Limit

by Frank Schätzing

  It was a ghostly sight.

  As far as the eye could see, areas of swirled-up regolith stretched across the Sinus Iridum to form the swirling shape of a bell. Where the dust became more permeable, the velvety nature of the background seemed to have made way for a darker consistency. A swathe of destruction led from the clouds of dust to the beach of the rising rocky terrain on which they stood, continued there as a jagged gap, described an upward curve and ended at the shuttle which, as Locatelli recognised now, had collided with an overhang and produced an avalanche. Boulders of all sizes had piled up around the tail of the Ganymede; some had rattled down the hill, but one of the biggest bits of rubble blocked the lower third of the rear hatch. The craggy ridge of the Jura Mountains ran to the north-west.

  ‘Not all that much,’ Hanna observed. ‘I was afraid the rubble would reach all the way up.’

  ‘No, it’s not much,’ Locatelli confirmed sourly. ‘It’s just that they’re bloody enormous. That one there must weigh several tonnes.’

  ‘Divided by six. Let’s get to work.’

  Gaia, Vallis Alpina

  At half past six, Dana called the search parties back to headquarters. Lynn and Sophie had scoured most of the staff accommodation and part of the suites in the thorax, Michio Funaki and Ashwini Anand had crept like cockroaches through the greenhouses, and had turned every scrap of green and every tomato upside down before devoting themselves to the meditation centre and the multi-religious church. The third team, last of all, was able to report that the pool, the health centre and the casino were, as Kokoschka put it, clean, stressing the word like Philip Marlowe after patting down a suspect.

  ‘And that’s exactly where the problem lies,’ said Dana. ‘In appearance. Have we had a chance to look inside the walls and floors? In the life-support systems?’

  Kokoschka waved his detector tellingly. ‘Didn’t even click.’

  ‘Yes, of course, but we don’t know enough about mini-nukes.’

  ‘It was your idea to search the hotel,’ Lynn said furiously. ‘So don’t start telling us it was pointless. And besides, Sophie and I did look in the life-support systems, anywhere there might be room for such a thing.’

  ‘So?’ Dana stared at her with X-ray eyes. ‘How do you know how much room a mini-nuke takes up?’

  ‘That’s not fair, Dana,’ said Tim quietly.

  ‘I’m not being unfair in the slightest,’ she replied, without looking at him. ‘I’m concerned with minimising risks, and the search contributed to that. We’ve looked in the important places, I was in the head, even though I’m still of the view that there might be a bomb at some deeper, more central point.’

  ‘Or not,’ mused Anand. ‘It’s an atom bomb. The explosive force would be huge, so that it might not matter where you put it.’

  ‘It might not.’ Dana nodded slowly. ‘At any rate what I’ve heard doesn’t put my mind at rest. At least I was able to have a conversation with Peary Base. As I suspected, they’ve got the same problem, they’ve lost contact with the Earth and our shuttles, and they’re also in the libration shadow. After I told the deputy commander a short version of—’

  ‘What?’ Lynn exploded. ‘You told him what’s going on here?’

  ‘Calm down. I was—’

  ‘You told him about the bomb?’ Lynn jumped to her feet. ‘You’re not going to do that, do you hear me? We can’t afford that!’

  ‘—told the deputy commander—’

  ‘Not without my authorisation!’

  ‘—about the satellite failure,’ Dana said, very slightly louder, but with a voice that sounded as if she were sawing through a bone. ‘And told him we couldn’t get through to our guests. That was what we agreed, correct, Miss Orley? After that I wanted to know if he’d received any unusual news from Earth before the satellites failed. But he didn’t know anything.’

  ‘So you did tell him—’

  ‘No, I was just putting out feelers. And he didn’t have anything to say. The base is an American facility. If Jennifer Shaw had decided to tell Houston about the bomb in the meantime, she got there too late. At least too late to tell the base crew before the satellites went down. They don’t know anything about our problems over there, but I did take the opportunity to tell them of my concerns for the fate of the Ganymede. Against a background of a possible accident.’

  Lynn’s gaze darted around the room and fixed itself on Tim.

