They’re going home. Not a one of them quite believes that yet, and not a one of them wants to jinx it.
But in spite of Foss’s slightly obsessive thoroughness, it’s still early when they leave. Colonel Carlisle surrenders the driving seat to Sixsmith, its rightful occupant, but remains in the cab so he can use its comms rig to talk to everyone in the main crew space. Foss takes the mid-section look-out and gives Phillips the turret. She is still hesitant about giving orders to McQueen.
Everyone apart from the look-outs straps in and waits for take-off. They won’t stay strapped in, of course. Rosie’s top speed is twenty miles per hour on a good road, but there are no good roads left. She picks her way slowly along Britain’s rutted, sclerotic arteries, and drops to an 8 mph average when she leaves the tarmac for the scenic route. Most day-to-day activities, whether work or leisure, aren’t inhibited by her easy trundling. But this is turn-around, a day they have been anticipating for a long time. Soldiers and whitecoats alike are showing a due respect.
In fact, the scientists seem downright sombre. Foss can see where they’re coming from, too. More than half a year on the road and nothing to show for it. For all the good they got out of those endless shoot-em-ups and cut-em-ups, they might just as well have been picking blackberries. Better off, in fact. Fresh fruit is hard currency in Beacon.
If Beacon is still there. But it must be. Nothing would have torn the whole camp down so completely that they couldn’t even squeeze a word out. So the lack of comms must be a technical hitch. That’s all it can be.
So personally she’s in a pretty buoyant mood. The image of Lutes’ body almost cut up into pieces is still vivid in her mind—much more vivid than any particular memories of him alive—but the fact that they’re heading home early is the best news she has had since they set out.
And going back with a field commission would be the icing on the cake if she didn’t feel so bad for (it’s just force of habit, but she can’t break it) the lieutenant. McQueen only did what the rest of them were thinking of doing, so where’s the sense in pretending he’s the one to blame? When he put his hands on the guns and the turret turned and the fire spewed out, Foss felt almost like it was happening because she was willing it to. If anything, she wishes she’d got there first. Now, vicariously, she feels herself slapped down by McQueen’s punishment. She doesn’t believe she’s alone in that.
Damn if she isn’t sliding into the same grim mood as the whitecoats. She drags herself out of it again by thinking about what she’ll do when she gets home. First, go to the Twenty-Seven Pavilion and get wasted. Then take a tumble or two with some guy blessed with a respectably sized dick and a sense of direction (there are exactly two men on board Rosie who she was ever sexually interested in, Phillips and Akimwe, and—story of her life—they only have eyes for each other). Finally, go home and wave her lieutenant pips in her father’s face—How do you like that sleeve-candy, quartermaster sergeant? That’s a recipe for a good day right there, and now that they’re heading south again it can’t be more than a few days away.
Rosie’s frame shudders as the engine comes awake. The throbbing climbs and peaks. Sixsmith is dropping down through the gears for a start that will lift them up out of the footprint made by their own massive weight: she knows Rosie better than anyone, now Lutes is dead. They rock back and forth a little as she makes herself some room to manoeuvre, then with a huge lurch and a basso fart of hydraulics they’re underway.
That counts as a smooth take-off, and it gets a fair bit smoother as soon as they’re moving. There’s a scatter of applause from the crew quarters.
“Too kind,” says Sixsmith on the intracom. “Your stewardesses will be passing down the aisles shortly serving drinks and recreational drugs.”
There’s a click and the colonel’s voice takes over. “Mid-section,” he says tersely, “report in.”
“We’re good here,” Foss answers.
Phillips begs to differ. “Sir,” he says, from up in the turret, “I’m seeing movement.”
Shit! What has she missed? Foss puts her fantasies of home sweet home aside for later and takes a look through the tell-tale in the mid-section door, which she should have done before she opened her mouth. She sees nothing but tall trees and weed-choked fields, blurred into green soup by their motion.
“Port or starboard?” she demands.
“Your side. Five o’clock.”
“I’m not getting anything, Colonel.”
“Ten o’clock, too,” Phillips says, tense as hell. “We’ve definitely got company.”
Foss looks again. Still just landscape in her field of vision. Nothing moving that shouldn’t be.
“Phillips, tell me what you’re seeing,” the colonel orders.
“I can’t, sir. Sorry. It’s just glimpses here and there, among the trees. I’m not getting a clear line on it.”
“Rabbits?” Foss guesses. “Foxes?” Not great suggestions, either of them. There just isn’t a whole lot of wildlife about these days. Anything with a pulse is fair game for the hungries. They prefer warm blood but they’ll take what they can get.
There’s a long, strained silence, then Phillips swears.
“Gone?” the colonel asks.
“I don’t know, sir. I keep thinking I’m seeing something, but they’re way low down.”
Which implies animal rather than human. Junkers might crawl to stay under the cover of the weeds, but they couldn’t do that and keep pace with a moving tank.
“Still nothing here,” Foss says. She’s looking a lot harder now. She trusts her own eyes, but from upstairs Phillips has two metres of height on her position and he doesn’t panic easily.
Neither does the colonel, but as previously noted he likes to go belt and braces. “Sixsmith, give us some legs. Phillips, see if there are any blips in the infra-red.”
“Nothing, sir,” Phillips reports in due course. Foss can hear the relief in his voice, and she shares it. Junkers would show as hot spots in the infra-red, as would live animals of any kind. So it’s just hungries, most likely, drawn by the sound of the engines as they started off. There are only so many layers of baffle you can add to an engine cowling and still move.
Hungries can outrun Rosie, but only in the short term. It shouldn’t be long before they’ve got the road to themselves again.
“All good?” the colonel demands.
This time Foss and Phillips agree that it is. The phantom blips are forgiven and forgotten.
Rosie’s going home.
26