and bullet-shaped, with large wheels and thick vulcanised tyres designed for rough terrain. The driver was difficult to make out through the tinted windscreen, but was humanoid in shape. The car slowed and came to a halt right next to him, its metal flank only a few inches from where he stood. Its headlights pierced the darkness he’d been heading for, revealing a wire-mesh perimeter fence that he would have reached in another minute or two of walking.
‘Howdy.’
A female voice, with an American accent.
‘Hi,’ he replied.
‘Let me give you a ride back.’
It was the USIC woman who’d met him upon his arrival, the one who’d escorted him to his quarters and told him she was available if he needed anything. She opened the passenger door for him and waited, piano-playing her fingers on the steering wheel.
‘I’d been hoping to walk a little further, actually,’ said Peter. ‘Maybe meet some of the local . . . uh . . . people.’
‘We’ll do that after sunrise,’ the woman said. ‘The settlement is about fifty miles away. You’ll need a vehicle. Do you drive?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Have you discussed requisition of a vehicle?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘You don’t think so?’
‘Uh . . . my wife handled most of the practicalities with USIC. I don’t know if they covered that.’
There was a pause, then a good-natured laugh. ‘Please get in, or the air conditioning will get all messed up.’
He swung into the car and closed the door. The air was dry and cool, and immediately made him aware that he was drenched to the skin. His feet, relieved of the weight of his body, made a sucking sound inside his socks.
The woman was dressed in a white smock, thin white cotton slacks and a taupe headscarf that hung loose over her chest. Her face was bare of makeup, and she had a puckered scar on her forehead, just under the hairline. Her hair, a lustreless brown, was very short and she might have passed for a young male soldier were it not for her soft dark eyebrows, tiny ears and pretty mouth.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Peter. ‘I’ve forgotten your name. I was very tired . . . ’
‘Grainger,’ she said.
‘Grainger,’ he said.
‘Christian names aren’t a big thing among USIC employees, in case you haven’t noticed.’
‘I’ve noticed.’
‘It’s a bit like the army. Except we don’t harm people.’
‘I should hope not.’
She revved the engine and steered the car back towards the airport complex. As she drove, she leaned forward, frowning in concentration, and even though the inside of the cabin was poorly lit, he spotted the tell-tale edges of contact lenses on her eyeballs. Beatrice was a contact lens wearer: that’s how he knew.
‘Did you come out specially to fetch me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you watching my every move? Keeping tabs on my every half-muffin?’
The allusion was lost on her. ‘I just dropped by the mess hall, and one of the guys said you’d gone out walking.’
‘Does that worry you?’ He kept his tone light and amiable.
‘You’ve just arrived,’ she said, not taking her eyes off the wind-screen. ‘We wouldn’t want you to come to harm on your first foray out of doors.’
‘What about the disclaimer I signed? The one that emphasises in twelve different ways that USIC accepts no responsibility for anything that might happen to me?’
She seemed nettled by this. ‘That was a legalistic document written by paranoid lawyers who’ve never even been here. I’m a nice person and I’m here and I welcomed you off that ship and I said I would keep an eye out for you. So that’s what I’m doing.’
‘I appreciate that,’ he said.
‘I take an interest in people,’ she said. ‘Gets me in trouble sometimes.’
‘I’ll try not to get you in trouble,’ he said. The eerily lit cafeteria seemed to be moving towards them in the dark, as if it was another vehicle threatening a head-on collision. He wished he hadn’t been fetched back so soon. ‘I hope you understand that I didn’t come here to sit and read magazines in a cafeteria. I want to go and find the people of Oasis, wherever they are. I’ll probably live among them, if they’ll let me. So it may not be feasible for you to . . . uh . . . keep an eye out for me.’
She manoeuvred the vehicle into a garage; they’d arrived.
‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.’
‘I’m hoping to cross it pretty soon,’ he said, still maintaining a light tone. ‘As soon as possible. I don’t mean to be pushy, but . . . I’m going to be pushy. When are you available to drive me out of here?’
She switched off the engine, removed her small feet from the pedals. ‘Give me an hour to get things ready.’
‘Things?’
‘Food, mainly. You’ll have noticed that the mess hall isn’t serving right now.’
He nodded, and a ticklish trickle of sweat ran down his face. ‘I can’t really figure out how the day/night routine is supposed to work, if it’s dark for three days straight. I mean, right now, it’s officially night, yes?’
‘Yes, it’s night.’ She rubbed her eyes, but gingerly, so as not to dislodge the lenses.
‘So do you just let the clock decide when the days begin and end?’
‘Sure. It’s not much different than living in the Arctic Circle, I guess. You adjust your sleep pattern so that you’re awake when everybody else is.’
‘What about those guys in the mess hall right now?’
She shrugged. ‘Stanko’s scheduled to be there because he’s on night duty. The other guys . . . well, people get insomnia sometimes. Or they get all slept out.’
‘What about the people of Oasis – the . . . uh . . . natives? Are they asleep right now? I mean, should we wait until the sun comes up?’
She faced him with an unblinking, defensive stare. ‘I have no idea when they sleep. Or even if they sleep. To be straight with you, I know almost nothing about them, even though I probably know more than anyone here. They’re . . . kind of hard to get to know. I’m not sure they want to be known.’
He grinned. ‘Nevertheless . . . I’m here to know them.’
‘OK,’ she sighed. ‘It’s your call. But you look tired. Are you sure you’ve had enough rest?’
‘I’m fine. What about you?’
‘Fine also. Like I said, give me an hour. If, in that time, you change your mind and want to sleep some more, let me know.’
‘How would I do that?’
‘The Shoot. There’s a scroll-down menu behind the USIC icon. I’m on it.’
‘Glad to hear there’s one menu that’s got something on it.’ He meant it as a rueful comment on the mess hall, but as soon as the words left his mouth, he worried she might take them the wrong way.
She opened her door, he did the same on his side, and they stepped out into the moist swirling dark.
‘Any other advice?’ he called over the top of the vehicle.
‘Yes,’ she shot back. ‘Forget the denim jacket.’
The