Skyfall

“Coming to the end,” Patrick said, looking at the short length remaining.

“Just about a meter more. Let me have all the slack you have. That's it.”

The Colonel had clipped his safety line to the last rung of the handhold and was leaning far out. The umbilicals were now bar straight and taut, pressed hard against the lip of the hatch where they went out. Farther and farther the Colonel reached — until his finger seized the stern of Prometheus, beyond him was the dark angled bulk of the still-attached core body.

“What do you see?” Patrick asked.

“Very little, black as Hades in there, in the shadow. Let me get my torch out.” He undipped his flashlight and poked it over the end. The circle of illumination slid over the nose of the core body, the beam itself invisible in the vacuum of space, then moved out of sight.

“Aha!”

“What is it?”

“Our culprit, all right. One of the connecting rods, a bit twisted but still holding. All the plungers around it are actuated and pushing to separate. The only problem being that the harder they push the stronger the connecting rod is wedged into its anchor to hold us together. But easily enough remedied, I think.”

“How?”

“A little sizzling with the oxyacetylene torch will cut that rod in two in a second. Then the rest of the mechanism will do its job and drive this great weight off of our backs and we will be free to go on our way. Except for one little problem.”

They waited, hushed, the astronauts and the three in the sealed compartment hearing every word spoken over the intercom, and even the breathing of those in the pressure suits.

“Problem? What?”

“At the present moment I don't see how we can reach the rod. It's on the other side and the umbilicals won't stretch that far.”

17

GET 03:19 — COTTENHAM NEW TOWN

Sir Richard Lonsdale did not like lunches that went on so long, but he had no choice. It was late and they were still around the table in the executives' restaurant, still wreathed in a fog of cigar smoke and the perfume of fine brandy. The Swiss seemed happy, coats open and perspiring freely.

“My congratulations to your chef, Sir Richard,” Müller said, patting his great midriff affectionately like a pet dog.

There was more light talk until eventually one of them looked at his watch. Chairs were pushed back and there was much handclasping and many guttural goodbyes. Muller waited until he was leaving to speak the few hoped-for words. He was obviously a believer in good curtain lines.

“We shall recommend the contract on the terms discussed, Sir Richard. I hope it will be only the beginning of a long and successful relationship.”

“Thank you, thank you very much.”

Their car would be waiting, and that would be that. He ground his cigar out in the ashtray and tried not to remember the trayload of papers in his office. They would have to tackled now, like it or not, if he were to have any chance of getting home before midnight.

The shortest way back to the executive offices was through the canteen and Sir Richard pushed his way through the swing door. He was preoccupied and would have gone straight through if the voices hadn't caught his attention. There were a number of workers here, it was already late enough for the afternoon tea break, and a group of them seemed agitated about something. Not a wildcat strike, he prayed. Some of them were reading newspapers, two and three at a time looking over one another's shoulders. He recognized one of the men, one of the older employees who had come over from the original works.

“Henry, what's happening?”

Henry Lewis looked up and nodded, passing over his own paper.

“Look at that, sir, enough to curl your hair it is. Just like the war all over again.”

SATELLITE BOMB SCARE. Sir Richard scanned the piece quickly.

“Like a flying bomb,” Henry said. “Hiroshima all over again. Look at this diagram on the next page, look where the bloody bull's-eye is.”

A drawing of Great Britain with a dotted line bisecting it, the satellite's track. To emphasize the peril the artist had drawn a great bull's-eye on the center of England and, completely by chance, the center of the bull was over (Tottenham New Town.

“I wouldn't be too concerned if I were you,” Sir Richard said, folding the paper calmly and handing it back. “I think there is more imaginative journalism in this than rational scientific fact. Pure guesswork.”

18

GET 03:25

Colonel Kuznekov's words echoed inside the helmets of the other two pressure suits, as well as from the wall-mounted speaker in the new compartment. They answered with silence for no one could think of a thing to say. It was Nadya who spoke first, relaying, in a professional, emotionless voice, a message from Mission Control.

“Major Winter, Mission Control wants you to come in.”

“Tell them to go to hell.”

“Hello Mission Control, this is Prometheus. Major Winter cannot speak to you at this moment. Yes, that's right, he's helping Colonel Kuznekov in a survey of the damage. Roger, he will be with you as soon as he can.”