Chapter Thirty-Eight
They moved through the pitch dark corridors of the desolate station in a silent procession. Lina had, in fact, hardly managed to sleep at all. She’d also barely eaten anything for breakfast, managing half a slice of bread and a cup of coffee. Her stomach was rolling and sloshing queasily as she followed Alphe through the deserted passages of Macao, moving awkwardly in her space suit. Marco had hardly spoken to her this morning. She’d left Rocko to watch over him. Hero of the day two days running, she thought.
Their suit-lights made bright circles that skimmed across grey passageways and hulking machines. Doorways into utter darkness leant towards them from either side.
Prior to the extraction of the air, the heating had gone off. Moisture from the air had condensed onto walls and floors, then frozen there, making the architecture look as if it had been carved from dark and glittering crystal, and the footing treacherous.
They passed aeroponics, shining their lights onto rows of wilting plants that hung suspended like rotting piñatas. Stainless steel surfaces and shiny glassware broke the beams into shards and reflected them back, speckling the corridor they stood in. The frost was heavier in aero, where a nutrient-rich mist had circulated amongst the roots of the plants, and had now condensed like fallen snow onto every surface. They moved onwards, as if through a ghost ship, awed and frightened, hardly breathing.
When they reached the stairs that led down towards the rimwards hangar-level, they stopped, as if by silent consensus. Their suits blasted jets of expelled vapour into the sterile space. They stared into that well of shadows and exchanged nervous glances. Lina was honestly scared. This had been their home ground just a day ago. And to see it like this — an alien world of ice and ruin — was just too much. She knew from the stunned, fearful faces behind their visors that the others felt it too. She heard only the sighing sound of her own powered respiration.
Fionne tried to say something, but her suit had an intermittent mic fault and her voice cut in and out rapidly, making her words utterly unintelligible. She shook her head, vexed, and tweaked the dials on the front of her chest unit while Alphe, Lina and Liu watched her mutely. She banged the unit with the flat of one hand, making a brief whine of feedback in everyone’s ears. They winced, as one body.
‘Sorry,’ said Fionne. ‘It’s — shhh — bloody stupid — shhh — can’t — shhh –’ She actually stamped a foot in anger, clearly cursing behind her faceplate, and banged the chest unit again.
Liu turned to Alphe, splashing his light into Alphe’s face, making him screw his eyes up and look away, briefly spotlit in spectral monochrome. ‘Are we waiting for anything in particular?’ he asked.
‘No,’ said Alphe. ‘Just having a breather.’
Lina looked down into the stairwell, where black was layered on black in endless, impenetrable strata like seams of coal. ‘Come on,’ she said, and led the way.
They moved through the warehouse like ants through the depths of some vast machine, craning their necks to stare up into the soaring darkness. Icicles hung from metal beams like crystal tears, frozen in time.
They stopped before the hangar door and Alphe hefted the toolbox. He smiled thinly at the others and moved to an armoured junction-box between the hangar door and Charlie Stenning’s office. He prised the cover off and began to closely inspect the electrical switching gear inside. He did something unseen with a small screwdriver while the others stood kicking their heels impatiently. Briefly, the whole of the warehouse flickered into brilliant, flood-lit visibility. The waiting group inhaled sharply. Then, the lights flickered off again and a small red warning sign lit up above the hangar door. The word VACUUM glowed there like a threat.
Alphe straightened and returned to the group, skidding on the ice. ‘There,’ he said simply. Lina saw that, in keeping with his usual theme, he had already managed to smear one glove with machine oil. ‘Power.’
‘Halman could’ve let us have air, too,’ said Lina a little bitterly. ‘This’d be easier without these damn suits.’
Alphe just laughed and said, ‘Shall we, ladies and gentlemen?’ He made a sweeping after you gesture with one arm, like a butler.
Fionne stepped forwards and entered an override code into the door’s control panel. She stood back, taking a deep breath, then reached out and hit the pad. The door began to scrape laboriously open, crushed ice falling from its track in a fine powder. Inside, the hangar was lit in its customary sterile white — LED-white with a faint hint of blue in it — which served only to increase the feeling of cold.
‘Will the heating come on?’ asked Liu. ‘I’m getting a chill, even in this suit.’
‘Yeah, should do,’ said Alphe. ‘But it might take a while.’
He led the way into the hangar itself, his boots crunching unheard through the frost. ‘Remind me which one is yours, Li,’ he said. Lina pointed to K6-12. ‘Good. Let’s get to work then.’
Liu had already got one of his ground crew to pull out the larger cutting discs from the warehouse, and he retrieved these from where they had been left on the central desk and passed them to Fionne. Each was about half a metre across. ‘They look a little worn,’ he said apologetically. ‘I hope they’re okay — the heat can make them brittle over time. But these are the only two that Charlie could find.’
While Alphe and Fionne worked on her Kay, overseen by Liu, Lina took Ella to have a look at one of the other ships — K6-7, which she knew to be a relatively reliable vessel. She explained the differences between the Kays and the M-classes that Ella had flown in Platini system. Ella listened respectfully, even when Lina realised that she was patronising her a little.
‘Sounds fine,’ said Ella when she had finished.
‘Yeah,’ agreed Lina. ‘I guess it’ll have to be, won’t it?’ Suddenly, she felt the burden of her responsibility weighing down on her, physically crushing. She slumped back against the Kay and slid to the floor, her stomach clenching and knotting, her head still aching from her last meeting with Eli.
‘You don’t sound so sure,’ said Ella quietly, kneeling down beside her.
Lina wondered if she had forgotten that, no matter how quietly she spoke, she was talking on the communal radio channel. ‘Why are we here, Ella?’
‘What d’you mean?’ Ella asked, puzzled-looking. ‘You mean here?’
‘I mean why you and me? We both have kids back there. If we screw this up, they’ll have to raise each other.’
Ella sucked her lip, giving this due consideration. Then she said, deadpan, ‘They’ll get bloody good at video games, then, won’t they?’
Lina thought that was a pretty weak joke, but she appreciated the attempt. ‘Yeah,’ she said, even managing a little laugh. ‘I guess they will. Come on — let’s go and see how they’re doing. They must be almost ready for this one.’ She held out a hand so that Ella could help her up. Ella was just beginning to say something else when a red light began to pulse in the ceiling of the hangar. They stopped dead, lifting their faces as one to look at it.
‘What on Earth is that?’ asked Liu’s voice over the radio.
‘Come on!’ cried Lina, terror sparking inside her. She leapt up and sprinted off back towards where the others stood around her ship, gawping up at that incongruous, unexpected red light.
Alphe turned to her, his mouth hanging agape. ‘I think a ship is coming in,’ he said. His eyes were wide and full of animal fear.
‘A ship?’ Fionne repeated.