Limit

by Frank Schätzing

  He looked up.

  ‘Why am I still alive, Carl? Aren’t you in a hurry? What’s all this game-playing about?’

  Hanna looked at him from dark, unfathomable eyes.

  ‘I’m not playing games, Warren. I’m not treacherous enough for that. You were unconscious for over an hour. While you were out, I analysed our situation. Doesn’t look so great.’

  ‘Mine certainly doesn’t.’

  ‘Nor mine. I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t able to get the thing off the ground at the last minute. We should really have been able to avoid the crash-landing with vertical counter-thrust. But the jets failed above the ground, when we were flying through those clouds of dust, perhaps they got blocked. Unfortunately, when we came down it knocked away our ground struts, so the Ganymede is lying on its belly, dug a fair way into the ground. I probably don’t need to tell you what that means.’

  Locatelli threw his head back and closed his eyes.

  ‘We can’t get out,’ he said. ‘The airlock shaft won’t extend.’

  ‘A bit of a design flaw, if you ask my opinion. Installing the only portal on the underside.’

  ‘No emergency exit?’

  ‘Oh, there is: the freight-room in the tail. It can be vacuumed out and flooded with air, so in principle it’s an airlock too. The rear hatch can be lowered and extended into a ramp – but as I said, the Ganymede has ploughed several kilometres through the regolith, before clattering its way into a rock face over the last few metres. There are boulders lying around all over the place, as far as the eye can see. I think some of them are blocking the hatch. It won’t open more than half a metre.’

  Locatelli thought about it. It was funny, in fact. Really funny.

  ‘Why are you surprised?’ he laughed hoarsely. ‘You’re in jail, Carl. Right where you belong.’

  ‘But so are you.’

  ‘So? Does it make any kind of difference whether you finish me off here or out there?’

  ‘Warren—’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. It couldn’t matter less! Welcome to prison.’

  ‘If I’d wanted to finish you off, you would never have come round. You understand? I don’t plan to finish you off.’

  Locatelli hesitated. His laughter died away.

  ‘You really mean that?’

  ‘At the moment you aren’t any sort of threat to me. You’re not going to dupe me again like you did in the airlock. So you have the choice of being obstructive or cooperating.’

  ‘And what,’ Locatelli said slowly, ‘would my outlook be like if I chose to cooperate?’

  ‘Your temporary survival.’

  ‘But temporary isn’t enough.’

  ‘All I can offer. Or let’s say, if you play along, at least you won’t face any danger from me. I can promise you that much.’

  Locatelli fell silent for a second.

  ‘Fine, then. I’m listening.’

  Rover

  Over the past half-hour Amber had given up all hope of ever reaching the production plant. Seen from a high altitude, the Aristarchus Plateau looked like a softly undulating picture-book landscape for lunar drivers, particularly along the Schröter Valley, where the terrain appeared to be entirely smooth, almost as if planed. But at ground level you got an idea of the day-to-day life of an ant. Everything grew into an obstacle. As effortlessly as the rovers were able to drive over smaller bumps and boulders in their path, thanks to their flexible axles, they proved more susceptible to the tiny craters, potholes and cracks that opened up in front of them, forcing them to navigate from one hindrance to the next at between twenty and thirty kilometres an hour. It was only once they were past a collection of bigger craters on the way towards the Oceanus Procellarum that the ground evened out and their progress became faster.

  Since then, Amber had looked into the sky more and more often, in the hope of seeing the Ganymede appearing on the horizon, while her hope made way for the horrible certainty that Locatelli hadn’t made it. Momoka, who was driving the second rover, had lapsed into silence. No one was particularly talkative. Only after quite a long time did Amber speak to her father-in-law on a special frequency so that the others couldn’t listen in on the conversation.

  ‘You kept a few things to yourself back then.’

  ‘How do you work that out?’

  ‘Just a gut feeling.’ She scanned the horizon. ‘A little thing that tells women when men are lying or not telling the whole truth.’

  ‘That’s enough of your intuition.’

  ‘No, really. It’s just that women are more gifted at lying. We’ve perfected the repertoire of dissimulation – that’s why we can see the truth gleaming as if through fine silk when you lie. You talked about the possibility of an attack. On some Orley facility somewhere or other. Carl runs amok, communication fails, and in retrospect it becomes clear that he went behind your back two days ago and took a night-time joyride on the Lunar Express.’

