A/N:Thank you for the review, Leona - I'm glad you're enjoying things so far! I really need to go and read your latest chapter, too - bad fluffy thing! Having just completed chapter five (trying to keep one chapter ahead of myself), here's chapter four - which would've gone up at the weekend just gone but for a slight outbreak of Dvořák and UK's Mother's day...

Enjoy! As always, reviews are welcome - and what follows is not mine, other than the bits I thought up myself, like.

Chapter Four

The Chemist and the Archaeologist

Pete is looking distinctly pleased with himself - perhaps even slightly smug, "The coppices are really coming into their own, Max; we're almost at the point where they're fully self sustaining."

For a man normally almost gratuitously unwilling to take himself - or anything - seriously, his jubilation seems remarkably restrained. It's taken a long time, and a lot of work, to get to the point he's at, and there were many occasions when they both found themselves wondering if they'd ever get the forestry project off the ground at all.

"That's brilliant news, Pete." Yseult hugs him warmly, I suspect that John'll be really keen to talk to you about how he can power that steam engine he's been harping on about for the last three months. She pauses, and looks at him more closely, "What is it? Is something up between you and Louis?"

"God, no." He shakes his head, vigorously, "Peas in a pod, darling. It's something else - I can't put my finger on it, but there's a lot of rumours on the fly. Normally, I wouldn't give it a nanosecond of my time; but I'm an expert on atmospheres, and this one's getting into 'cut with a chainsaw' territory."

Yseult frowns. She knows that Pete is far more perceptive to a collective mood of a crowd than she is: he's had long practice at it, having been obliged to conceal his sexuality in an increasingly intolerant world. While that danger has gone now, his skill remains. If he thinks that something's 'off', then there's a strong chance that it is.

He doesn't seem to be aware of the graffiti outbreak - but nothing stays a secret in Terra Nova for long, so even if he isn't, it won't be long before he finds out, "Keep your ear to the ground, Pete," she says, "If there's something going on, then the sooner we know about it, the sooner we can find out what it is and sort it out."

Malcolm reads over his project outline for the tenth time, and nods. That seems to cover everything that he can think of - short of the formation of a world-destroying black hole, but he's never been a credulous individual and doesn't buy into the endless scaremongering that emerged with the news of the discovery of the portal.

He lacks the historical knowledge to identify the figurehead itself, and isn't entirely sure that such a feat is even possible, though Yseult is cautiously optimistic that it can be done. As he's already said more than once, however, if the figurehead isn't from the same reality as the colonists, then they are thoroughly stuck on the discovery launchpad.

With the arrival of the harvest, however, matters have perked up again, so he suspects that he won't be able to really get started on the investigation until after they've brought everything in and evaluated the results of the growing season. It's frustrating, but juggling priorities is part of the job, so if it has to wait, it'll have to wait.

Closing the file down, he turns back to his other work, but his mind isn't really on it. While he hasn't seen it himself - simply because he spends so little time in the Command Centre, Jim's claim that he heard the Commander having a full conversation with absolutely no one at all is worrying. Much as he likes to gripe that there isn't enough proper representation in the Colony, the news that Taylor might be starting to lose at least some grasp of his faculties is deeply unnerving. No one lives forever, of course, but the fact that they haven't got any alternative to the current system of governance means that the void his loss would create would be a nightmare to fill without blasting the entire place apart.

Stop brooding, you idiot. When has that ever been helpful?

Cross with himself, he turns back to his work. Chris has submitted his outline planting plans for the new season - with peas - and that requires his approval even if he hasn't got a clue how all the crop rotations and placements work.

Today's coffee blend is - thank God - based on the original recipe that Geoff the engineer created before his sad loss in a flash flood only a year ago. Sipping at it, Jim reviews his notes of a ridiculous argument between two normally harmonious neighbours over - of all things - a slightly out of tune air conditioner and shakes his head. It might have been three years ago that they found themselves fighting for their homes, but how quickly people forget that there are more important things than an annoying buzz that the repair teams haven't had the chance to get to yet.

"Better that than painting nonsense on walls, Shannon." Mira advises, seating herself opposite with a coffee of her own, "Besides, it's satisfying to watch them all go quiet when they see me coming."

