“But then you returned to the fleet as if nothing had happened,” Alec put in. “You didn’t tell us what you’d done. You just carried on, and by the time we found out, we’d traveled miles from their home.”
“As I’ve already told you,” Kyrksen replied smoothly, “I offered them the chance to leave the truck, but they elected to stay aboard.” Kyrksen shrugged dramatically. “What should I have done? Should I have forced them to return home against their will? I had to make a judgment call.”
“It wasn’t your call to make,” Lyndsey snapped. “I am in command of this mission and this fleet, but I can’t run it properly if you act on every insane impulse and then hide your actions from me and the rest of the team.”
Kyrksen bridled, the color rushing to his pale cheeks. “Insane impulse? I—”
“Save it!” Lyndsey commanded. “Kyrksen Gall, you are suspended from your duties as a pilot. You will not return to truck two, you’ll remain here as my co-pilot. I’ll arrange for your personal possessions to be brought over.”
“What? You can’t be serious,” Kyrksen blustered. “You need me in command of truck two, the mission depends on my data.”
“You should’ve thought of the mission when you broke with the fleet,” Lyndsey replied. She turned back to the other pilots. “I’ll pilot truck one. Alec, you’ll take command of truck two, but before you go, you’ll need to clear out your cabin so that Kyrksen can use it.”
“Of course,” Alec said. “But what shall I do with the people Kyrksen picked up?”
Lyndsey took a breath. “It’s too late to turn around and take them back—we’ve gone too far and it would cost too much time. We’re not running a bus service here. If they want to go back to their goddamned hill, they’ll have to wait and see if our route makes it possible in the future.”
Crissy Warren, the pilot of truck five, shook her head. “That could take months, or it might never happen.”
“I know,” Lyndsey replied, “but that’s the reality. The sooner they accept it, the better.”
“Poor kids,” Crissy sighed. “Where will they stay?”
“I’m up to capacity in truck three,” Blaney Ashwood put in. “There isn’t room to swing a rat, let alone a cat.”
“Same here,” Lara Harper said. “We’re full in six, and I think you are in five, aren’t you, Crissy?”
Crissy nodded. “Crammed.”
“They could stay where they are,” Jackson suggested. “There should be plenty of room in truck two. Kyrksen only had two techs and a co-pilot, so there ought to be some empty bunks.”
“And I’ll be there to keep an eye on them,” Alec said. “If that’s what you want, Doctor Teare.”
“Yes,” Lyndsey said. “That’s decided then. They’ll stay in two. And, Alec, I want you to talk to them. Find out anything you can about the set-up on that hill. But go carefully. They’re our guests, not prisoners, but any intelligence they can provide might be useful for the mission.”
“How dare you?” Kyrksen hissed. “The company put me in charge of gathering data—any intelligence is my responsibility.”
“It was your responsibility,” Lyndsey said coolly, “not anymore. And the company put me in command of this mission and this fleet. You’ve been demoted, Kyrksen—get used to it.”
“And what about the people on that hill?” Kyrksen demanded. “What’s your master plan? We can’t take any more of them on board, so are you just going to leave them to rot?”
“If you hadn’t spent the last few hours ignoring your radio, you’d know the plan,” Alec said. “Doctor Teare has already sent in a report. The company will take it from there and pass it on to the authorities. There’ll be a rescue mission.”
“A rescue mission?” Kyrksen looked like he’d been slapped.
“It’ll be some time before I receive confirmation, but we’re working on the reasonable assumption that it will go ahead,” Lyndsey said. “It’ll take years for a ship to arrive, but those people will just have to hold out until then. They’re not going anywhere. They’re surrounded by the symbiont, but they’ve protected themselves until now. Our ongoing mission won’t affect their chances of survival, so we carry on as normal. We get back to work.”
She scanned the faces of her pilots. Were they behind her? Could she count on their support? Yes, she decided. They’re a team again. She rubbed her hands together. “Okay, everyone. That brings our meeting to an end. We’ll maintain our current course, speed, and formation. Kyrksen, I want you up front in the cockpit. Everyone else, back to your trucks. We move out in twenty minutes, so you’d better be quick and get over to truck two, Alec. You’ll want to check everything over before we set off, I’m sure.”
