Chapter Thirteen

Burn

Malcolm awakens to the smell of toast, and finds himself lying on his couch, covered with a coat. Sitting up, and trying to persuade his neck to realign, he looks over the back of the furniture to see Yseult covering two slices of toasted spelt bread with soya margarine, "What happened?"

She smiles, sympathetically, "You wouldn't go to bed until you'd heard from the infirmary about Lucy." She reminds him, "At which point you had an enormous adrenaline drop and crashed out on the sofa. As I didn't have a hope of moving you, I bunged a coat over you and left you to it."

"Ah." He looks a little sheepish as she hands him the plate of toast, "Sorry. Where did you sleep?"

"I didn't want to sleep in your bed without you, so I pushed the two armchairs together and conked out on those."

"That's one way of doing it." He takes a slice, bites into it, and offers the other to Yseult, "Has Elisabeth been in touch?" he asks, once he's chewed and swallowed.

"Not yet. You may be her boss, but her hubby comes first. I think she'll wait until a bit later this morning." She looks at him, "Are you feeling any less responsible today?"

He shakes his head, "Not really. It should've been me in that shed, not Luce - I asked her to do it because there wasn't any way of getting the results this week. I was just too busy. Rob needed them, so I delegated the testing."

She sits beside him, links her arm with his and leans her head on his shoulder, "It sucks being the boss, sometimes."

Malcolm's plex pings to alert him to a new message, and he leans over, "It's Elisabeth."

"And?"

He reads, and looks relieved, "Luce is going to be fine - so's the baby. She did manage to get under that table - and it held the structure up enough to protect them both. She was knocked out, though, so she's staying in for observation until Elisabeth's happy there are no residual effects from the concussion. She's signed her off work for the next three weeks, just as a precaution." He sighs, "At least she's okay - I don't think I could've lived with myself if she'd been badly hurt - or worse." He checks his rosters, "All I had her down for was working on those substrates and Rob's extracts anyway; since the lot of them were destroyed in the collapse, there's no work for her to do, and I don't have to reassign anything. By the time she's back on her feet, we'll have some new extracts, so she can take as long as she needs." He looks rather sad for a moment, "There would've been a time, a few years ago, when I would've been pushing for her to come back at the first opportunity. I was a stupidly pompous git back then."

"As opposed to just being an ordinarily pompous git?" Yseult asks, cheekily. She knows how far she can push her teasing these days.

"Well, I was going to kiss you," Malcolm huffs, "But I don't think I'll bother now."

"Just as well." She smiles, "I want to finish my toast."


Taylor's expression is grim, and he watches the woman sitting opposite with flinty eyes, "Let's just accept that I'm never going to trust you, Mira, and get past that. You need our help, and I'm in a position to provide it - which I will. As long as you appreciate that, the first hint of trouble, you and yours are out again."

"I don't need terras." Mira advises, coldly, "They're of no use to me."

"I'm aware of that. In return for whatever you intend to trade, you'll get supplies that you need - be it medical, tools or materials."

"I'll need a Sonic Ri…"

"No weapons." Taylor cuts her off, at once, "Not unless you prove your people can be trusted, and only then I if I feel that it's the right thing to do. You can hunt without sonic weapons - you've shown that."

"Fine." Mira snaps, "No weapons." She is hating this. Hating every minute of it. Her longed for return to the future has been taken from her - she will never see her daughter again; a daughter that has been left to choke to death on a dying planet. She has been treated as a servant by the people who she considered to be allies. And now, to add insult to injury, she is having to grovel to the man who took it all away from her.

"What do you plan on selling?" Jim asks. She glares at him, but sees then that his expression is entirely reasonable. He merely wants to know. It seems that he is slightly more amenable to their presence, then.

"Wild meats." She advises, "How long've you been living on tofu?"

"Too long." Jim admits, "A Gallusaur should be for life, not just for Solstice."

She stares at him, not knowing what to make of his flippant attitude. Her eyes hardening again, she turns to Taylor, "We provide you with hunted meat and fish, and in return we get supplies for our camp. If we…earn…your trust." She spits out the word 'earn' with venom, "You'll consider admitting us to the colony."

"Exactly." Taylor advises, with equal hostility, "Do you want that in writing?"

"Would you hold to it if it was?"

He doesn't rise to her jibe. Instead, he turns to Jim, "See our… Visitor…out."

