The Girl with All the Gifts

52

Rosalind Franklin seems to thrill Dr Caldwell and Sergeant Parks, no doubt for different reasons, but Helen Justineau’s first impressions are negative. It’s cold as hell, it echoes like a tomb, and it smells like embalming fluid. And she can see from Melanie’s face that Melanie is even less enthusiastic.

Of course, they’ve both got recent and unhappy memories of laboratories, especially laboratories with Caroline Caldwell in them. And that’s what Rosie, as Caldwell calls this thing, really is – a lab on wheels. Only it’s got sleeping berths and a kitchen, so it’s also a gigantic motor home. And it’s got flame-throwers and turret guns, so it’s also a tank. There’s something for everyone.

In fact, it’s almost big enough to cross time zones. The lab is amidships and takes up nearly half the available space. In front of it and behind it there are weapons stations where two gunners can stand back to back and look out to either side of the vehicle through slit windows like the embrasures in a medieval castle. Each of these stations can be sealed off from the lab by a bulkhead door. Further aft, there’s something like an engine room. Forward, there are crew quarters, with a dozen wall-mounted cot beds and two chemical toilets, the kitchen space, and then the cockpit, which has a pedestal gun of the same calibre as the Humvee’s and about as many controls as a passenger jet.

Justineau and Melanie stand in the forward weapons station and watch the activity around them, momentarily disconnected from it.

Caldwell is checking equipment in the lab space. She’s got a manifest in her hand – it was on the wall of the lab, closest to the door – and she’s using it to find specific pieces of equipment, which she then checks for damage. Her expression is rapt, furiously intense. She seems completely oblivious of everyone else’s presence.

Parks and Gallagher have gone forward, past the crew quarters, into the cockpit. They’re wrestling with something there – presumably the body Parks mentioned. After a while, they carry it through, wrapped in a blanket. It trails a complex raft of unpleasant smells, but they’re mercifully old and faint.

“Forward doors are locked,” Parks grunts. “Can’t open them without power, it looks like. And power’s what we haven’t got.”

They take it out through the midsection door, which is the one they came in through. Justineau notes that there’s a complicated arrangement of steel armatures and plastic sheets on the inside of the door. She suspects that what she’s looking at is a foldaway airlock. In a cupboard right next to it she finds six sealed environment suits, the helmets huge and cylindrical with a narrow visor, like the heads of robots in a 1950s movie. The people who designed this thing really did think of everything.

But apparently that didn’t help the people who rode in it.

Justineau puts a hand on Melanie’s arm, and Melanie jumps almost a foot into the air. The extreme reaction makes Justineau start back in her turn.

“Sorry,” she says.

“It’s all right,” Melanie mutters, looking up at her. The girl’s blue eyes are wide and fathomless. Normally her emotions are all on the surface, but now, underneath the nerves and the general unhappiness, there are depths that Justineau doesn’t know how to interpret.

“We probably won’t stay here long,” she reassures the girl.

But she hears the hollowness in the words. She doesn’t know.

When Parks and Gallagher come back, they talk with Dr Caldwell in hushed, quick tones. Then Gallagher goes into the crew quarters, while Parks walks all the way through to the back of the vehicle.

Curious, Justineau follows him to the engine room.

Where Parks is taking the inspection plate off what looks like a sizeable electrical generator. He prods around inside it for a while, looking thoughtful. Then he starts opening the lockers on the walls, one at a time, and inspecting their contents. The first one has got about a thousand tools in it, neatly mounted in racks. The next contains spools of wire, metal components wrapped in greased muslin, boxes of various sizes bearing long index numbers. The third has manuals, which Parks flicks through with frowning concentration.

“You thinking you can get this working again?” Justineau asks him.

“Maybe,” Parks says. “It’s not like I’m an expert, but I can probably make shift. They’ve written these fix-it books for idiots. I can read idiot well enough.”

“Might take a while.”

“Probably. But Christ, this thing’s got more firepower than most armies. Hundred-and-fifty-five-millimetre field guns. Flame-throwers. It’s got to be worth trying, right?”

Justineau turns, intending to tell Melanie that they might be staying here longer than expected – but Melanie is already there, standing right behind her.

“I need to talk to Sergeant Parks,” she says.

Parks looks up from the manuals, his face impassive. “We got something to talk about?” he demands.

“Yes,” Melanie says. She turns to Justineau again. “In private.”

It takes a moment for Justineau to realise that she’s been dismissed. “Okay,” she says, trying to sound indifferent. “I’ll go help Gallagher do whatever he’s doing.”

She leaves them to it. She can’t imagine what Melanie might have to say to Parks that she doesn’t want an audience for, and that uncertainty translates very readily into unease. Parks may have become relaxed about the leash, but Justineau knows he still sees Melanie essentially as a smart but dangerous animal – all the more dangerous for being smart. She needs to watch what she says around him, as much as what she does. She needs Justineau watching her back, constantly.

Gallagher is doing more or less the same thing that Dr Caldwell is doing, which is inventorying supplies – but he’s doing it in the crew quarters, and he’s already finishing up when Justineau gets there. He shows her the last cupboard he opened. It contains a CD player and two racks of music CDs. Justineau feels memories prickle into stereophonic life as she scans the titles, which are – to say the least – an eclectic mix. Simon and Garfunkel. The Beatles. Pink Floyd. Frank Zappa. Fairport Convention. The Spinners. Fleetwood Mac. 10CC. Eurythmics. Madness. Queen. The Strokes. Snoop Dogg. The Spice Girls.

“You ever hear any of this stuff?” Justineau asks Gallagher.

“A little bit here and there,” he tells her, wistfulness in his voice. The only sound system on the base was the one hooked up to the cell block, that played wall-to-wall classical. One or two of the base personnel had digital music players and hand-operated chargers that worked by turning a wheel, but these priceless heirlooms were obsessively guarded by their owners.

“You think there’s any way we can play them?” Gallagher asks now.

Justineau has no idea. “If Parks gets the generator going, this thing will probably go live at the same time everything else does. It’s been shielded from the weather in here – apart from temperature changes. There certainly isn’t any damp, which would have been the worst thing. If the fuse didn’t blow and the circuit boards are sound, there’s no reason why it wouldn’t play. Don’t get your hopes up too high, Private, but you might get dinner and a show tonight.”

Gallagher looks suddenly cast down. “I don’t think so,” he says glumly.

“How come?”

He opens his empty hands in a wide shrug, indicating all the cupboards he’s already opened and searched.

“No dinner.”