Limit

by Frank Schätzing

  One after the other, she knotted the rubber bands around his wrists and, giggling and snorting, made her way down to fasten his feet, until he was hung in the middle of the room with his extremities stretched out. He wriggled his knees and elbows with curiosity, noticing that the bands were highly elasticated. He could move around, and generously too. It was just stopping him from flying away.

  ‘Do you think this was Julian’s idea?’ he asked.

  ‘I’d be willing to bet on it.’ Amber hovered towards him as if she were on a control beam, clasped his shoulders and slung her legs around his hips. For a moment, her sex balanced on his, like a trapeze artist on the nose of a sea lion.

  ‘In my opinion, sexual positions are the most demanding manoeuvres in the world,’ she whispered as she pressed herself against him, lowered herself and drew him inside her.

  * * *

  Seemingly quite a few people had the same idea, but only a few managed to put it into action. Eva Borelius and Karla Kramp also found the straps and figured out what to do with them, as did Mimi Parker and Marc Edwards. However, Edwards found the redistribution of over half a litre of blood from the lower to upper bodily regions a little harder to handle than Tim had, whilst Paulette Tautou would most likely have held Bernard’s head down the now-so-familiar toilet bowl if he had come near her with any intentions of that sort.

  Wisely, Tautou did no such thing. Instead, in consideration of Paulette’s miserable condition, he decided that they should embark on the journey home.

  Suite 12 was the scene of similar suffering, the only difference being that Locatelli would never have capitulated to something as mundane as space sickness. Peaceful silence reigned in Suite 38, where the Ögis lay snuggled up to one another like field-mice in winter. One floor above, Sushma and Mukesh Nair were peacefully enjoying the sight of night falling over the Isla de las Estrellas. In Suite 17, Aileen Donoghue had put in her earplugs, allowing Chuck to snore at the top of his lungs.

  On the opposite side of the torus, Oleg Rogachev was staring out of the window while Olympiada Rogacheva stared straight ahead.

  ‘Do you know what I’d like to know?’ she murmured after a while.

  He shook his head.

  ‘How someone ends up like Miranda Winter.’

  ‘You don’t end up like that,’ he said, without turning round. ‘You’re born like it.’

  ‘I don’t mean the way she looks,’ snorted Olympiada. ‘I’m not stupid. I just want to know how someone gets to be so impregnable. So completely pain-free. It’s as if she’s a walking immune system against every kind of problem, she’s like nonchalance personified – I mean, seriously, she’s even given names to her breasts!’

  Rogachev turned his head slowly.

  ‘No one’s stopping you from doing the same.’

  ‘Perhaps a certain amount of it is down to stupidity,’ ruminated Olympiada, as if she hadn’t heard him. ‘You know, I really do believe that Miranda is quite dumb. Oh, what am I saying, she hasn’t got two brain cells to rub together. I have no doubt that she’s lacking any kind of education, but perhaps that’s an advantage. Perhaps it’s good to be stupid, desirable even. Dumb and naïve and a little bit calculating. You feel less that way. Miranda loves only herself, whereas it seems to me that every single day I’m pouring all my feelings, all my strength into a vase that’s full of holes. Your meanness would be wasted on someone like Miranda, Oleg, like a pinprick in blubber.’

  ‘I’m not mean to you.’

  ‘Oh, no?’

  ‘No. I’m just uninterested. You can’t hurt someone you have no interest in.’

  ‘And you suppose that’s not mean?’

  ‘It’s the truth.’ Rogachev glanced at her for a second. Olympiada had burrowed into her sleeping bag and was now belted in and safely out of reach. For a moment he wondered what it might be like if the sack burst open the next morning to reveal a butterfly, an astonishing feat for his rather retarded imagination. But Olympiada wasn’t a caterpillar, and he had no intention of weaving her into a cocoon. ‘Our marriage was a strategic move. I knew it, your father knew it, and you knew it too. So please stop torturing yourself.’

  ‘One day you’ll fall, Oleg,’ she hissed. ‘You’ll end up like a rat. A damn rat in the gutter.’

  Rogachev turned to gaze again out of the window, strangely unmoved by the planet darkening below him.

  ‘Just get on with it and take a lover,’ he said tonelessly.

