Macao Station

Chapter Forty

‘Calm the fuck down!’ bellowed Halman, not very soothingly, rising from his chair. ‘And tell me what’s going on!’

Lina pressed herself into her own seat, unable to speak. She couldn’t even remember entering the room. She still had the visor down on her helmet, despite the fact that the damn thing felt like it was suffocating her. Her breath wreathed her body like smoke, as if something was burning out inside her, an effect which didn’t help her fragile sanity at all.

‘Boss?’ said a tentative voice from the doorway.

‘Fuck off, Theo!’ roared Halman. He cast his gaze across the terrified foursome who had been squeezed into the room with him. ‘What happened? And where is Liu?’

Lina looked around herself, unable to believe the evidence of her own eyes. Ella, Alphe, Fionne. . . She looked again, trying to count them. Halman was right. Liu wasn’t there.

‘He. . . he. . .’ she stammered. ‘He was with me,’ she managed to splutter. Her breathing was too fast, too shallow. She tried to slow it down. ‘He was with me,’ she said again, more steadily.

‘The bastard must have got him!’ exclaimed Ella, who was standing directly in front of Halman’s desk and as such was subjected to the full close-up glower.

‘What?’ Halman demanded. ‘Who got him?’

‘A giant,’ said Fionne in a whisper, slowly raising her head as if surfacing from a dream. She, at least, had managed to open her visor. ‘With a necklace of human fingers.’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Halman asked, with more control this time. ‘What happened?’

Alphe’s jaw was visibly trembling as he spoke: ‘We. . . well, we. . . we were working on Lina’s Kay, I mean we’re almost done, but. . . then. . .’ He faltered, clenching his eyes shut. ‘Shit!’ he cried in frustration, clearly unable to continue.

‘He had Eli’s fingers round his neck,’ said Fionne quietly, looking up. Her pretty face — the face of a girl from a skincare advert more than that of a deep-space engineer — was glazed and stunned, her eyes unfocused. She looked around Halman’s office as if seeking something sane and real to latch onto.

‘Who did?’ growled Halman. ‘Who?’

‘A ship came in,’ continued Alphe flatly. ‘Cycled the hangar remotely. I guess the safety systems are still off-line after Eli’s escape. Anyway, we thought it was him. But it wasn’t. It was. . . I don’t know who it was. . .’

‘A giant,’ said Fionne wonderingly. ‘A giant with Eli’s fingers. Covered in blood.’ She stared blankly into Halman’s face. Lina pressed herself further and further back into her chair, trying to distance herself from this reality. Her mind was railing inside her, a desperate prisoner in her skull.

‘What happened?’

‘We thought we’d be able to bring him in,’ Alphe went on. ‘But it wasn’t Eli.’

‘Carver. . .’ breathed Halman, turning away to stare out of the window. ‘Ronnie Carver. Six foot eight, ugly bastard, last seen on a supply shuttle bound for here.’

‘He cycled the main airlock on the loader, but he tricked us. He came out of the cargo hold, and he. . . he. . .’

‘We ran,’ said Fionne in a disbelieving voice.

Alphe nodded. ‘Yeah,’ he agreed, still speaking to Halman’s back. ‘We ran. He had a plasma cutter. So much for fucking heroics!’ He looked to Fionne and then Lina, his eyes pleading. ‘He must have caught Liu.’ His voice cracked, and the rest of his words were slushy with sudden tears: ‘He must have caught Liu, he must have. . .’ He put his head in his hands, shielding his face while great silent sobs racked his body.

‘He’s dead,’ Fionne said. She looked too shocked to cry, her gaze unfocused and unblinking. Lina had seen people on the news, emerging from the embattled mines of Platini Alpha with that same expression — soldiers who’d seen their buddies die from exposure to chemical weapons or plasma traps. She knew that some of them never lost that look, never really recovered. She wondered if that same look was on her own face. ‘He must be dead!’ Fionne cried, her voice rising to a wavering treble.

‘You ran?’ asked Halman, turning back to them. ‘But you lost Liu?’

‘Yeah,’ agreed Fionne bitterly. ‘We ran. Like cowards.’

‘No,’ Halman insisted. ‘You did the right thing. I’m going to organise a sweep of the station, but I want you guys to stay here. Don’t move a muscle.’

‘I’m coming,’ said Ella in a low, flat voice that brooked no argument.

Halman paused, biting his lip. ‘Okay,’ he said.

Lina heard a voice say, ‘Me, too,’ and then she realised that it was her voice. Had she really just volunteered to go back out there?

