Doctor Who_ Beyond the Sun - Matthew Jones [86]
Some kids caught sight of us in our plain Sunless uniforms and, thinking that we were collaborators, threw stones at us and called us names. Tameka tried to chase the children away but the whole thing turned into a bizarre game. The kids ran just out of her reach but didn’t actually leave. Shouting and screaming with naughty pleasure. An Oolian girl kept hovering in the air above her, flapping her wings and trying to spit on Tameka, cawing excitedly like a manic crow. A short, wiry, purple-skinned Jeillo boy with no front teeth kept sticking his lilac tongue out at me and calling me a ‘dirty bastard’.
There were eight children. All different colours, sizes, genders, species. They’re what the Ursulans imaginatively call an Eight, a family of peers. The idealism of this society felt so pathetic, so feeble next to the violence we had witnessed. That we had experienced.
I must admit that I had been seduced by the idea of a society without rules. Until I saw the ease with which the Sunless had strolled in and killed half of the population. I just felt so incredibly angry that the Ursulans could have ever been so trusting. So naive.
In the centre of the city garden there was a notice board. It was a huge thing, black in a metal frame. Its surface was covered in messages. Some had been sent electronically, others were on paper, pinned to it with tacks. There must have been at least three hundred messages. All of them were over a year old. The electronic part of the board no longer functioned. Some messages were personal, some offering skills. Most were requests for assistance. Ursulans didn’t seem to use concepts like work and play, but there were many invitations to become involved in ‘projects’.
Some of them sounded interesting. There were also requests for people to help with ‘drudgery’ –
work which seemed to involve little reward and required few skills: sewer maintenance, road cleaning. But even these didn’t sound so terrible as they were accompanied by other, more creative activities. A group of singers planned to write an operetta as they searched for a breach in a water pipe to an outlying village.
Emile pointed to an electronic request for adults to assist with two new Eights which were about to be birthed. The project offered to introduce Ursulans to midwifery, childcare, genetic engineering and underwater swimming. The request had been made by someone called Kitzinger.
There was an address for the university.
University! The word could have spelt home. If there was one place I wanted to be on this world it was there.
It was relatively easy to find. When we entered the low sprawling buildings, we quickly saw that the Sunless had made their mark here. Half of the site had been abandoned. All the arts, humanities and social-science departments had been closed down. There were huge black scorch marks on the concrete walkways.
Book burnings. History repeating itself across time and space.
The engineering and natural-sciences departments were occupied by Ursulans in collaborators’
uniforms. They didn’t pay us any attention in our grey garb. We managed to break into the social-science department without being seen and set up camp in the library. The windows in the higher floors of the building were still intact. The holo equipment had all been removed, but there were still a couple of ’puters and even a few books strewn across the floor – spines broken, pages torn.
Made me shudder. We used a few for pillows. That night, in the archaeology aisle, I wrapped my arms around Emile and Tameka and waited for them to fall asleep.
Emile had disappeared when I woke up the following morning. He didn’t show up until lunchtime.
Turned out he’d gone back to the dormitory looking for some jewellery of all things. Tameka said, rather dryly, that he was only conforming to type, but