Chapter Seven

1.

THE GENERAL NOISE OF the engines prohibited any real conversation, at least for men who were trying to go unnoticed. Fenn had resorted to hand signals and grabbed Arnaud’s arm when they needed to duck out of sight. Fortunately, they had only to navigate a couple of ladders and walkways. While this section didn’t appear to be as hot as some in the engine room, they had needed to wait several minutes at one point, crouched down behind some scorching pipes, taking care not to unbalance and risk burning themselves. Even Fenn swiped his brow with the back of one hand more than once before they could finally move. If they made it out of here without being detected, Arnaud feared everyone would know where he had been because he would resemble nothing more elegant than a sopping dishcloth.

Fenn stopped dead, causing Arnaud to walk into him. They were in front of another door, and while it looked perfectly ordinary, Fenn’s frown grew. He glanced back at Arnaud then had to lean in to put his mouth right by his ear. “This shouldn’t be here.”

Arnaud shook his head, not understanding.

“I know this ship. There’s no reason for a separate section here.”

If that were true then this entrance was likely locked. Even if Fenn could pick the lock there would be security. He was about to say so when Fenn took hold of the handle and turned it. The door swung opened. No-one rushed out.

Sparing each other a glance, both men walked in. They were on another walkway. Fenn closed the door behind them. Although quieter here, there was still a degree of noise. If they kept alert this could be in their favour—the surrounding hum helped to disguise their movements. Arnaud looked around, expecting to have to choose a direction, but the walkway consisted of a large rectangle with two ladders leading down. He was about peer over the side when Fenn grabbed hold. The engineer had already taken a look, and stared over the railing with an expression Arnaud couldn’t interpret. Puzzlement definitely, but possibly horror and shock.

Arnaud took a step and looked down. Arnaud lost track of the seconds passing as he tried to make sense of the view.

Marwick was one of two men lying on two of six tables set out in a spiral at the base. Although most of the… Arnaud glanced up and down and although the ceiling wasn’t far overhead he supposed it was good enough to call this section a shaft. Most of the space was in darkness, but a soft yellow-green glow bathed the open floor space. He could see that the area led through to a larger section below that he suspected connected to other parts of the ship or at least the engine room. He turned his attention back to the tables.

Arnaud couldn’t make out much but wires and tubing ran from the beds to consoles. Were the men connected to the ship or just lying on the beds? He couldn’t be sure, not without taking a closer look.

“Are they sleeping?” Fenn’s question was barely a breath against the side of his face.

Arnaud shook his head. He didn’t know. The beds—and the more he looked at them, he was more certain they were beds instead of tables—looked more comfortable than his bunk and even those in the medical room. Of the two men, nothing similar linked them. They were of different heights, weight, colouring of hair, and skin. The only thing connecting them was that both men were members of the research department. He began to wonder how many researchers on this ship appeared to have trouble sleeping. How many would be disinclined to discuss the project to which they were assigned? How many came here during their shifts to spend their time apparently sleeping while on duty? Why?

Arnaud leaned his elbows on the railing, cupped his hands in front of his chin and stared intently at the resting crew members.

What could men do at rest that they could not do awake? This had to have something to do with their minds.

Arnaud glanced at the nearest ladder that led down. He was about to slip off his shoes to try to make his way down silently without disturbing the resting men when a researcher or technician walked into view. Fenn flinched back, but Arnaud withdrew more slowly. He pulled back into the shadows but watched the technician move from console to console, checking on each man. He shrugged off Fenn’s hand and edged to the right placing his feet carefully. One clank on the walkway would likely have the researcher looking up and then this would all be over for them. He just needed to see…

The technician was at the console below him and although Arnaud could not make out the whole display, he noted knobs, dials, switches, a flickering needle behind a curved plate of glass, some sort of power gauge. Arnaud took two more steps backwards and joined Fenn, who had already pressed himself against the wall. Fenn glanced back at the door and then at Arnaud who shook his head. Sound from the other room, movement from the door, a change in the light levels…any and all of these things could alert the man below before they escaped. If someone came in while they stood there for all Arnaud knew they might end up shot before any questions were asked.

