Fry’s tone is surgically precise. “The Main Table has voluntarily ceded executive authority to the Muster. A peaceful handover of power. We are not talking about a regime change, Doctor, but a logical reallocation of existing roles and priorities. Unfortunately, some extremist elements have refused to see it that way. They’re taking this opportunity to press their own private resentments, and we’re having to come down very hard on that.”
“Is there an emergency?” Fournier asks anxiously. He means besides what she has just described, of course. Was there some reason to do this apart from the end-in-itself of taking power?
“There was a need,” the brigadier says, “for firm and focused management of a volatile situation.”
Fournier has no further questions. He has just heard a military coup being defined in words that make it sound like a school detention. He doesn’t want to hear any more, in case it’s worse than what he is already imagining.
All his fight and all his grievances are gone out of him, suddenly. He thinks of asking “What do you want me to do?” but even in his head that sounds feeble and vacillating. He can’t let those words out into the world. He edits them into slightly better shape. “So what are your orders?”
“First of all, and most urgently, disable the main cockpit radio at your earliest opportunity. We’ve been maintaining radio silence, obviously, but we want to guard against anyone else managing to contact Rosie.”
“Anyone else?” Fournier hazards.
The brigadier doesn’t seem to hear. “You can render the cockpit radio inoperable,” she tells him, “by opening the fascia up with an Allen key and removing the smaller of the two circuit boards inset at the rear of the main motherboard. It will unclip very easily. Do this quickly, Doctor. The longer you delay, the greater the risk. If the colonel is apprised of events here at Beacon, he may wish to intervene. That’s unacceptable.”
“Very well. I—I think I can do that. Is there anything else?”
“Yes, of course there is. I need you to stay out in the field until further notice. We don’t want Carlisle here and we don’t want Rosie. Not yet. When the situation stabilises, we’ll bring you in. Until then, find a way to stop or slow down.”
Dr. Fournier feels that this is a very easy thing to say and a difficult thing to deliver. He is about to ask, with a carefully modulated amount of sarcasm, how the brigadier thinks he’s going to stop a tank. But at that moment there is a lurch so abrupt that it slams his chair and his shoulder right up against the bulkhead.
Rosie has stopped.
28
“I—I’m really sorry, sir!” Private Sixsmith stammers. “I didn’t see it until we were right on top of it. The leaves—”
She shrugs helplessly, then puts her hands back on the wheel—gripping it as if to draw some strength from it. “The leaves hid it,” she says again. “I didn’t think there was anything there. I’m sorry.” She isn’t finished with apologising but Carlisle shuts her down as gently as he can. They have to respond to what has just happened: everything else can wait. “It’s fine, Private,” he says quietly. “You reacted quickly and appropriately.”
He opens the ALL channel on the comms rig, speaking to the crew quarters, lab, mid-section and turret. From the crew quarters comes a chorus of raised voices. Sealey keeps asking what just happened and Penny is crying, “Did we hit something? What did we hit?”
“There’s nothing to worry about,” the colonel broadcasts. “Everybody stay where you are, and please don’t block the channel. Phillips, go to infra-red again. Scan for hostiles.”
“Sir,” Phillips says, and then there is silence for most of a minute. A provisional silence, anyway, with only breathless whispers from the crew quarters—and from the lab, very distinct, Stephen Greaves’ voice saying with rising panic, “Rina’s hurt! Somebody. Everybody. Rina’s hurt!”
“Dr. Akimwe,” Carlisle says, “please go to Dr. Khan. Mr. Greaves, help is coming. Please stay off the channel.” That done, he waits in silence. He approves of the fact that Private Phillips is taking his time. This is not a situation where an off-the-cuff answer will do.
“Nothing out there, sir,” Phillips says at last. “Nothing warm, anyway.”
Which doesn’t rule out hungries. But hungries didn’t make the thing they’ve just rolled over. It was a barricade stretched across the full width of the road. Mainly branches and twigs, but the grinding squeals from Rosie’s underbelly suggest that there were some rocks in the mix, too.
Whatever it was, it’s now under them. The jolt was from the treads rolling over the rocks and stones before Sixsmith could bring Rosie to a halt.
“Any damage?” Carlisle asks the driver now.
Sixsmith consults the diagnostic board, shakes her head. “Nothing in the red, sir. We’re good. Should I get out and verify?”
“Not here,” Carlisle says. “Move us on a mile or so. We’ll take a look when we’re well clear.”
Sixsmith rolls Rosie forward an inch at a time, alert for any suspect vibration, any hint of trouble. She waits until she can see the barricade in the rear-views before she hits the throttle.
In the event, they drive almost four miles before Carlisle calls a halt. He waits until the forest on both sides thins out and they’re in relatively open country. Even then, he makes Phillips do another 360 with the infra-red goggles.
In the crew quarters, he assembles the escort and assigns details. Sixsmith will stay at the wheel; Foss will man the turret guns. He himself will go outside with McQueen and Phillips to inspect the damage, if any. The colonel was expecting to have to field anxious questions from the science team, but they have migrated en masse into the lab.
While McQueen and Phillips kit up, the colonel goes astern to check on Dr. Khan’s status. She fell down when Rosie stopped. She is still on the ground, ashen pale, not speaking or trying to move. Her lab coat and shirt are thrown open and Akimwe holds a stethoscope to her bare abdomen. The remaining members of the science team stand around, extraneous and unhappy. Stephen Greaves is rigid with misery and fear. His head is bowed and both of his fists are pressed hard against his forehead. Almost imperceptibly, his upper body rocks backwards and forwards. John Sealey kneels beside Khan, both embracing her and holding her head up off the cold steel of the deck. His cover, the colonel assumes, is now blown even for the slowest of uptake. As if on cue, Dr. Fournier enters from the engine room, blinking in the harsh light from the neon strips.
Akimwe assures the colonel that there are no bones broken. Carlisle’s glance goes down to Khan’s abdomen. “The baby seems to be fine too,” Akimwe says. “It has a very strong pulse.”
“Good,” Carlisle says gruffly. “I’m glad of it. All of you, stay in here. Full lockdown. We’ll assess the situation and then we’ll tell you where we stand.”
He kneels and squeezes Khan’s hand, just for a moment. “I’m relieved you weren’t hurt,” he says.
“Me too,” Khan mutters. She tries to smile but the effect is far from convincing.