Chapter 6

The swim had been uneventful. Danny lay back on the beach letting the sun dry his damp clothes. Most of the distance between the two islands he had covered by wading. It had just been the bit in the middle, where the sea floor beneath him dropped suddenly away only to reappear just as suddenly some hundred yards further on, that he had had to swim across. His pack had stayed on his back, holding the precious water he had collected, what remained of his meagre resources and the broken ended spear he had taken from the island tree.

He rolled on to his front. Couldn't sit there lazing around all day. He had work to do. People to save. Pushing himself to his knees, he got up and staggered inland.

XXXX

"You're not being fair, Sarah," Becker's voice was soft, but the words were still too harsh for Sarah's ears.

"You're the one refusing to speak to her," she shot back, waving a hand over her shoulder as she stared at the kettle, willing it to boil. "You turn into some sort of robot every time she talks to you. I've seen more animated sarcophagi!"

"I'm just maintaining my professionalism," Becker shrugged, leaning back against the lockers whose names Sarah refused to let him change. "She needs to know we're not all mad scientists!"

"I'm not mad!" Sarah rounded on him. "I'm just angry! Angry that we're being left to do everything ourselves! Angry that any help Lester does hire seems to be ineffectual and inexperienced! Angry that we've been denied the chance to even try and get back the only people who do now more about this stuff than us!"

"We have to face the possibility that the only person with more experience than us at this game is Sir James Lester himself, Sarah!" Becker said firmly, his muscles tensing with the effort of keeping his voice steady. "You're not the only one who misses them."

"Really?" Sarah stormed across the room until they were nose to nose. "I'm not the only one? Are you sure about that Captain? Because I'm the only person here who seemed particularly bothered about trying to get them back! I'm the only person here who has worked her fingers to the bone coming up with plans and ideas and strategies, mending and rebuilding that blasted model just so that Lester can shoot down every hope we have, every time glimmer that there's a chance we might get them back one day! And all the while you just stand there taking orders like some automaton with your damned military sangfroid!"

The first punch connected with Becker's chest. He let it. She needed to lash out at someone and better him than Lester. When the second punch arrived with a sob, he gathered her into his arms and held her there until the sobs began to subside. He couldn't recall seeing Sarah cry since Danny and the others had gone missing. All the while she had just been busy working on ways to get them back. All the grief and anger and frustration had been building up behind that, and now the dam had finally burst. He looked up at the sound of the door opening to see Meg's worried face appear around the edge of the door frame.

"S-Sir James wants to see us in his office," she stuttered, her eyes going from Becker to the back of Sarah's head pressed against the Captain's shoulder. "S-Sorry I-I didn't know you were..."

"Doctor Page is upset," Becker cut her off quickly. "Tell Sir James that we'll be along in a minute."

The door closed softly as Meg bobbed her way out of the room. Moving Sarah gently away from him, Becker looked down at her.

"Are you okay?" he asked. "I can always tell Lester you're ill."

Sarah nodded, dragging a handkerchief out of a pocket and drying her eyes.

"I'll be fine," she said, shoving the handkerchief back where it came from and reaching up to brush makeup off the black shirt Becker always seemed to wear on duty. "What's the worst that could happen?"

Becker raised an eyebrow and turned towards the door. Behind his back, Sarah rolled her heavenward and gave herself a sharp mental kick.

XXXX

Connor awoke with a start and a snort. What had woken him? Not the light, there was only the flickering glow of the flames from their fire. That hadn't changed. No more than it constantly did, anyway. He listened. No noise of skittering insects or scrabbling claws. Had he woke himself up with his own snoring? He'd done it before, apparently. Abby always found it amusing when he did.

Abby!

He rolled over and looked towards the waterfall. She was still there, lying just as he'd left her. The faint glow of moonlight reflecting through the moving curtain of water outlined her recumbent form. Suddenly Connor froze. Not just as he'd left her. Not quite.

Scrambling to his feet, he hurried to her side. Yes, he was certain now. She'd moved. He'd folded her arms over her abdomen. The left one, the arm closest to him, was now on the ground. Had it fallen? Or had she moved it? Was she coming out of her coma? Had the fever subsided? He pressed a hand to her forehead. It wasn't quite as hot as it had been. Whether that was the effect of the water and the breeze, or whether her body was really starting to win the battle going on inside it, he couldn't tell, but the pulse at her neck felt a little stronger and her breathing seemed deeper and more regular.

"Abby?" Connor's voice trembled. Could he wake her? Should he wake her? But he had to try. "Abby, love, can you hear me?"

"Conn?" Abby's voice was faint and husky, but to Connor it seemed like sweetest music he had ever heard.

