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‘Yes, Thorn,’ he nodded. ‘He could be our man, don’t you think?’

Norrington gazed at an imaginary point in the room.

‘Hmm,’ he said distinctly, very distinctly. A clearly audible
H
, followed by a time-winning
mmm
. ‘Interesting thought.’

‘He died three months after the launch of the satellite. It would fit time-wise.’

‘You’re right. Why didn’t I think of that myself?’

‘People often overlook the things that are right in front of them.’ Jericho smiled. ‘Did you have close contact with him?’

‘No.’ Norrington shook his head slowly. ‘I’m sure I wouldn’t have been so slow on the uptake if I had.’

‘No contact at all?’

‘My role was related to the general project security. Sure, we crossed each other’s path now and then, but other people were responsible for personnel issues.’

‘And what was Thorn like?’

‘As I said, we had nothing to do with one another. Rumour was that he was a playboy, which may have been an exaggeration. I think he just enjoyed life, but on the other hand he was enormously disciplined. A good – a
very
good astronaut. People don’t normally get put forward for a second Peary Mission that quickly.’

‘Think back, Andrew,’ asked Jericho. ‘Any information would be helpful.’

‘Of course. Although I fear that I won’t be able to offer anything that enlightening. Is Jennifer already in the picture on this?’

‘Hoff seems to have mentioned it to her. She knew about my suspicion.’

‘She didn’t tell
me
.’ Norrington sighed. ‘But you can see what it’s like here: we rush from one meeting to the next; everything’s so chaotic. Hanna is driving me insane. I can’t find anything dodgy in his background, and God knows it’s not the first time I’ve looked.’

‘You were responsible for the tour group?’

‘Yes. We didn’t know much about Hanna, but Julian was adamant about taking him along. Believe you me, I X-rayed the guy thoroughly. And nothing: he was clean.’

‘Anything new from Merrick?’

‘No. He’s trying to make contact. His botnet theory is probably correct.’ Norrington hesitated. ‘Owen, I don’t mean to suggest I don’t trust your instincts, but
we have to look at other Orley organisations too. We can’t be certain that we’re not dealing with a concerted action. Give me a bit of time with Thorn. I’ll be in touch as soon as I can.’

* * *

‘He’s lying,’ said Yoyo, when Jericho came back and filled her in on the conversation. ‘Norrington knew Thorn.’

‘He didn’t say he didn’t
know
him.’

‘No, I mean he
really
knew him.’ Yoyo pointed at her monitor. ‘Thorn attracted a lot of interest from the media, because of Peary, but also because he was good-looking and talkative. There are dozens of interviews with him, but I found the best one while you were away. A special report about the Peary crew of 2024, plus a human-interest piece. Vic Thorn, sought-after bachelor, on the Moon for the second time, blah blah blah. They took a film crew to his house and were given access while he threw a birthday party, and guess who was on the guest list?’

She started the video. An open-plan kitchen, a relaxed atmosphere. About two dozen people gathered around platters of finger food. Light jazz breezing over a sea of chatter, classics from the Rat Pack era. People dancing in the background, and a lot of dedicated drinking. Thorn laughs into the camera and says something about how wonderful friendship is, then can be seen in animated discussion with a man who slaps him familiarly on the shoulder a few frames later.

‘Is that what people who don’t have any contact with one another look like?’

Jericho shook his head.

‘Most definitely not.’

‘That some of these men will soon spend six months on another celestial body,’ said the female commentator, ‘seems strangely unreal on an evening like this, where—’

‘It could be coincidence,’ Yoyo conceded. ‘We can’t necessarily assume that Norrington is our mole, or even that Thorn had something to do with it. It’s pure speculation.’

‘Nonetheless, I want to know more about his time with NASA. What exactly he was responsible for, how close the contact really was. We know one thing for sure: he lied when he denied knowing Thorn well.’

‘—already his second mission in the Mountains of Eternal Light,’ the commentator was saying. ‘So called because the sun never sets at the lunar Pole. Originally, this played a decisive role for the energy supply to the Peary Base, but since then the construction of a fusion reactor has—’

‘Mountains of Eternal Light,’ whispered Jericho.

