Colony by Benjamin Cross (ready player one ebook .TXT) 📗

“Well, does she know how you feel?”

“What, that I’m sweet on her? She ought to.” Peterson eased himself up into a sitting position. “You know that was a load of bullshit she sold you just now, right? About dropping things and knocking me into tables and everything.”

“It did sound a little far-fetched,” Callum replied. “So what’s the real story?”

“The real story is she dropped something in that room alright, but it sure as hell wasn’t her fossils!” He looked away and lowered his voice once more. “We were… you know… messing around.”

It was the first time that Callum had seen the man look genuinely embarrassed. His face was pale, and he looked as if he might just up and flee the room at any moment.

“It all got a bit heated,” Peterson continued. “I was hoisting her up and then I felt something crack. Truth is, I dropped her on her ass and upset her tray of whoosits trying to pick her back up. I thought she was plain gonna kill me.”

“Did nobody ever tell you love hurts?”

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up,” Peterson sneered. “But seriously, do you think I’m talking crazy? Come on, this is important. I thought it might be… well, I figured it might just be the real thing.”

“I’m not the best person to ask about this sort of stuff,” Callum replied. “I managed to screw up my own marriage and then I managed to screw up my relationship with my son, the two people I was supposed to love. So my track record’s not exactly great.”

There was a long silence before Peterson said, “You’re a straight shooter, McJones. I could tell that about you when we first met. Truth is, that’s why I’m interested in your opinion. I can be sure it’s an honest one, see?”

“Well, if it’s my honest opinion you want, Dan, then yes, I think you’re talking crazy.” He watched as Peterson’s smile melted. “But I suppose that can only mean one thing.”

“That I’m a lovesick fool?”

Callum cleared his throat and assumed his broadest Scottish accent. “But t’see her was t’love her, love but her and love forever. Robbie Burns.”

Peterson reached for the painkillers. “Now there’s an opinion I can trust.”

3

“What’s the password?”

“Great white shark! What’s yours?”

“Hmm…” Callum scratched his head and pretended not to know.

“Clone!” Jamie shouted.

“Whoa, hang on! I’m an old man, my memory’s not as good as yours. What are you? Fifteen? Sixteen?”

Jamie laughed. “I’m eight, Dad!”

“Ah, so you do think it’s me?”

“No, I don’t! One more go or you’re a clone.”

“Well, in that case…” Callum drew himself up and did his best Arnold Schwarzenegger impression. “Hasta la vista, baby!”

Jamie repeated it as usual, then said, “Okay, it’s you.”

Callum looked over to see the comms assistant smiling at him, and he smiled back. The man’s name was Gavriil, and he had the names of his own two children tattooed on the back of his knuckles in a thick black Cyrillic font: Антон and Наталья. Anton, aged six, and Natalya, aged twelve. Over the last couple of weeks the two men had got to know each other. No matter how tired or disheartened Callum had been after the day’s survey, he had made certain to speak to Jamie every evening before dinner, making him practically part of the furniture in the comms centre. Gavriil spoke only broken English, but the language barrier had barely been an issue, because they both spoke a shared second language: that of the remorseful absentee father. As the days ticked by, Gavriil’s interest in offering assistance on behalf of the company had quickly transformed into the concern of one struggling father for another.

Gavriil looked around. With no-one else in the room, he nodded at Callum and then stepped outside to allow them their privacy.

“Got something for you.”

Jamie’s eyes lit up. “What is it?”

Callum held the fossilised tooth up to the webcam. “Dinosaur tooth.”

“Whoa! A real one?”

“Sure is. I had to swap him one of mine. Look.” He opened his mouth wide and pointed to his wisdom tooth gap.

Jamie laughed. “Is it from a T-Rex?”

“No, it’s from a…” he racked his brain, “…a Troodon. But they were meaner than any old T-Rex.”

“When can I have it?”

“Not long. I’ll keep it safe for you until I get back.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

They talked about school for a while – one of Jamie’s poems had been put up on the classroom wall, which was great, but Fraser had called him a dicknose again, which was not so great – then Callum leant forward and whispered, “Want to hear a secret?”

Jamie nodded.

“I found something cool.”

“What?”

“A mummy.”

“What? Like an Egyptian? We did Egyptians last year with Miss Summers.”

Callum smiled. “Not quite. This is an ice mummy. A frozen man.”

“Is he dead?” Jamie asked, his nose wrinkled with curiosity.

“For a long, long time.” Callum checked the doorway behind Jamie’s shoulder to make sure that Moira wasn’t listening in. He could hear her voice clearly inside his head: Don’t you fill his mind full of horrid things before bed, he’ll have nightmares and I’ll have to pick up the pieces, blah blah blah… He was nearly nine, for God’s sake, and there were worse things than mummies on the news.

“His name was Ngana’bta. You want to hear what happened to him?”

“Unga butter,” Jamie said.

“Close enough, son.”

After saying goodnight to Jamie, and showing him the dino tooth one last time, Callum made his way over to a phone terminal and rang Jonas. They had spoken a number of times since his arrival on the Albanov. But the conversations, though comforting, had always been a disappointment, as there had been nothing at all to report back. This time things were different. Not only did he have something to report, but it was something big, potentially massive.

As the dial tone started up, he couldn’t wait to hear the excitement in his friend’s voice. For somebody who had dedicated his entire life to archaeology, news of the ice mummy would be like a restorative shot in the arm for Jonas, and just