“What kind of evidence would you be looking for?” Akimwe says. “Seriously, John, there’s no point in kidding ourselves here. We were targeted long before we met the barricade. As far back as Invercrae. We were attacked there and we had to run. But we didn’t run fast enough and we were followed, from Invercrae to that barricade and from the barricade all the way to here. Or are you saying we’ve somehow run across three separate groups of people who all have unfriendly agendas?”
“People,” McQueen says, with no particular inflection so you can’t tell if it’s a question or not.
“You know what I mean.”
McQueen blows out his cheeks. “Well, I presume you mean what you say. But that’s precisely what you don’t actually know.” He looks from Akimwe to Sealey and then to Carlisle. There’s a real intensity in that look, a challenge. This isn’t just him saying black because the colonel said white. McQueen has got something between his teeth. Finally he nods his head towards Khan. “She’s right. You know bloody well she is. Foss’s bogeys are around four feet tall. Dr. Penny confirms she saw something that fits that profile back at the loch. And they show on the thermals as hungries, not people. I mean Jesus, isn’t looking for oddballs part of the mission statement? I can’t believe any of you are seriously considering walking away from this.”
The colonel seems about to speak, but he hesitates, weighing his words.
Dr. Fournier jumps adroitly into the gap. “Yes,” he says quickly. “I can see an argument for stopping here and finding out who or what these things are. For as long as it takes. We should make camp and investigate. Stay here until we’ve got answers.”
It’s difficult to keep up the calm, judicious tone—difficult to speak the words at all. Really he thinks running away makes much, much more sense, but his brief from the brigadier is to introduce as much delay as he can. Going off-road was a start, but this is better. It could hold them up for days, especially if—as he hopes and prays—there’s nothing out there to be found.
Two or three other people try to speak at once, but Sixsmith interrupts them all when she returns with the news that the intracom is dead. Her face is grim and angry.
“You mean the reception is poor?” the colonel asks her.
“No, sir, I mean it’s dead. It’s not working at all. Permission to speak to you privately about that.”
“We can worry about the intracom later,” Fournier says quickly. The less said about that the better, since it was probably him taking that component out of the cockpit radio that killed their internal comms. “Colonel, Dr. Khan has made an excellent point. What we’re seeing here speaks directly to our core mission statement. I believe we have to stop and investigate further.”
The colonel doesn’t answer at once. When he does, it’s with a heavy emphasis. It almost looks to Fournier as though he’s gritting his teeth. As though he knows how this is going to go, but he feels he has to say his piece anyway. “Going by Foss’s account,” he says, “we don’t know the numerical strength of the opposition we’ll face or how they’re armed. When you talk about investigating further, Doctor, do you envisage my people or yours doing the investigating?”
“Ask for volunteers,” Dr. Khan suggests. “Nobody has to go who doesn’t want to. And we can keep the engine running.”
“Rina—” Carlisle begins.
“I’ll lead a team,” McQueen breaks in. “Happy to.”
“I’ll go too,” Foss says. “I mean, if that’s the decision, Colonel. I volunteer.”
“That seems eminently reasonable,” Dr. Fournier says happily. “A team of volunteers.”
“To do what?” the colonel demands, with strained patience. “To track our pursuers down and bring one back alive for interrogation? Or for medical testing? How does that scenario play out, Doctor?”
But Fournier can see that the colonel has lost the argument. Everyone else in the room is up for this. The scientists are excited at the prospect of finding something entirely new, and the soldiers are seeing some possible payback for Private Lutes.
The only one who seems to be less than happy about the situation—apart from Carlisle himself—is Greaves. The boy has a stricken look, and his mouth seems to be moving without any sound as though he’s speaking under his breath.
Fournier ignores him. “I would expect,” he says, “that this would be like a regular sampling run in most respects. We choose our targets, then we clear and collect.”
“We?” Foss repeats. “Will you be leading the science team then, Dr. Fournier?”
Fournier pretends he hasn’t heard. His presence isn’t needed on sampling runs. Everybody knows that. There’s no point in rehashing old arguments. He looks to the colonel, whose sombre face suggests that he hasn’t yet reached a verdict.
“If the feeling is that we should do this,” Carlisle says at last, with visible reluctance, “and if that feeling is unanimous apart from me, then I’ll withdraw my objections. If there’s a split vote, then we don’t proceed.”
“All those in favour,” says McQueen before anyone else can. “Let’s see those hands.” His own is already raised.
One by one they join him. Khan and Fournier first. Phillips. Sealey. Sixsmith. Penny. Akimwe. Finally, almost apologetically, Foss.
If the colonel is chagrined at the defeat, he doesn’t let it show in his face. “Very well,” he says. “It’s decided.”
But something is happening on the other side of the room, and it’s happening to Stephen Greaves. He seems to be building up to a crisis of some kind, moving his weight from one foot to the other as though he’s walking on the spot.
“Over to you, Lieutenant,” McQueen says to Foss. “But count me in.”
“I’ll draw up a roster,” Foss says. But everybody’s eyes are shifting to the Robot now. He’s going to say something, for sure. Well, either that or throw up.
In the event, what he does is to shake his head. He does this with some vigour, like a dog coming up out of a river.
“Stephen,” Dr. Khan says. “Are you all right?”
“No,” Greaves says loudly. And then, inexplicably, “It’s not.”
He has the floor. It’s a rare enough event for him to speak up at all when they’re all together like this, and it’s unheard of for him to raise his voice. Most of the time he keeps his head down and speaks into the breast pocket of his lab coat, as though he keeps a hidden microphone in there.
“Not what?” Khan coaxes.
Greaves shakes his head again, even more emphatically than before. McQueen rolls his eyes. “Kid, the grown-ups are—”
“It’s not decided,” Greaves says in his goat-bleat voice. “Colonel, you said you’d change your mind if everybody else voted the same way. But it’s not everybody. I didn’t vote.”