‘He cycled the main airlock on the loader, but he tricked us. He came out of the cargo hold, and he. . . he. . .’
‘We ran,’ said Fionne in a disbelieving voice.
Alphe nodded. ‘Yeah,’ he agreed, still speaking to Halman’s back. ‘We ran. He had a plasma cutter. So much for fucking heroics!’ He looked to Fionne and then Lina, his eyes pleading. ‘He must have caught Liu.’ His voice cracked, and the rest of his words were slushy with sudden tears: ‘He must have caught Liu, he must have. . .’ He put his head in his hands, shielding his face while great silent sobs racked his body.
‘He’s dead,’ Fionne said. She looked too shocked to cry, her gaze unfocused and unblinking. Lina had seen people on the news, emerging from the embattled mines of Platini Alpha with that same expression — soldiers who’d seen their buddies die from exposure to chemical weapons or plasma traps. She knew that some of them never lost that look, never really recovered. She wondered if that same look was on her own face. ‘He must be dead!’ Fionne cried, her voice rising to a wavering treble.
‘You ran?’ asked Halman, turning back to them. ‘But you lost Liu?’
‘Yeah,’ agreed Fionne bitterly. ‘We ran. Like cowards.’
‘No,’ Halman insisted. ‘You did the right thing. I’m going to organise a sweep of the station, but I want you guys to stay here. Don’t move a muscle.’
‘I’m coming,’ said Ella in a low, flat voice that brooked no argument.
Halman paused, biting his lip. ‘Okay,’ he said.
Lina heard a voice say, ‘Me, too,’ and then she realised that it was her voice. Had she really just volunteered to go back out there?
Halman turned his stare on her. His dark eyes seemed to bore into her, as if probing for weakness. ‘Okay,’ he said again. ‘Come on.’ And he swept across the office and out of the door. Ella and Lina scrambled to follow him.
Halman stalked out into the corridor, the two women dragging along behind him. He went quickly from dorm to dorm shouting names: ‘Theo; Si; Murkhoff; Rocko; Petra. . .’ Panic spread in his wake, voices raised in question, fearful scrambling. ‘Meet me by the airlock! The rest of you stay put!’ he yelled as he went back out into the corridor. Those he had called came slowly, apprehensively out of their rooms, asking questions that he ignored. He turned instead to Ella. ‘Ella — get me laser pistols for everyone here.’
‘Sure,’ she said, nodding once.
‘Do you have enough?’
‘I think so, yeah,’ she said, and then she ran off, calling for someone to help her.
Halman scanned around for Theo, physically picking him out of the crowd by one hand. ‘Theo — suits for everyone. We have to go out there. Hurry now.’ Theo simply nodded and ran off.
‘Lina,’ said Halman, rounding on her.
She fell back a step. ‘Yes?’
Murkhoff appeared at Halman’s elbow and tugged on his sleeve. He looked thinner than ever — emaciated, really, and the bandage across his ruined eye looked dirty and unsanitary, even though Hobbes had changed it twice a day.
‘I’m not coming,’ said Murkhoff quietly. His voice was a dry rasp.
‘What?’ demanded Halman, as if he might not have heard correctly.
‘I don’t know what’s going on,’ said Murkhoff in that same disinterested tone. ‘But I don’t want any part in it. I’m not coming.’
Halman stared at him for a moment, and his mouth fell slowly open. ‘Fuck it, Murkhoff,’ he said. ‘Whatever.’ He sounded offended, but personally Lina couldn’t blame Murkhoff for his reluctance. He had suffered enough at the hands of Macao’s psychos already.
Murkhoff stalked off without another word, back towards his dorm. Lina and Halman watched him go in silence.
‘You can’t blame him,’ said Lina once he was out of sight. She felt a little better now that her visor was open. The air here tasted bad, but she felt better all the same. A little.
Halman shook his head dismissively. ‘Lina,’ he said, attempting to pick up again from where he’d been interrupted, ‘are you sure you’re up for this? You don’t have to come, you know. Hell, if that ass can opt out, then so can you. In fact, I’d rather you did.’
‘Dan. . .’ she sighed. ‘I have to go. I–’
Something struck her in the side and she looked down, shocked, to see Marco. He hit her again with the palm of his hand. His face was clenched and tear-streaked.
‘You can’t go!’ he shrieked, lashing out again and again. Lina struggled to grab his wrists but he was too fast, too wriggly. ‘You can’t go! Don’t go out there again! Something else has gone wrong, hasn’t it? Hasn’t it?!’
‘Honey. . .’ she began weakly, tapering away to nothing. What was there to say? She had said it already. Nothing had changed. ‘I have to. . .’ she finished lamely. She finally managed to snag his arms and hold onto them. She knelt to look into his face. ‘Somebody came in on the ISL, Marco. Somebody dangerous. We have to catch them.’
‘Well that’s fucking fine, then!’ he screamed, worming free.
‘Don’t you swear at me!’ she retorted automatically, totally stunned.
‘Lina!’ said Halman, grabbing her by the shoulder and raising her up so that he could speak directly into her ear. ‘Lose the kid, or you’re not coming,’ he said in a low growl. Then he turned and strode away, shouting for Ella.
‘Marco. . .’ Lina began. But she didn’t have anything else to follow it up with. ‘My son. . .’ she managed to add.
Marco shook his head, tears streaming down his face, mouth working soundlessly. He turned, almost colliding with Petra Kalistov, and ran away down the corridor. Lina stood in indecision, poised to pursue him, but Si’s huge hand landed on her shoulder, stopping her.
‘Lina,’ said Si. ‘You okay?’
She looked up into his broad, lantern-jawed face. That question again. ‘Yeah,’ she said, without any real idea if this was true or not. ‘I guess.’
‘Good,’ he said. The hand squeezed briefly, then moved away.
‘Gather round!’ called Halman.
The little group closed in around him in a nervous huddle. Theo reappeared pushing a rack of space suits, then joined the back of the circle. Many of them eyed the suits suspiciously before turning back to Halman.
Lina squeezed in next to Si, whose large and solid presence was a reassuring bastion of solidity.
Halman looked at his tiny army, into the eyes of each in turn. ‘People, we have a problem. . .’ he began.
Chapter Forty-One
‘Close the outer door,’ said the dragon. ‘This is an airlock, remember.’
‘Oh yeah,’ agreed Carver, slightly mollified. He went back and shut the outer door, then returned to the one that would, all being well, allow access to the prison.
‘Are you ready?’ asked the dragon hungrily. ‘Be prepared to fight. They may not be pleased to see you.’
Carver could feel the dragon’s excitement like a cloud that surrounded him, prickling his skin. It reminded him of the tension in the air before a storm, which had been a common, almost daily occurrence back on the electrically-volatile world of Aitama. ‘I’m ready,’ he breathed. He hit the pad to open the inner door.
The door slid slowly into the ceiling, spilling dusky reddish light into the corridor like blood, revealing a world of sanguine shadow and glass panels beyond. Moving nonchalantly, so as not to panic anybody who was watching him, Carver stepped into Macao Prison, the cutter held as out of sight as possible behind his back, checking from side to side for company. Somebody was crying softly down one of the glass-walled corridors. Another voice answered the crying — a woman’s voice. As quietly as he could, Carver crept down the passage towards it.