‘Yes,’ he said, trying to focus. He placed his tumbler on the table and stood, leaning against his bookcase. ‘What’s coming through?’
‘Sorry. I wanted you to sleep . . .’ Holly trailed off, but in the background Jonah heard activity in Control. Someone shouted something – Melinda, he thought – her voice excited and loud. Someone else spoke in the distance, his voice calmer and more troubled.
‘Holly, what’s going on?’
‘—eradicator is fine, fully charged,’ Holly said, though it wasn’t to him.
‘But it should have fried it a couple of seconds ago,’ a male voice said. It sounded like Alex, the guards’ captain.
‘Holly?’ Jonah said.
‘It doesn’t fry things,’ Holly said, and Jonah smiled because she was so defensive of her work. ‘Melinda, can you see—?’
‘Biped,’ Melinda said, her voice high and shrill.
Biped, Jonah thought. Jesus Christ, a human might be coming through, and she’d held back calling him because she wanted him to bastard sleep?
‘Holly!’ he shouted, and he heard fumbling as she brought the phone to her ear again.
‘Jonah, it’s okay, everything’s fine. Can’t make it out yet, it’s dark, moving strangely, some sort of ape, I think, and—’
‘That’s no fucking ape!’ another guard said.
‘—and it’s almost at containment. Melinda’s trying to wave it back, doesn’t want it eradicated because—’
‘Trying to wave it back how? Just how close is she to the breach?’
‘She’s . . . it’s all under control, Jonah. But you might want to get here.’
‘Apes don’t walk like that!’ the same voice shouted.
‘Holly, how is it walking?’ There was a thud as the phone was placed on a desk, then the unmistakable rattle of a keyboard being worked. ‘Holly? Do you need to sound the alarm?’ But she did not reply.
‘Melinda, not so close!’ Holly called. And then quieter, to someone standing close by: ‘Yeah, look, it’s okay, fully charged and operational.’
‘Then why hasn’t it fried it?’
‘I told you, it doesn’t—’
‘Positions!’ Alex shouted, and Jonah heard a metallic click. Gun being cocked?
‘Holly?’
A rattle, then Holly’s excited breathing. ‘It’s fine, Jonah. Melinda’s waving it back. I think it sees her! I think it understands!’
‘You should have called me! I’m coming to Control now.’
‘Okay, but it’s fine, Jonah.’
In the background, running feet and more excited chatter.
‘You’ll have to contain it!’ Jonah said. There was no answer, because Holly had put the receiver down again. And as he hung up on his end, he wondered why he’d felt the need to say that. The eradicator would kill any living thing that attempted to ford the breach. The robotic sample pods within the containment field would gather it. There was nothing to contain.
Outside, Jonah clicked his door shut and hurried along the corridor, joints aching. He was angry at Holly for not calling him but it was mixed with a flush of excitement. Biped, Melinda had said, and that implied so much. For three days he’d been monitoring the samples collected and classified by Melinda, and most of them had been, if not completely familiar, then at least recognisable. And for those three days he had been wondering, How similar is that Earth to our own? He’d seen the same look in everyone’s eyes at some point, the same question: Is there anything like us? It was an idea both terrifying and thrilling, and it was the one answer he sought before he’d even consider authorising extraction of any of the samples.
After that, of course, would come the preparations to send someone through.