The following two minutes weren’t the longest of his life—he’d been through far too much to lose his nerve so easily—but they lasted some considerable time.

Finally the technician walked away and after waiting another minute he and Fenn took the opportunity to escape.

2.

HE WAS NO BIOLOGIST but Nathaniel knew enough of the eye to name the superior, medial, lateral and inferior rectus. The lateral broke apart under his touch, the vitreous chamber turned to mush as his fingers pressed against it. Counting the optic nerves, Nathaniel was sure there were at least six. This would allow a dragon to see in different parts of the spectrum. No wonder he’d not been able to hide from the creature.

He stepped into the eye socket and looked out through the crystalline lens. The entire front of the eye was hardening. Cracking and popping noises filled the chamber as the eye appeared to frost over before him. Soon all that stood between him and the outside was a glass frontispiece.

Nathaniel sat down and fished in his supplies for what remained of his food. He ate vigorously, suddenly ravenous. He was even of a mind to lie down and sleep but although he might be safe here, he could not guarantee the entire skull would not collapse in on him. Exhausted he might be, but he had no time to waste.

Would the others leave without him? They might not want to, but he couldn’t see why they wouldn’t. Not if they believed him dead. He needed to let them know he lived.

First, he had to break through this last barrier.

Standing, he approached the lens, stopped when he’d only taken a couple of steps. He’d been worried about the cavity falling in; he’d not given any thought to the base under his feet. He heard the snap as well as felt something shift. Whatever was happening to the bone structure, the degradation had accelerated. The only way out was before him, and he needed to act fast.

Still, so pretty was the lens—delicate in appearance and refracting light—he stood admiring it for a moment, taking in not only the sight before him but the miraculous fact that he’d made it thus far.

With care, he chipped at the area surrounding the lens. In the end, he could not detach it in one piece, and it would have been far too big although lightweight to carry had he succeeded. When the lens broke apart, half of it shattering, he left the fragments, chose one of the larger pieces and, putting it in his pack with the scale, he stepped through the eye socket into the more familiar landscape of Jupiter.

“Out of the belly of…” He glanced behind him and corrected. “Out of the eye of the beast.”

He spent a few minutes climbing down its face, and then chose a direction and walked away. When he’d walked several feet, he turned to stare back.

In death, the dragon had lost much of the magic of its existence. The skin had shrunk and turned grey. Where bone poked through, it shone white. Nathaniel looked around him. Many similar shapes lay in a great open space. He walked towards one, touched it, and stepped back as it crumbled under his hand.

“Some of these have been here a long time.” Or had they?

A glance around revealed a landscape of white dust. He picked up another bone and squeezed. It fragmented into a blend of shards and powder.

“These bones could have been here a millennia or be a day old.” Nathaniel spoke just to hear the sound of his voice. The silence had begun to annoy him. Several hours ago, he’d longed for solitude. He appreciated the irony.

“Remind me to be careful what I wish for.”

Grimacing, Nathaniel returned to what he now thought of as his dragon, examined both it and some of the surrounding bones.

“Lightweight. Hollow like a bird’s.” Nathaniel couldn’t help wondering if the bone would work like liftwood, but its nature seemed so fragile he wasn’t sure he would want to rely on using it, or even to try. Besides, clearly these creatures had a fast rate of decomposition, but he believed that the bone structure definitely helped a living animal to fly.

He gazed around once more at the different sizes and shapes of skeletons. Some were almost hard to define as dragons, but he was sure they were all of the same species.

“A dragon graveyard,” Nathaniel whispered. Just like the fabled elephant graveyard of Earth. The dragon he’d disturbed could have been dying, even resting, or had given up on its way here. The creature hadn’t swallowed him. It had sucked him up in anger or fear, or by accident. It could well have been trying to reach here to die.

All very fascinating. The problem Nathaniel now had was how to return to the others and how to do it in time before they gave him up for dead…which they probably already had.

3.

