“Lucas,” she said at last. Her own voice sounded strange after long silence.
Tappan, on the bunk beside her, didn’t answer.
“Lucas,” she said again. “I’ve been thinking.”
Then, turning to look at him, she stopped. The entrepreneur seemed frozen: staring ahead but not seeing, a faraway look in his eyes.
She reared back, cocked one fist, then hit him on the arm.
“Whoa!” he cried as he sat up, massaging his arm. “What was that for?”
“You were lost in thought. I needed to get your attention.”
He glowered at her, one half of his visage crusted with dried blood, looking as two-faced as Janus. “Well, you didn’t need to give me a hematoma in the process.”
“You can fire me later. Tell me: What have you been thinking about?”
He paused, still massaging his arm. “That this is my fault. I’ve been so blinded by our progress, and by my success throwing money at a problem until it goes away, that I didn’t see the warning signs.”
“What warning signs?”
“The early pushback that suddenly went away. The disappearance of Bitan.” Tappan shook his head. “The conspiracy theorists were right all along. There was a cover-up, even worse than anyone imagined. I should have expected a reaction like this.”
“Well, since we’re in the belly of the beast, we’d better figure out what we’re going to do.”
“Just what do you have in mind?”
“The colonel made us an offer. We need to consider it.” She then leaned over for a brief, affirming hug, then whispered ever so quietly in his ear: “They’re listening and watching, of course.”
Tappan nodded. He said, “I’m pretty sure he’s going to kill us, no matter what we do.”
“Maybe not.”
“Explain.”
“This organization operates way under the radar,” Nora said. She wondered if Tappan was going to understand and follow her lead in pretending to cooperate, to buy them some time.
“Yeah. They probably killed Bitan ‘under the radar,’ too.”
“The point is, they don’t go around announcing their presence. They don’t act hastily. We’ve been digging for, what, two weeks now? They must have been monitoring us the whole time. They only acted when their backs were against the wall, and we were about to make a shattering discovery. They’re cautious, methodical.”
Tappan shook his head vigorously. Nora persisted. “They’re not going to suddenly break profile and wipe us all out.”
“And you know this how?” Tappan waved a hand vaguely toward the cell door. “You’ve seen their reach. You’ve seen their resources. Sure—and once we’ve told Rush what we know, he’ll kill us.”
“I don’t think so. In some ways they’re as much in the dark as we are—about us, I mean, and how wide the circle of knowledge has grown. Remember that practically the colonel’s first question to you was: Who else knows about this? But he also said we could be valuable to his organization.”
“If he thinks I’m going to jump through hoops for him, after what he’s done, he can go fuck himself.”
Nora paused. She still wasn’t sure where Tappan was coming from. But a further whispered confab would be disastrous. Without doubt, they were being watched as well as listened to.
“We’re not going to jump through hoops. But we have to consider his offer.”
“Why?”
“Why?” Nora laughed. “Because it just might save the lives of others, that’s why! Think of it from Rush’s point of view. You own Icarus Space Systems and half the wind turbines in North America. You’ve got plenty of resources—in certain areas, I’ll bet more than they’ve got. That gives you leverage. And it gives Rush a huge incentive to recruit you.”
“I don’t sense any shortage of resources around here.”
“Hasn’t it struck you how huge this place is—yet how empty it seems?”
“Yeah. All their double-O agents are out, shooting everybody who knows or might know anything.”
Nora shook this away. “No. They’re clearly not the kind to go off half-cocked. Rush spoke of an organization at war. But where’s his army? I’m betting they had a much easier time getting recruits in 1947 than they do now. Think about it: countless soldiers recently demobilized from World War Two; the Cold War and its attendant paranoia ramping up; patriotism at an all-time high. Do you think it surprising almost all the sci-fi movies from that period featured evil, destructive aliens?” She paused. “Things are different today. Our fears have changed. But they haven’t.”