‘Warren, you stubborn idiot!’
The worst thing was, Hanna was right.
‘Fine!’
Cursing, he staggered from his seat, practically weightless, given the insane speed of their descent. Everything around him was rattling, vibrating and roaring. The floor was at such an extreme angle it was hardly possible to stand on it, except that he was floating anyway. Grabbing his gun, he made his way hand over hand towards the Canadian, crawled behind him and tugged at his bonds with his free hand.
Nothing. As if they were welded together.
Good work, Warren. Well done!
He would need both his hands. Such a bloody mess! Where should he put the gun? Wedge it under his arm, and quick! Don’t panic, now. Disentangle the knots, loosen them, untie them carefully. The straps slid down. Hanna stretched his arms, leapt up, grabbed the arm of the pilot’s seat and pulled himself into it. His eye fell on the console.
‘Thought so,’ Locatelli heard him say.
With some effort he heaved himself into the co-pilot’s seat. The Canadian ignored him. He worked with great concentration, gave a series of instructions and the Ganymede righted itself. Below them drifted an endless sea of dust, blurred fingers poked from it, reaching for them, stirred up by something vast and insect-like, creeping slowly across the plain. Locatelli held his breath. In the formless grey, huge, glistening beetles seemed to be moving around, then all of a sudden he felt as if his brain were being pushed out through his ears. Hanna violently braked the shuttle. Swathes of smoke whirled in front of the glass. They thundered along blindly, far too fast! A moment ago he had been ready to smash Hanna to a pulp, now he felt a powerful desire to see him at work, as the master of the situation. Sweat ran down Hanna’s face, the muscles of his jaw protruded. From the rear part of the Ganymede came a great bang that sounded like an explosion, even louder roaring, the nose of the shuttle rose—
Contact with the ground.
In a flash the landing-struts broke away. Locatelli was slung from his seat as if a giant had kicked the Ganymede in the belly. He performed a somersault and slid unimpeded to the rear. All the bones in his body seemed to want to switch places with each other. Jets hissing, the shuttle ploughed through the regolith, bounced, crashed down again, hurtled on, bucked, lurched, but the tail stayed firm. Locatelli reached desperately around for something he could hold onto. His hand closed on a stanchion. Muscles tensed, he drew himself up, lost his balance and was flying forwards when the hurtling wreck collided with something, reared up and scraped its way up a hill. Just as the machine came to rest in an avalanche of debris, he landed heavily between the seats, was carried on by his own momentum and bumped his head.
Everything around him turned red.
Then black.
Aristarchus Plateau
The brief moment of euphoria at the sound of Locatelli’s voice had made way for greater anxiety. Julian was uninterruptedly trying to get through to the Ganymede, but apart from a hiss nothing issued from the speakers.
‘Crashed,’ Momoka whispered, over and over again.
‘That needn’t mean anything,’ Evelyn said, trying to console her. ‘Nothing at all.
He must have got the thing under control, Momoka. He’s done it before.’
‘But he’s not in contact.’
‘Because he’s flying too low. He can’t get in contact.’
‘We’ll know in half an hour,’ said Rogachev calmly. ‘He should have arrived by then.’
‘That’s true.’ Amber sat down on the floor. ‘Let’s wait.’
‘It’s not as simple as that,’ said Julian. ‘If we wait too long we’ll use up too much oxygen. Then we won’t even get to the production sites.’
‘You mean we’re that low?’
‘Depends how you look at it. We could spare half an hour. But nothing must go wrong after that! And we don’t know whether the rovers will get through. We may find points where they can’t go on – we’ll have to factor in detours.’
‘Julian’s right,’ said Evelyn. ‘It’s too risky. We’ve just got one chance.’
‘But if Warren comes and we’re gone,’ Momoka wailed. ‘How’s he supposed to find us?’
‘Maybe we could leave something behind,’ Rogachev said after a brief, stumped pause.
‘A message?’
‘A sign,’ Amber suggested. ‘We could form an arrow out of the debris from the wrecked rover. So that he knows in which direction we’ve gone.’
‘Wait.’ Julian was thinking. ‘That’s not such a bad idea. And it occurs to me that our routes should actually cross. His last position was Cape Heraclides – that was the direction he was headed. And that’s exactly where we’ve got to get to. If we stay switched to receive, sooner or later he’ll make radio contact with us.’
‘You mean he—’ Momoka gulped. ‘He’s alive?’
‘Warren?’ Julian laughed. ‘Please! No one’s going to break him, no one knows that better than you. And anyway, those things aren’t that hard to fly.’
‘What if he had to do a crash landing?’
‘We’ll meet him on the way.’
They loaded up the rovers with the spare batteries and oxygen supplies, carried debris, empty shelves and containers out of the shacks and arranged them all into an arrow pointing north. On the right they formed an H and a 3 out of rocks.
‘Excellent,’ said Evelyn contentedly.
‘That’s what you call a detailed location,’ Amber agreed. A tiny hope was gradually forming. ‘At least it’ll help him find us.’
‘Yes, you’re right.’ All the arrogance had fled from Momoka’s voice. Now she only sounded terribly concerned and a tiny bit grateful. ‘That’s unmistakable.’
‘Then we should get going,’ urged Rogachev. ‘Suggestions about who should take which rover?’
‘Let Julian decide. He’s the boss.’
‘And the boss drives ahead,’ said Julian. ‘Along with Amber. We’re polite, too, and we’re going to let you guys have the nicer car.’
‘Hmm, then—’
It was strange. Even though they couldn’t survive here, each one of them felt the same ludicrous unease at leaving the spaceport. Perhaps because it looked like safety, even though it offered none. Now they would be heading for the desert. To no man’s land.
They stared at each other, without actually being able to see anyone’s face.
‘Come on,’ Julian decided at last. ‘Let’s get going.’
London, Great Britain
It was doubtless very sensible of Jennifer Shaw to have brought in people from Scotland Yard who, when the talk turned to Korean nuclear material, immediately informed the SIS. Since Orley Enterprises was based on British soil, and a non-British facility seemed to be involved, MI5 and MI6 were both let loose on the company. Jericho, on the other hand, felt as if they were running on the spot. Not because he missed Xin and the witch-hunt he had unleashed, but because all initiative seemed suddenly to have been taken out of his, Yoyo’s and Tu’s hands. The Big O swarmed with nothing but investigators that late afternoon. Jennifer insisted on having them there for every conversation, with the result that they droned out the same endless answers to the same endless questions, until Tu, red-faced with fury, under questioning from one of Her Majesty’s agents, demanded the return of his suitcase.