Chapter Eleven
The Problem of Groupthink
From a distance, the gully that Mira's suggesting doesn't look overly promising, and Taylor's already present distrust moves to outright refusal to cooperate, "What're you trying to pull, Mira?"
Malcolm looks startled: much as he is uncomfortable around the woman whose expertise is the key to their survival, he is willing to accept that her suggestion is valid. As she has already used the place and thus knows its suitability as a camp, it has not occurred to him to think otherwise.
Fortunately, despite her scowl, Mira doesn't respond with angry words, but instead forces herself to be reasonable, "Given what we're up against out here, Commander, it's either that or dig out a shelter underground. Given that we don't have time to do that before sundown, the only remaining option is to get everyone into the backs of the rhinos." Like that's a valid alternative.
Taylor grunts, but he has no answer for her - largely because his own expertise tells him that she's right. This might be terra incognita for him, but he's no stranger to surviving in hostile environments - and the only way to protect oneself is to get somewhere that a dinosaur can't. Thus he waves her on, not quite dismissively, and - with an enormous degree of self control - Mira sets to work directing people into the chasm.
Once inside, however, her knowledge proves to be truly sound - as the narrow opening widens into a large space that is effectively impregnable. There is only one way in, and one way out. Once they've set up the fence lines, the larger predators won't be able to get near them. For all his lack of knowledge, even Malcolm recognises that it's a prime spot.
The walls of the chasm rise a good six metres above their heads; smooth, water-worn rock striped yellow, brown and orange as the sandstone strata have been exposed by centuries of erosion. Malcolm's no geologist, but he knows it's probable that this region was once under the sea - as it is one of many rocky protrusions all across the region that resemble the great limestone karsts of southern China and the South China Sea. Not that he ever visited them - by the time he could have found a reason to go, the air was too filthy to make them easy to see.
As he gazes about himself, taking in the geological wonders, Mira is busy with Dunham, organising the erection of shelters, the waste compactors, a water condenser to capture whatever forms overnight, and - of most interest to the hungry travellers - the cooking equipment. For reasons that he seems unwilling to share, Taylor is lurking near his rover; but most are too busy to take much notice.
Carter does not look happy to have been designated as the chef for the night, but one of his cronies, Hal Wicks, is helping him with the culinary marvel that is vacuum packed rations - and, before long, a cheerfully beefy aroma is scenting the air.
"Smells good, sir." Washington says, still seated in the rover and looking out beyond the entrance of the Gully, where Reynolds and Travers have just fired up an electric fence to dissuade any bambiraptors from inviting themselves to dinner.
"Not hungry." Taylor grunts, looking out at the walls in the rapidly fading light. Like all deserts, the light fades quickly here.
"You should eat something." She chides, her mouth creasing into a smile, "You're a nightmare to follow when you're hungry."
"She's got Carter making it."
"Ah." Now she understands, "I think, if he was still trying to assassinate you, he wouldn't be doing it with a cauldron of bully beef. Now, on the other hand, if it was you doing the cooking…"
"Hey - I'm not that bad."
"Really?" she asks, looking at him, eyebrow cocked, "I have less than fond memories of a night on the can thanks to your efforts."
"Okay - I am that bad." He smiles at her, "Do you want me to get you some?"
She shakes her head, "No, I'm fine. I think I'll stay here and keep watch for a bit."
He nods, still smiling, and heads back to join the camp.
Sitting on a rock, scraping the last of the gravy from her plate, Mira watches Taylor as surreptitiously as she can. Whatever's happening, it's causing the Commander to make bad decisions. Firstly his near-refusal to use this place, and - more worryingly, - his apparent failure to notice that there's no one on watch at the entrance. The fence is all very well, but it's not unknown for those things to cut out at unexpected moments - and the last thing she wants is an unexpected wake up call with teeth.
The security team are gathered around a small outcrop of rock, which they're using as a card table, while Dunham looks rather concerned, as he can see that they're all there - and that means, as Mira has noticed, that there's no one on watch. That Taylor is completely happy with the lack of protection suggests that he doesn't realise that it's happening, or that he thinks that it is and has miscounted. To her, that means that something is definitely wrong. Taylor misses nothing - she knows that from personal experience.
