Fade Out (39 page)

The alarm bell jangled from the loudspeaker, then ten seconds later the hatch closed as the two spheres rotated into the hull.

Connors sat back in his chair and breathed out heavily. He looked at his watch. 11:05. Wedderkind lit a cigarette.

Connors turned to Allbright. ‘This must be a bit like waiting for a squadron to return from a mission.'

‘A bit,' said Allbright.

At 11:10, Vincent rotated the hatches. Spencer, Neame, and Gilligan looked down into the well and were relieved to see that Milsom was still in one piece. He was crouching down at the bottom of the well.

Spencer turned to Max. ‘He's okay.' He passed the rope down to Milsom hand over hand.

Milsom made no move to clip the lifting hook on to his harness.

‘What's wrong with him?' asked Neame.

‘I don't know,' said Gilligan. ‘Maybe he's hurt himself.'

Spencer turned angrily on Gilligan. ‘How the hell could he do that? The guide rails don't move when the hatch rotates.'

‘I don't know how,' said Gilligan. ‘Maybe he lost his grip when normal gravity returned. If he was upside down – '

‘Listen, he didn't fall on his fucking head. He can see us, for Christ's sake – look!' Spencer swung the rope towards Milsom. The hook clacked against the visor of his helmet. Milsom shrank back and pushed the rope away.

‘Chris!' Spencer banged his fist against his chest. ‘Clip on the hook!'

Milsom waved his arm – not towards the rope, but to them.

‘Twenty seconds to rotation…'

Max, Vincent, and Hadden joined them at the hatch and looked down at Milsom. Milsom seemed to shrink away at the sight of them, but waved his arm again.

‘Fifteen seconds to rotation…'

‘What the hell is he trying to say?' asked Max. ‘Does he want us to come in after him?'

‘That's what it looks like,' said Neame.

Max turned to Gilligan. ‘You're right. He has fallen on his fucking head.'

The alarm bell sounded. Max yanked the rope out of the well. Milsom was still beckoning to them when the hatch closed.

Connors watched Spencer run down the hull towards
the communications jeep. He stood in front of the TV camera and came into close-up on Screen 5.

‘Arnold, we've got a little problem here. I don't know how much of it you were able to get on the overhead camera.'

‘We got some of it. Most of the time your heads were in the way.'

‘Yeah, well, we were trying to see what was wrong. Something's happened to him. We don't know what.'

‘Could he have broken his arms?'

‘No. His arms move okay, and his reflexes seem normal. He's waving to us. He just won't hook up the line so we can pull him out.'

‘What do you plan to do?'

‘Well, we're going to rotate in five minutes and try again.'

‘Okay. What was it that Max said? We didn't quite catch it.'

‘He said it looked as if Chris wanted us to come into the hatch.'

‘It could mean he wanted help.'

‘Yes, I know, but he actually had the lifting hook in his hand. All he had to do was clip it on but he pushed it away. And when all six of us were round the hatch he kind of backed down away from us, almost as if he were frightened. I don't understand it.'

‘Neither do I,' said Wedderkind. ‘Give it another try.'

‘Oh, hell, yes,' said Spencer. ‘We're not just going to leave him in there.' He went back up on to the hull platform.

Wedderkind eyed Connors and Allbright and stuck out a doubtful lip. ‘I don't like it.'

‘Max is up there,' said Allbright. ‘He'll figure out something.'

Max did. At 11:16 the two hatches swung back into
line. Milsom was still there, crouching down in the bottom of the well. He beckoned to Spencer. They dropped the rope down to him. Milsom took hold of the rope but made no attempt to clip the hook to his chest. He waved to Spencer again.

‘Chris!' roared Spencer. ‘The hook! Clip on the hook!' He mimed the action, thumping his fist against his chest.

Milsom didn't respond. It was impossible to see his face behind the reflecting surface of the visor. There was nothing but a circle of sky edged by their own bodies and enclosed by the dark interior of the sphere.

‘Thirty-five seconds to rotation…'

‘Move aside,' said Max. He grabbed hold of the rope and turned to his crew. ‘Okay, I'm going in to hook up this son of a bitch, so get a good grip on that rope. When I shout, I want to come out of there faster than a cork out of a champagne bottle. Right?'

