There was a man floating next to him, holding a space suit. Just one man? Thoughts began to crowd into Carver’s mind — dark and angry thoughts. One man. Just one man. Just. One.
‘Put this on,’ said the man again.
‘Why should I?’ asked Carver, his ugly pinkish face a picture of slyness, his hugely-muscled limbs shuddering as he tried to clench and unclench them, work them back to life.
‘Because I have this,’ said the man with the space suit, and held up an object that he carried in his other hand. It was a small rectangular device that looked a little like a datasheet, but even with his blurred vision Carver recognised it for what it was: the restraining device.
‘Why the fuck do I need a space suit?’ he demanded, filled with impotent rage. He began to clamber down from the cask, but he was still slippery with acceleration gel. His cramping hands couldn’t hold the edge properly, and he flipped out of the cask and went flying towards the other man, wrenching the IV-lines painfully from his arms and legs, releasing droplets of blood into the air like spores.
The man shoved him back towards the cask and Carver banged his shaven head, sending bright stars shooting across his vision. ‘Unhh!’ he cried, flailing.
The man laughed, and that made Carver even angrier. He struggled to get back up, but he couldn’t even stay still. He kept spinning uncontrollably in one direction and then the other, then back again. He guessed he probably did look pretty funny to the other man. Laugh it up while you can, fuckface! he thought savagely.
‘Just put the suit on, unless you like gulping vacuum,’ said the man. ‘And if you want to play silly-buggers, I’ll fry your already-squishy little brain.’ He wiggled the restraining device playfully.
Carver had managed to grab onto the support frame of the cask now, and he clung to it like a man who might be sucked up into the sky by a tornado. He tried to give the other man his infamously intimidating stare, but he knew he looked too foolish for it to have the desired effect. Whoever you are, he vowed to himself, I intend to fuck you up badly as soon as I get a chance.
‘Why,’ snarled Carver, his throat full of either phlegm or acceleration gel, ‘do I need a space suit? What the fuck sort of a prison is this?’ He could feel the shuttle flexing and groaning around him, a living leviathan of cratered metal.
‘This is my own special prison, Carver. We’re not at Macao, but nearby, in the asteroid belt. We are quite alone out here, hidden from prying eyes. And here, we do what I say. And I,’ explained the man cheerfully, ‘do what the dragon says.’
‘What fucking dragon?’ demanded Carver, still hanging onto the frame, quaking with anger. Whoever this guy was, he was a proper fruitcake. Carver tried to pull himself upright, but was frustrated that his usually strong body was still almost as limp as cooked spaghetti.
‘The dragon,’ said the man, and just to make his point, he pressed a button on the restraining device and Carver’s entire body went rigid, racked by agony that blazed like liquid fire through every cell at once. He screamed and spasmed, his legs floating out from under him. ‘Again?’ asked the man when the spasms had subsided. Carver could only shake his head mutely, eyes squeezed shut. ‘Good. Now put this on,’ said the man again, throwing the space suit directly at Carver’s belly, making him flinch instinctively. ‘We have work to do.’
‘What work?’ Carver snarled, wiping gel from his short-shaven hair, hair that was so blond as to be almost white and contrasted starkly with the pinkness of his scalp. He flicked the gel from his fingers, but he didn’t dare flick it at the other man like he wanted to. He shook out the space suit he had been thrown, regarding it critically. Its arms and legs floated and flailed, billowing like pennants.
‘Lots of work,’ said the man. ‘I’m a bit behind, to be honest. I keep having to return to the station. I have. . . duties there.’ He said the word sourly, as if it tasted bad. ‘But I’ve come back to get you. Honestly, I’d have left you if I could do the work alone.’ He seemed to remember himself, and shook his head in a listen-to-me-rabbiting-on gesture. ‘Put the suit on,’ he said, a little more kindly this time.
Carver managed to work his huge, muscular form into the skin-tight suit without actually letting go of the metal frame. He also kept one eye firmly on the man with the restraining device. The man seemed to notice him staring at the little box.
‘You know how this works, right?’ he asked conversationally.
Carver nodded, scowling. ‘I can’t get too near to it, I can’t get too far from it, and it can’t be turned off without the code,’ he parroted, recalling exactly the words of the little rat bastard at Platini who had first explained the device to him. ‘It’s linked to an implant in my head.’
‘That’s it,’ agreed the man, nodding. He sounded pleased, as if Carver was a difficult student who was finally coming round.
By the time Carver had fully suited up, barring the helmet which he assumed would be in the airlock, the man was looking impatient again.
‘What now?’ asked Carver suspiciously.
‘Follow me,’ said the man, magnetting onto the floor of the ship and stretching his back as if it ached. ‘There’s a manoeuvring jet in the sleeve of the suit, but I don’t suggest you use it. You might fly out of range of the restraining device too easily. Magnet onto the floor instead. I assume you know how. If not — learn.’ Then he turned and led the way from the cargo hold.
Carver floated stupidly for a moment, wanting to make a break for it, knowing that he couldn’t. He considered throwing something at the man — that seemed like a good way to hurt or even kill the bastard without getting too close to the restraining device — but of course, he still wouldn’t have the code for the damn thing, and then he’d be trapped here, unable to approach the device or to leave its vicinity, possibly until he starved. It almost seemed worth it, but grudgingly he gave the idea up, clamped his boots to the floor and followed the retreating figure.
They passed between stacks of supplies in identical, coded crates and industrial-looking machines that were bolted into the deck. Their boots rang on the worn wire-mesh tiles, filling the space with echoing noise. The man in front didn’t bother to check that Carver was following — what choice did he have? — he just calmly led the way through the darkness, splashed by the occasional gout of coloured light from some computer terminal or instrument panel that they passed.
The man stopped before a huge snarl of pipes and cylinders, some jumbled heap of arcane machinery that stood almost ten feet high and bore a simple set of dials and a small electronic display on its front.
‘You know how to work this?’ he asked, turning to Carver, who stayed the requisite distance behind him.
‘Of course not,’ replied Carver contemptuously. ‘I don’t even know what it is.’
The man sighed and tutted, as if he had expected no better. ‘It’s the air system,’ he explained slowly. ‘Tanks–’ he indicated the large cylinders, ‘–and scrubbers,’ he finished, indicating some random-looking tangle of pipework and machinery. ‘I was considering removing the whole thing from here and installing it on the rock. But I was hoping you’d be some help. I don’t honestly understand why the dragon has allowed you to live,’ he said.
‘Man, you are fucking crazy,’ said Carver wonderingly. He almost felt sorry for the freak, but it was only a fleeting emotion, immediately burned away by his red and blazing hatred. He thought maybe the man would fry him again in response to this observation, but he only nodded mutely, looking at the air unit closely.