Acid Sky (20 page)

The footsteps continued to the bottom of the spiral stairs, scuffed the floor as they stopped, then moved past where she was hiding, heading towards Coombes. They paused suddenly next to her, and for a terrifying moment, she thought she had been discovered, and then they continued off in a different direction.

The dense foliage in the farm deadened sounds, and the noise from the tanks next to her made it hard to make it out, but she could hear voices. She moved at a crouch, away from the main stairs, closer to the voices, until she could make them out.

‘No, she left a while ago. There’s been nobody down here since.’ The voice belonged to Coombes.

‘Have you sorted it?’

Whose voice was that!

‘Yes. She’s got the packet for the
Curtiss
tomorrow.’

‘Alright. I’ll alter the rosters to put her on ferry duty, and I’ll go with her, keep an eye on things, see how she’s taking it. If she’s tempted to talk, she’ll talk to me first.’ The voice was terribly familiar, but some part of Clare just refused to believe who it was.

‘Is Maintenance sorted?’

‘That’s my problem. Yours is staying out of trouble. Next time, you keep your hands off the rookies. She was just upright enough to have reported you, and if she had, you wouldn’t have lasted long. If she’d have pushed you off the deck the other night, that would have saved us a lot of trouble.’

‘All right, it’s sorted now.’ Coombes sounded uneasy.

‘Yeah, and who had to sort it? Trouble is, you always think with your dick, and I end up having to rescue your stupid ass,’ the voice said contemptuously.

Suddenly, Clare recognised the speaker. A wave of panic swept over her as she realised who it was. It was impossible! But there he was, talking to Coombes about her!

It was
Shaffer!

She actually felt dizzy. It couldn’t be! He had got out of the cockpit, seen her off on her first solo, comforted her when she landed, shared a drink with her in the ready room. And he had tried to
kill her
. She fought off the sensation of fainting, of falling, and she grabbed clumsily at the edge of the plant tray behind her. It was empty, and it slid off the irrigation bench and crashed onto the floor.

Jesus Christ!

‘What the fuck—’

‘There’s someone there! I thought you said no one had been in!’

‘I – I thought—’

And then the voices were silenced, and Clare knew with a deathly certainty that Shaffer had shut Coombes up with a wave of his hand, and was questing the rows of plants, looking for her.

She had to get out. She had to get out. The stairs! It would be the first place they’d go for, to cut off her escape. She had to get as close as she could to the stairs, before creating some distraction so she could make a run for it. You idiot, she told herself, if you could have just kept quiet, they would have gone, and they wouldn’t have known.

She moved as quickly as she could back to the water processing plant where she had been before. She could see the stairs from here, through the rows of plants, and she could see Shaffer’s head by the curve of the stairs. It turned slowly, silently, seeking her out. He was carrying a spade, holding it in two hands like a raised weapon.

Then, from some way behind her, a faint sound of movement. She looked back and saw Coombes’s hand reaching round the next corner; he seemed to be creeping around at a crouch, like her. In a moment he would round the corner, look down the row, and see her, and they would get her.

There was an empty plant pot on the floor near her. She reached out and took it, and lobbed it over the row of plants to land in the next aisle.

At the sound, Coombes’s hand withdrew, and Shaffer, his face hard, moved away from the stairs. She had to move quickly. Once they saw what it was, Shaffer would turn round, and she was dead.

She crept forwards. He was still moving away from her, towards the sound. The first step of the spiral staircase was on the other side, and she had to get round.

‘Hey!’ Coombes yelled,
‘By the stairs!’

Clare swung round the stairs and leaped up the steps, two at a time. She heard the hammering of Shaffer’s feet as he covered the few metres in seconds, and a whoosh of air as he swung the spade at her ankles, but he missed, and it clanged hard against the metal of the stairs, making them shake. She raced up the steps to the lobby outside the galley and ran for the front of the ship. Someone yelled at her to slow down. She didn’t stop running until she was in the corridor outside the captain’s day cabin, where she hammered frantically on the door.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

High above the planet, the deep space tug
Portland
, newly arrived from Earth, moved against the stars in its orbit. Tomorrow they would start preparations for an onward flight to Mars, in a change of plan brought about by the
Denver’s
troubles. Today though, the tug was relatively quiet as the crew caught up on lost sleep, and the officer on duty sat alone in the command seat on the flight deck.

