A/N: Thank you for your review, Jemmz! I hope I can keep up the pace here!

Today's been a good day for writing, and I've got myself a couple of chapters in hand, so I thought I'd pop up another one. There's a bit of a shocker lurking in here...hopefully no one's seen it coming!

Enjoy!

Chapter Six

Revelations

Elisabeth's cooking skills are not entirely peerless, but they're very close to it, and the opportunity to dine at the Shannons' household is not one to be missed. The fact that they have an ulterior motive is - essentially - immaterial, though the expressions on the faces of the diners is a strange combination of enjoyment and concern.

"I wish I could claim that I was imagining it," Malcolm says, setting his fork down to reach for a glass of blackberry wine, "but he was absolutely intent on that conversation, and there wasn't anyone in the room but him. He certainly wasn't speaking into a comm unit - it wasn't in his hand. If it was anywhere else, then why didn't I hear the other person?"

"Do we talk to him?" Yseult asks, worriedly, "Surely he knows he's doing it?"

Elisabeth shakes her head, "It's quite possible that he doesn't - but why it's happening, and how, I can't begin to speculate. It could be anything; without giving him another medical, I've got nothing to go on."

"Then you give him another medical." Jim says, brightly.

"We've been over this," She replies, "I have enough trouble persuading him to submit to the ones that he's meant to have. Trying to get him in for another one is going to be a task akin to the ten labours of Hercules."

"Shouldn't that be 'Heracles'?" Malcolm asks.

"Pedantry later, Malcolm." Yseult says, smiling, "Taylor issues now."

"As long as we keep an eye on him, and he doesn't do anything that could compromise the safety of the colony, the best thing we can do for now is continue to watch him. I wish I could be more positive on what we do, but without any real evidence that there's something wrong with him what do we do?"

Malcolm frowns, "Could it be an age thing?"

"What?" Jim looks at him, startled.

"Admittedly, I don't know how old he is - but should we be concerned that he might be…" he fumbles for a polite way to put it.

"Going senile?" Elisabeth finishes, "I don't think so. He's not showing any other symptoms - his memory isn't compromised, he functions perfectly normally around us. It's just these conversations. Maybe we're more aware of them because you overheard him, Jim. I've known a lot of people who talk to themselves - and they were perfectly normal in every way. Sometimes talking to yourself is a really good way to resolve problems."

Jim looks as though he's going to acquiesce, but Malcolm shakes his head, "No - he didn't look like someone who was deliberately talking to himself, Elisabeth; he was clearly looking at a spot about five feet in front of him, and he never deviated from it. It was almost as though someone was standing in front of his desk."

They sit in silence awhile, either finishing their meals, or twisting the stem of a glass back and forth. What do they do? How do they tackle something that they've only seen on a few occasions? What if Taylor actually is going senile?

Malcolm looks up, his expression more concerned now, "Look - if there is a problem with Taylor, we need to do something about what comes next. I think we've all always felt that looking beyond that is something of a betrayal - kind of like Robert Cecil writing to the King of Scotland when Elizabeth the first was getting to the end of her life. Isn't it better we do that before something happens that forces the issue? I don't just mean this stuff with Taylor; Chris found this leaflet today." He fetches the offending article from his pocket.

Jim frowns as he reads it, "God, someone can't spell."

"Perhaps not." Malcolm agrees, "I was taking the mickey a bit with Chris earlier on, but even if it's a rather scrambled bastardisation of Marx and Lenin with a touch of Orwell, that doesn't mean that the writer isn't serious - or that they're better at saying it than putting it in words. There are some astonishingly articulate people around who can't set words down on paper for toffee."

Jim passes the letter to Elisabeth, who reads it with a worried frown before passing it to Yseult. The sentiments are perhaps rendered in rather clichéd terms, but they seem to be deeply felt. Someone in the Colony is unhappy with how things are being run, but they seem completely unwilling to share that with the people who can change those things. Of all the times for it to happen…

Yseult's voice is a little low, "Robert Cecil had to do his arranging for the succession on the sly - because if he'd been found out, he would've lost everything, possibly even his head. In those days, it was considered treasonous to envisage the death of a monarch; and, even though it isn't like that here, we're falling into the same trap."