Malcolm is busy with a plex, while his assistant, and that wood expert, are making out again - though they're not being too obvious about it. The nurse is checking Lynott's ankle - and it all seems so peaceful. But there's still the problem of no one watching the fence.
She catches Dunham's eye, and he crosses to join her. Like most of the security teams, he's largely lost his wariness of her, and he seems to have guessed what she wants to know.
"Why isn't anyone watching the fence?" Mira asks, quietly, as he sits down beside her.
"Commander Taylor's got it in hand." He answers, though he sounds a little doubtful. If it's in hand, why is there no one there?
"I'll take first watch." She says, quietly, "Carter'll take second. You take third." She does not need to add that they don't advise Taylor that they're doing it.
Dunham immediately looks uncomfortable - to his mind, he's disobeying orders. She gets that - he's a hard working, dutiful and loyal soldier; so such a thing is anathema to him, "Sometimes you have to go off-book." She says, quietly, "I've been here before - after what we've eaten, there'll be bambis gathering for sure - and the only way they can get in is through that passageway. They'll smell the food, and they'll smell it when people visit the compactors. Better to be chewed out by Taylor than chewed up by a carnivore."
"Yes Ma'am." He shudders at the thought, and, in the process, forgets that Mira's not entitled to military deference.
Her eyes diamond hard, she slips away into the shadows to make her way past the parked vehicles to sit in the Commander's rover. It's the nearest viewing point to the fence - and it has at least a small degree of shelter should she find herself obliged to defend the opening. Sure enough, as soon as her night-vision is settled, she can see movement out there. At least one bambi, possibly as many as five. They might be the size of a small car each, but nonetheless, they're fast - and they hunt best in packs. Their skill in co-operating with one another is a fearsome example of where the ability to do so exhibited by later species came from: to her mind, only West African hunting dogs do it better.
That said, as long as the fence holds, they won't be able to get in. Their danger is their speed, not their ability to jump.
She is startled briefly by a scuffling sound, but looks relieved to find that it's not Taylor; it's Malcolm, "Why are you here? I thought Dunham was organising the perimeter."
"He was - until Taylor overruled him. Apparently he has it in hand."
Even in the dubious light, she can see that Malcolm has gone rather pale. He dithers for a moment, as though wrestling with his conscience in some way - but then he gets into the rover beside her, "You need to keep this to yourself Mira; but, when I said I didn't know what was wrong with the Commander, I wasn't telling you the full truth."
"I never guessed." She says, a little sarcastically.
"I don't know the cause - but there've been a few occasions when the Commander's been overheard talking to someone. Someone who isn't actually there."
"Pardon?" Of all the things she was expecting - that was probably the last on the list.
"Elisabeth couldn't pin down a cause for it, and it wasn't happening that often. Without a good reason to do it, we couldn't relieve him of command, so we had to try and get him back in for a medical. The expedition was just the excuse that we needed - but before we left, Elisabeth still hadn't found anything, so we had no choice but to come out here with him as he is."
"As he is?" she asks, "By that, I take it you mean 'completely compromised'?"
He looks dreadfully uncomfortable, "Possibly. There's no way to know. I know he's been doing it, because I saw him. Jim's overheard him a couple of times - but when I saw him, he was addressing the empty space in front of him as though there was someone there."
"And now he's leading us out into a desert." She finishes, tiredly.
Malcolm nods, and looks out at the fence line, "Yes. He is."
Chris is looking disgruntled, to say the least, as Jim approaches him. While he's technically in charge of the colony while Taylor's elsewhere, it doesn't stop him from undertaking his patrols. He just does them less often.
"What's up?" He asks, cheerfully, "worms in the apples?" He knows that's not the reason - but there are people busy amongst the rows of emerging vegetable seedlings, and the last thing he wants to do is draw attention to their ongoing attempts to keep a lid on the simmering discontent amongst the veg patches.
"Don't ask." Chris says, "One of those days." The two of them fall into step alongside one another, and make their way past one of the larger potting sheds to a spot where they can be reasonably sure they're not observed, "I've tried to institute staff meetings. I think Raj had more success with his - and I have no doubt that Max had no problem at all. But my teams are playing me about. If the Soft fruit teams can make a date, the Top Fruit teams can't. Then the planters have a heap of seedlings to extract from the hydroponics nurseries. It's like they're doing their damnedest to stop me from gathering them all together and telling them that we want to hear their concerns."