  * * *

  Miranda Winter had no intention of heading off to bed any time soon, much to the joy of Rebecca Hsu, who suffered from her inability to cope with being alone. Except that she was alone. A poor, rich woman, as she went to great pains to convince herself, twice divorced, with three daughters of whom she saw shamefully little. A woman who hung around in the company of others until even the last few closed their eyes, after which she would make calls across all the time zones thanks to the world-spanning structure of her group of companies, until even she lost the fight against tiredness. The whole day through, whenever their strictly organised schedule allowed, she had been discussing marketing plans by phone, debating campaign strategies, deliberating purchases, sales and shares. Keeping an eye on her empire: a control freak who was tormented by the thought that she’d driven husbands and daughters away with her manic working habits.

  At least she could discuss the lack of husbands with Miranda without falling head first into melancholy afterwards. Besides, some of the beakers of Moët et Chandon had miraculously turned up in Miranda’s cabin, which particularly pleased Rebecca, since she had owned the brand for some time now.

  Finn O’Keefe didn’t know what to think or feel, so he listened to music for a while then fell asleep.

  Evelyn Chambers lay awake – if it could be called lying, that is.

  She didn’t feel the slightest inclination to buckle herself onto the bed like some raving lunatic. She had discovered the rubber bands by chance and anchored herself to the handles near the front of the window, hoping to enjoy the sensation of zero gravity in her sleep too. But when she closed her eyes her body seemed to speed up as if it were on a roller-coaster, trying to loop the loop, and she started to feel sick.

  She reached up to free her shackled ankles from the bands, which was no easy task. It was only then that she noticed the inscription: Love Belt. Suddenly realising what they were really intended for, a wave of regret washed over her at not being able to appropriately crown the extravagant experience of zero gravity. Intrigued, she wondered whether the others were doing it, and then – rather boldly – whom she might be able to do it with! Her thoughts darted from Miranda Winter to Heidrun Ögi and then back again, based on the fact that Heidrun wasn’t available, although admittedly neither was Miranda, if only due to lack of inclination.

  Rebecca Hsu? Oh, for heaven’s sake!

  Her desire subsided as quickly as it had risen. And yet she had been so adamant, after her bisexuality had cost her the role of governor, that she was going to enjoy herself properly now. She was still America’s most popular and influential chat-show host. In the wake of her political Waterloo she no longer felt bound to any conservative code. What had remained of her marriage barely justified professing monogamy, especially as her so-called husband was pouring their joint money into his constantly changing acquaintances. Not that that bothered her. Their love had gone down the drain years ago, but she didn’t want to go to bed with anyone and everyone, even if she was consumed by lust.

  Although perhaps in exceptional circumstances—

  Finn O’Keefe. It was worth a try. It would certainly be fun to snare him of all people, but the thought quickly soured.

  Julian?

  He clearly loved flirting with her. But on the other hand Julian’s job meant he flirted with everyone. Still. He was unattached, apart from the affair with Nina Hedegaard, if they were even still having one and it wasn’t just her reading too much into it. If she yielded to Julian’s advances there would be little
danger of hurting anyone else, and they would have fun, she was sure of that. Perhaps something more might even come out of it. And if not, that was fine too.

  On the spur of the moment, she dialled the number of his suite.

  But no one answered, the screen stayed dark. Feeling foolish all of a sudden, like a sparrow pecking around beneath restaurant tables for food from other people’s plates, she crawled hurriedly into her sleeping bag.

  * * *

  ‘You had them hanging on your every word.’

  ‘But I wasn’t even the first.’

  Julian raised his eyebrows.

  ‘2013,’ said Bowie. ‘Chris Hadfield – this ISS astronaut. He was the first person in the world to sing “Space Oddity” in space.’

  ‘Correct, and it wasn’t bad at all. But you’re the original. You had to come up here and sing it!’

  Bowie smiled. ‘Obviously.’

  ‘And you’re quite sure?’

  ‘Quite sure.’

  ‘Tautou told me that Madame wants them to come back to earth together. We would have room.’ Julian sucked at his bottle. ‘Oh, nonsense, forget the Tautous! We’d have room even if they did come. I’ve always got room for you.’

  They were the only ones left in the dimly lit Picard, sucking at their alcohol-free cocktails. Bowie rolled the bottle between his fingers thoughtfully.

  ‘Thanks, Julian. But I’ll pass.’

  ‘But why? It’s your chance to go to the Moon. You’re the star man, you’re that guy in The Man Who Fell to Earth, you’re Ziggy Stardust! Who, if not you? You have to go to the Moon.’