"What do you suggest?" Jim asks, intrigued.

"That we do what we can to find out who wrote this - and then reach out to them. The one thing we don't want our anonymous writer to do is start plotting behind our backs; not if we can work with them to achieve what they want."

"Unless, of course, what they want is to run Terra Nova instead of Commander Taylor." Malcolm muses, "Sorry if I sound like I'm raining on the parade, but there's so much discontent bound up in that letter - and that they're willing to write it makes me wonder if they want to take over, and they're looking for people to back them."

"Isn't he just suggesting forming a union?" Jim asks, "What's the harm in that?"

"What about the throwing 'of' the 'shakles' of oppression?" Malcolm counters, "And the taking forward to a prosperous future? I thought we were doing that - but this writer doesn't seem to agree."

"I thought that was just grandstanding."

"You're not a politician, Jim," Elisabeth smiles at him, "You're a police officer through and through - and you deal with people in a manner that's as far removed from a politician as it's possible to be. Politicians are in the business of getting themselves re-elected - while your focus is doing what's right - even if it doesn't make you friends. You've never been a power-grabber."

"In which case," Yseult resumes, "We definitely need to find out who this is - and what they want, so we can accommodate their wishes into the future of the colony. If someone feels so discontented that they need to do this, then we need to find out why.

"I'll compare it against the records we have of everyone's handwriting." Malcolm advises, "I can scan this and run it through a comparison algorithm. It'll take a bit of time to do it, given how many colonists we have, and it'll only narrow things down until we can do a visual comparison - but it should lead us to the author. Once we know who it is, we'll be able to form a plan to deal with this."

"Sounds good to me." Jim approves, then changes the subject, "How about an update on that figurehead, Max?"

"I've pulled up every recorded wood core held in the Eye for the period Charlie suggested. All I need her to do now is finish her analysis, and we can then sit down and see if we can get a felling date for the tree. If we're really lucky, it might even be possible to confirm where the tree came from."

Their conversation moves on to other general gossip as Elisabeth fetches out a soya yoghurt dessert that even Jim finds palatable. Tonight, they're just friends having dinner. Tomorrow, they can go back to the problems.

Malcolm sits back from his workstation with a sigh, "Bugger."

"What is it?" Maddy asks, passing with a stack of petri dishes.

"I was hoping this would work more quickly than it is." He complains, "I'm comparing handwriting samples - but there are rather more hits than I was anticipating. Everyone filled in their paperwork in block capitals, and the algorithm isn't as quick at differentiating between them as I expected."

"Is it working, though?"

"Yes - just very slowly." He admits.

"I think I remember a Chief Science Officer who told me once that slow and methodical beats quick and slapdash." Maddy smiles, "I don't know what you're looking for - but it's better to get it right than get it fast, isn't it?"

"Hoist by my own petard." He chuckles, then looks back at his screen, "I think that there's scope to tighten up the code a little - though my expectations might've been rather optimistic on the timing aspect. Still - at least I'll get there."

She laughs, "Good luck."

As she departs, Malcolm returns his attention to the paper. The mistakes upon it are elementary - but also not the sort of mistakes that someone makes if they're trying to conceal their state of literacy. Most people tend to be less subtle than this - but what if the person they're looking for is that subtle? It's impossible to say.

He looks at his plex as it pings to alert him to a message, and smiles at Yseult's news - at least she's having a better morning than he is.

"These are really good, Max." Charlie says, "The rings are very well defined, so they're good and easy to count. Based on these cores, I'd say that the tree was felled at the age of about 190 years - so it was fully mature when it came down. There are some interesting bunches of rings at some points which indicate poor growing conditions when the tree was quite young, and I've found some very similar examples from your records."

"And?" Yseult can't disguise her excitement.

"I can give you something approximating a felling date. There are at least six cores here from British naval vessels which show the same profile - and the records of those clearly state that they were constructed in Hampshire - at Buckler's Hard."

"Then that confirms it? The tree was from the New Forest?"

"I think it's safe to say so."

"And a felling date?"

