Macao Station

by Майк Берри

  He stood just outside the hangar doorway, staring into the cavernous vastness of the warehouse, marvelling at the massive machine-parts that nested in the racking, reflecting his light dully from their oily skins. He realised then, as he imagined one of those vast pieces of metal tumbling down and crushing him to death, that the station was making artificial gravity. It hadn’t even occurred to him before. Of course, he’d known that the station would be a spinner, and even kind-of understood how that created the impression of gravity, but he hadn’t realised how easily, how thoughtlessly, he’d slip back into the one-gee lifestyle. He honestly hadn’t noticed until now, but now that he did, the sensation was an enjoyable one. He felt powerful, heavy, brutish, like a lump of malleable iron. But he still felt a little vulnerable beneath those infinite tiers of machinery. He cautiously moved along the gangway and took a left at the end.

  One thing he had managed to extract from the little scaredy cat, besides some blood and teeth, was the route to the station’s prison. He had no way of knowing, of course, if the man had been lying to him, but he suspected not.

  The plasma cutter swung jauntily at his side, switched off, its ceramicarbide barrel pointing towards the floor. It had become like an old friend, now. Carver was considering giving it a name, but he’d never been good at names. Fury, maybe, for the job it had done on the little scaredy cat. Or Dragonkey, for the work it had yet to do, that most important job of freeing the dragon from its prison of ice and rock. He didn’t really like either, though.

  He climbed the stairs carefully, aware of the slipperiness of the steps — two floors, like he had been told. He passed a sign reading MACHINE ROOMS and moved down a narrow passage with glass-fronted workshops on either side. He turned into an even narrower, windowless corridor that continued straight until it faded into blackness.

  Suddenly, something moved at the end of the passage — a flash of white — and Fury-slash-Dragonkey was in the firing position before Carver even knew what was happening. The fingers round his neck jiggled and jumped like the fingers of a gifted pianist. He stood, cutter poised, eyes squinted half shut, staring into the darkness, washing his light from side to side, seeing nothing but textured metal and rusty meshwork. Something had moved, though. Attack of the asshole friends, his mind warned him.

  ‘Go and check,’ said the dragon, but its voice was far away, like the voice of the sea on distant shores. ‘It’s nothing, but go and see for yourself.’

  Cautiously, Carver worked his way down the corridor to the spot where he had seen the movement, trying to check both ways at once. His heart was large and slippery in his chest and his head was pulsing as if it was trying to breathe. It felt like it had swelled up tight inside his helmet. He was, for all his violent nature, something of a coward when it came down to it. Of course, he would never have admitted this, even to himself.

  He reached the spot and shone his light around, immediately revealing the source of the motion: icicles had fallen from a hanging pipe and shattered on the floor here, leaving a crystalline spatter of fairy dust that Carver ground vengefully beneath his boot. He grinned to himself, shaking his head at his own foolishness. Had he really been frightened just then? There was nothing worse than him on this station, he was sure of that. Well, he thought, maybe just the dragon. Maybe.

  Still grinning, he continued round the corner into a slightly wider area. Another doorway led away to the right, but Carver angled leftwards, beneath a sign reading REFINERY, creeping up the few steps and into a haunted house of leaning shadows and black metal. Immense crucibles and muscular crane-arms soared above him, cables and chains as thick as his waist drooping to the floor in places. He slunk past a control desk that overlooked some huge machine, a contraption that looked like a sewage treatment plant and stretched away into solid darkness. The place was utterly dead and still, veiled in frost and rock dust.

  He picked his way through this industrial wasteland at a steady pace, trying not to linger, knowing that the asshole friends would be coming soon, looking for him, probably hoping to hinder his escape. Hopefully the sight of the little scaredy cat would slow them down a little, but he supposed it was also likely to make them angrier. And so he kept moving, not so quickly that he would miss something, get lost or even have an accident, but quickly enough.

  His suit’s limited HUD continued to show vacuum outside its own protective confines, and a temperature so low that Carver wondered if it was even right. The station was obviously damaged, even crippled, and he wondered if it was the doing of the old, failed emissary. He suspected it probably was, and he grudgingly acknowledged to himself that the crazy bastard had apparently been good for something after all.

  Through the refinery, out into another corridor so alike the last one that he felt a brief but powerful sense of disorientation, as if reality had skipped a beat.

  ‘Carry on,’ said the dragon, its voice a faint but fervent whisper. ‘Hurry.’

  ‘Hurry,’ repeated Carver, not even hearing himself. He moved onwards, passing a sign that read CLEARED PERSONNEL ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT.

  He emerged into a small chamber that was divided in two down its length by a screen of icy armoured glasspex. He reached out, swiped away an arc of frost and peered through the screen. There was a desk in there and a trio of monitors hanging from the ceiling. Some kind of security checkpoint, he thought. On the wall below the monitors was a shiny steel cabinet of a type that Carver thought he recognised. It was a weapon locker.

