‘I’m actually a gliding and ballooning enthusiast,’ he said apologetically, before unloading his box and carrying it to the airlock, a double bulkhead in the floor which measured several metres in diameter, ‘but Switzerland is a little more spacious.’
Tim jumped off his hopper.
‘Finn, we’re above you,’ he said. Lynn had connected their helmet radios with Gaia’s internal network so that everyone could communicate at once. A few seconds passed, then O’Keefe chimed in:
‘Okay, Tim. What should we do?’
‘Nothing just yet. We’ll call up the airlock elevator, send the boxes with the spacesuits down to you and—’
He stopped.
Was it his imagination, or had the floor begun to shake under his feet?
‘Hurry up!’ called O’Keefe. ‘It’s starting again!’
Where was the control console for the airlock? There. His fingers darted as he entered the command, and the air was sucked out at an agonisingly slow speed. The shaking intensified and became like an earthquake. Then the whole thing stopped as abruptly as it had begun.
‘The elevator’s on its way up,’ Ögi gasped breathlessly.
The airlock doors opened in the floor beneath them. A glass cabin pushed its way out, spacious enough to hold a dozen people, and opened at the front. They quickly piled the boxes inside.
‘I’ll go down with them,’ said Heidrun.
‘What?’ Ögi looked alarmed. ‘Why?’
‘To help them. With the suits, so it’s quicker.’ Before he could protest, she had disappeared into the cabin and pressed the down switch. The elevator closed.
‘My darling,’ whispered Ögi.
‘Don’t worry, commander. We’ll all be back in five minutes.’
Finn O’Keefe saw the elevator approaching, with someone in it whose slim legs were familiar to him even through centimetre-thick, steel-strengthened artificial fibres. He waited impatiently until the internal pressure was restored and the front bulkhead had glided to the side.
‘Here we go!’ said Heidrun, throwing the first of the boxes towards him.
Olympiada, as white as chalk, handed the second box on to Miranda, then began to empty her own.
‘Thank you,’ she said earnestly. ‘I’ll never forget this.’
In immense hurry, they slipped into their gear: helping one another, closing hinges, fastening clamps, heaving packs onto their backs and putting their helmets on.
‘Would it be asking too much to want to get out of the hotel right away?’ asked Miranda. ‘It’s just, you know, I don’t want to get blown into the sky, and I’ve emptied the minibar already, so—’
‘You can count on it,’ said Lynn’s voice.
‘Oh, don’t get me wrong,’ Miranda hurried to assure her. ‘There’s nothing wrong with your hotel.’
‘Yes, there is. It’s a piece of shit,’ said Lynn coldly.
Miranda giggled.
At that very moment, the floor gave way.
For one strange moment, Tim thought the entire opposite side of the ravine was being lifted up by elemental forces. Then, as he watched the grasshoppers hopping across the terrace and Ögi whooshing towards the railings with his arms flailing about, he lost his balance, landed on his stomach and slid behind the flying machines.
Gaia was bowing her head in face of the inevitable.
Chaos roared in his helmet. Anyone who had a voice was screaming in competition with all the others. He rolled over, got back on his feet and stretched out, which was a mistake, because he lost his balance again right away. He was pulled forcefully against the railing, tumbled right over it and smacked down onto the smooth, sloping glass surface.
And slid down.
No, he thought. No!
In fear and panic, he tried to get a grip on the reflective surface, but there was nothing there to get hold of. He slipped further, away from the protective enclosure of the terrace. One of the hoppers sailed down behind him and crashed onto the glass. Tim reached out for it and grasped the steering handle just as he saw another flying device disappear into the depths. It suddenly felt as if he were hovering in the air; he couldn’t get a grip any more and hung over the abyss, his legs flailing around. With his hand clamped onto the machine’s handle, he screamed ‘Stop!’ – and as if his plea, his wretched wish to survive, had been acknowledged somewhere out there amongst the cold gaze of the myriad stars, the movement of the huge skull came to an abrupt halt.
‘Tim! Tim!’
‘Everything’s okay, Lynn,’ he panted. ‘Everything’s—’
Okay? Nothing was okay. With both arms – thank God he wasn’t heavy – he pulled himself up on the flying device, noticing with relief that one of its telescopic legs had got wedged in the railings, then realising, with horror, that it was slowly slipping out.
A jolt went through the hopper.
Dismayed, Tim dangled in open air, unable to decide whether he should resume his ascent and thereby rip the hopper out of its anchorage once and for all, or not move at all, which would only delay his death by a few seconds. At the next moment, a figure appeared behind the terrace railing, climbed over it and slid carefully downwards, both hands bent around the rails.
‘Climb up onto me,’ panted Ögi. ‘Come on!’
Ögi’s feet were now level with Tim’s helmet, right next to him. Tim gasped for air, reached his arm out—
The hopper came loose.
Swinging back and forth, he hung on to Ögi’s ankles, grasped his shin guards, clung to his knees, climbed up him like a ladder and over the railing, then helped his rescuer to get back to safety. In front of them, tilted to about forty-five degrees, the floor of the terrace rose up into the heights like a smooth slide.
He had survived.
But they’d now lost all three grasshoppers.
‘No! I’m flying up there.’
Lynn pushed herself away from the control panel, crumpled over and fell against Mukesh. Horrified, the Indian stared at the wall monitor, watching the terrible images being transmitted by Tim’s camera and the external cameras on the opposite side of the ravine. The fibre-optic connection to the Mama Quilla Club had been broken, but they could now hear the voices of those trapped via the helmet radio.
‘It’s stopped.’ Miranda, out of breath. ‘What do we do now?’
‘Olympiada?’ O’Keefe.
‘I’m here.’ Olympiada spoke, sounding haggard.
‘Where?’
‘Behind the bar, I’m… behind the bar.’
‘My darling?’ Ögi, distraught. ‘Where on earth—’
‘I don’t know.’ Heidrun, sucking in air through her teeth. ‘Somewhere. Hit my head.’
‘Everyone out!’ Tim. ‘You can’t stay there. See whether the airlock is working.’
Lynn’s temples were throbbing with hypnotic rhythm. Colourful smog began to whirl around. Having to watch Gaia’s skull tilt so suddenly that the chin was now almost resting on the chest had made her heart stop, and now it was pumping all the harder to make up for it. Gaia looked as though she were sleeping. Her head must truly now be hanging on to the shoulders by a thread.
‘Everything’s at an angle,’ said O’Keefe. ‘We’re tumbling all over each other like skittles. I don’t know if we’ll even get into the airlock.’
Head. Head. Head. How much longer would her head stay on her shoulders?
‘We’ll come and get you,’ she said. ‘We still have seven grasshoppers. I’ll fly.’
‘Me too,’ said Mukesh.
‘We need a third. Quickly! Fetch Karla – she’s in the best state out of all of us.’