‘Now what’s she doing?’ said Cody.
‘If you ask me,’ said Jack, ‘she’s trying your diphthong.’
It was true. Rebecca’s blowing noise was starting to sound more like an ‘f’ sound.
‘You’re right,’ Swift said triumphantly. ‘She is.’
‘Ffffff-oooooo...’
‘I can hardly believe my ears,’ said Cody.
‘Food,’ said Swift. ‘That’s it.’
‘Fffff-oooo...’
‘C’mon, you can do it. Foo-oood.’
Rebecca started to nod again.
‘Fooo-ooo-dah! Foooo-oooo-dah!’
Swift clapped her hands excitedly, much to Rebecca’s obvious delight.
‘Good girl,’ said Swift.
‘Incredible,’ admitted Cody.
Swift glanced around anxiously at Mac, whose eye was still pressed close to the viewfinder of his video camera.
‘Mac? Tell me you’re getting this.’
‘Ffff-ooooo-dah.’
‘Every f-f-fuckin’ diphthong,’ he growled. ‘Whatever that might be.’
‘Foo-ooo-dah!’
‘Christ, it’s getting like bloody Oliver Twist in here.’
Swift kept on applauding.
‘Okay, that’s a good girl.’
‘Oh-keh! Oh-keh!’
‘It’s no accident she became a teacher,’ said Jack.
‘How about that?’ breathed Cody. ‘Rebecca has doubled her vocabulary in less than an hour. I just wish we had more time to study her. Maybe we can see how many words she can learn. Is the learning method vocal? Or is it facial? Swift, we have to have more time.’
‘Foo-ooo-dah!’
‘Good girl,’ said Swift. ‘You’re right, Byron. We need more time. Miles?’
Jameson shrugged.
‘Sure. But we can’t hold on to her forever. It wouldn’t be fair.’
‘Maybe we can find out why she’s radioactive, while we’re at it,’ said Swift.
Mac laughed. ‘Great idea. Go ahead and ask her.’
‘I meant—’ Swift frowned, then laughed. She was too excited to dispute with Mac. ‘You know what I meant. I meant that maybe we can find out why Boyd tried to bullshit us about it.’
‘Where is he anyway?’ said Mac.
‘He went back to the lodge,’ said Warner.
‘I’m not surprised,’ said Jutta. ‘You were rather hard on him. Swift.’
‘Foo-ooo-dah! Oh-keh!’
‘It would seem that Rebecca is already demonstrating a readiness to master the basic elements of syntax,’ said Cody.
‘If Boyd can master it, then I’m sure Rebecca can,’ said Swift.
Jack laughed out loud and then hugged his ribs with regret.
‘Don’t. It hurts when I laugh.’
‘I’d still like to know why he lied about this whole radioactive thing.’
‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ Jack said painfully. ‘And I’ve just remembered something. Something that might just explain it.’
HUSTLER. I WAS RIGHT. THE YETI CAN HELP US. I BELIEVE WE ARE GETTING VERY CLOSE NOW. BUT AT THE SAME TIME WE NOW HAVE A SERIOUS PROBLEM HERE. A CONFLICT-OF-INTEREST SITUATION WHICH I ASSUME YOU WOULD WANT RESOLVED IN OUR FAVOUR. I WAS AFRAID SOMETHING LIKE THIS MIGHT OCCUR. FOR THE SAKE OF MY MISSION AND THE NATIONAL SECURITY OF THE UNITED STATES, I HAVE NOW CONCLUDED THAT MY COLLEAGUES HERE IN THE SANCTUARY MAY HAVE BECOME EXPENDABLE. BELIEVE ME, I’VE TRIED TO BE ACCOMMODATING, BUT I CAN ONLY GO SO FAR. NATURALLY I’LL TRY TO LIMIT THE DAMAGE, BUT IT SEEMS CLEAR NOW THAT THEY WILL OPPOSE ME AND THAT I WILL HAVE TO MAKE AN EXAMPLE OF ONE OF THEM. POUR ENCOURAGER LES AUTRES. CASTORP.