WHAT HAD HE SEEN? How much should he tell Fenn? Arnaud had been calculating these questions when two men as good as pounced on him. At first he’d thought his and Fenn’s excursion had been noticed and they were being arrested, but he was quickly informed the captain wanted to see him and whisked away. He’d glanced at Fenn who had been left standing there. While he was glad not to have to talk to the engineer right now, he had an even greater desire not to have to speak with the captain. Arnaud considered he had suffered enough today. He’d endured neck ache, headache, tension, more pain in his neck, then the headache flaring up again, chased back only by the adrenaline rush of snooping. Whatever the captain wanted to see him for—as long as it had nothing to do with his recent activities—had delayed Fenn questioning him over the bizarre revelations in the depths of the ship, but Fenn would still ask in time. Arnaud just didn’t have answers. Speculation wasn’t the same as a solution.

Could he satisfy Fenn with a lie? A prevarication? Something bordering on the truth? Would Fenn believe him if he said he didn’t know? Would Fenn think him mad if he told him what he honestly thought he had seen?

The more Arnaud thought about the eerie glow, the more he was sure they had been using edwinite in that room. The mineral was used to power the engines now, of course, but…something else. The beds, the sleeping men, the connections, the consoles, the gauges, the technician monitoring them… Arnaud almost shook his head but he didn’t want to draw the attention of his two escorts. He couldn’t tell Fenn of their findings; it wasn’t safe for anyone to know his thoughts, not until he was sure, and maybe not even then.

The human body carried electrical energy. The edwinite had telepathic capabilities. The substance responded to thought. If his assumptions were correct, the mind behind the plan, more than the how it was carried out, concerned him the most.

Whose idea was it to use men as human batteries to help power Sovereign? Did Nathaniel know?

4.

“ANY SIGN?” FOR ALL his steadfastness Captain Benjamin Theobald was a good officer. Right now he paced the bridge a little more than was seemly. The excursion team had a few hours left to them yet, but he had hoped they would emerge from the interior before time. He refused to call the creatures they had seen dragons, but they certainly made him think of reptiles, thoughts of a certain Bible story leaving him with a sense of unease. Whatever they were, they appeared to be keeping their distance. Why?

In the hope of an answer to that question, he’d dragged Doctor Fontaine to the bridge to speculate…when personnel had finally tracked him down. Goodness knows what the blighter had been doing and he didn’t have time to ask him now. He’d mumbled something about feeling unwell, which might account for his lack of focus, and possibly even his somewhat untidy appearance.

“I know little of animal behaviour, but I…” Fontaine stared out following the sweep and pivots of one of the creatures in flight. “I would say that they are using certain air currents, following thermals or…” He shrugged, the gesture striking Theobald as very French. “It could be that as we are trying to remain in the relatively calmer spaces, this is what is keeping them away.”

“Are they likely to attack?”

Fontaine looked at him as if he were mad.

“Hypothesise.” Theobald was perfectly aware how he sounded. He was annoyed with the attitude of some of the researchers. He was perfectly capable of reaching his own conclusions but to hear whether another man’s speculations tallied with his would be useful. Either the crew failed to detect his lasting irritation with the scientists or were too professional to pay attention.

“They’ve not done so yet. I think…non.” Fontaine moved closer to the viewing port until further progress was prevented by instruments. “Animals attack for several reasons. Hunger. Fear. Territory. I cannot rule anything out, but I do not imagine we resemble these creatures’ normal menu. Whatever it is they eat…” Again with the shrug. “I cannot imagine what exists here for them to consume, but then I never conceived of finding life that could exist in this atmosphere.” He went quiet.

“Fontaine?”

“I was just pondering… If the research team do not return in the allotted time, it could be they have encountered these creatures deep inside the core.”

Theobald had already considered that, of course. He had wanted to order the cutter back to the ship, but for the time being the smaller vessel seemed safe and he didn’t want them to drift too far from the spot where they expected the team to emerge. The land masses shifted but in a relative holding pattern. The injured crewman had dislocated a shoulder, but the others had reset it. His arm was in a sling and he was resting. Theobald had ordered them to remain. If the research team were late though…how long would he have the cutter wait?

He glanced again at Fontaine, doubting the Frenchman had shoulders big enough to carry all the troubles that lay ahead.

5.