Normally, he would have been conducting one of his hourly regular checks of the tug’s systems. Right now, his attention was focused on one of the screens in front of him, showing the cloudscape below.

The clouds of Venus rarely showed any structure when viewed from this altitude in visible light. In ultra-violet it was a different story, but today there was a feature growing in the atmosphere that could be seen by anyone. Black and growing, it spread like a giant bruise across the snowy whiteness of the clouds.

‘Carrier Two-Eight Langley, Space tug Two-Six Portland.’

‘Langley control, go ahead.’

‘Langley, we’re seeing something in the atmosphere ahead of you, it looks like a large dark swirl against the clouds.’

The duty commander, Lieutenant Colonel Conway, came over to the orbital communications desk in the main control room. He plugged his headset into the desk.

‘Portland, Langley commander here. Can you give us any more information?’

‘It’s not like anything we’ve seen before. It could be some kind of atmospheric storm, but if it is, it’s huge. Diameter approximately six hundred kilometres, rotating, cyclonic. It may have something to do with what we think is an eruption on the surface. Sprang up about two hours ago in the Ishtar region. Massive infra-red signature.’

‘What’s the track of the storm?’

‘Ground track is two six zero, moving slower than the clouds, so we think it’s linked to a surface feature. At your present course and speed, you’ll pass by its southern edge.’

‘Roger Portland, thanks for letting us know.’

‘You’re welcome. We’ll continue to monitor it. Will let you know if we’ve got anything else on it. Portland out.’

Conway turned to the chart table in the centre of the room and frowned. Storms on Venus rarely reached into the upper atmosphere, but when they happened, the carriers steered well clear of them. He punched up the long-range weather scan, and eyed the spiralling mass of red and yellow at the edge of the screen. Wind speed markers and isobars clustered round the formation.

‘Yates?’

‘Yes sir?’ The navigation officer looked up from his console.

‘Take a look at this.’ Conway beckoned him over, and indicated the weather display. The younger man stared at it for a moment, and looked back at Conway in concern.

‘What is it – a storm?’

‘Looks like it to me.’ Conway shook his head. ‘I’ve never seen anything this big before, though. We’ll know more as it gets closer, but I don’t want to hang around to find out. I think we should alter course immediately and go well to the south to avoid it.’

The navigation officer punched up another display on the table and pointed to the locations of the other carriers. ‘It’s going to disrupt operations, sir. If we go round it, it’ll put us too far away from the
Curtiss
if a diversion’s needed, and we’re expecting a spaceplane first thing in the morning.’

Conway was silent, considering. Eventually he said: ‘Take us round – I don’t like those wind speeds. Inform the
Curtiss
that we’re having to change course and see if the
Wright
can’t circle back to be the diversion carrier. And get Lieutenant Coombes up here, we’d better have him take a look at this.’

‘Yes, sir.’ The navigation officer turned to the helmsman at his station nearby. ‘Left turn to heading two three zero.’

‘Two three zero, roger.’ The helmsman dialled in the new heading to the autopilot, and the giant craft started a slow and gentle turn to the left.

Conway watched for a minute as the horizon slowly tilted and the ship moved onto its new course. He eased his shoulders. ‘I’m going to call the captain, let him know what we’re doing.’ He moved across to the command seat in the centre of the room, and called up the captain on the intercom.

‘Captain, what is it?’
The voice was filled with irritation.

‘Control room, Conway here. Sorry to disturb you sir, but we have an extreme weather formation a few hours dead ahead and we’re going to have to go round it. I’d recommend a very wide margin.’

‘What kind of extreme weather?’
the captain’s voice demanded.

‘Looks like a cyclonic vortex, sir. Never seen one this big before. Severe windshear warning on the Doppler radar.’

‘Keep us well away, then.’