  ‘And none of it makes any sense.’

  ‘No, it does. It makes sense if Carl’s the guy who’s supposed to carry out the attack.’

  ‘Here on the Moon?’

  ‘Don’t act like I’m retarded. Here on the Moon! Which would mean that it isn’t just some facility or other, but one in particular.’

  They scooted on across the dark, monotonous basalt of the Oceanus Procellarum, already within the vicinity of the Mare Imbrium. For the first time they were able to take the rover up to its top speed, albeit at the cost of a very bumpy ride, as the chassis seesawed up and down and the vehicle kept lifting off the ground. In the distance, hills became visible, the Gruithuisen region, a chain of craters, mountains and extinct volcanic domes that stretched all the way to Cape Heraclides.

  ‘One more thing,’ said Julian. ‘Can I talk to you about Lynn?’

  ‘As long as it leads to an answer to my question, whenever you like.’

  ‘How does she seem to you?’

  ‘She’s got a problem.’

  ‘Tim’s always saying that.’

  ‘Given that he’s always saying it, you really don’t listen to him very often.’

  ‘Because he’s always going on at me! You know that. It’s impossible to say a sensible word about the girl to him!’

  ‘Perhaps because good sense hasn’t much to do with her condition.’

  ‘Then you tell me what her problem is.’

  ‘Her imagination, I would say.’

  ‘Oh, brilliant!’ snorted Julian. ‘If that were the case, I’d be inundated with problems.’

  ‘When the imagination overpowers reason, it’s always a kind of madness,’ Amber observed sententiously. ‘You’re a bit mad too, but you’re a special case. You distribute your madness to everybody with both hands, you cultivate it, people applaud you for it. You love your madness, and that’s why it loves you and enables you to save the world. Have you ever been troubled by the idea that you might have overstretched yourself?’

  ‘I worry about making wrong decisions.’

  ‘That’s not the same thing. I mean, do you ever feel anything like anxiety?’

  ‘Everyone gets frightened.’

  ‘Hang on there. Fear. Slight difference! Fear is the result of your startled reason, my dear Julian, it’s real, because it’s object-related and because it’s explained by concrete factors. We’re afraid of dogs, drunk Arsenal fans and possible changes to tax legislation. I’m talking about anxiety. The vague fog in which anything at all might be lurking. The anxiety that you might fail, that you might fall short, you might have misjudged yourself, that you might cause some sort of disaster, paralysing anxiety, the fear of yourself, in the end. Ever have that?’

  ‘Hmm.’ Julian fell silent for a moment. ‘Should I?’

  ‘No, what would be the point? You are who you are. But Lynn isn’t like that.’

  ‘She’s never said anything about anxiety.’

  ‘Wrong. You weren’t listening, because your ears were always full of adrenalin. Do you at least know w
hat happened five years ago?’

  ‘I know she had a huge amount to do. My fault, perhaps. But I said take a rest, didn’t I? And she did. And after that she built the Stellar Island Hotel, the OSS Grand, Gaia, she was more efficient than ever. So if it’s exhaustion that you’re all making such a fuss about, then—’

  ‘We’re not making a fuss,’ Amber said, annoyed now. ‘And by the way, I was always the one who defended you to Tim, so much so that he’s been asking me if I get money for it. And every time I say, “Blessed are the ignorant.” Believe me, Julian, I’m on your side, I’ve always had a heart for slow-witted people, I can even see some lovable aspects in your boneheadedness; maybe that’s a product of social work. So I actually love you for not understanding the slightest thing, but that doesn’t mean it has to stay that way, does it? And you still haven’t worked out what’s going on.’

  ‘That’s enough.’

  ‘Just to remind you, it was you who wanted to talk to me about Lynn rather than answering my question.’

  ‘So explain to me what’s wrong with her.’

  ‘You want me to explain your daughter’s psyche to you, here in the middle of the Oceanus Procellarum?’

  ‘I’d be grateful for any attempt to do so.’

