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‘The bomb was put into orbit in 2024,’ he said.

‘Okay, so?’

‘That was when we had that crisis you mentioned.’

‘We did everything that we could to ensure a peaceful resolution.’

‘There’s no arguing, though, that at the time, Beijing wasn’t very well inclined towards Washington. This being so, you may be interested to learn that the bomb was bought from Korean stockpiles, on the black market, and that the buyers were Chinese.’

Jia looked at him in astonishment. Then he passed his hand over his eyes, as though he had just walked head-on into a cobweb.

‘We’re a nuclear power,’ he said. ‘Why would the Party buy nuclear weapons on the black market?’

‘I never said that it was the Party who bought it.’

‘Hmm. Go on.’

‘It’s also worth noting that although the bomb was launched from African soil, the president of Equatorial Guinea at the time was just a puppet, and one that
your
government had installed. From what I understand, the technology for the Equatorial Guinea space programme all came from Zheng—’

‘Hold on!’ Jia expostulated. ‘What are you saying? That Zheng wanted to destroy your hotel, with an atom bomb?’

‘Please persuade me otherwise.’

‘Why would he do that?’

‘I have no idea. Because we’re commercial rivals?’

‘But you’re not! You’re not competing for the same markets. You’re competing for know-how. So you spy on one another, pay bribes, argue your corner, try to form alliances – but you don’t start hurling nuclear bombs about.’

‘The gloves are off now.’

‘But an attack like that would be of absolutely no benefit to Zheng, or to my country! What would destroying your hotel do to change the balance of power, even if you died as well?’

‘Quite so. What?’

For a long moment Jia said nothing at all, but kneaded at the bridge of his nose
and kept his lids shut tight. When he opened them again, the question in his eyes was easy to read.

‘No,’ Julian answered.

‘No?’

‘My visit here isn’t part of some double-cross, honourable Jia, it’s not a plan or an operation. I truly have no wish to harm you or your country. There’s a lot I could have left unmentioned if I had wanted to steer your decision-making.’

‘And what do you expect me to do now?’

‘I can tell you what I need.’

‘You want me to take you and your friends back to the hotel with our shuttle?’

‘As fast as you can! My son and daughter are in Gaia, as well as the guests and staff. We have reason to fear that Hanna is making his own way back there. I also need the use of your satellites.’

‘My satellites?’

‘Yes. Have you had any trouble with them in the last few hours?’

‘Not that I know of.’

‘Ours have failed completely, as I told you at the beginning. Yours seem to be working. I need two connections. One to my headquarters in London, and another to Gaia.’ Julian paused. ‘I have put my trust in you completely, Commander, even at the risk of your refusing my request. I can do no more. The rest is up to you.’

The taikonaut fell silent again, then said slowly, ‘You would of course be in China’s debt if I were to help you.’

‘Of course.’

Julian could see the wheels going round in Jia’s head. Right at this moment, the commander was worrying about whether his visitor might actually be right, and his government had plotted some dirty trick that he knew nothing about. And whether, perhaps, he was in danger of committing high treason if he offered unconditional help to the man who had put America where it was today.

Julian cleared his throat.

‘Perhaps you might bear in mind that somebody is trying to make a cat’s paw of your country,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t take too kindly to that, if I were you.’

Jia glowered at him.

‘Entry-level Psychology.’

‘Ah, well.’ Julian shrugged and smiled. ‘Something of the sort.’

‘Go next door and join your friends,’ Jia said. ‘Wait.’

* * *

Chambers couldn’t stop the loop from playing. Over and over again she saw the beetle’s foot coming down to crush her, and suddenly she began to twitch epileptically.
She slid down the wall of the hab module like a wet rag. Amber and Oleg were in there with her. It was cramped in the station, horribly cramped, quite unlike the American living quarters. Na Mou, one of the taikonauts, was fussing over them with tea and spicy crab cakes. While Julian was softening up the commander, Chambers had been telling the Chinese woman about the events of the last few hours. Perhaps Na understood more English than she spoke, but Chambers herself was so horrified by her own story that the words stuck in her throat.

‘You lie down,’ Na said, kindly. She was a Mongolian-looking woman with broad cheekbones and strongly slanted eyes, with something of the past about her, a suggestion of marching parades and collective farms.

