“What are your earliest memories?”
“Did you have a happy childhood?”
All of the usual, boring questions, and her terse answers boring, too, in a way. But, after that, the more interesting ones.
“Do you ever have violent thoughts or tendencies?” you ask.
“What do you consider a violent act?” she replies. An attempt to evade, or genuine interest? You’d bet on the former.
“Harm toward other people or animals. Extreme property damage, like arson.” The Realtor at Star Lanes has dozens of stories about violence against houses, relates them all with an edge to her voice. The biologist would probably classify the Realtor as an alien species.
“People are animals.”
“Harm toward animals, then?”
“Only toward human animals.”
She’s trying to entangle you or provoke you, but the usual cross-referencing and analysis of intel turned up something interesting, something you can’t confirm. While a grad student on the West Coast, she had worked as an intern at a forest ranger station in a national park. Her two years there had roughly coincided with a series of what some might call “tree-hugger terrorism.” In the worst case, three men had been badly beaten by “an assailant wearing a mask.” The motive, according to the police: “The victims had been tormenting an injured owl by poking at it with a stick and trying to light its wing on fire.” No suspect had ever been identified, no arrest made.
“What would you do if your fellow expedition members exhibited violent tendencies?”
“Whatever I had to.”
“Would that include killing someone?”
“If it came down to that, I would have to.”
“Even if it was me?”
“Especially if it was you. Because these questions are so tedious.”
“More tedious than your job working with plastics?”
That sobers her up. “I don’t plan on killing anyone. I’ve never killed anyone. I plan on taking samples. I plan on learning as much as I can and circumventing anyone who doesn’t follow the mission parameters.” That hard edge again, the shoulder turned in toward you, to block you out. If this were a boxing match, the shoulder would be followed by an uppercut or body shot.
“And what if you turn out to be the threat?”
The biologist laughs at that question, and gives you a stare so direct you have to look away.
“If I’m the threat, then I won’t be able to stop myself, will I? If I’m the threat, then I guess Area X has won.”
“What about your husband?”
“What about my husband? He’s dead.”
“Do you hope to find out what happened to him in Area X?”
“I hope to find Area X in Area X. I hope to be of use.”
“Isn’t that heartless?”
She leans forward, fixes you again with that gaze, and it’s a struggle to maintain your composure. But that’s okay—antagonism is okay. In fact, anything helps you that helps her reject whatever traces of corruption you might have picked up, that might have adhered to you all unknowing.
She says, “It’s a fallacy for you, a total stranger, to project onto me the motives and emotions you think are appropriate. To think you can get inside my head.”
You can’t share with her that the other candidates have been easy to read. The surveyor will be the meat-and-potatoes backbone of the expedition, without a trace of passive-aggressiveness. The anthropologist will provide empathy and nuance, although you’re not sure whether her need to prove herself is a plus or a minus. She’ll push herself further, harder because of that, but what will Area X think of that? The linguist talks too much, has too little introspection, but is a recruit from within the Southern Reach and has demonstrated absolute loyalty on more than occasion. Lowry’s favorite, with all that entails.
Before the interview, you met with Whitby, who had rallied for this discussion, in your office, amid the increasing clutter. It was the biologist you talked about the most, the importance of keeping her paranoid and isolated and antisocial, how there’s a shift in the biochemistry of the brain, naturally arrived at, that might be what Lowry’s secret experiments are trying to induce artificially—and since her husband has already gone to Area X, “been read by it,” this represents a unique opportunity “metrics-wise” because of “that connection,” because “it’s never happened before.” That, in a sense, the biologist had forged a relationship with Area X before ever setting foot there. It might lead to what Whitby calls “a terroir precognition.”
An expedition into Area X with the biologist would be different than with Whitby. You wouldn’t lead, except in the way at the store as a teenager you sometimes walked ahead of your dad so you wouldn’t seem to be with him, but always with a look back at him, to see where he was going.