Frank Schätzing - Limit

‘But the base is in the libration shadow, which means that your country can watch until they go blue in the face, they won’t see anything!’

‘Please be assured that China has nothing to do with it.’

‘I don’t understand.’ Orley paced around the small control room. ‘I simply don’t understand. What’s all this in aid of?’

Jia turned his head. ‘When do you want to set off?’

‘Now. I’ll tell the others.’ Orley paused. ‘I am really very grateful, Commander. Very.’

‘Keqiang,’ Jia heard himself say.

Really? For a moment, he felt an urge to withdraw the offer, but he liked this easygoing, long-haired Englishman. Had he been too harsh in judging the relaxed Western ways? Maybe being on first-name terms was a step towards harmony among the nations.

‘One thing’s for sure, Keqiang,’ Orley said with a sour grimace. ‘There’d have been no Moon crisis if it had been down to us two.’

At that moment, they heard his name.

It droned from the loudspeakers, part of a looped message, an automatic broadcast signal.

‘Callisto to Ganymede. Callisto to Julian Orley. Please come in. Julian Orley, Ganymede, please come in. Callisto to—’

Jia leapt up and raced to the console.

‘Callisto? This is Jia Keqiang, commander of the Chinese mining operations. Where are you?’

For a second there was only crackling from the loudspeakers, then Nina Hedegaard’s face appeared on the screen.

‘We’re flying over the Montes Jura,’ she said. ‘How come—’

‘We’re keeping our ears open. Are you looking for Julian Orley?’

‘Yes.’ She nodded emphatically. ‘Yes!’

Julian shoved into view. ‘Nina! Where are you?’

‘Julian!’ Suddenly Tim’s face appeared next to hers. ‘At last! Is everybody all right?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘But—’ Tim was visibly distraught.

‘That’s to say, Amber’s fine,’ Julian reassured him hurriedly. ‘What happened to Lynn? And Gaia? Tim, what’s going on here?’

‘We don’t know. Lynn’s – we’re alive.’

‘You’re alive ?’

‘Gaia was destroyed.’

Julian stared at the screen, lost for words.

‘There was a fire, several people died. We had to evacuate anyway, because of the bomb.’

The bomb—

‘No, Tim.’ He shook his head, and clenched his fists.

‘Don’t worry, we’re safe. At the moon base. That’s where we just flew from. There are two search parties out to—’

‘Are you in touch with the base?’

‘No, they’re cut off from the outside world.’

‘Tim—’

‘Julian, I’m coming in to land,’ Nina said. ‘We’ll be back at the Pole in an hour. Then we can—’

‘Too late, that’s too late!’ he yelled. ‘The bomb’s not in Gaia. Do you hear? Gaia has nothing to do with all that. The bomb’s stored at the Pole, it’s meant for the moon base. Where’s Lynn, Tim? Where’s Lynn? ’

Tim froze. His lips formed three silent words:

At the Pole.

‘Don’t tell me that!’ Julian wrung his hands and looked about frantically. ‘You have to get her out some—’

‘Julian,’ Nina said, ‘the second search party set out after us, they’re circling over the Mare Imbrium. As soon as we’ve picked you up, we’ll climb until we can make contact and we’ll send them straight back to the base. They’re closer than we are.’

‘Hurry! Carl’s on his way to Peary. He’s going to arm it!’

‘We’re on our way.’

Dana Lawrence sat in the half-dark of the command centre in Igloo 1, breathing in pure oxygen through a mask, staring dead ahead. She’d had enough oxygen back in Gaia to see to the smoke inhalation, but a couple more breaths couldn’t hurt.

‘Don’t you want to go get some sleep?’ Wachowski asked sympathetically. The lights from the control panels and screens bathed his face in an anaemic blue-white glow. ‘I’ll wake you if anything happens.’

‘Thanks, I’m fine.’

In fact she didn’t feel tired at all. For as long as she could remember, all her strength had been focused on not falling asleep. In the sickbay, Kramp, Eva and the Nairs were lying comatose, exhausted. They were all under sedation, and tended by DeLucas, the station medic and life-support specialist. Even DeLucas, though, had no idea what Lynn needed. A young geologist called Jean-Jacques Laurie had suggested leaving her in the care of ISLAND-I, an older model than ISLAND-II. The programmed psychologist had diagnosed shock, to nobody’s astonishment, along with a possible case of late-onset psychosomatic mutism. Since then, Julian’s daughter had been either lying wide-eyed in the dark, or wandering about like a zombie, a prisoner in her own body. The Ögis were the only ones who were healthy and in full possession of their wits, and they had taken a room in one of the western towers. The base was short-staffed, all the survivors were out of action, the search parties had set off on their fool’s errand, and Hanna would be trying to get back to the hotel. God knows she had done everything she could to make things easy for him, but Hanna wasn’t coming. By now it was past four o’clock, and any confidence she had had that he would turn up was gone. The plan had been that they would carry out the operation together, but in this trade, you fought side by side with your comrade until circumstances demanded you sacrifice him. In two to three hours, the search parties would be back. By then, one of them had to have done the deed.

She got up.

‘I’m going to stretch my legs. It’ll help me stay awake.’

‘We brew a pretty good coffee up here as well,’ Wachowski said.

‘I know. I’ve had four cups already.’

‘I’ll put on some more.’

‘I’ve had enough smoke inside me to poison my system, thanks, I won’t risk a caffeine overdose. I’ll be next door in the fitness room if anything happens.’

‘Dana?’ Wachowski smiled, embarrassed.

‘Yes?’

‘I can call you Dana, can’t I?’

Dana raised an eyebrow. ‘Of course – Tommy.’

‘Respect.’

‘Oh.’ She smiled again. ‘Thank you.’

‘I really mean it. You’re keeping it all together! After everything that happened, Orley can be glad he has you. You’re keeping a cool head.’

‘Well, I try to.’

‘His daughter’s pretty much in a world of her own.’

‘Hmm. ISLAND-I says she’s suffering from shock.’

‘Pretty severe shock. What’s up with her? You know her better, Dana, what’s her problem?’

Dana was silent for a moment.

‘The same problem we all have,’ she said as she left the room. ‘She has her demons.’

The freight train with the helium-3 tanks shot up the valley bed to Peary launch field at more than 700 kilometres per hour, but Hanna’s thoughts were moving faster.

He had to arm the bomb, but before he did that, it would be best to make contact with Dana. He hadn’t the first idea what might have happened at the hotel. All he knew for sure was that with his cover blown, they had a lot less room for manoeuvre. If he waited for her at the Pole, they could escape together, but he’d find himself an officially wanted man, by the time they boarded the OSS at the latest, and he could forget taking the elevator back down to Earth. The whole screw-up called for quick action. Set the fuse timer, then get out of there on the Charon. Xin’s finely crafted plan could still work. Not exactly in all details, perhaps, but with the same results. It would be best if Dana were still safely tucked away in the Vallis Alpina, putting on a show of concern, and hoping that the Chinese could put her through to Earth under their treaty obligations for mutual assistance.