Mukesh hurried out. Lynn followed him and plundered the depot with the substitute spacesuits. Several were missing, including hers. Suddenly remembering that not all the suits were stored in the lobby, she ran back into the control centre and to the closed bulkhead on the rear wall. Behind it lay a small storeroom for spare equipment, including fire extinguishers, suits and air masks. She waited until the steel door had glided to the side, walked in, and was surprised to find the light on. Her gaze fell on the locker with the equipment, on the piles of boxes, on the dead faces of the air masks neatly lined up in their cabinets, and on the dead face of Sophie Thiel, who was leaning upright against the wall. Her eyes were open, and her pretty face had been divided in two by a streak of dried blood originating from a hole in her forehead.
Lynn didn’t move.
She just stood there, gawping at the corpse. Strangely – and thankfully, in the face of everything – it didn’t unleash any emotions in her. None at all. Maybe it was just the fact that its appearance was too much and too late, or the pushiness with which it demanded its moment in the limelight amidst an inferno of Dante-like proportions, as if they didn’t have other problems. So after a few seconds she ignored Sophie and started carrying out the boxes containing the bio-suits.
‘Hello, Lynn.’
She looked up, confused.
Dana Lawrence was standing in the doorway.
Heidrun and O’Keefe made their way hand over hand over table and chair legs, supporting, pulling and pushing Olympiada up towards the airlock. Contrary to what she had thought, the Russian woman had not fallen behind the bar but behind the DJ booth. Meanwhile, Miranda hung on to the side of the airlock like a monkey on a pole, her hand lying across the sensor field to keep it open.
‘Can you guys make it? Shall I help?’
‘I can get up there by myself,’ groaned Olympiada defiantly.
‘No, you can’t,’ said Heidrun. ‘Your leg is injured; you can hardly stand on it.’
The main problem resulting from the change to their spatial surroundings was not so much the tilting of the floor, as that of the airlock. The front section was now turned towards Gaia’s glass face and pointing downwards. And it wasn’t just that it was incredibly difficult to get into it in this way; if they didn’t watch out up there, they would fall outside faster than they intended.
‘You’ll have to try to get behind the elevator as soon as you get to the terrace,’ said Tim. ‘It will give you something to grip. Oh, and bring something long and sharp with you, like a knife.’
‘What for?’ groaned O’Keefe, as he steered Olympiada towards Miranda Winter’s outstretched hand.
‘To block the cabin so it doesn’t go down again.’
‘I said I could manage.’ Olympiada wrapped her hands around the cabin railing and pulled herself into the elevator with a grimly determined expression. ‘Go and look for your knife, Finn.’
They grasped the railing tightly and waited. O’Keefe was only gone for a minute. When he came back, carrying an ice pick, he had a wad of material flung over his shoulder. Miranda let the bulkheads close and pump the air out.
The cabin shuddered.
‘Not again,’ groaned Olympiada.
‘Don’t worry,’ Miranda reassured her. ‘It’ll stop in a second.’
‘What are you planning to do?’ asked Dana.
The bulkheads had finally opened and the armoured plating had crept back into the hidden cavities. Freed from her prison, Dana had jumped down from the gallery over the bridge into the lobby, all the while thinking through her next steps: to break off the rescue mission, capture the Callisto, and get the hell out of here. In the course of the past hour and a half, she had been forced to win back trust by making out she sympathised with Lynn, but that was over now. Julian’s hated daughter was alone in the control centre. She was no serious opponent; the loss of Dana’s weapon wouldn’t make the task easy, but she could make do with her hands.
‘I’m flying up there,’ said Lynn, her face devoid of any expression, then went back into the room and hauled out two large boxes containing spacesuits. Dana cocked her head. Had she not seen Sophie? No, there was no way she hadn’t seen her, but why did she seem so unaffected? Surely such a sight would have thrown her off track, but Lynn looked indifferent, as if she were on autopilot. Her gaze empty, she took off her jacket and began to unbutton her blouse.
‘Come on, Dana, get yourself a suit too.’
‘What for?’
‘You’re flying one of the hoppers. The more of us there are, the quicker—’ Suddenly she stopped and stared at Dana with her red-rimmed eyes. ‘Hey, you’ve piloted the Callisto before, right?’
Dana came slowly closer, bent over and readied her own bodily murder weapons.
‘Yes,’ she said slowly.
‘Good, then we’ll do it like that. No hoppers.’
Incoherent conversation came out of the loudspeakers, hastily uttered sentences. Silently, Dana walked around the console.
‘Hey, Dana!’ Lynn wrinkled her forehead. ‘Are you listening to me?’
She moved faster. Lynn craned her head back, looked her up and down from beneath her half-closed eyelids and took a step back. Her expression came back to life. A hardly perceptible flicker betrayed her suspicion.
‘You’ll fly the Callisto, do you hear me?’
Sure, thought Dana, but without you.
‘No, that won’t be necessary!’
As if she’d been hit by lightning, Dana stopped and turned round. Nina had come into the control centre, accompanied by Karla. She was dressed in her spacesuit, carrying her helmet under her arm, and looked thoroughly contrite.
‘I’m sorry, Lynn, Miss Lawrence, I’m very sorry indeed: I wasn’t at my post. I fell asleep in the rest area. Karla walked past me three times, but then she managed to find me after all and told me everything. I’ll fly the shuttle.’
Dana forced a smile. She would have been confident enough of taking on Lynn and Karla, but Nina Hedegaard was incredibly fit and had quick reflexes. At that moment, Mukesh Nair stormed in, bathed in sweat, and the bubble of Dana’s quick getaway burst.
‘Karla,’ he called, exhausted. ‘There you are. And Nina! Miss Lawrence, thank heavens.’
‘Our plan has changed,’ said Lynn. ‘Nina’s flying up with the shuttle.’ She walked over to the console and spoke into the microphone: ‘Sushma, Eva, back to the control centre. Right away!’
Dana folded her arms behind her back. Nina was by far the better pilot; any objections on her part would have been futile.
‘You have a lot to make up for,’ she said strictly. ‘I’m sure you realise that.’
‘I’m sorry, really I am!’ Nina lowered her gaze. ‘I’ll get them out of there.’
‘I’ll come too. You’ll need help.’
Without waiting for an answer, Dana walked across the control centre, went into the room containing Sophie’s corpse and jumped back. Feigning rage and horror, she spun round towards Lynn.
‘Damn it! Why didn’t you tell me about that?’
‘Because it’s not important,’ answered Lynn calmly.
‘Not important? Again something that’s not important? Are you completely insa—’
In a flash, Lynn stormed over, grabbed Dana by the neck and threw her against the doorframe, making her head jerk back and crash against it painfully.
‘Just you dare,’ she hissed.
‘You are insane.’
‘If you suggest one more time that I’m insane, you’ll get a very tangible impression of what insanity really is. Mukesh, put your suit on, the box with the XL label! Karla, box S!’
Dana stared at her with unconcealed rage. Her entire body was trembling. She could have killed Julian’s daughter with a few unspectacular hand movements, right this very second. Without breaking eye contact, she put one finger after another around Lynn’s wrist and wrenched it from her throat.