Landfall (The Reach, Book 2) (10 page)

Knile straightened, a slight smile on his face.  He wasn’t usually one to go around beating up old men in their bathrobes, but in Honeybul’s case, he was happy to make an exception.

Knile opened the door and stepped outside, then got moving toward Elk Parade.

10

“Good evening.  We hope you’ve enjoyed your journey aboard the Himura OrbitPod, a product of the Himura Corporation.  Travel in style, comfort, and safety with the leader in off-world conveyance – Himura.”

Ursie blinked in surprise at the woman on the display panel.  She was in her mid-thirties, neatly groomed with her hair pulled back in a bun, and she wore a collared suit that was a light shade of grey.  Her smile was steady and sure.  She seemed to stare expectantly at Ursie, who shifted u
ncomfortably in her seat, uncertain of what to say.

The image stuttered and distorted as if a spike of interference had gone through it, then righted itself again.

Ursie opened her mouth.  “Uh…”

What the hell is an OrbitPod?

The woman began to speak again. 
“We would like to advise that you are now approaching your destination.  Please wait until the docking procedure is complete before removing your harness.  Also please note that, once disembarked, you should not stray outside the yellow markings on the walkway.  Your commanding officer will have further instructions for you at the appropriate time.”

The image of the woman abruptly disappeared, and Ursie realised that what she was seeing was merely a pre-recorded announcement that had been developed for military personnel in the far-
distant past.  It was not a live video feed.  Her cheeks flushed in embarrassment at her gaffe.

She leaned forward and peered up through the bubble window at that rapidly approaching object she’d seen before, which she could only assume was the termination point of her journey, the habitat.  Now she could make out more details.  It was large and shiny and had rounded edges.  The inner section was angular and segmented, as if the habitat had been built in a modular fashion, with many of the segments poorly matched to those adjacent.  Ursie wasn’t sure what she had been expecting of Habitat One, but this wasn’t exactly it.

The panel came to life again.  The woman was back with her ever-present, vacuous smile.

“Himura Corporation would like to remind you that Habitat Thirty-O
ne is a fragile environment, and there is a strict no firearms policy.  Please ensure that any sidearms are stowed before entry.”

Habitat Thirty-One?
Ursie thought, perplexed. 
What the hell is that?  What happened to Habitat One?

She thought back to the moment she had fallen asleep in the chair, and wondered if something had happened to her while she had been out.  Had she been drugged and taken to another location, placed on the wrong railcar?

But that was impossible.  There was only one railcar.

Wasn’t there?

“Docking in sixty seconds,”
the woman said.  The image glitched and then disappeared again.

“Where am I?” Ursie said out loud, panicked.  She tapped on the display panel, but it seemed oblivious to her attempts to activate it.  “What’s going on?”

Ursie looked up again.  Now she could see more.  There were two bright, thin strands emanating from either side of the object like glinting spider webs, stretching out horizontally into the darkness of space.  As she watched, the object began to rapidly fill her window, and now she could make out the number ‘31’ stencilled across the bottom of it in large print.

“Hello?” she said, thumping the display panel desperately.  “I’m not su
pposed to go to Habitat Thirty-O
ne!  I don’t even know what that is!”

The woman reappeared on the panel. 
“Docking in thirty seconds.”

Ursie experienced a moment of sheer terror as a notion formed in her head.  She’d been drugged and placed in cryosleep, then shipped off to one of the outer colonies without any idea of what was happening to her.  This wasn’t even Earth anymore.  It was some other space elevator–

Calm down
, she told herself, taking a deep breath. 
That’s not what happened.

She looked down between her legs at the giant blue sphere far below.  She’d never before seen Earth from above, but regardless, she was pretty sure that this was it.  She couldn’t think of anywhere else in the solar system that would look quite the same – the darkness of night below her, and over toward the horizon
, the glint of blue beneath murky clouds.

She’d been asleep for a few hours, that was all.  There had to be some other explanation for what was going on, and a perfectly reasonable one at that.

She felt the harness that was keeping her in the seat pressing more firmly against her body, and she realised that the railcar’s momentu
m was slowing.  Habitat Thirty-One was huge now, blotting out the blackness of space above and filling the window over her head.  She had the odd sensation that the railcar was motionless, and that the habitat itself was descending upon her like some monolithic bird of prey, ready to take the diminutive craft within its claws.

A broad slash appeared in the underbelly of the habitat, gradually widening as the railcar drew near, and Ursie could see that there was a sizeable cavity within, large enough to accommodate the entire vehicle, she figured.  An airlock?

She had no more time to theorise about what was happening.  Suddenly they were inside, and the railcar shuddered to a halt.  Ursie white-knuckled the arms of her chair as a series of loud thunks and jolts shook her capsule.  They sounded like massive bolts being withdrawn and inserted into the bowels of the railcar.

“Rotating,”
the woman on the screen said with aggravating calmness. 
“Please remain seated while the OrbitPod achieves the correct orientation.”

There was another loud grinding noise, then the railcar shook as it
began to turn slowly on its axis.  Out of the corner of her eye Ursie could see the airlock doors closing, and then, sickeningly, the whole airlock seemed to turn around her.  She felt her stomach churn and thought she would surely vomit, felt it rising up her throat, but somehow she held it in.

The railcar finished rotating 180 degrees and then shuddered again as it was locked into place.

“Pressurising airlock.  Please wait.”

