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‘The Arena of the Spirits,’ Julian whispered with an air of mystery, a youthful grin playing around the corners of his mouth. ‘An observation point for sinister light phenomena. Some people are convinced that Aristarchus is inhabited by demons.’

‘Interesting,’ said Evelyn Chambers. ‘Perhaps we should leave Momoka here for a while.’

‘That would be the end of any sinister phenomena,’ Momoka observed drily. ‘After only an hour in my company the last demon would have emigrated to Mars.’

Locatelli raised his eyebrows, full of admiration at how coquettishly his wife was twisting and turning in the mirror of her own self-criticism.

‘And can you tell us something about the cause?’ Rogachev asked.

‘Yeah, well, there are a lot of arguments about that. For decades light phenomena have been witnessed in Aristarchus and other craters, but until a few years ago ultra-orthodox astronomers refused even to acknowledge the existence of such “Lunar Transient Phenomena”.’

‘Perhaps volcanoes?’ Hanna suggested.

‘Wilhelm Herschel, an astronomer of the late eighteenth century, was convinced of that. Very popular in his day. He was one of the first to spot red dots in the lunar night, some of them around here. Herschel supposed they were glowing lava. Later his sightings were confirmed, other observers reported a violet haze, menacingly dark clouds, lightning, flames and sparks, all extremely mysterious.’

‘To spit lava, the Moon would have to have a liquid core,’ said Amber. ‘Does it?’

‘You see, that’s the rub.’ Julian smiled. ‘It’s generally assumed that it does, but so deep underground that volcanic eruptions are ruled out as an explanation.’

Momoka peered suspiciously out of the side windows into Aristarchus’ gaping mouth.

‘You can stop trying to make things so exciting,’ Evelyn said after a while.

‘Wouldn’t you rather believe in demons?’

‘I don’t see demons as romantic,’ said Parker. ‘It would mean the Devil living on the Moon.’

‘So?’ Locatelli shrugged. ‘Sooner here than in California.’

‘So the Devil is someone you make jokes about.’

‘Fine.’ Julian raised his hands. ‘There is a bit of volcanic activity up here. No lava streams, admittedly, but it’s been noted that the phenomena always occur when the Moon is closest to the Earth, so when gravity is tugging at it particularly hard. The consequences are lunar quakes. When that happens, pores and cracks appear, hot gases emerge from the deeper regions to the surface, bursting out at high pressure, regolith is fired out, albedo accumulates at the exit point, and already you have a glowing cloud.’

‘I get it,’ said Momoka. ‘It needs to fart.’

‘You should stop giving away all the tricks,’ Amber said with a sideways glance at Parker. ‘I thought the demons were more exciting.’

‘And what’s that thing there?’ Edwards narrowed his eyes and pointed outside. Something massive was twisting its way north-west of the crater, across the plateau with all its furrows and potholes. It looked like a huge snake, or rather like the cast for a snake, a beast of mythical proportions. The funnel-shaped head joined a twisting body that narrowed until it opened up, thin and pointed, in the next plain along. The whole thing looked as if it had once been the resting-place of Ananden, the ancient Indian world snake that carried the earth and the universe, the scaly, breathing throne of the god Vishnu.

‘That,’ said Julian, ‘is Schröter’s Valley.’

Black soared above the formation at great height, so that they could admire its vast dimensions, the whole of the great Moon valley, as Julian explained, four billion years old; and other people had in fact been struck by its serpentine nature. The head crater, six kilometres across, was called Cobra’s Head, a cobra that twisted 168 kilometres to the shore of the Oceanus Procellarum. On a plateau that overlooked Cobra’s Head from the north-east, a levelled area came into view, lined with hangars and collectors. A radio mast gleamed in the sunlight. Black brought the vehicle down towards the landing field and set Ganymede down gently on its beetle legs.

‘Schröter space station,’ he said, and grinned conspiratorially at Julian. ‘Welcome to the Realm of the Spirits. The chances of us seeing any are slight, and yet, ladies and gentlemen, stay away from suspicious-looking holes and cracks. Helmets and armour on. Five in the lock at any one time, like this morning. Julian, Amber, Carl, Oleg and Evelyn first, followed by Marc, Mimi, Warren, Momoka and me. If I may ask you.’