He snorts - there's no denying it: she is the most efficient argument defuser he's ever met. Much as he relishes the simplicity of patrolling a community that generally gets on well, he's utterly hopeless at dealing with people who are angry and articulate - particularly if they've got a better idea of what they're talking about than he does. There's a lot that he does know, but his sphere of human experience seems to revolve around crime and criminal activity, and that has a straightforward punch that he can counter without difficulty.

"Still nothing on whoever's putting up that graffiti." Mira continues, looking rather cross that she has so far failed to run that particular stream to its source, "There're rumours, but nothing solid. It's almost as though whoever's doing it's got some sort of paranoia problem and they think they'll be carted off for re-education or something."

Jim looks up, surprised, "Seriously? That's nuts - where the hell would we put a re-education camp?"

"At which point did I use the word 'rational', Shannon? I'd guess they think it's one of the outposts."

"Yeah, right. Alongside genetic stuff and chemicals. Sounds like huge fun."

"Maybe so - but if this carries on, then sooner or later it'll get to the point where they'll decide they're ready to do whatever it is they want to do, and we'll be fighting a rearguard action to stop this place from going to hell."

Jim swallows his mouthful of coffee with an almost visible gulp. That - and Taylor having conversations with empty rooms? That's a combination that they definitely don't need.

"I'll keep trying." Mira's expression is resolute with an almost bloodyminded determination to work out what the hell is going on, "I'd rather not have this hanging over our heads at solstice."

Busy with statistics and budget plans, Malcolm is becoming ever more hopeful of a distraction. Any distraction. Much as he likes being Chief Science Officer - for the kudos of the title as much as anything else - there are certain aspects of the post that are less than fun. Particularly this.

His plex alerts him to a message and he notes that Taylor has approved his project outline with satisfaction. The Commander is smart, skilled and. capable - but God, he doesn't get science; and as he knows so little about where the project is likely to lead, Malcolm isn't at all keen to have to deal with a large number of questions. He smiles to himself, given how much detail he put in the outline, chances are that Taylor was too blinded by science to want to ask any.

Then his comm unit pings, and he winces slightly, spoke too soon…

"Malcolm? It's Elisabeth - could you come over to the infirmary? It's Max."

At once, he tenses: his fears going into overdrive. Abandoning the call, he drops the comm unit and flees from the labs.

Yseult winces, "Ouch!"

"Sorry." Elisabeth looks sympathetic as she looks over the results above the bio-bed, "It's a clean break, Max - you've been very lucky."

"I need to call someone to pick up Erin…"

"It's okay, I've called Maddy - she offered before I got a chance to ask. Mark'll look after Elisabeth Rose while she babysits."

They look up as Malcolm skids to a halt alongside Elisabeth, "What's happened? Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Yseult looks rather embarrassed, "I fell off a chair."

"A chair?" he looks nonplussed.

"I was standing on it at the time." She admits, "I was trying to catch a gecko on the office ceiling so I could release it outside."

"She landed awkwardly, Malcolm," Elisabeth adds, "so she's managed a very effective fracture of her left ankle."

"Oh, thank God…" Malcolm looks astonishingly shaken for such a trivial incident, until she remembers that, the last time he had been brought here to see Yseult as a patient, she had just been resuscitated after drowning in the river, and he had thought that she'd died. It certainly explains why he abandoned her call so abruptly.

"I'm sorry, Malcolm," Yseult reaches out to take his hand, "I was being lazy. I know I should've got a capture-box, but it was sleepy, so I thought I could just reach up with a small tub. It woke up, and bolted - and I lost my balance."

"She'll be fine," Elisabeth adds again, "I'll splint it, and you can be out of here tonight. She hasn't hit her head; and, apart from a spectacular collection of bruises to come, it's the only injury that's going to last more than a few weeks. I'll give you some painkillers, Max, and I'll ask one of the nurses to fit the splint and sort you some crutches. I'm afraid the solutions for broken bones are still pretty low-tech."

"Given that I'm pretty low-tech, Elisabeth, I can live with that." Yseult smiles, though her eyes are brimming as the shock of the fall starts to set in and her adrenaline levels start to drop at the same time. Smiling to herself sympathetically, Elisabeth retreats as Yseult huddles against her husband and weeps.