Alec gave Kyrksen a meaningful look. “You bet. And I’ll be very thorough. You can count on it.”
Kyrksen grimaced, then he stood slowly. “I’ve had just about as much of this nonsense as I can stand.” He let out a snort of disgust, then he marched toward the cockpit without a backward glance.
Oh hell! Lyndsey thought. Did I really condemn myself to sharing the cockpit with this man every day? Is it too late to change my mind? But she dismissed her doubts. There were no other options. She needed to keep Kyrksen close and monitor his every move. Whatever he was up to, she wasn’t going to let him get away with it. And if that meant enduring his company for a while, then so be it.
She watched the pilots while they headed for the back of the compartment and donned their protective gear. There was very little symbiont outside. Lyndsey had instructed Crissy to stop the terra-drones from delivering their deadly payload, and then she’d allowed the trucks to travel a hundred yards before she’d ordered the fleet to halt. Even so, it was mandatory for every crew member to wear a full protective suit and helmet when outside. The symbiont was sprayed out as a fine mist, each tiny drop of carrier solution loaded with millions of microscopic spores of the specially modified organism they referred to as the symbiont. Created from the cellular fusion of an engineered strain of cyanobacteria and a self-replicating nanobot, the symbiont’s spores were virtually indestructible, and the droplets could float on the slightest of breezes, perhaps even drifting for miles on the air. Once the spores met organic matter, they transformed into viable organisms and multiplied at a frightening rate, devouring all organic substances, living or dead, even attacking and metabolizing plastics. The symbiont was an indiscriminate feeder and could only be rendered harmless by a magnetic field strong enough to realign the molecules in the nanobots. The pilots had good reason to take every precaution; they’d seen what could happen to those who were less careful.
Time I got ready, Lyndsey told herself. She headed for the cockpit, and her hand brushed against the holster she wore on her hip. She’d forgotten she was still carrying a plasma pistol, her personal sidearm. Should she return it to the case she kept beneath her bed?
She paused for a second beside her cabin door, but then she changed her mind and carried on to the cockpit. Kyrksen would no doubt notice the weapon at her side, and it might just keep him in his place. She recalled the way he’d stalked from the meeting, his head held high. Kyrksen was the kind to hold a grudge, and he had the intellect to play the long game. It was a dangerous combination.
Whatever he’s planning, it isn’t over yet, Lyndsey thought. I’d better watch him like a hawk because I can’t trust him—not for one second.
And with that sobering thought, she opened the cockpit door.
CHAPTER 3
The Hill
Mac stood on the hillside and bent over, resting his hands on his knees. He hung his head and breathed deep, gasping for air. “The hell with this,” he muttered.
Standing next to him, Derek Kline looked around as if admiring the bleak view. “I’ve never been here before.”
“No,” Mac said. “Not many have. That’s the whole idea.”
Derek shrugged. “Come on. We’d better get going if we’re going to make it in time.”
; “All right, all right.” Mac stood up and carried on walking, with Derek keeping pace at his side. They trudged up the steep slope, their boots crunching on the gravelly ground. It can’t be much farther, Mac told himself, and he kept his eyes on the crest of the next ridge, although the damned thing refused to get any nearer, no matter how hard he tried to reach it. I’ve only myself to blame, he thought. I could’ve refused and stayed at home. He turned his head to spit on the ground. He was a fool for going along with this madness; a fool for listening to Evelyn and those clowns in the council. But it would be worth it. Yes. It would be worth it in the end.
Mac gritted his teeth together and persevered, forcing his tired leg muscles to keep moving. And then, just when he was getting ready to stop for another rest, they reached the ridge, and Mac’s feet found level ground on the rocky plateau beyond. “This is more like it,” he said. “We’ll be there in no time.”
But Derek didn’t reply, he just looked Mac up and down, a critical look in his eye, as if fearing Mac might not make it.
Smug bastard, Mac thought, but for once, he kept his feelings to himself.
