A/N: Thank you for your reviews, Leona - much appreciated! Yes - I've got a lot going on, and I'm only three chapters in! The theories are coming - as I'm aiming to keep myself one chapter ahead of publication. Hopefully they'll be plausible - and suitably 'science-y' to be appropriately Malcolm-ish. Nothing, if not a challenge!
As always, I own nothing but what I made up myself - and I hope that I can keep the momentum going. Reviews are welcome!
Chapter Three
Matters of Governance
The latest batch of cider has certainly gone down well, but there is another string to Boylan's bow, and one that he is waiting for with rather more uncertain anticipation. As the barley failed to be of use, he has turned instead to spelt, as per Yseult's recommendation. Similarly, no amount of searching revealed a source of hops, so he turned to Yseult again for assistance, resulting in an astonishing accumulation of herbs, roots and God-knows-what-else that she, and a sympathetic biologist, identified as the closest Cretaceous equivalents they could find to the pre-hops alternative for bittering and flavouring beer. Her recipe is something of an embarrassment to her German sensibilities, however, as it's Belgian.
Given the uncertainty of her gruit, Yseult has not been willing to be too optimistic over the likely result of the contents of the second set of aluminium kegs, a reflection shared by her brewing partner.
"So, what's actually in it?" Skye asks, as he broods over the collection.
"God alone knows." Boylan admits, sourly, "I left that to Max - and she's not sure either."
"And I thought she was a beer expert."
"I think that expertise is in drinking it, not making it."
"Be fair, you two." Josh calls across from the bar, "She never made any promises. She's too smart for that."
"Why d'you think I haven't old anyone about this?" Boylan calls back, "If it's cloudy and pissy, then at least no one's waiting for it."
Skye looks at him, cheerfully surprised, "What - you? Not boasting about an impending flood of booze?"
"I'll boast about it when it's worth boasting about." He advises, rather cynically as Skye laughs and reaches for a tray of coffees to deliver to a table.
Unaware of the progress of her recipe, Yseult sits at one of the tables in the labs with Bram as he works his way through a set of results, "I think this'll work best with a thicker cotton fabric than the one you're creating at the moment, Max."
She nods, "I know; I've got Ninette working on a means of adjusting one of the looms to create a heavier twill fabric that'll be tougher than the plain weaves we've been getting so far. I think our ultimate target is gabardine - it'll be tough enough to work as a coat."
"If we can work out a feasible way of extruding this compound, then I'll be able to get you a cellulose fibre akin to rayon - but I wouldn't know where to start on creating an appropriate extruder."
"That's okay - I'll talk to John and Ryuu. John's a walking encyclopaedia of industrial automation - and whatever he can imagine, he and Ryuu always find a way to build it. Even if it takes them a year or more to get it right - they get there in the end."
They look up as Malcolm approaches them, plex in hand, "Don't get up, Bram, this is something I want to discuss with you as well as Max." He draws up a chair and sits down alongside them, "I've been working on a project outline for the figurehead. I think we can easily do some spectroscopic scans, and derive some radioactive signatures to investigate how it got here - but it'd really be helpful if we can identify the ship. I can't do that myself, so I'll need to bring you in on the project, Max."
"I thought you might." She smiles, "And you even have a good reason for it. No guarantees, I'm afraid - it might be possible to work out a vague date for the building of it, but unless there's a good identifying mark of some kind, I can't say with any certainty that we'll be able to actually name it."
"I can sort out some radio-carbon dating, Malcolm," Bram advises, "I'm no expert with dendrochronology, though."
"I can do that, Bram." Yseult says, "Well, I'm not a dendrochronologist, but I've got one in my Engineering department. I don't have to say where the cores come from, and I think that a collective effort might work that out."
"You've got a dendrochronologist in your engineering department?" Malcolm asks, surprised.