Jim nods: a staff meeting with an open-floor does rather spike the wheel of someone trying to get people to believe that their voices are going unheard.
"I can't impose one - not without setting people off claiming that I'm being authoritarian. I've attempted to compromise by meeting individual teams, but that just gives the impression that I'm trying a 'divide and rule' approach."
"Aren't you being a bit melodramatic?" Jim asks, "Even if it's one department at a time, the whole 'get it off your chest' principle still holds."
"Bob's got in there first, Jim." Chris says, quietly, "At least, that's what I'm beginning to think - every attempt I've made to get people talking seems to go nowhere, and I'm getting some open hostility now. I don't know what the hell's going on. It's not like any of these people are credulous morons - they're all intelligent, rational people. Or so I thought. It's like there's been a mass outbreak of groupthink."
Jim blinks, then looks a little embarrassed, "What's groupthink?" he's heard the term before - but never given it much thought.
"It's a social phenomenon, Jim. It's when a group of people start making bad decisions because they don't want to deviate from the group consensus. Bob's laid some foundations that are pressurising people to think that they won't be listened to if they talk to me - and now people don't feel comfortable challenging the concept."
"Hell - that does not sound good."
"It's because there are so many people working here." Chris sighs, "Bob's damned articulate, and I think I've already said that he's got issues with authority. While he's moving in circles that are hardly short of intelligence, he can be pretty charismatic - and if he's captured enough attention, then that causes more and more people to agree with him, and suddenly arguing that he might not actually be right at all becomes largely impossible - because you're seen as 'an establishment shill' or words to that effect."
Jim sighs. It's clear that Chris is a hell of a lot more politically astute than he is - for him, it's always been about putting the bad guys away, and he's left the politicking to people with fewer scruples. That people can find something to complain about even here is baffling to him. The land is unforgiving, yes, but it's a hell of a lot better than the land they left. "Do I come across as a bit of a dumb-ass to you?" he asks, a little worriedly, "I hadn't picked upon any of that stuff."
"God, no." Chris shakes his head, "Everyone knows that you can be relied on to be fair and honest - and maybe that looks a bit simplistic in some quarters; but I thought we'd left all that political crap behind in the holocene. We don't need it here; but some people just can't seem to leave it alone."
"I don't do politics." He agrees, "I'm better at catching honest crooks."
Chris laughs at his joke, "I'll keep trying, Jim. If I can just persuade a few people that we're serious about listening to them, then that'll be a start."
Jim nods, and leaves him to get back to work. That's a lot of food for thought - and a word that he hadn't really ever taken account of before. Hopefully this groupthink thing won't catch on too much; given that he's only just found out what it really means, he's not in the best position to counter it.
Malcolm stifles a yawn as he clambers out of his sleeping bag. It's stupidly early, but he's not yet used to sleeping under canvas - and the uncomfortable knowledge that there was a pack of bambiraptors outside their perimeter last night has hardly been conducive to an easy trip to the land of nod.
He is surprised to find that Taylor has not emerged as he wanders back down to the entrance to the gully, though that is perhaps fortunate as Dunham is - dutifully - on watch, which is something that the Commander did not ask him to do. On the other hand, he is not surprised when Mira also turns up, though her gift of three mugs of steaming coffee substitute is welcome for the warmth - though not the taste.
"Anything?" she asks, as Dunham accepts his mug with thanks.
"The bambis wandered off about an hour ago." He reports, "Carter said when he handed over that they'd been sizing up the fence - but they didn't try it. We might be easy pickings in some ways - but not when it comes to actually getting at us."
She nods, "We'll have to keep a watch on them. It's a given that they'll follow us. We're too tempting - buitreraptors are a hell of a lot faster than we are."
Malcolm looks very nervous at that. Dunham, on the other had, just yawns and nods in agreement taking a sip of his drink.
"Go get the troops up." She says, "I'll take over."
"Yes Ma'am." Again, he seems content to accept her authority. Probably because she's the only one who can be absolutely relied upon to get them back alive.
As soon as he's gone, she sits back, "You're not going to like this, Malcolm."