"Around 1750. Factor in about eight to ten years to season the wood, and your ship would've been built somewhere around 1760-ish."

"What about the figurehead itself - would that have been on a naval vessel?"

Charlie shrugs, "Can't tell you that, I'm afraid, Max. I don't think so, though. It's not ornate enough for that - to me it looks more likely to have decorated something privately owned. Possibly a merchantman."

"Would that have been built at Buckler's Hard?" Yseult asks, a little doubtfully, "I thought they built naval vessels there."

"Mostly, yes - but they needed to build things when they weren't, after all. Naval vessels were incredibly labour intensive, yes, and they built sixty there - but I have no doubt they would've taken on private commissions, as well. The place was ideal for shipbuilding in those days. No harm in starting there."

"Thank God the Lloyds records are searchable. I can narrow them down to a specific location."

"Go for Hampshire, Max. Don't single out Buckler's. They didn't just build there."

"I will."

"You look chuffed." Pete says, as he comes into the office, waving goodbye to Charlie as she leaves, "Anything useful in the woodland?"

"Could be." Yseult smiles, "Charlie's found some really good results."

"And no hints?"

"'Fraid not. Sworn to secrecy."

"Such is life. Never mind - Louis is doing a casserole tonight. Fancy some?"

"Wish I could - but I want to look into this. Hope you don't mind?"

"Rain check? No trouble, darling. That's what the freezer's for." He pauses, "Has there been anything going on recently?"

"In what context?"

"Something Louis overheard at a choir rehearsal. Someone's talking about starting up a union in the Agriculture department."

Yseult looks up, sharply, "Are you sure?"

"Not a word of a lie. No idea who, or why; but it's got people talking - the ones who think it's a great idea, and the ones who think it's overcooking the omelette. Why do we need unions? Everyone gets represented, don't they?"

"You're happy, yes - but not everyone is." She sighs.

"Ah - minions wanting to be masterminds." He sits down, "They're saying things about Taylor, though. Apparently he's being recast from father figure to malevolent dictator. God knows why - he's not changed his M.O. that I've noticed."

"Perhaps because they want to make him look like the enemy?"

Pete nods, "I was wondering that. After all, you can't topple a benevolent regime, can you?" He pauses, "If Taylor doesn't know this is happening, you need to tell him, Max. He needs to know so that he can shut this rubbish down."

"We're aware of it Pete - though what you've just said is news to me. I'll raise it at the next staff meeting."

Malcolm is in the middle of yet another rather stilted reading of a book in Erin's room when she gets home, having been held up by a problem with the blast furnace. It may be larger than the one she first built, but it's still a long way from a truly industrial setup - so she needs now and again to clear it out and re-line it. Ben helps, of course, but it's still a messy, time-consuming job. He doesn't know she's there, and she smiles fondly as he tries - vainly - to sound convincing in his recitation of a text that is as far from scientific as it's possible to get. Erin is already drowsing, and is soon fast asleep, at which point he looks up and sees his wife.

"That was just so lovely." She smiles, as he carefully rises from the seat beside Erin's bed and crosses to kiss her, "Careful - I'm filthy."

"I noticed. And now I am, too."

"That's a shame. I suppose that means you're going to have to join me in the shower."

"First things first." He smiles back at her, leading her through to the bedroom.

Considerably later, and freshly showered, the pair are seated on the couch with post-dinner coffees and Yseult's plex as she begins to examine the records that might help them identify the ship that once carried their figurehead. The initial results are not promising, as shipbuilding on the south coast of England was rather more prolific than she had realised.

"A felling date is all very well," she sighs, "but it doesn't give us an exact date for building a ship; without knowing how long it took to season the wood, it's impossible to work out something so precise. I think there are at least seventy vessels here which might be the one that we want. Some of them are whoppers - ships of the line that fought at Trafalgar - but others are much smaller, and the number of smaller yards are rather more extensive than I realised."

"But we're confident that the original tree was growing in the New Forest, aren't we?" Malcolm muses, "Based on Bram's investigations, that seems likely - though the Carbon 14 isn't probably as helpful as those dendro cores. The best it can do is back them up to some degree; I can't get as accurate as they seem to have done."