ALTHOUGH HE’D BEEN CAREFUL, Nathaniel’s water supply was low. He checked what remained and considered the best way to ration what he had left. He couldn’t calculate with any accuracy how long he needed the reserve to last, but he could gauge the time before the crew of Sovereign abandoned him. That time was shortened by the fact that they no doubt believed him dead. If Tally had witnessed the dragon swallow him, it was likely they had done so already. Some of them would have. Would all?

Bedford wouldn’t like to. Tally wouldn’t want to. Arnaud… Nathaniel wasn’t sure if this was the sense of something going wrong he had felt before the mission commenced, but he was glad he had left the man back on the ship. His emotions towards Arnaud were complicated in ways he didn’t entirely understand, but right now Arnaud would be unaware of what had happened to him and he felt oddly pleased about that. Had he been down in the depths of Jupiter, Arnaud’s might have been the voice to complain over Nathaniel’s loss the loudest.

Erasmus Stevenson… The man wouldn’t give him up. Nathaniel couldn’t explain how he knew that, but it had something to do with the differing levels of telepathy some of the people who had come into contact with Kaskuu shared. Erasmus was but one man though, and his voice was hardly one to instruct a captain or a commander. Bedford might want to believe him, but ultimately duty would win out.

Nathaniel took the few sips of water he had decided to allow himself, and then put that and the SAW away. He’d just tried it again, but all he received was a strange form of static. If he’d thought to use it, he was sure the others would be doing the same. Even Bedford. Maybe especially Bedford, because of Annabelle if for no other reason. He didn’t believe Bedford would give up on him without trying something, even if that was only to keep using the SAW to see if Nathaniel checked in.

“Too far away.” He had to be. Nevertheless, Nathaniel longed to keep the SAW on just in case it picked up a signal, but something else he needed to conserve was the battery.

These things were usually too big, but he and Arnaud had worked on a way to run a small power cell…with a grain of edwinite, naturally. While edwinite was powered by thought, alas other components of the device could burn the cell out. What neither he nor Arnaud had been able to do was to prevent corrosion. The edwinite could not work if the cell wouldn't respond. Fortunately, the mineral grew so that they were likely to have all the supply they required, and worn batteries could be replaced, but that didn’t help him here and now. He had to limit use of the SAW—the one thing likely to alert the crew that he was alive.

He needed to get closer before making another attempt, but the task seemed impossible when he didn’t know which direction to take.

Instinct had drawn him to find the cartouches. Maybe something else was at work here. He required faith. When he gave his situation more thought, he realised that all he could do was to follow one of the dragons.

He hadn’t been able to believe the sight at first. He’d called this place a dragon graveyard but the idea that these beasts visited their dead refused to make sense.

Some believed animals could mourn, but what was there for them to return to? A newly dead member of an animal pack might illicit some emotional behaviour from another of its kind—mothers of many species seemed disinclined to leave dying or even dead offspring behind—but as he’d reached the top of a small rise he’d seen an amazing view.

Down on the basin floor, several of the creatures slumbered. At first he’d thought them newly arrived and dying or dead, but even as he’d watched, one had moved. With a shake it rose and unfurled its wings. Great eyelids opened and closed in a slow blink. With a kick it rose, and flew down a tunnel to the right. Although not the only exit, when Nathaniel looked around he saw few. Owing to the position, chances were good his dragon had entered by this very route.

As the minutes passed and he drew closer, Nathaniel grew more cautious. That the creatures slept was obvious as one of the remaining shifted about rather like a dog. He at first counted three, and then realised a much smaller one had been hidden from view. Four dragons on this side of the basin… He didn’t know if there were any others but he glanced back every few paces so as not to suffer a nasty shock.

To slip by them wasn’t difficult. What made Nathaniel flinch back into hiding was the arrival of another. Of middling size, its flight was almost one of funnelling through the air. It dropped with a great thump that shook the ground but disturbed none of the sleepers.

Nathaniel ducked into hiding, hoping the creature didn’t take long to settle. He was completely surprised when the beast dipped its head and began to eat from one of the white powdered heaps that was all that was left of the remains of these animals.

He had wondered what these creatures consumed but he was completely stunned by the thought that they survived by some bizarre form of cannibalism. The idea that the dragons lived and died, and were eaten in this form by others of their kind, either revealed a strange continuity or it was completely repellent.