He turns to her, "What do you mean?"
"If Taylor's compromised - and it's pretty damn clear to me that he is - then we need to start thinking how we get this expedition to where it needs to be without his input. And without him knowing that we're doing it."
"You can't be serious…" he's staring now. The concept of overruling the Commander an unthinkable obstacle.
"I am." Her gaze is firm, and he knows she's not kidding, "Look, I'm not interested in taking over, or any of that crap. What I want to do is get you safely to where you want to go, and then get us all safely back again. If we can't trust Taylor to do it, or at least do it effectively, then you and I have to do it instead. To all intents and purposes, he's superfluous to this expedition; Dunham's able to organise the security detail, you and your team can get on with the science, and Carter and I can do the survival planning. Whatever's going on with him - if we can't stop it, then we contain it, and do what we came out here to do."
Malcolm transfers his gaze back to that distance beyond the entrance, where the desert scrub spreads for miles. The chances of people agreeing to work behind Taylor's back are minimal at best - his aura of authority is so strong that no one would feel safe to challenge it, for fear of what their colleagues would think of them. It's been something that he's whinged about for as long as he can remember since he arrived - but even he finds the entire prospect horribly wrong. He has plenty of faults, yes - but he's never been one for treachery.
"I'm not very good at being surreptitious." He confesses, after a while.
"Then don't be. I'm brilliant at it - so I'll do it for both of us." Mira says, with an offhand air that makes him snort with amusement. Then she turns to him, "The one thing I do need from you, Malcolm, is trust. I can't do this if you don't trust me. Taylor's not safe to lead us if the evidence is to be believed, and we need to keep the party alive without him thinking that I'm trying to take over. I can only do that with your help."
He sits very still, all the conflicts in his mind over the woman beside him turning over and over as he processes her words. She's right - and he knows it: they can't survive out here without her knowledge and experience. Taylor's brilliant at survival; but he's compromised - he must be if he believed that there was someone on watch last night when there wasn't. For a moment, he hears the crack of electricity at the end of a shock prod, shivers at the remembrance of the dread in his mind as he waited for the next shock, unable to see when it could come. No - that wasn't her fault. Lucas had that done to him - she knew nothing about it…
She doesn't push him. She knows why he struggles to accept her. But eventually he looks up, and straight at her, "Yes. I'll trust you."
Mira nods, "Thank you. Just for the record - since we're talking about trust, I'll trust you in return. As long as the Commander isn't making decisions that actively endanger us, I'll keep myself to myself. If he does, though - there's no choice. We have to put the safety of the expedition first. But I'll defer to you - you're senior staff. I'm not."
"I agree with that." Malcolm says, "If he starts to put us in danger, then we put safety first."
He doesn't answer about the deferring bit - that's something he really doesn't want to think about.
Mira looks in the wing mirror, "Taylor's coming. Driver's side."
They have the rhino parked up behind the rover to give them cover, and they sneak away, unseen, as Taylor walks up to the fence line, then returns to the rover, "Anything?"
Washington shakes her head, "No. Just this filthy coffee crap." She raises a mug, and he catches the whiff of the stuff on the air.
"Yeah - I avoid that like the plague if I can." He laughs, leaning against the side of the vehicle, "Nothing outside the fence at all last night, then?"
"Not a thing." She answers, "All of Mira's talk about bambiraptors: if last night was anything to go by, we're more likely to see Bambi than bambis. There's nothing much out here for them to feed on anyway, so it's not like they're going to come out this far. We left our 'all you can eat buffet' status behind once the sand started and the grass stopped. Have you eaten?"
"What, are you my mother now?"
"Hey, you're driving, sir. I don't want you passing out at the wheel because your blood sugar's on the floor."
He laughs, "Fine, I'll get something. You want anything?"
"Already had some cereal bars. They were as bad as this coffee."
In spite of himself, Malcolm is relieved that his vehicle is at the head of the convoy, rather than Taylor's; as it makes it easier to conceal his involvement in the plan to essentially sideline the Commander. That they're doing it to keep themselves alive is neither here nor there - it still feels wrong; but then, if they keep talking themselves out of doing something about it because no one feels brave enough to challenge the norm, then they are far more responsible than Taylor if it all goes belly up.
