I love the weekend - more time to upload more stuff!
Chapter Twelve
Crash
Yseult opens her eyes, and briefly frowns at the unfamiliar ceiling, then smiles and turns to her right to see Malcolm is still sleeping. She hadn't realised until the previous evening just how much she missed that moment of fierce desire, and the almost furious determination to assuage it: the scattering of garments about the carpet that surrounds the bed an untidy testament to the urgency of their passion. Rather a surprise after the altogether more cliché'd romantic start on the couch.
He breathes deeply and evenly, as one would when asleep, and she watches him, taking in the rediscovery of an intimacy that she thought she would never experience again. He has, she notes, rather understated how much the two Sixers injured him, however: superficial burns don't leave the mild scarring that she can see on his bare shoulder, or its fellow marks that adorn his back and chest, hidden now under the covers. They would've hurt like hell - and still he covered them up? What must it have been like to believe - truly believe - that people wouldn't have cared if he'd told them he was injured? They would've cared; she's sure of that; but for him to think that they wouldn't…
Well, that's never going to happen again. Not if she's around to make sure it doesn't.
He shifts slightly, and opens his eyes, which widen for a second; briefly startled to see that he hasn't woken alone.
"Good morning." She smiles at him.
"It certainly is now." He returns her smile, "How did you sleep?"
"After what we got up to last night? Like the proverbial log." She advises him, rather impudently, then smiles a bit stupidly as he kisses her on the nose.
"Allow me to be irredeemably British and put the kettle on." He jokes, fumbling out from the bed for something to wear.
"Now you're being coy?"
"Hey: British. Remember?"
She sits on the couch in a borrowed robe, nursing a cup of coffee while Malcolm showers. She considered offering to join him, but she wonders if he's also still a bit too British - as he puts it - to be comfortable with her doing so. Everything in the house is unfamiliar; nothing where she expects to find it, few ornaments or possessions of any significance - it seems as though the residence is merely being borrowed, and the occupant is not permitted to personalise it. The whole place could do with the addition of some of her junk: that startlingly ugly canaanite fertility goddess that Opa found in the Levant, for starters. Malcolm would hate it. She snorts with mild amusement into her coffee; but the thought sticks. She's spent one night with him, and she's already thinking of moving in? How ridiculous…
As he emerges from the bedroom, his hair still slightly damp, Yseult remembers Mike's joke about his hanging upside down to get his hair to stick up - but it seems that it does it quite by itself, as even now the front of it has tufted up somewhat. Fetching a coffee for himself, he joins her, "Do you want to shower?"
She shakes her head, "I'll wait until I get home, I've got nothing fresh to wear here."
"We'll have to rectify that." He muses, "It seems a bit mean to have you spend the night here only to kick you out in the morning to find clean clothes."
"I'll bring a bag next time." She says, accepting a kiss from him. For a moment, she is highly tempted to shrug out of the robe and engage Malcolm in additional improprieties; but it is, alas, a workday and she has to a furnace to light.
Maddy checks her latest results, and sighs with frustration. So close…but not close enough: there is one compound in that scorpion's venom that just refuses to be broken down by anything she throws at it. They can slow down the progress of the venom, but not stop it. If she's being optimistic, she's potentially bought a victim another half hour or so to be helped, but they still need to go for life support to keep them alive while the poison is metabolised.
She looks about for her supervisor, and is not overly surprised to see him at work in the small office that everyone now refers to as 'the lock up' thanks to its venomous occupant. He has been obliged to refuse several requests to commence new projects as the year has progressed, and it's far easier for him to retreat to a room people don't like to enter than deal with yet more loaded communications about favouritism for those whose projects have been approved. Maddy had no idea that her fellow scientists could be so childish; but then, her project is too important to warrant cancellation.
Watching through the window, she shudders. He seems blissfully unaware that the little arachnid is all but pacing back and forth across the front of the vivarium. To Maddy, it's as though the scorpion is watching him, keen to escape its confines and make him pay for grasping its tail and jabbing it with a needle. He's been regularly feeding it cockroaches, which it seems to relish, but bribery is making no difference. Limited though its intelligence is, to Maddy's rather credulous eyes it still seems to have forged a determination to attack him in revenge for his behaviour towards it. She's probably imagining it; but nonetheless, she can't set aside the notion that the creature is plotting some form of dire retribution - just from the way that it seems so fixated upon the man who sits just beyond its reach. Shaking herself, she knocks on the window, and he gets up to let himself out.
