Doctor Who_ Beyond the Sun - Matthew Jones [99]
‘Hang on,’ Bernice said.
There was a pause and Tameka heard the sound of scuffling for a moment and then a chain-link rope ladder was thrown down. Michael ascended first, his huge feet struggling to find the narrow rungs. Like the prison itself, the ladder was clearly designed for children. Tameka was relieved when he reached the top without breaking the damn thing. She turned, wanting Emile to go up before her.
The boy was standing in the middle of the pit, holding the cup and bowl in his hands. They were battered and filthy, just as he was. In fact, she could easily imagine that Emile was a young Sunless, in his grey uniform and crew-cut head. She wondered if they were thrown down here for missing school or answering back. The same stupid things that got kids a smacked hand back home.
Illuminated by the lamp, Tameka could now see their prison clearly. Puddles of frozen water filled the gaps in the uneven floor. Bits of rag and animal droppings were all over the place. Over in the far corner, a solitary ratlike creature sat on its haunches and stared nervously at her, its eyes blinking rapidly.
These bastards really took being bastards seriously.
‘Hey ’Meel,’ she said quietly. ‘Time to go.’
He put the cup and bowl on the ground carefully, almost reverently, and nodded. She made sure he had a firm grip on the ladder before letting him start to climb. She didn’t want him to fall and break his neck.
Emile was like one of those baby sea tortoises in the science holos at school. Just breaking out of his shell and making his first clumsy, chubby-ass steps down to the sea. Oblivious to all the birds and crabs and shit that were out to get him. Not to mention the big fish in the sea. And since they had met Bernice Summerfield they had been swimming with sharks. Boy-eating sharks.
But some of those tortoises had to make it past the dark shadows in the water. Emile had got past his dad, who sounded like a right bastard. Got away from that backwater satellite with its tinpot religion. And if he did make it past the predators, she knew that he’d swim a thousand miles, paddling away with his fat flippers until he found his island.
She stopped herself suddenly. Exactly when had she started to feel so protective of the boy?
She was surprised by the strength of the feelings she had for him. He’d saved her life of course –
hung on to her when anyone else she could think of would have let her go. But it was more than that. Maybe she was scared of seeing him get hurt. Scared of hurting him herself if she got it together with Scott. If they ever found the dragon boy again. It was obvious that Emile had a balloon-sized crush on the scaly Ursulan.
Hoo boy.
A voice called to her from above. She looked up to see Emile staring down at her from the top.
‘Tameka, are you going to stay down there all day?’
She got hold of the bottom of the ladder and put her boot on the bottom rung.
Emile giggled.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘I was just thinking, if I unhooked this ladder down now . . .’
‘As if you would even dare, boyee,’ she said coolly, but scrambled up double-quick anyway.
Bernice hadn’t really been surprised that they had been left unguarded. Or that they had been abandoned in a pit which was relatively easy to escape from. The Sunless clearly didn’t see them as much of a threat. If adulthood was equated with emotional repression for the Sunless, then they probably considered a party of sulky Goths and screaming queens as akin to children. Inef-fectual and unimportant. Chuck ’em in a dark hole and get on with more important things.
There were four other pits in the long underground chamber. Two had been flooded with rank water from a leaking pipe in the ceiling. They were covered in a thick layer of ice. If anyone had been in either of those . . . In the third they found Scott. He had been beaten