Zodiac Station

Twenty-five

I could have just snuck off, and taken Quam’s shit later. But if anyone noticed me gone, I didn’t want them sending out search parties with a storm coming in. So, next morning, I spun him a line.

‘One of the struts buckled on my radio telescope,’ I told him. If you’re going to lie, lie consistently. ‘If I don’t get it fixed before the storm comes, the whole thing could go.’

Of course he said no. ‘Safety is paramount.’

‘I’ve just been shortlisted for a million-dollar grant from the NO double A. You want me to tell them I can’t bring it to Zodiac because my instruments got trashed in a storm?’

Everyone has weaknesses. Quam’s were more transparent than most. Mention a grant, you could almost see the dollar signs ring up in his eyes.

‘Everyone has experiments running out there.’

‘So don’t tell them. I won’t sign out; I’ll check in directly with you on the satphone. No one has to know.’

‘But you can’t go on your own.’

I pointed out the window, to the upper slopes of the mountain behind us. Clouds dashed over it.

‘I’m not going far.’

Quam played with the Newton’s cradle executive-toy thing he had on his desk — the classic bureaucrat’s move. I tell you, Captain, only the fucking Brits would send a vanilla guy like that to run a place like Utgard. Maybe he was good at cricket.

‘Don’t let the others see you,’ he said.

Just as I was leaving, I pretended I’d thought of something else.

‘Don’t worry if I’m out for a while. If the weather goes south too soon, I’ll stay in the caboose up there.’

I thought he’d complain. Perhaps he wanted to, but didn’t have the strength. He slouched in his chair as if something had snapped inside of him.

‘Please don’t let anything happen to you. It’s my job, if anything else happens.’

‘It’s my life,’ I pointed out.

I didn’t much care about the storm. If it got too bad, I could hole up in one of the buildings at Vitangelsk until it passed. I made sure I packed fuel for the MSR, and plenty of food. Plus a few pieces of equipment from my lab that had nothing to do with survival.

The hardest part was getting away. There’s no quiet way to drive a snowmobile. In the end, I had to disengage the drive belt, and push the thing around the base of the hill like a broken-down car. If anyone heard it from there, they could think what they liked. I opened up the throttle, turned on my iPod and let rip.

Was I scared? Not really. At that speed, you feel invincible. The clouds built their castles in the sky; the wind cried against my helmet. The flat light smoothed the terrain so you couldn’t see the bumps, but I didn’t care. I was riding the storm.

I got to Vitangelsk early. I parked my snowmobile in the square and made a circuit of the town, to be sure there wasn’t anyone waiting. If you think a frozen ghost town is freaky, wait until you’ve been in a frozen ghost town with a storm building. Down the valley, I could see dark clouds gathering out over the ocean. The moment I took my helmet off, the ice in the air stung me so bad I had to put it back on. But with my ears covered, I couldn’t hear a thing. I took it off again. I should have brought goggles, but all I had was my sunglasses. When I put them on, the dark day got darker. Every shadow was rendered deep black, every building looked like the House on Haunted Hill. Even the fucking snow looked dark.

I didn’t see anyone else in town. That didn’t mean they didn’t see me. I kept looking over my shoulder as I went back to the HQ building. The moment I was through the door, I took off my sunglasses and got to work.

The padlock was still there. A Yale lock, just like I remembered. I had Greta’s bolt cutters with me, but first I wanted to try something. I took out the key I’d borrowed from Anderson’s lab and pushed it in the lock.

It fitted. I twisted and it turned, smooth as butter, no hint of rust or age. The hasp popped open and the lock dropped into my hand. I stared at it like it had fallen from outer space.

‘And what in hell were you doing with that key, Dr Hagger?’ I asked aloud.

I put my shoulder against the steel trapdoor and heaved. It resisted a second, but only because of the weight. Nothing wrong with the hinges. The door swung up and clicked into the upright position.

‘Anyone home?’ I called. All I heard back was the wind howling around the outside of the building.

I took off my hat and hooked it on the rifle muzzle, then pushed it up through the hatch. A dumb trick — I probably got it from an old war movie. Anyhow, nothing happened. Either there wasn’t anyone there, or they’d seen the same movie.

Leading with the rifle, I put my head through the hatch. Even in the cold, my forehead prickled with sweat; my heart was going about a million miles an hour. I’d never felt so naked and so alive.

Above the first floor, the whole building had been gutted out. No internal walls, no floors, not even a roof. Just a brick shaft, three storeys high and open to the sky. Over my head, out of reach, eight cables came through the walls from different directions and met together in a long steel needle suspended in mid-air, pointing straight at outer space. A couple inches of snow covered the floor, but there was none on the wires. Someone made sure they got dusted off pretty regularly, it looked like.

I closed the trapdoor behind me, so that no one could sneak up. I checked the lock was in my pocket: I didn’t want to get locked in. Then I examined the antenna.

Keeping equipment in any kind of shape up there is tough. I should know. But this was pristine: all the cables tight, the metal buffed. A single wire hung down from the needle to a cleat in the floor, then ran across into a black box bolted on to the wall.

I went over and checked it out. Nothing on the outside to say what it did, not even a light to show if the power was on. A black box in every sense of the word. The only opening was the socket where the cable plugged in.

I squinted at the plug. It looked like a regular RF. The same kind I use to connect my instruments.

I took off my pack and got out my laptop. It wouldn’t boot, so I popped the battery and stuck it down my shorts for five minutes. Meanwhile, I found the interface cable I use when I’m in the field and connected it to the laptop. I put in the warmed-up battery and started the computer.

‘Here goes nothing.’

I yanked out the cable from the box. Somewhere on Utgard, if someone was watching satellite TV, I’d just ruined his show.

I didn’t waste time. Even weatherised, the battery doesn’t last much more than fifteen minutes in that cold. I connected the RF plug to the laptop, and opened a software transceiver program I use. I dialled it in to the C-band frequencies and hit record. I didn’t bother with transforms or other graphical shit: I just wanted to grab it as fast as I could.

The battery was dying in front of my eyes. When it hit ten per cent, I saved the file and shut down. Then I plugged the cable back in the black box. Didn’t want to piss off whoever the signal belonged to. With luck, they’d think it was the storm screwing with the transmission.

Or maybe they were closer than I’d thought. Before I’d even zipped my bag, I heard a creak on the stairs. I forgot the pack and grabbed my rifle. More creaks — definitely someone coming up. He stopped, just the other side of the trapdoor. I aimed the rifle.

The steel door squeaked. A gloved hand pushed it up until it latched open.

‘If you take another step, I’m going to blow your head off,’ I warned.

I heard him stop. Then, a rustling sound as he unzipped his coat. A hundred crazy scenarios played out in my head. What if he had a grenade? Or a bomb? Or—

A head popped up like a rabbit through the hatch. I was so wired, I almost pulled the trigger right there.

‘Jesus, Bob,’ said Malick. ‘I thought you wanted to see me.’