‘Dragon?’ parroted the pilot. He knew, suddenly, that this man was not right in the head. There was something implacable in the tone of that voice, something robotic and unreasoning. The thought landed like a bomb in his mind. He could well be in trouble here after all. He’d have to play this carefully — not an easy task when he still felt badly befuddled by his years in the cask.
The shadow’s head nodded seriously. Behind the man, the pilot could just make out the shuttle’s large viewscreen, now that his eyes were beginning to work better. It showed the expected asteroid field, in its familiar oblique spread, but it looked somewhat thinner than it should have been. Macao Station was not visible. And the shuttle was at a standstill. This man, whoever he was, had intercepted the vessel en-route, somewhere very close to its destination. The pilot’s heart began to race anew, his breath coming in odd lumps that were hard to swallow and hurt his chest. He felt like crying.
‘You have a man on board. One Prisoner Carver, if I’m not mistaken.’ The pilot, transfixed, could only nod. ‘I have to get the code for his restraining device.’
Was that all? Was that really all this man wanted? He wanted to free the prisoner who right now lay strapped and trapped in his own cask down in the hold. Maybe that was all that would be required of him. He knew it was a mistake to capitulate, but in his current condition what else could he do? And in truth, he didn’t even pause to consider the consequences. He just wanted this situation to end.
‘It’s on the datasheet over there,’ the pilot said in a small and trembling voice. He raised one shaky hand to point towards the control console. The datasheet lay magnetted onto the main dashboard. He couldn’t see it from here, but he knew it was there.
‘Good,’ said the man brightly. He rose and swam to the console, weaving around hunks of equipment and items of baggage. To his amazement, the pilot heard that he was singing softly and cheerfully under his breath.
The man began to root around on the dashboard, discarding rejected items that floated this way and that dreamily, silhouetted against the main screen. The pilot began to realise sluggishly that this might be his chance. He made to rise, but was confounded to find that he couldn’t get up. Panic began to boil inside him. The shadow-man was still facing away from him, searching the dash, but surely he would return any second now.
And then he remembered that his legs were still strapped into the cask! With desperate, fumbling fingers he began to undo the straps. Why were there so damn many? And then there was a hand on his chest, pushing him back down onto the bed of the cask. He heard a frightened whimper escape his own lips, but he was too weak to resist. The man floated above him now like a dark angel, his face a shadowy blank, the datasheet clipped to his belt.
‘One more thing,’ said the man, pressing down on the pilot’s chest, pinning him in place even more tightly than he already was.
‘What?’ whispered the pilot. He felt his bladder let go and was dimly surprised that he had that much liquid left in him.
‘This,’ said the man. And he drew a lumpy shape from his belt. ‘It’s not me,’ reminded the shadow-man. ‘It’s the dragon.’ And then the pilot saw that the shape was in fact a large — a very large — spanner. Coloured telltales reflected off its silvery surface as it fell towards his unprotected face.
Chapter Twelve
Lina took her coffee from the machine and weaved through the randomly scattered chairs of the canteen. She nodded and smiled knowingly at Rocko, who sat discretely in a corner with Fionne Sinclair, their heads bowed together and conversation quiet. Rocko scowled at her in response, but his face immediately resumed its expression of boyish happiness, his white teeth gleaming in contrast to his dark skin. Fionne laughed prettily at some remark of his, her face dimpling. Lina resisted the urge to wink and went to Eli’s table at the far side of the room, ducking under a loop of armoured cable that hung from a hole in the ceiling.
‘And what, may I ask, are you smiling about?’ asked Eli, eyebrows arched.
‘Young love,’ replied Lina, feeling her smile grow. She liked Rocko, and Fionne.
‘And much good may it do us,’ said Eli. Outside the window, the trails of the last shift’s Kays could be seen returning to base on schedule. One of them was out of formation, though, lagging somewhat behind the others. This was almost certainly K6-3, a problem vessel that seemed to suffer from an unfixable irregularity with its gas injectors.
‘Bit cynical, Eli,’ she said, lifting the cup to her lips. The liquid smelled faintly of some plasticky chemical. Lina, who was not good at eating breakfast however much she insisted her son did so, felt her stomach clench in response. She lowered the cup of noxious fluid, crestfallen.
Eli chuckled at her disgust. ‘Just realistic, Li,’ he corrected.
‘So what is it now?’ she asked resignedly. ‘Besides the fact that we’re about to go on shift.’
The lights in the canteen flashed off briefly, then on again. This was not an uncommon occurrence on the station and nobody really paid the phenomenon any heed.
‘Didn’t you hear?’ asked Eli. ‘Sudowksi’s boys are having to junk the comms array to fix the scrubbers.’
Lina couldn’t believe she’d heard this right for a moment. ‘What?’ she demanded.
‘They’re junking the comms array,’ he repeated more slowly, ‘to fix the scrubbers.’ He sat back, satisfied with the stunning effect that this had on his friend, and took a swig from his own revolting coffee with apparent impunity. The grimy window behind him showed the impassive vista of deep, cold space, speckled with glinting asteroids. The Kays were out of sight now, on their final approach to the hangar.
‘No way,’ Lina breathed. Eli nodded his grizzled head. That look of near-amusement was still on his face, she noticed with mild irritation. Didn’t anything bother him? ‘Where’s the shuttle?’ she demanded, looking around as if she might locate it within the confines of the canteen itself.
Eli leant in close, secretive. ‘That,’ he confided, ‘is very much the phrase of the week.’
‘Oh hell,’ she said in a small, hollow voice. ‘But what if. . .’
‘I saw Sudowski running about like a headless chicken near the admin offices. He looked half dead, to be honest. Poor guy. He hasn’t been looking too good all week. However much our jobs may suck at times, it does inspire some joy in me to know that at least I’m not him. He told me about the array.’
‘But Eli, this could be really serious,’ Lina hissed. She leant on the table, which wobbled, spilling her coffee. She didn’t notice. ‘So we can’t talk to Platini? And if the shuttle buzzes us with a problem, we can’t even hear it?’
Eli sighed, and she could see that he was worried, too, underneath his implacable exterior. She was kind of glad, to be honest. ‘Well, I think the radio’ll still work. But no laser, so no Platini, no.’
‘Where’s the fucking shuttle?’ she cried in an unintentionally loud voice. Fionne glanced up briefly from her hushed conversation with Rocko, her pretty face inquiring, and shot Lina a puzzled look.
‘Beats me,’ admitted Eli, waving her to keep her voice down. ‘I don’t think they really want this getting to the drones, okay, Li? Privileged information, etcetera. And mind the potty-mouth — it’s unbecoming in a lady.’
‘Well. . . what if. . .’ Lina trailed off, her brow furrowed. Had he just made a joke? ‘I mean. . .’
‘Come on, we’d better get a wiggle on.’ Eli drained his cup and stood. He zipped his flight suit all the way to the top — it was unusually cold in the canteen — and indicated the door. ‘We’re on shift, remember?’