Halman turned his stare on her. His dark eyes seemed to bore into her, as if probing for weakness. ‘Okay,’ he said again. ‘Come on.’ And he swept across the office and out of the door. Ella and Lina scrambled to follow him.

Halman stalked out into the corridor, the two women dragging along behind him. He went quickly from dorm to dorm shouting names: ‘Theo; Si; Murkhoff; Rocko; Petra. . .’ Panic spread in his wake, voices raised in question, fearful scrambling. ‘Meet me by the airlock! The rest of you stay put!’ he yelled as he went back out into the corridor. Those he had called came slowly, apprehensively out of their rooms, asking questions that he ignored. He turned instead to Ella. ‘Ella — get me laser pistols for everyone here.’

‘Sure,’ she said, nodding once.

‘Do you have enough?’

‘I think so, yeah,’ she said, and then she ran off, calling for someone to help her.

Halman scanned around for Theo, physically picking him out of the crowd by one hand. ‘Theo — suits for everyone. We have to go out there. Hurry now.’ Theo simply nodded and ran off.

‘Lina,’ said Halman, rounding on her.

She fell back a step. ‘Yes?’

Murkhoff appeared at Halman’s elbow and tugged on his sleeve. He looked thinner than ever — emaciated, really, and the bandage across his ruined eye looked dirty and unsanitary, even though Hobbes had changed it twice a day.

‘I’m not coming,’ said Murkhoff quietly. His voice was a dry rasp.

‘What?’ demanded Halman, as if he might not have heard correctly.

‘I don’t know what’s going on,’ said Murkhoff in that same disinterested tone. ‘But I don’t want any part in it. I’m not coming.’

Halman stared at him for a moment, and his mouth fell slowly open. ‘Fuck it, Murkhoff,’ he said. ‘Whatever.’ He sounded offended, but personally Lina couldn’t blame Murkhoff for his reluctance. He had suffered enough at the hands of Macao’s psychos already.

Murkhoff stalked off without another word, back towards his dorm. Lina and Halman watched him go in silence.

‘You can’t blame him,’ said Lina once he was out of sight. She felt a little better now that her visor was open. The air here tasted bad, but she felt better all the same. A little.

Halman shook his head dismissively. ‘Lina,’ he said, attempting to pick up again from where he’d been interrupted, ‘are you sure you’re up for this? You don’t have to come, you know. Hell, if that ass can opt out, then so can you. In fact, I’d rather you did.’

‘Dan. . .’ she sighed. ‘I have to go. I–’

Something struck her in the side and she looked down, shocked, to see Marco. He hit her again with the palm of his hand. His face was clenched and tear-streaked.

‘You can’t go!’ he shrieked, lashing out again and again. Lina struggled to grab his wrists but he was too fast, too wriggly. ‘You can’t go! Don’t go out there again! Something else has gone wrong, hasn’t it? Hasn’t it?!’

‘Honey. . .’ she began weakly, tapering away to nothing. What was there to say? She had said it already. Nothing had changed. ‘I have to. . .’ she finished lamely. She finally managed to snag his arms and hold onto them. She knelt to look into his face. ‘Somebody came in on the ISL, Marco. Somebody dangerous. We have to catch them.’

‘Well that’s fucking fine, then!’ he screamed, worming free.

‘Don’t you swear at me!’ she retorted automatically, totally stunned.

‘Lina!’ said Halman, grabbing her by the shoulder and raising her up so that he could speak directly into her ear. ‘Lose the kid, or you’re not coming,’ he said in a low growl. Then he turned and strode away, shouting for Ella.

‘Marco. . .’ Lina began. But she didn’t have anything else to follow it up with. ‘My son. . .’ she managed to add.

Marco shook his head, tears streaming down his face, mouth working soundlessly. He turned, almost colliding with Petra Kalistov, and ran away down the corridor. Lina stood in indecision, poised to pursue him, but Si’s huge hand landed on her shoulder, stopping her.

‘Lina,’ said Si. ‘You okay?’

She looked up into his broad, lantern-jawed face. That question again. ‘Yeah,’ she said, without any real idea if this was true or not. ‘I guess.’

‘Good,’ he said. The hand squeezed briefly, then moved away.

‘Gather round!’ called Halman.

The little group closed in around him in a nervous huddle. Theo reappeared pushing a rack of space suits, then joined the back of the circle. Many of them eyed the suits suspiciously before turning back to Halman.

Lina squeezed in next to Si, whose large and solid presence was a reassuring bastion of solidity.

Halman looked at his tiny army, into the eyes of each in turn. ‘People, we have a problem. . .’ he began.