‘Yes sir. It’s going to put us on the edge of diversion range from the other carriers, and we’ve got a landing at dawn tomorrow. It might be better to scrub the landing, or ask if the spaceplane can accept a landing on another carrier?’

There was a pause on the line before the captain answered.

‘No, don’t do that. They need to land here.’
The voice from the speaker sounded oddly flat. ‘Can you keep us on the edge of diversion range and still get round that weather?’

‘Yes sir. We’re calling the
Wright
to ask them if they can come round and offer a better diversion.’

‘I doubt if they could do it.’
Conway could visualise the captain leaning across to look at his repeater displays, calculating distances in his head.
‘Worth asking, though.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Have you got Lieutenant Coombes up there?’

‘No sir, we’re just trying to locate him now.’

‘Very well, keep me informed.’
The channel clicked off abruptly.

Conway sat back in the deeply padded command seat, a puzzled expression on his face. Something in Donaldson’s behaviour made him uneasy. The captain would normally have been up here in moments at something like this, but had left it to him, Conway. And what was so important that the spaceplane absolutely had to land here tomorrow? They could ferry the passengers and cargo over from one of the other carriers as soon as the weather cleared. But the captain hadn’t offered any explanation.

Conway’s frown deepened. He got up and went back to the chart table, and stared at the approaching storm. Ragged fingers of dark cloud spread over the edge of the screen, like clutching hands reaching out towards them.

In his day cabin, Donaldson’s finger still rested on the intercom button. So. His nemesis, Lieutenant Colonel Simmons, would have to make a marginal landing. If it had been any other incoming flight, he would have scrubbed it. But to postpone the landing now would just look like he was clinging on to command, and that would just make matters worse for him.

If Simmons is going to relieve me of command, he’s got to get on board first. Let’s see how he likes landing on a carrier in the middle of a fucking storm.

In the middle of these thoughts, he was interrupted by a furious pounding on the door.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Donaldson strode over to the door to the corridor and wrenched it open angrily. Clare stood there, panting for breath.

‘Foster! What the hell do you think—’

‘I’m sorry sir; I have to talk to you immediately. One of your senior officers is supplying drugs on board and they’re after me; you’ve got to help me.’

The captain looked at her in astonishment for a moment.

‘You’d better come in.’ He looked up and down the corridor before closing the door behind her. ‘Sit down. Do you want a coffee?’ He moved to the machine in the corner of the room.

‘No thank you sir. Sir, I really need to tell you—’

‘Sit down, Foster, and that’s an order. Take a breath. I’ve locked the door; whatever it is you’re running from, you’re safe here.’

Clare took a long breath, and exhaled. It did feel better. She moved to sit down in the chair in front of the captain’s desk. He was right; she was safe now.

‘Now, would you like a drink?’

She nodded. ‘Yes please, sir.’

‘How do you take it?’ Donaldson busied himself at the machine.

‘Black, no sugar sir.’

He came back, a mug in his hand, and offered it to her. She needed both hands to hold it, they were shaking so much.

‘Now, what’s this about?’ He went back to sit behind his desk.

‘Well sir, a few days ago, just after I came on board, I … well, I became friendly with Lieutenant Coombes, and we, uh …’ she realised how this must be sounding. Her voice faltered, and she hung her head.

‘Look, Lieutenant, you’ve come banging on my door saying some pretty serious things. You’re going to have to tell me what this is all about.’ Donaldson’s voice was firm, but kind. Clare swallowed. This was so much harder than she could have imagined.

‘Yes sir. Uh – I fell into a, uh – relationship with the Lieutenant, and we spent the night together. In the morning, I was aware that he had somehow given me something, some drug, and …’ as she related her story, her voice steadied, and she told him everything, including dangling Coombes from the rail at the back of the ship. Donaldson’s eyes widened, but he said nothing. When she came to the accident in the Frigate, his eyes glanced to a screen on his desk, and he stopped her.

‘I’ve just seen the preliminary report on the uncommanded engine jettison. I’m very relieved that you got back safely, but this appears to have been an equipment failure that could have happened to anybody. You’re not seriously suggesting that this was –
deliberate?
’