The Money Star

by Jon Lymon

  Bettis shook his head.

  “But we are definitely in the asteroid belt?”

  “We’re right where the predictions say the target should be.”

  DT scanned the sky and shook his head. “It’s not here,” he said.

  “It’s always moving though, right?” Remnant asked.

  Bettis nodded. “We’re tracking its predicted orbit right now.”

  “It can’t have gone,” DT said.

  “Actually, it can.” Aurora’s answer was both unexpected and unwelcome. “It could have been hit by another asteroid and knocked off course.”

  “Take a look around, Miss Aurora,” said DT condescendingly. “I don’t see any pushing and shoving going on out there, do you?”

  Aurora was takenaback by the sarcastic tone of the reply, but Remnant again declined the opportunity to spring to her defence. She looked at him, wondering what had got into him, but said nothing.

  The lack of progress after nearly five months of staring into space was beginning to take its toll on the crew. The real fear that they’d travelled millions of miles for nothing pulsed through DT. His thoughts returned to the hoax rumours he’d heard back on Earth. Then he thought about the Norwegians. Maybe they got there first and took it all with them. Maybe it wasn’t as big as people made out. Maybe there was only enough to fill one ship’s hold.

  Bettis stared out into the abyss. “We have to face the real possibility that there’s nothing out there, and that there never was.”

  “But they move, yes? These things, they orbit?” DT was clutching.

  Bettis was getting frustrated with having to repeat himself. “They do, and that’s exactly what we’re doing at the moment. Like I said to Remnant, we’re following the same orbit the asteroid should be on.”

  DT sat in silent contemplation of the massive amount of money he’d invested in the ship. He turned to Remnant. “Look what you have done. You and your stupid dreams. You have wasted my time and money. Destroyed my business.”

  Not for the first time, Remnant was forced to defend himself against DT’s allegations. “Hold on a minute, mate. No one forced you to come along on this mission. In fact, I’d rather you’d stayed at home like the original plan. But you had to come along, stick your oar in, and now you’re blaming me ‘cos there’s nothing out here.”

  Bettis had begun to giggle to himself, his shoulders hunching up and falling down in time with his laughter.

  “What’s so funny?” Remnant asked.

  Bettis genuinely didn’t know what he was laughing at, but couldn’t stop himself. “What a waste of time,” he spluttered. “Still, my money’s in the bank. Shall I set course for home?”

  “No,” DT and Remnant yelled in unison.

  “Fuck, fuck. Someone’s got to pay for this.” DT didn’t know where to look, what to hit.

  He turned to Aurora, his eyes shut, his brow furrowed as he tried to make sense of the situation.

  “So, you are saying our asteroid could be anywhere in the universe right now?”

  “Anywhere but here,” she replied.

  “Great. Let’s go searching for a needle in eighty-six billion haystacks.” DT threw his hands into the air and looked to Remnant for a suggestion.

  “I say we keep looking. We’ve no idea how accurate those predictions are. Whoever made them certainly ain’t been out here before. Maybe it’s a few thousand miles out.”

  Bettis tapped the fuel gauge. “Remember, gentlemen and lady, there’s a finite amount of fuel in our tank.”

  “He’s right.” DT slumped into the co-pilot’s seat and rested his head in his cupped hands. When he raised his head, he delivered the line nobody wanted to hear. “I think we should head back to Mars.”

  “No, we’re not giving up. Not yet.” Remnant’s desperation was clear. “Let’s not put our faith in a prediction made by some dickhead scientist who ain’t been out of his house for years. Remember the drill on the Prospector II? The sparkling bits? Surely that proves there’s something out here? The crew of that ship didn’t die for nothing.”

  Aurora nodded. “I know things don’t look good right now, but I can assure you NASA, SEC whatever they’re called, would not be sending a manned ship this deep into space without good reason.”

  “I hear what you are saying,” said DT, “but I am using the evidence before my eyes. There is nothing here. If there was something here, it is not where it’s meant to be. And we can not afford to waste fuel hunting down something that could be millions of miles away.”

