Everyone climbed on board the shuttle bar Udo, who was still enjoying an extended stay in his medbox. More often than not, Kieran could be found in the surgical unit, talking with his brother through the medbay’s commlink now the patient was conscious most of the time. His nervous system had been pretty badly fried during his encounter with Bourdain’s assassin, and micro-surgical units were still working on repairing damaged neural pathways and grafting new skin.
Kieran was quick to take the controls of the shuttle, glaring at Dakota as if she didn’t already know how little he trusted her. She wondered for the millionth time precisely what Udo might have told his brother during those long hours of sibling communication in the surgical unit.
Corso was the last to enter through the shuttle’s hatchway, before strapping himself into a restraint couch next to her own in the rear of the cockpit. Recently he’d been keeping his distance, casting her strange looks and avoiding anything more than the most cursory conversation. She’d tried to draw him out further, hoping he might finally tell her more, but it had only led to some awkward moments.
I’ve been on my own too long, she reflected. Trapped in a tiny ship on the outskirts of Sol space, with no one but her own Ghost for company, wasn’t the healthiest of lifestyles. Her time so far on board the Hyperion had been the longest she’d spent around other people since…
Dakota pushed the memory away. Instead she watched the Hyperion dwindling rapidly from view on a nearby screen, Theona’s curving horizon becoming increasingly visible as the shuttle’s nose dipped towards it. It wasn’t very long before Dakota felt the first faint tug of gravity.
Arbenz twisted his head around from within his own restraint webbing and caught Lucas’s eye. ‘Mr Corso. You’re the expert from here on in. Anything Miss Oorthaus needs to know, you have my permission to discuss it in explicit detail.’
He looked at Dakota next. ‘What we’re about to show you today is something remarkable, quite unprecedented in the history of the human race. The reason for our strict security measures till now will become quite clear.’ He made an attempt at smiling. ‘I’m afraid we’ve employed a degree of subterfuge in bringing you here, but I’m going to ask you not to be alarmed. Everything is going to become very clear, very soon.’ Here he inserted an artful pause that somehow suggested a degree of thoughtful vulnerability. ‘Frankly, we need your help.’
Arbenz faced forward again and began conversing with Gardner while Kieran piloted. From what she could hear, they were discussing the personnel already stationed on the moon below.
She turned to Corso. ‘Start talking. Now.’
He gave her a queasy smile and then avoided her gaze. ‘We’re going to be covering a lot of ground, so in all seriousness the best thing I can do is explain things as we go along. Just trust me when I tell you that you’re in absolutely no danger, OK?’
‘You told me once,’ she said in the lowest whisper she could manage, ‘that you found something.’
The shuttle bucked under them as it hit the top of the moon’s thin atmosphere. ‘That’s the last time you mention I said anything of the kind,’ he muttered. ‘What we found is a derelict starship. One that might have a functioning transluminal drive.’
Dakota stared at him, waiting for the punch line, but it didn’t come. A dizzy sensation scrambled her thoughts and she felt light and giddy, as if filled with air.
Theona had changed from a body floating in space to a landscape spread out below them, pale and featureless except for its jagged mountain ranges where an ancient meteor impact had forced part of the rocky core to emerge above the frozen waters. Their craft dropped rapidly towards the Freehold base at the foot of one of these ranges, superheated steam blasting up around them in scalding clouds as the shuttle settled into a docking cradle. There was a heavy, twisting lurch, followed by a rolling vibration that set Dakota’s teeth on edge as the engines went into their shut-down procedure.
A squall of voices came over the comms system. Kieran Mansell spoke sharply to someone for a moment, and then hit a switch, cutting the voices off. ‘They’re prepping the sub,’ he announced.
Corso was halfway out of his restraint webbing when Dakota reached out with one hand and gripped his forearm.
‘I want you to know that if anything happens to me once we’re off this shuttle, you’ll be the first to die.’
Corso pulled away from her grasp with some difficulty. ‘Fine. In the meantime, can we please get out of here?’
The Theona surface base was manned by a staff of just a dozen. Half of these were preparing to ride the shuttle back up into orbit, where they would board the Agartha, while a relief crew newly arrived from Newfall rode the shuttle back down again. The station’s cramped and tiny rooms and corridors were consequently busy as a beehive as people made last-minute preparations for their departure.
Arbenz guided them through the chaos, meeting and greeting a succession of shiny-eyed young men and women all eager to announce their willingness to die for the Freehold cause. Dakota watched and listened to it all with some distaste, doing her best to ignore the curious and occasionally hostile glances she received from some. She was surprised to see a similar look of distaste appear on Corso’s face, when he thought people weren’t looking.
The Senator kept them moving, clearly not wanting to waste any more time than was absolutely essential. They were joined soon by two of the station’s staff, and Arbenz led them into an elevator clearly designed to carry large quantities of heavy equipment. As soon as they were all aboard, the elevator shuddered to life and dropped rapidly.
Several minutes passed, with Dakota wondering exactly how far down they were going. She glanced over at Corso and saw he was looking as apprehensive as she felt.
Something tugged at the edge of her thoughts: it was a little like sensing the presence of another machine-head. But this sense of otherness originated from somewhere far, far below them.
She ignored it after a moment, blaming her nerves.
The lift finally came to a halt, and they disembarked into a metal-walled antechamber with an airlock at one end and a series of cabinets ranged along one wall. The two men from the surface station stepped over to the cabinets and pulled out gel suits of the type normally used for orbital high-gee manoeuvring. It was freezing cold, and Dakota realized the gel suits were intended as a protection against hypothermia.
She pulled one on, aware of it forming around her body, immediately feeling warmer.
They filed through a narrow door and into the airlock. Once she was through, Dakota saw they were in a rectangular cavern carved directly out of the rock and ice. In the centre of the chamber lay a wide dark circle of water surrounded by machinery and ringed by a raised steel platform with steps leading up to it: a borehole, for want of a better description. A sealed and pressurized tunnel made from some transparent fabric led from the airlock directly over to the platform.