Frank Schätzing - Limit

Although perhaps in exceptional circumstances—

Finn O’Keefe. It was worth a try. It would certainly be fun to snare him of all people, but the thought quickly soured.

Julian?

He clearly loved flirting with her. But on the other hand Julian’s job meant he flirted with everyone. Still. He was unattached, apart from the affair with Nina Hedegaard, if they were even still having one and it wasn’t just her reading too much into it. If she yielded to Julian’s advances there would be little danger of hurting anyone else, and they would have fun, she was sure of that. Perhaps something more might even come out of it. And if not, that was fine too.

On the spur of the moment, she dialled the number of his suite.

But no one answered, the screen stayed dark. Feeling foolish all of a sudden, like a sparrow pecking around beneath restaurant tables for food from other people’s plates, she crawled hurriedly into her sleeping bag.

‘You had them hanging on your every word.’

‘But I wasn’t even the first.’

Julian raised his eyebrows.

‘2013,’ said Bowie. ‘Chris Hadfield – this ISS astronaut. He was the first person in the world to sing “Space Oddity” in space.’

‘Correct, and it wasn’t bad at all. But you’re the original. You had to come up here and sing it!’

Bowie smiled. ‘Obviously.’

‘And you’re quite sure?’

‘ Quite sure.’

‘Tautou told me that Madame wants them to come back to earth together. We would have room.’ Julian sucked at his bottle. ‘Oh, nonsense, forget the Tautous! We’d have room even if they did come. I’ve always got room for you.’

They were the only ones left in the dimly lit Picard, sucking at their alcohol-free cocktails. Bowie rolled the bottle between his fingers thoughtfully.

‘Thanks, Julian. But I’ll pass.’

‘But why? It’s your chance to go to the Moon. You’re the star man, you’re that guy in The Man Who Fell to Earth , you’re Ziggy Stardust! Who, if not you? You have to go to the Moon.’

‘Well, for a start I’m seventy-eight years old.’

‘And? You can’t tell. You once said you wanted to live to be three hundred. Compared to that you’re still a kid.’

Bowie laughed.

‘So?’ he said, changing the subject. ‘Are you going to get the money together for a second lift?’

‘Of course,’ boomed Julian. ‘Shall we bet on it?’

‘No more bets. What’s going on with the Chinese anyway? I heard they’re pestering you with offers.’

‘Officially they’re doing nothing of the sort, but between ourselves they’re kowtowing like mad. Does the name Zheng Pang-Wang mean anything to you?’

‘Not off the top of my head.’

‘The Zheng Group.’

‘Ah!’ Bowie wrinkled his brow. ‘Yes, I think it does actually. They’re a technology company too, right?’

‘Zheng is the driving force behind Beijing’s space travel. An entrepreneur, bound to the Party, which amounts to the same thing. He never misses a single opportunity to infiltrate my ranks, but I’ve got my defences up, so he tries to do it by plotting. Obviously the Chinese would love to woo me away and have me all to themselves. They’ve got money, more than the Americans, but they don’t have the patents for the lift, or the brainpower to build fusion reactors that don’t immediately shut themselves down again. A few weeks ago I met old Pang-Wang in Paris. A nice guy really. He tried to tempt me with Chinese money, and appealed to my cosmopolitan heart by saying that a clean energy supply would be of benefit to the whole world. He asked whether I didn’t think it was indecent that all the money from helium-3 was going to the Americans. So I asked him what the Chinese would think of it if I went on to sell the patents to the Russians, Indians, Germans, French, Japanese and Arabs.’

‘I’d be more interested to know what the Americans would think of that.’

‘The question is actually a little different: Who has the whip hand? In my opinion, I do, but of course I would create completely new geopolitical relationships. And do I want that? For the most part, I’ve had a kind of symbiotic relationship with America, to our mutual advantage. Recently, since the Moon crisis, Washington has been haunted by the ghosts of the Little Depression of 2008 to 2010. They’re worried things might get out of hand if they give that much power to one single company. Which is ridiculous: I gave them the power! The power to stake out their claim up there. Using my means, my know-how! But it seems the desire to have more control over companies is rampant.’ Julian snorted. ‘Instead of which the governments should be putting their energies into infrastructure, healthcare and education. They should be building streets, schools, houses, old people’s homes, but the private economy even has to help them out with that, so what do they have to crow about? Governments have proved incapable of pushing forward global processes, they only know how to squabble, hesitate and make lazy compromises. They didn’t manage to get to grips with environmental protection in that laughable treaty, they demand sanctions against corrupt and warfaring states in their shaky voices, despite the fact that no one’s bothering to listen, so they just stock up on nuclear arms and impose trading blocks on each other’s markets. The Russians don’t have any money left for space travel now that Gazprom is hanging in the balance, but it would still be enough to give to me and the Americans for permission to use the next space elevator. Then we’d have another player on the Moon with us, and as far as I’m concerned that’s a good thing.’

‘But America doesn’t agree.’

‘Well, no, because they’ve got me. The fact is, together we don’t need anyone else, and in a situation like that Washington thinks they can get away with anything and demand more transparency.’

‘So what’s your plan? Bringing the Russians over to your side without America’s blessing?’

‘If America doesn’t want to play with them and continues to block my ideas, then yes – as you can see, I’ve invited some very illustrious guests. Zheng is right, but not in the way he thinks. I’ve had it up to here with the sponsorship failing to make headway! Competition is invigorating for business. Sure, it would be a bit shabby to run from the Americans to the Chinese now – they’re all the same idiots everywhere when it comes down to it – but offering the lift to all nations, now that’s got a ring to it.’

‘And you said as much to Zheng?’

‘Yes, and he thought he’d misheard. He certainly never wanted to unleash that kind of change in perspective, but he was overestimating his contribution. I’d had the idea for a long time already. He just made me more determined to do it.’

Bowie fell silent for a while.

‘Well, I’m sure you know you’re playing with fire,’ he said.

‘With the sun’s fire,’ said Julian serenely. ‘With reactor fire. I’m used to fire.’

‘Do your American friends know about your plans?’

‘They may have an idea, to a certain extent. It’s no secret whom I go trotting off to the Moon with.’

‘You sure know how to make enemies.’

‘I’ll travel with whomever I like. It’s my elevator, my space station, my hotel up there. They’re far from happy about it of course, but I don’t care. They should make me better offers and stop their control games.’ Julian suckled noisily at his bottle and licked his lips with his tongue. ‘Delicious, isn’t it? On the Moon we’ll have wine with an alcohol substitute. Totally insane! 1.8 per cent, but it tastes like really hard stuff. Are you sure you want to miss out on that?’