  “As this is a democracy, I vote we head back to Mars, people,” said Bettis. “Let’s put this one down to experience.”

  “Experience?” Remnant raged, punching the cockpit wall. “I didn’t come this far just for the experience. I’ve ruined my life back on Earth. I’ve got absolutely nothing to go back for, and I’m certainly not going back without some diamond. Now, if I have to, I’ll pull Aurora’s gun on you.”

  “Not that again,” said a jaded DT.

  “Don’t make me do it. All I ask is a couple of days. A few thousand miles. Let’s keep looking.”

  Aurora nodded. “Sounds like a plan to me.”

  Attention turned to DT. “My instincts tell us to cut our losses and head home.”

  “Come on DT. Remember what you said to me back on Earth, after the ship crashed. You said you thought this trip was meant to be. That you were meant to be on it.”

  “I’d had a near-death experience. I did not know what I was talking about.”

  “Well, I did. Now, I’ve got no idea what the hell I’m doing up here, any more than any of you have. But we’re here now and we’ve got to make the most of it, because once we turn back, that’s it. Our one chance is gone. Now, all I’m asking is a couple of days, please DT.”

  DT sighed and looked at the man who had saved his life and now was in the process of ruining it.

  “OK, OK, forty-eight hours. We’ll give it forty-eight hours. Mitch, let’s keep on the projected orbit and see what we can see.”

  34

  All four crew gathered around the dashboard, straining to get a look at the radar thirty-three hours after deciding by a narrow majority to continue the search.

  “That looks like something to me,” said Remnant, eager to see his determination to keep the search going vindicated.

  “I’m not so sure,” said Bettis. “It looks small, very small.

  “It’s got to be worth checking out though.”

  “We are heading that way anyway, yes, Mitch?” asked DT

  “It’s funny you should ask,” said Bettis. “Because here’s another thing. The ship’s struggling to keep on its set course.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’re burning more fuel trying to stay on the predicted orbit of the diamond asteroid.”

  DT grimaced. It wasn’t the kind of news he wanted to hear.

  “And I think I know why,” added Bettis. He leaned forward and tapped the window, pointing to Jupiter, now the size of a full moon on their port side.

  “What’s that got to do with us?” Remnant asked.

  “That’s only the most powerful planet in the solar system, with magnetic forces way beyond your comprehension,” Bettis scoffed.

  “Hey, there’s no need to take that tone,” said Aurora.

  Bettis was unflustered. “If you’d let me finish, I was about to say its strength is beyond even my comprehension.”

  “Right, right, so…?” DT was eager for definitive answers.

  “So, I believe it’s slowly, but very powerfully dragging us towards it.”

  The silence in the cockpit betrayed the fear that had instantly filled everyone.

  “And I’m sorry to have to be the bearer of more bad news, but I also believe that if we leave it much longer, I’m not sure we’ll be able to escape its pull.”

  “What are we waiting for, let’s get out of here.” DT was panic-stricken.

  “Wait a minute,” said Remnant
with more calmness.

  “No, Sye, we cannot afford to wait any longer. Don’t you see, the longer we look for this, the closer we get to our deaths.

  “Let’s just check out that dot on the screen. That could be it.”

  “It’s about two thousand miles away.” Bettis’ matter of fact tone couldn’t fail to annoy Remnant.

  “Put your foot down then,” Remnant shouted.

  DT grabbed Remnant and pulled him round to face him for another nose-to-nose. “Do you have a death wish or something, my friend?”

  “I’ve got fuck all to live for.”

  DT looked Remnant in the eye. “However lightly you might value your own life,” he said calmly, “I am afraid there are other lives on board this ship that I, as captain, have to take into consideration.”

  “I just don’t want to give up, DT. I can’t. Edgar, me, we went to all the effort to build this. We’ve all come all this way…”

  “Yes, and believe you me, I am as disappointed and upset as you that we have failed to locate the diamond. I have invested a lot of money in this. But we need to be realists, Sye. The search is over. Our prey has escaped us and we must return home empty-handed. Or we risk not being able to return home at all.”

