“Keep looking,” he snapped.
Lyndsey squared her shoulders. “Don’t speak to me like that. I’m still in command here, and we’re all going to be stuck in that base together for a long while yet. That time can go easy, or it can go hard.” She glared at her co-pilot, letting him squirm. “Now, how about you just tell me what I’m supposed to be looking at, and then we can all move on?”
Kyrksen wrinkled his nose, sulking. “Look at the windows.”
“Why? I won’t be able to see them. The shutters are down.”
“They should be,” Kyrksen said.
“And they are, I can see perfectly—” Lyndsey stared at the screen, her eyes wide. As the drone adjusted its course, the camera angle altered, and a flash of daylight glinted from a pane of glass. And another. The drone continued on its way, and Lyndsey watched in horror as a whole row of windows caught the light. “What the hell happened? Did the shutters fail? Will the base be compromised?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Kyrksen sneered. “The shutters were sealed and locked. We checked them all before we left, and they can’t have rolled themselves up. Don’t you get it?”
“No. I don’t understand. One of the trucks must’ve gone back and…” She didn’t bother to finish the sentence, knowing already that it didn’t make sense.
Kyrksen growled under his breath. “There’s only one way the shutters could be open. The base has been compromised all right, but not by the symbiont. There’s someone there. There’s someone inside our base camp.”
CHAPTER 7
The Hill
Connor strode toward Mac’s house, his head held high and his back straight. As he neared Mac’s property, he spotted Owen standing guard and told him he could take off for a while. Connor didn’t want any witnesses to this conversation; it was going to be hard enough as it was without an audience hanging on his every word. He’d do his best to talk Mac around, but he was damned if he was going to go along cap in hand and grovel. He stopped short when he reached the low wall that bordered Mac’s garden, because there was the man himself, shirt sleeves rolled up, slashing with a long-handled tool at the overgrown vines that had grown into a tangled knot. Connor watched Mac work for a second, impressed by his concentration, the determined way the man swung out, again and again, thrashing the unruly vines into submission.
After a moment, Mac looked up and stopped in mid-swing, his gaze fixed on Connor, his face impassive. “I’m allowed out in the garden now, Connor. The council told me officially, so there’s no need for you to come around spying on me.”
Connor took a deep breath. “That’s not it, Mac. Not at all. I came to talk. Something’s come up.”
“Good luck with it, but I’ve no time to stand around jawing.” Mac nodded at his garden. “The work’s been mounting while you kind people kept me under house arrest, so now I need to catch up.” He resumed his work, grunting as he lashed out with his improvised scythe, the blade slicing through the tough stems with ease.
Connor walked along the wall, putting himself directly in Mac’s line of sight. “It’s important, Mac. Mind if I step inside?” He gestured toward the wall.
“All right,” Mac growled without stopping his work. “But mind where you stand. There’s some new shoots coming up, and I don’t want them trampling.”
“Thanks.” Connor walked around the wall, picking his way across the garden until he stood just behind Mac. “Could you stop for a while?”
“For God’s sake!” Mac threw down his scythe and turned on Connor. “I’ll talk to you. But you’ve got to give me something in return.”
Connor stiffened. “What?”
“News. I want to know what’s going on. I want to know how my people are doing. Are you treating them right? And what about Sarah? I heard she was hurt. Is someone taking care of her?”
Connor held up a hand to stop the flow of questions. “Hold on. For a start, your people as you call them, are fine. Everyone who supported you was allowed to go back to their homes once they’d agreed to stick by the rules. It took some of them longer than others, but most were ready to agree. In fact, quite a lot of them claimed that you led them astray, making promises you’d no intention of keeping.”
“Nonsense!”
“Oh, it’s true. They say you just wanted power for yourself, and they’re feeling like you let them down. The truth is, you’re not too popular these days, and that’s the main reason the council has been keeping you right here. It’s for your own safety.”