"I see what you mean." He agrees, reading her results, "That's really frustrating. At least we've got something that can give us more time - so it's better than nothing. Why don't you abandon this for the time being and research the potential analgesic effects? I think I've more or less managed to synthesise a valid equivalent compound to study, so with a bit of luck I won't have to fight with the little monster to take its venom for much longer: that venom is as hard to copy as it is to counter. If we can do that, then I can get rid of it back into the wild where it belongs. I think I'm going to end up having dreams about it growing to the size of a horse and chasing me around the colony at this rate."
She knows he's joking - but in some ways, she's relieved that he's as uneasy around it as she is. Maybe he has noticed it watching him.
With the weather growing warmer, the agriculture teams are working at full pelt, though many of them now wear gaiters of various materials to protect their legs from any further stings. The number of scorpions has not grown - in fact, few people see them - but the threat they pose is so frightening that most have adopted protection whether they really need to or not. As Maddy returns to her workstation, Chris, the Field Manager, arrives to talk through the experimental crops that are going to be tried out this year alongside those which are grown regularly.
"We're going to give that tuber another go." He says, "We think we've managed to eradicate that blight - Harriet came up with an effective countermeasure."
"Good. What about the aeroponics nurseries?"
"I have six variant substrates that we'd like to try - but I'd like an analysis done on them before we do that."
"Fine. I'll sort that out - I've got some spare capacity in one of the subsidiary labs, so I'll see if I can get that done next week. I can tie it in with the analyses that I'm doing for Rob's medicinal plants."
"We've managed to root some spelt hybrids that might be resistant to that blackfly that looked set to move in two years ago, as well. The tests looked promising, so we'll try planting out this week if the weather holds."
"Good. Keep me posted."
At the other end of the colony, Mike is tending the bellows of their latest expansion of the blast furnace. They can't go too big, partly for practicality, partly because they don't have enough wood, but the bloom that they hope to get from this one should be of a more practicable size to work into something larger than just knife blades.
Keeping a watch on the internal temperature, Yseult looks up as Pete comes over to join her, "I've checked the coppices. They're doing very well - though if I had the time, I'd leave things for at least another year."
"If the worst comes to the worst," she muses, "we can set aside a small portion of the woodland and deforest it. I'd rather not - but if we make practical use of the clearance, it's something worth considering." She checks the gauge again, "It's looking good, Mike." She calls across, "Let it cool for now, we can re-line it in a few days once it's cold."
Leaving her assistant with the furnace, she accompanies Pete through to the areas of forest that he's coppicing. To the uneducated eye, it looks like wholesale destruction; trees cut down almost to the roots, but left to re-grow new shoots. These have been doing so for nearly seven years, and are nearly ready. Just not quite ready enough.
"I heard you and Malcolm had a bit of a spat a few days ago." He says, quietly. He is the only one in her team who doesn't refer to her boyfriend - now lover - by the now-regularly adopted moniker 'Captain Khaki'. Not to her face, at least, "Are you okay?"
She nods, "Fine. It was a bit of a shock at the time - but he had a very good reason to blow up the way that he did, and we'd made up by teatime."
"They murdered one of his scientists in front of him, didn't they?" he asks, rhetorically.
She nods, "He refused to help them when they told him that he had to mend a broken component. That was their response." She has no wish to go further than that: everyone knows about what happened to Steve McCormick. No one, however, but her and Jim know that Malcolm was tortured, too. They both left it up to him to tell Commander Taylor - but so far he has opted not to. While few things stay a secret in Terra Nova for long, they are both determined that that episode doesn't get out.
"Poor sod. Everyone makes fun of him - but it's only now that you realise he's not quite the pompous twat that people think he is." He smiles a slightly wicked smile, "Besides, it's pretty obvious to me that you two have finally done the deed."
"Pardon?" she turns to him, shocked.
"Come on, you looked ridiculously blissed out after you came to work a couple of days ago. I've known you for nearly twelve years - it couldn't be more obvious that you two have been shagging." He sees the look on her face, "Don't panic - no one else has noticed. I think it's because they're all Yanks and they can't see a subtle hint even if it comes up and smacks them in the face with a placard that says 'I'm a subtle hint'. Besides, they're all too straight to get anything other than embarrassed about it. Not that it matters - they'd all be chuffed for you. I know I am. I've not seen you look so happy since before Niall died. Malcolm might be a pompous twat, but he's got good taste. I'll give him that."