"Oh, thank God," he breathed, hurriedly leaning over her and unwrapping the folds of his jacket that hid the remains of their supplies. Pulling out a bottle of water, he lifted Abby into his arms and held the bottle to her lips. "Drink this my love, it'll help."

Obediently, Abby took a few sips from the bottle, then pulled back from it and looked up at Connor's half-shadowed face.

"What did you just call me?" Abby croaked, wondering if she was still half delirious from the fever. Connor called everyone "love" when he was worried about them, but she'd never heard him say "my love" before. She heard the intake of breath as he realised what he'd said and watched him turn nervous eyes down towards her. "It's alright, you know," she continued, raising a hand to his face, "I love you too."

As Abby slumped back in Connor's arms in yet another faint, Connor's mind reeled. Had that just happened? Was she still delirious? Was he delirious? Was he still asleep? He poured some of the water over his head and decided he wasn't and the water was very cold. He looked down at Abby. Her breathing was steady. Her pulse was steady. She was sleeping, her body exhausted by the illness and the lack of nourishment. She would need food when she woke up, he decided, refilling the water bottle and repackaging the resources in his jacket. Decent food, not prehistoric mushrooms, nuts and berries. Fish might be good: there was a pool at the bottom of the waterfall large enough to hold a veritable banquet of fish. Eggs would be better. His mother had always prescribed chicken soup for any illness, but that was one thing he was fairly sure he couldn't get. He didn't really fancy his chances stealing a dinosaur egg either, but at least he'd only need one to feed the pair of them. Whatever he caught, he thought, he wasn't going to catch it at night. Not when everything out there at this time could see better than him in the darkness. He'd need tools, though. That much he could do by firelight.

Pulling the pack and its contents towards him, he made his way back to the fire, feeding it with more sticks to build it up again and give him enough light to work by. He looked up as a movement on the edge of the firelight caught his eye, but there was nothing there.

XXXX

"Ah, finally," said Lester without looking round as the door opened to admit Becker and Sarah. "So good of you to join us. Do sit down."

Like errant schoolchildren, Becker and Sarah took their places in the two unoccupied chairs left in the room, other than Lester's. The chair next to Sarah was the one Becker had taken. On his other side, she saw Meg, sitting staring at her folded hands. On the far side of Meg was a man Sarah did not recognise. Another replacement, she decided. The man was older than her, maybe ages with Cutter, of stocky build and with a well trimmed full beard and moustache and rectangular framed glasses.

"It has come to my attention," Lester began, "that some people in this room do not believe I am doing enough in my capacity as leader of this research centre." Sarah resisted the urge to glare at Meg. "I would therefore," Lester continued, still without turning round, "to make a number of points clear.

"Firstly, and most importantly, might I point out that, contrary to popular opinion and general appearances, I am not indifferent to the fate of our missing team members. I do, however, have to maintain some kind of normality here and make sure that those funding and monitoring this facility believe that we are still capable of undertaking those duties of paramount importance to the nation. Namely: protecting it's people from the threats posed by the anomalies.

"Secondly, I would like to point out that, unlike anyone else in this room, I have been through this before. While we could send teams through every anomaly on the off chance that it may contain our lost friends, the only anomaly likely to do so thus far is the most dangerous that we have ever encountered and I will not risk losing the only operatives I have left with any knowledge of how these things work.

"Thirdly, and finally, in answer to various and numerous protests," at this point Lester turned and looked directly at Sarah, "I have engaged the services of Professor Grant Mackenzie, whom you see seated at the far end of my office, Doctor Page. Professor Mackenzie is a professor of Paleo-biology. He has worked with Professor Cutter in the past and I believe they studied some of the same courses together at university. He is therefore familiar with Professor Cutter's theories on evolution and most definitely able to fill the post of 'zoologist, palaeontologist or evolutionary something' you were so eager that I advertise!"

XXXX

Danny opened his eyes to bright white light and winced. He tried to raise a hand to shield his eyes, but found it was tied down. Experimentally, he tried his other three limbs. They were also restrained. He tried to move his head. That was immobile also. Inwardly, he started swearing.

Slowly, letting them get used to the light, Danny tried opening his eyes again. That at least was working. Not that the view he got from it helped much. Above him, a white, featureless ceiling stretched out as far as he could see in three directions, meeting a white, featureless wall behind him.

So he was indoors, he concluded. That meant one of three things had happened. Either there were intelligent humans of some description in the time zone he had wandered into and they had scooped him up and brought him back here for whatever purpose they might choose, or the others had finally found a way to rescue him and he was back in the ARC medical wing being checked for mystery ailments and pumped full of antibiotics, nutrients and saline, or he had actually died the last time he passed out and had, as his mother had often warned him he would, gone straight to hell.

The light above Danny dimmed slightly as a tall form drew closer to him and into his line of sight. Ah, he thought: not the ARC then.