"Do you expect to find the spot today?" he asks, more for the sake of filling the silence than because he genuinely wants to know.
"Possibly - but that's only because I know where I'm going this time around." Mira says, "If we do, it'll be this evening. We're still safe to travel in the middle of the day at the moment, as long as we stop for water every couple of hours or so. The last time, we had to get out of the sun for six hours a day, so it took much longer. Believe me, you don't want to be in a rover out here at that time of the year. I'm just glad the hot season's at least another month away."
Malcolm shudders. He remembers what it's like to be in an enclosed metal box in the midday heat - and he'd rather not think about it.
"Do you think Weaver knew anything about the portal that's out here?" he asks, to take his mind off it.
Mira shakes her head, "No. He wasn't as bright as he pretended to be - he just accepted what Lucas told him and relayed it back to the money-men. All he could do really well was be an utter bastard. The coordinates for the figurehead were given to him, and he gave them to us. I never did find out who it was that had them - though it was probably whoever paid for the UAVs. If they'd been able to control a second portal, it would've given them the one at Hope Plaza to send more pilgrims here, and another one to bring the resources back there, so no one would've known what they were doing. That was the main reason why they were searching. My guess is that the backers were getting twitchy about there not being a portal at all - and Weaver needed proof that there was one to keep them on side. The aerial surveys must've identified it, and that prompted them to investigate it."
"So they needed to overrun the Colony to get to that point." Malcolm muses, "No one at the other side needed to know that they were going through to what was more-or-less a prison camp - they could keep the pilgrims coming through, and that would give them a captive workforce."
"Too right." Mira agrees, a little bitterly, "All of you would've been corralled - and probably put to work in processing plants. Then they'd send more pilgrims through on the promise of a new life, and they'd've joined you. After all, it's billed as a one-way trip - so how would anyone be able to get back and warn people that they were effectively signing up to slavery?"
"Thank God we stopped them."
She nods, "I suspect that we would've been expected to become overseers or something. The chances of getting back if you weren't Weaver or Lucas Taylor are probably as close to zero as it gets. I pinned a lot of hope on getting back to see my daughter. Even if Shannon hadn't blown up Hope Plaza - somehow I think it's likely that I wouldn't have been able to do it. I would've been as trapped as you." She sighs; a sad, rather desolate sound. All of her hopes of being reunited with a precious child…and not even success in her mission would have been so rewarded. Being a parent himself now, he can feel a sense of her devastation - and that endless burden of not knowing, that she is now obliged to carry around with her for the rest of her days.
They continue in silence for nearly an hour, punctured now and again by Mira giving a course correction, until Malcolm decides to stop for a water-break. As people gather to fill their bottles from the water-tank in the second rhino, Taylor watches with a remarkably sullen air - as though the need to stop and drink is an almighty inconvenience. Either that, or he isn't happy that he wasn't the one that called it. Even to Mira, such behaviour is so resolutely un-Taylor, that it could not be clearer to her that he is no longer fit to lead them safely. It's a bloody nuisance that she can't call him out on it. Instead, she wanders back to talk to Dunham, who is supervising the rear guard, "Are we being followed?"
He nods, "They're about half a mile back - six of them. I've got Wicks and Travers watching them, and they've got our largest calibre sonic rifles trained on them."
"Have Savage, Carter and Reynolds join them, and you. Assign one bambi to each of them - two pairs of eyes aren't enough if there are six. They're bloody intelligent creatures, and they know when they're being watched. If they get within a quarter of a mile, call it. We get into the vehicles and go. There's too much rough ground here for a shootout - they won't run away with this much free meat nearby, and they've got cover to get behind."
"Are they really that smart?" Dunham asks, distinctly unnerved now.
"Speaking from personal experience?" Mira says, "Yes. They are."
With the threat of predators on their tail, Mira refuses to allow another stop for three hours, and picks up the pace as much as she feels is safe, "We've got bambis following us." She says, simply, when Malcolm questions her decision, "I want as much of a headstart as possible. They've seen how many of us there are - we're larger, and slower, than their usual prey. If there's a chance of a good feed, they'll keep at it until it becomes too much of a waste of their energy, or we kill them. I'd rather not do that - they're absolute bastards to bring down, and I don't want to waste the charge in the sonics. Our best bet is to get far enough ahead to set up a strong perimeter. There's nowhere to dig in where we're going."