“Very considerate,” Mac sneered. “I’m sure your crowd will have been busy blackening my name, filling people’s heads with lies, turning them all against me. But what about Sarah? I’ll bet anything she stayed loyal.”
Connor hesitated. “Sarah isn’t doing too well. She’s in a lot of pain. We look after her as well as we can.”
“I’ll believe that when I see it.” Mac looked into the distance for a moment. “How about this? I help you out with whatever it is, and you let me visit with Sarah. Seems fair to me.”
“Yes. I’m sure we can arrange that. In fact, it would be nice if we could let you go back to your regular life.”
“Oh, I see. So it’s something pretty big, this favor you’re asking.” He glared at Connor. “Yes, I can see it in your eyes. You need old Mac for something, and you thought you’d buy me off with the cheap promise of freedom—a promise you won’t keep. Well, that won’t wash, Connor. I don’t trust the council one bit, so you can tell them from me that I’ve got everything I need. And as for you, you can take a hike. And you needn’t come back unless you’ve something better to trade. Something concrete.”
Connor clenched his jaw. “I’m offering you everything there is to offer, Mac. This is a chance to do what you want, go where you want, and all without fear of reprisal. And you need this. You need to show people you’ve changed, because otherwise…” Connor paused, searching for the right words, the right way to get through to a man like Mac. “Here’s the thing. If I set you free today, your life wouldn’t be worth a damn. If you walked into the square right now, there’d be ten people on your back in a second, and every one of them with a grudge.”
“You don’t scare me.”
“No? Remember your old friend Danny? A couple of days ago, he took a beating. One of my patrols waded in and saved his sorry ass, but they weren’t quite quick enough.”
Mac’s face fell. “He’s not…he’s not dead is he?”
Connor let Mac dangle for a moment. “No, he’s not dead. But it’ll be a week or two before he can walk again.”
“Jesus! You people are animals. You’ve no respect.”
“Like you had respect for Matt Pierdew? What about him, huh? You gunned him down in the street. You killed the man in cold blood.”
“Self-defense,” Mac said, but he looked away, unable to meet Connor’s eye.
“Listen to me,” Connor went on. “After what you’ve done, there’s only one way you could ever have freedom again.”
“And what’s that? Beg for forgiveness? Throw myself on the council’s mercy?” Mac’s mouth twisted into a crooked scowl. “They’d lynch me soon as look at me.”
“You’re wrong. I have Evelyn’s backing. In fact, it was her idea to talk to you.”
Mac raised his eyebrows, a flicker of doubt in his eyes, but then it was gone, replaced by the cold glint of bitterness and betrayal. “And what does the mighty Evelyn say? What’s her offer?”
Connor hesitated. He was winging it, going beyond anything the council might approve of. But that didn’t matter. The stakes were too high. He’d told Evelyn he’d get Mac onside, and that’s what he’d do. He could deal with the repercussions later. If we survive, he thought, and a new sense of urgency fired in his mind.
“It’s like this,” Connor began, his voice filled with passion, “people will accept you again, they really will, but only if you show them you’ve earned your place in the settlement. If you can prove yourself by doing something for t
he good of everyone, people will look at you in a new light. They’ll have to.”
A wry smile played across Mac’s lips. “You know what, Connor? You’re wasting time. I have a garden to clear.”
Connor stared, lost for words. He’d tried, he’d given it his best shot, but Mac had just stood there and thrown it back in his face. “Fine. That’s great, Mac. Just great. Go back to your goddamned weeds, and good luck to you.” He turned away and started walking, a quiet rage boiling in his stomach. They’d have to try a different approach. Perhaps, if he waited for a while, Mac might come around. Or maybe it was time to send someone else to have a word with him. Connor only knew that he needed to step away before he said something he’d regret. It wasn’t an ideal situation, and time was ticking away, but he needed to regroup, to come up with a new angle.
But Connor had only reached the garden wall when Mac called out, stopping Connor in his tracks: “What would I have to do?”
