He tells Sixsmith to keep the engine running and goes astern. The crew quarters are deserted. Presumably Greaves has taken Dr. Khan into the lab to examine or treat her.
A doubt is nagging at him now, and he can’t quieten it. Present selves? In the dark, in an insecure location with no attempt to set up a perimeter? Possibly Sixsmith is right and Captain Manolis is an imbecile. The alternative is more troubling.
McQueen is waiting on the mid-section platform. He looks angry. His left hand grips the turret ladder hard, the knuckles white. Lieutenant Foss comes down out of the turret to join them. There is a muffled clatter from the lab, where some sort of commotion seems to be going on, but the colonel has no time to concern himself with that.
“Open the door,” he orders. “But close it behind me. I’ll go out to them alone.”
“Sir,” Foss says, “with respect, there’s something not quite right about those vehicles out there. You could do with someone riding shotgun. I’m happy to come along.”
“Or I will,” McQueen chips in.
“No,” the colonel says. “I don’t anticipate problems, but if any arise it’s better if Rosie is secure.”
“She’ll still be secure if you’ve got a tailgunner,” McQueen says. Tension makes his voice flat and harsh.
“Thank you for your concern, Mr. McQueen.” Carlisle stares into the man’s eyes. “As I said, if anything complicates the handover I’d prefer to know that you’re here. I trust you—both of you—to protect the science team and Rosie.”
He reaches out to tap the keypad and open the airlock door. McQueen’s hand is faster, gripping Carlisle’s wrist. His face is reddening. Something is working there now, a rage that seems to have no object.
“Mr. McQueen—”
“Just how stupid are you?” McQueen spits the words out. “Can’t you tell a fucking ambush when you see one?”
The colonel wrests his hand free, but he doesn’t touch the keypad. “Go on,” he says quietly.
McQueen grimaces and shakes his head, but he gets it out with a sort of grim disgust, like a man spitting blood and disinfectant into a bucket after getting dental work done. “They brought you here so they could kill you and take Rosie. That’s the only reason they told Fournier to pass the radio on to you. So they could get you out here in the middle of nowhere and take you out of the equation.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Foss demands. She laughs, and she looks to the colonel as though she expects him to laugh, too.
“Dr. Fournier didn’t give me the radio,” Carlisle reminds McQueen. “You did.”
McQueen raises his hands in sardonic surrender. “Shit! I’m not saying I’m not involved. Can we stick to the point? Fry wants you gone, and the whole idea of meeting up out here instead of back in Beacon is to make that happen. No fuss, no reporting. You just don’t come home.”
Carlisle feels a dull certainty settling on him, but he fights against it. “Why should it matter if I come home or not? I have no authority in Beacon. I’m no threat to the brigadier.”
“Yeah, well you might be now. While we were away, she decided to take over the Main Table, but they’re fighting back. She had bad losses, so she had to reach out and make a deal. With the junkers. Those are junker battle-trucks out there. Now she’s worried you might pitch in on the opposite side. Plus she needs Rosie because of the guns and armour, and she doesn’t think you’re likely to just hand over the keys.”
Foss hasn’t said another word all this time. She’s just been looking at McQueen. Now she slings her rifle to free her hands, moving briskly but carefully, and punches him in the mouth. It’s a solid punch. It rocks McQueen on his heels a little. He takes it in silence: just wipes the blood off his lip and probes the damage with the tip of his thumb.
“You stupid, stupid bastard!” Foss yells.
“Okay,” McQueen mutters. “Fine.”
“Junkers? A deal with the junkers? What, with their—their recreational rape and their fucking cannibalism, and—Shit! Shit!”
“Get it all off your chest,” McQueen says bleakly, rolling his eyes.
“What did you think was going to happen to the rest of us after they killed the colonel? You really expect them to fly us out of here in a gunship? Cocktails and fluffy pillows? He didn’t walk into an ambush, you did. We’re toast when we go out there! You utter fucking moron!”
She raises clenched fists. Another punch seems imminent. McQueen looks away from her overflowing anger, out into the opaque night.
“Lieutenant,” Carlisle says. His mild tone works. Foss gets a grip, though she is still trembling with suppressed fury. Carlisle has seen her copy McQueen’s mannerisms in the field; the swagger in his walk, the way he uses the heel of his hand to take the safety off the SCAR-H when he’s obliged to use one. Her disillusionment is a freefall plunge.
“Set aside your differences,” he says to both of them. “Now, please. I’m inclined to agree with Foss’s assessment. If killing me is the main agenda, it’s hard to imagine that the killing will end there—especially if we’re witnesses to an illegal alliance with Beacon’s enemies. We need to keep Rosie from falling into unauthorised hands and we need to protect the science team. In addition, and this is more important than anything, we need to make sure that the news of what we’ve discovered gets back to Beacon. We can’t do any of those things unless we’re all fighting on the same side.”
It’s not eloquent, but it’s the best he can do. The measured words sound pusillanimous even to him, but the alternative is to stand here trading punches while Fry surrounds them.
“So what’s it to be, numb-nuts?” Foss snarls the words into McQueen’s face.
There is a long, strained pause. At last McQueen shrugs. “I don’t care whether you live or die,” he tells Carlisle. “On the whole I’d prefer to watch you bleed. If Beacon falls apart, it’s because you stood by and let it when you could have turned it into something better. But I’ll admit I didn’t think this through. I’m with you until we sort this and get out of here.”
Foss draws her sidearm and shoves it up against McQueen’s cheek. For all her fury her hand doesn’t shake. “Just so you know,” she says. “If anyone bleeds, it’s going to be you. Sir, what are your orders?”
First things first, Carlisle decides. “Man the turret guns, Lieutenant. If we’re attacked, we’ll need to be in a position to return fire.” He turns to go back into the cockpit. Sixsmith is right behind him, holding up Fournier’s radio.
“Colonel,” she says. “We’re being hailed.”
“By Captain Manolis?”
“No, sir. By Brigadier Fry. She’s somewhere out there. And she wants to talk to you.”
56
It’s not like the other times. It’s a lot worse.