  ‘We can’t run the risk of this getting out.’

  ‘If the Ganymede doesn’t reply soon, it will get out,’ said Dana. ‘Then we’ll have to ask the base to send a shuttle to the Aristarchus Plateau to take a look.’

  ‘No way! We mustn’t worry Julian’s guests.’

  Oh, Lynn! Disastrous, disastrous. Tim resisted the impulse to rest his hand on her forearm like a nurse.

  ‘So what would you do?’ he asked quickly.

  ‘Perhaps—’ She kneaded her fingers, struggled for clarity. ‘First keep looking.’

  ‘The guests will be back in half an hour,’ said Funaki. ‘They’ll want their drinks.’

  ‘Let Axel take care of that. No, you, Michio. You’re the face of the bar. The rest of us will have to take our time. Stay calm. We’ll have to plan the next few steps calmly.’

  ‘I’m calm,’ said Dana blankly.

  ‘I’ll take another look at the surveillance videos,’ Sophie suggested. ‘From the night Hanna disappeared and the ones from the day after.’

  ‘What for?’ asked Kokoschka. Only now did Tim notice that the chef was staring steadily at the freckled German girl from his hungry St Bernard’s eyes, as if testing the quality of her cuts, loins, rump and breasts, and that his eyes darted furtively away every time she looked back. Aha, he thought, the cook’s in love.

  ‘Right.’ Sophie shrugged. ‘Whoever re-edited the recordings would have had to turn up in the control centre, right? I mean, he must have been captured on some camera or other. So if we can reconstruct—’

  ‘Good idea!’ Lynn cried exuberantly. ‘Very good! Carl and this – this second person. We’ll have to pump them.’

  ‘Pump them,’ echoed Dana.

  ‘Have you got a better suggestion?’ Lynn sneered.

  ‘But Hanna isn’t here.’

  ‘So? Julian will be here soon, and he’ll bring him with him. Why should we drive ourselves nuts until then? Let’s ask him, and besides’ – her eyes gleamed – ‘nothing can happen to us here as long as we keep Carl in Gaia! He’s hardly going to atomise himself.’

  ‘Course not,’ Kokoschka addressed his paunch. ‘Suicide bomber. Never heard of it.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Lynn snapped. ‘Are you trying to provoke me?’

  ‘What?’ The chef recoiled and ran his hand nervously over his bald head. ‘No, I – sorry, I didn’t mean to—’

  ‘Does Carl Hanna look like an Islamist or something?’

  ‘No, sorry. Really.’

  ‘Then stop talking such rubbish!’

  ‘We – Our nerves are all a bit on edge.’

  ‘Didn’t you say the Chinese were behind it?’ Anand asked uncertainly.

  ‘This guy Jericho said that,’ Sophie replied.

  ‘How many Chinese Islamists are there?’ Funaki pondered.

  ‘Interesting question.’

  ‘Oh, nonsense!’ Dana raised her hands. ‘Enough. Christians have taken the shortcut to heaven too. Such rubbish! In my view Lynn’s just produced an argument that gives us a bit of time, as long as we can really lay our hands on this ominous second person. I think we should do as you suggested – Anand and Kokoschka will look behind the walls and floors, Sophie will watch the videos, Funaki will go down to the service section, Lynn and I—’

  ‘Gaia, please come in!’

  Dana paused. They stared at each other. The system put through a wireless message. Seven pairs of eyes were filled with hope that the call might have come via satellite. Sophie leapt to her feet and glanced at the display.

  ‘Cal
listo, this is Gaia,’ she replied breathlessly.

  ‘Hungry crowd on the way!’ crowed Nina. ‘Do you see us? If there’s nothing on the table in five minutes, we’re going over to the Chinese.’

  ‘Fuck,’ whispered Dana. ‘They’re in range.’

  Through the panorama window of the abdomen they saw the gleaming, sunlit shuttle in the sky. The Callisto had approached the hotel from behind and was flying in a final, athletic parabola. Every trip ritually ended with a fly-past above Gaia.

  ‘You couldn’t eat as much as we’ve cooked,’ Sophie twittered with frantic exuberance. ‘How was your day?’

