my dad I mean. He never had very much time for me or my mum when she was alive. And after, well he just locked himself away. I wouldn’t see him for days – weeks sometimes. I just wanted to get away from home and I was pretty sure that going to college was the only way I was going to be able to do it. Well, I didn’t really know what course to do, so I just . . . well . . .’
Bernice stopped walking and slapped her hand against her forehead. ‘Signed yourself up for the first course listed alphabetically in the brochure. I don’t believe that someone actually did that!’
He shrugged, feeling a bit embarrassed. ‘Sorry.’
The airship lifted above the small huts and drifted away from the mountainside. Below them on the ground, they could see the tiny shape of Leon, waving up at them. His plan had worked like a dream. They were posing as a group of healers returning to the hospital at Anarray from the outlying villages with a cargo of important patients. Leon had managed to persuade a group of genuine healers to toss down their travel documents once they had boarded the dirigible.
Although the collaborator had questioned Scott for what felt like an eternity about their vaccina-tion tour of the outer reaches of the yellow region, they had all been ushered on board shortly before takeoff.
‘Is this a good time to mention that I get airsick?’ Emile said to Scott. There was a drop of at least two hundred metres to a horseshoe-shaped plain. The view was breathtaking: a city was visible on the plain