"Exactly," Lamont hissed, pointing the cigarette at him before putting it between his lips. "And as much as anything, it's that ignorance we bring with us everywhere we go."
"Is it?" Lamont asked. He pulled his cigarette case out of his pocket, turning it in his fingers, snapping it open and closed again. "Or is that just the part of your job that you talk about? It's my job to find out."
Rosemary leaned forward to place a hand on Lamont's knee. Her voice was soft, but her green eyes were flashing warningly. "Back off, Monty. You're pushing this too hard."
Lamont pulled a cigarette from the case and returned it to his pocket. "I just keep thinking about what we found on Epiphany Rex," he said. "Degenerate humans squatting on the surface, retreating into caves to avoid roving patches of radiation. Those other creatures, living underground. They seemed to see us and the pygmies as the same thing, and they wanted all of us to leave. Which implies that they were there first." He looked at Rosemary. "It's a little bit like we were visiting a version of Earth that had failed to recover from their own Epiphany event, isn't it?"
"A little bit," Rosemary agreed.
"The fact is that we just don't know," Francis pointed out impatiently. "We don't know what happened on that planet. We don't even know what caused the Epiphany event on ours."
"Exactly," Lamont hissed, pointing the cigarette at him before putting it between his lips. "And as much as anything, it's that ignorance we bring with us everywhere we go."
"You have a knack for getting under his skin," Rosemary nudged Lamont as they emerged from the command deck. "And don't say you're just doing your job."
"Someone's got to be willing to ask some questions around here," Lamont shrugged.
"It's more than that," Rosemary countered. "You're angry at him; I've said it before. You've not forgiven him for what happened to Rex, and you want him to feel uncomfortable."
"Well, shouldn't he?" Lamont demanded.
"No, not about that," Rosemary answered quietly, folding her arms around herself. "We both know that what happened to Rex was my fault."
"Is that what Carter tells you?" Lamont asked hotly.
"Of course not," Rosemary insisted, her round eyes brimming with tears as she looked up at him. "He takes full responsibility for it. He's tortured by it. He's tortured by every person who's been lost under his command. That's why it was so hard for him to accept this assignment in the first place."
Lamont sniffed. "I never got that impression."
"Look closer," Rosemary encouraged. "He presents himself with absolute confidence because that's what his job requires of him. But it isn't easy for him, and he doesn't take it lightly. Those questions you're drilling him with aren't bouncing off an iron shell."
"I wouldn't be pushing so hard if he didn't push back," Lamont muttered defensively.
Rosemary wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her lab coat before placing a hand on Lamont's arm. "I've been trying to tell you, Monty. You're not surrounded by enemies here. Francis respects you. In fact, he believes that he needs you, and he's glad you're here. The problem is that you can't believe that."
Now I'm confused. In the prior storyline, it seemed understood that entering escherspace caused devastation locally, so Westward had to move away from Earth before engaging it. Clearly in this version, Westward uses escherspace... but they don't relate it to the Epiphany event on Earth? That correlation would make what Lamont just repeated about the natives vs the pygmies on Rex fairly clear that escherspace humans were there. And this time around (pun unintended but I'll take it), they don't mention time displacement... or am I just impatient?