  Remnant recognised the undeniable truth in DT’s words. He sat down on the rear cockpit seat and Aurora circled her arm around his shoulder.

  “Maybe it was never here at all,” she whispered to him. “But thinking it was gave you hope, didn’t it? Made you believe there was a point to life, after all? Certainly had me going for a while.”

  Remnant fought back the tears. For the first time, he had to contemplate returning to Earth as empty-handed as he’d left it. He glanced up and out at Jupiter, the giant of the solar system, its angry red eye swirling, tempting him into its hellishness.

  DT whispered to Bettis who wasted no time in engaging the thrust.

  “Hold tight, everyone.”

  What if that dot was it, the answer to Remnant’s problems? What if he was within a couple of thousand miles of salvation? He would never know. Maybe it was as Bettis had said, he was never meant to know.

  The Baton Uric spun a one eighty and the engines roared as it tried to escape Jupiter’s ferocious pull. A ball of similar stature was forming in Remnant’s throat. It wasn’t that it was hard for him to accept defeat. He’d been accepting that for more years than he cared to remember. It was more that he knew he was letting people down. Again. Chloe. Elena. Edgar. Gordon. He wanted to bring something back for each of them. Change their lives for ever and for the better. Apologise for the hassles and the indignation and the ignorance and the threats and the violence and the selfishness and the constant disappointment. And now that opportunity was gone.

  35

  Aurora looked in a couple of times with a soothing drink and even more soothing words. But she guessed (correctly) that Remnant needed some wallow time, so she left him be.

  Journeying through space certainly gave a man plenty of time to think about, well, everything. But thinking was not something that came easy to Remnant. The only things he’d ever given any consistent thought were the plans he’d drawn up for raids on Hatton Garden’s jewellers. They were just ideas, never anything he seriously thought would happen. It was the usual stuff. A quick get in, get hands on and get out before security had time to notice.

  He’d been looking forward to applying some of that theory to the diamond asteroid, a quick bish-bash with the drill, then bosh, drop the shiny stuff into the net, and away you go, disappearing into the night before anyone saw anything.

  Remnant opened his eyes for the first time in hours. The cabin was as dull and unwelcoming as it had been when he’d closed them earlier. His thoughts turned to the Prospector II and those shiny glints on its drill bit. He didn’t imagine them. He didn’t even see them until DT pointed them out. But they were real. Like Aurora said, why would SEC send a manned crew this far out into the solar system if they didn’t believe there was good reason to?

  Remnant dismissed the tingle of excitement that had started to form in his gut as just another desperate attempt to keep his dead dream alive. Let it go, stop clinging, man. It’s gone. It was never meant to be.

  But the nag wouldn’t go. What if someone had got there before them? The Norwegians. The Americans. Someone could have. They hadn’t heard any news from Earth for over a month.

  What if a bigger, more powerful villain than him got to the diamond first and stole it? He’d said all along that the job should be treated as a heist. But he hadn’t listened to himself. He’d been treating it as a hunt, thinking like a hunter, not a criminal. In heists, you take what you steal away from the place you’ve stolen it from.

  But where would you take something as big as an asteroid?

  Remnant was sitting up now, his heart racing. You’d take it somewhere no-one would expect to find it.

  In his plans for the job on Hatton Garden, he always ended up in a lock-up, near to where Edgar built the Baton Uric, for the great unveiling of their haul.

  But you couldn’t sneak something the size of an asteroid anywhere. You wouldn’t want to take it all the way back to Earth. You’d…

  Remnant stood and quickly examined his face in the cabin mirror, the glass now pockmarked with an indefinable substance. He’d grown used to seeing what he saw, a bloated, tired red face looking back at him.

