A/N: Thanks both for your reviews, Leona and Hossfan - I appreciate your comments! I do feel a bit sad for Charlie - she wasn't originally going to be lost, but I wanted to emphasise just how dangerous a place the Badlands are, and not every problem is down to Taylor being compromised.

The concept of the desert carpeted with flowers is based on personal experience, as I visited Wadi Rum in Jordan about seven years ago in springtime, and there had been a fair bit of rain in the weeks prior. The sands there are a wonderful red, and great stone hills rise from the desert (the Bedouin word for them is Jebels), just as they do in this story - though a wide platform like the one I described might exist - rather than being something I actually saw. Based on the rocks that I did see, it's very plausible.

The flowers that are seeking are completely the same as an amazing display that I saw on that visit - the sands of the desert completely carpeted with them to the point that the sand looked violet from a distance. And yes, they gave off a wonderful, sweet fragrance - just as these do. I wish I knew the species, but I just couldn't track it down!

Anyway - enough travelogue, back to the story. Hope you enjoy!

Chapter Fifteen

Flowers in the Desert

The atmosphere in the camp is subdued as the sun rises, its light coming slowly down the rock walls to join the heaters in giving them some warmth. Mira stands at the edge of the platform and looks down at the gully, now just an expanse of damp sand, with an accumulation of debris at the outflow point. Charlie's body will be miles away by now - and is likely already attracting carrion eaters. The only consolation that Mira can think of is that she would've been dead within minutes, if that. Drowning generally doesn't take more than a few seconds: most people don't realise that.

She turns at the sound of footsteps to find Dunham behind her, "I've brought you some coffee, Ma'am."

"Thanks." She takes it with a grateful smile, "How's the Commander?"

"Paula thinks it won't be much longer before he's back to full consciousness again." The Lieutenant says, worriedly, "She's already checking her stocks of sedatives."

"Good. The only way we can keep ourselves safe right now is to either keep him knocked out, or chain him up like a dog. I'd rather not go for the second option: he loathes me enough at the moment as it is."

"What do we do today?" It's not exactly an appeal for advice, more a query as to whether her idea is in accordance with his. "I was thinking we spend a day to take stock, check inventory and plan our next move."

She nods, pleased, "I concur. The condensers are in the best place - well shaded - but if we can find any other water sources, I think we should try. Now we're in amongst rocks, there are likely to be pools of standing water, though it'll probably be stagnant, so we'll need to purify it. Besides, Malcolm reported that he was getting readings on his rad-meter, so we're probably getting close. I suggest we use this as a base camp. Even if there are still bambis out there, which I doubt, they can't get up here, so we're safe from predators. The rocks keep us shaded for the bulk of the day, and we can get water and power. Rations might be an issue - but as long as we're careful, we could stay here for a few weeks if we needed to."

"I'd rather not, Ma'am." Dunham grins.

Malcolm emerges from his tent looking as though he hasn't slept at all, which is probably because he hasn't. Most of last night was spent staring rather miserably at his plex, going through his collection of pictures of Yseult and Erin, missing them horribly and wishing he'd never come here. It's only now, in the light of morning, that he's pulled himself together and made himself get up. He's in charge now, and he can't afford to be a moping about with a face like a wet weekend.

While Charlie's presence wasn't essential to the success of the expedition, she wasn't superfluous either, and she didn't deserve such a pointless, nasty death. Living in the Cretaceous has it's risks - of course it does - and she could have faced a similar fate had she been hiking in the wilderness back in the future. But he has found himself landed in charge of the party, and he feels a pretty solid responsibility for her loss.

"You don't have to tell me it wasn't my fault." He says, as he sees Mira is clearly about to do just that, "I know it wasn't - but I still feel like it was, all the same."

"It's a burden of leadership, Malcolm." She says, quietly, "God knows I lost plenty of people, so I've been where you are, over and over again. It never gets easier. The day it does, you stop doing it - because you're too damn dangerous to be a leader anymore."

He nods, then turns to find that Dunham has been back to the mess tent and fetched him a mug of coffee, which he accepts gratefully, "I don't know about you, but I think we need to stop travelling today - go through what we still have, and just rest for a day."

