But what difference did that make?
‘As you said before, Lynn is my sister.’ He straightened up and shifted away a little. ‘I’d walk on hot coals for her.’
‘That’s not enough for me.’
‘Well, it’ll have to be.’
‘Tim.’ Dana sighed. ‘I just want to make sure that we’re not about to face problems from somewhere we least expect it. Tell me what’s up. I’ll treat our conversation with complete confidentiality, no one will find out about it if you don’t want them to. Not Julian, and certainly not Lynn.’
‘Dana, really—’
‘I’ve got to be able to do my job!’
Tim said nothing for a moment.
‘She had a breakdown,’ he said flatly. ‘A few years ago. Exhausted, depressed. It came and went, but since then I can’t stop worrying that it might repeat itself.’
‘Burn-out?’
‘No, more of an—’ The word wouldn’t leave his lips.
‘Illness?’ Dana completed his sentence.
‘Lynn played it down, but – yes. A morbid disposition. Her – our mother was depressive. In the end she—’
He fell silent. Dana waited to see if he was going to add anything, but he thought he’d said enough.
‘Thanks,’ she said seriously. ‘Please keep an eye on your sister.’
He nodded unhappily, joined Kokoschka, and they set off, equipped with portable detectors, while he felt like a miserable bloody collaborator. At the same time he was tormented by Dana’s suspicion. Not because he saw Lynn as being exposed to unjustified suspicions, but because uncertainty was gnawing at him. Could he really walk on coals for Lynn? He would give his life for her, that much he knew, regardless of what she did.
But he just wasn’t completely sure.
Ganymede
Locatelli lay in a foetal position, legs bent, on the floor of the lock just by the bulkheads. Almost two-thirds of the cabin was glazed, but as long as he stayed down low, shielded by the screen, no one would be able to see him from the passenger space or the cockpit. He feverishly developed and rejected one plan after another. Every time he turned his head, he could just make out the indicators on the inside wall of the lock, showing pressure, air and ambient temperature. The cabin was pressurised, but he didn’t dare take off his helmet. He was too worried that the pilot might, at that precise moment, get the idea of subjecting the lock to an inspection, just as he was busying himself with his damned helmet. He had squeezed his way in between the bulkheads as soon as they had slid apart, pressed the up button, dropped to the floor, without wasting a fragment of a second. And yet it couldn’t have escaped the guy that the cabin had gone back down again.
He cautiously raised himself up a little and peered around for anything that might serve as a weapon, but there was nothing inside the lock that could be used to slash or stab. The Ganymede was still accelerating. He guessed that there must be an autopilot, but as long as the shuttle hadn’t reached its final speed, whoever was sitting up at the front couldn’t take his eyes off the controls. Later it might be too late to shed his armour and his helmet. Perhaps he really should do it now.
At that moment an idea came to him.
He quickly released the catches of the helmet and took it off, set it down next to him and started frantically working away at his chest armour. The acceleration pressure eased off. He hastily fiddled around with the valves and fasteners, peeled himself out of his survival backpack and pushed everything a little way away. Now he was more mobile, and he also had something that could be used as a weapon in a surprise attack. Every muscle tensed, he lay there and waited. The shuttle flew in a curve, and went on gaining altitude. His head roared with the certainty that this was his only chance. If he didn’t catch and whack Peter or Carl, whichever of them was flying the Ganymede, at the first opportunity, he might as well say goodbye to the world.
Don’t complain, asshole, he thought, this was what you wanted. And strangely – or not – his inner voice, in all its condescension, and down to peculiarities of its modulation sounded exactly like Momoka’s.
Gaia, Vallis Alpina
Dana walked to her desk and paused.
Depressive. That explained a few things. But how did depressive states develop? Into apathy? Aggression? Would Lynn freak out? What was Julian’s daughter likely to do?
