Frank Schätzing - Limit

‘Crashed,’ Momoka whispered, over and over again.

‘That needn’t mean anything,’ Evelyn said, trying to console her. ‘Nothing at all.

He must have got the thing under control, Momoka. He’s done it before.’

‘But he’s not in contact.’

‘Because he’s flying too low. He can’t get in contact.’

‘We’ll know in half an hour,’ said Rogachev calmly. ‘He should have arrived by then.’

‘That’s true.’ Amber sat down on the floor. ‘Let’s wait.’

‘It’s not as simple as that,’ said Julian. ‘If we wait too long we’ll use up too much oxygen. Then we won’t even get to the production sites.’

‘You mean we’re that low?’

‘Depends how you look at it. We could spare half an hour. But nothing must go wrong after that! And we don’t know whether the rovers will get through. We may find points where they can’t go on – we’ll have to factor in detours.’

‘Julian’s right,’ said Evelyn. ‘It’s too risky. We’ve just got one chance.’

‘But if Warren comes and we’re gone,’ Momoka wailed. ‘How’s he supposed to find us?’

‘Maybe we could leave something behind,’ Rogachev said after a brief, stumped pause.

‘A message?’

‘A sign,’ Amber suggested. ‘We could form an arrow out of the debris from the wrecked rover. So that he knows in which direction we’ve gone.’

‘Wait.’ Julian was thinking. ‘That’s not such a bad idea. And it occurs to me that our routes should actually cross. His last position was Cape Heraclides – that was the direction he was headed. And that’s exactly where we’ve got to get to. If we stay switched to receive, sooner or later he’ll make radio contact with us.’

‘You mean he—’ Momoka gulped. ‘He’s alive?’

‘Warren?’ Julian laughed. ‘Please! No one’s going to break him, no one knows that better than you. And anyway, those things aren’t that hard to fly.’

‘What if he had to do a crash landing?’

‘We’ll meet him on the way.’

They loaded up the rovers with the spare batteries and oxygen supplies, carried debris, empty shelves and containers out of the shacks and arranged them all into an arrow pointing north. On the right they formed an H and a 3 out of rocks.

‘Excellent,’ said Evelyn contentedly.

‘That’s what you call a detailed location,’ Amber agreed. A tiny hope was gradually forming. ‘At least it’ll help him find us.’

‘Yes, you’re right.’ All the arrogance had fled from Momoka’s voice. Now she only sounded terribly concerned and a tiny bit grateful. ‘That’s unmistakable.’

‘Then we should get going,’ urged Rogachev. ‘Suggestions about who should take which rover?’

‘Let Julian decide. He’s the boss.’

‘And the boss drives ahead,’ said Julian. ‘Along with Amber. We’re polite, too, and we’re going to let you guys have the nicer car.’

‘Hmm, then—’

It was strange. Even though they couldn’t survive here, each one of them felt the same ludicrous unease at leaving the spaceport. Perhaps because it looked like safety, even though it offered none. Now they would be heading for the desert. To no man’s land.

They stared at each other, without actually being able to see anyone’s face.

‘Come on,’ Julian decided at last. ‘Let’s get going.’

It was doubtless very sensible of Jennifer Shaw to have brought in people from Scotland Yard who, when the talk turned to Korean nuclear material, immediately informed the SIS. Since Orley Enterprises was based on British soil, and a non-British facility seemed to be involved, MI5 and MI6 were both let loose on the company. Jericho, on the other hand, felt as if they were running on the spot. Not because he missed Xin and the witch-hunt he had unleashed, but because all initiative seemed suddenly to have been taken out of his, Yoyo’s and Tu’s hands. The Big O swarmed with nothing but investigators that late afternoon. Jennifer insisted on having them there for every conversation, with the result that they droned out the same endless answers to the same endless questions, until Tu, red-faced with fury, under questioning from one of Her Majesty’s agents, demanded the return of his suitcase.

‘What’s up?’ Yoyo asked irritably.

‘Didn’t you hear the question?’ Tu pointed a fleshy finger at the officer, who impassively wrote something down in his tiny book.

‘Yes, I did,’ she said cautiously.

‘And?’

‘He really only—’

‘He’s insulting me! That guy insulted me!’

‘I only asked you why you dodged the German authorities,’ the agent said very calmly.

‘I didn’t dodge them!’ Tu snapped at him. ‘I never dodge anybody! But I do know which people I can trust, and police officers are rarely among them, very rarely.’

‘That doesn’t necessarily speak in your favour.’

‘It doesn’t?’

Edda Hoff’s waxy face showed signs of life.

‘Perhaps you should bear in mind that it is to Mr Tu and his companions that we owe evidence that your authorities for a long time failed to provide,’ she said in that special toneless voice of hers.

The man snapped the book shut.

‘Nonetheless, it would have been better for everyone if you’d only cooperated with our German colleagues from the start,’ he said. ‘Or did you have reasons for not wanting to?’

Tu jumped up and brought both fists down on the table.

‘What are you insinuating?’

‘Nothing, just—’

‘Who are you, in fact? The bloody Gestapo?’

‘Hey.’ Jericho took Tu by the shoulders and tried to pull him back into his chair, which was like trying to shift a parking meter. ‘No one’s insinuating anything. They have to check us out. Why don’t you just tell him—’

‘What, then, what?’ Tu stared at him. ‘That guy? Am I supposed to tell him how the police threw me about for six months of my life, so I still wake up drenched in sweat? So that I’m afraid to go to sleep because it might all start up again in my dreams?’

‘No, it’s just—’ Jericho paused. What had his friend just said?

‘Tian.’ Yoyo rested a hand on Tu’s fist.

‘No, I’ve had enough.’ Tu shook her off, escaped Jericho’s clutches and stomped away. ‘I want to go to a hotel. Right now! I want a break, I just want to be left in peace for an hour.’

‘You don’t need to go to a hotel,’ said Edda. ‘We have guest rooms in the Big O. I could have one prepared for you.’

‘Do that.’

The MI6 man set the book down on the table in front of him, and twisted around towards Tu as he headed for the door. ‘The questioning isn’t over yet. You can’t just—’

‘Yes I can,’ Tu said as he left. ‘If you really need an asshole to put under general suspicion, use your own.’

Jericho would have liked to ask Tu, otherwise so relaxed and controlled, and to whose house the Chinese police had paid regular visits only a few days before, what had provoked his rage to such an extent, but the nature of the investigations hurled him from one conversation into the next. His friend disappeared with a remarkably solicitous Edda Hoff, the MI6 investigator went on his way. For the few seconds that elapsed before the arrival of Jennifer Shaw, he felt a festering unease, particularly since Yoyo, the guardian of dark secrets, was staring ostentatiously into the distance, joining in with Tu’s misery.

‘And once again you know more than I do,’ he said.

She nodded mutely.

‘And it’s none of my business.’

‘It’s something I can’t tell you.’ Yoyo turned her head towards him. Her eyes glistened as if Tu’s outburst had caused new cracks in the dam of her self-control. It was slowly starting to seem to Jericho that the whole Chen family, along with their wealthy mentor, were on the edge of a nervous breakdown, in constant danger of exploding under the pressure of traumatic bulges. Whatever it was that troubled them, it was starting to get on his nerves.