Two men in space suits ran down the corridor carrying an immense length of water pipe between them, brushing people aside as they went. What the hell did they need that for? Maybe they were just moving it out of the way.
As she reached the corridor that connected the admin offices together, she saw Ella emerging from Halman’s office. Ella noticed her at the other end of the passage and offered her a wan smile before walking off into the bustling crowd. Lina considered giving chase, trying to extract some information from her, but she didn’t really have the strength for it. Instead, she returned to Amy’s office — or what had once been Amy’s office — which was to be the dorm where she would sleep until either the power was properly restored or they were all dead.
The dorm was rammed with people, sitting on mattresses with the defeated expressions of refugees everywhere. There was just enough space to step carefully between the makeshift beds, picking through the maze of sprawling bodies, bags and items of clothing. The chemical stink of the air was even further fouled by the smell of sweaty, nervous human bodies packed into close proximity. There was a hubbub of fearful chatter in the air.
Si Davis was sitting on the bed of a young woman from aeroponics, over by the far wall, seemingly in an island of good-natured serenity just large enough for the two of them. They were laughing — actually laughing! — and leant together, reading something off a datasheet. Lina smiled a little to herself. She had to admire Si’s opportunism. And his fast work. Lina couldn’t remember the woman’s name for sure — Michelle, she thought — but whoever she was, she was a pretty young thing. A passing twinge of emotion went through her — jealousy and nostalgia, mainly, entwined into an unpleasant, greasy sadness. She turned away from them, heartened and saddened in equal measure, and looked around for Marco. She couldn’t see him.
She went to the bed that had been assigned to her — really just a thin mattress placed directly on the floor. She threw down her luggage and checked under her covers without much real hope. Then she checked under the heaped covers of Marco’s bed, next to her own. He was, of course, not there.
‘Where’s Marco?’ she asked the room as a whole. She could barely hear her own voice over the racket. She was not the only one calling somebody’s name. ‘Marco!’ she yelled again, worriedly scanning around.
She spotted Ella’s son Clay, sitting on his own bed with earphones in, staring into a handheld video game. She rushed over and dropped to a crouch in front of him. Apart from his hair, which was dark and crew-cut instead of blond and crew-cut, he looked like a perfect, smaller-scale, male version of his mother. He was also Marco’s best friend and closest competitor at school.
‘Clay!’ Lina yelled into his young face.
Clay continued to stare into the screen for a moment, then he paused the game, took out one earphone and looked up at her. ‘Hi, Lina,’ he said.
‘D’you know where Marco is?’ she asked him.
Clay shook his head. ‘He said he was going with Rocko,’ he replied helpfully. ‘But that was a while ago.’
‘I only went to get our bags,’ said Lina to herself. Niya Onh went past, dragging a huge metal crate by one handle. Si Davis came to her aid, though possibly just in the hope of impressing his new friend. ‘Have you seen Rocko?’
‘No, sorry,’ said Clay. ‘Maybe Mum saw them?’
‘Thanks, Clay,’ said Lina absently, already rising and starting to look for Rocko.
She found him in the corridor outside, moving pieces of medical equipment into one of the offices for Hobbes.
‘Where’s Marco?’ she asked without prelude.
Rocko’s face took on an instant expression of concern that was so fearful and so genuine that Lina felt a chill run down her spine. ‘Why?’ he asked, wiping a sleeve across his sweaty forehead and leaning against the monitoring station that he’d been trying to manoeuvre through the narrow doorway. This blocked the doorway temporarily, trapping Hobbes on the other side and clearly incensing him. Hobbes shoved the heavy piece of equipment out of the way, making Rocko move aside, and dashed off down the corridor, muttering. ‘Isn’t he with Clay?’ Rocko asked.
‘He told Clay he’d gone to find you,’ said Lina, tears beginning to swim in front of her vision. ‘I only went to get our bags,’ she said again, as if this exonerated her from blame.
‘Hey, hey,’ cooed Rocko, moving towards her and gripping her in a tight embrace. His skin felt smooth and warm against her. He patted her aching back with one hand.
‘Where is he?’ she sobbed, aware that she was suffering a totally unnecessary overreaction, but unable to stop herself nonetheless.
‘He’ll turn up,’ said Rocko softly. Lina wept onto his chest, jostled by passers-by, lost in her own microcosm. ‘He’s just a little spooked out right now. He probably needed some space. I should have been watching him, but I thought he was with Clay.’
‘Maybe he did need some space. . .’ said Lina slowly, a new thought dawning on her. She lifted her head from Rocko’s chest and looked up at him. Rocko, she thought. Hero of the day. ‘You might be right,’ she said, sniffing back the tears. She snorted back a runner of snot that had almost dropped onto his shirt. He didn’t seem to mind.
‘Sure I am,’ he agreed encouragingly.
Lina released him gratefully and stood back. ‘Thanks, Rock,’ she said, slightly embarrassed. ‘I, er, I have to go.’
‘No problem,’ he replied. ‘You want a hand or something?’
But she was already away, moving through the busy corridor as rapidly as she could without actually injuring anybody, dodging trundling hardware and temporarily-deserted items of luggage. As she got further from Halman’s office, the epicentre of the chaos, she began to pick up speed. Soon she was running through deserted corridors ignoring the twinges from her back, ignoring the headache that still raged inside her skull.
She ran through the rec area, dodging between the immense pillars, tripping once on a jacket that somebody had dropped, rising, throwing it away and continuing without pause. She passed the canteen, glimpsing the untidy jumble of chairs and tables, vaguely distressed to see them all vacant for the first time that she could remember. She headed through the plaza, past the shuttered-up Miner’s Retreat, and then into the living quarters. She took the stairs up to the refinery level, emerging into the machine rooms, re-tracing the route that she had shown to Marco.
The machine rooms were an ominously silent robotic graveyard. Silvery gas tanks and complex-looking metalworking machinery loomed out of the darkness at her as she passed, levers and handles and outcropping corners seeming to reach for her.
She skirted around the outer wall of the great spoke, through the little side door, through the dark storage room, and into the spoke itself. She stood for a moment, staring up into that vast darkness, now almost as thick as pitch, where only a few feeble red LED-strips offered any illumination at all, stretching up into infinity like a runway into heaven.
She went to the lift, where her suspicions were confirmed. It wasn’t there. She pressed the pad to call it, kicking her heels impatiently as she waited. The awe that she usually experienced in this place had turned into fear. The space was so vast, so dark, so. . . industrial. . . She stared around at the thick cables, feeling them groaning under their unthinkably heavy burdens. Soon she began to hear the lift descending towards her. Then she saw it, and saw that the cage was empty.
She waited for the lift to slow to a complete stop then jumped into the cage and jimmied the latch shut behind her. She fumbled for the hanging control pad and hit the UP button. There was the traditional bang as the magnetic catch released and the lift began to rise into the blackness of the spoke.