"Of course. If we're stuck for metal - we've got more wood than anyone could ever want. She specialises in identifying woods, their hardness and their age - and I recently got her to work on researching timber framing for buildings. We've never needed it here - but what if we do?"
"You think of everything." He smiles at her, admiringly.
"I try."
"Assuming we can get an age for the wood, and a species," Bram continues, grinning at them, "is there any way to work out what ship it might have been?"
"Er…" Malcolm looks rather stumped.
"Possibly." Yseult muses, "We can go through shipping records. Lloyds of London digitised all of their written shipping lists over a century ago, and that was all uploaded to the Eye; I suppose they did that to ensure that a record of human achievement and misadventure survived even if humanity didn't - but it's dead useful for us."
"We'll work on the testing first, I think." Malcolm says, checking his plex, "I'll see what that reveals, as it's a starting point to see if the figurehead came from the same reality as ours. If it didn't, then there's no way for us to take matters further - it just wouldn't work as we don't have any records except for our own."
"Fair enough." Yseult smiles, "I've got enough on as it is; but I think Charlie might be disappointed, so I'll keep it quiet for now. Besides, I've got another appointment. Tom Boylan's opening his first beer keg this afternoon. I rather think my reputation as a beer expert is riding on whatever comes out of it."
"Rather you than me, then." Bram grins, "That sounds like a hell of a responsibility."
"Thanks, I think."
It's been a quiet morning, as usual. Between them, Jim and Mira have seen absolutely no arguments, no fights and not even a hint of a theft. He feels a bit of a fraud on such days, as he is undertaking crime prevention patrols in a community that sees very little of it; though, when something does happen, it tends to be a tad more spectacular than most. How ironic that he has seen more attempted murders than he has seen thefts.
He doesn't mind, of course - there's nothing worse than an ongoing investigation that is making no progress. It was a fact of life in Chicago, and he felt that helpless frustration again last year when Malcolm was being threatened by an unknown assailant who left so few clues as to his identity. That's all over, now - and the degree of stability in the colony is as much of a relief as it is an annoyance. Mira has said more than once that she would rather be bored than consoling distraught colonists.
They haven't seen any more scrawled sentiments of a political nature since Jim raised the matter at the staff meeting, but Mira's been keeping her ear to the ground, "I haven't found anything overt," She says, as they stroll down a residential lane, "but I think we both know that this was going to happen sooner or later. Now that we're an independent entity, people are going to want more control over their lives. From what Greggs was saying, it's just low level resentment that Taylor makes all the decisions pertaining to the future of the colony."
"Except it's not just Taylor." Jim objects, "He doesn't do that - we have a say, and we get input from our departments."
"He picked you lot. You're his team," She reminds him, "When people don't know how they're being governed, they tend to draw their own conclusions. That's where conspiracy theories come from."
"And what about his surgeries?" Jim counters, "He opens his doors to anyone who wants to talk to him. If there are people complaining that they don't get a say - and they haven't been to see him, then they haven't got a leg to stand on."
"At what point did I say that people are rational?" Mira smiles, "Half the time, the people who demand change are the people who want others to do the actual work involved. They're just happy to complain about it."
"As long as that's all they do."
Mira falls silent again as they continue on their patrol. He's used to this by now - though he used to find it deeply uncomfortable. Instead he checks his watch and realises that he needs to get back to the Command Centre to discuss the new security rosters with Taylor. Excusing himself, he leaves her to continue and wanders back to the marketplace.
It's busy today, as the weekend is approaching, and most people still treat it as two days of rest. The hunters have been out again, and their bounty is set out in refrigerated boxes for shoppers to buy. Someone's been trying gallusaur charcuterie over the last few months, and the results are only just becoming available, to the excitement of those who get excited by such things. Not being one of them, Jim eschews the hanging sausages of dinosaur salami and makes his way to the steps up to Taylor's office.
"I don't know. It might work - but it might not." Taylor's voice intones beyond the door. As he's clearly got someone in there with him, Jim pauses, then turns to lean out over the balcony and wait his turn.