"Don't tell me you fancy me, Pete."
"Nice try, Max; but I'd have to change sides and abandon my friendship with Mrs King. You can keep your lady bits, thank you very much."
"You fancy him, then?" she laughs.
"Don't push it, Madam."
Elisabeth reviews the results on her plex, "This is looking very good, Malcolm." She says, "These compounds are showing some real promise for pain relief. I'll come through in a couple of days to sit down with Maddy and work up a sequence to synthesise some samples, and I'll start clinical testing."
"We've still had no luck with an effective antivenin." He sighs, "I've run out of academic papers to go through, but there's just no way of persuading that blasted venom to stop blocking synapses. I think we may have to admit defeat and go with just slowing the process down. I've had one of the biochemists looking for some way of repelling the things, but they still come into the fields. If that botanist hadn't been wearing those improvised plastic pipes on her legs that everyone was laughing at, we'd have another patient in the infirmary spending half a week on life support. I'd try using a predator if I could find one that wouldn't be more interested in eating us."
She nods, "Sometimes we just have to accept that prevention is better than cure."
Malcolm looks at his watch, and groans, "God, I'm late again."
"What for? Are you meeting Max?"
"Not until later. I'm supposed to be at the lab we've set aside for testing the aeroponics substrates - or at least I was supposed to be there fifteen minutes ago. Damn."
"You're trying to do too much again, Malcolm." Elisabeth chides, "Isn't that what you have staff for?"
He looks rueful as he gathers up his coat and shrugs into it, "I know, I know. I'm supposed to delegate. Maybe, one day, I'll work out how to do that."
Rob Stanley is bent over a centrifuge as he hurries into the lab, "Sorry Rob. I got caught up with that bloody antivenin again. How are the samples looking?"
"Pretty good, actually. I've managed to get some reasonable extracts." He indicates a row of corked test tubes in a rack, each with a sample of gritty-looking, pale green gunge lurking at the bottom.
"Brilliant. I'll get started on those as soon as I can." He looks at his plex and sighs, "Which is not looking like it's going to happen this week."
"Why don't you get Lucy to do it? She's a perfectly competent biochemist and she's looking for something like this to work on. You always try to do everything yourself when it's cutting edge. Why not try sharing? If she's not free, I'm sure that Colin would take it on." He is grinning as he speaks, as aware as anyone else of Malcolm's hopeless inability to delegate unassigned work. He is almost as bad at delegating as he is at cooking.
"I'll think about it." He agrees, then sees Rob's eyes narrow, disbelievingly, "Alright - I really will think about it."
"There. That wasn't so hard, was it? Now get out of here and leave me to it."
"I thought I was the boss around here?"
"Like hell you are. We just let you think that so we can carry on with our heinous plan to take over the universe."
Yseult is setting out some cartons of salad from the market when he returns home. Given their propensity for inappropriate necking these days when in each other's company, as opposed merely to endearingly cute hugs, on the rare occasions that they are free to lunch together, they do so in private. It'll die down eventually, of course - once they get over the first flush of intense attraction and settle back down into the comfortable, loving relationship that was emerging before they effectively jumped each other - but at the moment, the degree of physical contact is quite intoxicating, and Malcolm keeps finding himself looking for work he can put off, or - gasp - delegate, in order to elongate his lunch break.
"We re-lined the blast furnace this morning," Yseult says as they eat, "As that's an absolutely filthy job, I came back to shower and change. I think Mike wants to look dead butch - he wanted us to all jump in the river. Given that a lot of it's meltwater, I didn't really fancy a bout of hypothermia, so I chickened out. I'm not the 'emerging from the water like a warrior goddess' type."
"I'd pay good terras to watch that." Malcolm grins at her.
"What: 'soggy rat straggling out of a river and swearing a lot because she's freezing cold'? You'd want your money back. How's your morning been?"
"I've been running about like a blue-arsed fly." He admits, "I over-scheduled myself again."
"Have any of your lot tried cloning? You could leave your other self at the labs to annoy the scientists and spend all your time with me."
"Doing what, precisely?" he teases her.
"That depends on how much time we have." She advises, "Speaking of which, how much time do we have?"
"However much you want." He promises, setting his plex aside.