Unlike the landing module of the Charon, in a Hornet shuttle you didn’t have to suck out all the air in the cabin, but left it via a lift that doubled as an airlock. Black extended the shaft. They took their chest armour from the shelf and helped each other into their tightly fitting suits, while Julian tried to banish the shadow that stripped his mood of its usual radiant power. Lynn was starting to change, he couldn’t deny it. She was showing signs of inner seclusion, had developed unattractive rings around her eyes and was treating him with growing and unprovoked aggression. In his puzzlement he had confided in Hanna – a mistake, perhaps, although he couldn’t say exactly why. The Canadian was fine, in fact. And yet he had recently started feeling slightly shy around Hanna, as if he would only have to look a bit more closely, and unsettling trigonometric connections would appear between him, Lynn and the ghostly train. The longer he brooded about it, the more
certain he was that the solution was right before his eyes. He saw the truth without recognising it. A detail of banal validity, but as long as his inner projectionist slept the sleep of the just, he couldn’t reach it.

Along with the others, he entered the lock and put his helmet on. Through the viewing windows he could see the interior of the shuttle, while the air was being sucked out of the lock. He saw Locatelli delivering speeches, Momoka helping Parker into the survival backpack, then the lift cabin plummeted, emerged from the belly of the Ganymede and travelled down the shaft to just above the asphalt of the landing field. A ramp emerged from the floor of the cabin and they stepped outside along it. It had not been planned for shuttles to land on anything but solid surfaces, but if such a landing were necessary, any contact between the cabin and the fine dust of the regolith was to be kept to a minimum, because otherwise—

Julian hesitated.

All of a sudden it was as if the projectionist had rubbed his eyes. Yawning, he pulled himself together to climb down into the archive and look for the missing roll of film.

He had just seen it again: the truth.

And again he hadn’t understood it.

He watched with irritation as the second group left the lock. Black waved them over to one of the cylindrical hangars. Three open rovers were parked in it, surprisingly like historical moon-cars, but with three axles, bigger wheels and room for six people in each. The improved design of the rover, Black explained, made it faster than in the early years of lunar car manufacture, and also fit to drive on extremely uneven ground. Each of the wheel mountings could swing if necessary to a ninety-degree vertical, which was enough to let it simply drive over large boulders.

‘But not on the path that we’re about to take,’ he added. ‘We’re following the northern stretch of the valley until the first turning of the cobra’s body. A rocky outcrop there, the spur of the Rupes Toscanelli scarp, runs right up to the edge of the gorge, Snake Hill. I’ll tell you no more than that for the time being.’

‘And how far are we going?’ Locatelli wanted to know.

‘Not far. Just eight kilometres, but the journey is spectacular, right along the edge of the Vallis.’

‘Can I drive?’ Locatelli was jumping around with excitement. ‘I really want to drive that thing!’

‘Of course.’ Black laughed. ‘The steering is easy, it’s the same as the buggies. You shouldn’t drive straight at the biggest obstacles, if you don’t want to go flying out of your seat, but otherwise—’

‘Of course not,’ said Locatelli, already imagining his foot on the accelerator.

‘Will we let him have his fun?’ Julian said to Momoka.

‘Of course. As long as you let me have the fun of driving in the other rover.’

‘Good. Warren is driving rover number two, and promises to bring Carl, Mimi and Marc safely to their destination, the rest of us will take the first one. Who’s the chauffeur?’

When everyone said they wanted to be the chauffeur, the choice fell on Amber. She was told how the various functions worked, took a test drive and got everything right straight away.

‘I want one of these when we’re back down there,’ she cried.

‘You don’t,’ Julian grinned. ‘It’s six times as heavy down there. It would fall to bits in the garage.’

The convoy set off. Black let Amber drive ahead to keep Locatelli from breaking speed records, so that they had been driving for ten minutes when the valley dropped away on their left in a wide curve. A narrow path led to a high ridge, from which you could enjoy an incomparable view of the Vallis Schröteri. You could see almost the whole course of it from there, but something else was holding everyone’s attention. It was a crane, mounted on a platform that loomed into the gorge. As they approached they made out a winch at ground level. A steel cable ran through the cantilever and led to a capacious double seat. There was no need to explain how the crane worked. Once you had taken your seat, the cantilever swung over the gorge, and you floated, legs dangling, above the abyss.

‘Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant!’ Marc Edwards’ extreme-sport soul was boiling over. He jumped from the parked rover, stepped to the edge of the platform and looked down. ‘What’s the drop here? How far could we abseil down?’