By the time they emerge, night has fallen, and Maddy has contacted them to say that Erin's sleeping like a log, and there's a pumpkin and beancurd salad in the fridge. They move slowly, as Yseult has to get used to the crutches that serve as a substitute for her injured leg, "I'm sorry about this." She says, again, "And the blubbering."

He smiles at her, "God, I've lost count of the number of times I've come close to it; the only reason that I've never been in your position is because I was luckier than you. In my case, I think it was arrogance rather than anything else."

She chuckles; she's never been blind to his faults - and she knows full well that he has to fight quite regularly against something of an embarrassing superiority complex when it comes to his intellect and sheer degree of knowledge. That he's become much more self-aware helps with that, and even he is capable of laughing at himself these days.

"How long are you signed off for?" he asks, as he was talking to the nurse about additional medication when Elisabeth discussed that part.

"Six weeks." She sighs, "And I'd only just gone back, too. So I'm afraid I won't be up to much for cooking over Solstice."

"Don't ask me to do it." Malcolm laughs, "I'd kill us all."

"If Pete hasn't issued an invitation to go to his for dinner by the end of tomorrow, then I'll have to claim that I don't know him in the slightest."

"That's a better prospect than me. Louis is a hell of a cook. I'm just hell at cooking."

"Don't be ridiculous, Max." Pete is very firm, "This is Erin's first Solstice where she's really getting to know what's going on - and she should spend it at home with Mummy and Daddy and get spoiled rotten - she was far too young to figure out the last one. Louis is already planning what he's going to present to you to have at your own dinner table."

"Are you sure?" Yseult looks both surprised, and rather pleased. Much as she enjoys spending time with Pete and Louis, she has to admit to feeling rather disappointed that her second Solstice with her family would be spent at someone else's house.

"Of course I'm sure, darling. You can come over to ours the night before - but only if you give Louis your recipe for that German stew of yours. The latest batch of gallusaur sausage is bloody brilliant, so it's begging to go in a pot with cabbage and those weird things that are nearly potatoes."

"Fair enough. I'll ask Malcolm to pick up some of Boylan's beer to go with it - it's worked incredibly well, so he's decided to stick with that recipe and call it Kreidebier. I was joking at the time - but why not?"

She smiles as he departs with a cheery wave, and turns back to hobble to the couch, where Malcolm is sitting back, attempting to read a report while Erin is crashed out on his chest.

"Can I get you anything?" she asks, as he looks up at her with a smile.

"Shouldn't I be saying that to you?"

"Perhaps, but you look so sweet there - fumbling with a plex while your daughter dribbles all over your shirt."

Once, he might have pulled a disgusted face and attempt to extricate himself from the source of moisture - but now he shrugs, "It can go in the wash tonight. I get the feeling I'm going to end up covered with a lot worse before Erin's out of single figures. I'm okay - but if you want anything, you can spend a bit of time accumulating a damp patch of your own while I put the kettle on. She's completely zonked, so I don't think she'd notice if I moved her."

Being a cook of such disastrous proportions that no amount of cooking lessons have dented his incompetence, Malcolm has turned to the assistance of those vendors at the marketplace who create the Cretaceous equivalent of ready-meals in order to feed his family. Tonight it's a hearty soup of root vegetables and xiph, which requires no more skill from him than to switch on a hotplate; and he is as grateful as Yseult that Pete and Louis have found a means for them to spend their first 'proper' Solstice with their daughter at home together.

Elsewhere, Jim is sitting on his couch as well, though his thoughtful expression betrays that he's thinking about that strange episode with Taylor again. Elisabeth has regained her ability to read his expressions and moods in the years since their reunion in the Cretaceous, and she is terrifyingly good at working out what's going on in his head.

He hasn't discovered Taylor having any more solo conversations; but nonetheless, he is already starting to approach the doors of the Command Centre with a vague sense of trepidation, in case he does. It's stupid - with the distance of time since it happened, he's beginning to doubt himself, and his memory of the event. Perhaps he was the one imagining things…

"The more you think about it, Jim, the more you're going to doubt yourself." She says, after a while. Hell - she must be telepathic…

"I get that. It's just - it's so not like Taylor that I'm having trouble believing what I heard. Maybe I did misread what was going on. He could've put the comm unit in his pocket before I came in."