“Go to hell,” Ursie muttered, fighting back nausea as she hung there upside down, wondering how she was going to get out of this capsule with her feet pointed at the ceiling.

“Good evening, and thank you for travelling with Himura.”

The woman disappeared for the final time, and then the transparent petal-like sheaths of Ursie’s capsule door slid apart, and a waft of cool air from outside swept across her body.  She realised that she’d been sweating profusely, and that her armpits and neck were drenched.

A door in the airlock opened and, shockingly, two men in white jumpsuits began walking into the chamber upside down like a pair of acrobats performing some gravity-defying feat.  Ursie watched them curiously for a moment, and then her harness suddenly disengaged.  She cried out and clutched at it, fearing she would fall out of her capsule and tumble down into the space below, but she remained firmly rooted in her seat.

It was then that she realised that her hair was not dangling down as she might have expected.  She clamped a hand over her eyes, fighting back another wave of nausea and disorientation, and when she opened them again she realised what had happened.

Sometime
during the docking procedure the gravity had transferred.  Down had become up, and up had become down.  The men in white jumpsuits were not walking on the ceiling, but on the floor.

She eased forward out of her seat and stepped out of the capsule.  Around her, other passengers were also disembarking, bleary-eyed and unsteady.  An old man next to her was clasping at his neck and working his head to free up the muscles, and beyond him a girl not much older than Ursie was sporting a large stain down the front of her blouse.

It seemed that Ursie had not been the only one to experience some discomfort during those final stages of the journey.

Ursie looked around for her Sponsor, and saw that he had already climbed down from the railcar and was standing on the walkway waiting for her to join him.  He was still wearing the aviator sunglasses.  Ursie gripped the nearest handhold and clambered down, then made her way over to him.

“Quite disorientating, is it not?” he said in that deep voice, the barest hint of a smile on his lips.  “The first time, at least.”

“Just a bit.”

“It’s the centrifugal force,” he explained.  “The habitat is like a hollow ball on the end of a string as it spins around the Earth.  The gravity is exerted away from the planet instead of toward it, and those inside are pushed against the outward wall.”

“Don’t know much about that,” Ursie said, not the slightest bit interested in the physics of it.  “Or a
bout this whole Habitat Thirty-O
ne business, either.  What’s going on here?”

“They’ll bring our luggage in a moment,” he said, pointing to where the men in white were unloading the cargo section of the railcar.  “After that we can talk.”

The passengers began to stream past them, wide-eyed and excited.  They were all dressed in expensive-looking clothes, and Ursie guessed that every last one of them had come from Lux.  She wondered how many ever came from further down the Reach, or from Link.  Not many, she decided.  She was probably the only one on this journey who had come from less fortunate circumstances.

She already felt like an outsider in this place.

A few moments later their luggage was delivered.  Ursie hefted the small case that contained her belongings, and the man in the aviators took possession of his own suitcase.

“Follow me,” he said.  “I’ve arranged some temporary accommodation for us.  I’ll explain more on the way.”

He led Ursie through the doorway, along a narrow corridor with transparent sides.  It afforded a
360-
degree view of their surrounds, the blackness of space under their feet and the Earth high above.  Ursie could see the Wire stretching upward toward the planet.  From this perspective it almost seemed as though the habitat were hanging from the bottom of the Earth on the end of a very long tether.

It was, in a word, breathtaking.

“Quite a sight, isn’t it?” the man said.  Ursie peeled her eyes away from the view above and saw that the man had extended his hand toward her.  “My name is Jodocus van Asch.  I’m so very glad to have you here, Ursie.”

Ursie reached out and took his hand.  His grip was firm, his hand warm.

“Thanks.”

“Now,” he said with a smile, “let me show you around.”

11

Duran followed Zoe through the dank corridor that led out of the room in which he’d awoken, and an odd thought struck him – the place looked like a sewer.  It had the same claustrophobic and cramped features, if not the smell.  There was something sinister about it that Duran couldn’t quite put his finger on.  Perhaps he had
simply seen too many places just like it that had been occupied by the scum of the Earth, and could not shake the taint.

Above them, thick bunches of blue, black and orange cables ran along the ceiling, loosely bundled together in rusted metal cable trays.  In many places these proved inadequate, the cables and wires spilling out and drooping over the edges of the tray
, where they snagged annoyingly at the top of Duran’s IV pole as he pushed it along.

“So uh… did you guys build your base out of a toilet or something?” he asked Zoe at one point.

“Something like that.”

“I mean, even for Gaslight, this is pretty shitty.”

“No one comes looking for us here.”

A cockroach scuttled away from Duran’s feet, and another narrowly avoided being crushed under the wheels of the IV pole.

“On the upside, you could open a bug bar factory here,” he said with an effort, finding himself out of breath already.  “Plenty of raw materials.  Feed the hungry masses and make a nice profit as well.”

Zoe smiled patiently at his little jest.  “Whatever pays the bills, right?”

She pointed to an adjoining tunnel and they turned into it.  Duran looked back, imagining that they’d already come a long way, but the room in which he’d awoken was only a few metres behind them.  That was demoralising.  He was weaker than he’d thought.  Even the simple act of walking was tough going in his current condition.

“How long have you been here?” he said as he fought to hide that he was struggling and out of breath.

“Me?  A couple of years.”

“And how long were you an Enforcer before that?”

“Long enough to learn that I didn’t belong with them.”