"I think it'll be worth expanding the patrols outward," He continues, speculatively. He must have Guzman in there then, "I don't want us being caught out."
Taylor falls silent, and Jim waits for the doors to open - but they don't. After a while, the Commander continues, "Sure, get some rovers out there - but make sure you're armed. I nearly had a carno feast out there a few weeks back, and I don't want to see another one."
There's another silence, followed by laughter, "You always do. Get to it."
Who always does? Jim wonders, bemused, and waits for the anonymous, silent individual to depart. But still the doors don't open, and he frowns. Who the hell's in there with Taylor?
Rather than wait, he knocks on the door and enters at Taylor's invitation to find that the only people in the large, airy room are himself, and the Commander. Busy with his plex, Taylor doesn't look up for a few minutes, and Jim wonders whether to risk asking who the visitor was. Deciding that discretion is the better part of valour, he remains silent - assuming that Taylor will volunteer the information.
"You got those rosters for me, Shannon?" Taylor asks.
"Er - yes." Jim blusters, startled, "Just sent 'em."
Taylor's plex pings to announce a message, and he opens it to peruse the new roster. Again, he remains silent, and Jim dithers over whether to ask him who was in the room with him. And chickens out.
"They look good," Taylor says, approvingly, "roll it out."
Jim nods, and decides it's best to say nothing about that bizarre conversation - after all, he's said nothing at all since he got into the room - but there's no sign of a comm unit on the desk, not to mention the complete lack of that squawking tone that tinges a voice responding on one. Was there someone in the room? Or not?
Cross with himself for his failure to enquire, Jim picks up his plex and departs.
Elisabeth looks up from her plex, "Are you sure, Jim?"
"As sure as I can be; Taylor was having a conversation, and there was no one in the room with him."
"And he wasn't using his comm unit?"
Jim shakes his head, "No sign of it, and you'd hear an answer if he was using one. It's not like they come with headphones."
She frowns, "That sounds very odd."
"Any ideas?"
"From what you've just told me? Absolutely none whatsoever. I need a bit more than an anecdote to perform a diagnosis. I certainly didn't see anything in his results to suggest a physical reason for it - but then I'd probably need to do a much wider ranging scan than a standard medical if it's something neurological."
"Could it be?"
"As I said, no idea. I'm a doctor, Jim; not a psychic - diagnoses come from a presentation of symptoms. So far, I don't have one." She smiles then, "I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation - but we can keep an eye on him and see if it happens again. There are any number of reasons why he might have been talking to himself."
"That's just it, Elisabeth; I don't think he was. There were long pauses: like he was listening to an answer." Jim lowers his voice as a nurse wanders into their proximity to check some stocks of medication.
"Well, short of demanding that he come in for another battery of tests, which he'll fight every step of the way, there's not really a lot that I can do." Elisabeth advises, sagely, "If I can find a reason to get him in, then I'll see what I can do, alright?"
"Alright." He accepts a kiss on the cheek, then responds with one of his own. He knows that Elisabeth is right; but nonetheless, there was something about that strange, one-sided conversation that has unnerved him quite considerably. If Taylor's becoming sick, then who'll lead the Colony? There are no succession arrangements - no plans for the future governance of Terra Nova if they lose him; and how the hell does he raise an issue like that with the man anyway? There's no doubting that he's the best leader that they could have - committed, passionate and determined to succeed - but still…if there's something going on with him…
It's a train of thought that he doesn't want to follow any further - but it seems that circumstances are not going to play ball today. His comm unit buzzes.
"Shannon, you'd better get out to the sheds. There's another one."
He groans inwardly, "Gotta go, Elisabeth. I'll see you tonight."
As he has no idea what Mira meant by 'sheds' he assumes that she means the same agricultural sheds that served as the canvas for the last painted sentiment. She is there - and so is a new slogan.
