She established the laser connection with the Peary Base. After a few seconds the face of deputy commander Tommy Wachowski appeared on the screen. There wasn’t much in the way of regular exchange between hotel and base, which meant that it was ages since she had last spoken to him. Wachowski looked tense and relieved at the same time, as if she had taken a weight off his mind with her call. Dana thought she knew the reason. A moment later Wachowski confirmed her suspicion.
‘Am I happy to see you,’ he growled. ‘I thought we’d never get through to anyone ever again.’
‘Have you been having problems with the satellites?’ she asked.
His eyes widened. ‘How do you know that?’
‘Because we have too. We were in contact with Earth when the connection went down. We haven’t been able to get through since then, not even to our shuttles.’
‘We’ve been having pretty much the same thing. Completely cut off. The problem is that we’re in the shadow of the libration. Alternative channels are out. We’re relying on LPCS; do you have any idea what’s going on?’
‘No.’ Dana shook her head. ‘At the moment we haven’t a clue. Not a clue. You?’
Aristarchus Plateau
The Moon was quite definitely more suited to route-marches than the Earth, because of its lower gravitation. Spacesuits quite definitely weren’t. Even though the exosuits provided a high level of comfort and mobility, you were, regardless of the air-conditioning, in an incubator. The more energy you expended, the more you sweated, and eight kilometres, even performing leaps that would have done credit to a kangaroo, remained eight kilometres.
Assailed by questions, Julian had divulged various things: he had talked about his nocturnal observation of the Lunar Express, about Hanna’s lies and dodges, and had told them something was under way against Orley Enterprises somewhere in the world. But the idea that terrorists might try to blow up his hotel with an atom bomb he kept to himself, just as he refrained from mentioning Lynn’s inexcusable derelictions of duty. He was terribly worried about her, but there was a great gulf of understanding in the mountain range of his concern, in which a horrible black worm of anxiety wriggled. Who had actually re-edited the video, who had hooked up Hanna? Because there was no doubt that the Canadian had been listening in earlier: he had gone into action even while that man Jericho had been setting out his suspicions! And finally, who had deactivated the satellites in perfect synchronisation with Hanna’s flight? The worm turned, glistened, quivered, and gave birth to the idea of an assistant, an accomplice in the hotel, male or female. Someone who had inexplicably refused to let him see the manipulated video, and whose attitude was becoming more mysterious with each passing hour.
‘And how are we going to get out of here?’ Evelyn wanted to know. ‘Back to the hotel, without a shuttle or radio contact?’
‘I’m just wondering where Carl’s trying to get to,’ Rogachev mused.
‘Like that matters right now,’ snorted Momoka.
‘Why was he in such a rush to get away? Nothing could have been pinned on him. Well, there’s the fact that he doesn’t stick too closely to the truth, but okay. Why the hurry?’
‘Maybe he’s planning something,’ said Amber. ‘Something he has to get done in time, now that his cover’s been blown.’
In time. That was it! How did the accomplice in the hotel manage to get away, if he existed at all? How acute was the danger of a bomb going off in Gaia within the next hour? Wouldn’t Hanna’s journey have had to take him back to Gaia, to set it off? Or was the bomb already ticking? In which case—
Lynn! He must have been crazy to suspect her! But even if she had some macabre, incomprehensible part in the drama, did she realise what she’d let herself in for? Did she have even the tiniest idea what was going on? Could Hanna have roped her in for his purposes, on some pretext or other? Could he have exploited her mental state, somehow hoodwinked her into doing things for him, the significance of which she completely misunderstood?
Perhaps he should have listened more closely to Tim.
Should have! The grammar of missed opportunities.
‘Julian?’
‘What?’
‘How are we going to get out of here?’ Evelyn asked again.
He hesitated. ‘Peter knows – he knew the Schröter spaceport better than I did. I don’t think there are any flying machines there, but there’s definitely a third moon-mobile. So we’ll get away in any event.’
‘But where to?’ asked Rogachev. ‘Crossing the Mare Imbrium in a moon car isn’t exactly an encouraging prospect.’
‘How far are we from the hotel, anyway?’ asked Amber.
‘About thirteen hundred kilometres.’
‘And how long will our oxygen hold out?’
‘Forget it,’ wheezed Momoka. ‘Certainly not long enough to get to the Vallis Alpina by car. What do you say, Julian? How long would it take to cover thirteen hundred kilometres at eighty max?’
‘Sixteen hours,’ said Julian. ‘But realistically we’ll hardly be able to go at eighty.’
‘Sixty?’
‘Maybe fifty.’
‘Oh, brilliant!’ laughed Momoka. ‘Then we can take bets on who packs up first. Us or the car.’
‘Stop it,’ said Amber.
‘My bet’s on us.’
‘This is pointless, Momoka. Why don’t we—’
‘Then the car will keep going for a while with our corpses inside, until eventually—’
‘Momoka!’ yelled Amber. ‘Shut. The. Fuck. Up!’
‘Right, that’s enough!’ Julian stopped and raised both hands. ‘I know we have a stack of terrible things to work out. Nothing makes any sense, practically no information is confirmed. At the moment the only thing we can do is think in a straight line, from one step to the next, and the next step will be an examination of the Schröter spaceport. We’ve got enough oxygen to do that.’ He paused. ‘Now that Peter’s dead—’
‘If he really is,’ said Evelyn.
‘As Peter is probably dead, I’ll take his place. Okay? Responsibility for the group lies with me now, and from this moment I only want to hear constructive comments.’
‘I’ve got a constructive comment,’ said Rogachev.
‘Great stuff, Oleg,’ sneered Momoka. ‘Constructive comments are at a premium right now.’
Rogachev ignored her. ‘Aren’t the helium-3 mines a bit closer to the Aristarchus Plateau than the hotel?’
‘That’s right,’ said Julian. ‘Not half as far.’
‘So if we could get there—’
‘The mines are automatic,’ Momoka objected. ‘Peter told me. It’s all robots.’
‘Okay,’ said Evelyn thoughtfully. ‘Even so, they must have some sort of infrastructure, don’t they? Accommodation for maintenance staff. Some means of transport.’
‘There’s definitely a survival depot,’ said Julian. ‘Good idea, Oleg. So let’s go!’
The fact that their oxygen wouldn’t get them to the mining zone he left unspoken.
Ganymede
Hanna hurried towards his goal on the hypothetical line of fifty degrees longitude, pulling the shadow of the Ganymede at a rate of 1200 kilometres an hour across the velvet monotony of the northern Oceanus Procellarum. His gaze rested on the controls. He couldn’t get any more speed out of the shuttle. He still had another hour and a quarter to go, but given the pitiful possibilities at Julian’s group’s disposal that was hardly cause for concern. Even if they managed to leave the plateau, he still had a luxurious amount of time to finish his task and leave the Moon. But whether Ebola would get there in time, now that everything was in chaos, was anybody’s guess. Admittedly he planned to wait as long as possible. But he would have to fly off sooner or later, alone if necessary. Those were the rules. Alliances served a purpose.