Doctor Who_ Beyond the Sun - Matthew Jones [89]
‘Two of us have more chance of finding him than one.’
‘And twice as much chance of getting caught.’
All the rooms they checked on the transport were empty. Most of them were quarters for the Sunless being brought to Ursu.
First-class accommodation it wasn’t.
The smell was worse here. The whole place stank. Stank like the zoo or concentrated essence of teenage boy. The smell was so strong Bernice could almost taste it on the inside of her mouth as if it were a vapour. Sweet and rank on her tongue. She hadn’t seen any sanitary facilities –
maybe the Sunless didn’t wash. There was no sign of Scott.
She heard the sounds of boots in the corridor. Sunless. Heading in their direction.
‘Quick, hide,’ she hissed to . . . no one at all. Michael was no longer at her side. He’d completely disappeared. Cursing silently, she moved back into the corridor.
The Sunless were very close now. If Michael was in the corridor there wasn’t anything she could do to help him.
She looked around for somewhere to hide. The room was metal and bare except for the hexagonal bunks which were drilled into the walls of the rooms. To Bernice it looked like banks of human-sized honeycomb, reminding her of crawlin hotel rooms back on the heavily populated cities on Earth. Or a morgue. Thankfully they were all empty. It occurred to her that the hexagonal slots might have been some kind of suspended-animation device for long journeys.
She climbed up to one of the top bunks and crawled in. It contained a thin mattress and a small shelf for food. She heard movement in the room. No speaking but more shuffling than you’d expect for a person alone. Which meant that there were two, possibly three, Sunless in the room with her.
She almost yelled in fear when she heard the Sunless begin to climb up the tubes towards her.
They must have heard her. Perhaps known all along that she was there! She pushed her way to the back of the long tube, pressing her back to the wall. She glanced around the tiny space, but there was nothing she could use to defend herself.
So she waited for one of the crew-cut heads to appear at the hexagonal opening and for one of the expressionless creatures to reach for her. She waited. The only measure of time she had was the frantic beating of her heart. She could still hear them moving about. And then she heard the sound of bodies against mattresses.
They were going to bed. It was hard to believe but they were just going to bed. They didn’t know she was there. Bernice waited until her heart slowed before she slipped off her boots, crept down out of her bunk and slipped out of the room.
The lighting was low in the corridors. So was the ceiling. Bernice moved slowly, padding softly on the metal floor, terribly aware that more of the Sunless could appear at any moment. She had just reached an intersection when she glimpsed a flash of purple moving ahead of her. Just for a second and then it was gone. Michael?
She hissed his name under her breath. Nothing. Reluctantly she crept after him. Finally, blinking rapidly as her eyes tried to adjust to the light, she entered what could only be the bridge and caught sight of Michael standing respectfully next to the command chair.
‘Ah Benny,’ the red-haired woman seated in the chair said. ‘I may call you Benny, mayn’t I?
Jason always did.’ Iranda flashed Bernice an impish grin as she delicately crossed her legs. All her earlier nervousness had disappeared to be replaced by smug amusement. ‘What kept you so long?’
On a screen behind the command chair, Bernice saw a recording of a grey-suited figure chasing after a truck at the gates of the spaceport. The camera was quite far away and the light-enhanced picture was grainy, but she didn’t have any trouble recognizing herself. The tiny Bernice on the screen looked completely ridiculous, hanging on to the back of the truck and making little unsuccessful attempts to hop aboard.
It was humiliating.
‘Benny, you look surprised. Did you really think