Runaway World

The Conference Call

     "Thought I felt a vibration when I turned," James replied. "Wheel one, I thought. It's gone now."

     Andrew frowned. "Hope it's not a bearing going," he said. "Expensive to fix, and several days laid up in a garage. I was hoping to make a tidy profit on this dig. Enough to pay back what we owe." He smiled at his son. "It would be nice to own this rover outright, wouldn't it?"

     "Just in time for the Return," his son replied with an answering grin.

     "If there is a Return. The Remainers may still get their own way."

     James smiled confidently at him. "No, we're going back," he said. "Back to the sun. Think what mankind could do with the power of a star."

     Before Andrew could answer, Susan appeared in the doorway with a steaming cup of coffee in her hand. "Thought you could use something warm and wet after your excursion," she said, handing it to her husband. "The three of us had something while you were outside."

     "Thanks," said Andrew, taking it from her and taking a sip. "Jasmine still in her room?"

     "She spends all day chatting to Joe," Susan replied with a frown. "You'd think that, having gotten out of the city, she'd want to see a bit of the world."

     "Not much to see," Andrew replied, looking back out through the cockpit window. "Can't even see the stars. Too much glare from the lights. Maybe she's got the right idea."

     "I would have hoped she'd value our company a little more," his wife replied. "Guess we'll have to wait 'till dinner to see her. We're having Italian tonight. That okay?"

     "Sounds good," Andrew replied.

     Susan smiled at him, then turned and left the cockpit, closing the door behind her.

☆☆☆

     That evening, the family convened in the rover's main living room, in front of the sixty inch monitor, for their daily conference with the other families they'd left at the Sellafield dig site.

     "Good to see you, Andy," said Philip Badger, sitting in a large, comfy sofa in the recreation room of the expedition's inflatable habitat. Joe, his seventeen year old son, was sitting beside him while around them, sitting on other chairs and sofas, were the other members of the Sellafield expedition.

     "Good to see you too," Andrew replied. Jasmine's hair tickled his neck as his daughter, kneeling behind him, shifted into a more comfortable position. "The hutch is back in business and we've got a new road we can use if we want to go somewhere north. Trusted terrain we can drive over."

     "We were pretty sure it was safe to drive over,"Philip said, "but it's good to have it confirmed. No nasty surprises then?"

     "Might have a dodgy wheel but it's holding up so far. Apart from that, everything's five by five."

     "Hey, Andy!" said Shen Gongji. At fifty five, he was the oldest man at the dig site. He had his son, Feng and Feng's wife Naomi sitting on either side of him. Feng's three children were behind the sofa, kneeling on the soft, rubber floor to bring their heads down to the same level as their parents'. "Hey, Sue. Still looking good, I see." Feng and Naomi added their own greetings and the children waved from behind them.

     "Hey guys," Andrew replied with a little wave. "Hey Viv, Nico. How you doing?"

     Nico and Viviana Willow tried to make their reply sound cheerful, but there was a false note to it and Andrew noted that they were holding hands, their knuckles white with the tightness of their grip. Having four children in the room with them, plus three more on their monitor screen, must be painful, just a few weeks after the death of their own son, Andrew thought. He'd half expected the grieving couple to miss the conference and remain in their own rover, but the dig site was small and crowded. They had to associate with the other families there, unless they packed it in and returned to the city.