Connor turned. “You’ll help?”
“If I get to go free, then yes, I’ll help, providing it’s something I can handle, of course.”
“It’ll take some explaining,” Connor began, “maybe we should step inside.”
“Give me the short version.”
“All right.” Connor moved a little closer to Mac and lowered his voice. “There’s a new type of grunge heading this way, and it’s bad. When it gets here, we’ll be hard-pressed to survive. The only chance we’ve got is to send a message back to Earth.”
“With what?”
“We have a long-range comms set given to us by the crew from the trucks. As it stands, it’s not good enough to send a reliable signal all the way to Earth, but we think you might be able to make it work.”
“A tall order. Too tall maybe.” Mac shook his head, but Connor saw a flicker of interest in the man’s eyes. It was time to press his advantage home.
“Mac, you built a complete network from scraps of obsolete equipment, and despite the crazy interference we get on this planet, it’s still the best comms gear we have. We use it every day.”
Mac grunted and opened his mouth to say something, but Connor plowed on. “I think, if you could do all that, working with next to nothing, then you could easily modify a first-rate piece of long-range gear and get a signal all the way to Earth. Am I wrong?”
“I’d need to see the rig and give it a once over.”
“Naturally.”
“And I’d need all my tools. Your friend Parry locked some of my stuff away, and I’d need it all back. And I couldn’t do it all on my own. I’ll probably have to build a new antenna. A big job. I’ll need some help.”
“Anything you want, just name it,” Connor said. “Whatever it is, we’ll get it for you.”
“It won’t be easy, mind. Very unlikely to work. Probably impossible.” Mac sniffed. “But I’ll do it. Since it’s for the good of the settlement, I’ll give it a damned good go.”
He held out his hand, and when Connor stepped forward, they shook to seal the deal. But although Connor managed a smile, there was just one thought in his mind: God help us all.
CHAPTER 8
The Rover
“Goddammit!” Siobhan grabbed hold of the workstation’s edge as the rover bounced through a trough in the ground, her seatbelt the only thing keeping her from being thrown in the air.
“Sorry about that,” Cate called from the driving seat. “Everybody all right? Evelyn?”
In the back seat, Evelyn straightened her clothes. “Fine. Don’t concern yourself. We need to make good time.”
“I’ll try to warn you the next time I see a bump,” Tessa said from her seat next to Cate.
“The next time?” Siobhan complained. “Are you serious? I’m trying to get everything working back here, and it’s not easy when I’m in mid-air.” She checked the workstation’s nav display. “In fact, we’re almost at the right spot, so I need you to slow down. The system won’t be accurate enough at this speed.”
“Say the word,” Cate replied. “Tessa, we’re on track, right?”
“No worries,” Tessa said, leaning closer to the nav display. “We need a course correction though. Head right by ten degrees. That’s it.”
Cate said something to Tessa, but Siobhan tuned their conversation out. The magnetic field sensors had been Ben’s baby, and if she was going to get them working properly, she’d need every ounce of her concentration. She ran through the calibration settings one more time. They looked right, and from what she could remember, they were still set on the values Ben had used, but it was hard to be sure. I guess we’ll find out in a minute. It was almost time to begin mapping.
“Okay, Cate,” she called out. “Time to slow down. Take it easy and follow the route I give you, and everything should be fine.” She felt the rover slow, and the nav display pinged to let her know they’d hit the waypoint she’d marked. She’d programmed the nav system as best she could, but even so, there was an element of guesswork involved; without the benefit of satellites or compass points, the nav computer couldn’t be relied on completely, but at least its topographical recognition systems were several degrees of magnitude more accurate than the human eye.
Here goes, Siobhan thought, typing the command to start the magnetic field mapping routine. But the screen remained fixed, and Siobhan faltered. She’d made a mistake, she’d forgotten some vital step, but what was it? She bit her bottom lip and reached for the keypad, but before she could touch the keys, a row of figures scrolled onto the screen, the numbers neatly divided into columns. And then another row appeared. And another. It’s working!