"There's no way to know." She smiles at him, her arms encircling his neck, "If it doesn't happen again, then we can assume it's a one-off, and stop worrying about it. If it does happen again, I'll see if I can come up with a pretext to give him another medical. He's not going to know which tests I'm running on the scanners - I could run some neurological scans."

"To find what?" Jim looks nervous; 'neurological' is a can of worms he most certainly doesn't want to open.

"To find that there's nothing physical and it's just stress - or something like that." She assures him, "It really could be anything at all - and it's probably completely innocuous. There's nothing much we can do about it now, though - so I suggest a hot drink and an early night."

"That sounds good to me." He grins back.

As is always the case, the celebration of Solstice starts quietly, with folks in their homes sharing a few gifts, enjoying time together and hovering around the kitchen as their dinners are cooking. Even though the festival is now secular, somethings never change. Now that she's getting older, Zoe is delighted with the large array of classic novels that have mysteriously appeared on her plex overnight, and equally pleased with a magnificently multicoloured scarf woven from a heavier grade cotton. Another source of pleasure for her is the knowledge that Maddy and Mark will be joining them for dinner. Elisabeth Rose is still a little young to be much of a conversationalist, but Zoe's gift for storytelling extends to most ages, and Maddy certainly appreciates her sister's efforts to entertain her niece while she helps Mom in the kitchen. Such is the way of things - but Mark is only capable of cooking if a grill is involved, and Jim's capabilities go as far as vegetable peeling - and no further.

By the afternoon, however, people are emerging in search of other forms of entertainment, and the general partying transfers, as it always does, to Boylan's. A few patrons have been there most of the day, not that they have been given a licence to drink themselves to oblivion; but that is more thanks to the limited supplies of intoxicants than any sense of social responsibility. Boylan may have switched to artisan brewing, but he's not that reformed.

Joining the general throng, Jim watches as Elisabeth mingles with her friends, until his eye is caught by Taylor - standing upon his balcony with his habitual, patrician air. In spite of his conversation with his wife last night, he still finds himself scrutinising the Commander's every move, wondering if he's going to start talking to empty air again. Cross with himself, he shakes his head and turns to join Elisabeth, who has found Yseult and is already having to be dissuaded from examining her ankle, "Come on, Elisabeth, you're off duty."

"Sorry," she laughs, "Habit, I'm afraid. Did you cook today, Malcolm?"

"I think we'd be in the infirmary if I had." He reminds her, "Louis brought us a stuffed saddle of gallusaur and a tray of roots, and I just set the temperature and timer. I take no responsibility whatsoever for what came out of the oven."

Someone, somewhere has started a raucous chorus of We Wish you a Merry Christmas, and everyone joins in the demand for that strange substance called 'figgy pudding' that no one really recognises. Once people have run out of verses, the small folk band strikes up, and soon people are dancing. Well, most people.

"I think," Malcolm declares, his arm about Yseult's shoulders, "That this is the one occasion where you'd dance worse than me."

She smiles as she snuggles against him, "Come on - you're not that bad."

"But almost."

"Yes - I'd go with that."

"You're not supposed to agree with me, Max."

Skye's expression is slightly uncomfortable as she approaches Jim, who is sitting to one side as Elisabeth has been borrowed for a raucous dance, "Can I talk to you?"

He looks up at her, intrigued, "Sure - what's up?"

She attempts to speak, pauses, then tries again, "I'm not sure if I'm imagining things; but, when the Commander came to our house for dinner today, he was…odd."

"Odd?" He's not sure whether to be relieved that she's not having problems with Josh, or concerned that she seems to have noticed the same thing as he has, "In what way?"

"Distracted, I guess." She says, as though trying to explain it to herself as much as to him, "And it was like he was talking to more than must Mom and me. Like there was someone else in the room with us."

Jim is silent for a moment; that rings too closely to what he overheard in the Command Centre - the conversation with empty air. Hell, is he doing it in company as well, now?

"I didn't want to ask him about it," Skye continues, "but I didn't know what to do, so I thought I'd come to you - you're his second in command now, so who better? And I know you won't spread it round the colony."

Too right, he won't.

"Did he say anything specific?" He asks, "Like he was speaking directly to this other person?"

