An hour later, Susan set off in one of the hab-rovers to take the dead and injured back to New Philadelphia. The three soldiers who hadn't been killed instantly by Joe Badger were expected to survive so long as they got prompt medical treatment, but that left only two soldiers uninjured and they knew they'd be expected to remain at LaSalle, to keep an eye on the New Londoners. They let Susan drive the rover, therefore, confident that she wouldn't do anything stupid so long as they had her husband as a hostage.

     For the rest of the day Philip was almost catatonic with shock and grief. It was everything the others could do to get him out of his surface suit and back into the habitat where he sat in the chair Joe had been accustomed to use while holding the boy's tablet computer, as if it could somehow allow him to commune with his son's soul. The recreation room was still full of bloodstained rags where McLaglen had dressed Hayes and Bronson's wounds. The others cleared them away in an attempt to recreate a sense of normality, but the smell of blood still hung in the air and probably would for some time.

     As evening drew on, Philip seemed to come back to life a little, enough for him to acknowledge the presence of the others and give brief replies to their questions, although there was a haunted look in his eyes that Andrew suspected would never leave him. "What did I do wrong?" Philip asked, still staring down at Joe's tablet. Most people decorated their tablets with beautiful landscape scenery from before The Freeze or the faces of celebrities but Joe's tablet was plain and functional, as if a tribute to the boy's no nonsense approach to life.

     "I brought him up to be decent and respectful," Philip continued, a tear rolling down his cheek. "I brought him up to be a useful member of society. An asset to the community. Where did I go wrong? What did I do wrong?"

     No-one else could think of anything to say in reply, but once again the silence pulled at Andrew, compelling him to speak even though he was wary of bringing himself to Philip's attention in case it reminded him of who had shot his son. He sensed that the man's seemingly broken demeanour concealed a terrifying capacity for violence, and that any casual word might be the trigger that would release it. Nevertheless, a line from an old song came to him. Silence like a cancer grows. He now sensed the truth of it like never before.

     Everyone was in the room at the moment. All the remaining New Londoners and the two remaining soldiers, all silently watching Philip as if they could offer consolation by some strange form of telepathy. They would intervene if Philip suddenly threw himself at him with murderous intent, Andrew knew. It gave him the courage to speak, but he still felt himself tensing up, ready to leap away from the other man if his words had an unintended effect.

     "He thought he was saving lives," he ventured cautiously. "He thought he had no choice."

     Philip turned his head to look at him, and the gratitude in his eyes almost broke Andrew's heart. Then Philip looked down again, though. "He tried to kill me," he said. "He was my own son and he tried to kill me."

     "He may have been just trying to keep you from interfering," suggested Andrew.

     Philip shook his head, though. "No, he was trying to kill me. I saw it in his eyes."

     He wouldn't have been able to see the boy's eyes in his dark helmet, Andrew knew, but he let the comment pass. "If it had just been you and him, he could have held you off with the machine gun," he said, "but there were two of us, on opposite sides of him. Just holding us off wasn't an option any more. In his mind, it was our lives versus a hundred thousand. Versus the whole human race. He probably thought it was heroic."

     "Heroic!" snarled Philip. Andrew tensed up in fear, but the other man remained sitting and glowering down at his son's tablet. "I want to know who put these ideas into his head. I never said The Return was a bad idea. Not like you." One eye turned to look across at Andrew, whose heart froze. "You were always telling anyone who would listen what a gamble it was."

     "I never suggested that we should sabotage The Return," Andrew said hurriedly. "I always said that, no matter what misgivings I might have, that the Council had made their decision and that we all had to pull together if we were going to make it work."

     The eye remained fixed on Andrew for a moment longer, but then he nodded and the eye closed. Andrew breathed a sigh of relief. Silence returned, and Andrew looked around at the others, silently begging them to take over the burden of talking to the grieving father. None of them did, though, and Andrew felt a moment of irrational anger towards them, but then Philip himself broke the silence.

     "Reginald Fox," he said, and there was such acid in his voice that it froze Andrew's heart. "The two of them were always talking secretly together. I thought they were just talking about the world before The Feeeze, but that's not what they were talking about. I see that now."

     "Fox is in prison," Andrew reminded him. "He'll be there for a long time."

     "Maybe," Philip replied. "Maybe not. When we get to Mars, they may decide that they need every able bodied man helping to build the colony. They might think that, having failed to prevent The Return, he has no motive to cause any more mischief."

     "They won't just let him go free," said Andrew, but with rather less confidence than he would have liked. "They might make use of his knowledge. They might allow him to tele-operate machinery. He can do both from a prison cell. They won't just let him go free, not for a long-time, anyway. I'm sure of it."

     He tried to make himself sound sure and certain, but Philip looked at him as if he knew what was really going through his head. The Council prided itself on having an enlightened attitude towards crime and justice, favouring rehabilitation over punishment. Even murderers rarely served a whole life sentence. The only question, Andrew thought, was how many years Fox would spend in prison before the authorities decided that he was no longer a danger to society. It might be as little as five years after their arrival on Mars.

     Philip nodded, though, as if Andrew's words had convinced him. "You're right," he said. "Fox is paying for what he did. There's nothing to be gained from hating him. I've still got a daughter to look after. Stacey and I will grieve for Joseph, but then we'll try to move on with our lives. God, she doesn't know yet. How am I going to tell her?"

