Battle of the Beetles by M.G. Leonard

Author:M.G. Leonard [Leonard, M.G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781911490111
Publisher: Chicken House
Published: 2018-02-01T08:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The Queen’s Consort

Two men in white lab coats came for Novak. Last time it had been Dr Lenka; Novak remembered him forcefully pushing her up the steps into the pupator. She hadn’t known what was going to happen to her then, but this time she knew, and she struggled.

‘Get off me! Let me go!’

The men lifted her on to a stretcher. They strapped down her arms, legs and then her neck. She stopped fighting and started screaming.

The men ignored her screams, raising the stretcher up on telescopic legs and wheeling her along the corridors of the Biome. She watched the hexagonal ceiling tiles zoom past, screaming and screaming as she frantically tried to work out how she was going to get away.

The trolley slowed to a stop. She could see a doorway. Darkus’s dad was standing beside it, Spencer at his side, both of them dressed in white coats.

‘Let me go!’ she cried. ‘Help me!’ She looked at Spencer and he looked away.

Darkus’s dad ignored her, speaking in low tones to the men who’d been pushing her. They nodded and walked away.

‘Hello, Novak,’ Darkus’s dad said, brightly, coming to stand at the head of the stretcher.

‘Traitor!’ Novak shrieked at him, spitting at his face.

Bartholomew Cuttle wiped his face with his sleeve and turned his back to her. In a low, insistent voice, he said: ‘Please listen carefully to everything I say. Even if I’m not talking directly to you.’ His tone brightened, his voice growing louder as Spencer came to stand by Novak’s feet. ‘We are conducting an important experiment here today, and you are very lucky to be a part of it. Isn’t that right, Spencer?’

Novak looked at Spencer, uncertain of what to make of Darkus’s dad’s behaviour. With his right eye, Spencer gave her the tiniest of winks.

‘Yes, sir.’ Spencer grabbed hold of the bar at the foot of her stretcher and pushed the trolley, Darkus’s dad steering it down the corridor.

‘Well, first things first,’ Bartholomew Cuttle said, ‘I’d appreciate it if you didn’t scream any more. It upsets me, and will make it very difficult for you to hear what I’m saying, and, as I said, you must listen carefully to what I say at all times.’

Novak didn’t reply.

Spencer nodded and smiled.

They turned down another corridor, and then another.

‘Oh, drat it!’ Darkus’s dad turned around and made a play of looking exasperated. ‘Spencer, I must have taken a wrong turn. I have to admit, I don’t know exactly where we are! I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to the geography of this hive. Do you know which way it is to get to the pupation lab?’

‘Lost, are we?’

Novak immediately recognized Dr Lenka’s snarl, and her blood ran cold.

‘No,’ Bartholomew Cuttle replied, turning to face him. ‘We’re not lost, we are, ah, just . . .’

‘Where are you taking the girl?’ Dr Lenka asked, stepping up to the stretcher and staring down at Novak.

‘Oh, come on.’ Darkus’s dad laughed, lightly. ‘You know where we’re taking her,’ – he paused – ‘don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ Dr Lenka sounded uncertain, ‘of course I do.

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