"That was our thought." Mira concurs, "Though I think it might be worth getting out in a rover this afternoon to see what's out in the desert. There can be some useful plants at this time of the year - and I'm hoping that the flowers I was talking about are in bloom. If we can get those, then we might be able to do something to keep Taylor a little more compos mentis than he's been the last few weeks. We just need to arrest the progress of the disease - then his brain gets some time to do some re-routing and we can see how much of him is still present and correct."

"I'm not sure I want to know that," Malcolm admits, nervously, "or what we do if we've really lost him."

"The only thing we can do." Mira sighs, "Keep him restrained until we get him back to the colony, and leave him with Doctor Shannon." She turns to him, "Aren't we getting a little ahead of ourselves here? Until we know how bad he is, we're just speculating, aren't we?"

Malcolm nods, "Sometimes it's easier to do that than to actually face the problem head-on."

The morning is spent checking inventory, organising supplies into storage canisters in a more methodical manner, checking power levels on the chargers and other devices, and ensuring that no one forgets to raise the ladders when they come back up to the platform if they've gone over to what Reynolds is now referring to as 'the parking lot'. The chances of bambiraptors being this far out is minimal, but they have no idea what else might be prowling around these canyons and gullies. It's best not to take any risks.

"I've set up a signal beacon, Doctor." Dunham reports, as they gather for a surprisingly not-too-horrible lunch of reconstituted minestrone soup and crackers, "If you and Mira want to go out this afternoon, you can find your way back without having to use the sextant."

"Thanks, Lieutenant," Malcolm says, a little distractedly, his attention caught by Bram, who hasn't eaten, and is instead intent upon slowly picking crumbs off a cracker, and dropping them to the rocky floor. Abandoning his crockery, he crosses to join his assistant, "I'm going to need your help later, Bram. If we find the flowers that Mira's looking for, I'll need you to help analyse them."

Bram doesn't look up, instead continuing to cumble his cracker, adding to the small pile of flakes that keep on blowing away to leave a trail like the one Hansel and Gretel laid to try and find their way back through the woods. Almost as though he hopes Charlie will use it to find her way back.

Come on, Wallace. Try not to make things worse this time. A little nervously, Malcolm crouches beside Bram, "I'm sorry. You probably don't want to hear that right now, do you?" He's well aware that he can't claim to understand how his colleague is feeling - though, for a terrible half-hour, he did feel like that. He was lucky, though; his despair was misplaced. Bram doesn't have that to hold on to.

Finally, Bram looks up, and his misery cuts Malcolm to the quick. He felt that - the horrible anguish of knowing the someone he loved was dead - drowned in a flood. Worse: for Bram, he doesn't even have a body to grieve over. It doesn't matter that they'd only just got together - in what way does the shortness of the relationship make the hurt any less?

"I really need you to hold it together, Bram - if you can. We have to try to stem the Commander's illness, and I can't do it without your help; I need your additional knowledge. Can you do help me?" Please God, don't let me shut him down.

Fortunately, he hasn't - and Bram nods, quietly, "I can." He says, eventually, "It'll give me something to do. I think I need that."

Malcolm rests a hand on his colleague's shoulder, "Thank you. Don't feel you have to bottle this up, Bram. If you need to talk, please come to me, okay?"

Another nod. Relieved, Malcolm rises, and crosses to Mira, "I think he's okay for the moment - but if you can keep an eye on him, that'd be a help. I'm rubbish at reading people." He admits. He knows she's a comparative expert. Hell, even that ankylosaur that Zoe was so keen to adopt would've been better at it than he is.

Mira nods, "I'll make sure he's okay. Go and check on the Commander, if he's comfortable, we might as well get out there and start looking."

Paula looks up as Malcolm pops his head into the tent, "How is he?"

"He's mostly over the concussion." She advises, "He certainly wasn't impressed to find himself cuffed to that crate." She indicates the heavy metal crate to which one of his wrists has been attached, "And he was demanding to speak to Lieutenant Washington again, so I've sedated him."

"How long can you keep that up for?"

"Not as long as you'd probably like. I have a good supply, but my concern is that I can't keep him permanently unconscious."