Orlondo would be fascinated.

Nathaniel planned to do all he could to return to tell him. He left the dragon to its meal, hoping it intended to slumber afterwards—which the white power he now realised ringed each dragon’s lips appeared to indicate—and slipped away into the corridor where he hoped to escape.

A straight channel would have been more in keeping with what he expected, but apparently a winding route was no hindrance to these creature’s flying abilities.

Inside the passage, the light dimmed considerably. Although he saw nothing to threaten him, the walls were quite smooth, worn down by years of the dragons’ passing, wings and limbs brushing and polishing the bedrock to a glossy consistency.

There were no hiding places. If one of the creatures came at him from in front or behind, he’d likely find himself inside the animal’s stomach. If he managed to remain in the mouth he’d be back where he’d started. If the sound might not have alerted the very creatures he was avoiding Nathaniel would have laughed aloud.

He started walking.

As time passed he couldn’t help thinking of the heat as violent. The blood that coated him dried and flaked off in parts. He scratched others away. In places the lines of his skin were so embedded that he looked like a walking red map of intersecting roadways.

He continued, ignoring the urge to try the SAW again. As the passage became increasingly dark, he looked back, but he could not see the way he’d entered because of the twists and turns of the corridor, and the progressively elevated floor. He could die in the tunnel before he found the other opening, or it might turn on him, head straight up where he could not climb. If he didn’t find the way out soon, one of the creatures were sure to come this way from ahead or behind. He foresaw running out of water and air.

“Stop this.” Nathaniel crouched, trying to catch his breath, longing for a single gulp of real air more than anything. He forced himself to breathe what he had. He also wanted to drink but dared not. His intellect won out over his burning throat. His lips were drying out, swelling. The vastness of Jupiter seemed inclined to crush him. Even with his intellect, being alone and lost, the darkness and the silence wore him down.

“Stop. You are…above all this.”

Nathaniel was beginning to grow sick of crawling about inside planets; alas, that was an essential part of the overall mission, and he wouldn’t have experienced so much if not for that. Still, he struggled to equate Kaplan’s delight with excavating with what he was going through now. He began to hum just to break the silence, and was beginning to think that he’d even welcome the return of one of the beasts when a great whump of wings made him dive flat to the ground.

Nathaniel covered his head with his arms, and closed his eyes. He anticipated pain and death, but either the creature failed to notice him, or it wasn’t interested. Nathaniel was only aware of a rush of disturbed atmosphere and the sense of something large passing over his back. As soon as the silence swept down on him again, he was on his feet and running.

He couldn’t outrun his thoughts. Would explorers come this way again? Would they find his remains one day? Would they know who had passed through here and recognise him? Would his bones suffer the same fate as that of the dragons so that he crumbled to powder to be consumed by them, leaving no evidence of his having been here?

What had happened to his conviction he would not die on Jupiter?

He sought for it again as he dashed headlong, fell, rose, bashed into the side wall. He stumbled, would have turned himself around had he not gathered his wits to find which way the ground ascended.

The artificial air rasped down his throat. Moving so fast was using up precious air, but he couldn’t help it. Panic seemed to be an ever-present shadow chasing him through the dark, one that whispered of the time passing when the amount of air he had left would no longer matter.

The shadows gathered. Glancing back, Nathaniel could see a grey ghost of himself moving. That meant there had to be light ahead. The promise spurred him on.

As he emerged, Nathaniel skidded to a halt, took only a moment to sweep his gaze across the terrain. He saw no dragons but that didn’t mean none were around. He darted to the side, edging over rocks and through a narrow passage until he came to a shaded overhang. Once there he reached for his SAW and turned it on.

Nothing happened.

Nathaniel shook it. “Come on, come on.” He’d never been one for bashing things when they didn’t work but was sorely tempted. The unit crackled into life and he tried talking into it.

“Bedford. Hello. Commander. This is Nathaniel Stone. Anybody?”

Hardly an eloquent message but he didn’t care as long as someone heard it.

“Hello. Hello. I repeat; this is Nathaniel Stone. Is anyone receiving me?”