Taylor is reading Guzman's latest report on the activity of their unwelcome neighbours. Despite his cold rebuff, Mira has continued to do nothing to antagonise him. But then, she's not offered any of her promised intelligence either, and so the benign standoff remains in force. Even his patrols haven't been repelled or harassed; she must be desperate. Maybe he should consider her offer, then. He has plenty of faults; but out and out cruelty is not one of them. Allowing pride to destroy an entire community of people, no matter how small, would be unacceptable if he saw someone else doing it - so what right does he have to do it himself? Maybe, even if he won't have them back, he should allow them access to resources. A form of bartering, perhaps? They are expert hunters, and the meat supplies in the colony tend to be variable at best. The food vendors in particular would welcome a more reliable source of Gallusaur.
He looks up as Jim comes into the Command Centre, "I've posted the latest rosters; we lost that camera on the southern fence again, so we'll cut the trees back. I think one of them's hitting it and knocking it out."
"Fair enough." He indicates that Jim should come and sit down, "I'm thinking of making an offer to Mira."
Jim raises his eyebrows. The way things went after the last time he made that suggestion, he is surprised that Taylor is rethinking his decision.
"If things are as bad as Mira's suggesting, then it seems crazy for us to sit here and let 'em all die. I, for one, can't let that happen - it goes against my whole ethos of second chances."
"What do you have in mind?"
"Some basic trading. Let some of them in here to set up a stall - they're hunters, so people'll appreciate fresh meat. In exchange, we'll give them medical supplies, basic equipment and so on."
"No weapons, I assume?" Jim asks.
"You assume correctly."
Jim considers the prospect, "Have you discussed this with Malcolm? You know how he feels about the Sixers."
"I can't ask his permission for everything I do that involves them, Shannon. I get that he's angry about McCormick, but if we keep on holding grudges, then that leaves us the poorer in the long run."
So he hasn't told Taylor what was done to him, then. Jim sighs, inwardly, and lets the matter drop.
Taylor is about to speak again when they are silenced by a distant, rather ominous, crashing. They frown at one another.
"That didn't sound good."
Jim nods, "I'll go check it out."
"No." Taylor advises, rising, "We'll go check it out."
It doesn't take them long to track down the source of the noise, as they almost collide with running medics who clearly know where to go.
"What happened?" Jim shouts across to an orderly, who is approaching as fast as he can pelt.
"Building's come down out by the labs," he responds, rather shortly, as he is puffed out, "Apparently someone's in the wreckage."
"Any idea who?" Taylor demands, thinking already of who he needs to notify to get to the infirmary to be present for their injured loved one.
"Rosters say it was Doctor Wallace."
The pair exchange a worried glance and chase after the orderly as fast as they can go.
The building; an aluminium construction like most, has all but fallen in upon itself, and looks almost compressed. The degree of actual wreckage is insufficient for those present to pull it away by hand, but still people are trying.
"God above," Taylor grunts, breathlessly, "If Malcolm's under that, he's gonna be dead…I need to call Max…"
"No you don't," Jim stops him, and points across to the other side of the collapse, to see that Malcolm is present, and amongst a group of people trying to collectively pull a large panel of aluminium-banded wood out of the mangled mess.
"What?" Taylor stares across at the man they are supposedly intending to rescue, "Hey - whoa, whoa, whoa! Everybody hold up! Is there someone under this? I thought you were, Malcolm?"
He looks up at the new arrivals, his expression deeply worried, "I was meant to be - but I handed the task over to a colleague, she's under there somewhere…" he looks down, fearfully. The panel is far too heavy for them to move - and he has no idea where to start.
Taylor turns to Jim, "Get vehicles here - anything the construction crews can provide in terms of lifting equipment. A rhino if need be. And more people. We need to get that roof lifted - it looks like it's come down in one piece. Maybe see if someone can jack it up."
"On it." Jim turns and is gone, while Taylor makes his way around the mess, trying to work out how to begin. Malcolm is looking very pale by the time he gets around to the far end of the site, "There's a large, heavy-duty table in there - if she got under that, then she may be alright…" he is muttering, almost to himself, "If she had time to do it…"
"You think there was somewhere she could take refuge?" Taylor interrupts.
"Possibly - unless it couldn't take the weight of the roof, and got crushed as well." He seems to be rambling, rather, "How the hell did this happen? I should've checked the building was safe - it's been there for years, we haven't used it since the Sixth came through and I never even thought…"
"Calm down." Taylor orders him, firmly, "You're not helping her by doing this - and we don't know what caused it to come down. Until we know, there's no point in trying to blame yourself."
