Quiet Invasion(69)

“Are you going to be able to get up all right?”

“I’ll call if I can’t.”

He paused. “You having an artistic snit of some kind?”

“Probably. You’re in my way.”

“Excuse me.” Josh stepped back and wished he could run his hand through his hair. He just watched the still form lying on its back and staring at the ceiling, looking for all the world like an empty suit that had fallen over. Well, so much for the idea that you’d turn out to be the reasonable one.

Seeing nothing else to do, Josh crawled back through the tunnel to Chamber Two.

“Is Veronica all right?” asked Troy.

“She’s fine,” Josh assured them all as he straightened up. “She’s decided to pursue an independent investigation.”

Those few words satisfied everyone. Everybody knows how artistes are, thought Josh as he returned to Chamber Three. I wonder how much she trades on that?

He pushed the thought aside. Whatever Veronica wanted to do—as long as it didn’t actively involve killing herself, damaging equipment, or wrecking the site—didn’t really matter. He could still work. Every part of the laser had to be measured, labeled, gently sampled, and precisely cataloged and videoed. The work and the wonder of it all soon swallowed up thoughts of anything else.

Every so often, movement in Chamber Two caught his eye. Vee went back and forth between the main chamber and the antechamber three separate times. Once, she came into the laser chamber and just sat by the wall for a while. He ignored her. Eventually, she left.

At 14:00, his suit clock chimed. So, he knew, did everyone else’s, but he spoke into the intercom anyway. “That’s time, folks. We need to head back.”

“Another few minutes—” began Troy.

“We’ve got two weeks,” replied Josh. “You don’t want to run low on coolant out here, do you?”

That got them. All at once, everyone was ready to go. No doubt Derek had showed them the record of Deborah Pakkala, whose coolant circulation had failed on her, and how she had cooked to death in her suit before she reached the scarab, twenty meters away. Josh eyed the radio icons to flip over to the channel for Scarab Five. “Adrian, Kevin, we’re coming in.”

“Roger that, Josh,” came back Adrian’s voice. “We’ll be ready for you.”

Josh took a quick head count. All present, except for Vee.

“Vee?” called Josh over the public channel. “Time.”

“I heard” came her voice, clear, tight, and slightly bored, as it had been for the entire afternoon.

Shaking his head yet again, Josh led the way back through the tunnel. He shinnied over the rise and stopped. Vee’s suit, on its back again, blocked the tunnel.

“Vee,” he said, refusing to be surprised or angry. She would not take the wonder of this day from him. He would not let her.

“Right.” Using the tunnel walls as traction, she turned herself over onto her stomach and crawled out ahead of him.

Josh led the team up the ladder and across the rough, barren ground to the scarab. The airlock hatch stood open, waiting for them. They took their spots on the benches. Josh shut them inside and signaled Adrian. The outer hatch’s light blinked red as the depressurization started.

“So, Dr. Hatch,” began Troy conversationally. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

“Not yet.” She gave him a sunny, meaningless smile. “But as Josh said, we’ve got two whole weeks.”

“Two weeks,” said Julia less enthusiastically. “If it doesn’t kill us. I feel like I’ve been lifting weights for four solid hours.”

“It’s the pressure,” said Troy. “We’ll get used to it, I’m sure. Isn’t that right, Josh?”

Josh shrugged but then remembered his suit wouldn’t show the movement. “Not really, no, but you learn your limits and how to pace yourself.”

“Do you think you’ll ever get used to the idea you’re crawling around inside an alien artifact?” asked Terry.

Josh felt his mouth quirk up. “Is this on or off the record?”

Terry sighed exasperatedly. “Civilians. If the answer’s really good, I’ll ask to use it.”

“My God, an ethical feeder,” murmured Josh, and the remark earned him a round of laughter. “The answer is, no, I don’t think I’ll get used to it, and I don’t really want to get used to it. We are in the middle of the most incredible thing that’s ever happened and I never want to forget that.” He smiled. “Good enough to use?”

“Are you kidding?” said Terry. “The boss willing, I’m going to open with that.”