Mira says nothing as she follows Jim down the stairs from the Command Centre, but then he turns to her, "One question, Mira. What happened to the two men that Lucas set to torturing Malcolm?" He keeps his voice low; no one else knows what happened, but he can't believe that Mira hasn't found out; from their boasting if nothing else.

She looks at him, and blinks. This is not a question she was expecting, "That depends on who they were. Lucas didn't tell me everything that he did, or what he ordered my men to do."

"Find out, Mira. Find out exactly who they are, and make sure they never come here. If I find out that they're in the compound at any time, then they go in the brig. No questions, no appeals, no nothing. Got that?"

She eyes him, shrewdly, "Taylor doesn't know, does he?"

"If he did, then he'd probably shut you all out for good: he doesn't take kindly to his people being harmed. If they're still alive, keep them out. If not, I'll go to Taylor and the deal's off."

She nods, "I'll see to it."

By the end of the week, a rhino has been dispatched to a neutral meeting point with some refrigeration boxes. With only meat to offer, Mira has insisted that she be supplied with a means of keeping the stuff fresh before bringing it in. If the colonists end up with food poisoning, things are hardly going to get off to the best of starts.

To everyone's surprise, Malcolm has not taken as badly to the concept as his colleagues expected, though only Jim and Yseult know the real reason why he might. Other than refusing to have any truck with anyone who comes in to trade, including their wares, he retreats gracefully, and works on developing a taste for beancurd, which he would otherwise loathe.

"Does Elisabeth know?" Yseult asks Jim, quietly. While she is sure Jim would never have blabbed, she has noticed just how acute Elisabeth can be.

"Not really: but she knows it's more than just McCormick's murder. She's no fool - and she knew him well when they were younger - so she's guessed his flip-out in the meeting was caused by more than something happening to someone else. I just play dumb - but she's just the same with me. She knows I'm not telling her everything. The only difference is, because it's not about me, she's not pushing it."

"They blindfolded him," Yseult says, very quietly, "He couldn't see what they were doing, or where they were going to touch the prod to him next. He was terrified."

"And he never told us, because he thought we wouldn't be interested." Jim sighs, "God - are we really so shut into our own little cliques that we couldn't see when one of our own was in pain? I've told Mira to find out who they were, and, if they're still alive, make sure they never come here. I can't see how we could ever admit them into the Colony. He'd freak out. We've already got one person under permanent house arrest."

Yseult nods: Andrew Fickett. They couldn't sensibly throw him out; but with one murder under his belt, and an attempted one alongside it that had nearly cost Maddy her life, what else could they do? No one can stay in the brig forever; it's not designed for long-term residency.

"I think he'd come to terms with it, Jim." She muses, "Malcolm's a great deal braver than you're giving him credit for. Regardless of his reasons for doing so, he managed to conceal a great deal of pain after they finished torturing him. The prod burned him quite badly, but he just did what he could with one of the laboratory med-kits, and got back to work."

Jim looks at her, bemused, "I've seen his scars, Jim." She advises him.

"Oh." Then realisation dawns as to what she would have been doing in order to have seen them, "Oh! I…er…see."

"Don't worry about how Malcolm will deal with this. If he has any difficulties, we'll support him through it. Isn't that what we do?"

"It is, Max." Jim sighs, feeling guilty again, "It most definitely is."


The new arrangements take no more than a week to bed-in, and even those who are entirely wary of Mira and her people begin to accept their presence without demur. The market traders who run food stalls are particularly good customers, though the bartering principle fell rather flat as they had nothing to trade, so Mira has relaxed the 'no terras' rule, and those who sell more rugged equipment have been firmly instructed that gouging is strictly prohibited - and will result in the loss of their pitch.

Mira has quietly reported to Jim that, of the two men he wants banned from the site, one is dead, and the other has been effectively grounded. Despite this, however, Malcolm has taken to never visiting the market on days when the meat stall is in operation; and he is always surprisingly tense when Mira is present at any staff meetings. Now that people - even if only two - know what happened to him, it seems that he is finding it much harder to conceal it than he used to.

For others, however, a steady supply of meat-based protein has gone down very well, and Elizabeth has quite surpassed herself this evening with something akin to what she refers to as a 'cottage pie', albeit with Gallusaur instead of beef, and a root vegetable topping instead of mashed potato. Having decided that he never wants to look a block of beancurd in the face again, Jim is more than happy to tuck in - they've not had Gallusaur since the solstice; the supply is too unreliable - or, at least, it was.

