Limit

by Frank Schätzing

  He tried again. The channel was dead.

  What was happening over there?

  ‘Dana, dammit,’ he hissed. ‘Pick up.’

  After he had tried one more time, it slowly dawned on him that it couldn’t be Dana’s fault. The computer was telling him that no connection could be made. In other words, there was no connection through to the hotel, even by laser link.

  Gaia wasn’t answering.

  * * *

  Lynn huddled against the sink, clenched like a fist, making herself smaller and smaller, pressing her face between her knees. She had overcome her paralysis at the last moment and pulled her head back in a flash – oh, the things you can do, thought little girl lost jubilantly, following the glowing trail of crumbs, amazed at her own miraculous reflexes, while the grown-up woman, the body she lived in, cramped up with tension and her lungs began to ache from holding her breath.

  Another chasm yawned in her thoughts. That was Carl Hanna, the guy who would rather have been a pop star. Hanna, maybe a little stand-offish, but pleasant enough for all that, popular with all, the man she’d chatted to one late evening in Gaia, the man whose muscular body she’d imagined – just for a moment – on hers, his strong hands passing skilfully across her, if only she could work up the nerve to drag him off to her suite. That hideous suite, oh hell, where the mirror held a hysteric, a notorious madwoman who gulped down green tablets, that was why she didn’t like to spend time in that suite. Hanna had been cool and collected, and she had reined herself in, and after that there were a few chapters missing in the chronology, things were mixed up. Somebody had said that Hanna was a bad guy, that he wanted to blow up her hotel. Just a few words had turned her world topsy-turvy, and now the same nice guy she’d been flirting with in the Mama Quilla Club had shot poor Tommy Wachowski, and all of a sudden she felt a horror of his muscular body and his skilled hands. Fear bathed her brain in ice-water, so that for a moment she could think clearly again, at least enough to know that she mustn’t move a muscle, mustn’t surrender to the urge to whimper helplessly and whistle the songs of a little girl lost, because if she did, the man who’d been calling himself Carl Hanna would kill her too.

  She held her breath and listened, heard him curse, heard every word he spoke, heard his secrets.

  Hanna

  Change of plan. Dana was no longer a factor. Whatever had happened to her, he had to go on without her.

  Those were the rules.

  Hanna swung the dead man over his shoulders like a sack of Christmas toys and went back down to the Great Hall, dragged him out into the airlock and watched his face distend in the vacuum. Then he pulled Wachowski into the cave beyond and didn’t spare him another thought. He ran to the cleft, squirmed in, got down on his hands and knees and slithered along like a snake until the passage opened out again and the familiar pile of rubble appeared in the torchlight. He shovelled the stones aside with both hands, opened up the control panel on the mini-nuke, lifted the cover—

  And froze.

  The detonator had been programmed.

  For a moment, there was a vacuum in his mind. He refused to believe what he saw, but there was no doubt, somebody had activated the bomb. And that somebody could only be—

  Dana Lawrence.

  She was here! No, she was gone. As good as gone. If Dana Lawrence didn’t want to risk being vaporised on the slopes of Peary Crater, she had to be leaving the base on board the Charon, probably at this very moment. Which meant—

  He scrambled hastily backwards out of the tunnel, stood up too soon, bashed his helmet on the roof, found his way out, and then ran along to the rift, following the bobbing light from his headlamp. He leapt down to the canyon floor, stumbled along the grooved path, climbed the cliff wall by the first bridge and heaved himself over the edge. He loped along the road in long strides, past the residential towers, hurrying over the dusty regolith.

  Igloo 2

  Minnie DeLucas glided her fingers over the touchscreen and completed a set of four bases.

  She had always argued that it would be possible to raise moon calves in the catacombs of Peary Base. Chickens could barely survive in the extremes of zero-g, but they did well enough in one-sixth of Earth gravity, laying eggs that dropped neatly to the floor of their hutches. They also made a pretty good lunar chicken burger. So why shouldn’t calves and lambs thrive at the Pole? Maybe even pigs, although the whole problem with the smell meant opening up some of the more distant caves. As a scientist, DeLucas was used to tackling problems from the practical and the theoretical side, and since there was no livestock to be had, she was busy experimenting with the genomes. Watching other people sleep wasn’t exactly a challenge. As long as none of them fell out of bed, she could work undisturbed. Right now she had loaded data from some experiments with Galloway cattle embryos to the sickbay computer, and was so busy with the results that at first she didn’t realise someone was talking to her.

