by Thorne Moore
But no, she mustn’t forget that first and foremost he was a Seccor officer. He was engaged on a serious and possibly dangerous mission. Gazing round at the other passengers, she contrived to glance furtively at the information feeding across his screen. It appeared to be a register of share prices.
All Inner Circle ports were much the same, whether on Ganymede, Newtonia or Mars. They were well-oiled machines for processing the busy and the batty, the neurotic and the absent-minded, parcelling them up and posting them efficiently on their way. Every port had the same battalion of soothing uniformed staff to minister to the traveller, organising calmly with nice hats and fixed smiles.
Omega was different.
Travellers arriving from the city were disgorged unceremoniously into a cavernous concourse of clanging steel, ribbed pipes, unpainted girders and dirty concrete floor. Oil, sweat and electricity hung in the air. Incomprehensible tannoys vied with shouts, rattles, occasional roars and perpetual echoes, to create a wall of noise after the subdued hum of the shuttle. Amidst the pipes and cables, dangling notices flashed information, destinations, arrivals, names and numbers in a meaningless jumble.
Abigail surveyed the scene, sick to her stomach with despair. This was a nightmare. She couldn’t really go to Triton. She’d been toying with the idea of finding some solicitous official or kindly benefactor and throwing herself on his mercy, pleading with him to rescue her, but one glance at the totally hostile bedlam of Omega told her no one here would be interested in helping her. She flinched as Tim yelled, whistled loudly, and pulled her into the maelstrom of the concourse, towards a riveted pillar where a gaggle of travellers were huddled.
What could she do? Sit down and scream? She followed.
The gaggle were her shipmates, clustered around a pile of luggage. Hands in pockets, Selden was propping up the pillar, blank gaze fixed on nothing. Merrit, wretched and deflated, was huddled behind Officer Addo. Christie was sitting on her case, rigid, face bloodless, shades hiding her eyes. David, supported by Siegfried, was swaying back and forth on his heels, with a perpetual low moan.
The crew exchanged grins and greetings. Their passengers remained wordless, numb with the noise, the chill and the long wait.
‘Christie!’ Abigail tried to still the tremble in her voice. Her way was blocked by the luggage and by Siegfried; she couldn’t grab the woman’s arm, but surely Christie could hear her.
Christie remained expressionless, unmoving.
‘Christie!’ Abigail had to do something, save herself. She turned, to walk away, to run for her life, but she couldn’t because there was Smith, bounding up to them.
‘Hi there. Abigail! You made it.’
The others had turned too, stepping forward just as she had done, and she was trapped, jostling with Smith, and Tim and Siegfried. Someone’s hand caught her shoulder, something nearly tripped her, something scratched her arm. She wanted to scream, as Smith gave her a welcoming hug. ‘So, this is it then?’ he declared jubilantly.
‘This is very much It,’ said Addo. ‘What have you done with...’ He hesitated.
In a dream Abigail watched as a clipped machine in pin-striped suit trotted up behind Smith. The hair and the clothes might be entirely different, but that look of constipated distress hadn’t changed. Maggy stared with horror around Omega Port.
‘Oh yes, here’s sweet Maggy, safe and sound, if not intact,’ said Smith, giving her a hug and pinching her backside. She gave a neigh of indignation and glared at him, but Smith was immune. ‘What do we do now?’ he asked, rubbing his hands.
‘We embark, said Addo. ‘We were only waiting for you.’
‘Then let’s go!’
Unruffled, as ever, Addo beckoned them to follow towards some unseen exit beyond the unsavoury crowd blocking their path, and they fell in behind him.
Abigail felt her insides melting into utter panic. This was the moment to be decisive and yet there was nothing left in her, no will, no resistance, no fight. Everything seemed to darken as Tim took her elbow.
‘Which of these are your cases?’ he asked cheerfully. ‘I’ll carry them.’
‘Those,’ she tried to say and found she couldn’t even bring herself to speak. She barely managed to point.
‘I’ve got them,’ said Tim. He glanced at her with concern, slipping an arm round her to support her. She dragged, in a hideous daze, after the others.
