Doctor Who_ Beyond the Sun - Matthew Jones [60]
‘Well, sorreee,’ Tameka drawled, sarcastically. ‘Hey! You can’t tell me what to do – I can do what I like. No rules, right? No laws to break. What is the matter with that old man anyway? Why doesn’t he just get on with it? Doesn’t he like being a doctor or something?’
‘He probably didn’t like being hit,’ Emile snapped, realizing only as the words came out that he was saying too much.
‘You little shit!’ Suddenly Tameka was on top of him, slapping him around the head. ‘Just shut your stupid fat face, all right?’ The blows stung him more than they hurt. The words wounded him more. He protected his face with his hands, only catching glimpses of Tameka’s face, which was full of fury.
‘I got him here, didn’t I?’ she kept yelling at him.
They rolled off the bed and on to the floor, wrestling desperately. She was much stronger than he was and he had to continually wriggle across the floor to stop her from pinning him down. He snagged one of his earrings in her long hair and yelped when she jerked her head back and it was torn from his ear.
She pushed him against the floor and his head slammed against the bare concrete. Her face was centimetres away from his own. He could feel her hot breath on his face.
‘Queer!’ She swore and let him go.
‘Leave off! Leave off me!’ he yelled, and scrambled away from her. When he’d put a few feet between them, he touched his ear and his fingers came away with little traces of blood on them.
‘Look what you’ve done! You could have ripped my ear off!’
They sat in silence for a few moments, Tameka with her head in her hands. Scott and Michael chose that moment to return, each carrying a parcel of food. They stared at the mess. There was bed linen everywhere and the mattress was crumpled where it had been pushed up against the wall. It must have been obvious that there had been a fight.
The two Ursulans stood silently in the doorway. Scott looked between Emile and Tameka, bemused. Michael’s face was set into a disapproving frown.
Tameka was still curled up, staring into her lap. Her black hair was wild around her head. She hadn’t seen Michael or Scott arrive. ‘I’m sorry, Emile,’ she said, very quietly.
The room was incredibly still for a moment. Like it was a holo and not real at all. Emile just stared at the wall. He began to smell roasted vegetables coming from the parcels the young men carried.
‘I didn’t mean . . .’ she started. ‘I don’t believe all that old Jeillo shit. I’m sorry I called you queer.’
Emile caught Scott’s eye and then looked away. ‘Nice one, Tameka,’ he whispered.
She looked up. Two jagged black tears of mascara had run down her cheeks. On seeing that they had company she wiped her runny nose. She grinned sheepishly at him. ‘Oops.’
Without knowing why, Emile started to giggle.
‘I am just an old man, unarmed, alone. And very afraid. But I won’t be your slave, so you will have to take my life, Bernice Summerfield. As you can see,’ he added, stretching out his rough hands, ‘it’s all I have.’
The surgeon was red-faced, framed by a shock of white hair and watery, light-blue eyes. He stood with a slight hunch, probably from a lifetime of leaning over hospital beds. Bernice swallowed and turned away, his words ringing in her head.
They were too familiar. She had a growing suspicion that she had somehow slipped on to the wrong side of the argument. It was usually her standing in front of the captors, laughing at them or pitying them.
She liked to think of herself as the one with the flowers and champagne.
She walked slowly over to the window, half hoping that the old man would try to escape. She didn’t even know his name. It was getting late. Dark clouds had covered the setting sun like a fire blanket. The air was thick and warm. There was going to be a storm.
She didn’t need anyone else to tell her that kidnapping was wrong. But then the only law of this planet – that off-worlders were to be killed – was hardly the most just rule she’d ever encountered. She told herself that she had just been practical, that there hadn’t been time to consider ethics, but she wasn