  ‘Peary, please come in. Io to Peary. This is Kyra Gore. Wachowski, why aren’t you picking up?’

  DeLucas looked at the clock: ten to five. Io was back within radio range. They’d got back surprisingly quickly, but why were they calling her?

  ‘Minnie here,’ she said.

  ‘Hey, what’s up?’ Gore asked urgently. ‘Where’s Tommy kicking his heels?’

  ‘No idea. Perhaps he’s gone to the little boys’ room.’

  ‘Tommy wouldn’t go pee without taking his radio with him.’

  ‘He’s not been by to talk to me. Where are—’

  ‘We’ll be with you in five minutes! Listen, Minnie, you’ve got to get the people out of there! Get out of the base! Bring them all to the landing field.’

  ‘What? Why?’

  ‘The bomb’s in the base.’

  ‘In the base?’

  ‘It’s been hidden somewhere under our noses! The guy who’s going to prime it is on his way to you. Get everybody into their spacesuits and bring them outside. And go look for Tommy.’

  The Landing Field

  Dana had switched her transceiver to pick up all frequencies, so that she heard Io’s call as she went through the gate to the spaceport.

  She stopped dead. What the hell were they doing back here already? At the very most, she’d have expected Tommy Wachowski to radio her to ask what she was up to, since she’d made no effort to stay out of sight as she dashed to the landing field, but now Io was coming in to land. And to make it even worse:

  They knew about the bomb!

  Now she really did have just a matter of minutes.

  Dana began to run.

  DeLucas

  Fighting to remain calm, Minnie ran next door and shook the German women awake, then the Indian couple. Which wasn’t so easy, as she found out. Certainly Mukesh Nair started up from his sleep with one last trumpeting blast of snores, and Karla Kramp sat up straight, blinking curiously, but Eva Borelius and Sushma Nair both lay there as though in an enchanted slumber.

  ‘What’s going on?’ asked Kramp.

  ‘You’ll have to get dressed,’ DeLucas said, her eyes skittering about. ‘Everyone into their spacesuits. We’re leaving the base.’

  ‘Aha,’ said Kramp. ‘And why are we doing that?’

  ‘It’s a – precaution.’

  ‘Against?’

  ‘Sushma?’ Mukesh Nair was struggling visibly against the sedatives, and it looked as if he was losing. ‘Sushma, my love! Get up.’

  ‘I just want to know what’s going on,’ Kramp said, but she was obediently gathering her belongings as she spoke.

  ‘So do I,’ DeLucas said as she hurried out. ‘You just make sure that everyone here is ready to leave in five minutes.’

  Instead of taking the lift, she ran up the stairs to the top floor, looked in the lounge, then sprang back down the steps and checked the fitness studio. Hadn’t Dana said that she would be running? And where was Tommy lurking? Where was Lynn Orley? Her uneventful vigil had suddenly turned into herding cats. DeLucas dashed back u
p to the top floor, hurried along the passageway to Igloo 1, and went into the control room. It was lit only by the dim glow of computer screens, and seemed deserted.

  ‘Tommy?’ she called.

  There was nobody here. The only noise in the room was the machines chattering away to one another, a faint humming of transistors and ventilation, whirring, clicking, beeping. She walked quickly around the room, looking at every screen in the hope that she might spot Wachowski, but he was nowhere to be seen. As she left she heard a new sound, a noise she couldn’t quite recognise, a soft, high squeak. She paused on the threshold, hesitant, filled with dread, then turned around.

  What was that?

  Now she couldn’t hear it.