Across the concourse low arches opened on long metal-ribbed corridors, an exercise in abstract perspective, rendering distance in a meaningless way. Only the trudge of their feet convinced them the distance was real, as they followed Addo down a passage towards a far gaping blackness. It was cold. Their footsteps echoed. Their bags appeared to grow heavier by the minute. Even Smith’s jubilant stride began to lose its spring. No one spoke. Speech was taboo.
The darkness awaiting them seemed deeply profound as they walked, signifying some mysterious rite of passage, yet when they reached the threshold of the Heloise it had diminished into nondescript reality, a steel hatchway, a dimly lit entrance that was comfortingly familiar. Was this where they had boarded, back at Newtonia? It looked denuded, sharp with the tang of disinfectant, but it was recognisable. Reassuring.
It was home?
Chapter 13
‘Well, they’ve really fucked this place up,’ said Merrit. They had been dumped unceremoniously in the observation lounge, while the crew hurried off to Flight Control.
Gone were the coffee tables, the clusters of plush seating, the red carpet, the potted palms, the brass work; everything that bore the logo of Ragnox Travel. In their place were a couple of sofas and a few salvage-yard chairs. The corner formerly occupied by a grand piano now housed a battered snooker table. The bar at least remained, shrouded in dust sheets. Above it, the giant screen was blank.
Smith tugged a sheet free to reveal a dozen glasses and a pile of crates. ‘They haven’t skimped on the supplies, at least.’
‘I just wish they’d hurry up and serve us,’ said Maggy irritably.
‘We help ourselves.’ Selden reached into one of the crates for a bottle and poured himself a large glass. He sloped back to the sofas, where he sat, comfortably, legs apart, head back and eyes shut.
‘Drinks all round?’ suggested Smith, sniffing the contents of the bottle Selden had opened. ‘Quality and quantity.’
‘Vodka,’ said Christie hoarsely, stirring into consciousness.
Abigail, collapsed in a chair and gripping its arms as if she were on some fiendish roller-coaster, stared at Christie, her mouth opening to speak and producing no sound. She looked as if she were on the point of disintegration.
Which wasn’t surprising, Merrit decided, because disintegration seemed to be underway. Everyone had noticed it. He gasped, staggering, reaching for support as a violent vibration shook the ship. It gave way to a series of whines, each rising to a higher crescendo until the final one reached its operatic peak and hung there for a full minute. The ship seemed to pant around him, throbbing with expectant life. Metal clanged and echoed in hollow places. The whine faded, replaced by a monotonous hum, less harsh on the ears but too loud and too irritatingly persistent to be ignored.
‘What the hell’s going on,’ said Merrit, steadying himself to march to the doors and thump on the controls. They didn’t respond. He tried again. Nothing. He stepped back to survey the room, feeling the panic build up inside him. There was another door at the other end. He strode across and tried it. Nothing. He beat his fists on it. Locked doors. Nothing reduced him to a gibbering child so much as a locked door.
‘We appear to be locked in,’ said Smith calmly.
‘Fuck that!’ Merrit almost screamed at him. ‘What are they playing at?’
‘Probably keeping us out of their hair while they get us on our way.’ Smith strolled over to look at the lock thoughtfully, then glanced askance at the others and shrugged. ‘Presumably we are under way?’
Abigail remained limp, paralysed, unseeing, but the o
thers instinctively turned to look at the screen. It was still dead.
Merrit was beginning to sweat, his heartbeat pounding in his ears. If they would just open the doors...
His prayer was answered; the door suddenly hissed open, though it hissed closed again before Merrit thought to move, parting just long enough to admit Tim Faber, panting, holding a box.
‘Tod says he’s got to have this, pronto,’ he said, jerking a thumb at the huddled David. ‘Get a pill down him somehow.’ He placed the box on the table and was gone.
The sense of urgency went with him. ‘What is it?’ said Smith, sauntering over and opening the box with mild curiosity. He extracted a tube of capsules. ‘Here’s something to make Merrit’s little eyes light up.’
‘What the fuck are you talking about!’ snarled Merrit.
‘Fancy trying to flog these to the nearest Seccor under-cover officer?’
‘Who the hell told you—?’
