Philip Kerr - Esau

Cody glanced up from his book and caught sight of the electronic device in Boyd’s hands.

‘Jon? What is that you’re holding there?’ he asked.

Boyd took his eyes off the radiometer for only a second, but it was all the time Rebecca needed to snatch it away. She barked excitedly and, turning her back on Boyd, began to examine the radiometer with interest.

‘Damn it,’ scowled Boyd. Not that it really mattered. He had the answer to his question. He smiled at Cody. ‘She really does like shiny things, doesn’t she? A regular mockingbird.’

Cody got up from his chair and leaned toward the edge of the cage, trying to see exactly what it was that Rebecca had stolen.

‘What is that thing?’

Swift, leaving Jack’s bedside, walked tentatively toward the cage. Boyd was looking shifty and uncomfortable, as if he had just been caught doing something of which he was slightly ashamed.

‘Oh, it’s just a radiometer,’ he shrugged. ‘I wanted to take a base reading from us all, just in case the nukes do go off and I have to start checking everyone for radiation levels.’

‘That’s very noble of you,’ said Swift. ‘But I can’t say that I’ve noticed you checking anyone.’

‘Maybe not everyone.’

Swift pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows. Folding her arms defensively, she stood in front of Boyd and looked him squarely in the eye.

‘Or maybe not anyone.’

Boyd grinned at her and shook his head as if in pity. ‘Swifty. Really. Now why do you say that?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Just a feeling I have about you, Boyd. It’s the same feeling I get when I walk under a ladder.’

‘Do you have a suspicious mind? Every time it thinks something it wants to read you your rights first.’ Aware that everyone was watching him now, Boyd kept grinning, as if the persistence of his smile would prove his innocence. ‘Cabin fever,’ he added. ‘That’s what it is, cabin fever. The gold prospectors used to get it in the Yukon.’

‘C’mon, will you. Swift?’ said Jack, coming to Boyd’s aid. ‘Why are you riding him? What’s wrong with a little planning ahead? Boyd’s right. If the bombs do start going off, it would be useful to know if we ended up showing some signs of contamination.’

‘Isn’t it Boyd who’s always saying we’ll be safe up here?’ she returned. ‘So why the need for any reading at all?’

‘Speaking for myself,’ said Jutta, ‘I’d like to know if I was contaminated or not.’

‘Okay,’ said Swift. ‘So would I.’ She stared back at Boyd. ‘Tell us. What was the result? Of these checks you performed on us all? Sorry, on only some of us.’

Boyd glanced into the cage and saw that Rebecca had the radiometer in her mouth and was now chewing it gently. He shook his head.

‘It was nothing. I mean, hardly significant. Just the normal you’d expect from people who been at quite a high altitude.’ He grinned. ‘You know, we’re a lot nearer space up here. And space is radioactive.’

‘Hoo-hoooo-hoooo-hoooo!’

Deciding that she couldn’t eat it, Rebecca threw Boyd’s radiometer out of her cage. It spun across the floor of the clamshell toward Swift, colliding with her boot.

Swift bent down, retrieved the unit, wiped it free of Rebecca’s saliva, and then stood up, wearing a disbelieving smile.

‘Let’s just see now, shall we?’ She glanced at the radiometer. ‘A few toothmarks, but it seems undamaged. I think I know how to work one of these things. It’s kind of like a Geiger counter without the exciting science-fiction sound effects, isn’t it?’

Depressing the control button, she passed the radiometer over her own torso and then over Jack’s.

‘You’re right, Boyd. Nothing so far.’

Boyd watched her take a reading from everyone under the clamshell. There seemed no point in losing his temper over what she was doing.

Now she was checking Jutta, Warner, and then Jameson, and all the time shaking her head.

‘Swift, I think you’re being very insulting about this,’ Boyd said patiently.

She waved the unit in front of the sirdar, Mac and Jameson. ‘Guys, you’re clean too.’ Quickly she checked Boyd himself. ‘Now you, Boyd. No reading? Well, that’s a relief.’

‘It’s like I was saying,’ said Boyd. ‘It was just a precaution. A base reading. Like a control sample. Just to check the thing was working properly.’

Gently he tried to take the radiometer from her, but Swift was already pushing it through the bars of the squeeze cage.

‘Wait a minute, we can’t forget Rebecca, can we?’

This time the needle on the radiometer flickered.

‘What do you know? Rebecca seems to be giving off ionizing radiation. Only a small amount. Not much. But it’s there, all right. The question is why, when none of the rest of us is showing a reading? Perhaps you have a theory about that, Boyd?’

‘I really couldn’t say. Look, I only just remembered I had this little machine.’ Boyd was looking apologetic. ‘It’s like I say, I wanted to check us out. I just didn’t want to alarm anyone, that’s all. Radioactivity is a scary thing. People go funny around it. I should have explained what I was doing. I’m sorry.’

‘You know, it’s a pity this little machine can’t detect lies as easily as it picks up ionizations,’ said Swift. ‘Anywhere near your mouth and I bet it’d go right off the scale.’

‘Swift,’ protested Jameson.

‘He’s right, you know,’ said Boyd, his smile waning, and his face colouring a little. ‘You’re way out of line. You should hear yourself.’

‘Can I see that thing?’ asked Cody.

Swift handed him the radiometer.

‘Go ahead — check her yourself.’

Cody checked the radiometer against the luminous dial of his wrist-watch. The needle flickered slightly as he approached the squeeze cage.

‘Maybe it’s because Rebecca’s been more in the open air than the rest of us,’ Jameson offered by way of explanation. ‘I believe that granite is mildly radioactive.’

‘Boyd’s the geologist,’ said Swift. ‘Let’s ask him.’

‘That sounds like a reasonable hypothesis,’ agreed Boyd.

Rebecca stared at Cody and shifted slowly on her behind as he returned with the machine.

‘Hey, it’s okay, okay,’ he said to her soothingly.

‘You know, it’s a funny thing,’ said Swift. ‘The skull that Jack brought back to Berkeley? From a cave somewhere up on the rock face?’ She shrugged. ‘Professor Stewart Ray Sacher ran all kinds of tests on it in the lab. It wasn’t the least bit radioactive.’

Nodding and speaking gently, Cody pushed his own arm through the bars and took his own reading. Rebecca was nodding back at him.

‘Okay, it’s okay.’

‘Perhaps some kind of tektite field,’ said Warner. ‘Or a small uranium deposit.’

‘Again, another reasonable hypothesis,’ said Boyd.

‘So why lie about it?’

Boyd shook his head with exasperation. ‘Lie about what? For Christ’s sake. Jesus, what is going on with you, Swifty?’ He punched the palm of his hand. ‘Altitude sickness, that must be it. Maybe you should take something.’

‘Altitude sickness?’ Swift grinned. ‘Maybe that’s why I’m seeing Rebecca now. Wasn’t that your first theory to account for the yeti, Boyd? When we first arrived? And stop calling me Swifty.’

Next to the squeeze cage, Cody frowned as he seemed to see an expression of inquiry in Rebecca’s calm-looking face. The radiometer needle moved with greater speed than it had done next to his watch.

‘There’s no doubt about it,’ he said. ‘She’s showing a reading.’

Rebecca gave an excited bounce on her behind. She was puckering her lips.