Malcolm sighs, that's definitely not what he wants, either, "Mira and I are going out to see what we can find out there. She's got some ideas of plant compounds that worked quite well for some of her team when they went this way."

"If you can find something like that, then that sounds like a better option. Sedatives aren't designed to keep someone subdued 24/7."

He looks at the sleeping Commander, and shudders; what if they are losing him? The need to reform the governance of the Colony has always been on the back burner - something to be discussed another day. Taylor's military sensibilities are useful in some contexts, but not others - and a move to democratic oversight is rather contrary to his regimented systems. If he's lost his rationality, then it'll be pretty much impossible to persuade him that they can't continue under the equivalent of martial law - no matter how benign.

First things first: they have to get out there and see if they can find the plants that Mira recommends - if they can at least suppress the deterioration, then it's a start.

Jim emerges from his house in the early morning light for his habitual run, and starts what is as much his first patrol of the day as it is exercise. There's an odd atmosphere today - people are not sure whether to come out of their houses or not, so he sees none of his fellow morning regulars as he makes his plodding way around the compound. In fact, the entire place is eerily quiet.

Matters do not improve as his route takes him into the marketplace, and he returns home in a state of nervous trepidation. Something's brewing - but he can't figure out what.

Elisabeth is setting out breakfast as he rejoins the family post-shower, but even here that nervousness seems to have seeped into their behaviour, and no one says a word over the fruit and yoghurt. Parker hasn't noticed yet that Jim's re-set the passcode to the armoury, but the fact that he was so keen to have control of the Colony's weaponry doesn't bode at all well. Perhaps it's a keenness to keep them safely tucked away so they can't be used against the citizenry - but, then again, perhaps it isn't. If he's truly honest with himself, Jim is very much in the 'isn't' category.

By the time he's back out again, things seem a little more normal, as people are at work, or taking their kids to school, or heading to the market to do their morning shopping. There are even some stalls open, though fewer than usual, and he spots Yseult perusing an array of spring vegetables, though her attention seems not to be entirely upon her choices.

"Watch out - you could find yourself with a bitter gourd." He grins at her, knowing that she loathes them.

"Oh - hi Jim." She turns and smiles at him, "Sorry."

"What's up?"

"Haven't you noticed?" her eyes flick slightly to the left, and he finally looks up to see that there are people standing on the stairs up to the command centre. People who look unnervingly like guards. How long have they been there? He didn't see anything when he came through on his run.

"Hell - it looks like Parker's taken up residence, then."

"That was my thought. I haven't seen him - they were there when I arrived, but if people haven't realised that 'par-ker' isn't planning on democratic representation any time soon, that might persuade them." She looks nervous, "Trouble is, it's a bit late now. Short of instigating open hostilities, what can we do that won't play into his hands?"

"At least he's not got control of the armoury. But you're right - if we break out weaponry, then he's just going to start complaining about martial law again. Getting the guns out stays the absolute last resort."

"Part of me is glad that Malcolm's not here - he'd be very minded to challenge Parker, and I think they'd hurt him if he tried. But at the same time, I wish he was." Yseult's fingers twitch, as though she is unconsciously attempting to reach out and take her absent husband's hand.

"I can't see them going that far, Max." Jim assures, though he's not massively convinced.

"Perhaps not, but once Erin's at nursery, I'll see what my teams want to do. Everyone forgets about us down at our compound, so hopefully there won't be any people watching us. Are you going to see if you can get up to the Command Centre?"

Jim nods, "It doesn't look like anyone's gonna let me in, but if nothing else, I can pretend that I want to give Parker access to the system."

"I wouldn't." Yseult warns, "If you do, he'll expect you to actually do it - and it's not easy to give someone limited access without them noticing. I'd go with the 'still doing the security patrols and wanting to report in' gambit."

"Good point." Jim agrees, "I'll do that."

She looks at him, worried, "Be careful."

"Never works. I'll just stick to 'lucky'." He grins at her.

From the bottom of the stairs, the guards form a rather formidable - if amateur looking - barrier. Both are in the standard agricultural wear of cargo pants, t-shirts and canvas jackets, but their expressions are slightly at odds with the attire, as they both look worryingly impressed with themselves, and quite keen to enforce some perceived superior status.