“I’ve started mapping,” she said without looking up. “Everything’s going okay.”
She stared at the screen as the data accumulated. It wasn’t easy to interpret, but she knew what she was looking for. And there it was. One column showed a stronger magnetic field than the others. This was the anomaly Ben had found. Now all she had to do was keep the rover on the invisible trail, and they’d be able to track it back to its source. If only they could generate the map in real time, it would be so much easier to plot a course. But she had to work with what she had. Each column of data represented the output from a sensor, and Ben had aligned the sensors carefully. The angle between each sensor was fixed, so with a little bit of good luck, she should be able to plan a route and patch it through to Tessa’s nav panel as they went along. And Tessa, in turn, would keep Cate on track.
She spotted a change in the data and turned her attention to the nav display, dragging the route marker a few degrees east. She heard Tessa call out the change, and as Cate adjusted her course, Siobhan watched the figures in the all-important column, waiting with bated breath. But something wasn’t right. Instead of climbing, the numbers were dipping, slowly but steadily falling back to their previous values. The trail was fading away in front of her eyes, and Siobhan’s face fell. Maybe it’s just the time lag, she told herself. The routine takes a little while to run. The next row of data slid onto the screen, and Siobhan punched the air. “Yes! We’re onto something. The field’s getting stronger.”
“Well done!” Evelyn said. “Keep it up, Siobhan.”
“I will,” she replied. “You can count on it.”
***
Siobhan rubbed her eyes. They’d been following the trail of the magnetic anomaly for well over an hour, and although the pattern was getting stronger as they traveled east, it was getting harder and harder to interpret the data. The strange magnetic field seemed to envelop them as they traveled, the sensors picking up strange surges in activity as the rover negotiated the increasingly rocky terrain.
Siobhan looked up from her workstation and caught a glimpse of the outside world. The landscape was littered with huge boulders, their rugged surfaces glinting in the light. But although the sheer bulk of the boulders would’ve made them an arresting sight on a normal scouting run, today, their dark forms were loaded with significance. Because while the ground was coated with a mat of symbiont, the
boulders themselves were pristine, their craggy faces free from the tell-tale blue-green tinge of grunge.
Where the hell did these rocks come from? Siobhan wondered, but she could see no clue as to their origin. Were they the remnants of a hill that time had crumbled away? Or could the rocks have been dropped by a retreating ice sheet? Ben would’ve known.
Siobhan let her eyes lose focus for a second, remembering Ben’s sweet smile when, back at the settlement, he’d run into her as she’d been carrying water from the spring, and he’d offered to help. On the way home, he’d asked if she’d like to take a walk with him when she’d finished her chores, and she’d said yes immediately. It had been the start of something new and exciting. For a few short weeks, she’d forgotten the limitations of living on the hill, and for the first time in a while, she’d looked to the future, dreaming of better days ahead. Perhaps I can hold on to those dreams, she told herself. With the help of Bens’ work, they might still be able to salvage a sustainable future for the settlement.
Cate cried out in alarm, and Siobhan snapped back to reality. The rover was skidding around a massive boulder as they crested a ridge, the cabin keeling over on its suspension as Cate applied the brake too suddenly, sending the rover into a skidding slide down the slope.
Siobhan gripped the workstation, picturing the cabin rolling over, her world turning upside down as she dangled from her safety belt. But the rover juddered to a halt, the cabin rocking back into its usual orientation with the hiss of hydraulic dampeners pushed to the limit of their endurance. “What the hell, Cate?” she spluttered. “For fu—”
Her words died on her lips, and she sat still, transfixed by her limited view through the rover’s windshield. Slowly, she unclipped her safety belt and made her way forward on unsteady legs. And when she reached the back seats, she sat down heavily next to Evelyn.
“I think we may have just reached the end of your trail,” Evelyn said.
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