Филип Керр - The Second Angel

‘What happened was unfortunate,’ said Dallas. ‘But hardly likely to happen again, now that Rimmer is dead. And I’d still like to have an accurate idea of how many centigrays we’re likely to absorb in the time it takes for us to penetrate the containment room wall.’

‘There’s no way we’ll find another geodesic on the Moon,’ said Prevezer. ‘I already asked around. There’s no demand for Simworlds up here. I mean, people aren’t much interested in Simworlds when reality’s as good as this.’

‘Good of you to admit it,’ said Simou.

‘It would take at least four or five days to have another unit sent on the next astroliner from Earth,’ said Prevezer, ignoring him.

Gates shook his head. ‘Lenina can’t wait that long.’

‘Neither can we,’ said Dallas. ‘There’s our window of lunar daylight to consider. If we wait that long, we’ll be trying to land the Mariner in darkness. And it’s going to be hard enough in daylight without Lenina. How is she? I mean, I don’t suppose there’s any way she’ll be fit?’

‘The fact is, she could die at any time,’ said Gates, rubbing a big hand through his shock of white hair. ‘Back on Earth, she’d probably be dead already. It’s only the pressurized atmosphere that’s giving her hemoglobin the oxygen it needs for her to stay alive.’

Dallas nodded. ‘That’s settled then. We go tomorrow. July twentieth. What with all the activity for the Moon landing centennial, it’ll be easier getting Lenina out of the hotel. We have until then to make some calculations regarding somatic radiation effects. Prev? Any ideas?’

‘I could run a two-dimensional model on the computer,’ he suggested. ‘Kind of a predictive microworld using the data that’s already in the memory. It won’t give us anything like the verisimilitude of detail or realism of prescriptive process that characterizes the three-D, but it should give us a range of probable figures.’

‘Then do it,’ said Dallas. ‘Right away.’

‘Just how are we going to get Lenina out of the hotel?’ asked Ronica. ‘Quite apart from her being unconscious, she looks like she stepped out of a plague pit.’

‘She’ll have to wear a space suit,’ said Simou.

‘Well, of course,’ said Cavor. ‘Lots of people in the hotel lobby are wearing space suits. But most of them can walk.’

‘Have you looked in the hotel bar?’ asked Simou. ‘It’s full of drunks celebrating the centennial. And tomorrow there’ll be even more. Gates and I can carry her between us. Who’s going to notice three more drunks in space suits?’

‘What about Rimmer?’ asked Ronica. ‘What are we going to do with the body? We can hardly carry him out of here as well.’

‘We’ll leave him here,’ said Dallas. ‘It’s not like we’re actually checking out. Officially we’re supposed to be coming back here after our flight down to Descartes. By the time they figure we’re not, we’ll be long gone, hiding out on the dark side.’

‘We can stash him in the closet and switch on the Do Not Disturb,’ said Cavor. ‘That way the maid won’t bother to clean the room.’

‘Then that’s agreed,’ said Dallas. ‘Is that everything?’

‘I sure hope so,’ muttered Gates.

Dallas gave him a curious sort of glance, and then looked awkward. ‘In which case there’s one more thing I have to tell you all. Although this concerns you most of all, Cav.’

‘This sounds like what I’ve been waiting to hear.’

‘And you, Rameses.’

‘Someone get me a painkiller,’ groaned Gates.

‘There’s no easy way to put this, so I’ll just give it to you straight. After you’ve landed the Mariner, it’ll be just me and Cav who enter the main facility.’

‘Me?’ Cavor’s eyes widened with surprise.

‘Come again?’ demanded Gates.

‘You’re not coming inside the bank.’

‘Is this some kind of joke, Dallas? Because these white hairs of mine should tell you, I’m kind of low on a sense of humor right now.’

‘It’s no joke.’

‘Is it because of what happened? Me getting metabolic icebox? Because I’ve already figured out a way of preventing that from happening.’

‘As a matter of fact, so have I.’

‘Then what’s the problem? I don’t understand.’

‘The truth is that when it came to the real thing, it was always going to be me and Cav.’

‘But why?’

‘Because he has some special skills. Skills that even he doesn’t know about.’

‘Would you mind telling me what they are?’ asked Gates.

‘I’m intrigued to know, myself,’ admitted Cavor.

‘All in good time.’

‘If that’s the case, then why did you do the simulation with me instead of him? Why am I the one who looks like a goddamn albino if I’m not the one who’s going on the real job after all?’

‘Hey,’ protested Simou. ‘You ask me, your hair color’s looking good. Better than before.’

‘Because Cav’s special skills wouldn’t have worked in a Simworld. Only in reality.’

‘Now I really am intrigued.’

‘I thought you’d be pleased, Rameses. After all, you’ve expressed quite a few reservations about my plan. Not least our going into the containment room and exposing ourselves to radiation.’

‘Reservations are one thing,’ argued Gates. ‘Cold feet are quite another. Which reminds me, in case you’d forgotten. Cav has P2, just like me.’

‘Yes, but for not as long as you. If you were going to point out that his body’s core temperature is likely to cool down quicker than mine, then I’d agree with you. But still not as quickly as yours. Look, Rameses, this is nothing personal. This is just the best way of getting the job done. The only way, as it happens. What matters to you and to Lenina, and to the rest of you, is that we get the blood.’

‘Amen to that,’ agreed Simou.

‘Well? Isn’t it?’

‘I guess so,’ nodded Gates. ‘But there’s one thing I still don’t understand — since we happen to be talking about what’s important for everyone here. What’s in this for you, Dallas? You don’t have the virus. You don’t need the blood.’

‘I want blood all right,’ Dallas said grimly. ‘Just as badly as the rest of you. You see, I’ve got a different kind of virus. Maybe it won’t kill me, but it’s eating me up just the same. For me, revenge will be a kind of cure. It will be the greatest feeling in the world.’ Dallas smiled. ‘The world? It can go hang. Perish the whole damn universe just as long as I have my revenge.’

Earth, looking like some fabulous blue Faberge egg inside a black-velvet-lined case, seems a much more precious, durable thing than the deserving object of Dallas’s small-minded revenge. The mathematics, those fundamental numbers, are by themselves sufficiently miraculous in the way they seem to reflect a certain underlying order, and might have given him pause for thought.

Numbers like the size of the electric charge of the electron: Even the smallest difference, and the stars — whose debris went to form other stars and planets, such as Earth — would never have exploded. Numbers such as the ratio between the mass of an electron and a proton, which seem to have been minutely fixed to make possible the development of intelligent life in the universe. A universe that is still expanding at such a critical rate that, even now, ten thousand million years after the singularity that had detonated its existence, an infinitesimally small alteration in that expansion rate taking place one second after that singularity, of less than 0.0001 percent of one hundred billion, would have resulted in the universe recollapsing before ever reaching its present size and shape.