"Morning." Jim says, quite chirpily, "Fancy some coffee?"

"Where you going?" one of them asks, the 'are' of the sentence lost in his regional accent, though Jim can't figure out where it's from.

"Upstairs. You got a problem with that?"

"Boss expecting you?" ah, now missing an 'is' and a 'the'.

"I have a security report for him." Jim answers, with slow emphasis, as though his questioner is a bit dim.

The grammatically challenged man grunts, and stands aside. Relieved, Jim heads upstairs; though the use of the word 'boss' is worrying. So much for democracy - but then, did he even pretend for a few minutes that he believed that garbage about elections?

Parker is sitting back in Taylor's chair, his legs up, boots crossed as he rests them on the glass top of Taylor's carno-skull table. There seems to be no suggestion that he's doing any work, or even looking like he's going to attempt any. Just an air of satisfaction. He's in charge now, and he's happy to sit back and let everyone else keep the colony going while he pretends to be the King. No wonder Chris wouldn't promote him.

"What do you want?" At least he remembered the 'do'.

"I used to provide daily security reports for the Commander. I'm assuming you want the same."

Parker shrugs. Apparently he doesn't give a crap about security. But then he turns, and looks at Jim, "Fair enough - but I don't need 'the fence is still up' or 'there are no dinosaurs outside'. I want to know what people are doing; what they're thinking, so they don't try and take over. So you get Guzman and his stooges out of uniform and they start working in the fields. I have my own security staff - you can be in charge of them if you want."

Spies. He means spies - so he must be planning on making sure there's no dissent amongst the populace. That he was never going to give the colonists the elections he promised is a given - but any complaints are likely to end with people going to the brig. Or worse. He wonders if people really do still believe the nonsense about being able to have a council.

"That's up to you, Mr Parker." He knows better than to annoy the man by calling him 'Bob', "But it won't do any harm to keep tabs on the perimeter. If you want people to stay in the compound, and not sneak out, you need to do that." Hopefully that morsel of nourishment for his paranoia might keep the man from demanding that Jim act as a Secret Policeman. There is no way on earth he's going to do that.

It works. He can almost see the upscaling of conviction that he's in imminent danger of overthrow. The chances of anyone sneaking out of the compound and setting up a resistance in the forest is as close to zero as it's going to get - the only one who could lead such an insurrection is out in the badlands, after all - but nonetheless, Parker believes it could happen, and that's all he needs.

"Do it." He says at once, "I'll have Tom organise the security patrol."

Jim nods, looking as though he knows exactly who Tom Jackson is, and departs. God - this is getting worse by the minute.

Mira takes the rover at a careful pace, while Malcolm monitors the rad-meter. It's definitely getting stronger - though still within safe parameters - so they're probably about a half-day's drive from the likely spot, more or less depending on whether the radiation is in the general atmosphere or concentrated in a depression.

"There." Mira says, after a while, and Malcolm looks up from his screen.

"Holy God…"

The desert sand is no longer orange here, instead carpeted with a glorious array of purple and white flowers that grow close to the ground, and give off the most wonderful, sweet fragrance. He knows that such things happen in deserts in springtime - but to see it…

"Don't ask me what species these are." Mira advises, "I couldn't tell you - but it's the purple ones we want. The white ones smell sweeter, but that's all they do. We had the most success with the stems and roots, so I'd suggest we collect the entire plants."

Still entranced, Malcolm nods, "I've got a spare crate on the back of the rover." She can almost imagine what he's thinking: if only Max were here to see this…, "I think I'll dig up some white ones anyway - Bram might want to do something to commemorate Charlie - I don't want him to be left thinking that she's just gone and he's got to get on with it."

"That sounds like a good idea." Mira agrees, "Just be careful as you do this. Partly because we don't want to bruise the roots, but also because there are tiny scorpions out here that'll give the local species a serious run for their money, and they burrow in the sand."

Malcolm stops dead, and goes visibly pale - which confuses her. Almost at once, he retreats back to the side of the rover, "I'm sorry. I can't."