Malcolm doesn't reply - but she doesn't need to look at him to know that he's distinctly unnerved by her comment.
They pause only to allow Mira to take another reading with her sextant, and resume as soon as she's worked out their position. By late afternoon, she seems satisfied, "We're as near as dammit, Malcolm. Give me a moment to call Dunham - I need to know how far back the bambis are before we call a halt."
It feels strange, not referring to the Commander - but he doesn't object. If Mira gives the all clear, he can persuade Taylor to make the same request to Dunham, and thus avoid giving the impression that they're acting without his input.
There's no sign of them, Ma'am, the Lieutenant's voice squawks through the comm unit, I doubt they've given up - but they're far enough back for us to set up a stockade to keep them out while we make camp
"He's got a good head on those shoulders." Mira observes, "Most people would assume that they'd gone."
Taylor makes no objection to their stopping place, as there's no cover for the best part of half a mile, so even if there are still bambiraptors in their wake, an ambush would be impossible. Oddly, he seems unconcerned that there may be predators in the vicinity, as though he has been assured that all is well by some unknown source. They are not to know that - essentially - he has been.
Mira equally shows no concern as he orders Dunham to organise a work detail to erect the stockade. As with the fence line, their protection consists of stout metal rods with emitters along their length to generate an electric field strong enough to cause serious damage to anything that attempts to cross it. Once they've constructed a large enough space to contain their camp, and the vehicles, Travers and Wicks set up a simple picket fence to keep everyone inside the stockade away from it, while everyone else pitches in to set up the rest of the camp.
"Was it here?" Malcolm asks, once he's finished setting up his tent.
Mira knows what he means, and doesn't ask for clarification, "Approximately. I couldn't give you the exact position - but I remember that outcrop over there with the cleft in it. I'd be okay to say that this was more or less the spot."
Rather than comment further, Malcolm heads back to one of the rhinos and burrows into it for a rad-meter, "I know that Weaver didn't give a stuff about sending you into a potentially contaminated area, but I do."
Taylor is standing with Mira when he returns, "Do you think there's radiation here?"
"Probably not - but it doesn't hurt to be safe. Based on the topographical charts we found in those files, we're nowhere near any potential impact sites for a superbolide; so we just need to know how it is that the figurehead got here given that there's no fuel to open a portal in the vicinity."
"Could it be random? Once we lost the terminus, the portal back from Hope Plaza dumped Shannon nearly two klicks from where we were."
"If it's being generated here - which seems the most likely explanation - then it's going to be tethered to its fuel source. The randomness comes in at the other end." Malcolm raises the device and takes a reading, "No - we're safe. There's nothing more than natural background radiation."
"Commander!" Reynolds calls across from the corner of their stockade where the waste compactors are being erected, "We've just found something!"
Intrigued, Taylor heads across, Malcolm and Mira in tow, to find that a small hole they've dug to house the base of the generator has unearthed a wooden box held closed by a rather corroded padlock. Crouching, Malcolm retrieves it, "It's heavy, Commander. I think there might be something inside it. If someone can get me a crowbar, or something like it, I can prise off this lock."
"Reynolds." Taylor says, prompting the sergeant to trot across to one of the rhinos in search of a suitable tool.
By the time he returns, Bram and Charlie have wandered across, and only those who have been tasked with watching for bambiraptors are still at their posts. There is a sense of age about that wooden case - and all are eager to know what's inside.
It doesn't take long to break into the box, as the wood is brittle and dried out after years under the sand. It has, however protected its contents remarkably well, and Malcolm reaches in to retrieve a large, heavy book bound with thick, tooled leather.
"Hell's bells." Bram whispers, "What is it?"
Rather than say he doesn't know yet, Malcolm instead carefully opens it, and finally comments, "We got it right. This is the ship's log of the Polly Constance. It must have been left here with the figurehead."
Everyone is exchanging nervous glances. Before this - that lone wooden woman had seemed a distant mystery with no human element to it. Now, however, that humanity has emerged in full force - the words of the men who sailed the ship whose prow she once decorated.
A story that might tell them how she got here.