She established the laser connection with the Peary Base. After a few seconds the face of deputy commander Tommy Wachowski appeared on the screen. There wasn’t much in the way of regular exchange between hotel and base, which meant that it was ages since she had last spoken to him. Wachowski looked tense and relieved at the same time, as if she had taken a weight off his mind with her call. Dana thought she knew the reason. A moment later Wachowski confirmed her suspicion.
‘Am I happy to see you,’ he growled. ‘I thought we’d never get through to anyone ever again.’
‘Have you been having problems with the satellites?’ she asked.
His eyes widened. ‘How do you know that?’
‘Because we have too. We were in contact with Earth when the connection went down. We haven’t been able to get through since then, not even to our shuttles.’
‘We’ve been having pretty much the same thing. Completely cut off. The problem is that we’re in the shadow of the libration. Alternative channels are out. We’re relying on LPCS; do you have any idea what’s going on?’
‘No.’ Dana shook her head. ‘At the moment we haven’t a clue. Not a clue. You?’
Aristarchus Plateau
The Moon was quite definitely more suited to route-marches than the Earth, because of its lower gravitation. Spacesuits quite definitely weren’t. Even though the exosuits provided a high level of comfort and mobility, you were, regardless of the air-conditioning, in an incubator. The more energy you expended, the more you sweated, and eight kilometres, even performing leaps that would have done credit to a kangaroo, remained eight kilometres.
Assailed by questions, Julian had divulged various things: he had talked about his nocturnal observation of the Lunar Express, about Hanna’s lies and dodges, and had told them something was under way against Orley Enterprises somewhere in the world. But the idea that terrorists might try to blow up his hotel with an atom bomb he kept to himself, just as he refrained from mentioning Lynn’s inexcusable derelictions of duty. He was terribly worried about her, but there was a great gulf of understanding in the mountain range of his concern, in which a horrible black worm of anxiety wriggled. Who had actually re-edited the video, who had hooked up Hanna? Because there was no doubt that the Canadian had been listening in earlier: he had gone into action even while that man Jericho had been setting out his suspicions! And finally, who had deactivated the satellites in perfect synchronisation with Hanna’s flight? The worm turned, glistened, quivered, and gave birth to the idea of an assistant, an accomplice in the hotel, male or female. Someone who had inexplicably refused to let him see the manipulated video, and whose attitude was becoming more mysterious with each passing hour.
‘And how are we going to get out of here?’ Evelyn wanted to know. ‘Back to the hotel, without a shuttle or radio contact?’
‘I’m just wondering where Carl’s trying to get to,’ Rogachev mused.
‘Like that matters right now,’ snorted Momoka.
‘Why was he in such a rush to get away? Nothing could have been pinned on him. Well, there’s the fact that he doesn’t stick too closely to the truth, but okay. Why the hurry?’
‘Maybe he’s planning something,’ said Amber. ‘Something he has to get done in time, now that his cover’s been blown.’
In time. That was it! How did the accomplice in the hotel manage to get away, if he existed at all? How acute was the danger of a bomb going off in Gaia within the next hour? Wouldn’t Hanna’s journey have had to take him back to Gaia, to set it off? Or was the bomb already ticking? In which case—
Lynn! He must have been crazy to suspect her! But even if she
had some macabre, incomprehensible part in the drama, did she realise what she’d let herself in for? Did she have even the tiniest idea what was going on? Could Hanna have roped her in for his purposes, on some pretext or other? Could he have exploited her mental state, somehow hoodwinked her into doing things for him, the significance of which she completely misunderstood?
Perhaps he should have listened more closely to Tim.
Should have! The grammar of missed opportunities.
‘Julian?’
‘What?’
‘How are we going to get out of here?’ Evelyn asked again.
He hesitated. ‘Peter knows – he knew the Schröter spaceport better than I did. I don’t think there are any flying machines there, but there’s definitely a third moon-mobile. So we’ll get away in any event.’
‘But where to?’ asked Rogachev. ‘Crossing the Mare Imbrium in a moon car isn’t exactly an encouraging prospect.’
‘How far are we from the hotel, anyway?’ asked Amber.