"How do you think things are going with our new trading partners?" she asks him, later that evening once Zoe is in bed, Maddy has gone out with Mark, and Josh has gone to the bar to oversee the evening shift, leaving them comfortably alone on the couch with a glass of surprisingly not-nasty home-brewed wine each.

"Better than I thought." He admits, "Mira's picked her people well - she doesn't want to risk antagonising Taylor, not when the future of her entire group is riding on this."

"Do you think we could have them back in the end?"

"Honest answer?" he turns to her, "I don't think we've got a lot of choice. Mira's keeping her intel to herself at the moment; and she might have information that we need. Those soldiers might well still be out in the badlands, but they can't stay there much longer. Sooner or later they'll come back as well. The more people we have to see them off, the better - and I'd rather have them in here where I can keep an eye on them, than out there where they can bide their time and pick the side they think is going to win."

"How would Commander Taylor deal with that?"

"The way he always does. Gets irritated about it, then deals with it. He's always trying to see the bigger picture where he can, Elisabeth. Sure, Mira's a bit of a blind spot, but even he can see there are advantages, and we have the better hand right now. She's got people stuck up in trees with no tools to mend the huts they live in, nothing to keep watch on us, or to protect her if anything big decided to come at them. The Phoenix soldiers might've needed her more than she needed them - but she needs us more than we need her."

"I still can't work out why they've never come back in the entire two years since they left." She admits, "I wouldn't have thought they'd have any reason to stay there for so long."

"Something's keeping 'em there. That's for sure." Jim agrees, "Though I don't know any more than you do what that is. That Commander of theirs - Hooper, wasn't it? He didn't seem to be the suicidally obedient type."

"I suppose that depends on how desperate he is to get back to the future again."

"Yeah. I guess it does."


Mira sits in a chair, her arms folded, her legs crossed. Every inch of her drips cynicism and distrust, and she regards Commander Taylor with narrowed eyes, "What do you want to know?"

"Why are the Phoenix soldiers still out in the Badlands. What's keeping them there?"

She shrugs, "Stupid pipe dreams. They think they can make it back to 2149."

"How? Hope Plaza was reduced to nothing. It'll take more than two years to get the damage repaired and rebuild a working particle accelerator, never mind the cost."

She leans forward, "What do you know about the Badlands?"

"Only that there's something about them that interests the Phoenix Group. That and the figurehead that was out there, which suggests that there's another time fracture."

"Maybe there is. Maybe there isn't." She says, noncommittally. "They believe there is, so, in their minds: there is. I got tired of waiting for them to find it. Besides, given that the terminus is blown, they can't control anything at this end anyway. Why waste resources and lives trying to get hold of your good Doctor to repair it when there's nothing to connect it to?" She sits back, and smiles, "Whatever they've got in mind, sooner or later they'll come for him - even if only to trade him for supplies. He's a very valuable commodity."

Taylor glares at her, "He's a member of my community, and a valued human being, Mira. If I hear you speak about Malcolm like he's a piece of equipment again, then you leave."

"Don't make me laugh. I know what everyone here thinks of him - he's a joke. You only tolerate him because he's the best scientist you've got."

"A lot can change in two years, Mira." Jim warns from behind her.

"Of course it can." She snorts.

"What sort of state are they in?" Taylor resumes, crossly - largely because he knows that she is, to a limited degree, right.

She shrugs, dismissively, "I'd give them another month. Two at most. We were keeping them alive - and now they're on their own. Food stocks were down to the rations that nobody wants to eat, and they're relying on condensers and recyclers for water." Then she smiles again, rather unpleasantly, "They'll be desperate - and they'll want whatever they can get from you. Unless, of course, you have me to keep watch and be your early warning system."

Jim waits for Taylor's vehement refusal - but it doesn't come. Instead, the Commander glares at Mira, "How do I know that you won't sell us down the river to the Phoenix soldiers?"

"You don't." Mira counters, quite calmly, "You'll just have to trust me. Or not. Your choice: I know you don't have the resources to keep watch. I, on the other hand, do. Take it or leave it."

"I'll take it." Taylor growls, grudgingly.

Mira rises to her feet, smiling an unnervingly winning sort of smile, "Good doing business with you, Commander."


