‘Chama and I know our way around the M-group – remember that we’ve been taking an interest in Geoffrey’s work for years. We know the hierarchies, the bloodlines, and I can probably identify two dozen individuals by sight alone even though I’ve never been to Africa. You’ve never had much contact with them, have you?’
It felt like an admission of weakness, a duty she had shirked. ‘Virtually none.’
‘In which case we won’t risk direct contact. Leave that to your brother, for when he gets home. But we can at least monitor the M-group, and any other parties that take our interest. And – not inconsequentially – maintain enough of a presence to deter any researchers who feel like claim-jumping. Although I hope no one would be that irresponsible, given the very public reasons for your brother’s absence.’
‘I hope not.’
‘But human nature being what it is, we’d best take no chances. Will you be maintaining a physical presence in the area?’
‘For the time being.’ Which meant: until she had news from Geoffrey, good or bad. However long that took.
‘Chama had best not risk involvement, at least until his hundred-day lockdown expires, and there’s no reason for me to be there in person. But I can give you as much support as you need, for as long as you want it. That’s my promise, Sunday. If you feel we’ve wronged you, then I aim to do my small part in rectifying that. I may not succeed, but I’m prepared to give it a damned good try.’
‘Thank you,’ she said. And it was a heartfelt thanks, although it was only in this moment that she realised how much she had been counting on his help.
The airpod’s console chimed, pulling her back into its sensorium. She was nearing home.
PART THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY- SIX
When the hibernation casket brought him to consciousness, Geoffrey’s first intelligible thought was that there’d been a mistake; that something had gone wrong with the process and it must only have been minutes since the casket’s bioprobes had sunk their sterile fangs into his flesh and begun pumping his blood full of sedatives. It was a perfectly human response, after all. He had no memory of dreams, no sense of elapsed time. But it only took him a little longer to realise that matters were not as they had been when he entered the chamber. He was weightless, for one thing. They had been under thrust when he climbed in; now his body was at rest within the casket, cushioned against movement but otherwise floating, with the anxious feeling of falling in his belly.
A glass-mottled form drifted over him. His eyes tried to focus. They were bleary and the sudden intrusion of brightness and colour felt like a billion tiny needles pricking his retinas. He heard a clunk and felt cooler air touch his face. That was nice. The casket’s lid was sliding off him. The blurred form pushed itself closer and assumed the approximate proportions of a human woman.
‘Welcome back, sleepyhead.’
He grasped for her name. His memories weren’t where he’d left them. It was as if they’d been temporarily boxed away in an attic: still in his head, but poorly organised and labelled. Dimly, he began to realise that he might have been in the casket longer than his initial impressions had suggested.
‘Jumai?’ he managed.
‘Looks like we’ve got us a functioning central nervous system, at least.’ She hauled in closer still, fiddling with his restraints. ‘Hector was the first out. He’s been through this kind of thing dozens of times, so it was no biggie to him. I’ve been up about ten minutes. I think we’re all right, for the time being. The ship’s in one piece, and we’re . . . somewhere, I guess.’
Her words were arriving too quickly, like tennis balls spat out by a service machine. Geoffrey tried to formulate a question. ‘How long?’
‘How long have we been under? Fifty-one days, as far as Hector and I can tell, which is exactly what we dialled in at the start. It’s early May. Isn’t that weird? I skipped a whole birthday while we were out.’
Geoffrey winced as the bioprobes withdrew from his skin. He tried using his arms. They barely felt like a part of him. He had spent some of the Earth-Moon journey unconscious, but nothing about that had prepared him for the fifty-one days he’d been under while the ship took them wherever it was headed. Nonetheless, his arms responded, albeit sluggishly.
‘Muscle tone shot to shit,’Jumai said. ‘What happens when you spend seven weeks weightless. The engine must have cut off within a few hours of us going under; we’ve been coasting most of the way, except for the slowdown at the end.’
Systems in the casket would have done their best to prevent muscle wastage and loss of bone density, but Geoffrey knew nothing was as effective as simply moving around under plain old gravity.
He fumbled his way free of one of the restraints and began to drift out of the casket. Jumai arrested his motion with a gentle application of the palm of her hand. ‘Easy does it, soldier.’
‘We’ve stopped?’ he asked. ‘We’re still a day out, aren’t we?’
‘Ship must have shaved a little time off its estimate. As far as Hector and I can tell, we’ve reached our destination. He’s trying to verify that it’s the same place the ship said it was. I can tell you one thing already.’
‘Which is?’
‘Whatever shit we have to deal with out here, dying of sunstroke isn’t going to be part of it.’
Half an hour later, Geoffrey had made his aching and uncoordinated way up front to join Jumai and Hector in the command deck. All three were buckled into their seats, even though the ship was now floating at rest. They had not needed to provide further blood samples, and what limited control they had possessed before going into hibernation was still theirs. The ship was even willing to let Jumai access some of its top-level systems. She had assigned external views to two of the displays: one showing the view back towards the inner system, the other of the object they were now holding station from at twenty kilometres.
It was the view back home that chilled Geoffrey the most. It was one thing to be aware that they were now beyond the orbit of Neptune, well into the long light-hours on the solar system’s edge. Travel far enough, and that was what happened. It was another thing entirely actually to see how pitifully small and faint the sun now looked from this distance.