6.

IF HE DIDN’T NEED it, Bedford would have cast the SAW aside and stomped on it. He was beginning to attract looks from a few of the team; pitying glances that they tried to hide. Part of him believed they were right. Even those who presented a professional front, he could see what they were thinking in their eyes. He must accept it—if what Tally said was true, there was no way Nathaniel Stone could have survived.

An image of his wife floated up in front of Bedford’s face. A woman whose strength was etched into every facial expression. He envisioned her gaze as he imparted the news. Of anyone on this expedition the only death that would hurt Annabelle so utterly besides his own was Stone’s. Knowing what he knew of Stone, the thought of Annabelle’s emotions being so invested upset him, but if Stone was dead then he’d let the man’s secret lie at rest with him. There would be no need for Annabelle to ever know. He hated the small matter of slight hope concerning the professor’s demise. Hated that he was capable of feeling that way towards another human being, especially one he had come to know. He even hated how the thought of losing the professor was tearing into him so because of his mixed emotions. He was more professional than this and he had lost men under his command before, but the loss of Stone wasn’t a simple matter. It affected the mission, affected him personally through thoughts of Annabelle, and to lose someone, and someone so important, so early into the journey during their first exploration cut most of all.

Valentine’s Day. As if it wasn’t bad enough that they were so far apart on a day dedicated to romance, he would have to tell Annabelle they had left Stone dead or alive on Jupiter on Saint Valentine’s Day. He wouldn’t be able to lie to her about that, and she would ever associate that day—the day of love—with Stone’s loss. Even from the great beyond, Stone would come between them.

He didn’t care what the crew thought of him, he couldn’t give up.

Bedford lifted the SAW to speak into it again, when Tally grabbed his wrist, holding his arm down, but stepping close to him so that the rest could not see or hear.

“Sure, this is how it is. I can afford to be the crazed grieving Irishman who won’t take no unless it’s shoved down me throat.”

That statement might not be far from the truth. The man hadn’t exactly sobbed his heart out, and Bedford expected he’d been through too much in life to fall apart, but those blue eyes had lost a little of their sparkle, were a little rimmed with red. Tally wasn’t crying but he wanted to.

Bedford nodded, relinquishing his hold of the SAW, but Tally still had a firm grip on his wrist.

“Even if we hear from Nate, I’m a wee bit worried how we’re ’sposed ta find him.”

“I…know.” Bedford hadn’t wanted to think that far ahead. Those who thought Stone dead would no doubt think him mad for trying, but gazing at Tally, he knew he had to. He had an idea, but he needed help.

7.

TALLY WENT ALONG WITH Bedford to present what the commander referred to as a “united front”. Bedford said he could order the researchers to do the work he required but Tally agreed it didn’t help to throw a little emotion into the mix. Quintana had taken the loss of Stone hardest second to Tally. Kaplan was sad and sorrowful, they all were, but with Wollf… With her he could never quite tell what she was feeling or whether she had any emotions at all. On the way over Bedford had told Tally that he could imagine Katarina Wollf and his wife, Annabelle Bedford, in the same room together, and hoped it never happened…not if he should be there too.

“Truly?”

“You never knew my wife, did you?”

“Only in passing.”

“A strong woman.” A small smile played about the man’s lips as he spoke of her.

“Aren’t they all?”

“Not in my experience.”

“Oh.” Maybe it was Irishwomen or maybe working class women who were as strong as or stronger than their men then. “There are degrees of strong, I ’spose.”

“There is that,” Bedford said. His expression changed and he glanced over. “I’m a little surprised to share that with you.”

Tally said nothing. People did tend to talk to him when they got to know him, and he understood the advantage of being a set of silent eyes and ears. Tooler, the man responsible for his being here, might be surprised to know Tally could be quiet when it suited him. He only got gobby, as his mother would say, when the situation called for it.

As they came up to Wollf… Her direct gaze gave even Tally pause, and he chose silence. Maybe Bedford was right and it was just as well his wife wasn’t here. Tally could all too easily imagine the ensuing argument caused just by Wollf’s stare alone, even more so when she replied to Bedford’s command.