Yoyo looked up at him, confused.

‘Yes, that’s what the Polar regions are called. You know that.’

The cogs were turning in Jericho’s mind. As if in a trance, he went over to his desk and stared at the text of the fragmentary message:

There was very little of the text that still puzzled him. In essence, just one single word, added before the dark network went silent, and only because it occupied the space between
Operation
and
of timing
in such an odd way, as if it didn’t belong there.

MoonLight

That’s what he’d assumed it said, at any rate.

‘Diane. Fragment analysis. Attribute the origin data to the text building stones.’

‘Colour recognition?’

‘Yes, please.’

A moment later, words like
payload rocket
and
Enterprises
were transformed into colourful chains of alphabet letters.
Ent erpr ises
was, for example, assembled from three sections of data and other terms like
Operation
and
implemented
, came from a single data section.

Four fragments created
Mo o n light.

‘Oh, God,’ whispered Jericho.

‘What’s wrong?’ Yoyo jumped up, came over and leaned over his shoulder.

‘I think we’ve made a mistake.’

‘A mistake?’

‘A huge mistake.’ How could he have missed it? It was right in front of him. ‘We may have put them on the wrong track. The bomb isn’t supposed to go off in Gaia—’

‘Not in Gaia? But—’

‘There would be no point if it did, and we knew that the whole time. Idiot! I’m such a stupid, blind idiot!’

Operation Mo o n Light

Operation Mountains of Eternal Light.

Jia Keqiang was no politician. He was a taikonaut, a geologist and a major, in that order, or possibly the other way around depending on his mood, but he was no politician, that was for sure. In his experience, the only difference between Chinese and American spacemen, or indeed Russian, Indian, German and French, was the ideology behind them, and whether they were called astronauts, cosmonauts or taikonauts. What they all had in common though was a way of looking at the big picture which politicians, in his experience, never had, except of course for those few statesmen who had been in space themselves. Hua Liwei, his predecessor up on the Moon, had been an American captive for a while and still took every official appearance as an opportunity to accuse the Americans of hair-raising breaches of the lunar peace, but this couldn’t shake Jia’s opinion that spacemen were easygoing, unpolitical people. It was just that each and every one of them followed their script faithfully. Even Hua Liwei, once he had a drink or two inside him, in private, would happily admit that he liked the Yanks, that they had treated him very well and that, as it happened, they had some excellent Scotch tucked away in the catacombs at Peary Base.

Mind you, Hua also reckoned that the Americans were to blame for the whole farcical episode, and Jia agreed with him there. Nevertheless, he had done his best during the Moon crisis to argue for de-escalation and understanding all round, using what influence he had. The Party held him in high esteem as a bright young hope of the Chinese space programme; he was a highly decorated officer in the Air Force and had trained as a taikonaut under the watchful eye of the legendary Zhai Zhigang. On top of all this, he also had a doctorate in geology, specialising in exo-geology, qualifying him to work on the helium-3 mining operation. Zhai had passed on to Jia his love of ballroom dancing, and he was also inordinately fond of naval history, spending hours on end researching the brief flowering of Chinese seamanship in the fifteenth century and the fabled nine-masted ships of the time; he had
painstakingly built a three-metre-long scale model of Admiral Zhang He’s flagship. When he wasn’t up in space, he loved to sail with his wife and sons, to read books on maritime history and to cook, which he did as a sort of meditation. He was proud that his country had become the first after the USA to make it to the Moon, he was irked that Zheng Pang-Wang hadn’t made any progress on the space elevator, he was worried about America’s dominance in space and he was slow to make predictions about the future. He was a perfect public face for China, friendly, media-savvy, patriotic, and always careful to keep to himself his own personal opinion that politicians both sides of the Great Wall were not the brightest bulbs in the shop. ‘Frankly’, as the Americans would say, he thought that politicians were idiots.