‘Max – ' began Spencer.

Max began to slide down the rope. ‘If you want to help, get on the other end of this thing.'

‘Okay, we'll get it,' said Vincent. He and Hadden joined Max's three roughnecks on the rope.

As Max landed beside Milsom, Spencer saw that Milsom had wound the loose end of the rope around the bottom of two of the guide rails and had snapped the hook back on to the line. Max grabbed Milsom, heaved him aside, and began to unravel the rope.

‘Max!' yelled Spencer.

Max half-turned and threw up an arm to protect himself as Milsom dropped a loop of the rope around his arm and neck, yanked it tight, then fell on top of him like an ungainly white bear. Max hit out with his fists, knees and feet, but the multi-layered insulation of the suit absorbed the force of his blows.

‘Twenty seconds to rotation…'

Max hurled Milsom away from him and managed to loosen the rope around his throat and arm before Milsom came back at him. Max had unclipped the hook from the rope, but the rope itself was still twisted around the guide rails. Milsom fell against him, arms outstretched. It was clear he wasn't trying to hit Max, he was just trying to hold him down to keep him from leaving the hatch.

‘Fifteen seconds to rotation…'

‘For Christ's sake!' yelled Max. ‘Doesn't anyone have a knife or a gun up there! Why don't you shoot this son of a bitch!' Max sent Milsom crashing against the other side of the well. Without his space helmet, Milsom's skull would have been fractured.

With the rope still locked around the guide rails, the only thing Max could do was climb out hand over hand. Max jumped at the rope and as his hands closed round it, he swung his legs up and booted Milsom in the chest.

In the same split second that Max's feet connected, the alarm bell began to ring and the rope party made their fatal mistake. As they felt Max's weight on the rope, they hauled in on the other end. Instead of hanging straight down into the centre of the well, the rope snapped taut and kinked around the edge of the hatch to where Milsom had fastened it at the bottom of the guide rails.

With the last ten seconds ticking away in slow motion, Spencer saw Milsom fall back from the blow and Max twist around on the rope and lose his foothold.

‘Down a bit!' yelled Spencer.

The rope crew let out two feet of rope. It was one foot too many. That extra twelve inches put Max back within Milsom's reach. As Max reached up to haul himself out by his hands alone, Milsom flung both arms round Max's legs and hung on. Milsom, plus the suit, plus the life-support pack was too much even for Max's muscles. He hung on to the rope but couldn't bend his arm to get any
higher. The veins knotted under the skin of his head and neck.

Spencer stood paralysed with the alarm bell jangling in his ears. Max's hands were clenched around the rope just below the bottom rim of the hatch – just an arm's length away. Spencer did not dare reach down and grab Max's hand. If the hatches closed, the twelve-inch-thick crystal rims would cut through his arm like an electric meat slicer. The alarm bell stopped ringing.

‘Five-'

Spencer saw Max's left hand scrabble over the smooth rim of the inner hatch.

‘Four-'

The fingernails tried to find a hold in the impossibly fine joint between the inner and outer spheres.

‘Three – '

Max's hands began to slip backward on the rope.

‘Two – '

His face contorted with rage as he launched himself upward, flexing his body back and forth like a marlin on a line in one last desperate effort to shake himself free of Milsom.

‘One-'

Max got one hand on top of the other.

‘Rotation…'

‘You stupid mother – '

The two circular hatches slid across each other eclipsing the rest of Max's curse at the same time as they cut the rope.

Connors sat staring at the monitors, unable to accept that he had just witnessed the last thirty-five seconds of Max's life. It was just not possible. On Screen 3 Spencer was on his knees pounding on the dome with his fist.

Connors knew what the answer would be but he had to ask. ‘Does Max have a chance?'

Wedderkind shook his head silently. He took off his glasses and began to wipe the lenses, head bowed.

‘What will happen? Will it be – ?'

‘Quick?' Allbright eyed Connors. ‘That hatch depressurizes in sixty seconds. As the air is exhausted he'll suffocate, and as the pressure drops to zero, the blood in his veins will boil.'

Connors winced. ‘Jesus…'

‘I think Max knew the risk he was taking,' said Wedderkind.

