Doctor Who_ Beyond the Sun - Matthew Jones [87]
‘I found this,’ he said, and handed me the artefact that had brought us here in the first place. I stared at it, my mind racing. It was still wrapped up in the same inscribed cloth. He said that he’d found the figurine lying outside on the scrubland when he’d been searching for the necklace. Quite how it had come to be there I could not guess.
Was this really what the Sunless had been looking for when they came? Was this really why they had killed Jock and Errol? Why they had taken Scott and Michael? Probably killed them too.
Its tiny carved-out eyes stared impassively back at me, as empty and dark as those of the Sunless themselves.
The symbols on the cloth were of a similar style to those I had seen in the armoured car. None of the symbols were identical but they clearly shared a heritage. I don’t know whether I was trying to run away from the horror of yesterday or try to make some meaning out of it, but I found myself sketching out a plan for a thorough investigation of the artefact. If it really was important, if the Sunless really wanted it, then I wanted to know why.
Emile managed to access the university mainframe and I used linguistic software to make a detailed translation of the spiky figures on the cloth. I must admit to being disappointed to discover that it was only the usual doomsday stuff which characterizes so many religions across the galaxy. According to the translation, the figurine represents a seer or prophet of some kind. Special sight, gift of the gods, visionary thing – that sort of stuff.
The vision of the male and the female will lead us out of the night.
The text went on like this for quite a while. Which is all very well if you’re interested in doing a discourse analysis of compulsory heterosexuality in religious texts (and let me make it clear that this is one feminist who was born to deconstruct!), but less useful if you’re trying to establish why someone might be willing to kill you to get their hands on the ugly little bugger.
The visionaries will give themselves up to release the power beyond the sun.
Yeah, right. Implausible as it all sounds, the translation is uncomfortably close to what Jason’s girlfriend had said. But I refuse to believe this kind of tosh. I did not spend my doctoral studies tentatively exploring the possible grounds for the interpretation of cultural artefacts to then start taking hurried ’puter-generated translations at face value.
One thing is very clear, though. I was completely wrong about the artefact originating on this world. It must belong to the invaders. To the Sunless. I am horrified that this all may turn out to be a wild-goose chase, like that time
Extract interrupted
Bernice looked up from the few sheets of paper she was using for a journal, her pen still touching the page. The light from the small lamp barely stretched beyond the makeshift bed. Their bed of curtains was an illuminated island in the darkness of the library. The sound came again, a quiet crunching noise. Glass under foot.
Emile and Tameka were asleep beside her – no one else knew they were there. There wasn’t anyone else alive to know.
And yet someone was definitely climbing up the staircase of the library.
Bernice placed her journal silently on to the floor beside her and slipped out of the bed, careful not to disturb Emile and Tameka. She trod over the tattered library books which were scattered around them, and edged towards the top of the stairwell. She could hear footsteps clearly now.
They were trying to move quietly, obviously not wanting to be heard.
Bernice leant through the open door and peered down into the darkness. She saw nothing, although she imagined a whole host of terrors. She glanced back over to the glow of their camp.
Had someone in