Doctor Who_ Beyond the Sun - Matthew Jones [96]
Now he felt very fragile. He was suddenly acutely aware that he was a prisoner on a spaceship full of killers. And that, just because Bernice was an adult and his teacher and everything, it didn’t mean that she was a superhero. However cool she tried to be, she was a human being, not invulnerable like Mr Misnomer – the Man of Chrome – or Atoma or Comrade 7. She wasn’t necessarily going to be able to keep him alive. Wasn’t necessarily going to be able to make everything all right.
Hey, Emile, he told himself, you better take an interest in what’s going on around you.
Michael was still sitting curled up on the other side of the cell, talking quietly. Emile pulled his face out of Bernice’s embrace, surreptitiously wiping his eyes on her uniform as he did so, and started to listen. Carefully.
‘They moved through the city slowly – a few streets at a time. They would set up a camp in the middle of a square or at a crossroads. Just sackfuls of plain grey uniforms and a whole pile of batons. Anywhere where locals might congregate. Then they’d herd the people together under the watchful eye of their armoured cars and tell the crowd to make a choice to cooperate or not. It was made clear that those who wouldn’t cooperate would be killed. I was caught with about a hundred others. We were left to decide. Slowly people began to drift apart, not looking at each other. You could smell the fear and recrimination in the air. And then those who had chosen to collaborate were given clubs and told to kill everyone in the other camp.’
‘Oh my God!’ Emile felt his mouth fall open in horror. Michael met his gaze, his large heavily lidded eyes unreadable.
‘What did you do?’ Emile whispered.
‘I chose to live. So I took up a club, weighed it in my hand, and then I killed seven people.’
Emile swallowed, remembering how he had considered letting go of Tameka’s hand in the hold.
He had heard her cry out to him, begging him to keep her alive, and still he had known that he would have let her go eventually. If his fingers hadn’t slipped he would’ve let her die in order to try to save himself. Once he’d realized that Bernice wasn’t going to save them he would have done anything to stay alive. Anything at all.
Tameka looked over to him and smiled. She’d been all over him in the hold afterwards, hugging him, holding him, thanking him. Words spilling out of her. Calling him her Captain Space Boyee.
Way out of character. Completely hysterical, in fact. She’d given him all the attention he had always secretly wanted from her. And it had felt good. He’d felt like a hero. Like the Man of Chrome himself.
He didn’t feel like that now. He was going to have to stop reading comics.
‘Where is this ship going? Where are they taking us?’ he asked, suddenly wanting to be involved.
‘Don’t you know?’ Michael sneered.
‘He wouldn’t ask, if he knew, dick-for-brains,’ Tameka said scornfully.
‘We’re going to the Sunless’s world. We’re going to their home.’
20
DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN
Extract from the diary of Bernice Summerfield
We sat in an uncomfortable silence as the ship shuddered and lurched through the atmosphere like some poorly maintained theme-park ride, taking us down to where we did not know. I didn’t know what else to say to Michael. There was an element of the absurd about the situation. The grotesque. I mean, what do you say to someone who has done something so vile? My anger was just too big, like an avalanche of emotion. If I started to let it out, it would consume me, bury me.
And if I did let it out then I knew that I would have to face my part in this.
The ship finally landed after practically shaking my brains out of my ears. My teeth chattered violently and I bit my tongue. The sharp stinging pain distracted me from the presence of the Sunless who led us silently through the dull metal corridors of the ship and into the airlock. Their movements were coordinated, walking in step, but fluid, with none of the jerkiness or rigidity