  ‘Great! And we didn’t care a damn that you haven’t spoken to us for hours.’

  ‘We didn’t feel like talking to you.’

  ‘Seriously, what’s up?’

  ‘Satellite failure,’ said Sophie.

  ‘That’s what I was afraid of. We couldn’t get through to Julian either. Do you know what’s up?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Weird. How could all the satellites fail at the same time?’

  ‘You’ve probably rammed them accidentally. Stop chatting now, Nina, and bring your starvelings down.’

  ‘Oui, mon général!’

  ‘Then we’ll have them back,’ said Anand, looking around.

  ‘Yes.’ Dana watched after the Callisto until it disappeared beyond the window. ‘Plus the likelihood that one of them’s playing a dirty game with us. What do you think, Lynn? Shall we give them a welcome party?’

  With some relief Tim registered that Dana had switched back to first names. A peace offering? Or just a tactic to lull Lynn into a false sense of security? He didn’t doubt that the hotel manager still suspected his sister of conspiracy, but Lynn visibly relaxed.

  ‘Not a word to the guests,’ she said.

  ‘Okay,’ Dana nodded. ‘For the time being. But once everyone’s there we’ll have to make a real job of it. Either Hanna and his gang give it to us straight, or we inform the base and evacuate the hotel.’

  ‘We’ll see.’

  ‘Let’s give the Ganymede another hour.’

  ‘What makes you think the Ganymede needs another hour?’

  Lynn’s really lost touch with reality, thought Tim. Or else she’s playing the dirty game.

  Error! Unauthorised thought.

  ‘Whatever,’ said Dana. ‘Let’s go.’

  Calgary to Vancouver, Canada

  ‘Believe me, I’ve really scoured the net,’ said the intern. ‘I can’t offer you anything more than I did last night.’

  The Westjet Airlines Boeing 737 plummeted in an air pocket. A hundred millilitres of orange juice sluiced from the cup as Loreena took off the tinfoil lid, spraying over her jacket and drenching her croissant.

  ‘Shit!’she cursed.

  ‘Gudmundsson’s time at APS—’

  ‘Shit! Fucking shit!’ Juice dripped from the tray into her lap. ‘Who was APS again?’

  ‘African Protection Services.’

  ‘Oh, right.’

  ‘So, before Gudmundsson’s time at APS, there was this period with Mamba, the other security company that was in operation in Kenya and Nigeria at the start of the millennium, which merged with a similar kind of crowd called Armed African Services to form APS in 2010. Gudmundsson led various teams—’

  ‘You told me that yesterday,’ said Loreena, trying to use her tiny paper napkin economically.

  ‘—and was involved in operations in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. Are you going to eat that?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The croissant. It looks pretty awful, if you ask me.’

  Loreena glanced at the dripping pastry. Previously it had just been floppy, now it was floppy and wet.

  ‘No way.’

  The intern lunged across and stuck half of it in his mouth.

  ‘Here and there we find clues that APS helped some bush dictator or other to force his way into power,’ he said, chewing. ‘APS always denied it, but there seems to be something in it. So Gudmundsson might have been involved in a coup before he left the company to go freelance. APS was now run by a guy called Jan Kees Vogelaar, who was also a high-up in Mamba. Incidentally, Vogelaar then became a member of the government in Equatorial Guinea, that’s where the coup took pl—’

  ‘Forget it.’

  ‘You wanted me to look into Gudmundsson’s background,’ the intern said, insulted.

  ‘Yes, his, not some guy called Fogelhair or whatever his name is.’ She dabbed orange juice from her trouser legs. ‘Is there nothing about what he did three years ago, whether he was in Peru or somewhere? I thought they were all pretty forthcoming at Eagle Eye.’

  ‘Patience, Pocahontas. I’m working on it.’

  Loreena looked out of the window. Their flight was taking them over the Rocky Mountains. Short but turbulent. The Boeing shook. She drank the rest of the juice down and said, ‘I want to give Susan as many facts as I can, you understand? She’s got to work out that we can’t get out of this one. We’re in it up to our necks.’