‘About thirteen hundred kilometres.’
‘And how long will our oxygen hold out?’
‘Forget it,’ wheezed Momoka. ‘Certainly not long enough to get to the Vallis Alpina by car. What do you say, Julian? How long would it take to cover thirteen hundred kilometres at eighty max?’
‘Sixteen hours,’ said Julian. ‘But realistically we’ll hardly be able to go at eighty.’
‘Sixty?’
‘Maybe fifty.’
‘Oh, brilliant!’ laughed Momoka. ‘Then we can take bets on who packs up first. Us or the car.’
‘Stop it,’ said Amber.
‘My bet’s on us.’
‘This is pointless, Momoka. Why don’t we—’
‘Then the car will keep going for a while with our corpses inside, until eventually—’
‘Momoka!’ yelled Amber. ‘Shut. The. Fuck. Up!’
‘Right, that’s enough!’ Julian stopped and raised both hands. ‘I know we have a stack of terrible things to work out. Nothing makes any sense, practically no information is confirmed. At the moment the only thing we can do is think in a straight line, from one step to the next, and the next step will be an examination of the Schröter spaceport. We’ve got enough oxygen to do that.’ He paused. ‘Now that Peter’s dead—’
‘If he really is,’ said Evelyn.
‘As Peter is probably dead, I’ll take his place. Okay? Responsibility for the group lies with me now, and from this moment I only want to hear constructive comments.’
‘I’ve got a constructive comment,’ said Rogachev.
‘Great stuff, Oleg,’ sneered Momoka. ‘Constructive comments are at a premium right now.’
Rogachev ignored her. ‘Aren’t the helium-3 mines a bit closer to the Aristarchus Plateau than the hotel?’
‘That’s right,’ said Julian. ‘Not half as far.’
‘So if we could get there—’
‘The mines are automatic,’ Momoka objected. ‘Peter told me. It’s all robots.’
‘Okay,’ said Evelyn thoughtfully. ‘Even so, they must have some sort of infrastructure, don’t they? Accommodation for maintenance staff. Some means of transport.’
‘There’s definitely a survival depot,’ said Julian. ‘Good idea, Oleg. So let’s go!’
The fact that their oxygen wouldn’t get them to the mining zone he left unspoken.
Ganymede
Hanna hurried towards his goal on the hypothetical line of fifty degrees longitude, pulling the shadow of the Ganymede at a rate of 1200 kilometres an hour across the velvet monotony of the northern Oceanus Procellarum. His gaze rested on the controls. He couldn’t get any more speed out of the shuttle. He still had another hour and a quarter to go, but given the pitiful possibilities at Julian’s group’s disposal that was hardly cause for concern. Even if they managed to leave the plateau, he still had a luxurious amount of time to finish his task and leave the Moon. But whether Ebola would get there in time, now that everything was in chaos, was anybody’s guess. Admittedly he planned to wait as long as possible. But he would have to fly off sooner or later, alone if necessary. Those were the rules. Alliances served a purpose.
On his right there began a plain covered with tiny craters, which separated the northern Mare Imbrium from the Oceanus Procellarum. Behind it the helium-3 mining zone stretched into Sinus Iridum, the bay in which the Americans and the Chinese had got into such arguments the previous year. Kenny Xin had told him loads about that. Mad he might be, yet it was worth listening to him.
He looked wearily around.
The lock was bathed in a diffuse light. There was nothing to suggest that Locatelli had made it to the shuttle. And anyway, the noise of the bulkhead would give him away as soon as it opened. He turned his attention back to the controls and looked out of the window. A larger crater came into view, Mairan, as the holographic map on the console told him. The Ganymede had been travelling for a good twenty minutes now, and he was almost starting to feel something like boredom.
Okay then.
He stood up, grabbed his weapon with the non-explosive rounds and walked between the seats to the lock. The closer he got, the deeper he could see into the cabin, but at the moment it was actually empty. It was only when he was a couple of steps away that something massive and white entered his field of vision, something on the floor, and he stopped.
