Read Online Authority by Jeff VanderMeer - Free Book Online Page B

may be that one Event occurred to create Area X and then
     a second Event occurred to create the invisible border, but that—”
    “They aren’t related?” Control interrupted, incredulous.
    Cheney shook his head. “Well, only in that Event Two is almost certainly a reaction
     to Event One. But maybe someone else”—Control noted, once again, the reluctance to
     say “alien” or “some thing ”—“created the border.”
    “Which means,” Control said, “that it’s possible this second entity was trying to
     contain the fallout from Event One?”
    “Exactly,” Cheney said.
    Control again suppressed a strong impulse to just get up and leave, to walk out through
     the front doors and never come back.
    “And,” he said, drawing out the word, working through it, “what about the way into
     Area X, through the border? How did you create that?”
    Cheney frowned, gave his colleagues a helpless glance, then retreated into the X of
     his own face when none of them stepped into the breach. “We didn’t create that. We
     found it. One day, it was just … there.”
    An anger rose in Control then. In part because Grace’s initial briefing had been too
     vague, or he’d made too many assumptions. But mostly because the Southern Reach had
     sent expedition after expedition in through a door they hadn’t created, into God knew
     what—hoping that everything would be all right, that they would come home, that those
     white rabbits hadn’t just evaporated into their constituent atoms, possibly returned
     to their most primeval state in agonizing pain.
    “Entity One or Entity Two?” he asked Cheney, wishing there were some way the biologist
     could have sat in on this conversation, already thinking of new questions for her.
    “What?”
    “Which Event creator opened a door in the border, do you think?”
    Cheney shrugged. “Well, that’s impossible to say, I’m afraid. Because we don’t know
     if its main purpose was to let something in or to allow something out.”
    Or both. Or Cheney didn’t know what he was talking about.
    *   *   *
    Control caught up with the assistant director while navigating his way through one
     of the many corridors he hadn’t quite connected one to the other. He was trying to
     find HR to file paperwork but still couldn’t see the map of the building entire in
     his head and remained a little off-balance from the phone call with the Voice.
    The scraps of overheard conversation in the hallways didn’t help, pointing as they
     did to evidence for which he as yet had no context. “How deep do you think it goes
     down?” “No, I don’t recognize it. But I’m not an expert.” “Believe me or don’t believe
     me.” Grace didn’t help, either. As soon as he came up beside her, she began to crowd
     him, perhaps to make the point that she was as strong and tall as him. She smelled
     of some synthetic lavender perfume that made him stifle a sneeze.
    After fielding an inquiry about the visit with the scientists, Control turned and
     bore down on her before she could veer off. “Why didn’t you want the biologist on
     the twelfth expedition?”
    She stopped, put some space between them to look askance at him. Good—at least she
     was willing to engage.
    “What was on your mind back then? Why didn’t you want the biologist on that expedition?”
    Personnel were passing by them on either side. Grace lowered her voice, said, “She
     did not have the right qualifications. She had been fired from half a dozen jobs.
     She had some raw talent, some kind of spark, yes, but she was not qualified. Her husband’s
     position on the prior expedition—that compromised her, too.”
    “The director didn’t agree.”
    “How is Whitby working out, anyway?” she asked by way of reply, and he knew his expression
     had confirmed his source. Forgive me, Whitby, for giving you up. Yet this also told
     him Grace was concerned about Whitby talking to him. Did that mean Whitby was