Doctor Who_ Beyond the Sun - Matthew Jones [7]
He was just very glad not to be alone.
‘I’ve got some reservations about her book – she ain’t no Howard Carter, that’s for sure. But then she’s no faker like that Kryptosa guy.’
Emile had never heard of Howard Carter. Although the name was sort of familiar. He was probably one of the other lecturers at St Oscar’s. But Emile didn’t need to be told who Kryptosa was.
Franz Kryptosa was an explorer who had vanished about a hundred years ago. Now he really had been famous – his own programmes, major product endorsement, everything! The networks still repeated his old shows when they had a gap to fill in the weekday lunchtime schedules. Emile always associated the glamorous documentaries with being home from school with a fever or just bunking off.
Father hated Kryptosa of course. Said he was unscientific, irresponsible. There wasn’t much room for explorers or for glamour among the community on the relay station. Father said that it wasn’t right for a man to wander the stars. A man’s place was at the head of his family. That was the Natural Path, after all. You’ll understand when you have a family of your own, Father would say. Emile had never known how to reply to this. In the old days, Mother would rescue him, changing the subject, telling him to go and clean up for dinner. And as he washed his hands, he would listen to Father’s muffled shouts, feeling sick with the knowledge that the anger Mother was enduring was somehow all his fault.
But Mother was dead and gone. Leaving him alone with Father. And without Mother he had been left to face the Natural Path without an ally. At classes, the mentor had read about the true natures of men and women and how they had become distorted by technology and the dilution of humans out among the stars. Emile would listen but they didn’t seem to be talking about him. It was as if he didn’t quite fit, but he wasn’t exactly sure why.
He was reminded of the day he had left the relay station, and he swallowed uncomfortably.
Tameka was rattling on about Bernice Summerfield in her throaty growl. ‘She’s got this like obsession with the twentieth century. Goes on about it page after page.’
Emile was dragged out of his memories. The twentieth century? Did anything special happen then? He didn’t think so. ‘Was that the one with Big War Four in?’ he asked, tentatively, not wanting to show his ignorance.
‘Yeah, maybe,’ Tameka said, pausing for breath. ‘I dunno. Anyway she keeps going on about cancer and capitalism, space shuttles and safer sex, you know?’
Emile didn’t. But he nodded anyway.
‘But she writes well, doesn’t try to bamboozle you with jargon, and tells you about the little things. The details. Ordinary people, not just emperors and generals and crap like that.’
Emile thought about this. ‘You mean as if she really might have actually been there?’
Tameka laughed. ‘What are you talking ’bout, boyee. If she’d actually experienced all the things in this book, she’d have been dead and buried years ago, I’m telling you.’
Emile blushed. ‘Yeah, course. I knew that.’
2
BURIED TREASURE
‘OK, I admit it, Bernice. This archaeology business has got me beaten.’
Her tutor raised an eyebrow and let out an exasperated sigh. ‘What is it this time, Tameka?’
‘I’m telling you. It’s time to throw in the trowel.’
Professor Bernice Summerfield PhD wagged a weary finger at her. ‘You are not the first to make that joke.’
Tameka dropped her trowel to the floor of the muddy trench as if it were a tasteless Christmas gift.Enough was, like, enough.
‘I’m serious, Bernice. This is just not fun.’ She was shivering in the spitting, greasy rain. ‘I’m up to my . . . my armpits in stinking mud. I’m cold. I’m wet. And I’m just plain bored.’
‘Be patient,’ Bernice said, resting her hands on her hips. ‘Urnst didn’t find Sakkrat in a day.’
Tameka gave Bernice