"Which isn't that accurate. I've still got a lot of records to plough through. Charlie reckons the figurehead wouldn't have come from a naval vessel so that brings it down a bit - you don't put a figurehead on a fishing smack."

"I wish I could be more helpful." He admits, kissing her neck, "It still amazes me that they've worked out search algorithms that can actually figure out that copperplate handwriting - or are they keyworded?"

She smiles at him, then resumes her perusal, "Pete spoke to me this afternoon. He's overheard some whisperings that suggest our fledgeling union movement is a bit more than a leaflet."

"Seriously?"

She nods, "It sounds like someone's trying to re-cast the Commander as an oppressor, rather than a leader. Unfortunately it's nothing more than whisperings at the moment, so we still don't have a culprit; but it's more than a leaflet now, and that's worrying."

"Welcome back to Tolpuddle." Malcolm sighs.

"Tolpuddle?" Taylor looks bemused, "You've lost me, Malcolm."

"Sorry, I was being flippant. Tolpuddle was a small town in Dorset; it was where a group of agricultural labourers formed what was in some ways a precursor of a Trades Union - what was known as a Friendly Society. They refused to work for less than ten shillings a week, and the landowner used an old law against the swearing of oaths to get them transported. They were eventually pardoned and came back from Australia - some stayed in Britain, and others emigrated. They were known as the Tolpuddle Martyrs - an the village became famous."

"And this is relevant exactly how?"

"Whoever it is that wrote that note looks to be trying to create something similar - albeit without the 'friendly' and 'society' bit." Elisabeth says, "It's rumoured that someone's attempting to portray you as a remote and unfeeling dictator."

"Wouldn't be the first time." Taylor grunts. Malcolm has the grace to go a little red.

"Have you heard anything, Commander?" Elisabeth resumes, "You said you were going to get someone to look into it alongside Mira."

"Nothing yet." He says, "But Mira hasn't come up with anything either, has she?"

Elisabeth blinks; Taylor is not known for being defensive, and yet he sounds as though he thinks she's criticising him. Bemused, she looks across at Jim, who looks equally surprised. Fortunately, Taylor misses their exchange of a glance, and continues, "So, we've got someone who wants to overthrow me and they're pretending that it's all in a good cause. Any ideas who it is yet?"

"I've narrowed it down to about ten people." Malcolm says, "It's now a matter of examining each example more closely to match up the handwriting. Given the focus on the agricultural department, I'm assuming it's someone there."

"Fair enough." Taylor agrees.

Their discussions move on to the rigours of the growing season, as the planting is now almost complete. Despite the sentiments expressed in the leaflet, the security teams have proved to be extremely helpful to the agricultural workers, as the sheer amount of planting is extraordinary - and remarkably ambitious. Even though everyone pulls out all the stops at the best of times, this year's work has required so much extra effort that the harvest is likely to need almost the entire population to bring it in. If nothing else, it'll test the worth of their storage facilities.

"Several projects in the outposts are coming to fruition." Malcolm reports, "The antibiotics project that would've been Maddy's if she hadn't taken maternity leave is showing excellent results, and we could be able to trial a prototype very soon. Some new strains of mycoprotein are nearly ready, too - which will give us some variety at the dinner table alongside beancurd and gallusaur."

"Yum." Jim mumbles.

"Any more news on that figurehead?" Taylor asks.

"I'm still working on that element," Malcolm admits, "given that it's never been seen in nature before, it's hard to really study as I have no referents. I haven't got anything to work with - just what's left behind by it in the form of a radioactive signature - so anything I come up with is going to be largely speculative, including a potential half-life."

"Which is?" the Commander prompts.

"Half life is the period of time that a radioactive element takes to decay to half its original quantity. The decay is that throwing out of particles that I mentioned when I first described this to you, Commander; it happens at a steady rate, so it can be measured. Unfortunately, without a sample to work from, I'm having to calculate backwards as best I can using the measurements I have of the amount of radiation still present."

"Keep at it." Taylor orders, "Anything else?"