‘Yes,' said Allbright. ‘The one thing he didn't foresee was that Milsom would try and keep him in there.'

‘And anchor the rope to keep us from pulling Max out.' Connors cursed sharply under his breath. ‘It's stupid. He should have had a safety rope around him.'

‘Yes, he should have. It's easy to think of what could have been done. Someone on the platform could have gone in to help Max with Milsom. They might have ended up getting killed as well.'

‘Why?' asked Wedderkind. He put his glasses back on. ‘Why would Milsom want to do such a thing? He must have known what would happen to Max.' He lifted his hands. ‘It just doesn't make sense. Milsom was…'

I know what you mean, thought Connors. Always making jokes. This one had turned sour.

Spencer came back on Screen 5. His face was pale, his voice tense but controlled. ‘Arnold, we're going to rotate again at eleven twenty-two just to see what the situation is.'

‘Max doesn't have a chance, Dan.'

‘I know, but we just can't leave Chris in there. If he's gone crazy, it's our fault. Maybe if two people had gone in on separate ropes – '

‘Dan, now it's happened, all of us have got a dozen better ways of doing it. Believe me, we feel just as bad about it as you do.'

Connors took over the mike. ‘Let's just get one thing clear, Dan. Next time, if Chris won't come out on his own, nobody goes in or tries to help in any way. Is that clear?'

‘Yes,' said Spencer. Clear but unwelcome.

The hatches were rotated at 11:22. The inner sphere was empty. The only trace that remained of Max and Milsom was the severed length of rope still attached to the bottom end of the guide rails.

The hatch party returned from the plateau and came over with the rest of the research group to the operations room. They sat behind Connors, Allbright, and Wedderkind and gloomily watched the taped replay of Milsom's entry into the hatch and Max's rescue attempt. Spencer sat with his head in his hands during the last part.

Connors swung his chair around to face the hatch party. ‘Okay, let's talk this through and see what we can come up with. Milsom is shut inside the hatch. For five minutes, he is in a zero-pressure, zero-gravity situation. He's protected by his space suit so nothing can happen to him physically. But
something
happened, obviously. He experienced something that made him frightened to come out – made him frightened of you.'

Connors held up a hand to forestall Wedderkind. ‘Okay, let's allow for the fact that we might have misinterpreted his feelings. Perhaps he
wasn't
frightened. He didn't
want
to come out. At least there's no argument about that. Yet he wanted
you
to go in and join him – even though without suits, that was impossible. Fatal.'

‘He may have meant only me,' said Spencer. ‘We had planned to go in together.'

‘In that case, why did he hang on to Max?' asked
Wedderkind. ‘Chris must have known what would happen if Max was trapped inside the hatch.'

‘I can't explain why Chris did that.'

‘Somebody or something must have got to him,' said Connors. ‘If it was bad news, the natural reaction would be to get out and warn us. But he stayed inside. That could be because he'd become part of that bad news himself. Infected, contaminated in some way. He may have thought that if he stayed inside, he could stop it spreading to
us
.'

‘Perhaps it wasn't Milsom we saw,' said Page.

Oh, Mel Fraser would love you, thought Connors. He held back a smile but Page sensed his scepticism.

‘You did suggest he might have been got at.'

‘I did, but if Crusoe was going to use Chris for some kind of takeover bid, he would be no use stuck inside the hatch.'

‘Except as bait,' said Spencer. ‘That backpack will keep him alive for eight hours. As long as there's a chance of rescuing him, we have to keep trying.'

‘But Crusoe had no way of knowing that,' said Connors. ‘We could just leave Chris in there.'

‘But you won't,' said Spencer.

‘We will, if I decide that's the best thing to do,' said Connors. He felt the chill, negative vibrations of the group.

‘Could I come in with a comment?' It was Ray Collis, the language scientist. ‘What we haven't considered is the possibility that what Chris Milsom discovered was not
bad
news, but good news.'

Good news? Connors found the idea faintly ridiculous.

Collis seemed to share his opinion. He cleared his throat nervously. ‘If Milsom wouldn't leave Crusoe, it might have been because being inside was infinitely preferable to being outside. It would also explain why he
beckoned to the others in an effort to get them to join him.'