‘Eva?’ It was Karla, from deep below her. ‘Eva, are you there?’
Silently, she made her way down. To wherever that might be.
‘Hey!’ Heidrun pointed at the wall monitor showing the plan of the elevators. Through a channel to the left of E2, glowing dots were moving, disappearing for a short while, then appearing again, constantly changing their position. ‘What’s that?’
‘The ventilation shaft!’ Lynn pushed her sweat-soaked hair off her forehead. ‘They’re in the ventilation shaft.’
By now, the staff elevator had disappeared from the screen. The computer reported it as having fallen, but had no information about E2 at all.
‘Can they get out of there by themselves?’ asked Ögi.
‘It depends. If the fire has spread to the elevator shaft, then the loss of pressure could mean the exits are blocked.’
‘If there were a fire in the ventilation shaft they would be dead by now.’
‘The E2 shaft is on fire too, but they still made it through and across to the other side.’ Lynn massaged her temples. ‘Someone has to go to the lobby, quickly!’
‘I’ll go,’ said Heidrun.
‘Good. To the left of E2 there’s a wall casing made of bamboo—’
‘I know it.’
‘The trough is on rails; just push it to the side. Behind it, you’ll see a bulkhead with a control panel.’
Heidrun nodded and set off.
‘It leads into a short passageway,’ Lynn called after her. ‘Very short, not even two metres long, then there’s another bulkhead. From there—’
‘—it leads into the ventilation shaft. I’ve got it.’
In long, bouncing strides, she hurried through the lobby, under the circulating model of the solar system and through to the elevators, of which only one was still usable at most. She turned her attention to the bamboo trough, rolled it aside, then hesitated. Mid-motion, she suddenly felt paralysed. Millimetres above the sensor, the tips of her fingers froze, while a chill crept down her spine at the thought of what might lie behind the bulkhead. Would flames lash out at her? Was this her last conscious moment, would it be her last memory of a life of physical freedom, free from injury?
The fear subsided. Resolute now, she tapped the field. The bulkhead swung open and cool air came out. She walked into the passageway, opened the second bulkhead, put her head through and looked up. It was a surreal sight. Walls, ladders and emergency lights stretched out towards a murky vanishing point. High above her, she caught sight of people on the rungs.
‘Down here!’ she cried. ‘Here!’
Miranda Winter had lost her composure.
‘Rebecca?’ she sobbed.
Feeling distanced from the situation for a moment, O’Keefe reflected that she was one of the few people who still looked attractive while they were in tears. Many with well-formed physiognomy took on frog-like features in a state of tormented suffering, while others looked as if they actually wanted to laugh and weren’t really sure how. Eyebrows slid up to the hairline, usually pretty noses swelled up to become oozing boils. He had seen every conceivable deformation in his time, but Miranda’s despair harboured erotic charm, accentuated by her streaky, running black make-up.
Why was something like that going through his mind? He was tired of his thoughts. They were all just diversionary tactics to prevent him from feeling. And for what? Because grief created intimacy with others who were grieving, and because he took care to keep his distance from all kinds of intimacy? Was it really so much better to stumble out of Madigan’s Pub on Talbot Street, utterly alone and completely pissed, all just to keep his distance?
‘So we’ll use the ventilation shafts,’ resumed Funaki, struggling to stay composed.
‘Not the western shaft,’ said Lynn’s image on the monitor. ‘It’s too close to E2, and besides, the sensors there are reporting increasing smoke development. Try the other side – everything seems to be okay there.’
‘And what—’ Funaki swallowed. ‘What about the others? Are they at least—’
Lynn fell silent. She looked away. O’Keefe noticed how awful she looked, just a Lynn-like shell with something staring out from it. Something he had no desire to get to know.
‘They’re fine,’ she said tonelessly.
Funaki nodded in self-reproach. ‘Then we’ll open up the eastern shaft now.’
‘See you in the lobby, Michio. You know the way out.’
As it happened, there was nothing left that could be burned.
The second oxygen tank had been drained to the last dregs, and all that remained of the three corpses was caked ashes. Whatever could have gone up in flames was already consumed, but it still continued to flicker and glow. After the partial fall of E2, the smoke in the shaft of the staff elevator had risen and become trapped, prevented from circulating by the shutdown of the ventilators, which would have distributed it everywhere. The temperature difference had created its own circulation system, however, and more and more clouds of smoke were emerging from the deformed materials. This meant that the elevator shaft which Eva and the others had crossed through barely fifteen minutes before now didn’t even offer a breath of air or a centimetre of vision. At the height of the cabin’s smouldering remains, the sealed trapdoors had melted to the west ventilation shaft, and this too was now full of smoke, although the shields of the east shaft were holding out for the time being. In the neck of Gaia, the temperature still resembled that of a solar furnace, dramatically increasing the viscosity of the steel beam which was supporting the head of the figure. Once again, Gaia’s chin tilted a little, and this time—
—it was noticeable.
‘The floor just moved,’ whispered Olympiada Rogacheva, grabbing on to Miranda, whose flood of tears ran dry at that very moment.
‘I’m sure it’s built to be elastic,’ she sniffed, patting Olympiada’s hand. ‘Don’t worry, sweetheart. Skyscrapers on Earth shake too, you know, when there’s an earthquake.’
‘You may well be built elastically.’ O’Keefe stared outside, his mouth dry. ‘But Gaia certainly isn’t.’
‘How would you know? Hey, Michio, what—’
‘There’s no time!’ Funaki stood on the landing, waving wildly with both arms. ‘Come on. Quickly!’
‘Maybe we’re just suffering from mass hysteria,’ said Miranda to the distraught Olympiada as she followed Funaki into the Luna Bar and from there down into Selene. Again, the floor gave way beneath them.
‘Chikusho!’ hissed Funaki.
O’Keefe’s knowledge of Japanese was practically nonexistent, but after several days in the company of Momoka Omura he had become sufficiently familiar with swearwords.
‘That bad?’ he asked.
‘Very. We can’t afford to lose a single second.’ Funaki opened a cabinet, took out four oxygen masks and hurried to one of the two free-standing columns, which O’Keefe had until now assumed to be decorative, clad with holographs of constellations. Now, as the Japanese man pushed one of their surfaces to the side, a man-size bulkhead came into view behind it.
‘The ventilation shaft!’