"What do you mean?" His face warns her not to treat his sudden fear with scorn.

"Scorpions. I can't go near them…" his hands are shaking now, and he looks almost as though he's going to pass out. Already, in his mind's eye, he can see them - swarming out of the sand to bring him down, cover him and start tearing into his flesh…

"Malcolm. Look at me - breathe with me." Mira has his shoulders in a tight grip, and begins slow, deliberate breaths, urging him to do likewise. Slowly, she helps him to calm, and the panic subsides.

"What happened?" it's clear that his horror has a firm foundation. Most people have phobias of some sort, and to some degree - even if not all of them are triggered by a specific event - though this one clearly has been.

"I was stung by one." He says, eventually, "I was alone in a locked room in the labs: no one knew I was there. I nearly asphyxiated - I was only found by chance - and I ended up on life support for a week. I was conscious and aware of what was happening all the way through until Elisabeth sedated me - and it was horrific." He closes his eyes again, "I'm sorry - if there are scorpions out there, I can't do it. I just can't."

It'll probably take twice as long to gather the flowers they need - and the chances of there actually being scorpions are pretty small, but she's mentioned it now, so she'll just have to accept the consequences of her error. But then, if she does uncover one, then Malcolm would probably have freaked out at her for not warning him.

Retrieving a trowel from the toolbox on the top of the rover, she sets to work, carefully digging out individual plants to avoid bruising or cutting the stems and roots. After shaking them out, she sets them on a tarp for Malcolm to transfer them to the crate with equal care, in between pressing her to keep at the water, as the sun is getting pretty strong. She hasn't forgotten the state they found him in in the encampment, so she doesn't argue with him - he's only asking her to do what she would be doing anyway, so it's hardly an inconvenience.

The sun is low by the time they finish, and it's clear that they're going to be cutting it very fine if they want to get back before nightfall - which will come pretty damn quick out here. Even with the strong lamps on the top of the rover, she tries hard to avoid driving in the dark in such an environment as this.

Fortunately, the tracks from their route out are largely undisturbed as there has been little in the way of wind today, and it is a simple matter to follow them back, so she can keep the speed up. They only need the lamps to help them park the rover back in the parking lot, and before long, they are sitting down to a dinner of beef stew and dumplings from a vacuum pack. Not the nicest meal in the world, but better than something dried and rehydrated.

"What do we do with the flowers now?" Malcolm asks, as Mira sips at more of the coffee substitute with only a slight grimace of dislike.

"We set them out to dry - it shouldn't take too long tomorrow. We could use them now, but drying concentrates the compounds that we need, so they'll be more effective in a solution. We were lucky the compound dissolves in water - otherwise we'd need alcohol, and there isn't any that's drinkable. The compound will work now - so we can boil some up for the Commander straightaway - but we'll get a better yield from the ones that we dry."

"I'll get a team to work on that tomorrow - it may be that Bram can come up with a more efficient extraction process that will increase the compound's potency." He leans back against the rock, and looks very despondent.

"What?"

He sighs, "I'm really sorry about this afternoon. I was all ready to pitch in - and then you said there were scorpions, and that did it for me. I didn't realise that I could react like that."

"I take it you haven't been around another one since you were stung?"

He nods.

"Then that explains why - you've never been put in that position, so you didn't know how you'd react until you were." She looks up at him, "There's nothing to be ashamed of. Keeping away from scorpions is a sensible thing to do - so it's hardly as though you were backing off from a kitten or something. That, I really don't get - unless you're allergic to their dander, I suppose."

"Just because a phobia seems irrational doesn't make it any less real if you've got one." Malcolm says, "I knew a student at Trinity who had a sister with a phobia of the colour yellow - she had no idea where it had come from, or why she had it; but she couldn't cope with seeing anything yellow, or even saying 'yellow'. I remember a group of us scanning and desaturating all of her textbooks so that she could take them home during vacs - but that still wasn't enough; even a black and white picture of a daffodil set it off because her sister knew that the actual flower was yellow. The family got in a therapist who said it was the most aggressive form of xanthophobia he'd ever seen - and she almost never left her parents' house in case she saw anything yellow. It must've ruined her life."

