Doctor Who_ Beyond the Sun - Matthew Jones [70]
Scott let him go, unable to believe what his brother had done. ‘What has happened to you?’
‘I’m sick of being different from everybody else. Sick of it!’ He got up, made a grab for his clothes and stalked out of the room.
Scott lay back on the bed and closed his eyes. How had the world become so insane? Suddenly he just wanted his nine brothers and sisters around him. He wanted the comfort and protection of his ‘Eight’. He whispered their names, as if that might magically summon them to his side: Leon, Michael, Emma, Yvonne, Nikolas, Melanie, Azaro, lain, Iranda.
Eventually he slept. The dream rose to greet him eagerly. For once he welcomed the fire from the dark-red sun, for it overwhelmed the hurt he felt inside.
Walking into the party was an uncomfortable homecoming. Suddenly Bernice had stepped into a world she knew all too well. The frugal, uniformed life outside quickly faded in the face of a whirl-wind of colour and music. But it was the excess that reminded her of her own society. After the emptiness of Scott, Michael and Leon’s frugal lives, she was suddenly surrounded by an excess of things.
They had emerged into a courtyard, which must have been a central pivot around which the rest of the building was erected. It was wide and high, several storeys up to a covered glass roof.
Heavy dance music blared, and costumed dancers spun around a fountain which dominated the centre of the room. There were people everywhere. Dancing, eating and drinking on the ground floor, fanning themselves while spectating from the balconies, which were strewn with exotic flowering vines.
The room stank. Stank of rich food and perfume. So powerful it made Bernice feel a little nauseous. The party was a shock to her senses after the usual dull smells of vegetables and sweat.
She realized that she hadn’t eaten any gourmet food since she had arrived on Ursu. Scott seemed to survive on a diet of roasted vegetables and dairy products. Here there were tables laden with the golden and glistening carcasses of large birds and even whole herd animals. Meat, pastries and huge desserts that looked like miniature buildings. She was reminded of her own wedding.
Bernice slowly walked down a few steps into the noisy courtyard, aware of Emile and Tameka keeping pace at her side. She wanted to reach out and take their hands, partly to reassure them, but also for her own support. She held herself back.
‘None of them are wearing uniforms,’ Emile whispered from her side.
Bernice had nodded before she realized that this wasn’t wholly true. The people who were serving the food wore the plain grey uniform of collaboration.
Servants, that’s what they were. It was the first time she had seen a waiter or an attendant since she had crashed on the planet.
The guests at the party wore brightly coloured, sensual clothes. Designed not for work but for showing off their healthy, tanned bodies. Many of the men and women wore make-up. Their eyes looked too big somehow, too dark and unreal. Their scarlet mouths were threatening, as if they had been dipped in blood. Bloody mouths laughing and shouting and kissing and biting into the greasy animal flesh. The drunken revellers looked lawless but Bernice knew that this wasn’t freedom. This was indulgence. The land not of do as you please, but of snatch what you can. The land of I’m all right and sod the others.
It was horrible and it was home. Or at least the closest she had felt to her life since she had crashed on the planet.
Bernice walked through the noise and laughter, feeling like a lowly peasant in the court of a king. She felt as if she were not really there at all, as if she were walking in a children’s story or through a lucid dream.
Tameka leant over. ‘Can you see her?’
‘What? Oh – ’ Bernice was about to shake her head when she glimpsed a flash of red hair crossing the dance floor. ‘Wait. Yes, I do. Stay by the stage, I’ll catch up with you there.’
The red-haired woman was small and slight. Bernice almost lost sight of her as she squeezed her way across the busy dance