She shakes her head, "I don't think so - but it really felt like he wasn't talking to just us. I just can't figure out if I was imagining it or not."

"You know him better than any of us, Skye." Jim admits, "Did it feel like you were imagining it?"

Skye turns to look at him directly, and shakes her head, "No. It didn't."

Elisabeth's expression is a lot less reassured this morning, "And she's sure that she didn't imagine it?"

"Very."

"That doesn't sound good," she sighs, "Skye's one of the least credulous people in the Colony - if she thinks she saw something, then it's almost certain that she did. I'm not sure that it's enough to warrant a full medical, though: it could just be that his emotions are at a low ebb. He might have treated Commemoration differently this year, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the feelings have gone away or changed. It might be that they're expressing themselves this way, instead."

"Do we talk to him?"

"I don't know." She admits, "You know how private the Commander is - and he's still enough of a soldier to think that showing emotions is weak: even to us. Besides, we still don't really know what's going on. There are no indications that he's letting things slip in terms of his leadership - and without that, what can we do? Being wistful over what they've lost during the celebration of a festival isn't sufficient grounds to relieve someone of their command."

"I guess I'll just keep watching, then."

"I think that's all that you can do." She agrees, kissing him on the nose.

Over the next week or so, Jim finds himself in the awkward position of looking out for odd things with Taylor - without looking like he's looking out for odd things with Taylor. Not only is that difficult in case Taylor spots him doing it, but Mira's hardly going to miss it, either. While he has no doubts over her discretion, there are enough people in on the rather worrying secret as it is. So far, he's seen nothing out of the ordinary, and again he's wondering if it's all in his imagination, but the constant sense of being on tenterhooks is very wearing, not to mention the ongoing failure to find out who their political graffiti artist might be.

Mira has more or less taken it upon herself to keep tabs on that - having changed her morning run route to take in sites that are more likely to have subversive sentiments in red paint awaiting her attention - but there are no rumours, not even those undercurrents that precede rumours, and thus she continues to draw a blank. Perhaps the writer had a good Solstice and has changed their outlook. Sitting over a coffee in Boylan's, he peruses his plan for the day: mostly patrolling, though someone is reporting that they are hearing a 'prowler' outside again. Given that that very same person has made that claim on a more-or-less quarterly basis for as long as he's been doing this job, Jim is quite convinced that it's just wildlife. Unfortunately, he can't prove it because the complainant won't let him install a camera to find out if it is. Hard to believe he once used to bust down doors for a living.

"Anything?" He asks, as Mira crosses to sit at the table opposite him, equally burdened with coffee.

She shakes her head, "Nothing. I'm not willing to believe that it's done, though. If someone's pissed enough to paint on walls, then they're not going to give up after only two phrases. Maybe they want to put something up without repeating themselves, and they haven't got a big enough vocabulary."

"I don't think our vandal's a pre-schooler, Mira."

"Be easier if it was." She looks at him, "Aren't you supposed to be in a senior staff meeting?"

Jim looks at his watch, "Shoot. I'll be back in an hour."

Taylor's eyes are narrowed as he reads carefully through Malcolm's report. Why he's doing it now, no one can fathom - as it's long and complex, and he's had it for three days. But then, with Solstice just ended, there's a lot of catching up to do, so perhaps he hasn't had time, "That's a lot of planting, Malcolm." He says, eventually.

"I know." Malcolm agrees, "Chris reckons it's likely to push the agriculture teams to the limit to get it all done in time - so we're hoping we can get some volunteers in to help them. We were thinking of approaching the school to see if it can be incorporated into the biology classes - it's helpful for the younger members of the colony to understand what goes into putting food on their plates. If there are any takers in the barracks, that wouldn't go amiss either."

"I'll look into that."

"Now that that's done, I'm free to get started on the figurehead." He adds, "I'd hoped to get going on it before Solstice - but things ran away with me a bit."

"Good." Taylor nods, "Anything I should know, Doc?"

"Nothing at the moment, Commander." Elisabeth advises, checking her plex "No large scale emergencies, though I've had reports that the growers are finding ticks in the fields again - so they're all back in long trousers and gaiters to avoid bites. Other than that, just routine procedures and general ongoing maintenance."

"Sounds good. Max?"

