The last tank was just being secured.
In front of the tanks! That was the best place.
He pulled himself up onto the wagon bed, then went hand over hand along the metal globes and under the spider’s pincers to the front, until he found a place which seemed good to him, an empty passage between two traction elements. He squeezed himself in, crouched down, wedged in his feet and leaned his back against the tanks.
And waited.
Minutes passed by, and he started to have doubts. Had he been wrong? The fact that the train was fully loaded didn’t necessarily mean it was setting off now. But while he was still brooding over it, there was a slight jolt. Turning his head, he saw the spider disappear from his field of vision. Then the pressure of acceleration followed as the train got faster and faster. The plain flew past him, the dust-saturation around him gradually gave way. For the first time since his cover had been blown, Hanna didn’t feel trapped in a nightmare of someone else’s making.
‘Lousy grasshoppers!’ cursed Julian.
They had made it to the mining station with the very last of their strength. Oleg Rogachev, trained to stay standing for so long that his opponent would fall over from exhaustion, was the only one to show no signs of fatigue. He had rediscovered his gentle, controlled way of speaking and was emitting the freshness of an air-conditioned room. Amber, however, could have sworn that her spacesuit had developed a life of its own, maliciously intent on obstructing her movements and exposing her to the unfamiliar experience of claustrophobia. Soaking wet, she slumped in her gear, bathed in bad odours. Evelyn was faring similarly, traumatised from almost being trampled to death and still a little unsure on her feet. Even Julian seemed to be discovering, with surprise, that he really was sixty years old. Never before had they heard Peter Pan snort so loudly.
It didn’t take them long to discover that there wasn’t a single oxygen reserve in the entire station.
‘We could get some air from the life-support systems,’ Evelyn suggested.
‘We could, but it’s not that easy.’ They were sitting in the living quarters, helmets off, drinking tea. Julian’s face was flushed and his beard unkempt, as if he’d been burrowing around in it for hours on end on the hunt for solutions. ‘We need compressed oxygen. For that we’d need to make various conversions, and to be honest—’
‘Don’t beat around the bush, Julian. Just come out with it.’
‘—at the moment I’m not sure how that works. I mean, I know roughly. But that won’t solve our problem. We would only be able fill up our own tanks. All the reserve tanks have disappeared.’
‘Carl,’ said Rogachev tonelessly.
Amber stared straight ahead. Of course. Hanna had been in the living quarters. They had searched the station in constant expectation of being attacked by him, but he had disappeared without a trace. Which raised the question of how, as it seemed no hoppers were missing – until Julian discovered the transport and operation schedules and found out that a helium-3 transport had set off to Peary Base immediately before they had arrived.
‘So he’s on his way there.’
‘Yes. And from the Pole back to the hotel.’
‘Right, let’s follow him then! When does the next train leave?’
‘Hmm, let me see… oh, the day after tomorrow.’
‘The day after tomorrow?’
‘Guys, the Americans aren’t pumping streams of helium-3 on an hourly basis here! It’s just small quantities. At some stage in the future there’ll be more trains, but right now—’
‘The day after tomorrow. Dammit! That’s two days of sitting around.’
Even the satellites were still refusing to offer them any concessions. Amber crouched in front of her now cold cup of tea, as if by pulling her shoulders up she could stop her head falling down to her feet. Some governing authority seemed to have taken up residence inside her skull. She was afraid of cracking up over her fear for Tim, Lynn and the others. But at the same time she felt as though she were looking at the mountainous skyline of a desk weighed down with the demands of her own survival. No one came to help. Applications for grief and sadness lay around unprocessed, the empathy department had all gone for a coffee break, and the answer phone was on in the Department of Examination for Post-traumatic Syndrome, announcing only the hours of business. Every other service desk had closed due to dismissals. She wanted to cry, or at least whimper a little, but tears required a request form that couldn’t be located, and the Dissociation Department was putting in overtime. Escape plans were checked, considered and discarded as her shocked self sat there in the company of five dead people, waiting for one of the neurotransmitters hurrying by to declare themselves responsible.
‘And how far will we get with the grasshoppers?’ she asked.
‘Theoretically, to the hotel.’ Julian gnawed at his lower lip. ‘But that would take two days. And we don’t have enough oxygen for that.’
‘Could we perhaps reprogram the control system for the trains?’ asked Oleg Rogachev. ‘There are some parked outside after all. If we could manage to start one of them—’
‘I certainly can’t do anything like that. Can you?’
‘Okay, let’s take a different approach,’ said Evelyn. ‘How much longer will our reserves last?’
‘Three to four hours each, I guess.’
‘Right, so that means we can forget all forms of transport that take longer than that.’
‘Well we won’t get to the hotel with that much, that’s for sure. Here, on the other hand, our ability to survive is practically unlimited.’
‘So you want to rot in here while everything else gets destroyed?’ cried Amber angrily. ‘What about the insectoids? Those strange crawling vehicles. They’re equipped with life-support systems, right?’
‘Yes, but they’re even slower than the hoppers. With them it would take three or four days to get even to the foot of the Alps. And climbing after that would take longer than our reserves will last.’
‘The oxygen again,’ said Evelyn bitterly.
‘It’s not just that, Evelyn. Even if we had enough of it, we’re still running out of time.’
Oleg looked at Julian intently. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘What?’
‘That we’re running out of time.’
Julian held the Russian’s gaze. He tried to get the words out several times, then turned his head towards Amber in a silent plea for help. She nodded imperceptibly. Julian opened up the dungeons of discretion and finally told Evelyn and Rogachev the whole truth.
Rogachev’s face was expressionless. Evelyn was looking at the tips of her fingers, stupefied. Her lips moved as if she were uttering inaudible prayers.
‘And that’s everything?’ she said finally.
‘Far from it.’ Julian shook his head gloomily. ‘But that’s all I know. Honestly! I would never have brought you all here if I had had the slightest suspicion that—’