A survival backpack. At least that was what it looked like.
Did that mean Locatelli had actually done it?
He stepped slowly closer. Other details became visible, the shoulder of a piece of chest armour, a bent leg. It was only when he was standing so close to the glass that his breath condensed on it into a film of tiny droplets that he was also able to make out part of the face, a lifelessly staring eye, a half-open mouth. Locatelli seemed to be resting his back against the bulkhead, and he didn’t look particularly well, in fact he looked a bit dead.
Hanna’s fingers clutched the weapon. He rested his free hand on the sensor field, raised the bulkhead and took a step back.
Locatelli slumped out from the cabin like a sack and stared at the ceiling. His left arm weakly struck the floor, his fingers open as if he were begging for a final pittance. His right hand, still in the lock, was wrapped around the lower edge of his helmet. There was no outward sign of injury, and in any case he had been able to take off his armour before he collapsed.
Hanna frowned, leaned forward and paused.
At that moment he realised that something was wrong. The unusually healthy colour of the man’s face might be just about compatible with his being a corpse – but Warren Locatelli was definitely the first dead person he’d ever seen sweating.
* * *
So, Hanna.
Locatelli cried out. With all his might he swung the helmet, hit Hanna’s arm, saw the weapon flying away, leapt up.
Hanna staggered.
That the Canadian would see through his bluff and shoot him a moment later had been Locatelli’s worst-case expectation. So, two seconds after the attack, what surprised him most of all was that he was still alive. Countless times during the sequence of eternities that had passed since the shuttle lifted off, he had tried to imagine the situation and calculate his chances. Now here they were, and there was no longer any time to think, not even to wonder or catch his breath. Trusting, in the Celtic manner, to the effects of a good shout, loud and inarticulate like an attacking horde, he thrashed away at his opponent with his helmet, again and again, without a pause, without giving him the slightest opportunity to retreat, saw his knees bending, aimed at the top of his shaven head, struck again, as hard as he could. The Canadian made a grab for him. Locatelli dealt him a kick to the shoulder. God knew he had fought quite enough in his life, both often and enthusiastically, but never with a professional hitman, as Hanna plainly was when you looked at things with a lucid eye, so for the sake of certainty he brought the helmet down on his head once more, even though the man hadn’t moved a muscle for ages, grabbed for t
he curious weapon, staggered a few steps back and took aim.
Spurts of blood from the back of Hanna’s head, on the floor.
Locatelli’s hand was shaking.
After a while, quivering with fear, he risked stepping forward again, crouched down and held the barrel to Hanna’s temple. No reaction. The Canadian’s eyes were shut and his breathing was heavy. Locatelli blinked, felt his heartbeat gradually slowing down. Waited. Nothing happened. Went on waiting.
Nothing. Nothing at all.
Gradually he was starting to believe that the man really was unconscious.
Where should he put him? He thought frantically. Perhaps he should chuck him in the lock and simply get rid of him on the flight. But that would have been murder, and even at his most reckless Locatelli was no murderer. And he wanted to know why Peter, Mimi and Marc had had to die, what Hanna’s crappy aims had been. He needed information, and anyway, Momoka, Julian, the others, were stuck on the Aristarchus Plateau! He had to get back and fetch them, that had absolute priority.
And how, smart-arse?
His gaze wandered to the cockpit. He knew how to drive a racing car, how to sail a yacht into the wind. But he hadn’t the faintest idea about Hornets, or about where the Ganymede was headed, how high and how fast it flew. Nothing on board was designed to lift his spirits. Here the Canadian, who would eventually come round, there the unfamiliar world of the cockpit. He hadn’t the first clue. He would have to learn, and fast.
No. First of all he had to put Hanna somewhere.
Nothing occurred to him even after he had gone on thinking for a few minutes longer, so he dragged the motionless body towards the cockpit, dumped it behind the co-pilot’s seat and looked around for something to tie it up with.
There didn’t seem to be anything like that on board either.