Frank Schätzing - Limit

‘Everything okay with you guys?’ he asked in a pointedly cheerful voice.

‘Great.’ Lynn smiled. Julian noticed that she looked somehow chalky, as if she were the only person in the room being illuminated by a different light source. ‘How was your trip?’

‘Argumentative. Mimi and Karla were discussing the copulative habits of higher beings. We need a telescope on Mons Blanc.’

‘So you can spy on them?’ Lawrence asked without a hint of amusement.

‘Hell no, just to get a better view of the hotel. God! I thought everyone would be so awestruck up here that they’d be falling into each other’s arms, and instead they’re banging on about the Holy Ghost.’ His eye wandered to the window that showed the station. ‘Has the train left again?’ he asked casually.

‘Which train?’

‘The Lunar Express. The LE-2, I mean, the one that came in last night. Has it set off again already?’

Dana stared at him as if he had thrown a pile of syllables at her feet and demanded that she cobble a sentence together.

‘The LE-2 hasn’t arrived.’

‘It hasn’t?’

Anand turned round and smiled. ‘No, that was the LE-1, the one you arrived on yesterday.’

‘I know. And where has it been? In the meantime?’

‘In the meantime?’

‘What are you actually talking about?’ Lynn asked.

‘Well, about—’ Julian hesitated. The screen really did show only one train. He felt a dark premonition creeping up on him, that it was the same Lunar Express that had brought them here. Which led to the reverse conclusion that—

‘A train did pull in this morning,’ he insisted defiantly.

His daughter and Dana exchanged a swift glance.

‘Which one?’ asked Dana, as if walking on glass.

‘That one there.’ Julian pointed impatiently at the screen.

Silence.

‘Certainly not,’ Anand tried again. ‘The LE-1 hasn’t left the station since it got here.’

‘But I’ve seen it.’

‘Julian—’ Lynn began.

‘When I was looking out of the window!’

‘Dad, you can’t have seen it!’

If she had told him she’d temporarily lent the train to a dozen aliens, he would have been less concerned. Only a few hours ago he would have put it all down to a hallucination. Not any more.

‘It’s one thing after another,’ he sighed. ‘Today I met Carl Hanna, okay? At half past five in the corridor, and then—’

‘I’m sorry, but what were you doing in the corridor at half past five?’

‘Neither here nor there! Earlier, anyway—’

Hanna? Exactly, Hanna! He would have to ask Hanna. Perhaps he had seen that ominous train. After all, he had been down there before him, exactly at the same time as—

Just a moment. Hanna had come towards him from the station.

‘No,’ he said to himself. ‘No, no.’

‘No?’ Lynn tilted her head on one side. ‘What do you mean, no?’

Mad! Completely absurd. Why would Hanna be taking secret joyrides on the Lunar Express?

‘Is it possible that you’ve been dreaming?’ she continued. ‘Hallucinating?’

‘I was wide awake.’

‘Fine, you were awake. To get back to the question of what you were doing at half past five—’

‘Simple insomnia! God almighty, I went for a walk.’

His eye scoured the monitor wall. Where was the Canadian? There, in the Mama Quilla Club. Slouching, sipping cocktails, on a sofa, with the Donoghues, Nairs and Locatellis.

‘Maybe Julian’s right,’ Dana Lawrence said thoughtfully. ‘Maybe we really did miss something.’

‘Nonsense, Dana, no way.’ Lynn shook her head. ‘We both know that no train left. Ashwini knows that too.’

‘Do we really know?’

‘Nothing was delivered, no one went anywhere.’

‘Easy to check.’ Dana walked to the monitor wall and opened a menu. ‘We just have to look at the recording.’

‘Ridiculous! Absolutely ridiculous!’ Lynn was getting tense. ‘We don’t need to look at a recording.’

‘With the best will in the world, I can’t imagine why you’re so resistant to the idea,’ Julian said, amazed. ‘Let’s take a look at it. We should have done that straight away.’

‘Dad, we’ve got everything under control.’

‘As you wish,’ said Lawrence. ‘As a matter of fact it’s my job to keep everything here under control, isn’t it, Lynn? That’s why you employed me in the first place. I’m ultimately responsible for the security of your hotel and the wellbeing of your guests, and monorails that operate all by themselves are at odds with that.’

Lynn shrugged. Dana waited for a moment, then issued instructions with darting fingers. Another window opened, showed the interior of the station hall. The time-code said 27 May 2025, 05.00.

Should we go further back?’

‘No.’ Julian shook his head. ‘It was between five fifteen and five thirty.’

Dana nodded and ran quickly through the recording.

Nothing happened. The LE-1 didn’t leave the station, and the LE-2 didn’t pull in either. God in heaven, Julian thought, Lynn’s right. I’m hallucinating. He tried to catch her eye and she avoided his, visibly upset that he hadn’t simply believed her.

‘Hmm,’ he murmured. ‘Hmm, okay. Sorry.’

‘Nothing to be sorry about,’ Dana said seriously. ‘It was entirely possible.’

‘It wasn’t,’ Lynn snarled. When she looked at him at last, her pupils were flickering with fury. ‘Are you actually sure that you didn’t dream that stupid walk of yours? Maybe you weren’t in the corridor at all. Maybe you were just in bed .’

‘As I said, I’m sorry.’ Taken aback, he wondered why she was so furious with him. He’d just wanted to be doubly sure. ‘Let’s just forget it, I made a mistake.’

Instead of answering she stepped up to the monitor wall, tapped in a series of orders and opened another set of recordings. Dana watched, arms folded, while Ashwini Anand pretended she wasn’t even there. Julian recognised the underground corridor, 05.20.

‘That really isn’t necessary,’ he hissed.

‘It isn’t?’ Lynn raised her eyebrows. ‘Why not? You wanted to be doubly sure, after all.’

She launched the sequence before he could start protesting again. After a few seconds Carl Hanna appeared and climbed on one of the moving walkways. He approached the end of the corridor, looked through the window into the station concourse and disappeared into one of the gangways that led to the train, only to reappear, seconds later, and be carried back again. Almost simultaneously, Julian stepped out of the lift.

‘Congratulations,’ Lynn said frostily. ‘You were telling the truth.’

‘Lynn—’

She brushed the ash-blonde hair off her forehead and turned to face him. Behind the fury in her eyes he thought he recognised something else. Fear, Julian thought. My God, she’s frightened! Then, all of a sudden, his daughter smiled, and her smile seemed to erase her fury as completely as if she knew nothing in life but benevolence and forgiveness. With a swing of her hips she came over to him, gave him a smacking kiss on the cheek and boxed him in the ribs.

‘Let me know when a UFO lands,’ she grinned, and left headquarters.

Julian stared after her. ‘I will,’ he murmured.

And suddenly the ghostly thought came to him that his daughter was an actress.

And yet!

In an act of childish perseverance he went to the Mama Quilla Club, whose dance floor was mysteriously illuminated under the eternal light show of the starry sky. Michio Funaki was mixing cocktails behind the bar. When he saw him, Warren Locatelli shot to his feet and raised his glass to him, waving his other hand wildly.