Mira stares at him, "You're kidding. I know people are scared of clowns - and I don't blame them either - or birds or heights - but yellow?"

"I wish I was. I imagine that girl wishes it, too."

"That puts it you freaking about scorpions into perspective."

He smiles, a little sadly, "The human mind is a wonderful thing - unless it starts playing silly buggers with you and ruins your life." Setting down his coffee, he pushes himself to his feet, "Right, time to go and see if my rad-meter's readings can give me some clues over how much further we need to go."

"I'll make a start on some roots."

Bram is working quietly in the tent they've set aside as their temporary laboratory. He hasn't said much, but just works diligently, and thoroughly. Even Malcolm can see that he's throwing all his attention into it so he doesn't think about what happened to Charlie. Advising someone not to bottle things up is easy - actually not bottling things up is the hard part.

"I think I've found the active compound," he says, eventually, "Mira's right - it'll work better in a concentrated form, so I'll establish an extraction and distillation process to get at it when it's dried. This should do in the interim - though I can't vouch for it without the proper testing regimen."

"We know that it had an effect when it was used on the men in Mira's group." Malcolm muses, "So it's not likely to do anything harmful - she reported that it helped."

Bram nods, and falls silent again, then turns, "I couldn't find a significant amount in the white species. There's a lot left over."

"I didn't bring it back for testing - Mira said it didn't have the active ingredients we need. I thought you might like to leave them in memory of Charlie."

At first, Malcolm thinks that he's made things worse again - but instead Bram's expression as he looks at his boss is a strange one - half pain, half gratitude, "I think I'd like that. I hope she forgives me."

"Why would she need to forgive you?"

"I let go of her." He says, painfully.

"From what I could see, the force of the water pulled her foot out of the boot you had hold of - it wasn't your fault. I know you think it was, and me saying otherwise doesn't mean much at the moment - but it really wasn't. She leaned out too far, and lost her balance when some rock gave way. It was a horrible accident - no one's to blame for it. She wasn't to know how soft the rock was."

"D'you think she suffered?" Bram looks up at Malcolm almost as though he's making an appeal.

"From what Mira said, no, I don't. If she wasn't knocked unconscious by the debris, it still would've happened very quickly. The force of water was pretty immense."

"What'll happen when we get back?" He has no idea - they won't have a body to bury in Memorial Field, come to that - there won't be a headstone for Hal Wicks, either.

"We'll have a service of remembrance, and their names will be added to the memorial stone at the base of the Command Centre steps, I imagine." Malcolm muses, "That's what it's there for."

It's late now - too late to go laying flowers, as God knows what comes out at night in this region. Daylight is generally safe - but darkness is not, so they instead carry the distillate that Bram has prepared over to the tent where Taylor is being held. In itself, it won't be a miracle cure - but it should stop things getting worse, and give his brain time to recover. Hopefully he might have regained some control by the morning.

"Do you think he'll accept this?" Malcolm asks, as Pauline regards the vial a little uncertainly.

"He's coming round, so there's only one way to find out. I'll dilute this in some water, so he won't realise what it is and try to spit it out. When he's been conscious, he's been very paranoid."

Behind her, he can see the Commander stirring as the grip of the sedatives wear off. His wrist is still cuffed to the crate - it's just too dangerous not to do it at the moment - and it's actually quite frightening to see the man who is, essentially, the father figure of their community in such straitened circumstances.

"Need a drink…" he mumbles, vaguely, as he emerges from the drugged fog, "Wash - where've you put the water bottle, I'm parched."

Paula hastily tips the distillate into a water-caddy, "Lieutenant Washington's on watch at the moment, Commander. She left this for you."

The link to the long-dead Lieutenant grants a degree of trust that no one else can muster, and Taylor gulps the contents down without comment. "Gah," he says once it's gone, "She's used too much iodine again."

He's still too drowsy to have noticed that he's been immobilised, but it won't stay that way, so Paula hastily tops up the sedative, and he's soon out again.

"Do you think it'll work?" Bram asks, nervously.

"No idea." Malcolm admits, "I suppose we'll only really begin to find out in the morning."