Doctor Who_ Beyond the Sun - Matthew Jones [93]
‘Please. Close the doors.’
After what felt like an age, Iranda looked up at Bernice. ‘No,’ she said.
Emile’s arms were being pulled out of their sockets. He’d made a lunge for the top of the crate as he’d slid out. Now he was literally hanging by the fingertips of his left hand, Tameka dangling from his right. His eyes were closed and his lungs ached from the lack of air. The pain in his fingertips was so intense that he had a horrible feeling that they were going to just snap.
He had been hanging like this for about five seconds but it felt like a thousand hours. He wasn’t going to be able to hold on for more than an instant longer. They were going to die. He was going to die. Sucked out into icy nowhere. Frozen death.
Tameka screamed as her arm slipped a few centimetres in his grip.
The pain in his left hand was so intense that he knew he was going to have to let Tameka go.
He was going to need his right hand to climb back into the crate. He was going to have to let her hurtle out into nothing. The pain in his fingers was unbearable, as if they were being bitten or pushed into deadly acid.
Where the hell was Bernice? Didn’t she bloody know what was going on? He shouldn’t be here!
He was fifteen! He shouldn’t be having to do this! She was his teacher! Why wasn’t she doing something?
The pain was just too much and he lost his grip on the lip of the crate.
In the tiny instant before he was going to be dragged out into space, Emile knew that this was all his fault. If he hadn’t lied about his age on the university admissions form, then none of this would have happened. Then he would be still tucked up at home on the relay station. Still disappointing Father. He’d been so glad to run away, so pleased with his ingenuity at conning his way into St Oscar’s. And now he was going to die in space and Father would never know what happened to him. Never know why he hadn’t even said goodbye.
He would never know.
Bernice landed on the floor of the bridge cracking her head against its metal grating. She tasted blood in her mouth: Iranda had hit her hard. She was struggling to her feet even as the Sunless moved swiftly towards her. She was just in time to see the tiny grey-suited figure of Emile lose his grip, and he and Tameka shot across the hold towards the gaping hole into space.
‘No!’ she screamed. Grey arms grabbed hold of her roughly. She fought against them but their grip was like metal. ‘ No!’
19
A THIN LINE BETWEEN LOVE AND
CRIME AND COLLABORATION
Out of the corner of her eye, Iranda saw a purple hand reach down for one of the needle-thin levers on the arm of the command chair. The whistling sound stopped abruptly. She turned to see Michael staring defiantly at her. ‘Brother?’
‘I’ve reactivated the field in the hold.’
‘I know what you’ve done,’ she sneered. ‘Why?’
He just shrugged his thick shoulders. Iranda turned to the screen. The Summerfield woman’s friends were lying in a heap, only inches from the open doors. They looked shaken but alive. The stars were still visible beyond the doors, sharp pinpoints of light against the blackness.
‘There was no need to kill them,’ Michael said. ‘You’ve got what you wanted.’
Iranda sighed. It didn’t matter whether they lived or died. Their predicament and Bernice’s reaction to it had only served as a distraction from the Ache. Suddenly Iranda just wanted to be on her own.
Michael didn’t look surprised when she ordered him to be locked up with the others. He just stood there staring at her, waiting for the Sunless to restrain him.
Iranda fled the bridge and hurried to her quarters. She splashed water over her face and drank some from her cupped hand. She hadn’t eaten or drunk anything all day. She felt the cold water carve out an icy path to her stomach. It only served to highlight the Ache. She sighed and collapsed on her bed. The pain was getting stronger all the time. When she had first become aware of it in her early teens, it had felt like an emotion, like grief. In recent years it felt as if it were physically attacking