"Same for me, really. Pete's looking after things for me at the moment - but Malcolm's given me a lift over to the compound a few times to touch base. We've cracked spinning really fine threads, and Ninette and John are optimistic that his latest adjustment to one of the looms is going to give us a weave fine enough to use for medical gauze - so I'll keep you posted on that."

"Shannon?" Taylor turns to Jim, who is prepared for it, given his late arrival. Normally he reports first.

"All quiet, Taylor." He agrees, "Our painter's not been active recently, and there's no sign that anyone's agitating for anything at the moment. I'm still trying to persuade the Mayer household that their prowler is just a lizard or something, but until they let me put up a camera, we can't say for sure. I've got the new security rosters from Guzman, and I'll post them to your plex this afternoon."

"Anything else?" he asks. Generally the 'Any other Business' part of a meeting is the most interesting, as no one's ready for it - but today it looks like the cupboard's bare, so he dismisses the senior team to return to their work.

"What do you think?" Jim asks Elisabeth as they descend the stairs back to the marketplace.

"Nothing that I could see." She observes, "He seems the same as always to me."

"That's what I was thinking. Maybe we're reading too much into it. Or maybe I am."

"Possibly. Let's just keep an eye out and see what happens - it may be that it was just down to how busy it gets around Solstice."

Jim nods in agreement. Best to just let it go for now and just keep watching.

Malcolm's results are uploading to his plex, and his expression as he waits for the upload to complete is one of impatience. So far, he's identified that the figurehead is indeed a species of oak - though he hasn't undertaken a DNA sample yet to narrow down which one - but he wants to check for that radioactive signature. Without it, he can't carry out any carbon dating, as he doesn't want whatever has happened to the wood on the way through the portal to contaminate the calculations. Thanks to the assumption that degrees of Carbon 14 in the atmosphere were constant - when in fact they weren't - calculations tend to be wayward at the best of times, and he doesn't want to skew his results even more.

"D'you think that the signature will be able to determine which reality it came from?" Bram asks, intrigued.

"I think I was being overly optimistic with that," he admits, "It'll certainly show it came through a portal - but if it's a natural portal, and the one we used wasn't, I'm not sure how that will help us - though it's useful to know if there's a difference, as that might identify how it is that the portal forms naturally. It may be that we hijacked it when we first established the portal - though the distances involved suggest otherwise. If we can identify how it forms, then that could answer a lot more questions over whether there are more of them - so that's a bonus on top of identifying whether it links to the same reality that our artificial one did."

He turns back to his results, "Yes - there are indications of Theta radiation - though how that happened is anyone's guess, it's only ever been produced artificially; there must be a natural source of it somewhere."

Bram squints over his shoulder, "It might be that signature there; it's something I've never seen before."

"That's what I was thinking," Malcolm agrees, "Hell, this is going to be a nightmare to explain to Taylor. It looks like there's an element involved that doesn't exist in the future - it's completely decayed into isotopes of other elements. But that also means that the wormhole has a limited lifespan. Sooner or later, the fuel's going to run out for it."

"So it's worth carrying on with this, then?"

"Definitely."

Taylor frowns, "Nope - that's too technical, Malcolm."

Suppressing a sigh, as he knows that he's asking a lot of the Commander to understand what he's trying to say, Malcolm tries again, "When the first wormhole was opened in our future, it was found that the main cause of it was a type of subatomic particle that had never been seen before. Radiation as we know it comes from unstable elements that throw particles out of their nuclei. It's the nature of all things to try to stabilise, and that's what a radioactive atom's trying to do. It might have too many protons or neutrons in its nucleus - and it kicks them out to try and make itself stable. Bundles of protons and neutrons form what's known as an alpha particle, while an electron is a beta particle. Theta radiation is incredibly rare because it seems to have no natural source; it's only been possible to create theta particles artificially. It's the theta radiation that fuels the wormholes."

"So, what you're trying to say is that there's something in the Badlands that creates this radioactivity naturally?"

"Yes." Malcolm nods, relieved that he might finally have said something that makes sense to Taylor, "From what we've got in terms of evidence, it's safe to assume that all wormholes transport from the future to the past - in our case, we created something that pushed, as we opened it at our end; but if this figurehead is anything to go by, then the normal routine is that they pull from the future into the past."