‘It keeps on coming,’ Chambers whispered. ‘It keeps on and on.’

‘Yes. Legs up.’

‘Whether I shut my eyes or keep them open, it never stops.’ She grabbed Na’s wrist, and felt ice-cold sweat start up on her own upper lip and forehead. ‘I’ll be squashed any moment. By a beetle. Isn’t that crazy? People squash beetles, not the other way around. But I can’t stop seeing it.’

‘You
can
stop.’ Amber turned away from Zhou Jinping, the third crew member at the base, who had been questioning her eagerly. She sat down next to Chambers. ‘You’ve had a shock, that’s all.’

‘No, I—’

‘It’s okay, Evy. I’m pretty close to collapsing myself.’

‘No, there was something there.’ Chambers rolled her eyes, rather like a voodoo priestess in a trance, a mambo. ‘Death was there.’

‘I know.’

‘No, I was over on the other side, do you understand? I was really there. And Momoka was there, and – I mean, I knew that she was dead, but—’

Two dams broke, grief and shock, and tears spilled down over Chambers’ beautiful Latin features. She gesticulated as though trying to ward off some spell, then let her hands drop, exhausted, and began to cry. Amber put an arm around her shoulder and drew her in close, gently.

‘Too much,’ Na Mou said, nodding wisely.

‘It’ll all be all right, Evy.’

‘I wanted to ask her what happens to us next,’ Chambers sobbed. ‘It was so cold in her world. I think she laid a curse on me, she makes me see this terrible sight over and over, she must have seen something just as awful before she died, and—’

‘Evy,’ Amber said quietly but firmly. ‘You’re not clairvoyant. Your nerves are shot, that’s all.’

‘I didn’t even like her very much.’

‘None of us liked her very much.’ Amber sighed. ‘Apart from Warren, I suppose.’

‘But that’s awful!’ Chambers clung tightly to her, racked by sobs. ‘And now she’s gone, we couldn’t even – couldn’t even say something nice—’

Do we have to? Amber thought. Do you have to say nice things to someone who’s clearly a bitch, just on the off-chance that she’ll kick the bucket in the near future?

‘I don’t think she really saw it like that,’ she said.

‘Really?’

‘Really. Momoka had her own ideas about what’s nice or not.’

Chambers buried her face in Amber’s shoulder. The most powerful woman in American media, the voice who made presidents, cried for a few more minutes until she fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. Na Mou and Zhou Jinping had fallen quiet, respecting her sorrow. Rogachev was lying on one of the narrow beds, his legs crossed, and scribbling away on a piece of paper they had found for him.

‘What are you doing there?’ Amber asked, tired.

The Russian twiddled the pen in his fingers without looking at her.

‘I’m doing my sums.’

* * *

Jia Keqiang was wrestling with himself. It was a tough fight.

Plentiful experience told him what a long and stony path lay ahead if he took the matter through official channels, just as he knew that the Chinese space agency was largely staffed by paranoiacs. On the other hand, all he needed to do was make one telephone call, and he’d be free of all responsibility. He’d be out of danger of making any mistake, whereas if he spoke up for Orley on his own initiative he would be doomed to mistakes. All he had to do was pass the buck to one of the Party paper-shufflers, and if Orley’s hotel actually was destroyed, it would be no fault of his. Then Beijing would have to face accusations of failing to live up to their treaty obligations and provide adequate help, while he could make loud noises about how he had wanted to help and hadn’t been allowed. He could sleep easy in his bed, and not worry about his career.

If he
could
sleep easy.

On the other hand – what if Orley was right, and Beijing really was pulling the strings?

He turned his teacup thoughtfully between his fingers, staring down into the green tea. What then? He would dutifully call his superiors and tell them of Orley’s suspicions, only to find himself up to the neck in state secrets.
Real
state secrets, which were no concern at all of his, because nobody had brought him into the circle. Obviously, he’d be classed as a national security risk straight away. Flying Julian Orley over to Gaia in the shuttle was the least of his problems. It was hostile territory up
here, and in case of doubt, they just didn’t fly. Similarly, it would need permission and approvals in triplicate to let the Englishman use Chinese satellites to communicate. Before the Moon crisis, Jia would have been able to make a decision like that on his own, but that option was off the table now.

He would
have
to call.

So what would he tell them?