“This is a waste of resources.” Her gaze was direct and clear. “But of course you are the commander.”

The nuances in her reply did not escape Tally and he was pretty darn sure they didn’t escape Bedford, but for now the commander had his priorities aligned and apparently didn’t care for thinly disguised insolence.

Bedford walked away and Tally swooped in to help Wollf gather up her things. He was surprised when she hankered down and looked up at him.

“Stone is important to you?” She sounded more curious than anything and Tally wasn’t sure he liked being inspected like this, but he nodded nonetheless.

“No point denying it, and no reason I would.”

At his reply small signs of tension suggestive of puzzlement flickered over her face. “I admire his accomplishments and qualifications, his expertise, but I cannot see these as things that interest you. I find…friendship time-consuming though necessary.”

“I…Well…” What could he say to that?

Fortunately, he had no need to think of anything for Wollf reached into her pocket and pulled out a playing card. “This brought me luck. It was the winning card, and the crew presented me with the pack for a game well played.”

There was a card game the other night and he hadn’t heard about it? Wollf handed over the card, so he took it.

“It is unseemly for a scientist to be superstitious.” She seemed quite put out with the idea that she had been carrying it. “But I have learned that there is one thing I am sure of in this universe. That we never know the truth of our existence. We will never explain all the science and unearth all the secrets. I have learned…I am ignorant. As are we all.

“For luck,” she elaborated when Tally continued to stare at her. “I would appreciate it back if a little of the luck rubs off on you and you find your Professor Stone. Now let’s do what we can do to make that the slightest bit possible.”

8.

A FEW MILES AWAY, Nathaniel Stone crouched, eyes closed, hands clasped around the SAW, finger hovering over the button that would allow him to talk but not pressing it. He waited, straining ears to listen. If the unit got a signal he would hear it, but all he’d received so far was dead air or static.

His attitude was almost one of prayer. In his head, he was close to sending out a plea of please please please to the universe.

“Nate?”

He was so shocked to hear Tally’s voice that he at first didn’t believe it. “Tally?”

He heard an answering whoop. “Well, blow me down. Ya gobshite! Ya feckin’ scared us.”

Tally was scared? He’d never heard anything sweeter than the Irishman’s voice, but Nathaniel didn’t have time to say much of anything as far as that was concerned. He rushed ahead.

“Tally, I don’t know where I am or how to get back. I don’t know how much air I have left, and I’ve been using the SAW so the battery is probably corroding, and I’m almost out of water.”

The answering silence spun out so long Nathaniel feared he’d lost the signal again.

“Aye, well, we’ve got a theory on that score.”

9.

“A BEACON IS A simple radio signal that often transmits a basic identification.” Wollf seemed so focused on helping Marcus to reassemble one of the SAWs that Tally was amazed she could talk at the same time. “Distance can be ascertained based on variations on the strength of radio waves. The…problem we have down here is that we have only these portable two-way transmission and reception devices. As ingenious as they are, altering one to send a continuous signal is not easy with what we have to hand. There.”

“Yer’ve done it?”

“We have,” Marcus Kaplan said. “Only because we watched Fontaine design this device in the first place. Without such a working knowledge of how Fontaine and Stone created this, the task would have taken days.”

He seemed to ignore the fact that Stevenson had done some of the engineering in this particular case. The young able seaman remained silent and focused on the task, soldering the last wire in place.

“Unfortunately…” Wollf exchanged a look with Kaplan that made the hairs stand up on the back of Tally’s neck. “This will not stop the corrosion of the battery, only slow it slightly.”

“Well, we have others.”

Wollf met his gaze. “Yes, but Stone does not, and we cannot know what having his SAW on all the time to receive the signal will do. Is it close to the time to check in on him?”

“Yes.” They had agreed that Nate turn off his SAW and rest while they finished their work. No point his continuing to wander aimlessly, and they had only been talking of a short delay as Kaplan and Wollf had been working on the alterations all morning. Despite this, Tally could feel the good cheer draining out of him as fast as the corrosive effect might burn out Nate’s battery. “What if…Can’t he just keep checking in every so often? Wouldn’t that work as well as this?”

