Frank Schätzing - Limit

‘Why would he do that?’

‘I have no idea. Because we’re commercial rivals?’

‘But you’re not! You’re not competing for the same markets. You’re competing for know-how. So you spy on one another, pay bribes, argue your corner, try to form alliances – but you don’t start hurling nuclear bombs about.’

‘The gloves are off now.’

‘But an attack like that would be of absolutely no benefit to Zheng, or to my country! What would destroying your hotel do to change the balance of power, even if you died as well?’

‘Quite so. What?’

For a long moment Jia said nothing at all, but kneaded at the bridge of his nose and kept his lids shut tight. When he opened them again, the question in his eyes was easy to read.

‘No,’ Julian answered.

‘No?’

‘My visit here isn’t part of some double-cross, honourable Jia, it’s not a plan or an operation. I truly have no wish to harm you or your country. There’s a lot I could have left unmentioned if I had wanted to steer your decision-making.’

‘And what do you expect me to do now?’

‘I can tell you what I need.’

‘You want me to take you and your friends back to the hotel with our shuttle?’

‘As fast as you can! My son and daughter are in Gaia, as well as the guests and staff. We have reason to fear that Hanna is making his own way back there. I also need the use of your satellites.’

‘My satellites?’

‘Yes. Have you had any trouble with them in the last few hours?’

‘Not that I know of.’

‘Ours have failed completely, as I told you at the beginning. Yours seem to be working. I need two connections. One to my headquarters in London, and another to Gaia.’ Julian paused. ‘I have put my trust in you completely, Commander, even at the risk of your refusing my request. I can do no more. The rest is up to you.’

The taikonaut fell silent again, then said slowly, ‘You would of course be in China’s debt if I were to help you.’

‘Of course.’

Julian could see the wheels going round in Jia’s head. Right at this moment, the commander was worrying about whether his visitor might actually be right, and his government had plotted some dirty trick that he knew nothing about. And whether, perhaps, he was in danger of committing high treason if he offered unconditional help to the man who had put America where it was today.

Julian cleared his throat.

‘Perhaps you might bear in mind that somebody is trying to make a cat’s paw of your country,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t take too kindly to that, if I were you.’

Jia glowered at him.

‘Entry-level Psychology.’

‘Ah, well.’ Julian shrugged and smiled. ‘Something of the sort.’

‘Go next door and join your friends,’ Jia said. ‘Wait.’

Chambers couldn’t stop the loop from playing. Over and over again she saw the beetle’s foot coming down to crush her, and suddenly she began to twitch epileptically. She slid down the wall of the hab module like a wet rag. Amber and Oleg were in there with her. It was cramped in the station, horribly cramped, quite unlike the American living quarters. Na Mou, one of the taikonauts, was fussing over them with tea and spicy crab cakes. While Julian was softening up the commander, Chambers had been telling the Chinese woman about the events of the last few hours. Perhaps Na understood more English than she spoke, but Chambers herself was so horrified by her own story that the words stuck in her throat.

‘You lie down,’ Na said, kindly. She was a Mongolian-looking woman with broad cheekbones and strongly slanted eyes, with something of the past about her, a suggestion of marching parades and collective farms.

‘It keeps on coming,’ Chambers whispered. ‘It keeps on and on.’

‘Yes. Legs up.’

‘Whether I shut my eyes or keep them open, it never stops.’ She grabbed Na’s wrist, and felt ice-cold sweat start up on her own upper lip and forehead. ‘I’ll be squashed any moment. By a beetle. Isn’t that crazy? People squash beetles, not the other way around. But I can’t stop seeing it.’

‘You can stop.’ Amber turned away from Zhou Jinping, the third crew member at the base, who had been questioning her eagerly. She sat down next to Chambers. ‘You’ve had a shock, that’s all.’

‘No, I—’

‘It’s okay, Evy. I’m pretty close to collapsing myself.’

‘No, there was something there.’ Chambers rolled her eyes, rather like a voodoo priestess in a trance, a mambo. ‘Death was there.’

‘I know.’

‘No, I was over on the other side, do you understand? I was really there. And Momoka was there, and – I mean, I knew that she was dead, but—’

Two dams broke, grief and shock, and tears spilled down over Chambers’ beautiful Latin features. She gesticulated as though trying to ward off some spell, then let her hands drop, exhausted, and began to cry. Amber put an arm around her shoulder and drew her in close, gently.

‘Too much,’ Na Mou said, nodding wisely.

‘It’ll all be all right, Evy.’

‘I wanted to ask her what happens to us next,’ Chambers sobbed. ‘It was so cold in her world. I think she laid a curse on me, she makes me see this terrible sight over and over, she must have seen something just as awful before she died, and—’

‘Evy,’ Amber said quietly but firmly. ‘You’re not clairvoyant. Your nerves are shot, that’s all.’

‘I didn’t even like her very much.’

‘None of us liked her very much.’ Amber sighed. ‘Apart from Warren, I suppose.’

‘But that’s awful!’ Chambers clung tightly to her, racked by sobs. ‘And now she’s gone, we couldn’t even – couldn’t even say something nice—’

Do we have to? Amber thought. Do you have to say nice things to someone who’s clearly a bitch, just on the off-chance that she’ll kick the bucket in the near future?

‘I don’t think she really saw it like that,’ she said.

‘Really?’

‘Really. Momoka had her own ideas about what’s nice or not.’

Chambers buried her face in Amber’s shoulder. The most powerful woman in American media, the voice who made presidents, cried for a few more minutes until she fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. Na Mou and Zhou Jinping had fallen quiet, respecting her sorrow. Rogachev was lying on one of the narrow beds, his legs crossed, and scribbling away on a piece of paper they had found for him.

‘What are you doing there?’ Amber asked, tired.

The Russian twiddled the pen in his fingers without looking at her.

‘I’m doing my sums.’

Jia Keqiang was wrestling with himself. It was a tough fight.

Plentiful experience told him what a long and stony path lay ahead if he took the matter through official channels, just as he knew that the Chinese space agency was largely staffed by paranoiacs. On the other hand, all he needed to do was make one telephone call, and he’d be free of all responsibility. He’d be out of danger of making any mistake, whereas if he spoke up for Orley on his own initiative he would be doomed to mistakes. All he had to do was pass the buck to one of the Party paper-shufflers, and if Orley’s hotel actually was destroyed, it would be no fault of his. Then Beijing would have to face accusations of failing to live up to their treaty obligations and provide adequate help, while he could make loud noises about how he had wanted to help and hadn’t been allowed. He could sleep easy in his bed, and not worry about his career.

If he could sleep easy.

On the other hand – what if Orley was right, and Beijing really was pulling the strings?

He turned his teacup thoughtfully between his fingers, staring down into the green tea. What then? He would dutifully call his superiors and tell them of Orley’s suspicions, only to find himself up to the neck in state secrets. Real state secrets, which were no concern at all of his, because nobody had brought him into the circle. Obviously, he’d be classed as a national security risk straight away. Flying Julian Orley over to Gaia in the shuttle was the least of his problems. It was hostile territory up here, and in case of doubt, they just didn’t fly. Similarly, it would need permission and approvals in triplicate to let the Englishman use Chinese satellites to communicate. Before the Moon crisis, Jia would have been able to make a decision like that on his own, but that option was off the table now.