Against Gravity

Kendrick shook his head. "I need to locate a research facility in the second chamber. That's exactly where I'll find what I'm looking for."

Sabak shook his head slowly. "A research facility?"

One of the flight crew spoke up. "That's where all the station's functions are centrally controlled, sir. The computer systems are evenly distributed throughout the entire shell so that the station can continue functioning in case of serious trauma. But the research facility is the central point where you input data directly and get collated feedback."

"We can't rule out sabotage either," said Buddy. "We don't know what Los Muertos have managed to do while they've been up here ahead of us."

Kendrick was unable to avoid a deep sense of dread about what they might actually find once inside the Archimedes. Everything they knew so far had been filtered through the lens of Robert's fractured, dead mind. When it came down to it, none of them had any idea what they were up against.

They headed through to the passenger area, which had transformed from a vertical cylinder to a long, low-ceilinged room. Buddy, Sabak, and the flight crew checked everyone in turn, making sure they were fully suited up.

By some mutual unspoken decision they left Draeger and his men to take care of themselves. Within minutes, the external airlock opened to co

Once Kendrick had his helmet on, the voices all around him were reduced to distant electronic squawks. He joined the queue and was guided by one of the pilots onto a platform with plenty of handgrips, obviously designed to carry them through the tube and into the station.

It took about twenty minutes to get everyone on board via the access tube. Kendrick and the rest found themselves in what had clearly been designed to be a reception area, full of desks and long, low couches. Kendrick studied some of the safety warnings and information posters still mounted on the pastel-coloured walls.

Sabak and his flight crew had gathered by another airlock door at the opposite end of the reception lobby. According to a nearby sign, this gave access to the interior of the main station proper.

Kendrick studied the screen built into the arm of his spacesuit. He played around with the menus, finding something that informed him that the atmospheric pressure outside his suit was currently zero. He wondered how this section of the station had come to lose its air, and if this meant that they were going to find the whole station depressurized.

He rejoined Sabak by the airlock door. One of the pilots had a panel open in the wall next to it and had attached a small device to some wires protruding from the interior. Kendrick wondered briefly why they didn't ask him or some other Labrat to magic the door open. Then he remembered that no one had ever tried that while wearing a bulky spacesuit.

After a little more effort, the airlock slid open to reveal a series of corridors branching off into the distance. Immediately ahead of them lay a wide-open space furnished with low pastel-coloured couches.

"No air, but the lights still work," Buddy observed through his spacesuit's intercom.

"Power runs through solar arrays on the station's exterior," Sabak explained. "Means we don't have to find our way through the dark."

Buddy laughed shakily. "Don't remind me of all that," he said.

A small crowd of Labrats had gathered nearby and one of the flight crew was briefing them, trying to keep them from either wandering off or getting in the way.

Sabak approached Kendrick. "Do you know how to switch over to a private cha

Kendrick watched as Sabak led him through the necessary sub-menus on his suit's arm-mounted screen.

Draeger and his men were just arriving in the reception area behind them. Kendrick caught the attention of one of the pilots whose suit's name tag read Roux.

"I need to ask you something," Kendrick began over a private link.

"Wait a second," said the pilot. "Okay, we can talk one-to-one now."

"I'm heading back down with you," Kendrick told him. "So when are you flying back – now or later?"

"We're waiting long enough to know that everyone's safe, then myself and one other will pilot the shuttle back home. We're going back to wait on board in just a few moments. Care to join us now?"

Kendrick shook his head. "I've got some things to take care of first."

Roux's face betrayed his feelings: a touch of bewilderment at whatever was happening here, something he couldn't understand even if he tried. Kendrick felt a brief stab of sympathy for the returning flight crew. They must have felt as if they were helping to orchestrate a mass assisted suicide.

"Okay," Roux said. "If we don't see you later you're stuck here. Just remember, we're not sticking around for more than a couple of hours at the most."

"Thank you." Kendrick smiled briefly and stepped away from him. He felt filled with a kind of numb desperation, finding it impossible to convince himself he wasn't indeed committing suicide. There was a very good chance that he wasn't going to get back home at all – and the thought terrified him, to the very core.

28 October 2096 On board the Archimedes

A map of the station was mounted on one wall. It showed several levels, or decks, interrupted by two enormous artificial caverns – one of which Kendrick had already seen, after a fashion, in his augment-induced visions. Near the map were a variety of panoramic photos of the interiors of the caverns. These showed technicians with the good looks of models taking soil samples or carrying out experimental procedures under the vast mirrors designed to reflect sunlight into the station's interior.

This, thought Kendrick, would be what the station's administrators wanted their prospective investors to see as soon as they arrived here. They would be brought to wait here before each tour started.

He began to wonder if the depressurization had been due to some kind of life-support failure. If that were the case, the electrical systems, at least in this part of the Archimedes, hadn't been affected. Panels set along the ceding and walls around them glowed softly with diffuse light.

Kendrick glanced over at Draeger and his men who had continued following behind everyone else at a careful distance. Smeby returned his inquiring look with a hostile glare.

Sabak moved to the centre of the large room and raised his hands for everybody's attention. He swivelled around to look at all of them, while pointing a finger exaggeratedly at the panel on his spacesuit's arm. He was asking them all to switch to the public cha

"We made it," Sabak was a

"If any of you have started to have doubts, if you've decided there's too much for you to leave behind, then now is the time to say so," Sabak continued. "Nobody will think the worse of you. This is something monumental, but we're only human. If you want to go home, then do so with our blessing."

He turned to scan all the faces around him, but no one spoke out, no one stepped forward. Even the ones Kendrick had seen earlier in floods of tears remained resolutely silent.