Halman put his head in his hands, elbows propped on his desk, massaging his temples. His stomach ached and burned inside. He looked at the fragments of the chip, shocked that he had destroyed it, appalled at himself. What if Nik thought of some way to repair it? That, he decided, would barely surprise him at all. He tried to imagine how he’d explain his actions if that happened: Er, sorry, Nik, I smashed it in a fit of childish rage. Yeah, I guess we are all going to die, then. Did I mention I was sorry? But really, logically, he couldn’t imagine that the possibility of fixing it would ever come up anyway. Was that a good or a bad thing, bearing in mind that he had just destroyed it? He couldn’t work it out.
Sal.
Dead.
Shit. . .
He sat like that, head cradled in his big hands, smoothing the hair around his ever-enlarging bald spot, for some time. His mind became mercifully blank. He didn’t know how long he stayed that way.
And then, decisively, he got up, tapped the window several times with one knuckle until it went blank, and strode from the office without bothering to lock the door behind him.
He walked down bare and rusting corridors, large boots clanging and banging loudly, passing nobody. The heavy equipment of the refinery, usually audible through the ceiling here, was conspicuously silent.
He walked through the rec area, between the pillars that housed the supply-chutes to the dispatch department. The place was deserted, the benches below the long windows unusually empty. He exited into the plaza and soon stood in front of The Miner’s Retreat. As he approached its understated exterior, Halman heard the bubbling sound of conversation from inside. So this was where everybody had got to. He briefly considered turning away, maybe heading off to bed. But he knew that he wouldn’t be able to sleep if he did.
He pushed open the scarred and slightly-buckled door, making a bell above it ring, and surveyed the interior of the bar. It was a low-ceilinged and dimly-lit room: stark metal furniture crammed closely; small corner bar made from hideous plastic wood; a few windows, boarded over. Usually the air inside lay in blueish strata of tobacco smoke, but smoking was now banned on board in the hope that this would reduce the load on the scrubbers.
People were pressed into every available nook and cranny, talking in muted, secretive tones. There was none of the usual pleasant atmosphere, no music playing, nobody at the games machines, nobody laughing.
He pushed his way to the little bar, turning sideways and using his powerful shoulders to force through the crowd like a human wedge. He noticed, with a pang of loneliness, that his mere presence was enough to kill several conversations as he passed. Off to his right, in a shadowy corner, he saw two women from the refinery leant together, crying together, over two apparently-untouched glasses of beer. The rest of the crowd, despite the cramped confines, had left a small, respectful circle of space around them. In fact, there seemed to be a few other people crying, too. Halman knew how they felt.
He leant against the drink-slicked surface of the bar and tried to catch the eye of Gregor, the proprietor. Gregor was deep in conversation with Petra Kalistov, serving drinks mechanically to other patrons almost without looking. His hands logged sales on the computer and gave out glasses with deft autonomy.
Halman turned, looking about himself, huffing impatiently, hands stuffed into his pockets.
‘Hey,’ said a voice at his right elbow.
He started slightly and turned towards the source of the sound. It was Lina, sitting on a bar stool and cradling a tall glass of beer. She looked wan and tired, but somehow her sadness had turned her faded prettiness into a kind of ghostly beauty. Her face was paler and more drawn, but her delicate bone structure stood out more clearly than usual. Her bright green eyes and tangle of blonde hair accentuated the pallor of her skin even further, giving it the appearance of fine porcelain. Halman wondered how that idiot Jaydenne — now somewhere in Platini system — could ever have left her. He supposed that should have been a good thing for the remaining men of Macao, but Lina had never shown an interest in any of them. She was all about Marco these days. Marco first, friends second, mining firmly third. That seemed like a fair order of importance to Halman.
‘Hey,’ he said. ‘How long does it take to get a fucking drink in this place?’
She seemed to consider this question more deeply than it really warranted, biting her lower lip as she did so. ‘Kinda busy, isn’t it?’ she said at last.
The person to Halman’s left abruptly rose and weaved away through the throng, and Halman grabbed the vacated seat immediately, pulling it closer to Lina’s.
‘Yeah, it is,’ he agreed.
‘What d’you want?’ she asked. For a moment, he thought she meant What are you bothering me for? but then he realised she was offering to buy him a drink.
‘Oh, er, just a beer, please. Real beer. Thanks, Lina.’
She signalled with one slim hand and, to Halman’s amazement, Gregor responded immediately, as if by telepathy, flicking her a little wave in return.
‘There isn’t any real beer, remember?’ she said.
‘Oh yeah,’ he agreed, a little perturbed. He hated synthi. ‘No shuttle,’ he added quietly. Lina just nodded.
Gregor plonked the two glasses down in front of them and hit the relevant key on his bar-side computer terminal, automatically charging Lina’s station account, then whirling away to serve the next customer. Nobody bothered to insist on verification at The Miner’s — they all trusted Gregor implicitly. After all, he wasn’t going anywhere.
‘Eli’s looking after him,’ Lina said, as if Halman had asked her a question. ‘Marco. Eli’s looking after him.’
‘Good,’ replied Halman, sipping his beer. It tasted artificially-yeasty, slightly disgusting, really. ‘How is he? Eli, that is.’
Lina shrugged and drained her glass. Halman noticed the unsteady way she replaced the vessel on the bar, and that she was actually quite drunk. ‘He’s okay,’ she said, brushing an errant lock of hair back behind her ear. She seemed to be studying some tiny detail on the surface of the bar itself, tracing with one finger in a pool of spilled liquid.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Halman, and immediately wished he hadn’t. ‘About Sal,’ he added stupidly, unable to stop himself.
Lina breathed deeply for a moment, not looking at him. ‘Yeah,’ she said at last. ‘Me, too.’ Then she lifted her head and offered him a smile so sad and empty that something melted inside him.
They sat in silence for several minutes, but it was a comfortable silence, and Halman found something oddly reassuring in it. He didn’t really want to talk, to be honest.
After a while, Lina said, ‘Jaydenne had an affair with her, you know. Back in the day.’
Halman, shocked, managed only to say, ‘What?’
‘Sal,’ explained Lina, looking up. Her bright eyes were a little watery around the edges. ‘Jaydenne had an affair with her, back in the day,’ she repeated.
‘Shit, Lina, really? I didn’t know that.’
She nodded. ‘I never really told anybody,’ she admitted glumly. She sighed, tracing patterns in the spilled beer. ‘I think she loved him, Dan,’ she said at last, reflectively. ‘More than I did, by then.’