TAYLOR OUT!
"At least there's no spelling mistakes this time." Mira observes, cynically, "Only someone who really doesn't get how this place works would want that. Even I know better than to think that we don't need him."
Sighing inwardly, Jim retrieves his plex and photographs the painted legend to compare with the one he has of the previous one, cleaned off only a few days ago. The scrawl is the same - largely - and it looks as though the same red paint has been used. As they don't have Decorating Stores in the colony, it could only have come from one of the Construction sheds; but that means pretty much nothing. There's nothing toxic or dangerous in those sheds, so they're not heavily secured. The builders and repairers are in and out of them all day every day, so it's not hard for someone to sneak in if they want to.
"It's at times like this that I wish we had forensics teams." He grumbles, "I guess I'll have to call in CSI Wallace."
Mira snorts with amusement at his joke, then rises as Jim fetches out his comm unit, "He'll be stoked. You know how much he adores being torn away from his science stuff."
"Isn't this 'science stuff'?" Mira counters.
To Jim's surprise, Malcolm acquiesces to his request almost immediately, and arrives at the site with a toolbox after only ten minutes. They've long abandoned their combative behaviour towards one another, so he wasn't seriously expecting an argument over it. Still, given how busy Malcolm can get, it's still surprising that he's arrived so quickly.
"Someone's not happy, then." He observes, looking up at the slogan as he crouches over his toolbox, "I take it you want me to analyse a paint sample?"
Jim nods, "And see if you can find any brush hairs in the paint."
"I should've got some samples from the last one." Malcolm says, largely to himself, as he carefully chips flakes of paint into a plastic screw-top container, "I'll run some basic analyses on this, and hold the results for comparison if there are any more."
"You think there might be more?" Jim asks, though he is thinking much the same.
"Someone demanding democracy, and then that Taylor go? I'd say it's highly likely."
Of all the times for this to start happening; first Taylor having that strange conversation with no one, and now someone's clearly demanding that the governance of Terra Nova be changed. If it's true - and Taylor is losing his fitness to head up the Colony - the last thing they need is a power struggle. The Colony might be rather small for a civil war, but people falling out over who leads them is never going to be the best way forward.
Jim is tempted to advise Malcolm of his strange encounter with Taylor - but is torn over it. The fewer who know, the better - but Malcolm's a member of the senior staff, too; and he's proved himself more than capable of keeping things quiet when he needs to. Besides, he might have another perspective on it - he was raised in an altogether more politically aware household, even though it was only for the first ten years of his life. Not to mention his resentment at Taylor's rather authoritarian stance when they were still trying to track down the spy.
"You busy tonight?" he asks, "I think Elisabeth's planning something special for dinner - and you and Max haven't been over in a while."
"I'm not; but I'll have to check with Max - I don't think there's a charcoal burn tonight." He pauses, clearly about to mention the dread word 'babysitter'.
"Erin's welcome, if you wan't to bring her. Elisabeth loves having her to coo over."
Malcolm returns his equipment to the toolbox, "I'll call Max and see what she wants to do. Give me about half an hour to let you know?"
"Great." Jim beams, and wonders if that'll be long enough to persuade Elisabeth to do what he's just promised.
Dinner is a cottage pie made with vegetables and mycoprotein, as Elisabeth insists there wouldn't be enough time to prepare a filling with minced gallusaur. Jim's rather downcast expression draws little sympathy, "Just be grateful it isn't beancurd."
To be fair, her disgruntlement is largely feigned, as she always enjoys having the Wallaces over for dinner, and Zoe has already arranged to spend the evening at a friend's house, so she is not obliged to share a dinner table with four grownups discussing boring, grownup things. Besides, given Jim's concern over Taylor's behaviour this morning, it's no surprise to her that he wants to talk to Malcolm and Yseult without Taylor present - and there's no better way to do it than over dinner.
