I stretched out my yellow-and-white-spotted arm and looked at it, still unable to believe the depths of my own stupidity. We can be tracked. Peterson and I had once been stranded in Nineveh and even though it took them a while, Major Guthrie and the rescue teams had been able to locate us and pull us out.
‘My pod is a Faraday cage. That’s why the tag can’t be picked up until we leave the pod. Or until we open the door.’
He stopped, unable or unwilling to continue. He didn’t have to. I did it for him.
‘But once that happens, it’s only a matter of time before they can track us down. Every time. There isn’t any place or any time where we’ll be safe. It might take them a while, but sooner or later, they’ll always find us. And there isn’t a thing we could do about it. This is all my fault.’
‘Before you start with the sackcloth and ashes,’ he said, ‘you’ve had a lot on your mind. Let’s not waste time thinking about what we should have done. We need to think about what we should do now.’
‘But it is all my fault, Leon. I should have worked it out. Every time I step outside they’re able to trace me. Us. This is bad. You know it is. Because if we can’t fix this then I’m never going to be able to leave this pod again.’
I stopped and looked around. Nothing had changed but everything was different. Now, far from being our little home, this pod was our prison. It was no longer small and cosy – it was cramped. No longer comfortably shabby and crowded – it was squalid and cluttered. Claustrophobic. Oppressive. Suffocating. My chest clenched. I tried not to panic. Tried not to realise I might never again feel the sun on my face or the wind in my hair.
‘And it’s a prison for you, too, Leon. For both of us. It doesn’t matter where or when we go – we’ll never be able to step outside again. Or even open the door. We won’t be able to let in fresh air or get food. We’ll never –’
‘Stop that,’ he said, quite sharply. ‘You’ve no reason to think …’
‘Yes, I do. I’m right. You know I’m right. We have to split up. You must see that.’
‘Not in a million years. Put that idea right out of you head.’
I said gently, ‘I appreciate what you’re saying, but you must …’
‘I said no. Forget it.’
He had that note in his voice. Arguing would not help. Time to step back and think.
‘You’re saying we’re safe as long as we don’t open the door?’
He nodded.
‘OK. We’re safe here, then. Why don’t you get some sleep? You look worn out and so am I. We’ll talk about this calmly in a few hours.’
‘Good idea,’ he said. ‘And from an historian, too. Who’d have thought? Just give me a minute.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m not a complete idiot. Computer – on my mark, door lock. Farrell voice command only. Authorisation Farrell – mike eight three eight papa echo foxtrot. Mark.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m not waking up in four hours to find you long gone. And don’t look at me like that. You’re no longer authorised to open the door, so if anything happens to me then you’re stuck in here, forever, with my slowly rotting corpse. Killing me in my sleep is, as they say, contra-indicated. Turn out the lights, will you?’
I was far too angry to sleep. And worried. And scared. And then back to angry again. Good job he warned me not to murder him in his sleep because otherwise he’d be dog meat by now. I began to devise a complicated scheme for bludgeoning him to death with the kettle and then feeding his minced remains down the toilet. It would have worked, I’m sure, but right in the middle of imaginatively dismembering his corpse, I had a brilliant idea.
And it was a brilliant idea. An absolutely bloody marvellously brilliant idea.
I spent a few minutes running through it in my mind, forming answers to his inevitable objections, and then I kicked him awake.
‘Wake up!’
‘What? What’s happening?’
‘I’ve had a brilliant idea.’
‘I’m not opening the door. Go back to sleep.’
‘Open your eyes. I’ve had a brilliant idea.’
‘There is nothing you can do to me that will change my mind.’
I leaned over him.
‘Is that a challenge?’
‘Seriously? Do you even know the meaning of the word inappropriate?’
‘Sit up, listen, and marvel.’
‘What is wrong with you? You can’t sleep so no one else can either?’
‘You’re right, I’m being inconsiderate. Go back to sleep. I don’t need you. I can do it by myself.’
Five, four, three, two, one and …
He sat up. ‘What?’
‘Nothing. Go back to sleep.’
I went to step over him, he seized my ankle, yanked, and down I went. He caught me and suddenly I was very close to him. I wasn’t sure what to do.
‘Now who’s being inappropriate? You can’t change my mind with sex, you know.’
‘Is that a challenge?’
‘No. You need to conserve your strength for my brilliant idea.’
He sighed. ‘You’ve had a brilliant idea?’
‘That’s what I keep saying. Will you listen?’
‘Obviously sleep is something that never happens when you’re around.’
‘No, listen. You said we can’t open the door because somehow they can pick up my tag?’
He nodded.