  ‘Well, Mr Remnant,’ he said, impersonating Ramage’s matter-of-fact tone. ‘Would you mind if I had a little look around. See what’s what? See if you’re hiding something.’

  His mind flashed to the SEC ships on Mars. What were they up to? What was in that hangar? That massive h…

  He pulled open the door to the cabin and rushed into the cockpit.

  “How long before we get back to Mars?” The excitement in the tone of his question stirred his three fellow crew members who were all dozing in their respective seats.

  Remnant repeated the question.

  “The same time it took us to get here, so about another forty days,” said Bettis.

  “We can’t get there any quicker?”

  “What, and burn more fuel? I’m not even sure we’ve got enough to get us there as it is.”

  “Why all the urgency, Sye?” Aurora was standing looking at Remnant with concern, seriously wondering whether he was sleepwalking, or worse, in the process of losing his mind.

  “I think that’s where it is. I think someone’s stolen it, and taken it back to Mars.”

  “That’s fanciful,” said Bettis. “It’s no small task dragging a whole asteroid.”

  “But Aurora, you said yourself, there’s been all kinds of hardware coming into Mars over the past few months.”

  She nodded. “I’ve no idea what it was for, but there was certainly a lot happening.”

  “What if that was because they found the diamond and took it back to Mars to break it up and ship it back to Earth?”

  “It’s possible, I guess.”

  “Why else would there be so much going on?”

  “Maybe they found oil, like I said,” said DT.

  “Even so, I don’t see how us getting back to Mars any quicker is going to change things,” said Bettis.

  “Because they could have shipped all the diamond back to Earth by then.”

  “SEC can do what it wants up here,” said Aurora. “They outnumber everyone else, they’ve got more hardware, software, not to mention weaponry. There’s no way we can stop them doing whatever they want to do, Sye.”

  “Why not?” Remnant asked. “You’re seeing the problems before you’re seeing the opportunities.”

  “Sye I’m just seeing the situation as it is.”

  “She’s right, Remnant,” said Bettis. “Now get back in your box and carry on sulking.”

  Remnant felt an overwhelming urge to punch Bettis until DT emerged as the voice of reason. “Sye, there could well be something in what you say. But I am afraid we need to err on the side of caution, my friend.
With our precarious fuel situation, I cannot sanction a change of speed. We shall have to take the risk and hope that SEC takes longer to ship all the diamond off Mars. I am sorry, but I don’t feel we have any choice.”

  Aurora massaged Remnant’s shoulders in an attempt to relax him, but he shook her off and stormed out.

  “Some people just don’t know when to let go,” said Bettis.

  “And some people just don’t know when to give people a break,” Aurora replied.

  36

  Life in the luxurious Mars Hilton was stressful for Haygue. He didn’t want to be there. Neither did anyone else judging by the number of empty rooms and the scarcity of staff.

  Amid the desolation, he, Stock and M Krugler occupied themselves in their rooms, watching films and news of unrest back on Earth.

  Haygue scoffed at the bitterness and desperation of nations jealous at the USA, eager to grab a share of their knowledge of the diamond asteroid without putting in the effort and expense of gathering it in the first place.

  Stock kept his blog updated, attracting new followers by the hundreds each day as he told of his adventures. He put a call out for people to help find Onamoto, to see if he was alive. He also called on people to stop fighting over the asteroid. ‘I seriously don’t think it exists,’ he wrote. ‘I don’t think it ever existed, so people are fighting over nothing.’ His posts attracted record numbers of comments, some calling him a fraud, accusing him of trying to put people off the trail by calling the diamond asteroid a hoax. Haygue was right, Stock conceded. People had to believe it was out there, and anyone who told them otherwise became the enemy.

  After ten days, the transporter finally turned up outside the Hilton. Haygue watched his luggage being loaded onto the back, and grabbed the driver by the collar.

  “How come this has taken so long getting here?”

  “Sorry, sir, we’ve had a few issues with the construction of the facility.”

  “What issues?”

  “Well, something went wrong somewhere. The facility ended up having six sides.”