“You sound like a brochure.”
She drew back. “Why? You think I’m too wrinkled and cynical to recognize something genuinely awesome when I see it?”
“I didn’t mean that. I—”
“For what it’s worth, you caught me in a moment of sincerity.”
“Elaine, I’m just not in the mood for a lecture.”
“Well, I didn’t really think you were in the mood for it. Okay, Chris. Do what you think is best.” She waved at his plate. “Eat that poor assaulted fish.”
“A tent,” he said. “The Gobi Plateau.”
“Well, sort of a tent. An inflatable habitat airdropped from Beijing. Rechargeable fuel cells, heat at night, all the satellite channels.”
“Just like Roy Chapman Andrews?”
“Hey,” she said. “I’m a journalist, not a martyr.”
Five
To Marguerite’s dismay, and Tessa’s grave disappointment, video and download reception did not improve over the weekend. Nor was it possible to put a call or net connection through beyond the fenced perimeter of Blind Lake.
Marguerite assumed this was some new incarnation of Blind Lake’s elaborate security protocols. There had been several such shutdowns back at Crossbank during the time Marguerite had worked there. Most had lasted only a few hours, though one such occasion (an unauthorized overflight that turned out to be nothing more than a private pilot who’d burned out both his nav chips and his transponders) had created a minor scandal and sealed the security perimeter for nearly a week.
Here at Blind Lake the shutdown was, at least for Marguerite, not much of an inconvenience, at least so far. She hadn’t planned to go anywhere, and there was nobody on the outside to whom she urgently needed to speak. Her father lived in Ohio and called her every Saturday, but he was savvy about security issues and wouldn’t worry unduly when he couldn’t get hold of her. It was a problem for Tessa, however.