‘Don’t you think we should be dealing with him?’ asked Christie, waving a hand vaguely at David, who was crouching on the floor, swaying and moaning softly, his skin an unpleasant clammy green.
‘Yeah,’ said Smith. ‘Maybe we should. Any volunteers?’
Merrit was still simmering. No way was he going to volunteer. But neither were the others. Maggy was shrinking back in disgust, Selden still ignoring them all. Abigail looked too ill even to notice David’s state.
‘You’re holding the baby.’ Christie sank lower into her chair.
‘So I am. Right.’ Smith tipped out a capsule and advanced on David. He hesitated, pausing to pick up one of the glasses.
‘Not alcohol!’ said Merrit between his teeth. He filled a glass from the water cooler, thrusting it at Smith.
‘Sure. Right then, Davey.’ Smith dropped on his knees beside David. ‘Time for medicine. Come to Jo Jo.’
David allowed the capsule to be pushed into his mouth. He allowed Smith to tip his head back and pour water between his lips.
‘That’s my boy.’
David vomited, quietly but messily.
‘Great,’ said Smith, looking down at his silk suit.
‘Davey not like Jo Jo,’ said Christie.
Merrit, still seething, picked up the box and rifled through its contents. He found a sheet of notes and glanced through them. ‘If he can’t take them orally he has to be injected.’
Smith picked up the tube. ‘Open a capsule?’
Merrit dug out an opaque vial and a sealed syringe from the bottom of the case. ‘Only if you’re a moron.’
He carefully unwrapped the syringe, conscious of their eyes on him and wishing he hadn’t moved but it was too late now. Let them sneer. He inserted the tip into the vial and delicately drew up the required amount of colourless liquid. He checked the notes again. ‘You’d better hold him.’
‘Uh uh.’ Smith stepped clear.
Selden rose, picked up David like a feather, and deposited him on the sofa, holding him up like a doll and working one sleeve up an emaciated arm.
Merrit unwrapped a clinical swab, wiped the unresisting arm and stuck the needle in. Satisfied, he stood back, and Selden let David down onto the cushions.
‘Quite the Florence Nightingale, aren’t you?’ said Smith. ‘We’ll have to get you a little cap.’
Merrit felt his stomach turn over. ‘Fuck you!’ He made a lunge, tripped on Selden’s extended foot and sprawled flat.
‘Why don’t you shut up, Smith?’ slurred Christie.
Smith grinned.
Abigail stirred in her chair, her head tilting forward. Tough. Merrit wasn’t going to attend to her, too.
‘I do think they should let us use our own cabins,’ said Maggy, pettishly. ‘This is disgusting.’ She was staring, affronted, at the pool of vomit.
‘There’s a mop by the bar,’ said Selden.
‘It’s not my job.’
‘Whose job is it?’
‘Not mine!’
Abigail put her head in her hands and shut her eyes. She was clearly having a very bad trip.
‘I think someone should let us out,’ said Maggy, as if reiteration would achieve something. ‘They haven’t told us anything. We don’t know what we’re doing, or anything. What is happening?’
‘T.F.Reactor Drive Mark III. Exponential acceleration and sling shot trajectory. Orbit Ganymede, orbit Jupiter and effect Protocol Line escape at .07 maximum potential in 27 hours, 24 minutes and 12 seconds.’ David, still moaning softly to himself, managed to deliver this explanation without opening his eyes.
They looked at each other. 27 hours and 24 minutes.
Then they would be Out.
Maggy sat in prim dull misery, thinking of her cabin and a shower, and a chance to change out of her wretchedly uncomfortable suit. Her shoes were wretchedly uncomfortable too. Everything was wretchedly uncomfortable. She was tired and aggrieved, and Less Than Dear John had become thoroughly objectionable.
She wanted to be alone.
The doors slid open and Siegfried strode in. She sniffed disapproval of his T-shirt and jeans. The ship was on its way, so why weren’t the crew all back in uniform? Uniforms meant a proper hierarchy, a clear and uncomplicated chain of command. T-shirts meant anarchy.
Siegfried bent over David’s recumbent form to examine him, feeling his forehead and raising one reddened eyelid, swearing continuously under his breath.