While he knows that there's an ulterior motive for doing it, Malcolm has brought a bottle of elderberry wine courtesy of Julia, the Colony's ever-busy and experimental vintner, while Yseult is bearing a container filled with a remarkably good artisan spelt beer that she was most relieved to find inside Boylan's beer keg at the afternoon's tasting. As the visiting couple bring the wine, this is to be expected, so most would assume that they are merely socialising; but it's clear from Jim's expression that this is a cover for something far more serious.
"You overheard Taylor talking to no one?" Yseult asks, as she helps Elisabeth with the dishing out.
"Not a soul there. I swear to God." Jim says, "He didn't have his comm unit handy, and I didn't hear it being used. Besides, it sounded like a security thing - and he talks about that to me."
Yseult and Malcolm exchange a bemused glance, "He wasn't pulling your leg?" she ventures, though her expression proclaims that she's as doubtful about that as Jim is. Taylor's propensity for the playing of practical jokes is so limited that the very suggestion that he might do so seems a joke in itself.
"Before anyone asks," Elisabeth interjects as she sits down with her plate, "no, I don't have a diagnosis. As it's only happened once, and Jim didn't see it happening, I can't begin to speculate. There was nothing thrown up in his last medical - but it's designed to evaluate physical fitness; if there's something neurological, it wasn't specific or strong enough to be picked up by those tests. I'd have to do a more specific scan of the Commander's central nervous system and brain to see if there's something we missed."
"Has anything else happened that might suggest a problem?" Malcolm asks, "I haven't seen anything - but the Commander only comes to the labs if there's a reason to, so I tend not to see him outside staff meetings."
In spite of the circumstances, Jim smiles inwardly; there was a time when Malcolm would have been speculating about the Commander's fitness to run the Colony on the basis of that statement alone. Now, he is looking for stronger evidence before he makes any such assessments - it just goes to show how much he's mellowed in the last three years.
Everyone exchanges glances, collectively racking their brains to think of something that might explain that odd conversation in the Command Centre, but no one ventures anything.
"I think, based on what no one's said," Elisabeth advises, reaching for her glass of wine, "that our best approach is to carry on as normal, but keep a watch on the Commander in case there's another occurrence."
"That sounds good to me." Jim agrees, "I'm still hoping I got the wrong idea."
There's no point in continuing to speculate, so everyone gets on with consuming their dinners and chatting, though it is perhaps inevitable that matters make their way onto Malcolm's new project.
"I've nearly finished my project outline," He reports, "it's going to be a two-pronged approach - the first being whether it's from our reality or not. That'll largely determine stage two - if it's from the same world as ours, then we can use our historical records to investigate it more thoroughly. Otherwise, we'll be largely stuck."
"Do you think it might be from our reality?" Elisabeth asks.
"There's no way to be sure without testing it. Travel through a portal leaves a signature at the molecular level that's detectable and identifiable - both in organic and artificial material. I can't be sure whether it's unique to a particular reality - as it's never been definitively determined that this is a different reality. Given that there's no evidence of the initial probes, or a community, from this period in the world we left, it suggests that it is. I'd rather not consider the implications for us if it isn't."
Jim looks at him a little blankly while he works his way through the science, but as he unravels it, he shudders. If this is the same reality as the world they left, and there's no sign that Terra Nova ever existed, then it means that they failed, and died out.
"Let's suggest that this isn't the same reality - but that the figurehead has come from ours." Elisabeth says, "What do we do then?"
"It's a bit of a long shot," Yseult picks up, "but we're going to see if we can identify the ship that the figurehead came from. If we can identify the cultivar of the wood, then it'll narrow it down to a country of origin and possibly even a date that the tree was felled. That'll open up some options to speculate on the likely routes the ship could have sailed, and maybe track down an identity for it."
"You could do that?" Jim asks.
