Chapter Fifteen

Investigation

Elisabeth works through some results on her plex, and looks up with a smile as Jim walks into her office, "Any change?" he asks.

"Not yet." She advises him, quietly, "It's only been a day or so. I won't know that he's metabolised the venom until he starts to fight the ventilator as his nervous system kicks back in. He was incredibly lucky - if Maddy hadn't gone back for her plex, he would've died in there."

"Thank God she forgot it." He joins her at the window of her office and looks through to the intensive care ward. One of the beds has been curtained off, for privacy, and he can see a pair of legs belonging to someone seated in a chair alongside it. Yseult arrived probably ten minutes after they got to the infirmary, Maddy having messaged her to tell her what had happened. She's been there ever since, sat at Malcolm's side, his hand held to her cheek, not taking her eyes off his face.

"He looks worse than he is." Elisabeth says, "There's a lot of machinery around him, and he's being ventilated. I've taped his eyes shut so that they don't reflexively open and then dry out, and that always looks awful if you don't know why it's been done; but it's a medically induced coma, so he may be deeply unconscious, but it's under control. We just have to wait."

"How's Max taking it?"

"Difficult to say. She lost her first husband to a Nykoraptor - and now she's having to watch someone else she loves fight scorpion venom; and it nearly killed him, too. I imagine she must feel that the local wildlife doesn't want her to have a relationship." She sighs, "Max really loves him, you know."

Without thinking, Jim wraps his arms about her, "I can imagine."

She leans back in his embrace, "Do you want to talk to her?" she asks, after a while.

He nods, "I won't bother her for long. I just want to bring her up to speed on what we know."

Yseult looks up at Jim as he peeps his head around the curtain, "Sorry to bother you, d'you mind if I come in?"

She nods, and indicates another chair nearby. As Elisabeth warned, Malcolm looks awful: drips, catheters and pipes and God knows what; all keeping him going while his body works on the poison that is stopping him from breathing.

"I overheard the nurses this morning, Jim; all talking about how stupid he was to let the scorpion out. He wouldn't have done that - not in a million years. He's not that careless."

She's right - he is the ultimate stickler for rules, procedures and protocols. It's one of the things that annoys people about him, "I can't disagree with that."

Yseult transfers her attention back to Malcolm, "He must've been so frightened - he knew exactly what was going to happen once he'd been stung, and he couldn't call for help. He just had to lie there, and wait to suffocate."

"Thank God Maddy forgot her plex. She went back to get it - and she saw him."

They sit together in silence for a while, then Yseult turns back to him for a moment.

"It wasn't an accident, was it, Jim?"

He opens and shuts his mouth a few times, trying to find an answer that won't freak her out, but he can't: "No. It wasn't. I checked that vivarium when the med team was leaving with him. The catch had been broken - someone smashed it. It was just a matter of time before the front opened and the scorpion got out."

"I don't understand - who on earth would hate Malcolm that much? I can't think of anyone who would; I know people don't like him, and I get why. Despite appearances, I'm not blind to his faults - but, who has he riled to such a point that they'd want to do something like this to him?"

Jim shakes his head, "I haven't the first idea. I'm not going to lie to you - he annoys the hell out of me. Part of it's probably because of his past with Elisabeth - but, you're right - sometimes I feel like he's turned irritating people into an art form. I think that he and I are just incompatible. I can cope with him as an acquaintance, and as a work colleague, but I don't think I could ever call him a friend."

"But you don't want to murder him." Yseult prompts.

"Not all the time." He says, attempting a weak joke, then sighs, "No. I wouldn't even consider it. I can't imagine anyone who would."

"I know he can be hugely annoying at times - but he's not vindictive, or cruel, and he doesn't have a malicious bone in his body. He just doesn't really know how to deal with people very well. The only time he seems to be any good at it is when he's teaching - I found that when we were first getting to know each other: he loves to impart knowledge. It's the other stuff that he falls down on."

They lapse back into silence for a while, the only sound the whirr and whumph of the ventilator.

"Find them, Jim." Yseult says, eventually, her voice wavering with tears, "Whoever's doing this - find them and stop them. They can't have him. I can't lose him. Promise me you will."

