They took one of the Land Rovers, up the sloping ramp and out into the world above. Reitze switched on the wipers; it was raining fast and there were splats of sleet on the windscreen. Good, this would put the outside experiments to the test. Winter had arrived virtually overnight.
They had less than a quarter of a mile to drive before they reached the compound. Once it had been a well-fenced paddock belonging to somebody who had kept ponies. So handy to the laboratory, so little adaptation needed. A reinforcement of barbed wire, the fenced extension a good 8 feet high, backed up with a double-strand electric fence. A locked gate was guarded by two soldiers. At the approach of the Land Rover they emerged from the shelter of their hut, kept their backs to the driving rain.
They knew Reitze, did not even ask for his pass. The Professor pulled the Land Rover off the track, climbed down, followed by Barnes.
'We need to examine the specimens,' he told the guard. 'One of you better come with us. The other can lock the gate after us.'
It was a routine precaution. The throwbacks had never shown violence, only fear of their hairless overlords, but when you were experimenting you never knew how things would turn out.
Barnes shivered, turned up the collar of his windcheater. This sleet was turning to snow. You felt the cold worse when you spent most of your life below ground in a centrally heated building. He wished he had put on an extra sweater.
They walked across the uneven ground, the soldier a couple of yards ahead of them, unslinging his rifle as they approached the dilapidated tin-sheet structure. At the moment there was no sign of life; the occupants of this compound would all be huddled inside that three-sided shelter with the open front. You couldn't blame 'em for that.
Surprise and fear, a dozen squat shapes leaping up from the piles of blankets on which they had been sitting or lying, huddling in the far corner, pressing against each other. They reminded Reitze of those cages of rats in the lab in Arizona. No matter how many times a day you went near them they always squealed and ran to a corner. Because they were intelligent enough to know that you were experimenting on them, that you didn't give a shit whether they lived or died so long as you got the results you were after.
Reitze stood in the wide doorway and regarded the throwbacks carefully, saw the fear in their faces. Totally demoralised, they had given up, maybe they were even willing themselves to die. His eyes narrowed. One of them was dead, the rest crowding and standing on the corpse, treading it into the muddy floor.
'We'd better take a look at that one,' he said, and moved forward a pace.
The captives huddled closer together, spilled away along the wall, crowded into the other corner. The Professor knelt down, had to extricate the body from the mud before he could roll it over. It was a girl, in her late 'teens or early twenties. She was stiff and cold, had probably died during the night.
'Pneumonia,' he said looking up at Barnes, 'but you'll have to take some tests. We can send over for the body later. In the meantime we'd better check the others.'
Jt wasn't easy because they kept backing away, furtively following the wall round, only the soldier at the entrance preventing them from fleeing out into the open. Outside the sleet had turned to pure snow, the paddock beginning to whiten over already.
The throwbacks bunched and suddenly one of them fell, a young man toppling forward on to his face, hitting the ground with a thud and lying still. The rest trampled on him in their haste to keep their distance from their captors.
Reitze let them go, he was only interested in the unconscious one. He knelt down and Barnes helped him to roll the body over. The man was still breathing, shallow breaths that might peter out at any second. His bearded face was flushed, the flesh hot with a high temperature.
'What is it?' Barnes whispered, lifted one of the unconscious man's eyelids, let it slip back.
'A fever.' Reitze's voice was tense, suddenly that dull monotone gone. 'We'd better get him back for checks.' Not for attention, for checks. Because it looks interesting.
Between the two of them they lifted the sick man. Reitze supporting the head and shoulders, Barnes taking the legs. The soldier was eyeing the rest of the throwbacks, rifle barrel half-raised. They were scared to hell and there was no knowing what they might do if they panicked. You couldn't say to them, 'This man's sick, we're taking him for treatment.' You were taking one of their kind away to harm him and they were incapable of understanding anything beyond that. In a way they were right because the scientists didn't care whether he died, were only curious what he died of.
They loaded him unceremoniously into the back of the Land Rover, and Reitze took the wheel. It was snowing hard now, the ground slippery with white slush. If it kept up it could be deep by nightfall. The Professor engaged four-wheel drive and even then the wheels slipped a little, the vehicle slewing then righting itself.
'That bunch are in a bad way.' Barnes watched the wipers building up a block of packed snow on the windscreen. They can't stand the winter. They'll all be dead by the end of the week if we don't do something.'
'Like what?' There was a touch of sarcasm in Reitze's reply.
'House 'em better.'
They're undergoing tests. It would be defeating the object.'
They'll all die. You can see that for yourself.' Then so will the thousands, millions, living in the wild. We can't do anything about them.'
Neither of them spoke again until they arrived back at HQ. Reitze called two assistants, had them stretcher the 'patient' up to the end lab, the closed one with the operating table in it. Newman was in there, his features serious when he saw the newcomer.
'Christ, what's the matter with him?' he snapped. He had already done post-mortems on Reitze's victims from the freezer block. Exposure. This was something different, though. Even a layman could tell that.
'I'll have to leave you to it.' Reitze made for the door. 'I've got a meeting in ten minutes. Check this guy out thoroughly.'
'He needs a heavy dose of antibiotics.' 'No!' Reitze whirled, his cheeks flushed slightly. 'You'll fuck the whole experiment up if you start pumping drugs into him. Do all the usual tests first. Ed will help you.'
Newman checked a retort. If they didn't do something drastic quickly this fellow could die. It wasn't just exposure he was suffering from and that was what worried him. I'll have a report ready in an hour,' he said tight-lipped. Reitze closed the door behind him. Suddenly they weren't making any headway at all and Caldecott and Rankine were going to ask an awful lot of questions.
'You mean that tough as they seem they can't stand exposure to the elements!' The Prime Minister was incredulous. 'My God, and our security forces have driven thousands of them out of the towns into the hills and woods!'
Reitze got the impression he was supposed to say something. I'm sorry, I should have told you before that they would not be able to withstand the cold. Perhaps we can round them up again. It's too fucking late because it's blizzarding out there now. He said nothing, just waited. Put the ball in their court.
'Are you absolutely sure they're not resilient?' Rankine was clutching at straws. 'I mean . . . you could be wrong . . . couldn't you.'
Reitze hoped his contempt for them didn't show. You lot ballsed it up. You wouldn't wait for my tests. Drive 'em out of the towns into the wilds, get rid of 'em. We don't mean 'em any harm because they are our people; we just don't want 'em around. Now you're shitting yourselves because you might've got rid of 'em for good. Please help us. Professor, or else we'll blame you.