He watches as his team collectively shake their heads. So - he's being cast as a bad guy again; such is life. He's had it done to him before, and he'll have it done to him again, no doubt. Watching them depart, he returns to his desk and sits over his plex. At least the planting's going well - that whole figurehead thing is becoming annoying; too many unknowns.

Half a ton of questions to be asked, and no answers coming from anyone - he's not used to that. Projects are usually well defined, have measurable milestones and a determined outcome. What that outcome turns out to be is not always what they expect just adds to the interest. Now he's got something in front of him that has vaguely defined parameters, no useful milestones, and God knows what they're going to find at the end of it.

What use is this going to be, anyway? So they find a portal - a natural one. How does that change things? It's not like their enemies are going to be able to use it if they can't control the damned things.

God - so many questions…

You're worrying yourself again.

"A lot to worry about." He agrees, "And you're sounding like a mother hen."

I thought that was my job? The voice sounds amused now.

"Couldn't do without you." He grins back, "Anything?"

Only the usual. Patrols, patrols and more patrols. People doing what they should - like they always have.

"Good. I knew I could rely on you." Taylor sits back, looking relieved, "I guess my staff are worrying over nothing."

They don't know you like I do. You've always been great at keeping things ordered - this place couldn't run without you at the helm.

"And you at my side." Taylor looks up at her, "My right hand; right, Wash?"

"I've got some more nutritional readouts for the mycoprotein, Malcolm," Maddy reports coming into his office as he nods her in, "the toxin analysis came back negative, and the protein count is the best we've seen so far. There are a range of amino acids that we could only get from meat that are present here in equal quantities; from what I've found, it's pretty complete. I think it's even better than chia seeds."

Malcolm accepts her proffered plex, and reads through the results with satisfaction. While they have a reasonably stable source of gallusaur now, meat protein is still a bit of a treat for some, and the provision of something that is not only an acceptable nutritional substitute, but also palatable, is a long-standing goal. Being unable to go out to the outpost herself, Maddy has been co-ordinating the work from the main Labs - something that Malcolm used to be obliged to do - and has proved to be a highly capable organiser. Once Elisabeth Rose is old enough, he is determined that she should get started on that doctorate project that he's been wanting her to start for over a year.

At least her work is going better than his. The traces of radiation that he was able to detect from the figurehead are weak at best, and his attempts to identify the structure of the element that emitted it is very much at a standstill. The only thing he's really done over the last couple of days is think of a name for it: Baldanite, from the Spanish word Baldío, meaning 'empty' or 'barren' land. Appropriate for the location in which the figurehead was found. It's ridiculous, really - what if he's just clutching at straws, and the reading was a false positive? Hell, he's getting nowhere. If only he could work out how the portal works - the basic mechanics of it are pretty straightforward: the radiation must gather somehow, and fuel a natural portal. But how? Why? And, if it does, how often does it happen, and where does it open on the other side?

Without chemistry to help him, the only other option is history. Assuming that Yseult can identify the ship from which the figurehead came, perhaps they can work out its fate. It must've been recorded as lost - and if they can find that record, where and when, then that opens up a lot of other options on how frequently it happens. Assuming that the portal is fuelled by the radiation, which is generated by the decay of this Baldanite stuff, then it has to be cyclical - buildup, generation, existence, exhaustion. If they can work out that cycle, then they can forecast when it'll open next. And that will certainly determine once and for all whether Lucas's refusal to leave the encampment was indeed tied to the next portal's generation.

Out in the residential areas, Mira and Jim are on patrol again, and her expression as he tells her about the rumours that Louis has picked up is irked, to say the least, "I haven't heard a thing."

"That sucks, doesn't it?" Jim grins, cheerfully.

"It suggests that this goes a little deeper than one disaffected troublemaker." She says, darkly, "If they're keeping it quiet enough that I haven't heard anything, then it sounds to me like it's better established than we realised."

"I don't get why they're so secretive about it." Jim admits, "As far as I see it, there's nothing wrong with representatives from the workforce reporting to Chris, who reports to Malcolm. What's wrong with that?"

"I know what you mean," Mira agrees, "The only trouble is, that someone wants more than that - if they're the sort of person who actually wants to remove Taylor, it tends to follow that they think that they can do a better job than he can. Kind of like: we feed the colony, therefore we're the ones who should be running it."