He sits for a moment, looking at Malcolm, silent and deeply unconscious. The covers are up to his chest, but his shoulders above them are bared, and for the first time, Jim can see the faint remains of burn scars - not big, but very similar to the ones that he received courtesy of Lucas: the ones that Elisabeth eradicated with derma-spray. He knows that he's never going to have the deepest of friendships with this man - but he's seeing depths to Malcolm Wallace that he had never before realised existed. Besides, unlike Malcolm, Jim does like Yseult, so - even if he couldn't happily throw all his resources at the investigation 'for him', as it were, he would willingly do it for her.

"I promise." He says, firmly, "Whoever's doing this - I'll find 'em and make sure they're put so deep in the brig they'll never see daylight again."


Taylor sits at his desk and glowers; this is getting ridiculous, "So someone broke the catch on the tank and let the scorpion out while Malcolm was working in the room?"

Jim nods, "It looks that way. He was lucky to survive - if Maddy hadn't forgotten her plex, he wouldn't have made it. As it was, we only just got to him in time."

"How's Max taking it?" Like most people, he has a soft spot for Yseult, and her relationship with Malcolm is hardly a secret these days. Even if people think that Malcolm's a jerk, they like her and are pleased that she's happy.

"As well as can be expected. Malcolm's kind of taken the place of her husband in her life - and it's almost like the local wildlife don't want her to have anyone. Nykos took out her husband, and a scorpion nearly took him out." He sighs, "Elisabeth says she's barely left his side since she got to the infirmary."

"She's got it bad, all right." Taylor sighs, "Any progress on the investigation as a whole?"

"There was a printout on the floor in the room; one of his team took me through it - it was the results for his test on the paint. Nothing wrong with it. Whatever caused the corrosion, it wasn't the paint turning rainwater into acid, or vice versa."

"So we're back to square one, then."

"I'll see if I can find out who went into that room. Someone must've; but most of the scientists refused to go in there, and they couldn't anyway because he kept the door locked. Maddy said that he'd started using the room as a substitute office so that they'd stop bothering him once he started cutting their projects."

"So it was pretty much a ready-made trap." Taylor adds, grimly.

"I'll check the records for the keypad. The only people who knew the code that Malcolm set were him and Elisabeth, so she could get in if he got stung. Otherwise it was the security override."

"In that case, I think I'll change it. It's nearly due to be changed anyway - it'd only be a couple of weeks early."

"What, you think it might've got out?" While it is not unheard of, it's astonishingly rare for someone in security to let it slip - they're always extremely careful.

"No idea - but, equally, no harm in stopping it from being used anywhere else."

"Great. If it's got out, then anyone could've been in there."

"Does Max have any idea why someone would want to do this to Malcolm?" Taylor asks.

"Maybe because they met him?" Jim quips.

"Don't push it, Shannon. He can be as irritating as hell, but he's a good man at heart, and I can't for the life of me think of anyone who would be trying to kill him."

Suitably chastened, Jim shakes his head, "She couldn't think of anyone. He's been cancelling projects left, right and centre - and that's been causing a hell of a lot of grief in his team. But would anyone be that much of a psycho that they'd think that was a good reason to take him out?"

"Given that everyone had a psych test before they came through on a pilgrimage, I don't think we'd have anyone who would think that way. Well, apart from you, that is." He adds, dryly. Jim's arrival in the colony could hardly be considered to be orthodox.

"So, assuming that the code didn't get out, the only people outside the security team who could've got into that room are you, me, Malcolm and Elisabeth. He wouldn't do it to himself - even he's not that screwed up - and Elisabeth had a major surgery all day that kept her busy. That leaves you, me and the security team - and I can't think of any reason why any of them would want to kill him."

"I was holding a surgery." Taylor reminds him - a monthly event that involves his sitting in the Command Centre and allowing any colonist who wants to to come in and ask him questions, "I had people in with me pretty much all day. Guzman can vouch for me - he was with me. If you're that desperate, we can check tag records for everyone else."