  Just as she was about to turn away again, she heard it once more. Not a squeak, more like a whimper. It was coming from somewhere towards the far end of the room, and it was creepy. Her heart beat faster as she went back into the control room and circled the lift-shaft. Halfway round, it was closer, much closer, a thin, unhappy sound coming from the small recessed space of the coffee nook.

  DeLucas drew a deep breath and looked inside.

  Lynn Orley was squatting in front of the sink, her arms wrapped tightly around herself, making those forlorn sounds.

  DeLucas squatted level with her.

  ‘Miss Orley.’

  No reaction. The woman simply looked straight through her as though she wasn’t there. DeLucas hesitated, put out her hand and touched her shoulder gently.

  She might just as well have pulled the ring on a hand grenade.

  The Landing Field

  Dana cursed. Why did the landing module have to be right at the other end of the spaceport? Every second that passed lessened her chances of being able to clear out of here.

  She had to think of some alternatives.

  What if she—

  ‘Wait.’

  Someone grabbed her upper arm.

  Dana leapt to one side, turning. She saw a tall, well-built astronaut, barely recognisable behind his mirrored faceplate, but his height and voice left her in no doubt. She immediately switched to a secure channel.

  ‘Where were you?’ she hissed.

  ‘You set the timer,’ Hanna stated, without answering her question. ‘Did you want to leave without me?’

  ‘You weren’t there.’

  ‘Now I’m here. Come along.’

  He started moving. Dana followed, just as the bulky shape of the Io came into sight on the other side of the blast walls. The next moment the shuttle was hanging over the landing field, dropping, its engines pumping, blocking their way.

  Hanna stopped dead, reached for his thigh, drew his gun.

  ‘Forget it,’ Dana whispered.

  Io settled down, bouncing slightly, and the lift-shaft extended from its belly. There were two of them, facing Leland Palmer’s troupe of five astronauts in peak physical condition and with excellent reflexes, admittedly unarmed but fast and with close-combat training. It might just be possible to take them down in a skirmish, but whatever happened, Dana’s cover would be blown, and she couldn’t allow that at any cost.

  That made up her mind.

  She switched back to the general-broadcast channel, and unclipped the little pickaxe from its place on her suit. Everyone had one for emergencies. Hanna had spread his legs, taking up position, aiming. The airlock cabin travelled down the shaft to the landing pad. The doors opened. Astronauts emerged. She saw the pistol muzzle track upwards, and she lifted the pick-axe over her head—

  And brought it smashing down.

  The point of the pick stabbed through the tough material of the suit and into the back of Hanna’s hand, deep in between the bones and sinews. The Canadian groaned in pain. He spun about and struck out at Dana, knocking her off her feet.

  ‘Help!’ she yelled. ‘Help!’

  There was a hubbub of voices. Incomprehensibly, Hanna was still holding his gun, the fingers of his left hand clenched over the hole in his spacesuit, and was aiming at Dana. She rolled, kicked out at his knee and made him stagger. The next moment, she had sprung to her feet and swung the pick again. This time the needle-sharp end hit Hanna’s faceplate and made a tiny hole in the armoured glass. He leapt backwards and kicked her in the belly. The pick-axe was torn from her grasp and stayed where it was, lodged in his visor. She flew away and landed a few metres off, scrambling to her feet. Part of her chestplate splintered off, and she knew he had shot at her. The crew of Io were running towards them across the landing field in huge lunar leaps.

  She had to finish this. Whatever happened, the astronauts mustn’t take Hanna alive. She hurled herself at him with a great jump, knocked him to the ground and grabbed hold of the pick-handle that jutted from his faceplate.

  For a ghastly moment she thought that she could see his eyes, despite the mirrored glass.

  ‘Dana,’ he whispered.

  She wrenched at the pick and tore it free. Shards broke loose from the visor. Hanna dropped his gun and lifted both hands, but the air left his suit far faster than he could put his hands to his helmet. He lay there with his arms raised as though embracing a woman she could not see. Dana felt for his gun and slipped it into a pocket on her thigh – nobody could have seen her do it – then toppled ostentatiously to one side and called for help.

  People hurried towards her. They helped her up. Gabbled at her.

  ‘Hanna,’ she gasped. ‘It’s Hanna. He – I think he was planning to escape with the Charon.’

