'We have priorities, do you understand me?' Sabak's voice was angry. 'At least this way we don't have to watch them the whole time.'
Kendrick pushed closer. 'What the hell do you think he's going to do in there? Have you even thought about the damage he could do if he finds what he's looking for?'
'Assuming he gets anywhere' Sabak replied. 'The Bright haven't shown any lack of aptitude where repelling boarding parties is concerned. And, besides, he can't get back down to Earth without our help.'
'Unless he finds a way to reach that one intact Los Muertos shuttle. There's no reason to assume it isn't still functioning. I just don't believe that Draeger would have come up here unless he was pretty sure of finding a way back down again.'
'The Bright will take care of him,' Sabak replied confidently.
'Or maybe we've all been seriously underestimating him for too long. He could have something planned that we haven't been expecting. Don't you understand yet what's at stake here? Look, myself and a couple of others, we can go in and scout ahead. That'll give the rest of you an opportunity to move somewhere more secure in the meantime.'
Sabak looked ready to explode behind his visor. 'Jesus – fine, do whatever you think you have to do. But if anything happens I'm not sending anyone to look for you.'
Buddy stepped up and broke into their conversation. 'Gerry, quit arguing. We need to find somewhere properly pressurized before people start running out of air.' He caught Kendrick's eye. 'Right now that's our first priority, and we're going to need every hand.'
Sabak made the decision to follow a passage leading directly to one of the main caverns, in the hope that they'd find somewhere along the way where they'd be able to breathe without depleting their tanks. Kendrick still felt that overwhelming urge to take off a glove and just touch something.
But that, of course, would result in a fatal loss of air. He'd found himself wondering if he could try repeating his experience in the airbase, when he'd found he had stopped breathing completely, but decided he'd rather not experiment. Not if it ended up with him writhing on the ground, desperately trying to get his helmet back on.
As they entered the wide passage Kendrick noted that wand-nodes were mounted along the walls every several metres. These old-fashioned devices dated the station, giving it an oddly quaint edge. He was suddenly glad he'd retained the wand that Buddy had given him back at the Maze.
As he pointed it at the nearest node, the wand's little screen blinked rapidly, informing him that it had downloaded a station guide. This turned out to include a 3D version of the map he'd first noticed back in the reception area.
Here he was in the middle of a crowd of Labrats, most of whom looked fairly subdued following the death of one of their number. He glanced around, studying the faces visible behind the visors: nobody seemed particularly heroic or brave or adventurous. But the Archimedes had cowed almost all of them, and Kendrick could feel its vast bulk weighing on him too.
This was the place where microscopic monsters lived, a place where the messengers of gods walked in their dreams, a place of empty echoing corridors full of dark, inchoate mystery. Just the fact of being on board the Archimedes was enough to still anyone's tongue, for a while at least.
Kendrick felt a sensation akin to jealousy. The people around him knew what they wanted, had given up everything for one last chance at survival. They had willingly boarded that shuttle, never expecting to see home again.
So what's so different about me? Suddenly he not only wanted to believe too – he felt that he could believe. He'd witnessed the end of everything, and the beginning of something he couldn't even start to comprehend, One tiny corner of something that might, just might, be Heaven.
And, almost in the same instant, Kendrick understood why he found it so hard to believe. He was scared, that was all. Now that he'd felt at least a part of what filled Buddy and the rest with such unwavering conviction, he was scared that it might not turn out to be true, that it was in fact a false dream born of technology. So it was easier, then, not to believe.
He studied further the map of the Archimedes displayed on his wand. They'd be reaching the first cavern soon, and the idea terrified him. Would tiny winged shapes come diving down at him, through air as thick as soup with them?
Buddy came up beside him again, jabbing a finger at the read-out screen on his own suit. Kendrick realized he had his own map displayed there.
'Pressurized area up ahead,' Buddy informed him over a private channel.
'How do you know?'
'Green means pressurized, red is depressurized.'
Kendrick glanced at his own map and saw the same colour-coding.
The corridor terminated in another airlock. He could see tiny sparkles of light flitting across the several metres of passageway just in front of it.
Tiny silver fibres? A chill gripped his spine. He looked around and saw that he wasn't the only one to have noticed them. His skin crawled with horror as several others reached out with glove-encased hands to touch them. He imagined those threads finding their way through the material of spacesuits, invading the augment-riddled flesh beneath.
Sabak led the way, surrounded by the half-dozen Labrats he had armed on board the shuttle. From the way they huddled together Kendrick guessed they were communicating over a private conference band.
They stopped at the airlock and Sabak appeared to have a heated discussion with some of them. Then he reached forward and touched a panel. The airlock door swung open, revealing a high-ceilinged room beyond, big enough to hold them all. Kendrick trooped inside with the rest, noting a second pressure door on the opposite wall.
The first door closed, sealing them all inside. After several moments a faint but increasingly audible hiss became evident as the chamber began to pressurize. A light flashed above both doors, and Kendrick watched as Sabak took off his helmet to speak. His voice echoing dully in the chamber, he was urging them all to take off their helmets too.
As Kendrick removed his own, the other chamber door opened to reveal light seeping through.
Beyond it he could see trees, and grass.
They crowded through and found themselves in the rear of a very spacious low-ceilinged gallery, with panoramic glass windows overlooking a wooded area. The trees seemed a little too regularly spaced to be natural. The soil outside had been arranged carefully in little hillocks, again attempting to trick the eye into thinking it saw a natural environment. Further beyond the glass, the ground curved steeply upwards.
By now most of the people who'd entered behind Kendrick had removed their helmets.
Kendrick sucked the air deep into his lungs. It smelled so fresh – he'd more than half-expected to find it as polluted as in the Maze. Although the nanite threads had already made their presence known here, there wasn't yet anywhere near the same degree of infestation. He stepped closer to the glass wall and gazed out at the greenery beyond.
Buddy soon joined him, helmet held loosely in one hand. He was positively glowing, his smile radiant, looking happier and more content than Kendrick recalled seeing him ever before.
A sudden, unexpected sound…
Kendrick glanced sideways along the front of the building where a path was visible, winding its way through the trees. 'Did you hear that?'
'No, I-'
Something whirred – a machine sound that stirred up deep memories. Kendrick stepped away from the window and headed along until he was about halfway between the airlock exit and the building's entrance.
Out there, something glinted in among the trees. There was something hauntingly familiar about the noise he'd just heard.
Kendrick moved closer to the far end of the huge room, to look further between the building's exterior and the trees beyond where gardens once carefully maintained had grown wild. He cocked his head, listening hard, and