"Do we know what's making this stuff?"

"Not at the moment, no. Whatever it is, it doesn't exist naturally in the future, which suggests that it doesn't originate on earth, as it's completely decayed into isotopes of elements that we would expect to see, and there's nothing left of it. That equally suggests that, eventually, the wormhole will cease to exist - unless there are other sources elsewhere."

"But how did it get here?"

"Given that it's not been found at any time, I don't think there's any source within the core of the planet - so it's most likely to have come from space."

"Not aliens…" Taylor groans, "Please don't say it's aliens."

"I was going to say a meteorite."

"Thank God for that."

"I'm going to have to do a lot of speculative calculations to see if I can work out a half-life for this element." He continues, "As we've never seen a natural source for theta radiation before, it'll be guesswork, but it might give me some hints about whether the natural wormhole is a regular occurrence, and possibly even a chance of predicting when it opens. Finding it shouldn't be too hard - we have its signature and a spectroscopic reading to work from. But at the moment, I'm more interested in seeing if we can actually identify the ship. I've got Bram looking for specimens deeper in the wood that might have come through from the Holocene with the figurehead, as familiar species should indicate that it's from the same reality as ours."

"And if it is?"

"That's where Max comes in."

Bram is not used to visiting his boss at home, but Malcolm has invited him to join them for dinner, as he feels they've reached the point where they need to turn from science to archaeology, and it's time to see if they can confirm that the figurehead came from their reality. It's a bit of a long shot, as there's no guarantee that evolution has diverged that much between two realities; but nothing ventured, nothing gained, and his identifications look very promising.

The first thing about Malcolm's assistant that Yseult notices is his height - nearing six feet - and his astonishingly Nordic features, startlingly blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. He's actually from Utah, but anyone who sees him assumes he's from Scandinavia: right up to the point at which he opens his mouth and proves conclusively that he's not.

Her next impression is that he is clearly the bearer of interesting news, and he takes his seat at their table with a most pleased expression as Malcolm pours out three glasses of some of Julia's best elderflower wine. Now that her ankle is stabilising, she's more able to move about and has baked a side of xiph, accompanied by a good, hearty salad.

"This is fantastic." Bram says, as they eat, "I wish I could cook like this."

"So do I." Malcolm admits, "The best that I can manage is toast."

As they eat, the two scientists fill Yseult in on progress so far. It's not as hard for her to take in as it was for Taylor, as she's studied at least some science as part of her degree; and she is very intrigued at the prospect of an element that exists in their present, but not in their future, "Is there any way to identify it?"

"Not easily - at least, not here." Malcolm muses, "We'd need to go and find it - which, given the size of the Badlands is so far into 'needle in haystack' territory that I'd rather leave that until we've exhausted all other avenues of investigation."

He doesn't say so, but she knows there's another reason why he wouldn't want to head out into the Badlands - not after what happened to him the last time he was there for more than a day or so. Bram probably knows most of it, too; but they don't delve any further - there's far too much else to think about first.

"I've found some interesting remains in the figurehead, Malcolm," Bram continues, as he sets his cutlery down on his now empty plate, "Several species of larva that we'd expect to see in an oak tree - and, more particularly, species that are quite rare and limited in range."

They both stare at him, surprised.

"Malachius aeneus - the Scarlet Malachite beetle. It was probably a lot more widespread about the time that the figurehead was made - but it was becoming increasingly rare by the 2000s, and we lost it completely in the 2100s. It was particularly recorded in England; but - you'll love this, Max - most commonly in the New Forest."

"Seriously?" She looks very surprised, and pleased.

"Is that good?" Malcolm asks.

"It's very interesting," Yseult says, "The New Forest was a major source of oak for the British navy, and for shipbuilding in general. If we can narrow down the cultivar of the oak itself, then it makes it easier to confirm the location where it grew, and when it was felled."

"You could find that out?"

"I think so. Dendrochronology gives you an age of the tree - but it can't tell you when it was felled. What we can do instead, however, is compare the rings on the cores we drill out with records of similar trees whose felling date we do know. It's a lot less whizz-bang than using your spectrometers - but it's pretty reliable."

Malcolm smiles at her, "In that case, welcome to the team."