  ‘Hmyeah.’ The second half of the croissant joined the first. ‘Supposing Ruiz really does have something to do with Palstein. All you’ve got at the moment is a suspicion.’

  ‘I have my instinct.’

  ‘Indian bullshit.’

  ‘Just wait. And could you stop nattering until you’ve swallowed? That thing doesn’t look any prettier in your oral cavity.’

  ‘Oh, God,’ sighed the intern. ‘You’ve really got problems.’

  Loreena looked outside again. The jagged ridges of the Rockies were passing far below her. The intern had meant something quite different, but what he said reminded her of Palstein’s worried glance from the previous day. That she was smilingly preparing her own downfall. That she would have problems if she went on lifting up stones with creatures like Lars Gudmundsson lurking underneath them. And? Had Woodward and Bernstein been intimidated by the creepy-crawlies that Nixon threw at them? Palstein’s anxiety was valid; Susan’s worries irritated her. Was that a reason to throw away their chance to solve their own Watergate conspiracy?

  Good intentions are useless, she thought. Courage can’t be bought. Mine certainly can’t.

  After a while she dictated the facts of her research so far into her mobile phone, let the software turn her spoken words into writing, attached Bruford’s film material and sent the dossier to both their email addresses.

  Better safe than sorry.

  They passed through the turbulence.

  Three-quarters of an hour later the plane came down towards the foothills of the Coast Mountains and began its descent towards Vancouver International Airport. The weather was fine. Little white clouds drifted inland, sunlight glittered on the Strait of Georgia. The dark wooded body of Vancouver Island evoked Indian myths and the scent of arbor vitae and Douglas firs. As they came down, Loreena’s mood lifted, because they had actually found out a hell of a lot over the previous few days. Perhaps they should settle for what they knew about Gudmundsson, and instead concentrate all their resources on researching the background to the ominous conference in Beijing. As the Boeing taxied to a standstill, she drew up a strategically sensible procedure for the imminent editorial conference, whereby she would act at first as if Palstein’s name had never been mentioned. Put up a smokescreen around Susan. Enthusiastically address the topic of Trash of the Titans, show them her treatment, prove that they were taking their homework seriously. Then deliver their royal flush with the photograph of the fat Asian guy. Well, maybe not a royal flush. But she was perfectly willing to call what they had a full house.

  ‘I just hope Sid’s on time,’ said the intern as they walked through the terminal with the woodcuts of the First Nations. ‘Actually he’s never on time.’

  ‘Then we’ll just wait a few minutes,’ she hummed cheerfully.

  ‘But I’m hungry. Can’t we go to McDonald’s first?’

  ‘Tell your stomach—’

  ‘Fine.’


  But Sid Holland, Greenwatch’s political history editor, was unusually bang on time. He had an ancient, souped-up Thunderbird, in the four-seater open-top version, and loved the car so much that he would gladly have driven half the editorial team through the district just to have a ride in it.

  ‘Susan’s looking forward to it,’ he said. ‘She hopes you’ve got something about Trash of the Titans in your bag.’

  ‘Is there any breakfast?’ asked the intern.

  ‘Dude, it’s half past eleven!’

  ‘Lunch?’

  Loreena looked into the azure-blue sky as the intern climbed into the back seat, and thought of her Pulitzer Prize. Sid drove the car from the airport island across the Arthur Laing Bridge and in a north-westerly direction through the neighbourhoods of Marpole, Kerrisdale and Dunbar Southlands. Past the end of the built-up areas the Pacific Spirit Regional Park began. Southwest Marine Drive, the four-lane feeder road, ran along the coast through dense vegetation towards the grounds of the university at Point Grey, far more than a classical campus, almost a small unincorporated city with a smart adjacent district of extremely Canadian-looking houses and well-tended villas. Thanks to the power of viewing figures, Greenwatch was able to live in one of the villas. Studios and editing suites were decentralised, most of the staff scattered around Canada and Alaska, so that all that remained in Point Grey were the offices of the supreme command and some stylish conference rooms. It was down to Loreena’s influence that good conscience was able to unfold in elegant surroundings.