  ‘Well, for a start I’m seventy-eight years old.’

  ‘And? You can’t tell. You once said you wanted to live to be three hundred. Compared to that you’re still a kid.’

  Bowie laughed.

  ‘So?’ he said, changing the subject. ‘Are you going to get the money together for a second lift?’

  ‘Of course,’ boomed Julian. ‘Shall we bet on it?’

  ‘No more bets. What’s going on with the Chinese anyway? I heard they’re pestering you with offers.’

  ‘Officially they’re doing nothing of the sort, but between ourselves they’re kowtowing like mad. Does the name Zheng Pang-Wang mean anything to you?’

  ‘Not off the top of my head.’

  ‘The Zheng Group.’

  ‘Ah!’ Bowie wrinkled his brow. ‘Yes, I think it does actually. They’re a technology company too, right?’

  ‘Zheng is the driving force behind Beijing’s space travel. An entrepreneur, bound to the Party, which amounts to the same thing. He never misses a single opportunity to infiltrate my ranks, but I’ve got my defences up, so he tries to do it by plotting. Obviously the Chinese would love to woo me away and have me all to themselves. They’ve got money, more than the Americans, but they don’t have the patents for the lift, or the brainpower to build fusion reactors that don’t immediately shut themselves down again. A few weeks ago I met old Pang-Wang in Paris. A nice guy really. He tried to tempt me with Chinese money, and appealed to my cosmopolitan heart by saying that a clean energy supply would be of benefit to the whole world. He asked whether I didn’t think it was indecent that all the money from helium-3 was going to the Americans. So I asked him what the Chinese would think of it if I went on to sell the patents to the Russians, Indians, Germans, French, Japanese and Arabs.’

  ‘I’d be more interested to know what the Americans would think of that.’

  ‘The question is actually a little different: Who has the whip hand? In my opinion, I do, but of course I would create completely new geopolitical relationships. And do I want that? For the most part, I’ve had a kind of symbiotic relationship with America, to our mutual advantage. Recently, since the Moon crisis, Washington has been haunted by the ghosts of the Little Depression of 2008 to 2010. They’re worried things might get out of hand if they give that much power to one single company. Which is ridiculous: I gave them the power! The power to stake out their claim up there. Using my means, my know-how! But it seems the desire to have more control over companies is rampant.’ Julian snorted. ‘Instead of which the governments should be putting their energies into infrastructure, healthcare and education. They should be building streets, schools, houses, old people’s homes, but the private economy even has to help them out with that, so what do they have to crow about? Governments have proved incapable of pushing forward global processes, they only know how to squabble, hesitate and make lazy compromises. They didn’t manage to get to grips with environmental protection in that laughable treaty, they demand sanctions against corrupt and warfaring states in their shaky voices, despite the fact that no one’s bothering to listen, so they just stock up on nuclear arms and impose trading blocks on each other’s markets. The Russians don’t have any money left for space travel now that Gazprom is hanging in the balance, but it would still be enough to give to me and the Americans for permission to use the next space elevator. Then we’d have another player on the Moon with us, and as far as I’m concerned that’s a good thing.’

  ‘But America doesn’t agree.’

  ‘Well, no, because they’ve got me. The fact is, together we don’t need anyone else, and in a situation like that Washington thinks they can get away with anything and demand more transparency.’

  ‘So what’s your plan? Bringing the Russians over to your side without America’s blessing?’

  ‘If America doesn’t want to play with them and continues to block my ideas, then yes – as you can see, I’ve invited some very illustrious guests. Zheng is right, but not in the way he thinks. I’ve had it up to here with the sponsorship failing to make headway! Competition is invigorating for business. Sure, it would be a bit shabby to run from the Americans to the Chinese now – they’re all the same idiots everywhere when it comes down to it – but offering the lift to all nations, now that’s got a ring to it.’

  ‘And you said as much to Zheng?’

  ‘Yes, and he thought he’d misheard. He certainly never wanted to unleash that kind of change in perspective, but he was overestimating his contribution. I’d had the idea for a long time already. He just made me more determined to do it.’

  Bowie fell silent for a while.

  ‘Well, I’m sure you know you’re playing with fire,’ he said.

  ‘With the sun’s fire,’ said Julian serenely. ‘With reactor fire. I’m used to fire.’

