Part 11 (2/2)

'Christ, what a mess. What do you think happened?'

'How the h.e.l.l do I know? Now get a move on. We still don't know if it's over yet.'

'Right.' It would take several minutes at least to get back to the Bridge. With nothing to do in the meantime, Jesus tried to maintain a rational equilibrium by observing his surroundings. The observations might come in useful later. If there was a later.

Below the rotating Lift, the hot glare of Lucifer's atmosphere, backlit by the sun, formed a corona around the lower moon.

According to Tiw, the journey down to Moloch should have taken slightly less than two hours. During the course of that time, the light from Lucifer's atmosphere would have grown in strength until it blotted out the stars and enveloped both Bridge and Lift in a flaming glare. Then they would have entered the conical shadow cast by the moon, and the stars would have become visible again for a brief time before the Lift sank beneath the surface itself and came to a standstill, its ma.s.sive kinetic energy somehow conducted away from the lower terminus and stored in a way that hijo de la puta hijo de la puta Alex Bannen would have killed to learn. Alex Bannen would have killed to learn.

A beep somewhere behind his head told Jesus that he was nearing the Bridge.

Twenty*five metres away, he disengaged the autoreturn sequence and navigated himself to a point level with the outside rim of the rotating Lift. The jagged hole through which he'd been propelled some minutes before now rushed past his face once every minute or so. The ragged edges of the hole glinted sharply, and Jesus knew that any failed attempt to enter the Lift would be likely to result in his being sliced to ribbons within a matter of seconds. He had neither the fuel nor the skill to match the rotational speed of the vehicle. Yet what other choices did he have?

He called Ace and explained the situation. 'I'm not a s.p.a.ceman, Ace. Got any ideas?'

He could see a figure within the Lift detach itself from the group and glance quickly in his direction.

'Yeah. The Lift's wide, so the angular velocity is higher on the outside. Jet up over the top and attach your safety line to the Bridge, then abseil across the top of the Lift when you've matched spin. When you get to the hole, we'll grab you and haul you in.'

'Won't work, Ace. The Bridge is smooth, nothing to attach to. And it's too wide to loop the line around; I won't have enough slack left to lower myself to the hole.' Jesus sucked in a deep breath. 'There's only one thing for it. I'm just going to have to try a perpendicular approach and hope I can time my arrival to a point when the hole is pa.s.sing in front of me.'

A new voice said, 'You could try an approach tangential to the curve of the Lift. That way it might be easier to match relative velocities for a few seconds. Thing is, if you miss...'

'I risk drifting off into s.p.a.ce. Thanks Kosi. I'll stick with the perpendicular approach.'

Ace spoke again. 'All right. Give us a moment to clear a s.p.a.ce for you and then pick your own time. We'll keep our fingers crossed.'

'Thanks.'

'See you in a minute.'

I hope so.

Jesus quickly gave the suit what he hoped were precise instructions, waiting until he was sure of the hole's period of rotation before whispering, 'Activate command sequence... Now.'

There was a familiar pressure on his back. The Lift began to speed towards him until he was only twenty metres away.

Fifteen.

The hole vanished around the arc of the vehicle.

Ten metres. Five.

The wall was rus.h.i.+ng by in front of him now, gla.s.sy and smooth, offering no grip should he miss his intended target.

Four metres.

The hole was nowhere in wait a minute! There it was!

Jesus grimaced. The hole was moving too slowly. He wasn't going to make it.

Three metres.

Two metres.

'Sorry Ace. I don't think I'm going to...'

There was a sudden bang as he crashed against the Lift, and a sc.r.a.ping sensation as he began to roll along the surface. Billowing sheets of material ballooned out to meet him: the edges of the hole, deceptively soft looking but with lethal edges. The Lift spun beneath him like a sickening carousel ride. The red glare from Lucifer seemed to engulf him, and the combined effects of yaw and pitch on his inner ear overcame the antinausea medication.

When he had finished vomiting, Jesus realized there was a firm pressure on his arms and legs. Ace, Kosi and Lars were holding him down.

'I reckon we can let him go now. How do you feel?' Ace asked.

'Embarra.s.sed. And sticky.'

Lars and Kosi laughed. Ace did not.

Jesus sat up. The interior of the Lift, even in this wrecked condition, had never looked so good. 'Thought I was a goner. How'd I get in here?'

Lars pointed down at Jesus's legs. He followed the mathematician's gesture and saw that his legs were completely tangled in a flapping web of cloth.

'Ace, she breaks open one of the store's canisters. It is full of bedsheets, yes? She makes net, reels you in like big fish.' He glanced sideways at Ace. 'That is right? You say fish, yes?'

Jesus shook his head in amazement. 'But what about the monofilament I saw? Surely it would have torn the sheets to pieces, synthetic or otherwise?'

'Naw. Kosi here showed us how to grab the edges of the hole with equipment clamps and fold them so the material wasn't dangerous. What you saw wasn't the monofilament, it was the sheets.'

Jesus smiled gratefully. 'You managed to organize all this in the few minutes I was out there? I'm impressed.'

'Minutes?' Ace laughed outright. 'You were out there over an hour, mate. We thought you'd got bored with our company.'

Jesus shook his head tiredly.

As the others began to discuss survival options, Jesus found his mind drifting. Adrenalin withdrawal made him introspective and sleepy. He turned over and tried to relax, but found himself looking downward through the metal grille which the Eden team had welded across the curved Lift surfaces as a floor, wondering what kind of anatomy would have been suited to use the original surface. It was crazy. There were no constants. Or rather, the only constant was... well, change change. Jesus shook his head. The aliens, whoever they'd been, were dead and gone, a million years or more. They were history, and he doubted he would ever truly know them. The thought saddened him. They must have been such wonderful beings, and now even the legacy of their environment was being rewritten by the humans, changed with every curved floor covered by a flat grille, every piece of art ripped from the walls and studied out of context, every subtle nuance of s.p.a.ce filled with metal and plastic, neural net cabinets, stores, machinery, even people.

Jesus felt a gentle sense of irony steal over him. They'd come here to learn, but it seemed all they would ever learn was how to alter that which they had no possibility of understanding into something so familiar there was no point in their understanding it.

A familiar voice came over the suit's comm*system. 'Feel cold. Arm hurts.'

Ace said, 'I know, Christine.' She switched channels and continued, 'Lars, could you administer another tranquillizer for me?'

'No problem.' The mathematician propelled himself towards the p.r.o.ne figure some yards away.

Ace turned her attention to Jesus. 'I've tried to communicate with Belial Base. I don't know whether they're receiving or not, but I'm getting nothing back. We're on our own. Both Kosi and Lars figure that we're a lot closer to Moloch than to Belial, but we're going to have to get there under our own steam. You're the environment specialist. I need an idea from you. One that'll save our lives. You up for it, or what?'

Jesus began to untangle his legs. His mind was whirling. Ace was right. They had to do something, but what? If they stayed where they were they were dead for certain. Before he could reply, Lars called for attention and he followed Ace and Kosi across to Christine's rec.u.mbent body. Lars was kneeling beside her, cradling the psychologist's truncated left arm in his suit gauntlets. He lifted up his hand. Tiny ruby globules were frozen to it.

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