Frank Schätzing - Limit

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.

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.