‘Just before Rebecca’s team leader attacked me, I found something on the forest floor. Really I only got half a look at it, and then the attack put it right out of my mind until now. You see, I have some solar panels on the roof of my house back in Danville. Well, this thing I found on the forest floor looked just like a piece of one of those solar panels. I remember wondering if it could have come off my SCE suit when I got clipped the first time. Only it couldn’t have. It was too big and flat.’
‘So if it didn’t come off your suit, then what did it come off?’ asked Swift.
‘Not someone else’s roof, that’s for sure,’ said Cody.
Jack rubbed his jaw thoughtfully as something else seemed to occur to him now.
‘Actually, I figure that whatever it was must have landed there,’ said Jack.
‘Landed there?’ said Mac. ‘You mean like a bloody spaceship?’
‘Yes. Why not? Just before the avalanche that killed Didier, we both believed that we heard something in the sky. We thought it must have been a meteorite. But meteorites aren’t the only flying objects that fall to Earth. And they’re certainly not solar-powered. It just came to me, just now. It must have been some kind of satellite. Perhaps even a military one. You know, like a spy satellite. At the very least some kind of satellite that might be important enough to retrieve. That would explain how we suddenly got the funding for the whole expedition when the National Geographic Society had already turned us down. Of course — that’s why Boyd is here. He’s their man. That’s their angle. His job must be to retrieve this satellite.’
‘Whose man?’ asked Warner. ‘Who are we talking about?’
‘The CIA.’
‘Oh, come on. Jack. We’re getting a little carried away here, aren’t we?’ said Warner.
‘No, it all makes perfect sense.’ He looked around uncomfortably. ‘You’re sure he’s in his lodge?’
Jutta nodded.
‘But I don’t understand why a satellite would cause Rebecca to be mildly radioactive,’ she said.
‘Well, I’m no space engineer, but I do know that with some satellites, solar cells are only half the story. There has to be some kind of secondary power source, for when the satellite is eclipsed by the earth. Especially one that includes the two poles. The power necessary for one of these is quite considerable. I dunno. Some kind of nuclear reactor perhaps.’
‘Not by Uncle Sam,’ said Warner. ‘We don’t build that kind of satellite. Not these days. We’re environmentally friendly since Skylab fell to Earth back in 1979. Besides, then you wouldn’t need the solar panels. No, I expect it’s probably some kind of thermonuclear generator, perhaps heated by a small radioisotope. It needn’t be any bigger than the kind of thing you’d get in an X-ray machine. I’d have thought that would be more than enough to give Rebecca a reading.’
‘Especially if she handled it,’ added Cody. ‘We know she likes shiny objects. She’s got Didier’s ring, right?’
‘Look, there’s an easy way we can check my theory,’ said Jack. ‘The gloves I was wearing when you carried me back in here. Does anyone know where they are?’
The sirdar walked over to a pile of discarded clothing heaped at the edge of the clamshell.
‘They are here, Jack sahib.’ He rummaged in the pile and then held the gloves aloft triumphantly.
‘Of course, I only had my hand on it for a moment or two.’
Jack took the right-hand glove, with which he had handled the shard of solar panel, and put it on.
‘Give me a reading on that thing, will you, Byron?’
Cody picked up the radiometer and held it over the glove. The needle moved.
‘It’s reading,’ said Cody. ‘The same reading I got on Rebecca.’
‘Q.E.D.,’ said Jack. He took off the glove and threw it back with the rest of the suit.
‘So what do we do here?’ said Mac.
‘I don’t know,’ said Jack.
‘Why don’t we ask him about it?’ said Jutta. ‘Boyd, I mean. When he comes back here.’
‘Okay,’ said Swift, searching the faces of her colleagues. ‘Are we all agreed? We’ll ask him when he gets back in here.’
‘Heee-rrrr,’ said Rebecca, breaking the tension.