But right now he had to think about politics, if he didn’t want to lose control of the story he’d suddenly found himself caught up in.

Julian Orley was sitting across from him.

The very fact that he was here was remarkable enough, but what Orley had to tell him was even more startling. Twenty minutes ago he had appeared from the dustbowl of the mining camp, along with his daughter-in-law, the American talk-show queen Evelyn Chambers and some Russian Jia knew nothing at all about, all riding on grasshoppers like a squad of defeated Jedi fleeing the field, and they had asked for shelter and for help. Everyone in the base had been asleep, of course, since it was half past three in the morning, though Orley seemed surprised when Jia pointed this out to him. They had hurried to take care of their unexpected guests, fussed around them and made hot tea, but even so the commander found himself in a tricky situation, since—

* * *

‘—without wishing to offend, Mr Orley, last time the Americans entered our territory, there was some trouble.’

They had tried talking Chinese for a while, but Orley’s laborious, broken Mandarin was no match for Jia’s fluent English. Jia’s crew, Zhou Jinping and Na Mou, were in the next room, looking after the others. Evelyn Chambers in particular was in a bad state, showing signs of an imminent nervous breakdown.

‘Your territory?’ Orley raised an eyebrow. ‘Wasn’t it the other way about?’

‘We are of course aware that America takes, let us say, a different view of the matter,’ Jia said. ‘That is, regarding who intruded into whose territory. Perception is such a subjective thing.’

‘It certainly is.’ The Englishman nodded. ‘But you see, Commander, I couldn’t give two hoots about any of that. I’m not answerable for the local mining operation, or for Washington’s territorial issues. I’ve built an elevator, a space station and a hotel.’

‘If you will permit me an observation, that list is not quite complete. You benefit from the mining, because you’re the one who can build the reactors.’

‘Still, I do it as a private businessman.’

‘NASA’s technologies would be inconceivable without Orley Enterprises, and vice versa. In China’s view, that makes you more than just a private businessman.’

Orley smiled. ‘So why does Zheng Pang-Wang constantly remind me that that’s just what I am?’

‘Perhaps to reassure you that you have a free choice in the matter?’ Jia smiled back. ‘Please don’t misunderstand me. I would not presume to question the honourable Zheng’s motives, but he is no more a private businessman than you are. You have more influence over world politics than many a politician. More tea?’

‘Please.’

‘You see, I am concerned that you should understand my situation, Mr Orley—’

‘Julian.’

Jia was silent for a moment, uncomfortable, then poured the tea. He had never understood what made the English and the Americans so keen to get onto first-name terms at every conceivable opportunity.

‘The extended agreements signed in November 2024 commit us to helping one another here on the Moon,’ he said. ‘We are taikonauts, you are astronauts, we are all of us humanity’s ambassadors to the stars. We should stand shoulder to shoulder. Speaking personally, I would allow you to use our shuttle the moment you ask for it, but the very fact that it is
you
asking gives the whole thing a very political aspect. On top of all which, there might be nuclear bombs involved.’

‘It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve had Chinese help in the matter. Without that, we’d probably know nothing at all about the bomb, and we’d be hiking happily around the lunar hills with Hanna until the whole place blew up.’

‘Hmm, well—’

‘On the other hand—’ Orley steepled his fingers. ‘I’ll put my cards on the table. The people who warned us can’t rule out that China might actually have a hand in the planned attack—’

‘Preposterous!’ Jia snorted. ‘What interest would my country have in destroying your hotel?’

‘You think it’s ridiculous?’

‘Quite ridiculous!’

* * *

Julian looked thoughtfully at the man sitting across from him. Jia was a pleasant enough chap, but he was a Beijing company man through and through. If the plot against Orley Enterprises really had been hatched in China, then Jia might well
have some part in it. In which case, he was speaking to his enemy right now, which was one more reason to speak openly; he would have to make the man understand that the puppet-masters were about to be unmasked, and that it might be a good move to spill the beans. If Jericho and his friends were wrong, then every secret and suspicion he aired was just one step closer to winning Jia’s trust. He leaned forward.