  ‘Oh my good God.’ She thought for a second. ‘Okay, then, the headlines: do you believe Lynn was suffering from exhaustion back then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Would you be surprised if I told you that overwork was the least of Lynn’s problems? Otherwise she could never have run Orley Travel or built your hotels. No, her problem is that as soon as she closes her eyes, mini-Lynns of every age start crowding in on her. Baby Lynns, child Lynns, teenager Lynns, daughter Lynns, Daddy’s-little-girl Lynns, who think they can only earn your recognition by becoming an even tougher cookie than you are. Lynn is absolutely terrified of this army from the past, which controls her day and night. She thinks control is everything. But she’s even more afraid of losing control, because she’s worried that something terrible might come to light, a Lynn who can’t exist, or perhaps even no Lynn at all, because the end of control would also mean the end of her existence. Do you understand?’

  ‘I’m not entirely sure,’ said Julian, like someone moving through a forest dotted with mantraps.

  ‘For Lynn, the idea of not having herself under control is more than frightening. For her, the loss of control basically means madness. She’s afraid of ending up like Crystal.’

  ‘You mean—’ He hesitated. ‘She’s afraid of going mad?’

  ‘Tim thinks that’s the case. He’s spent more time with her, he’s bound to know better, but I think, yes, that’s it exactly. Or it was five years ago.’

  ‘That’s what she’s afraid of?’

  ‘Afraid of failing, afraid of losing control and losing her mind. But what frightened her most were the terrible things she might be capable of in order to stay in control. By the way, did you know that suicide is also an act of control?’

  ‘Why are you talking about suicide now, for heaven’s sake?’

  ‘Come on, Julian.’ Amber sighed. ‘Because it’s all part of it. It doesn’t have to be physical suicide. I mean any act of self-destruction, destruction of your health, your existence, as soon as the fear of being exposed to destruction by outside forces becomes unbearable. You’d rather destroy yourself than let someone else do it. The ultimate act of control.’

  ‘And’ – Julian hesitated – ‘is it true that Lynn’s showing signs again, of – of this—’

  ‘At first I thought Tim was exaggerating. Now I think he’s right.’

  ‘But why don’t I see it? Why doesn’t something like that get through to me? Lynn has never shown me any weakness.’

  ‘So do you do that? Show weakness?’

  ‘I don’t know, Amber. I don’t think about things like that.’

  ‘Exactly. You don’t think. But nothing does any good, Julian. She doesn’t need time off to recover. She needs treatment. A long, very long course of treatment. At the end of that she may take over Orley Enterprises completely. But she might just paint flower paintings or grow hemp in Sri Lanka. Who knows who your daughter really is. She doesn’t know, at all events.’

  Julian slowly breathed out.

  ‘Amber,’ he said. ‘There’s a chance that someone’s trying to blow Gaia up with an atom bomb. And that Lynn’s somehow involved.’

  The revelation struck her with such force that she was momentarily lost for words. Her eyes drifted hopefully towards the sky, although she knew that Ganymede wouldn’t be coming.

  ‘How certain is it?’ she asked.

  ‘Pure speculation on the part of some people I don’t even know. And I don’t know anything more than that, I swear. But what happened today shows that there must be something in it. You’re right, Carl’s task might be to carry out the attack. And I fear – okay, there’s some evidence that someone on the Moon is helping him, and—’

  ‘You think it’s Lynn?’

  ‘I don’t want to believe that, but—’

  ‘Why, in God’s name? It’s her hotel. Why should she be involved in an attack on her own hotel?’

  ‘Perhaps she doesn’t know what’s really going on, but she didn’t want to show me the surveillance videos from the corridor which would have proved that Hanna was outside, travelling on the Lunar Express. She has access to all the systems in the hotel, Amber, she could interfere with the communications if she wanted, and she’s aggressive and strange, a mystery—’

  ‘And Tim’s in Gaia,’ whispered Amber.

  Cape Heraclides

  ‘Right, listen to me. I’ve got to get out of here as quickly as possible.’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘I’ve found a grasshopper in the storeroom, and a buggy. As to the hopper, I’m worried that the steering unit was damaged in the impact, but the buggy seems intact. That means we’ve got to get the rear hatch open.’

  ‘What happens if we can’t get out?’

  ‘We can get out. It won’t be entirely without danger, but if we put on our spacesuits and hold on tight at the right moment, I can get us out of the Ganymede. You’ll help me to shift the debris and drive the buggy out, then we’ll see how it goes.’

