Authority by Jeff VanderMeer Read Free Book Online Page B

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     lay on the other side—then stood there sheepishly holding one side open while Control
     contemplated that first step.
    “It’s through here,” Whitby said.
    “I know,” Control said.
    Beyond the doors, they were suddenly in a kind of free fall, the green carpet cut
     off, the path become a concrete ramp down to a short landing with a staircase at the
     end—which then plunged into shadows created by dull white halogens in the walls and
     punctuated by blinking red emergency lights. All of it under a high ceiling that framed
     what, in the murk, seemed more a human-made grotto or warehouse than the descent to
     a basement. The staircase railing, under the shy lights, glittered with luminous rust
     spots. The coolness in the air as they descended reminded him of a high-school field
     trip to a natural history museum with an artificial cave system meant to mimic the
     modern day, the highlight of which had been non sequiturs: mid-lunge reproductions
     of a prehistoric giant sloth and giant armadillo, mega fauna that had taken a wrong
     turn.
    “How many people in the science division?” he asked when he’d acclimated.
    “Twenty-five,” Whitby said. The correct answer was nineteen.
    “How many did you have five years ago?”
    “About the same, maybe a few more.” The correct answer was thirty-five.
    “What’s the turnover like?”
    Whitby shrugged. “We have some stalwarts who will always be here. But a lot of new
     people come in, too, with their ideas, but they don’t really change anything.” His
     tone implied that they either left quickly or came around … but came around to what?
    Control let the silence elongate, so that their footsteps were the only sound. As
     he’d thought, Whitby didn’t like silences. After a moment, Whitby said, “Sorry, sorry.
     I didn’t mean anything by that. It’s just sometimes frustrating when new people come
     in and want to change things without knowing … our situation. You feel like if they
     just read the manual first … if we had a manual, that is.”
    Control mulled that, making a noncommittal sound. He felt as if he’d come in on the
     middle of an argument Whitby had been having with other people. Had Whitby been a
     new voice at some point? Was he the new Whitby, applied across the entire Southern Reach rather than just the science
     division?
    Whitby looked paler than before, almost sick. He was staring off into the middle distance
     while his feet listlessly slapped the steps. With each step, he seemed more ill at
     ease. He had stopped saying “sir.”
    Some form of pity or sympathy came over Control; he didn’t know which. Perhaps a change
     of subject would help Whitby.
    “When was the last time you had a new sample from Area X?”
    “About five or six years ago.” Whitby sounded more confident about this answer, if
     no more robust, and he was right. It had been six years since anything new had come
     to the Southern Reach from Area X. Except for the forever changed members of the eleventh
     expedition. The doctors and scientists had exhaustively tested them and their clothing,
     only to find … nothing. Nothing at all out of the ordinary. Just one anomaly: the
     cancer.
    No light reached the basement except for what the science division created for itself:
     They had their own generator, filtration system, and food supply. Vestiges, no doubt,
     of some long-ago imperative that boiled down to “in an emergency, save the scientists.”
     Control found it hard to imagine those first days, when behind closed doors the government
     had been in panic mode, and the people who worked in the Southern Reach believed that
     whatever had come into the world along the forgotten coast might soon turn its attentions
     inland. But the invasion hadn’t happened, and Control wondered if something in that
     thwarting of expectation had started the Southern Reach’s decline.
    “Do you like working here, Whitby?”
    “Like? Yes. I must admit