  ‘Did he say anything?’ Palmer asked urgently. ‘Did he say anything about the bomb?’

  ‘He—’ Whatever you do, don’t seem too unruffled, Dana! Best to make a drama of the situation, so she staggered exaggeratedly, letting the others catch her. ‘I was outside. I saw him running from the base towards the spaceport. First I thought it was Wachowski, but from his size it could – it could only be Hanna—’ She shook off the hands supporting her, took several deep breaths. ‘Then I ran after him, called him on the radio. He ran out onto the landing field—’

  ‘Did he say anything?’

  ‘Yes, when – when I caught up with him. I was trying to stop him, and he shouted that this whole place was about to blow up, and – that’s when he attacked me. He just jumped at me, he was going to kill me, what could I have done?’

  ‘Shit!’ Palmer cursed.

  ‘I had to defend myself,’ Dana wailed, putting a note of hysteria into her voice. Kyra Gore took her by the shoulders.

  ‘You did good, Miss Lawrence, what you did was incredibly brave.’

  ‘Yes, it was,’ Palmer said, pacing back and forth for a moment, then he stopped dead and clenched his fists. ‘Crap! Damn the guy! He’s dead now, the bastard. What are we going to do? What are we going to do?’

  Igloo 1

  DeLucas felt carefully at her face. Glistening crimson liquid slicked her fingertips. Blood. Her blood.

  The woman was mad!

  Lynn Orley had unfolded like a flick-knife and launched herself at her, swiping her fingernails across DeLucas’ face and slicing her cheek open, then tried to run out of the control room. She had chased after the fleeing woman, grabbed hold of her and shoved her up against the lift-shaft.

  ‘Miss Orley, stop it! It’s me. Minnie!’

  Then all of a sudden shouts for help were coming over the loudspeakers, snatches of words, Dana Lawrence, Palmer’s voice.

  Lynn tore free, swung an arm and hit DeLucas on the nose so hard that for a moment all she saw was a red haze. When she could see clearly again, Lynn was just leaving the control room. Her head pounding, DeLucas ran after her, caught hold again and clutched her tight, doing what she could to dodge the rain of blows from her fists. Lynn stumbled against Wachowski’s empty chair, looked at the lift-shaft and started backwards, her eyes wide.

  ‘Everything’s okay,’ DeLucas said, coughing. ‘Everything’s okay.’

  Lynn’s lips opened. Her eyes darted from her to the lift-shaft, and back again.

  ‘Can y
ou understand me? Miss Orley? We have to get out of here.’

  Cautiously, she stretched out her right hand.

  Lynn scurried backwards.

  ‘You have to come with me,’ DeLucas said firmly, even as she felt a thick trickle of something warm running down her upper lip. She put her tongue out, automatically, and licked at it. ‘Come next door. Put on your spacesuit.’

  All at once, there was sanity and comprehension in Lynn’s eyes. She moved her lips again and put out a trembling finger.

  ‘That’s where he came from,’ she rasped.

  DeLucas followed her gesture. The woman was obviously acutely frightened of the lift-shaft, or more exactly of someone who had come out of it.

  ‘Who?’ she asked. ‘Wachowski?’

  Lynn shook her head. DeLucas felt a cold fear grip her.

  ‘Who, Lynn? Who came out?’

  ‘He just shot him,’ Lynn whispered. ‘Just like that. He could have shot me too.’ She began to hum a tune.

  ‘Who, Lynn? Who shot who?’

  ‘Minnie? Tommy!’ Palmer’s voice from the loudspeakers. ‘Please come in, we have a problem.’

  Lynn stopped humming and stared at DeLucas.

  ‘What do you want from me anyway, you silly cow?’ she snapped.

  The Landing Field

  ‘Leland, I’m having trouble with Lynn Orley.’

  ‘Oh great, that too! What about the rest of them?’

  ‘They must be ready by now.’

  ‘Then get them out of there, Minnie!’ Palmer paced up and down impatiently, with Hanna’s corpse at his feet. ‘What are you waiting for?’