‘We injected him,’ said Maggy.
‘Huh? Yeah.’
‘He keeps throwing up,’ added Smith. ‘It could just be a hobby, of course.’
‘He’s going to the infirmary.’ Snarling, Siegfried stooped to lift David.
‘What about us?’ demanded Merrit.
‘What about you? Do what you like. Go anywhere you like. Just keep out of Flight Control.’
‘Are we under way?’
Siegfried squinted up at the blank screen, with a grunt of irritation. ‘I’ll get the viz switched on. Sure, we’re under way.’ He hitched up the medical case and marched off with David’s pale head lolling over his shoulder.
‘Nice of you to drop by,’ said Smith, raising a glass. ‘Well, children, it looks as if they’ve left the playpen open.’
Maggy stood up and gathered her luggage. ‘I’m going to my room.’
One by one, they followed her. Now that the doors were open, any urgency had faded.
Abigail remained in the lounge, alone. Not by choice. She couldn’t move. None of her limbs responded. She could only slump, willing the sickness and dizziness to subside. Gradually, it did so. Her breathing settled. The utter inertia began to recede, bit by bit, and then a great surge of resistance came sweeping back.
She leapt to her feet. Too fast. She found herself back in the chair, askew. More cautiously, she pushed herself up again. It was all right. She was still dizzy, but she could walk. She could do what she needed to do: find Christie and scratch her eyes out.
The image sustained her. It was so vivid she could picture Christie standing there before her. Standing in the doorway. She just had to make it across the vast gulf between her and the doors and she could slap and kick and scream at the woman for her stupid drunken betrayal.
‘What have they done to you?’ The apparition was talking, coming forward, steadier at least than Abigail. It sighed. ‘We need to talk, don’t we?’
‘Talk? Talk!’ Words gushed out of Abigail at last. ‘You didn’t talk! You promised and you lied! You said you’d talk to him. I hate you!’
Christie reached out to take her arm.
Abigail resisted. Violently. Screaming. After a while, she sat down.
She was wet and her cheek was stinging. Christie was standing over her.
‘Drink this. Water. You haven’t had anything for hours, and you’re still desperately sick.’
‘Not sick.’ Abigail took the glass, her hand shaking. ‘I’m better. I’m fine. Don’t touch me.’
‘You’re not fine,’ said Christie. ‘You’ve been poisoned, girl! You’re al
l over the place. They should have given you another week at least in hospital, but he made them release you early. You’ve got to take it easy, look after yourself, or you’ll be back in a coma.’
‘I’m all right!’ Abigail swallowed the water, wishing she had the energy to push the woman away. All she could do was shiver. ‘You didn’t speak to my father, did you? You promised!’
‘I spoke to him.’
‘So why didn’t he come for me? Why didn’t you make him?’
‘Abby, listen to me. It’s complicated.’
‘What did you tell him? You couldn’t have tried. Why wouldn’t he listen?’
‘He did. Not at first, he was too angry with me, but in the end he listened. I should have come and told you. I told myself you were so weak that… No, I was just a coward.’
‘What are you talking about! I want to know. What did he say?’
Christie took a deep breath. ‘He can’t help you, Abigail.’
‘Won’t! He won’t! Why won’t he help me?’
‘He can’t. He’s been sacked.’
‘No!’
‘He was clearing his desk when I got through. Under guard. Now he’s out. He’s got no job, no contacts, no strings to pull for you. TransSy’s cut him out clean. You know how it works.’
Abigail stared into the glass. ‘Sacked.’
‘That’s what it amounts to.’
‘They can’t sack him. They need him.’
‘They’ve decided not. It’s a question of confidence. Once people start to lose confidence in you, you’re finished.’
‘But why lose confidence in him?’ said Abigail fiercely. ‘He was the best asset TransSy had!’
Christie winced. She folded her arms and looked up at the ceiling. ‘There were rumours that your father used cocaine and his judgement was being effected.’
‘He didn’t!’
‘He didn’t need to. The rumours were enough. They don’t need truth to sustain them.’
Abigail raised the glass to her dry lips. It was empty. Christie refilled it. ‘I get it now. It’s why he blew up when I used his office to order stuff.’