Jim and Taylor stand at the gate as Mira walks quite calmly away from them. For a place as dangerous as this, she seems remarkably unconcerned at moving on foot. Perhaps they've got a vehicle at the treeline or something.

"I never thought I'd hear you say yes to Mira offering to be your eyes in the forest." Jim admits.

"Believe me; if I had a choice, I'd've shown her out the moment she mentioned it. But she's right. I can't spare the eyes, and with the sensor net out of action since the occupation, it's not like I can use that."

"True." Jim lowers his voice, "What do you think about her suggestion that the Phoenix soldiers might try to use Malcolm as a bargaining chip instead of a terminus-repair-man?"

"If they're that desperate, they might try it. They don't realise that his skills would be replaceable for us. He wouldn't be replaceable - but the colony could go on without him."

"You'd do that to him? To Max?" Jim stares at him, aghast.

"God, no." Taylor snaps, crossly, "I just wish that we could make them see it so they'll leave him alone." He turns back, as the gate is lowered again, and the pair cross the marketplace back to the Command Centre. Taylor remembers his conversation with Elisabeth at the Solstice. It looks like his gut was right.

"Has anyone seen Doctor Shannon?" Someone is calling, across the assembled populace, "She's on call - can someone get in touch with her? There's been an explosion in the laboratories!" The worried scientist looks about, "Anyone?"

"I'll find her. You get to the scene." Jim advises, sprinting off in search of his wife.


"Don't go in there, Commander," Malcolm hastens to stop him, "Not without a mask. The place is full of fumes." He hands one over, and then dons one himself.

"What happened?" he asks, as they make their way into a rather misty looking laboratory.

"God knows. Some idiot washed out the glassware in the lab with acetone. One of my chemists was making an etching solution and poured out some concentrated nitric acid into a flask."

"A bad idea, I take it?"

"Seriously bad. It starts a violent reaction, and the solution can explode in a confined container. He's in our first aid room having severe chemical burns seen to as I speak." He sounds furious, despite his voice being muffled by the mask.

"How the hell did it happen?"

"I wish I knew." Malcolm snaps, "I don't keep acetone in here - using it is strictly forbidden; all our glassware goes through a washer. We only have it at all because we need it to clean grease from surfaces: I don't allow it in the chem-store; it's kept in the cleaning locker."

"So only a complete dumb-ass would wash the glassware with it?"

"In a manner of speaking, Commander, yes." Malcolm is still looking very angry, "I wish I'd been prepping that solution: I can smell acetone. Connor couldn't; not everyone can. If I hadn't been called away to look at a Mass Spectrometer reading for Rob, I would've been making it and I would've probably noticed it long before I even picked up the acid. God knows how much of the glassware's been affected. I'll have to have the whole lot put through at least one clean to make sure it's all gone."

"You'd planned to be working with the acid?" Taylor interrupts his tirade.

Malcolm nods, "God alone knows who did it. It's such a basic error that no one's going to own up to it. We haven't got any security cameras in here either, so we won't be able to see who was responsible."

Taylor watches as Malcolm continues to complain about the stupidity of his staff, but his thoughts are elsewhere. Wasn't Malcolm supposed to be working in the building that collapsed? And now this…

"Get the lab aired out." He advises, "Jim's probably found Elisabeth by now and you can see how your boy is doing."

"Thank you, Commander. I'm sorry you had to be bothered with this - it's just ridiculous. I can't believe that anyone would be that stupid."

"There's no accounting for people, Malcolm. I imagine whoever's responsible is feeling extremely stupid right about now. If nothing else, it's an object lesson for your staff. I'll see myself out."


Jim stares at Taylor, "Malcolm was supposed to be using that acid? Wasn't he supposed to be in that building that came down as well?"

"Looks like it." Taylor nods, "He said he wouldn't have been caught by it - apparently he can smell one of the chemicals, so he would've detected it and not poured out the acid. But still…" he frowns and shakes his head, "Two accidents that he's missed by pure chance - both of which could've done him some serious damage - and have done."

"Maybe the Phoenix Soldiers aren't as much of a threat as someone inside the compound?" Jim says, mostly rhetorically.

"That's what it's looking like to me." Taylor mutters, "It looks like someone's trying to hurt, or even kill, Malcolm. Get onto it. I don't want any more attempts, and I certainly don't want them to succeed."

"Definitely." Jim nods, "I'll get on it right away."