  ‘Do your American friends know about your plans?’

  ‘They may have an idea, to a certain extent. It’s no secret whom I go trotting off to the Moon with.’

  ‘You sure know how to make enemies.’

  ‘I’ll travel with whomever I like. It’s my elevator, my space station, my hotel up there. They’re far from happy about it of course, but I don’t care. They should make me better offers and stop their control games.’ Julian suckled noisily at his bottle and licked his lips with his tongue. ‘Delicious, isn’t it? On the Moon we’ll have wine with an alcohol substitute. Totally insane! 1.8 per cent, but it tastes like really hard stuff. Are you sure you want to miss out on that?’

  ‘You don’t give up, do you?’ Bowie laughed again.

  ‘Never.’ Julian grinned.

  ‘But you’re too late. Don’t get me wrong: I love life, and it’s definitely too short, I agree with all that. Three hundred years would be wonderful, especially in times like these! But it’s just that I—’

  ‘—ended up being turned from an alien into an earthling after all,’ finished Julian with a smile.

  ‘I was never anything else.’

  ‘You were the man who fell to earth.’

  ‘No. I was just someone who tried to get to grips with his difficulties around people by disguising himself, using the line “I’m sorry if the communication between us isn’t working, I’m from Mars”.’ Bowie ran his fingers through his hair. ‘You know, my whole life I gleefully absorbed anything that ignited the world, anything that electrified it; I collected fashions
and sensitivities like other people collect art or postage stamps. Call it eclecticism, but it may have been my greatest talent. I was never really an innovator, more of a champion of the present, an architect who brought that feeling of being alive and trends together in such a way that it looked like something new. Looking back, I’d say it was my way of communicating: Hey, people, I understand what moves you, look at me and listen up, I’ve made a song out of it! Or something along those lines. But for a long time I couldn’t talk to anyone about it. I simply didn’t know how to do it, how a simple conversation worked. I was afraid of getting into relationships, incapable of listening to others. For someone like that, the stage, or let’s say the world of the arts, is the perfect platform, it’s ideally suited to giving monologues. You reach everyone, but no one reaches you. You’re the messiah! A puppet of course, an idol, but for that very reason you can’t let anyone get close, because then it might get out that you’re actually just shy and insecure. And so, with time, you really do become an alien. You don’t need to put a costume on to be one, but of course it helps. If you feel as uneasy around people as I did back then, then you just make outer space out to be your home, look for answers from a higher being, or act as though you’re one yourself.’

  Julian tapped his bottle, let it drift away from him for a moment then grasped it again.

  ‘You sound so terribly grown up,’ he said.

  ‘I am terribly grown up,’ laughed Bowie, bursting with happiness. ‘And it’s wonderful! Believe me, this whole spiritual paperchase to find out the connection between humanity and the universe, why we were born and where we go when we die, what gives us and our actions meaning, if there even is a meaning – I mean, I love science fiction, Julian, and I love what you’ve created! But all this space stuff was always just a metaphor for me. It was only ever about the spiritual search. The Churches’ maps were always a little too vaguely drawn for me, full of one-way streets and dead ends. I didn’t want anyone else to dictate how and where I was supposed to look. You can ritualise God, or you can interpret him. The latter doesn’t go down pre-set paths; it demands that you slip away from them. I did that, and I kept on creating new spacesuits for myself in order to explore this empty, endless cosmos, hoping to meet myself, as Starman, Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, Major Tom. And then, one day, you marry a wonderful woman and move to New York, and suddenly you realise: Out there, there’s nothing, but on the Earth there’s everything. You meet people, you talk, communicate, and what seemed difficult before now just happens, with wonderful ease. Your inflated fears shrink to become bog-standard worries; the early flirt with death, the pathos of ‘Rock ’n’ Roll Suicide’ reveals itself to be nothing more than the spectacularly unoriginal mood of a clueless and inexperienced young boy; you no longer wake up with the fear of going crazy; you no longer think obsessively about the misery of human existence, but about your children’s future. And you ask yourself what the devil you were looking for in space! Do you see? I’ve landed. I’ve never enjoyed living on Earth so much, amongst other people. And if my health allows I can enjoy it for a few more years. It’s bad enough that it will only be another ten or twelve, and not three hundred, so I’m looking forward to every moment. So, give me one good reason why I should fly to the Moon now, now that I’ve finally found my home and settled in down there.’