Transmission

A man with a thick Scandinavian accent answered. “Because it is our winch, and our director doesn’t want us helping others to get to the… object first.”

“But that’s stupid,” Kevin said.

“Kevin,” his mother said, catching up. “All of these people are very clever. They probably all have PhDs.”

“They’re still being stupid,” Kevin said, and he was surprised to find them looking at him rather than just ignoring him. They knew who he was, he realized, and they seemed to be looking at him as if waiting for him to decide what to do.

“Why don’t you just work together?” he asked.

“I told you,” the man who’d spoken before said. “We can’t let them use our winch until—”

“Not the winch,” Kevin said. “The whole thing. The aliens sent their escape capsule to this planet, not to one country, so why don’t we work together to find it?”

“And see it taken back to America?” one of those there asked.

“Well, we could find somewhere else,” Kevin suggested. “Somewhere we could all look at it.”

The men were quiet for a few moments as they started to think. One took out a map.

“There’s a UN facility a few miles from Bogota,” he said.

Another nodded. “I’ve done some work there on newly discovered plants. It has good facilities.”

“Our bosses might still want to argue,” the first said, a little uncertainly.

Kevin had an answer to that. “Then they can argue while we’re all opening the alien escape capsule.”

When he put it like that, the others didn’t seem to want to argue anymore. Instead, they started to connect up the winch, the researchers who had been standing around moving in to shift the truck from where it had toppled.

“Well done,” Ted said as Kevin returned to him. “Not many people could have talked them into working together.”

Kevin shrugged. It had seemed like the obvious thing to do.

“What is all this?” Professor Brewster asked. “What’s going on? Why are they moving again?”

“We’re going to go find the escape capsule together,” Kevin’s mother explained.

“But no one authorized that,” Professor Brewster said. “I didn’t authorize that.”

“But it means that we’re moving,” Kevin’s mother said. “Is it so wrong that we’re working together?”

“No,” Professor Brewster said. Kevin guessed that he was just a bit surprised not to be the one making the decisions for once. “I suppose not. But this doesn’t mean that I trust them. When it comes to the cut and thrust of academic debate, I wouldn’t trust those Canadians as far as I could throw them. Be on your guard, all of you.”

He walked off, calling out orders to their people, and to some of the other groups as well. Kevin wondered if anyone was paying attention. He looked over to Ted.

“Should we be suspicious of the others?” he asked.

The former soldier shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. Sometimes you work with people and you don’t know what they’re going to do down the road. For the moment, only one thing matters.”

“We’re going to find the capsule,” Kevin said.

Ted nodded. “We’re going to find the capsule.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Kevin had never been in a jungle before, but it was nothing like he’d seen on TV. There, jungles were just a few palm leaves in the background, with plenty of space for people to run and fight, and they moved quickly. In the real thing, plant life pressed in on all sides, with only a few tracks worn by animals, and soldiers having to hack a route for them as they got deeper into it.

They didn’t show the rain either. That came down as they walked, steadily soaking their whole party in bursts that seemed to fill the whole world beneath the canopy.

“Is it always like this?” Professor Brewster called out.

One of the guides shrugged. “It is called a rainforest for a reason, sir.”

Kevin wasn’t sure how quickly they were moving, but it didn’t feel that quick. He’d assumed that, as ill as he was, he wouldn’t be able to keep up with the rest. Instead, he trekked along with them, the slowest of the scientists moving far slower than he did. Maybe it didn’t help that half of them wanted to stop every few hundred yards to take samples of insect life or unusual plants.

“They can’t help themselves,” Ted said. He kept pace with Kevin, never more than a few yards from his side, as if afraid that going further would mean losing him in the jungle. “Cleverest people you’ll ever meet, but it just means that a place like this is too full of potential discoveries. They think about being the one who spots a new species of butterfly, or finds a substance that will cure cancer, and they forget about how big the thing we’re here to do is. All they can think about is how full of life the jungle is.”