"It should've been me in there - not Luce…I delegated it, and I never even thought to change the bloody rosters…"
"Stop it, Malcolm. Are you actually looking for something to hit yourself over the head with? Until we know anything otherwise, this was an accident. Plain and simple. Got that?"
He nods, though Taylor isn't entirely convinced that he's taken it in.
By the time Jim arrives with the construction crews and lifting equipment, Yseult has also turned up, drawn by rumours, and the same belief that the man she loves is entombed in a collapsed building. Before she can reach Malcolm, Taylor catches her elbow, "Get him to stand back a ways. We need room to work - and he's not listening to me."
As soon as she's alongside him, he grasps her in his arms, "It's my fault, Max. I should've checked the building - it should've been me in there, not Luce - she's pregnant, for God's sake…"
"It's not your fault, Malcolm. You know it isn't - there was no way to know that this was going to happen. Come on - they need us to make some room so that they can get her out." Gently, she urges him to stand back. Unlike Taylor, she is able to get him to comply. She knows, however, that there is no way of persuading him to leave entirely, so she doesn't bother to try.
Darkness has fallen by the time they find the occupant. As soon as the roof is stable enough, Elisabeth worms her way into the small opening they have managed to create between it and the crumpled walls in order to assess the patient. Without hesitation, she is soon calling through to her team of medics with the well practised assurance of a trauma surgeon; and, despite the limited space in which to move, she sets to work on stabilising the woman in her care.
"I need a spinal board and gurney on standby!" she calls through, "I'm nearly ready to begin the extraction. Everyone get ready."
It's like a magnificently choreographed ballet, watching the medics all go to work, each knowing exactly what they are required to do, and doing it. Yseult knows that Elisabeth's reputation as an emergency medic is all but unsurpassed; it's the main reason - well almost the main reason - why Malcolm recruited her in the first place. But she's never seen the Doctor actually at work in such circumstances, and it is - to a blacksmith-cum-archaeologist, at least - quite inspiring. For someone who comes across as quite soft spoken and compliant, Elisabeth is issuing orders firmly and without hesitating; she knows exactly what to do, who to ask for something, who is doing what. She doesn't need to ask people to do things that are required - they are so well trained by her that they already know what she'll need, and have it on standby. The woman is a powerhouse, and there's a true core of steel in her that most would never even realise was present at all.
Beside her, Malcolm is wracked with guilt. It's one of his team in there - someone who was doing something he'd opted to delegate, as he didn't really have time to do it himself. The only thing that he doesn't add to his rap-sheet is that he'd delegated it so he could stay at home with Max for a while longer. Given what they do when he does that, the guilt he would have felt would have left him largely on the floor. As it is, the fact that he was working on something equally important means he just feels that standard 'I should have been there instead' guilt. Lucy is only twenty five; it's her first baby…why didn't he think…
Night has fallen by the time the medics are bringing the patient out. Examining the site, illuminated by large arc lamps, one of the construction workers calls Jim over, "I thought you should see this, Deputy Shannon," He calls, "I don't know how significant this is, given the age of the building and the possibilities of water ingress and other chemical contamination, but there's a major amount of corrosion on these joints." He is pointing to some fairly important connections between the roof and the walls - which look hideously worn and rusted.
"How long has this building been up?" Jim asks.
"I couldn't say for sure. I'd need to check - but by the siting of it, I'd say it's likely to have gone up around the time of the Third pilgrimage, so I reckon that would be about eight or nine years, or thereabouts? They're meant to last at least fifty years - so maybe someone skimped on the construction. I'll get my crews to track down any others that went up about the same time and check them for defects."
"I'll advise Commander Taylor."
The medical team are wheeling Lucy away as Elisabeth comes across to Malcolm, largely standing in his way so that he can't follow, "She's stable, Malcolm. So is the baby - there's no need for you to come with us. Her husband's waiting at the infirmary. Leave her to us. We'll do all we can for her, okay? You go home - there's nothing that you can do here, or there."
"I'll take him home, Elisabeth." Yseult assures her, "I'll make him a hot drink and give him some space to talk it over."
"And tell him for the hundredth time that this isn't his fault?" Elisabeth smiles, a little sadly. She looks back to the retreating medics, "And this year started so well."