‘Right to the bottom,’ Peter Black explained, as if he had dug the gorge with his own hands. ‘One thousand metres.’

‘Bollocks to the Grand Canyon,’ Locatelli observed with familiar sophistication. ‘It’s a trickle of piss compared to this one.’

‘Does that thing work?’ Edwards asked.

‘Of course,’ said Julian. ‘Once the factory’s up and running, we’ll build a few more.’

‘I absolutely have to try it out!’

‘
We
absolutely have to try it out,’ Mimi Parker corrected him.

‘Me too.’ Julian thought he could see Rogachev smiling. ‘Perhaps Evelyn would keep me company?’

‘Oh, Oleg,’ laughed Evelyn. ‘You want to die with me?’

‘No one will die as long as I’m working the winch,’ Black promised. ‘Okay, Mimi and Marc will go down first—’

‘I’m going with Carl,’ said Amber. ‘If he has the guts.’

‘I do. With you I always do.’

‘So then Amber with Carl after that, and then Oleg and Evelyn. Momoka?’

‘No way.’

‘Then Momoka will come with us,’ Julian suggested. ‘The rest of us will climb Snake Hill in the meantime. Oleg, Evelyn, you too. It’ll take a while before Peter has lowered those four down and hoisted them back up again.’

‘I’ve had a think,’ said Amber. ‘I’d rather go up the mountain with you. What’s up, Carl?’

‘Hey! Are you bottling out?’

‘Don’t get your hopes up.’

‘Then see you later. Take care. I’ll take a look and see what lies ahead.’

* * *

Hanna watched the others start their climb. The path led gently upwards, curved around and disappeared into a ravine. It reappeared a considerable stretch further up, ran along the flank for about a hundred metres, a steep climb now, and then vanished from view once more. Clearly you had to circle the slope to reach the high plateau. Hanna would have loved to go with them, but he was more fascinated by the gorge, a kilometre deep, with vertical walls on all sides. Perhaps he could climb the high plain later on, with Mimi and Marc. He would have preferred to take the trip on his own, but wherever he went, someone would be talking to him on his headset. At least you could turn individual participants on or off, only the guides were transmitting at all times, and had a right of access to everyone’s auditory canal.

He watched with interest as Black released the winch, opened the faceplate of the console and activated the controls by pressing on one of five fist-sized buttons. Primitive lunar technology, one might have thought, built for the clumsy extremities of aliens – and wasn’t that exactly what they were on this strange satellite, aliens, extraterrestrials, their fingers forced into hard shells? Black pressed a second button. The cantilever was set in motion and began to swing in. Parker and Edwards jostled each other impatiently on the edge of the platform.

‘What are the other buttons for?’ Hanna asked.

‘The blue one swings the crane back out again,’ said Black. ‘The one below it turns the winch on.’

‘So the black one’s there to bring the lift back up again?’

‘You’ve got it. Child’s play. Like most things on the Moon, in fact, so that not everything depends on the expert.’

‘If he’s dead, for example.’ Edwards stepped back from the edge to make room for the incoming lift.

‘Don’t say things like that,’ Parker protested.

‘Don’t worry.’ Black opened the safety guard of the seats. ‘I’d consider it quite irresponsible of me to die while you’re hanging there. If some unexpected local demons swallow me up unexpectedly, you’ll still have Carl. He’ll winch you back up again. Ready? Off we go!’

* * *

‘Shit!’ said Locatelli.

They had passed the ink-black shadow of the ravine, climbed the slope and had just reached the spot where the flank curved around, when he noticed. He looked irritably down into the valley. The gorge gaped far below them, four kilometres wide, so that the platform stuck to the edge of the rock like a toy, populated by tiny, springy figures, hopping up and down. Peter was just helping the Californian into the seat, while Hanna studied the winch.

‘What’s up?’ Momoka turned round.

‘I forgot my camera.’

‘Idiot.’

‘Really?’ Locatelli took a sharp breath. ‘And who’s the other idiot? Have a think.’

‘Hey, no need to fight,’ Amber cut in. ‘We’ll just take my cam—’

‘Are you talking about me?’ Momoka snapped.

‘Who else? You could have thought about it too.’

‘Shut the hell up, Warren. What would I want to do with your stupid camera?’