The in-system loader was heading for a massive rock — one of the largest Lina had ever seen in the belt — and the missing shuttle was somehow attached to it, docked with it. The rock itself was shaped a bit like a figure-eight, with a large bulb at either end and a thinner waist in the middle. The stolen supply shuttle was adhered to one of these bulbs, and Lina could see where holes in the rock had been sealed with yellow instawall foam that had formed lurid scabs on its surface. Why would he have done that? Perhaps he had been living there.
Eli closed in on the figure-eight asteroid, weaving through a cloud of smaller debris that orbited it, going much too quickly for safety. His loader hugged the asteroid’s surface closely and coasted along it, closing in on the shuttle. Lina could actually see the cockpit lights in the shuttle now, could see little hisses of vapour as it vented some waste product into space.
‘Go back, Lina!’ shouted Eli’s voice suddenly, making her ears ring. She turned the comm down to half.
‘You bastard!’ she yelled back, enraged, more angry than she had ever been before. She was closing in on him now as he neared the shuttle, slowing and lining himself up with it. ‘You tried to kill Marco, you bastard! You were playing football with him the other day!’ Somehow, this was the part that made her angriest of alclass="underline" that he’d had the gall to take her son off and kick a ball around with him as if nothing was wrong in the world. Perhaps he had meant to kill Marco that day. Who knew? But whatever he had intended, it had been a lie, a pathetic deception. ‘You stole our shuttle, Eli! All this time, it was you!’ She felt tears sting her eyes, threatening to obscure her sight, and she swiped at her face angrily with one sleeve. ‘You killed all those people!’ she screamed. ‘You killed those people! What is wrong with you?’
‘I am the emissary!’ he shouted back, and he sounded as angry as she was now, as if she was the one in the wrong. ‘I do what I have to do!’ And then, in another, calmer tone that sounded as if he was reading from a script, or maybe quoting somebody else’s words: ‘You are my emissary, and I have your best interests at heart. Some of your tasks may be difficult at times.’ He paused for a moment, then added, ‘You see?’ as if that had proven something.
‘You’re a monster!’ she sobbed. ‘I’m going to. . . to. . .’
His loader was coming smoothly together with the shuttle now, guided with obvious skill.
‘You’re going to what, Lina?’ he asked. He still sounded angry, but he also sounded tired now, as if she were an irritating child who had pestered him to breaking point. ‘Hmm? What?’
His ship clamped firmly onto the docking platform of the shuttle, just as Lina flew overhead in her Kay. The loader, the shuttle and the asteroid scrolled past beneath her and she saw what he meant: the shuttle had only the one docking space, and the loader was in it. She swooped up and away, slowing, still jinking and jagging to avoid asteroids, not fully trusting the ship to take care of her. She turned to come around again. What was she going to do?
‘I’ll. . . I’ll. . . I’m gonna go and get Ella and Halman and the others. They’re gonna want that shuttle back, you thief! And I’m going to return with them, and Eli, there is going to be a reckoning between us.’
‘That’s your plan,’ he replied flatly.
Lina’s Kay shivered under her, strained by gees, as she looped round to head back to Macao. ‘You killed all those people, Eli,’ she said again.
‘No, Lina, it wasn’t me,’ he said, but she knew it for what it was: a lie. ‘You have killed me, though,’ he said, more quietly now. ‘You have killed me.’
Lina didn’t have the slightest clue what he meant and she was too angry to consider it. She flicked the comm off and accelerated back towards the station, flying fast, but not as fast as she had when she’d been chasing Eli. She wondered how much of Sal Newman still drifted here. Maybe the shadow had devoured what was left like a whale vacuuming up plankton. ‘It’ll eat you up,’ she reminded herself.
And as she flew, she felt that darkness breathing around her again — something within the nothing. Patterns. She felt as if the belt itself were a sinister, living thing, and she flew through its disseminated body like a germ.
She no longer trusted the belt at all. Her friend had clearly gone insane out here. It had eaten Sal. And she felt, as she flew alone through its jagged depths, that it would eat her too, given the chance. She concentrated on staying alert, all her senses straining, perfectly in tune with the machine. She hardly breathed until the belt began to thin again and Macao came into sight. She had never been more glad to see the place in her life.
Chapter Thirty-One
Halman was in the rec area alone, watching the belt when Ella found him. He had been staring out at it, thinking about Sal, thinking about Nik, bathed in that hateful red light, for half an hour or more. He could feel events slipping through his fingers faster than he could react. Nik had been killed, the saboteur was dead, and yet his mood was dark and retrospective. He could have done things better. Stopped it somehow.
When Ella seized his shoulder from behind, half-spinning him around as she crashed into him, his mind just had time to scream What now? before she began to talk.
‘Shit Halman Jayce is dead Tamzin’s dead Eli’s gone he tried to attack Marco and Waine says they ran off towards the hangar I don’t know why but she’s fucking chased him Dan I’ve fucked up we’ve fucked up come on! Come on!’
‘What?’ he asked stupidly, steadying her with a hand on each shoulder. He looked her squarely in the eyes and said, more slowly, ‘What’s wrong, Ella?’ knowing as he said it that this was bad news, more bad news. Had she said that someone was dead? Ella’s eyes were wide and jumpy, darting all over his face, and he could see that she was breathing hard, as if she had run here.
‘Rachelle just came to see me,’ said Ella, still rapidly, but at least understandably this time. ‘I sent her to relieve Jayce at the medical department. She found Tamzin and Jayce dead — murdered.’
This last word fell into Halman’s mind like a stone into a well. A slow, dark splash emanated from its impact. ‘What?’ he asked again, hoping desperately that he’d heard wrongly.
‘Eli killed Jayce and Tamzin. Then, while Rachelle was still in my office, Rocko appeared with Marco in tow, who was scared half to death and barely able to speak, but otherwise all right. Eli tried to attack him — Marco, that is — and Rocko heard shouting and walked in on them. Lina was there, too, and Rocko says it looked like Eli was about to cut them both to bits. He hit Eli on the head with a metal pipe — he was still holding it when he came to see me. He said Eli ran off and Lina chased him. He was yelling about dragons and emissaries or some shit. He’s gone crazy, Dan! Waine saw Lina running towards the hangar.’ She shook her head, forcibly detaching herself from his grip, and stood back. ‘I don’t know what the hell’s going on, or where they’ve gone, but. . .’ She was still shaking her head, caught in a perpetual loop of denial. ‘We fucked up,’ she said, staring up into Halman’s face. ‘We fucked up.’
Halman staggered back, almost tripping over one of the benches below the window, mouthing empty vowel-sounds. It couldn’t be. . . It couldn’t be. . .
‘The hangar,’ he said at last. Was the power back on down there by now? ‘Come on!’