  He laughed out loud, hefting the cutter. He fired a brief burst of plasma at the sheet of glass, expecting to inscribe a neat doorway through which he could pass. The glass, however, shattered explosively at the first touch of plasma, exposing Carver to a brief gale of shards. He flinched instinctively, turning his head away, praying that none of the pieces had cut his suit. He waited, hardly daring to breathe, until he was sure that he was actually all right.

  ‘Lucky,’ said the dragon. ‘Now hurry up!’

  ‘Yeah,’ agreed Carver. ‘I guess that was stupid.’

  The dragon said nothing, which Carver took to be a sign of agreement. He stepped into the small room that had been closed off behind the glasspex. He approached the weapon locker and tried its doors. It was, of course, locked. No problem for me, he thought to himself. I have a universal key.

  He carefully positioned the muzzle of the cutter on the side of the cabinet, fired it up, and neatly sliced the entire front off it. The piece fell away, revealing what was inside: a gun. A smallish laser pistol, simple and cheap-looking, as were often used on ships or habitats where a projectile weapon might pierce the hull. Not powerful enough to fire through armour, but probably good enough to burn through a space suit — certainly not something you’d want to be hit on exposed flesh with. Carver lifted the weapon down, surprised at how light it was. It had a plastic security tag through the trigger-guard to indicate that it was unused. He ripped the tag out and threw it away, then stepped cautiously back though the frame that had held the armoured glasspex, and continued.

  The door out of the security room had a warning hand-painted onto it in large red letters: TEMPORARY AIRLOCK. SECURITY ONLY.

  ‘That’s it,’ hissed the dragon faintly. ‘The prison.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Carver, stuffing the laser pistol into his belt and hefting the cutter in both hands. Despite the new addition of the laser, he still preferred the cutter. It was so much more personal than any gun. He squeezed the trigger and it came alive in his hands, fizzing and spitting, making the glass of his visor darken to protect his eyesight. ‘This is it. The prison.’ Reluctantly, he let the cutter fizzle out again. He might need to be stealthy at first.

  He stepped forwards and hit the pad beside the door. As it cracked and juddered open there was a rush of gas from the darkness on the other side, a whitish stream that rolled and twisted, then rapidly dissipated. Carver waited until the door was high enough and then he stepped inside.

  Chapter Forty

  ‘C
alm the fuck down!’ bellowed Halman, not very soothingly, rising from his chair. ‘And tell me what’s going on!’

  Lina pressed herself into her own seat, unable to speak. She couldn’t even remember entering the room. She still had the visor down on her helmet, despite the fact that the damn thing felt like it was suffocating her. Her breath wreathed her body like smoke, as if something was burning out inside her, an effect which didn’t help her fragile sanity at all.

  ‘Boss?’ said a tentative voice from the doorway.

  ‘Fuck off, Theo!’ roared Halman. He cast his gaze across the terrified foursome who had been squeezed into the room with him. ‘What happened? And where is Liu?’

  Lina looked around herself, unable to believe the evidence of her own eyes. Ella, Alphe, Fionne. . . She looked again, trying to count them. Halman was right. Liu wasn’t there.

  ‘He. . . he. . .’ she stammered. ‘He was with me,’ she managed to splutter. Her breathing was too fast, too shallow. She tried to slow it down. ‘He was with me,’ she said again, more steadily.

  ‘The bastard must have got him!’ exclaimed Ella, who was standing directly in front of Halman’s desk and as such was subjected to the full close-up glower.

  ‘What?’ Halman demanded. ‘Who got him?’

  ‘A giant,’ said Fionne in a whisper, slowly raising her head as if surfacing from a dream. She, at least, had managed to open her visor. ‘With a necklace of human fingers.’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Halman asked, with more control this time. ‘What happened?’

  Alphe’s jaw was visibly trembling as he spoke: ‘We. . . well, we. . . we were working on Lina’s Kay, I mean we’re almost done, but. . . then. . .’ He faltered, clenching his eyes shut. ‘Shit!’ he cried in frustration, clearly unable to continue.

  ‘He had Eli’s fingers round his neck,’ said Fionne quietly, looking up. Her pretty face — the face of a girl from a skincare advert more than that of a deep-space engineer — was glazed and stunned, her eyes unfocused. She looked around Halman’s office as if seeking something sane and real to latch onto.

  ‘Who did?’ growled Halman. ‘Who?’

  ‘A ship came in,’ continued Alphe flatly. ‘Cycled the hangar remotely. I guess the safety systems are still off-line after Eli’s escape. Anyway, we thought it was him. But it wasn’t. It was. . . I don’t know who it was. . .’

  ‘A giant,’ said Fionne wonderingly. ‘A giant with Eli’s fingers. Covered in blood.’ She stared blankly into Halman’s face. Lina pressed herself further and further back into her chair, trying to distance herself from this reality. Her mind was railing inside her, a desperate prisoner in her skull.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘We thought we’d be able to bring him in,’ Alphe went on. ‘But it wasn’t Eli.’

  ‘Carver. . .’ breathed Halman, turning away to stare out of the window. ‘Ronnie Carver. Six foot eight, ugly bastard, last seen on a supply shuttle bound for here.’

  ‘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 fucki
ng 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.’