  Locatelli blinked suspiciously. ‘If you’re trying to trick me, Carl, then you can do your shit on your own—’

  ‘If you’re trying to trick me, Warren, I will do my shit on my own – is that clear?’

  ‘Yes, it is.’ Locatelli nodded respectfully.

  Hanna stuck the gun in a holster on his thigh, where it disappeared completely, knelt down behind him and quickly untied him. Locatelli stretched his arms. He was careful not to make any quick movements, extended his fingers, rubbed his wrists. It was only now that he noticed the slight angle of the shuttle. He still felt dazed. He hesitantly made his way to the cockpit and looked outside. Rising terrain stretched before his eyes. There was a fine haze in the air.

  Air – what was he thinking of? It was dust, lousy, omnipresent moon dust, which hung like an optical illusion over the slope and settled, a dirty grey, on the glass. It wasn’t being held up by air molecules, so what was keeping the stuff up there?

  ‘Electrostatics,’ he mused.

  ‘The dust?’ Hanna joined him. ‘I wondered about that too. We’re very close to the production site, tons of regolith are dug up here. Still, it’s amazing that it doesn’t sink to the ground.’

  ‘No, I think it does,’ Locatelli guessed. ‘Most of it, anyway. Remember, when we were driving the buggy we stirred up loads of it. It all fell back straight away, apart from the really fine stuff, the microscopic particles.’

  ‘Never mind. Come on.’

  They put on their helmets and body armour and established radio contact. Hanna directed Warren to the rear of the vehicle behind the last row of seats, and pointed to the line of backrests.

  ‘Set your back against them,’ he said. ‘To protect you. The panes in the cockpit must be made of ar
moured glass, so I’ll aim at one of the struts. The explosive power should be enough to crack them. Otherwise, we’ll have to expect a considerable amount of flying splinters. If we’re successful there’s going to be a hell of a draught, so stay in the lee of the seats and hold on tight.’

  ‘What about the oxygen? Won’t it go up in flames?’

  ‘No, the concentration’s the same as it is on Earth. Ready?’

  Locatelli crouched behind the row of seats. In other circumstances he would have been splendidly amused, but even as it was he couldn’t complain about a lack of adrenalin release.

  ‘Ready,’ he said.

  Hanna pushed in beside him, brought an almost identical-looking gun out of a holster on his other thigh, leaned into the central aisle and pointed the barrel into the cockpit. Locatelli thought he heard a high-frequency hiss, and then came a detonation, so short that the explosion seemed to swallow itself just as it was produced—

  Then came the suction.

  Objects, splinters and shards came flying from all directions, whirled wildly around, past him and towards the cockpit. Anything that wasn’t screwed or welded down was dragged outside. The escaping air pulled on his arms and legs, and pressed him against the seat-backs. Something struck his visor, indefinable things hit his shoulders and hips, a bat swarm of brochures and books came flying aggressively at them, covers flapping frantically. A volume suddenly clung to his chest armour, slid reluctantly along it, pages fluttering, broke away and disappeared down the aisle. Everything happened in complete silence.

  Then it was over.

  Was it really? Locatelli waited another few seconds. He slowly pulled himself up along the back of the seat and looked towards the cockpit. Where the front panes had been, a huge hole now gaped.

  ‘My goodness.’ He gasped for breath. ‘What is that thing you’re firing there?’

  ‘Homemade, secret.’ Hanna got up and stepped into the aisle. ‘Come on, we’ve got to get back to the storeroom.’

  The storeroom looked less chaotic than Locatelli had expected. The individual parts of a grasshopper lay strewn over the floor. He picked them up, one by one. The steering unit had been partly destroyed, but the buggy was undamaged in its mountings – a small two-seater vehicle with a flat bed for cargo. Additional mountings indicated that if need be, six such vehicles could be transported. He quickly helped Hanna unfasten the buggy. The loading hatch, which was also the back wall of the storeroom, was slightly open, as if it had been dented in the impact. A hand’s breadth of starry sky gleamed in at them. Hanna walked over to a rolling wall, opened it, took out batteries and two survival backpacks and stuffed everything on the bed of the buggy. They left the cargo area and helped each other out of the hole in the cockpit. The ground lay some metres below them. Locatelli jumped nimbly down, rounded the nose of the beached Ganymede and, holding his breath, looked out across the plain.