"I'll check the key code records first. If there's no unexpected use of the override, then we won't need to."

He looks at the readout, and sighs. The final use of the code was a security override - which would've been him, opening the door for the other medics. Before that, the code Malcolm devised - which would've been Elisabeth. Then his again, which would've been him, six more uses during the day - three entries and three exits…and then…

"Oh six hundred?" he stares at the record, bemused. Someone used the security override on that office door at least two hours before the labs would've been opened; so they must've used it to get into the labs as well. Malcolm's been phenomenally unlucky - he went in that room three times after the catch had been smashed - but it was only on the fourth occasion, when he was on his own, that the scorpion finally broke out.

Jim eventually tracks down the door that the visitor used - not that it helps. The door is well concealed from view, and few would've been about at that hour anyway. Much as Taylor hates them, it's at times like this that he really misses surveillance cameras inside the compound. It would solve his problem at a stroke. As it is, however, he has nothing but a time of entry, and exit. The person got in at about ten to six in the morning, and left ten minutes later. There's only one use on the office door - but it's likely that the visitor merely jammed it open so he wouldn't be held up at a locked door if the scorpion got out while he was still there.

Short of interrogating every single person in the colony, he's got no chance of identifying the culprit. So much for his promise to Yseult. He sighs to himself; another failed attempt - and no means of knowing who's doing it. If this keeps up, then they're going to have to hope they're lucky every time. Their mysterious assailant, on the other hand, only needs to be lucky once.


Yseult looks at the sandwiches that Elisabeth is offering, "I'm sorry, Elisabeth. I'm just not hungry."

"When did you last eat something, Max? Starving yourself until you faint isn't going to make him metabolise the venom any faster, you know."

"I know - it's just…he's lying there helpless; he nearly died - and I sit here stuffing my face? I can't do it."

"I'll have one if you have one?" Elisabeth offers.

"It's been five days, Elisabeth," Yseult is almost in tears, "There's no sign of any change - shouldn't there at least be a sign that he's coming back? Surely by now?"

Elisabeth sets the sandwiches aside and rests an arm around Yseult as she finally begins to sob. She's come close several times over the course of her vigil, but it's only now that she's really let it go. How long has she been sitting here? She's only left his side when she's had to, and she certainly hasn't been outside the infirmary at any point since she arrived. The staff have long since stopped trying to persuade her to go home - and Elisabeth can understand her refusal. She'd be just the same if it were Jim lying there instead of Malcolm.

She's not sure when she first hears it, the sound of one of the monitors changing slightly. All of the equipment is set to respond to Malcolm's systems. While he wasn't breathing, the ventilator did it for him - but it seems to be reacting more patchily now, "Max," she whispers, "You wanted a sign? There it is. He's fighting the ventilator, and it's responding. He's starting to breathe on his own again."

"What?" Yseult looks up, almost desperately. Elisabeth wouldn't tell her something just because she thinks it's what she wants to hear…

Standing up, Elisabeth starts checking Malcolm's vital signs, then peels back one of the tapes holding his eyes closed and shines her penlight into his opened eye, "I was right; he's responding to stimuli again. He's definitely breathing on his own - I'll get a team in here to help me remove the breathing apparatus, and then we can start bringing him round."

"I'm not leaving him." Yseult warns, fearful that she'll be shoo-ed out.

"I wouldn't dare kick you out, Max. You'll probably be the first person he wants to see when he comes to." Elisabeth assures her, "I will need you to stand back, though. Okay?"

It doesn't take long to remove the more intrusive equipment, but bringing Malcolm back from his state of unconsciousness takes several hours, obliging Elisabeth to run the gauntlet of endless worried questioning from Yseult. That he is no longer hitched up to machines appears quite meaningless when he is still failing to wake up.

"I need this to take a while, Max." Elisabeth explains, "He's been very deeply unconscious, and it takes time to come back from that. He will - but if it happens too fast then it can be quite traumatic. Chances are that he's able to hear us at the moment, but he'll think he's dreaming."

"I'm sorry Elisabeth," Yseult looks up at her, contritely, "I know I'm being an idiot - but I nearly lost him, and I couldn't have stood that."

