‘We can still do it,’ said the man thoughtfully. ‘We’ll just have to raise the temperature of the air-flow here. It’ll get hot in this shuttle.’
‘We can still do what?’ demanded Carver impatiently. He was not a man who liked to be kept out of the loop or made to feel foolish, and that was what this bastard was doing to him now.
The man turned to Carver, a little smile on his lips. ‘Seal and pressurise the asteroid,’ he said in a voice pregnant with barely-constrained excitement. Carver could see that the freak was wired — actually having fun. He vowed again to make the bastard suffer just as soon as he had worked out how.
‘Why the fuck,’ asked Carver coldly, ‘would you want to do that?’
‘Because it’ll make it easier,’ said the man openly. He clearly wanted Carver to ask a follow up question, but Carver just shook his head and grunted. His huge hands were clenching and unclenching at his sides. When the question didn’t materialise, the man continued anyway: ‘Easier to dig up the dragon.’ His smile broadened then, but it also became colder, as if an ice-sheet had advanced across his face. And people call me insane! thought Carver with some amazement. ‘Don’t worry,’ said the man. ‘It’s all for the best, in the end. You’ll see,’ he said, running his hand across the worn-smooth surface of the machinery in front of them, his eyes becoming glazed and distant. ‘They’ll all see.’
Chapter Sixteen
Lina slept fitfully, fighting against layers of darkness that tangled around her like bodybags, smothering her, covering her. But however hard she fought, she kept finding herself back in the belt, where Sal was screaming through the comm — not the brief shriek that she had uttered in reality, but a protracted and wavering howl of agony and fear that warbled on and on into ever-higher registers as she was torn to pieces. Lina flew towards her — towards where her Kay should have been — through a dense cloud of blood and gore. Teeth ricocheted off the front of her ship in a virtual hailstorm. She wondered distantly how anyone could have so damn many of them.
And then she became aware that there was something else in the belt with her, something dark and shapeless that rode through the void like smoke; a surreal whisper of shadow; a greedy, hungry shade of death. She didn’t know how she sensed it, but the feeling was overpowering, and the truth of it seemed bleakly inescapable.
The pitter-patter of teeth against the window of her ship grew gradually louder and louder as she neared the area where Sal’s Kay had been, until it became a virtual fusillade: Bang! Bang! Bang! She wanted to flee, to escape before the shadow caught her, like it had caught Sal, and scatter her own insides across the rubble-strewn vacuum of the belt, but the noise was now so loud that she couldn’t even think.
It was catching up to her, she knew. It was right behind her. Panic-stricken, she forgot all about Sal and turned her Kay around, maxing the gas. She thought she was screaming aloud, but the noise was distant, so distant. The ship struggled, drive system howling, wallowing in space as if caught in thick mud. . . slowing, slowing, failing. . .
The lights of the dashboard suddenly went off, dousing Lina in darkness as thick as tar. A charnel stink — a stench of rotten and putrefying meat, hideously ripe and sweet — filled her head, making her gag. And then, somehow, impossibly, the shadow reached right through the hull of the ship and touched her. . .
She woke, screaming, bolt upright in bed. Somebody was hammering on the door of her quarters: Bang! Bang! Bang! She wiped one hand across her face and it came away slicked with sweat. The covers clung to her naked body like a pallid second skin. She breathed deeply, trying to calm her rattling heart, letting the knocking continue. Her head was pounding. Her tongue felt like something had died on it. The lighting was too bright.
‘Mum?’ said Marco’s sleep-blurry voice from the doorway.
Lina jumped, a little sound of shock escaping her throat, pulling the covers tight around herself as if they might armour her against harm.
‘Marco,’ she breathed.
‘There’s somebody at the door,’ he said, rubbing his eyes with the back of one hand. ‘Shall I let them in?’
Lina nodded, making her sweaty hair fall over her face. She brushed it behind her ear and saw that he was studying her intently. ‘Yeah,’ she managed to say. The insistent knocking continued.
Marco made no move towards the door, though. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked, his young face suddenly aged by concern.
She shook her head, wanting to lie but unable to do so. ‘I’ve been better.’ She could feel tears beginning to well in her eyes. She looked away from him and said ‘Get the door. I’ll be out in a minute.’ She managed to control her treacherous face and dried her eyes on the sheet as subtly as she could. She turned back to Marco, who hadn’t budged, and attempted an encouraging smile. It didn’t seem to have the desired effect. He nodded obediently, but his look of concern condensed into one of outright worry. He paused for a moment longer, unsure, then turned and went to answer the door.
Lina jumped up to close the door of her room, but the blanket fell away and she stumbled, trying to gather it round her and right herself as she went. She realised that she felt like absolute crap and wondered how much she had had to drink last night. Marco was speaking to somebody in the other room now, but she couldn’t discern the words. What had happened to Eli? She supposed he must have let himself out when she’d got back, whenever that had been.
She managed to push her own door closed and crammed herself gracelessly into yesterday’s rumpled flight suit that she had apparently left lying in the middle of the floor. Her head reeled unpleasantly as she did this, making her want to throw up. The suit didn’t smell too great, truth be told, which didn’t help either.
Somebody knocked on the door of her room just as she was reaching for it, and when she opened it Marco was there again, in his plain grey, oversized pyjamas.
‘It was Rachelle, from the security team,’ said Marco, his expression a little puzzled. ‘She says there’s a meeting in the plaza today, outside The Miner’s. You’re supposed to be there.’
Lina struggled to process this information. For a moment, she couldn’t remember what The Miner’s was, but then she recalled that she had in fact spent most of the previous night there. She thought maybe Halman had been with her, but she wasn’t certain.
‘A meeting?’ she repeated. Marco nodded. ‘What time?’
‘Half-nine,’ he said. ‘Can I come with you?’
‘You’ve got school,’ she replied automatically, distracted.
Marco looked offended. ‘No, I haven’t,’ he said with a touch of irritation. ‘Not today.’
Lina nodded, trying to focus. ‘Er, okay then, I guess. Is Rachelle still here?’
‘No. She didn’t actually come in. Should I have asked her?’
‘No,’ Lina said, sitting back on the bed with an unintentional sigh. ‘No, that’s fine.’ She put her head in her hands, trying to massage her brain into some sort of working order. She sat this way for a while, forgetting that Marco was there, but when she looked up he was studying her analytically.
‘What’s going on, Mum?’ he asked. He was holding out a battered datasheet in one hand. ‘Why was Eli here last night?’
‘Cos I was out,’ she admitted, with a touch of guilt that the more logical part of her mind assured her was undeserved. ‘What is that?’