"Potentially, yes. Shipping records are incredibly extensive, even as far back as the eighteenth century. Ships all around the world were registered with Lloyds of London. It'll be a seriously long shot, though. Some are better recorded than others - but all shipping losses were recorded."
"If we can identify the ship, and find out whether it was 'lost', and even when," Malcolm continues, "Then we can start working out how it got here. It's a safe bet that it came through a wormhole - but how did it happen? What triggered it? Is it something that's constant, or something that builds up and discharges?"
"Okay, that's too technical for me." Jim interrupts.
"It's also getting ahead of ourselves," Yseult agrees, "If we can't be sure that the figurehead's from our reality, then that puts us back to square one. We'll know it came from another reality, and that's about it."
"Either way," Elisabeth muses, "It's going to open a huge can of worms, isn't it? I can think of an ever-expanding list of 'what ifs' that come wrapped up with it."
"You're not the only one." Malcolm agrees, "I think I've got about as much chance of keeping this quiet as I have of walking on water - but if we don't investigate it now that we've go the freedom to do it, we could find ourselves facing consequences that we knew nothing about. I'd rather be prepared for them, I think. When I was out in the desert, I was wondering why the soldiers were where they were, and why they'd stayed there regardless of the danger they were facing. I'd assumed it was because Lucas was so obsessed that he'd lost his perspective - but now I'm not so sure."
"What do you mean?" Elisabeth asks, surprised at his statement.
"Just a thought." He explains, "I'm guessing, really - but his fixation with getting back to the future was strong enough to keep him in the Badlands long after living there had become unviable. I'm wondering if he was doing it because he was waiting for something, but the end of the camp came first."
"So we're picking up where he left off." Jim says, intrigued.
"I think so - but as he didn't tell me anything of any use, I'm approaching this from the proverbial square one."
As Elisabeth and Jim are gathering the dishes together, Malcolm checks his plex, "Oh, by the way, I've got the relevant spectroscopic signatures for that paint. No surprises, I'm afraid. It's standard exterior paint from our stores - and the brush hair looks likely to have come from one that was imported from the future. I'll keep these on record, so we can check any more - and we can compare the slogans to see if they're being written by the same person. I won't be able to tell who that person is - but at least we'll know if we're dealing with one person, or several."
"I'm hoping it's one." Jim says, "It's easier to deal with one person than a group. But I'll keep an eye on it."
"Are we ready for a council, do you think?" Yseult asks, "Is it worth having a think about it, at least?"
"Until Taylor gives it the okay, I don't think so." Jim shakes his head, "We're going behind his back enough as it is."
"We're going to have to sooner or later, though." Malcolm says, "I don't know about you - but I wasn't immortal the last time I checked."
They sit over cups of herb tea, each with their thoughts. It's true - they're going to need to have something ready for a time when Taylor is no longer here - and they, too, are gone. Terra Nova needs to have an ongoing system of government that is not vested in the leadership of one man. It's not as though Taylor has ever pretended to be a king, but nonetheless, everything is so built upon that leadership that the consequences of losing it are shocking now that the spectre is more overtly hovering over them.
"If we do it," Malcolm says, eventually, "It needs to be on our terms - we need to make sure that it's not a free for all. Proper systems of nomination, proper elections. If we don't, it could all go horribly wrong - the last thing we want is people fighting over who gets to run the Colony. It all runs smoothly at the moment, so whatever we do, we need to keep it running smoothly." He looks across at the carry-cot, that Erin hasn't quite grown out of, "I don't want Erin to go through what I went through."
Yseult takes his hand, and he looks embarrassed, "Sorry, I wasn't planning on getting maudlin."
Elisabeth smoothly changes the subject, allowing them to move on to the exploits of their collective little ones, and the evening ends on a rather more cheerful note - but it's something that'll have to be dealt with sooner or later, and they all know full well that it's better that it's in their hands, rather than whoever is painting those slogans.
Assuming, of course, that they can talk Taylor into it.