"If our positions were reversed, and it was Jim lying there," Elisabeth tells her, softly, "I would be exactly the same."

"I love him. I love him more than I thought I could ever love anyone again after Niall died." Yseult pauses, "In some ways, I think he's even more important to me than Niall was - does that make me sound horrible?"

"Not really, no. It's been five years - and he's not Niall. What you have with him will be entirely different to what you had before."

"We were close, Elisabeth - really close. I thought we were soulmates; something my Opa used to tell me when I was very young, that everyone had someone that was meant only for them. But then he died, and I thought: that was that - my soulmate was gone, and I wouldn't find anyone else. No matter who I came across in my life, they wouldn't be the one I was meant to be with, because he was dead."

Despite recalling a similar conversation she had with Yseult after her argument with Malcolm, Elisabeth knows that she needs to talk, and nods, sympathetically, "And then you met Malcolm?"

She nods, "I'd long since abandoned that whole business of soulmates - everyone else manages without them, and I realised it was something my Opa used to tell me because he was an incorrigible romantic and he adored me. Then, along comes Malcolm, and I find myself wondering if Opa was right - and I just made a mistake when I thought Niall was 'the one'. So much for the capable, experienced modern woman. I must sound ridiculous."

"Not at all." Elisabeth grins at her, "It's sweet."

"Sickly, more like." Yseult takes hold of Malcolm's hand again, and watches over him with that same, intent expression, silently willing him to wake. He will - just not as quickly as she wants him to.

After two more hours, Elisabeth returns with a jug of water and some cups. He'll need something to drink when he comes round, that's for sure - besides, his throat will be sore thanks to the endotracheal tube. She is also not surprised to find that Yseult has fallen asleep, her head on the mattress alongside Malcolm's shoulder. What she is startled to see is that he's awake. Yseult still has a loose grip on his hand, and he has done nothing to extricate himself from it.

"How long have you been back?" she asks, very quietly.

"Not sure." His voice is faint, and extremely hoarse, "Can't wake her." He is minimising his words - it's clearly painful for him to speak.

"She's very tired, Malcolm. She's barely left your side since we brought you in. It's been five days."

He looks a little desperate, "Please. Need her." He grimaces at the discomfort from his raw throat.

Setting the jug and cups aside, Elisabeth bends over Yseult and shakes her shoulder, gently, "Come on sleepyhead. I've got someone here who wants to see you."

Vaguely, Yseult looks up, "What? Elisabeth?" then she turns her head, "Oh, my God…"

They say nothing - but the intensity of their shared moment is such that Elisabeth slips out to give them some peace, almost in tears.


"No, Jim." Elisabeth says, firmly, "Out of the question. I'm not letting you speak to him until he's ready. He can barely speak as it is, I don't want you going in there and asking him a pile of questions that'll do nothing more than aggravate his throat - the endotracheal tube grazed his larynx slightly when we took it out. He needs time for it to heal; so the only person he's allowed to speak to is Max, and even then it's as little as possible."

"Is that all that's wrong with him?" Jim asks, "No other damage or anything?"

"Yes - that's all that's wrong with him. He metabolised the poison and it's out of his system. I've run a whole batch of tests, and there're no injuries to any of his internal organs. Sometimes there can be cardiac damage, but his heart is fine."

"You mean he's got one? Ow." He winces as she slaps playfully at his arm.

"Come back when I tell you to. Okay? He's fine in himself, he just needs a bit more time to regain his strength. With a bit of luck, he'll be able to go home in a couple of days. Now go away."

Despite the jocular tone, he can hear the steel behind it, and he knows she won't let him near Malcolm, just as she is promising. Given his highly vulnerable state - surrounded by all sorts of things that could be used to kill him yet look like an unexpected-but-plausible complication - Jim is not remotely comfortable with leaving.

His retaliation arrives an hour later.

"Can I help you?" Nurse Ogawa asks, rather brusquely, at the sight of Dunham, who is looking very uncomfortable.

"Sorry, Ma'am. Mr Shannon's orders. I'm to stand guard until told otherwise."

