He breathed in sharp air and stared at miles of sky. Candy-floss clouds flitted across the blue, crows like smudged thumbprints. He’d been tramping over the moors around Toll Sionnach, feeling his trainers squelch through the moss, spotting rabbits and foxes in the heather. Wet Leg whooped and clattered in his headphones, a weird juxtaposition to the serenity around him, but he liked that.
He felt like there was no one else on earth just now. He imagined never going back to the house, just traipsing across these never-ending mountains. But the land ended, eventually he would reach the sea. And that made him think of Sandy.
He’d come away from the house to get a better reception on his phone. He’d Googled their story but the news sites hadn’t updated recently. He’d also searched for Oscar Fellowes, along with government, police, even special forces. He found a mention on a government website but no details, just a faceless civil servant, apparently.
He’d also looked up Ullapool. A pretty town on Loch Broom, the place to catch a ferry to the Hebrides. Whitewashed cottages on the shore, a chippy and two bookshops. Loch Broom was the key, not the town. He had to see the world like Sandy. Seventy percent of the earth’s surface was water, it was wrong to think of the planet as land-based. Anyone coming from space would assume that life was marine.
He’d tramped in a large loop from the house, far enough that it was a bump on the horizon now. He walked through trees then out the other side and stopped. A hundred yards away was a small loch, rotting tree stumps jutting from the edge. Amongst the stumps were five deer chewing on moss, their hides glossy in the sunshine, woody antlers like furniture. One of the deer wasn’t red like the rest but a dirty white, pale eyes, stark against the land.
Lennox pressed pause on his music and watched the deer for a long time, listening to his own breath, determined not to distract them. They moved along the edge of the loch, occasionally looking up. Lennox crouched to make himself smaller. He heard his heartbeat in his ears and wondered about Sandy. There were millions of different animals on Earth, wouldn’t there also be countless species on Enceladus?
He tried to imagine why they were here. Introducing a species from one planet to another was unfathomable. Humans had spent hundreds of years categorising and killing animals on earth, a colossal genocide. What would we do to a whole moon full of other species, potentially billions of beings? It would take a hundred lifetimes to understand them and that’s if humans considered them benign. If they were benign.
He felt dizzy at the scale of it, too much to think about. How an individual from an ecosystem a billion kilometres away had come into their lives just like that. What it could lead to.
And he wondered how the fuck they had got here. He liked studying engineering, had always been interested in how things worked, and he knew enough that a journey across a billion kilometres of frozen, empty space was a logistical nightmare. Sandy was so different from humans, didn’t appear to have a spacecraft or vessel of any kind. But that was only one of a million questions he had – how did the telepathy work, how many others were there, were they all the same species or a variety, if there were others, where were they now, had Sandy and any others been spotted by telescopes, the military? And what about the strokes, and their seemingly random recovery?
But whenever he was with Sandy, talking to them, those questions seemed to melt away as the space between them closed, and all he cared about was helping them.
The deer raised their heads and looked left in unison, ears pricked up. He followed their gaze and saw the roof of a police car flickering behind a hedge, heading for the house.
The deer bounded in the other direction into a gully and out of sight. Lennox ran towards the house, keeping his eye on the car. He squelched and fumbled through the moor, saw the car turn into the drive for Toll Sionnach. He kept running, regulating his breath, approaching through the trees at the front of the house. He slowed to walking, got his breath back, quietened his body, touched the beech trees as he passed, feeling moss under his fingers.
He heard voices and crept the last few yards to the edge of the trees. He saw two cops, a man and a woman, standing in protective vests, thumbs in their belts, talking to Paul outside the house.
He inched forward to listen.
‘Come on, Paul, just let Jenna and me have a wee look round then we’ll be on our way.’
Paul was deadpan. ‘I don’t think so, Fergus.’
Fergus straightened his shoulders. ‘How long have we known each other?’
‘I can’t do it.’
Jenna raised her chin. ‘Why not?’
‘Not unless you have a warrant.’
Fergus shook his head. ‘You know we don’t have one yet. We’ve only just got the info from CCTV.’
Jenna stepped to Paul’s truck. ‘Would you care to tell us what your vehicle was doing outside Carter’s in the middle of the night?’
‘Out for a drive.’
Fergus frowned. ‘In an industrial estate in Inverness.’
‘I have trouble sleeping.’
‘Was anyone with you who can confirm your story?’ Jenna said.
Paul sucked his teeth. ‘No.’
Jenna looked at the truck, checking from all angles, then she crouched and looked underneath. Lennox froze. If she turned round now she would see him.
Fergus shook his head. ‘There was a break-in at Carter’s. It looks very much as if you were involved.’
‘Ridiculous,’ Paul said.
Jenna peeked inside the truck, driver’s side then passenger. Again, if she just changed her focus she would spot Lennox’s hair amongst the foliage.
She turned back to Paul. ‘You were seen yesterday in Drumnadrochit with the owners of a campervan.’
‘OK.’
‘The same van that the police recovered and placed in Carter’s for safekeeping.’
Paul shrugged.
Fergus sighed. ‘We’re very interested in finding the owners.’
He stepped closer and lowered his voice, and Lennox strained to hear.
‘I’m getting heat from high up on this, Paul. I can’t let this one go.’
Paul held up his hands. ‘And I can’t let you in the house.’
Jenna stepped up to Paul. ‘Then you’ll need to come to the station and answer a few questions.’
Fergus shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, mate.’
Paul smiled. ‘It’s fine, let’s go.’
He walked to the police car, Fergus behind. Jenna stared at the house then looked around. Lennox ducked into the trees and held his breath, pressed his back against a trunk, smelled resin and moss.
He heard the car doors open and close and the engine start. He waited until the sound of tyres on gravel had faded then he emerged and stared at the police car vanishing in the distance.