The Departure

by vapour spilling from the processes conducted within.

Up close, Argus certainly did not look so neat as it did from the surface of Earth, and it now seemed much larger than the last government-approved images of it that he had viewed. The sections between the spokes, from the asteroid to the station rim, were infilled with lattice walls with numerous accommodation units and other features sandwiched between, all connected by tubeways through which ran wormish trains. The levels expanding outwards from the original wheel were not being built one at a time, so in some areas three or four ‘floors’ of the station extended out into space, webbed throughout by structural members, with random chequer-square sheets of bubblemetal scattered across them. In fact there seemed no clear dividing line between where the station ended and space began.

‘Keep your head still,’ Hannah instructed.

Scarface, whose real name was Braddock, had found him another helmet to replace the one he’d managed to fill with his blood, and then given Hannah a battlefield medical kit. Apparently each of these soldiers was carrying one. Having stopped the bleeding, she was now using a stapling tool to put his scalp back together. Wound glue would only last if he didn’t exert himself for a week or so, which seemed unlikely.

‘How bad is it?’ he asked.

‘Very minor,’ she replied. ‘You know what head wounds are like.’

Now she was spraying artificial skin over his scalp, and finally she turned his head round and concentrated the spray over his right temple. He just met her gaze and said nothing. That she was further concealing the nub of synthetic skin covering the teragate socket in his skull told him she had picked up some idea of his intentions.

He looked round as Malden towed himself in from the space plane’s cockpit, gazed over to where one of the soldiers was throwing up in a sick bag, then focused his attention on Saul.

Saul had to admit that Malden seemed to know a great deal about how Argus Station operated. In the beginning, it had been Saul’s intention to take control there in the same way he had taken control of that gene bank and then Inspectorate Headquarters London, by feeding Janus into the system and letting the AI do all the work. Now Janus resided inside his head, was actually part of him and, had he not used a bit of forethought, he would have possessed no way of physically linking into a computer system. But he had considered this, which was why that teragate optic plug resided under that nub of synthetic skin at his right temple. He could only assume that when Dr Bronstein had made his report to Malden, he had neglected to mention the details of the operation Saul had undergone. And Saul preferred not to enlighten him.

‘You okay?’ Malden asked.

Saul had managed not to throw up as they went zero gravity, and now nausea pills were dispelling the rest of the sickness. Obviously they weren’t working so well for others aboard, including Hannah, who looked decidedly ill.

‘I’m good,’ he lied, for really his head felt as if someone had been sandpapering the inside of his skull, and though extended processing within lay available to him, he felt almost frightened to use it. ‘So what’s the plan? They have to realize this is no regular flight by now.’

Malden nodded. ‘They’ve denied us docking and demanded to know who we are, and what we want. I insisted we’re just the expected flight, but they’ve checked with Minsk and know the assigned crew isn’t aboard, and that this plane took off without permission.’ He shrugged. ‘They’ve also just put the EM shield up, but that could be because of the solar wind.’

‘And?’

‘We don’t use the dock.’ Malden moved over to his seat and strapped himself in. Immediately after that, text appeared along the bottom of the cabin screen: PREPARE FOR DECELERATION.

‘Get strapped in, guys. This could be tricky,’ warned a voice over the intercom – obviously the pilot.

Hannah pulled away from Saul and strapped herself in. He picked up the new helmet from his lap and clicked it down on its neck ring, before doing the same. A frisson of fear tightened his gut. If Malden wasn’t going to dock this plane, that probably meant they were going for a space walk.

Spikes of flame stabbed in on either side of the screen view, jerking Saul forward against his straps. Then one constant flame erupted from the left, swinging the nose of the plane round, the momentum trying to throw him into Hannah. The station slid aside, then the plane came under massive deceleration, this time thrusting him back down into his seat. Manoeuvring next, the nose swinging back rapidly and the station grown huge, filling the screen, one of its surface-mounted steering thrusters – an engine the size of a train carriage – became clearly visible, projecting at forty-five degrees from the station rim, then abruptly dropped away. A glimpse of Earth, and then starlit space. Main engine now; a double blast again slamming him backwards. Lines cut down through the forward view, cables and the belly of a big smelting plant slid above like an iron Zeppelin. Then the main engine came on yet again.

‘Helmets!’ Braddock shouted. ‘Suit-integrity check!’ Why the hell did he want them to do that, whilst still inside the plane? Then Saul realized the docking was going to be violent. He closed across his visor and, using the small control panel on his left forearm, called up the integrity check in the liquid-crystal laminate in his visor. He then turned to Hannah to instruct her on what she must do, but she was already busy working her own panel. Good for him to be reminded that the technology of her spacesuit was child’s play to someone like her.

Then they hit.

11

Plain Planes

In the early years, rocket scientists took elements of the NASA space shuttle, and the privately developed craft then being used by the optimistically named Virgin Galactic, and amalgamated them to create their early two-stage shuttle. This consisted of the hydrogen booster or carrier section which, after throwing the shuttle up into space, was then capable of coming down to land by itself. Even then, with engines becoming steadily more powerful, the engineers realized how overcomplicated and prone to problems was this system. They needed to thoroughly rework the technology, discarding much of what had gone before, and this they did after Airbus successfully tested its first passenger scramjet. Perhaps, under a different regime, the enforced amalgamation of the two projects would never have happened or the huge funding required would not have been available. It could also be argued that without the bureaucratic screw-ups and political oversight of the science, it would have happened faster. However, despite many difficulties and many disastrous crashes, the first Earth-to-orbit space plane made its inaugural flight during the second half of the twenty-first century.

A crackling sound first, as of something heavy falling through a forest of sticks. The screen abruptly filled