"Excuse me?" She is not impressed. Nor is Yseult, who is quick to face him down.

"What's he doing?" she asks, in a very low voice, as Malcolm is asleep, "Why are you here? Don't you realise Malcolm doesn't know this wasn't an accident? If you're here, what's he going to think?"

Dunham looks even more uncomfortable, "I'm really sorry, Ma'am. But I have my orders." He goes rather pale as Elisabeth comes marching up, looking even less impressed.

"What's going on?"

"I…" he gets no further.

"Jim's orders." Yseult whispers, clearly furious, "Apparently, having a guard standing over Malcolm, who thinks that he was just the victim of an unlucky accident, is going to make him feel a whole lot better."

"I'll have a word with Commander Taylor."

"Sorry Ma'am. He agreed to it." Dunham says, his tone almost audibly adding don't hit me. He must be getting very fed up of repeatedly having to say 'sorry Ma'am'.

Elisabeth admits defeat, "Stay outside the partition. I don't want him seeing you."

"Yes Ma'am." At last: he doesn't have to apologise.

Trying hard not to scowl, Yseult returns to her chair, and finds it easy to smile when Malcolm opens his eyes, "Hey."

"Max." He is looking at her again, with that same intensity in his eyes as when he came out of his coma. His voice is less hoarse now, though he is still largely forbidden to speak. Given that they now have an audience, even if he doesn't know it, Yseult is quite relieved that he can't say something that she would rather be kept private. Awkwardly, with her help, he sits up and holds his hand out for her plex. Bemused, she hands it to him, and he calls up the messenger function, IF I CAN'T TALK, I CAN STILL TYPE.

Good point.

He clears the screen, HAVE I EVER TOLD YOU THAT I LOVE YOU?

She looks at him, her eyes tearful, and she smiles, "Just the once - but I've always held onto it because I know you meant it."

I'M SORRY. I SHOULD HAVE SAID IT MORE THAN I HAVE, BECAUSE I DO. AND I NEARLY DIED THINKING I HADN'T.

He is also now very near to tears, remembering how close he came to losing his life, how horrible it had been to lie there - waiting for the moment that his breathing would fail, and he would asphyxiate. He had been absolutely aware throughout - all the time. Knowing what was happening, and knowing that no one was coming…

Yseult says nothing. Instead she simply holds onto him and lets him cry.


Elisabeth knows that her patient is largely better. Mainly because he won't stop complaining that he's still in the infirmary. Malcolm's voice is still rather rough, but he is no longer in pain when he speaks; and he is making sure she knows it. No one enjoys being stuck in a hospital bed - she is well aware of that - but his fed up-ness at being still there, is matching her fed up-ness at his fed up-ness at being still there.

"Look, Malcolm. One more set of tests, and we'll be done. Then I'll discharge you."

"Not if I discharge myself first." He counters.

"That depends on how badly you want me to give you another sedative."

"You wouldn't…"

"I so would." She smiles back at him, sweetly, "Max'll be here in an hour to walk you home. She can't do that if you're flat out asleep, can she?"

"Well, if you put it like that." He concedes, grudgingly.

The walk back to his house is very slow, as he is surprised to find he is still rather lacking in strength after nearly a week in bed, "This might sound like a dumb question, Max," He asks, as he leans on her, "but why is Dunham following us?"

"I'll tell you when we get back." She answers, "It's a bit of a long story."

"He's not coming in, is he?"

"Not if he knows what's good for him."


Sitting back on the couch, Malcolm waits, expectantly.

"It wasn't an accident." She begins, a little tentatively, "The scorpion escaping. Someone broke the catch on the vivarium." She waits, and watches as he processes the information. She is not surprised when he goes rather pale.

"Someone let it out? While I was in there?" He looks up at her, "How? I was on my own."

She sits down beside him, "Jim checked the lock records. Someone used the command override at about six in the morning to get into the labs. They broke the catch, but made sure that the front of the vivarium stayed in place. Sooner or later it was going to open - and it was just the timing of it. You were in there when it got out - it could've got out when you weren't; it's impossible to say for sure."