     "I asked Susan not to tell her," Andrew replied. "We both agreed that the news would be best coming from you, if best is the right word to use. As for how you'll tell her, I think one look at your face is all she'll need. I don't think you'll need to say anything."

     Philip nodded sadly. "I never thanked you for saving my life,' he said.

     "I wish there'd been another way," Andrew replied, feeling relieved.

     "So do I, but he made his own choices. I would have done the same thing if it had been you he was pointing the gun at."

     Andrew forced himself not to react. The way Philip said it made Andrew believe he was telling the truth, and what did that say about the relationship between father and son? What did that say about the relationship between Philip and Stacey? Philip was clearly in genuine grief about Joe's death, but was that because the boy was dead or because he'd never been the kind of son he'd hoped he'd be? So long as he'd been alive Philip could hope that he'd grow to become more to his liking, but now that hope was gone for ever and perhaps that was what Philip was really grieving over.

     "Thank you for your words," said Philip after a short pause. "I'm going back to my rover now. I need to be alone for a while."

     "Of course," Andrew replied.

     Philip stood carefully, as if afraid he might lose his balance, and made his way out of the room. Once he was gone the others took seats around the room, but it was a long time before any of them could think of anything to say.

☆☆☆

     The next day, the Birch family hab-rover returned with four replacement soldiers and Susan, whose happy, delighted face when it appeared on the cargo rover's monitor screen immediately answered Andrew's most pressing question. "She's awake!" he cried jubilantly.

     "She woke up two days after we left," Susan confirmed, almost giggling with happiness. "She was a bit foggy for a couple of days, they say, but now she looks like there's never been anything wrong with her. Oh, Andy, she's so sorry! She was in tears the whole time, begging forgiveness for what she did. I had to keep telling her that it wasn't her fault, that we understood the position Joe put her in."

     "Of course," Andrew agreed. "And as soon as I see her I'll tell her the same thing. I'll just hug her and love her until it seems like it never happened.

     Susan nodded, but her face had darkened. "Andy, some of the things she said, I don't think..." She paused while she chose her words carefully. "I don't think Joe bullied her into it. Not entirely, anyway. You know how close she and Joe were, back at Sellafield."

     Andrew felt his heart go cold. "You think she was infatuated with him," he said. "That she did it to please him." He was suddenly immensely glad that they were talking over a private channel, with no-one able to overhear.

     "I'm absolutely convinced she didn't know she was giving us a deadly illness," said Susan carefully. "Joe must have told her that it was a less deadly bug she was giving us. Something intended to just scare us back to New London."

     "It's a seven day journey back to New London," said Andrew quietly. "Without antibiotics, by seven days we'd have either gotten better by ourselves or died. If we were still alive we'd have just come back. Logically, a non-lethal bug makes no sense."

     "Maybe she was so desperate to believe it was non-lethal that she didn't think about it too much. Now, though, she knows that Joe tried to use her to kill us. She knows Joe tried to kill her twice. She's a wreck, Andy. An emotional wreck. They had to tear me away from her. They're letting her see David and James, though. They'll keep her together until we're all back together again."

     "She's alive," said Andrew. "That's the main thing. So long as she's alive, we'll sort everything else out."

     "But what about when we get back to New London? If the authorities get the idea that she was helping Joe willingly..."

     "Then we'll tell a different story," said Andrew. "And we'll make them believe us. We'll tell them she was coerced into infecting us, that she truly believed Joe would kill her if she didn't do it. After what I've learned the past couple of days, it might not be far from the truth."

     "Why?" asked Susan, frowning. "What have you learned?"

     "Not now," Andrew replied, though. "I'll tell you about it when we get more time." He looked out through the cockpit window, where the hab-rover was turning to present its rear end to the habitat, ready to dock. "I'll just say there was a darkness in that family that we never suspected. I think Philip was hard on him. Too hard. When we're all together again I want to keep an eye on Stacey, make sure she's okay. If Phil was hard on Joe, he may be being hard on her too. Look, not a word about this to anyone, okay? Talking to Philip's like tip-toeing through a minefield right now. One wrong word may be all it takes to set him off."

     Susan's face on the monitor screen nodded, and then the door behind her opened as a soldier came in. Captain Douglas, he was surprised to see. "Ah, Mister Birch," he said, seeing Andrew's face on the monitor screen. "I hear things have been eventful."

     "All the eventfulness should now be in the past," said Andrew confidently. "The remainer made his move, his plan failed and he was killed. There should be no reason now why we can't process the rest of the dysprosium we need and get it safely back to New London."

     "Whether it goes to New London depends on whether your leaders and mine can come to an agreement," said the Captain. "Until then it belongs to New Philadelphia. I'm confident, though, that good sense will prevail on both sides, with both cities getting everything they want."

     "I hope you're right," said Andrew.

     The rover continued to reverse in, now under the control of the autopilot, and a moment later there was a clunk as its airlock connected with that of the habitat. "Time to sign off," Andrew said. "If you'll excuse me, Captain, I'll be on my way to greet my wife in person."

     "Of course," the Captain replied, and the screen went blank.