They walked more quickly now, and in minutes they were standing at the entrance to a cave. Mac paused, staring into the deep darkness beyond the cave’s mouth where the shadows were blacker than a midwinter’s night on the lowlands, then he took a small flashlight from his pocket and shone it into the cave. He grinned with satisfaction, although the tiny beam did little to dispel the darkness.
“After you,” Derek said.
Mac rolled his eyes and gave Derek a pitying look, then he set off into the cave, moving quickly so that Derek had to hurry to catch up.
“How far is it?” Derek asked.
Mac stopped walking. “We’re here already. It’s right in front of us.” Then, before Derek could ask any more stupid questions, Mac bent down and felt along the floor until his fingers brushed up against something soft. The tarpaulin was coated with the accumulated mass of grit and gravel that had fallen from the cave’s roof over the last five years, but Mac gripped the material tightly and stood, giving the tarpaulin a sharp tug.
With a rustling rush of falling stones and unfurling fabric, the tarpaulin slid forward releasing a cloud of dust and grit. Derek leaped back cursing under his breath, but Mac stood still and let the debris fly around him while the tarpaulin crumpled in a pile at his feet. “There she is,” he said. “And not a scratch on her, even after all these years.”
“Oh my God,” Derek murmured. “It’s huge. I never imagined. How on earth did you manage to keep it hidden for so long?”
Mac grinned. “It wasn’t easy, but it had to be done. There’s no way we could’ve let people know about this little beauty—there’d have been anarchy.”
“Even so—“
“Anarchy,” Mac stated. “There are hundreds of people on this hillside, and there’s room inside the rover for six people, and that’s if you cram them in tight.” He paused, throwing Derek a grim smile. “Do you want me to paint a picture for you?”
Derek rubbed his chin. “I get it. I was just thinking, that’s all.”
“Yeah, well think again, my friend.” Mac stood still for a moment, playing the beam of his flashlight over the rover and gazing at the vehicle’s rugged lines, admiring the geometric pattern of the smooth metal plates that covered its body. The light caught the rover’s windshield, and the tinted glass gleamed darkly. “Think again,” he said, and his voice was low, almost a whisper.
Derek shuffled his feet. “What about fuel? Will it still run?”
“She’ll run all right.” Mac stepped forward and patted the rover’s nose. “She doesn’t stay in this condition all by herself. I come up from time to time…just to make sure things are okay—externally anyhow.”
“Right, so what do we have to do? I’m assuming we’ve got to go inside, otherwise you’ve dragged me all the way up here for nothing.”
Mac beckoned with a crooked finger, and Derek stepped closer. “We’ve got a job to do,” Mac said. “Just a couple of little things.” He softened his expression. “I’ll even give you a guided tour.”
Derek brightened. “Sure. That would be great.”
Mac led the way along the side of the vehicle, then paused by a set of metal steps that led up to the rover’s cabin door. “I’ll go up first, then you tell me the code to unlock the door.” He indicated the steps. “When you climb up, step on here and here. Take hold of this grab rail if you need to, but don’t go putting your weight anywhere else, or I won’t be happy. She’s a tough looking bug, but she’s not built to be clambered over.”
“Understood,” Derek said. “I’m not a complete idiot.”
Mac grunted, then he took hold of the rail and climbed the steps, pausing at the top. “Code?”
Derek didn’t reply.
“Tell me the goddamned code,” Mac growled. “Don’t make me come down there and beat it out of you.”
“There’s no need for that,” Derek grumbled. “You know I’m supposed to put the code in myself.”
Mac said nothing, letting the silence hang in the air, then he whispered a single word, his voice echoing in the cave’s inky darkness, “Code.”
“Fine. I’ll tell you the damned code. I don’t suppose you’ll remember it anyway.” Derek spouted off a sequence of numbers, and Mac tapped them into the door’s keypad. Immediately, the lock emitted a single beep, and the mechanism opened with a metallic click.
Mac pulled the door open, but he hesitated before going through. “Who else has the code, Derek?”
“Evelyn and the rest of the council. And for some reason, they gave it to Connor too.”
