Page 19

Steph took some time to gather herself in her room. She grabbed her notebook and tried to put her thoughts down on paper. It was easier to make sense of them that way. It was a struggle. With so much crashing around the walls of her mind, she had expected everything to pour out. However, after nearly twenty minutes, she had written just two things and circled them repeatedly: ‘the territory is unnaturally small’ and ‘the project is everything to Kelvin’.

She wondered how this helped her. Did it help her? She got up and looked out of the window. She could see trees and not much else.

She sat back on the bed. Her aims, she supposed, had become somewhat multi-faceted. Her book research had been padded out with discovering what was going on in an insanely rich man’s ecological experiment asking how rewilded animals cope in Scotland, finding out how extinct hybrids mix with present-day species and whether humans could cope with it all? Some of those areas felt like they had obvious conclusions. Yet it was when scientists felt overconfident, that they generally made their biggest mistakes.

After a few hours of lying on the bed and letting her thoughts simmer until they were reduced to their strongest essence, Steph left the room. She was taken aback when she opened the door and saw Daniel. His fist was clenched and raised in a knocking motion. Steph stared at him. He stood frozen for a moment, then smiled.

“I was just coming to get you,” he said.

“So I can see,”

Steph replied. “Why?”

“Well, I know you need to try and work out what happened to Fergus, and I would like to come with you… rather than wait for Michael and Davey to get back…”

“Ah, I see,”

Steph said, allowing herself a small smile.

“Yeah, I just feel that maybe a bit of time without them to really look at things might be useful… you know.”

Steph suspected she did know. Daniel was playing with the bottom of his t-shirt, rolling it between his finger and thumb. She held out an ushering arm. Daniel smiled and led the way.

It was not long before the pair were in a buggy heading towards Fergus’s cabin. For the first time in a while, Steph had a tranquillizer rifle across her lap. She had used one a few years ago when working with a park ranger and a vet. It had been an odd experience then. She felt like a fraud holding one. It was the type of tool an individual who was actively engaged on the frontline of animal welfare might use, not some conspiracy theory flame feeder from Sheffield who was yet to really start the career her university degree suggested she should. She still considered herself a fraud now if she was honest. Even so, she was glad she was holding the tranquillizer rifle and not Daniel. As they drove, however, a thought suddenly struck her.

“How long will it take to develop another cave lion?”

she asked.

Daniel bit his bottom lip. For a moment Steph thought he was going to pretend he hadn’t heard but he eventually said,

“It is more a case of how far along the next specimen is.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, this might be where the environmental experiment takes place, so to speak – it is even where the first scientific steps take place in terms of embryos and all that stuff Martina does – but it’s not where the animals were raised.”

“No?”

“No. Kelvin has a private manor further north. To an outsider it might just seem like the private zoo of someone with too much money, but really it is a nursery for this. I went there once. Cool place. Of course, I went when the current crop of specimens was there: the bear and the lion – the other animals can generally be imported. I think they are working on backups. They were not really sure how they would all act once out together so needed spares.”

Steph grimaced.

“The idea is, of course, to do away with the nursery and eventually have mating pairs living out in the experimental enclosure.”

Steph nodded, allowing her head to process everything. It was interesting that nobody really used any consistent label for the fenced-off area where the animals ran wild. What was the real aim of the whole thing? Did Kelvin genuinely believe in rewilding and a drop in the human population? Did the others really share his vision?

“I suppose they will need that second cave lion soon,”

Steph said.

“Not too soon. She’s still a bit young to be out here.”

“Yes, but it will mean having to do without a cave lion here for a while and then reintroducing one which will upset the balance again… not that anything actually is balanced.”

Steph could see Daniel opening and closing his mouth in tiny movements, his eyes skittered around the road in front of him as if he were considering many different lines of conversation at once. In the end, he settled on one.

“Why would we be without one?”

“Because I assume the other will have to be put down; it has killed someone!”

Steph shrugged, holding the gun up, pointing it at a tree and then trying to keep the trunk at the end of the sight as the buggy drove past.

“I think you might underestimate the sway Martina might have over that decision,”

Daniel replied.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean it took her a while to get to where she is with her genetic experiments – as that’s what they are to her – so I’m not sure she will want to take backward steps.”

“But the police will demand that it’s destroyed!”

Steph said, bringing the tranquillizer rifle back in.

“They might, but don’t be too surprised if money finds its way into pockets and there is not a genetic sleight of hand… or some sleight of hand anyway.”

“But it will likely kill again!”

“It will try, I’m sure. We just need to take steps to prevent it having the opportunity. That is how Martina will lay it out to Kelvin… has laid it out to Kelvin. She has a lot of sway there.”

Daniel risked looking away from the path to give Steph a knowing look. She acknowledged there was a whole line of questioning there, but for now she was focused on one thing only.

“You cannot control nature!”

she said, shaking her head.

“We can take steps to direct it somewhat, but never control it. It is not how things work. People know that. All scientists know that! Like you said that lion will find a way to kill again. Especially if it thinks it has found a prey animal there is little competition for, namely, us.”

“So you’re saying we should kill it because it has killed someone?”

“Yes! To prevent further death!”

“Does your logic apply to people?”

Daniel asked.

“What?”

“Should a person be killed if they have killed once before? What about a person who kills animals? They usually kill again – hunters and such.”

“What’s your point? People and animals are completely different!”

“Seems like an odd thing for a biologist to say,”

Daniel shrugged; he was staying irritatingly calm.

Steph tried to say something but could only make a growling sound. Did he have a point? Was it odd that she had, as a default, elevated human life above animal life?

“But do you think it is right to risk the danger?”

Steph asked, trying to calm her voice.

“I dunno,”

Daniel replied quite honestly.

“I don’t pretend to know either. I think this whole thing raises all sorts of philosophical questions. Most people will pretend they know the answer and that their view is completely right. But I personally don’t know. In fact, I think nobody really knows because it isn’t black and white. As such, I just try and enjoy the opportunity that I have been given to be part of it. That is not to say that I want anyone harmed, only that things happen in life and, as you said, we cannot control everything.”

Steph wanted to reply, to say something insightful and highlight an angle that had been invisible to Daniel. She didn’t have one. She stayed quiet and pondered. She started trying to add a few more pieces to the puzzle in her head, building the picture of the place. However, she still had no idea what she thought about the little boy and his death. Was that where she drew the line? Was it the death of children because they hadn’t had a chance to make any decisions? Was the line children?