Frank Schätzing - Limit

‘We must assume that something has happened on the Aristarchus Plateau,’ Dana Lawrence said abruptly. ‘Something unpleasant.’

Lynn’s fingers bent and stretched.

‘Okay, we’ll send Nina out in the shuttle.’

‘We should do that,’ Dana nodded. ‘And evacuate Gaia.’

‘Hang on! We said we were going to wait.’

‘What for?’

‘For Julian.’

Dana glanced quickly at the seated group. Miranda Winter was chortling, ‘That’s great. Why in ten languages?’ while Chuck eyed them suspiciously.

‘Don’t you listen?’ she hissed. ‘I mentioned that Julian’s team might be in difficulties. We have no idea whether they’re going to turn up here, and we have a bomb threat. There are guests in the hotel now. We have to evacuate.’

‘But we’ve laid nine places for dinner.’

‘That doesn’t matter now.’

‘It does.’

‘It doesn’t, Lynn. I’ve had enough. I’ll call everyone together. Meet at half past eight in the Mama Quilla Club, give it to them straight. Then we’ll send out a radio flare for Julian, Nina will go in search of them, the rest of us will take the Lunar Express to—’

‘Nonsense. You’re talking nonsense!’

‘ I’m talking nonsense?’

Chuck got to his feet and smoothed his trouser legs.

‘I really thought you knew,’ Kokoschka said, embarrassed.

Sophie shook her head in mute horror.

‘Hmm.’ He wiped the sweat from his brow. ‘Doesn’t really matter anyway. Bad moment, I guess.’

‘What for?’

‘I’ve fallen – I’ve sort of fallen – oh, forget it. I just wanted to say that I really… erm—’

Sophie melted with relief. Her hand strayed to the plate, but her belly hadn’t yet accepted the fact that Kokoschka had only wanted to declare his love, and it categorically refused to take in any more food.

‘I like you too,’ she said, trying to make sure that the like really meant like and nothing more.

Kokoschka rubbed his fingers over his spanking clean chef’s jacket.

‘I can’t wait to see if you find something,’ he said, looking at the display.

‘Me too, you can be sure of that.’ Switch of topic, thank heavens. She looked at the picture details, the list of recordings, the data flow. ‘The whole thing is very mysterious. We—’

She took a closer look.

‘What’s that ?’ she whispered.

Kokoschka pushed in closer. ‘What?’

Sophie paused the reconstruction program. There was something. Something weird that she couldn’t quite place. A kind of menu, but a sort she’d never seen before. Simple, compact, connected to a rat’s tail of data, bundles of commands that had been sent only seconds before the breakdown of communication from Gaia. She understood a bit of computer language. She could read a lot of it, but this cryptic sequence of commands would have been meaningless in her eyes, if some of the codes hadn’t seemed familiar.

Codes for satellites.

The command to freeze communications had come from Gaia. She could see when and from where it had happened.

She knew who had done it.

‘Oh, my Christ,’ she whispered.

Fear, terrible, long-suppressed fear flooded all her cells, all her thoughts. Her fingers started trembling. Kokoschka leaned down to her.

‘What’s up?’ he asked

All sign of shyness had fled. The German’s eyes peered from his angular head. She spun round in her chair, opened a drawer, reached for a piece of paper, a pen, as she now no longer trusted the computer system. She hastily scribbled a few words on the paper, folded it together and pressed the little paper packet into his hand.

‘Take this to Tim Orley,’ she whispered. ‘Straight away.’

‘What is it?’

She hesitated. Should she tell him what she had found? Why not? But Kokoschka, with his childish temperament, was unpredictable, strong as a bear, capable of running off and thumping the person in question, which might prove to be a mistake.

‘Just take it to Tim,’ she said quietly. ‘Wherever he is. Tell him to come here straight away. Please, Axel, be quick. Don’t waste any time.’

Kokoschka turned the packet over in his fingers and stared at it for a second. Then he nodded, turned round and disappeared without another word.

‘We can’t evacuate,’ Lynn insisted feverishly. Her fingers became claws, her perfectly filed nails pressed into the flesh of her palms. ‘We can’t gamble with the trust of our guests.’

‘With the greatest respect, have you gone mad?’ whispered Dana. ‘This place could go up at any minute, and you’re talking about abusing the trust of your guests?’

Lynn stared at her and shook her head. Chuck strode resolutely forward.

‘Enough of this nonsense,’ he said. ‘I demand to know right now what’s actually going on here.’

‘Nothing,’ said Dana. ‘We’re just considering sending Nina Hedegaard to the Artistarchus Plateau on the Callisto, in case there really is something—’

‘Listen, girly, I may be old, but I’m not stupid.’ Chuck leaned down to Dana and brought his great leonine head level with her eyes. ‘So don’t underestimate me, okay? I run the best hotels in the world, I’ve built more of the things than you will ever set foot in, so stop trying to bullshit me.’

‘No one’s bullshitting you, Chuck, we’ve just—’

‘Lynn.’ Donoghue spread his arms in a conciliatory gesture. ‘Please tell her to drop it! I know this conniving expression, this whispering. Obviously there’s a crisis, but can you please tell me what’s happening here? ’

Chuck had stopped being Chuck. He’d turned into a battering ram, he was trying to get inside her, to overwhelm her, but she wouldn’t let him in, wouldn’t let anyone in, she had to resist! Julian. Where was Julian? Far away! Just as he always had been, throughout her life. When she was born. When she needed him. When Crystal died. When, when, when. Julian? Far away! All the responsibility rested on her shoulders.

‘Lynn?’

Don’t lose control. Not now. Hold off the breakdown that was clearly coming with the inevitability of a supernova, long enough to act. Hold off Dana, her enemy. And everyone else who knew. Each one of them was her enemy. She was completely alone. She could only rely on herself.

‘Please excuse me.’

She had to act. Bumble, hum, buzz, bzzzz. A swarm of hornets, she ran down the stairs to the lift.

Chuck watched her open-mouthed.

‘What’s up with her?’

‘No idea,’ said Dana.

‘I didn’t mean to insult her,’ he stammered. ‘I really didn’t. I just wanted to—’

‘Do me a favour, okay? Go and join the others.’

Chuck rubbed his chin.

‘Please, Chuck,’ she said. ‘It’s all okay. I’ll keep you posted, I promise.’

She left him standing there and went after Lynn.

It wasn’t that Axel Kokoschka thought he was overweight, or not really . On the other hand his art represented the compatibility of genuine gourmet cuisine with the requirements of a fitness society fixated on the burning of calories. And in those terms he was overweight. Firmly resolved to reduce the fifteen kilos that he weighed up here at least to fourteen, he hardly ever used the lifts. Here again he leapt from bridge to bridge, forcing his burly body up one floor after another, and then took the flight of stairs to the neck. The area between Gaia’s shoulders and head was little more than a mezzanine where the passenger lifts stopped, and only the freight elevators and the staff lift continued to the kitchen. Where the side neck muscles would have been in a human being, stairs led to the suite wing below, swinging into the head with its restaurants and bars. The neck was also a storage area for spherical tanks of liquid oxygen to make up for any leakage. The tanks were hidden behind the walls and took up a considerable amount of room, so that only Gaia’s throat was glazed. A number of oxygen candles hung in wall holders.