"I don't understand - who would do that? Why?" He looks nervous, "I know that people think I'm an idiot - but I can't have pissed someone off that much, surely?"

"We don't know. Hence the security detail." She admits, quietly.

"This is ridiculous. It's someone's idea of a practical joke - it must've been - and it went wrong. I can't believe anyone in this colony is willing to deliberately kill me. I know it's not the first time someone's taken a life; but we all came here to start again - not to be just as bad as we were before we left." Nonetheless, he is wringing his hands a little. She knows that he is frightened.

She stands up, and immediately he reacts, his eyes suddenly reflecting his fear, "Where are you going?"

"Just to put the kettle on. I'm not leaving."

As she returns with two steaming mugs of tea, he looks up at her, his eyes haunted, "What about the other two accidents? The ones I missed because someone else got in the firing line?"

She looks at him, a little helplessly. He was going to figure it out in the end - but why did he have to figure it out now? When he's still in such a fragile state?

Her response is halted by a knock at the door. Frowning, as they aren't expecting visitors, Malcolm opens it to find Jim outside.

"Can I come in?"

Malcolm stands aside to allow him entry, and then closes the door, before turning to him, "Did you know?"

"Know what?" Jim looks bemused.

"Did you know someone's been trying to kill me?"

"Er…" he looks at Yseult.

"He guessed by himself, Jim. I had to tell him about the lock on the vivarium - it wasn't fair not to. It wasn't hard to figure out the rest."

Jim shuffles slightly, embarrassed, "We weren't completely sure - it's still something that we're investigating." He admits.

"And you didn't want to worry me." Malcolm adds, a little bitterly.

"Not until we knew for sure. No one saw this coming - not after all the precautions you put in place."

For a moment, it looks as though Malcolm might have one of his 'I hate officialdom' snits, but instead, he sags a little, and goes back to the couch to sit with Yseult and grip her hand, tightly.

"Look." Jim crosses to sit in a chair, "Until this happened, we were investigating a building collapse, and a lab accident - in both cases, it looked as though someone had been hit by an incident that would otherwise have affected you if you hadn't been somewhere else. It could've been a coincidence."

"Until 'this' happened."

"Can you think of anyone who might want to harm you?"

He shakes his head, "No. Not to the point of doing something like this. I know I've pissed off a lot of my staff recently - but I was only doing what I had to do; we can't afford to put effort into speculative science at the moment - we need to concentrate on making sure that we can survive more than a decade without becoming little better than hunter-gatherers with doctorates. Besides, whose journals are they going to publish their papers in anyway?"

"How about you give me a list of names, in descending order of temper loss?" Jim suggests, which manages to raise a faint smile from his colleague.

"Can I drop by and see you tomorrow about that?" He asks, "I'm really tired - I didn't expect the walk home to knock me out this much."

"Sure. How about 9 tomorrow morning? I'll find a spot in the Command Centre - I know how much you love Boylan's." He gets to his feet, "Don't mind me, I'll see myself out."

As soon as he's gone, Malcolm sits back, and sighs.

"Are you alright?" Yseult looks concerned, "I'm really sorry we didn't tell you - I only realised myself more or less the day that you got stung in the lab. By that time, there wasn't a lot I could do to warn you."

"I'm not angry." He says, quietly, "I'm just glad I didn't die. I wasn't kidding when I typed that message on your plex. When I was on the floor, and I could feel that my diaphragm was starting to falter, all I could think about was that I couldn't remember whether I'd ever told you that I loved you."

"You had - but having it spelled out to me like that was the best way anyone's ever said it to me." She says, "Not even Christian Spätz did a job as good as that when we were at Grundschule - it was pretty close, but he did rather spoil it by throwing up on me almost immediately afterwards."

He smiles, "He sounds like a real gentleman. Shame about the dismount."

"Do you want to go to bed?" she asks him, concerned at the shadows under his eyes.

"On one condition, Max." He looks at her, his expression laden with intent, "That you join me."

"I thought you were tired?"

"Not that tired." He murmurs, cupping her face in his hands for a kiss.