Jim snorts with amusement, "If they knew what it took to keep this place running, they'd never even think about it."

"Exactly - they don't. To them, it's just Taylor standing on his balcony. Someone wants to push him off it and stand there instead."

"That makes me think that reaching out to this person is going to be a waste of time."

"Whose idea was that?"

"Max's."

Mira nods, "That sounds like something she'd suggest. She's used to working with people equally, and they come to her with their problems. Other than that nutter who tried to rape her, her team are all pretty much on the level and sane."

"You think that she's wrong?" Jim asks.

"No - not entirely. If this person was more willing to come out into the open, then that approach would be ideal - but this person seems so keen to hide that I'm wondering if there's an element of paranoia and conspiracy theorist lurking in it."

"And we're all out of aluminum foil for hats."

"Hopefully Louis will keep listening, and we can get something more. I don't seem to be getting much myself; I guess I'm not quite the 'enemy of my enemy' that I used to be."

"Every silver lining has a cloud?" Jim offers. Mira smiles, a little thinly, "You could say that."

Yseult looks at her list, and sighs. She's been at this for hours now, but at least she's got her list of possibilities down to five. Two of them aren't really big enough to sport a figurehead, so they're on the reserve list; but the remaining three look very promising. Smiling across at Erin, who is busily banging a pair of plastic bricks together, she types up the names: Sea Swift, Polly Constance and Artemis. All trading vessels, all built on the South Coast with New Forest oak.

Unless, of course, she's barking completely up the wrong tree.

"Time to call up the plans, I think." She says to her daughter, "Assuming we have them."

Sea Swift, is, not surprisingly, a small two-masted schooner designed for speed. Being of lesser size, she probably doesn't sport a figurehead, though perhaps a bird might be possible. The Polly Constance, on the other hand, is a four masted Barque, so she might be large enough - as such vessels were more suited to longer voyages and thus could sport something more hefty on the front. Then there's Artemis, a three masted Barquentine. From the descriptions in the shipping record, the latter two would be most likely - though the actual build plans might cover it.

The search takes a few minutes, during which time Yseult taps a little impatiently upon the tabletop with her stylus. "It would be easier if I had the paper versions, sweetheart," she says, "it'll take a while to read through these."

Then she looks up. She knows that expression on her daughter's face, and the state of the nappy that will follow it, "Great timing, Erin." She sighs.

Malcolm arrives home as she's finishing up, "Ah. I suspect that was a fairly spectacular nappy change?" he says, sniffing the slightly sewage-y tint to the air.

"Sorry. She had a lot of fruit at lunchtime. I guess that was a bit inevitable."

"Do you want me to finish up?" he can see that Erin's a bit wriggly about getting back into her dungarees, "I've brought a salad back from the market. I can dish that up without poisoning the pair of us."

"What's in it for me?" Yseult asks, smiling at him.

"Unwinding in a nice hot bath?" he offers.

"That sounds nice." She agrees.

"As long as you sort out that toxic nappy." He adds.

"Thanks."

The salad proves to be very tasty, and they return to the couch to peruse the shipping records that have now fully downloaded to Yseult's plex. The plans are not as helpful as Yseult had hoped, largely because she can't interpret them; and she sets the plex down in frustration, "I'm sorry, Malcolm. It's just not making any sense - I haven't a clue what all the terms mean."

His own interpretation isn't going to be any better, but Malcolm is nothing if not nosy, and he picks up the plex to switch through the various files, moving on into the ones that Yseult hasn't opened yet. Then he stops, "Max. Look at this."

She shifts to lean against him, and looks at the file he's opened, "Oh, my God…"

It's a sketch, rather crude and poorly coloured, of a young woman, leaning forth from the waist - behind her an apparent pillar of wood. There's something familiar about her…something…

"It's her, isn't it?" Malcolm says, "The figurehead. It's her."

"No - surely not. We can't be that lucky. Can we?"

"Which ship was it on?" Already, he is focusing in, trying to examine the faded, tiny writing more closely. Then he looks at his wife, "I think you've done it, Max. You've found the ship."