”Connor. Of course, the mighty Connor.” Mac grunted and stepped inside the cabin. “We’re wasting time. Climb up and don’t forget what I told you.”
Mac crossed the cabin using his flashlight to pick his way between the closely spaced seats. From outside, he could hear faltering steps on the ladder as Derek struggled to find his footing in the darkness. Mac waited until he could make out Derek’s frame in the doorway, then he shone his flashlight directly at the man’s pale face. “Close the door behind you, Derek. Then take a seat.”
Derek raised his hand to shield his eyes, but as he stepped forward, Mac moved the flashlight’s beam away, plunging Derek and the rest of the cabin into darkness. Mac heard Derek stumble against a seat, and he smiled. “All right there, Derek?”
“Can’t see a damned thing. Shine the light over here, can’t you?”
“No can do,” Mac said cheerfully. “I need it over here.” He shone the flashlight onto the rover’s control panel, then he leaned down and ran his hand along the smooth plastic beneath the driving controls. “There we are.” His fingers found two plastic covers, small and rounded, and he flipped them up on their hinges. Beneath each cover was a button, and Mac pressed them simultaneously and held them down, counting off the seconds in his head.
A buzzer sounded and a warning message appeared on the dashboard:
Warning! External hatch override in operation. Primary fuel cell exposed in ten seconds.
The numbers began to count down.
Derek lowered himself into the seat next to him. He pointed toward the control panel. “Is that okay?”
“Yes, yes. Just part of the routine maintenance. I’ve got to check the fuel cells.” Mac felt beneath the controls once more and located a second set of plastic covers, then as before, he uncovered the buttons and held them down.
The buzzer sounded again, and another message appeared:
Warning! External hatch override in operation. Secondary fuel cell exposed in ten seconds.
Mac stood, patting Derek on the shoulder. “Sit tight, Derek. I’ve got to pop outside and make sure that the fuel cells haven’t degraded. It won’t take me more than a few minutes.”
Derek started to get up. “I can come with you. Maybe I can help.”
“No,” Mac said, already picking his way across the cabin. �
�I need you to stay here and keep an eye on the displays. If any more warnings come up, give me a shout, okay?”
“All right,” Derek replied. But Mac was already climbing down the steps, leaving Derek alone with only the glow of the display panel to light the cabin.
At the bottom of the steps, Mac suppressed a smile. Derek would stay where he was sure enough. And that was just as well because Mac had a tricky job to do, and Derek would’ve only got in the way. Or even worse, he might’ve got suspicious, Mac thought. And we can’t have that. That wouldn’t do at all.
CHAPTER 4
Truck Two
Siobhan sat next to Milo and glowered at the man seated opposite, eyeing the rifle that he held across his lap. The man in charge, Kyrksen, had hurried away as if on some urgent business, leaving Milo and Siobhan under guard in the dimly lit room that seemed to form the vehicle’s main workspace. Kyrksen had sent the room’s only other occupants, a man and a woman, to ‘keep an eye on the cockpit’, and the phrase had seemed strange to Siobhan’s ears. The man and the woman had been working quietly at their stations, occasionally sneaking glances at Siobhan and Milo, but they’d obeyed Kyrksen’s instructions immediately, their faces impassive. Siobhan had watched them leave, taking in the way they’d avoided eye contact with Kyrksen, and she wondered why they hadn’t been introduced. No love lost there, she’d decided.
But that had been a while ago, and since then, there’d been only the armed man and Milo to keep her company, and both seemed determined to remain tight-lipped. I’ve had enough of this, Siobhan thought, then she leaned forward and broke the awkward silence. “What was your name again?”
The man blinked in surprise. “Jim. Jim Clennan.”
“Okay, Jim, what do you do around here?”
“I’m the truck’s co-pilot—technically anyhow, but…” He hesitated. “Never mind.”
Siobhan softened her expression. He’s shy, she thought. Timid even. Yes, he was armed, but there was no aggression in his tone nor any malice in his body language. “Go on, Jim. Tell me more. So, you call it a truck—that’s cool. But tell me what you do. I really want to know.”
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