He pushed his teacup from right to left, left to right.

And all of a sudden he knew.

There was still a risk, but it could work. He stood up, went to the control panel, put a call through to Earth and had two short conversations.

* * *

‘I’ll sum it up,’ Jia said, after he had asked Julian back into the narrow control room to join him. ‘You invite some friends for a private trip. Quite unexpectedly, one of your guests turns out to be a killer, he mows down five people and leaves you stranded on the Aristarchus Plateau.’

‘That’s right.’

‘All this in response to his overhearing a conversation between yourself, Gaia and company headquarters in London, which was about how terrorists may have smuggled a nuclear bomb onto the Moon to destroy an American or Chinese moon base.’

‘A Chi—’ Julian blinked, bewildered. Then he understood. ‘Yes. That’s right. That’s just how it was.’

‘And you have no idea who might be behind it.’

‘Now that you put it that way, Commander, I haven’t the foggiest idea. All I know is that Chinese or American citizens may be in danger.’

‘Mm-hm.’ Jia nodded earnestly. ‘I understand. That makes it all very clear. By which I mean to say that it is in the interests of our national security to look into the matter together with you. I have explained precisely these facts to my superiors, and I have been given permission to prepare the satellite for your use, and then to fly you on to Vallis Alpina afterwards.’

Julian looked at the taikonaut.

‘Thank you,’ he said softly.

‘I’m pleased to be able to help.’

‘You do know, however, that the conversation I am about to conduct may lead to some unjustifiable accusations against China.’

Jia shrugged.

‘All that matters is that I don’t know right now.’

* * *

Shaw stood by the table of the conference room. She looked unkempt, as though
she had been running about the whole day. Andrew Norrington and Edda Hoff were with her. Behind them, a rather rumpled-looking blond man leaned in the doorway.

‘Julian!’ she called aloud. ‘My God, are you all right? We’ve been trying to reach you for hours.’

‘Have you been able to make contact with Gaia?’

‘No.’

‘Why not? You should be able to reach Gaia by the normal radio chann—’

‘We’ve tried that. Nobody is responding.’

Julian felt his heart skip a beat.

‘Before you ask, there hasn’t been an explosion at Vallis Alpina,’ Shaw said hurriedly. ‘At least that much is good news.’

‘And the base? Have you been able to talk to the moon base?’

‘No response.’

‘Erm, Julian,’ Norrington broke in. ‘Our theory is that somebody is using the satellites to disrupt communication by unleashing a huge botnet on the Moon. The comms equipment up there is completely clogged up, so to speak. The truth is, we’re half blind and completely deaf, we need information from you.’

‘How could anybody clog up our comms?’ Julian snapped.

‘Quite simple. You need an inside man.’

Inside man. Inside woman. Great God, why couldn’t he shake the idea that Lynn had something to do with it.

‘We’re just going over Hanna’s background,’ Hoff said. ‘There’s not a great deal we can say about him for sure, though his whole life story turns out not to be worth the paper it’s printed on. We are however agreed that he can’t be operating on his own up there.’

‘Once again,
where are you
?’ Norrington urged him.

Julian sighed. He gave a brief account of what had happened in the hours since communications had collapsed. Shaw’s face turned paler with every death he recounted.

‘Jia Keqiang has been kind enough to agree to fly us to the hotel,’ he finished up. ‘We’ll try to reach Gaia through the Chinese satellite first, to—’

‘Mr Orley.’ The blond man straightened up from the doorway and took a step forward. ‘You shouldn’t fly back to Gaia.’

Julian looked at the man, frowning in confusion. Then all of a sudden he realised.

‘You’re Owen Jericho.’

‘Yes.’

‘I beg your pardon.’ He spread his hands. ‘I should have thanked you long ago, but—’

‘Some other time. Does the name Hydra mean anything to you?’

Julian gawped. ‘Greek mythology,’ he ventured. ‘Monster with nine heads.’

‘Nothing else spring to mind?’

‘No.’

‘It looks as though an organisation called Hydra is responsible for all this. Heads that grow back when you cut them off. A great many heads. Invincible, worldwide. For a while we thought that the people pulling the strings were in Chinese high finance or politics, but whichever way you look at it, that doesn’t make any sense. By the way, a friend of yours was on Hydra’s hit list.’