“He can. And he could follow the power level on the SAW, but a timed signal will be more accurate and, I believe, use less power ultimately. It will be possible to send and receive incoming messages between the bursts, but I would advise against it.”

Tally thought of what it must feel like to be out there alone and lost, and even if it hadn’t been Nate, it wouldn’t have sat well with him to abandon a man in such a desolate place.

He was supposed to leave the outcome on this small piece of equipment? He wasn’t sure he could do that.

As if he’d read Tally’s thoughts, Stevenson looked up and met his gaze. He couldn’t tell for sure whether the young seaman was thinking the same but there was no way Tally was going to sit around waiting for Nate to find his way home to them.

10.

WHAT HE WOULDN’T HAVE given for the ship’s chronometer. Timing the intermittent beeps took more patience than Nathaniel would have thought any man could possibly possess. He could read the strength of the signal via a small needle, but it had a tendency to waver so he was also measuring time to double-check the reading. The sound of the beep itself was becoming to mean everything and nothing. All he had was his pocket watch and on that he had to note the second he heard the beep and then again when it repeated. If the duration grew greater he would know he was moving away. Closer he was heading in the right direction.

However, this required that he stop at intervals, time the signal, backtrack… All this was eating into time, and air, while his need for water grew. The beep had held steady for so long, Nathaniel began to experience the pure emotion of hate. He likened it to pure because there was no deviation, no degrees, no ambivalence. He hated the sound of that beep so much, he hardly noticed when the time between the signals changed.

Were the beeps closer together? He forced himself to stare at his watch and count the seconds. No. The time between was longer. Turning in the opposite direction, Nathaniel took a few steps that way, and then tested the signal several feet to the left and to the right.

He took the left hand route at a run, stopping every few feet to check his progress. At one spot it felt as if he’d wasted several minutes locating another direction. When he swayed from dizziness, he accepted he’d gone too long without a drink. He paused to drink his next allowance, only slightly dismayed to realise he had already finished the last of his water.

11.

EVERY SWALLOW RASPED LIKE he’d gulped down the dust of Luna. Nathaniel’s eyes felt too large for their sockets, his brain too big for his skull. By some miracle he perspired, aware every drop lost took him closer to dehydration. Several times his attention had wandered, and he’d lost time trying to work out the phase difference between the beeps. The last had happened to him even as he stared at the watch. He came around seconds later, realising a couple of minutes had gone by while he stared at the mocking face of his timepiece.

He tried again, this time working out the difference without moving, determined to check it just one more time.

He heard the beep and waited.

Waited.

Waited…

“No.” The word whispered out even as he shook the SAW. The action seemed to stir some life in it but that spark quickly faded. The battery was as good as dead. In what seemed to be a crazed action, Nathaniel held the SAW to his head and practically prayed to it.

Nothing happened.

Having no option, Nathaniel ran in the direction he’d chosen, but the heat down here, and for all he knew lack of oxygen—he’d not chosen to check his air because if he ran out there was nothing he could do about it—was playing havoc with him. Disorientated he would have no chance…not that he’d ever had one.

Nathaniel fell to his knees, putting his hands over his face, wanting to rip away the mask he’d come to hate almost as much as the sound of the beep—a sound ironically he now craved—and sat there, eyes closed tight in disbelief.

It cannot end like this. It must not.

He sent the thought out to anyone or anything that cared to hear him. He thought of Kaskuu, and knew his existence should not end like this.

There was one last thing he could do. A last scientific experiment. Instead of suffocating, he could indeed cast aside the mask and see what the atmosphere of Jupiter did to him. He’d never have a chance to write a scientific paper on it, but it still seemed preferable to gasping.

He was truly considering it, but never got a chance. A sound alerted him to movement at his back. Even before he turned he heard a voice.

“Jaysus. Mate, I hardly recognise ya.”

Nathaniel didn’t even bother to look around. He was sure he was hallucinating and quite done in. He sat, eyes closed, as something tugged at his back. Next, he heard a click and then…oh blessed artificial but breathable air flooded into the mask. Nathaniel took the deepest breaths until his head was swimming. He pitched forward, now dizzy from air and relief.