Khan is stricken. She falls back against the lab bench and almost slides down onto the floor again. Foss doesn’t like her much, but she knows that look of blank despair. She has seen it often, both in Beacon and in the times right after the Breakdown before Beacon was a thing. Impulsively, not really knowing why, she puts a hand on Khan’s shoulder. “Hey,” she says. “Be strong. For the baby.”
Khan looks round at her. She doesn’t seem to have got the sense of the words, but the touch calms her a little. At any rate she stays upright, and her breathing slows a little from the two-stroke staccato she had going on there. She’s doing her best to hold herself together, Foss thinks, and her best isn’t bad. All the same, the doctor keeps blinking as though she is having a hard time bringing the world into focus.
There’s more yapping. Fournier goes on about insubordination; McQueen goes on about locking the Robot up or throwing him out, swinging back and forth between the two options. They’re both still reeling from what just happened, Foss sees, and maybe being angry keeps them from thinking about it too much. And all this while, Akimwe is crying as though he’s never going to stop.
Rosie just rolled to a halt, Foss realises suddenly. She goes aft to see where Sixsmith has parked them. Right now, looking at the scenery feels like a much better idea than listening to all this bullshit and watching all this heartache.
41
Rosie has stalled. And the people inside her, likewise.
In the face of Khan’s grief, which is silent, and Akimwe’s hysteria, which is loud and inescapable, Dr. Fournier retreats once more into the engine room. He knows how bad this habit of self-imposed purdah looks to the rest of the crew, especially now, but he needs to get in touch with the brigadier and tell her what has happened. That the team has suffered a catastrophe. That the hungry pathogen has metastasised in some unforeseen way to produce an entirely new pattern of symptoms, possibly becoming even more dangerous. And that Rosie is carrying the proof, in the form of a valuable and hitherto unseen specimen.
He wants the brigadier to give him permission to come home. What they have just found takes precedence over politics. Surely Fry has to see that!
His decision to go overland in the first place quite possibly led directly to this disaster, by slowing them down enough for the feral children to keep pace. Certainly it was a factor in Rosie blowing a track, which is why they’re not moving although there is now so much they need to run away from. Fournier is keenly aware of all this. He feels the weight of the crew’s unspoken verdicts. He is the commander, and every call he has made since they turned around and headed for home has been wrong. There is no way for them to know that he has been wrong for the best reasons, on direct orders from the Beacon Muster. This is necessary. All of it. He is on the right side of history.
With the blood of three people on his hands.
He feels himself surrounded, and it brings him close to panic. He is guilty and ashamed, but he wants to explain to the others the conditionality of his guilt, the unimpeachable rightness of his disastrous decisions.
He can’t. He is not allowed to. His mission—his larger mission infolded in theirs—is ongoing. There may even be more deaths. How can he know? He has leaned out a long way past his centre of gravity, and gravity isn’t a law you can exempt yourself from.
He places his work table against the door, wedging it closed, and calls the brigadier. Nobody answers. He hits the signal button again and again without hearing anything apart from the infuriating insect chirps of static. The radio has just the one frequency so he can’t tune it. He can’t do anything except keep on pressing.
Finally he breaks down and cries, utterly alone in his misery. Even Greaves has Samrina Khan, but he has nobody. No friend or confidant, nobody to justify him in the face of the world. Of course it’s only in Rosie that he is despised, for now, but when they go back to Beacon it will be the whole world. Everyone will hear how he caused the deaths of a third of his crew. The Muster can protect his person but not his reputation, and the one is scant use without the other.
It’s not his fault. He is not a free agent.
The free agents around him should have done better.
A heavy knock on the door makes Fournier start violently. He ducks down to floor level to stow the radio and slip the plate back in place over the hidden recess. It’s getting a little crowded in the hidey-hole now, because the circuit board from the cockpit radio is in there, too.
What about his face? Is it obvious that he has been crying? With the heels of his hands he wipes his cheeks.
He straightens, smoothing down his shirt. “Yes?”
“Dr. Fournier.” It’s Carlisle’s voice, infuriatingly calm and even. “May I come in?”
Fournier considers the various negative responses. He doubts that any of them will do. He pulls the desk away from the door and opens it. Carlisle steps inside and immediately pushes it closed again.
“Have we repaired the tread?” Fournier asks.
“Repairing the tread will take hours. And anyone who goes outside to do it will be hard put to protect themselves while they’re working. It’s broken ground out there, with plenty of cover.”
“Still, if we’re to get moving again—”
“I’m very much aware of the urgency of the situation, Doctor. That’s why I’m here.”
Fournier steels himself for some accusation or else for a question he can’t answer.
“Decisions need to be made in the wake of what just happened,” Carlisle says. “The crew are badly shaken up—close to falling apart, in some cases—and they need us to show some leadership now. You can’t stay in here.”
“No,” Fournier agrees. “I won’t. I just needed to—to compose myself …”
“But it’s important that we agree on a course of action before we go out and speak to them, wouldn’t you say? Given where disagreement has got us.”
“I … yes,” Fournier says. “Of course, Colonel. That makes very good sense. Would you like to sit down?”
He indicates the only chair. He would very much like to claim it for himself because his legs feel weak, but from the perspective of non-verbal signals, body language, that has troubling implications. He doesn’t want to look up at Carlisle, who already has the advantage of having been proved right.
The colonel shakes his head. “There is a suggestion,” he tells Fournier, “that we should go back and recover the bodies. It came from Dr. Akimwe, but I suspect Khan and Sixsmith may feel the same way. I said I would consult you before deciding on anything.” He winces and shifts his weight.
“Your leg—” Fournier essays, pushing the chair forward a little.
Carlisle affects not to see it. “My own thinking,” he says, “is that we need to focus on our own survival. That means fixing the broken tread and then heading straight back to Beacon without any stops along the way. Do you agree?”