“Whether or not the demotion becomes permanent,” the colonel goes on, “is a matter for the Muster’s senior officers as soon as we’re able to re-establish radio contact.” He tries to temper his tone. The punishment is what it is, and it needed to be public, but there is no need to take the man’s humiliation any further than that. “Until then, your acting rank is private. The official reprimand will stay on your docket regardless, of course. Lance-Bombardier Foss, you are now ranking officer in field parties and on any occasions when I’m not present. You will carry the acting rank of lieutenant.”
“Sir,” Foss says mechanically. She’s just acknowledging the order. She clearly needs some time to figure out what it means.
“Permission to speak, sir,” McQueen manages. His voice is tight. His face is starting to look a little taut too, as though suppressed emotion is pressing on it from the inside.
“I don’t agree with this decision,” Dr. Fournier says.
“You’re not required to,” Carlisle reassures him. “It’s mine to make.”
“Sir, permission to—”
“We’ll speak later.” The colonel hauls himself to his feet, wincing at the pain in his damaged leg. “Take a while to think about it, then come and find me in the cockpit.”
“If you don’t mind, Colonel,” Dr. Fournier says, his voice rising now. “I think there’s a wider decision to be made. About the mission as a whole.” He stands up too, rigidly tense, his head moving as his gaze flicks between Carlisle and the rest of the crew. The colonel knows hurt pride when he sees it: Fournier doesn’t like to be brought up against the limits of his authority. But there is fear in his face, too. He’s not just throwing his weight around: he’s serious about this. About whatever it is he’s about to say.
And what he has to say is serious stuff. It brings the house down.
22
The argument is ugly. But it is taking place in the crew quarters, so Greaves is able to retreat from it into the lab. He hates raised voices, raised emotions, words turned into cutting tools, but the upside is that it provides some cover for what he needs to do. He gets to work, doing his best to tune out the noise.
The voices still get through, though. The loudest ones belong to Colonel Carlisle and Lieutenant McQueen, with each man repeating the same statement in a lot of different ways.
Colonel Carlisle is angry with Lieutenant McQueen because he used the flamethrower when he hadn’t been told to. He violated standing orders. He was in breach of regulations.
The lieutenant is angry because the colonel isn’t angry enough about the death of Private Lutes, which made using the flamethrower the right thing to do. He also says that it was all Greaves’ fault and not his own.
Greaves tries not to think about this last argument. Lieutenant McQueen must be wrong. It must be a lie, somehow, even if it doesn’t feel like one.
The rest of the team are angry too (he didn’t kill Private Lutes) because they almost died and Dr. Fournier is angry (but what if Private Lutes died because of him?) because nobody is listening to him even though he’s meant to be in charge (he didn’t he didn’t he didn’t he didn’t he didn’t).
So everybody is angry and Greaves has to work and not think about any of these things, but especially not that one thing. Private Lutes killed the boy and the rest of the children killed Private Lutes. That was how it happened and Lieutenant McQueen doesn’t know because he wasn’t there.
Greaves feels the stinging in his eyes, the wetness welling and tumbling down his cheek. He can’t wipe it away because he has put surgical gloves on. And he can’t sob or snuffle in case the crew members hear him and decide to look in on him. He is doing something very dangerous and delicate out in plain sight. He bites down on his lower lip and glares through the filming tears.
The lab has ten freezer compartments for whole cadavers. Seven of them are full, the remaining three empty. Greaves unlocks and opens cabinet number ten, the one that in the normal run of things is least likely to be used. The one where he has been hiding his stealth suit all this time.
He takes the boy’s body from his kit bag. It is incredibly light, incredibly small; folded in on itself like a hedgehog or a woodlouse. Greaves puts it directly into the cabinet, which now hides it from any crew member glancing casually into the lab.
Greaves is at war with himself. He is lying by his actions, without saying a word. But what else can he do? Before Invercrae, he could have told them what he had seen, what he suspected. He can’t—he really doesn’t think he can—say to them, now, I swapped Private Lutes for this. I’m sorry I didn’t warn you, I’m sorry I didn’t tell anyone what I was doing, but I got all I needed so on balance it worked out well.
They already hate him. Despise him, at any rate. Dr. Fournier will never allow him into the lab again, and nobody will ever speak to him, and the mission will fail and Beacon will fall and it will all be his fault.
The bag has to be hidden, too. Its bottom is caked with blood and brain tissue. The seams are holding the liquescent mass, just about, but dark stains are showing on the bag’s surface. Greaves stows it at the bottom end of the cabinet, below the feet of the small cadaver and alongside the stealth suit. There is plenty of room there, since the space was designed with the body of an adult hungry in mind.
He has to work. He has to find something. And then, when he has found it he can tell them. It has to be that way round.
Contamination of the specimen is going to be extreme and complex, but Greaves can’t think of any way to prevent it. The exposed tissue in the head wound is crusted with dust and grit from the road surface and unidentifiable particulate matter from his bag. To remove it all would take hours of work with the autopsy table fully extended, taking up half the total lab space, and the body laid out in full view.
It can’t be done, so there is no sense in worrying about it.
The volume of the voices behind him has reached a new peak. Dr. Sealey and Dr. Akimwe are shouting at Dr. Fournier, which is troubling but also opportune. For the moment, he is unlikely to be observed.
He exposes the skull on the side that has not already been laid open by the bullet. This will provide the cleanest sample he can get. He selects a three-millimetre bit and screws it into the high-speed drill. Setting the extractor fan on maximum to mask the noise of the drill, he quickly and crudely punches his way through the skull into the cranial vault. The smell of burned bone almost chokes him. The fan can’t take it all away in time, so he will just have to be quick.
Be done before they realise. Before they ask.
He retracts the drill, unscrews the bloody, clogged drill bit and drops it into the freezer cabinet. There is no time to clean and disinfect it, and he doesn’t want to explain what he has used it for. Selecting the widest of the biopsy needles, he slides it into the excavated space and takes his sample.
Just as Dr. Khan—Rina—steps into the lab and comes up behind him.
He can tell her by her tread, although right now it is heavier than usual (because of the baby) and more uneven (no hypothesis as yet). Greaves doesn’t turn to face her. Reaching up to switch off the fan, he slides the freezer cabinet shut with his knee. He hopes that Rina won’t track the movement with her gaze.