'Let's go, Mona,' said Stefan. 'Before he gets loose.'

Mona flipped the ignition's safety cap. 'We're gone,' she said, pressing the red b.u.t.ton.

With a ma.s.sive roar, the boosters sparked, turning the ice to steam in seconds. The container melted around them. Steam billowed around the HALO, obscuring the view screen.

The craft left the launch pad slowly, struggling against the gravity that weighed it down. Power gauges fluttered into the red as the computer upped the thrust. The ice- cutter nosepiece cracked the overhead ice pane, then punched through. Below them, water boiled and recondensed to form a thick mist.

Cosmo felt as though he was being shaken to pieces. This was not flying the way it was depicted on the TV holiday vids. Then again, this was not a Satellite-controlled executive leisure craft. The HALO was a twenty-year-old, twin-booster pirate craft with barely enough memory to power an entertainment system.

The nose dipped slightly.

'This is the dangerous time,' said Mona, through chattering teeth. 'If the initial burn is too strong, the stern goes up faster than the nose.'

'Then what?'

'Then we pin wheel.'

'Pinwheeling doesn't sound good.'

'It isn't.'

The computer throttled back a fraction, straightening the ship.

'OK, we're vertical. Now for the fun part.'Cosmo, the novice, was going to ask yet another question. The fun part, he intended to say. What's the fun part?

Then the Wedding Band deployed, adding the power of superefficient solar cells to the fading boosters and the HALO's own lithium batteries. The ship took off at fifteen hundred miles per hour through a bank of green-tinged cloud, like a stone from a sling. G-force stuffed Cosmo's words back down his throat.

Mona managed to speak, though the cords in her neck stood out like bridge struts.

'The fun part,' she said.

Blue sky, thought Cosmo when the shuddering stopped. The sky really is blue. Strands of viscous smog still clung to the windscreen, but beyond that was an azure sky dotted with stars. It was an amazing sight. Blue, just like old postcards. The view from the Myishi Observatory had been impressive, but this was even better because the sky was all around them. Cosmo even saw a white cloud hovering on the edge of s.p.a.ce.

A message droned from a computer speaker.

'Gravity one fifth Earth's norm. Activating artificial gravity.'

'Good,' said Mona. 'This floating around is not doing my stomach any good.'

Then the computer said, 'Artificial gravity failed.'

Mona banged the gravity switch several times without success.

'Oh, great,' she muttered. 'Vomit comet.'

'What?' asked Cosmo, then he felt the contents of his stomach rising.

'Stay very still,' warned Mona. 'Reduced gravity takes a bit of getting used to.

Don't take off your harness.' She glanced over her shoulder. 'No gravity. Try not to move about.'

'Too late,' said Stefan.

Ditto was hanging forward in his seatbelt. His face was green and there was a brownish pool floating in the air before him.

'I shouldn't have had that pazza this morning,' he moaned.

Stefan pulled a small dustbuster from below the seat and vacuumed the vomit.

'Thanks, Ditto. This is just the kind of job I like. You can be sure I'll be bringing this up again, if you'll pardon the pun.'

The computer applied the brakes, or more accurately, the forward jets, slowing the HALO to four hundred miles per hour. The Satellite hung on the edge of s.p.a.ce like an alien mother ship. The stylized Myishi logo pulsed gently across the dish's concave belly.

'I read that it takes as much power to run that logo as it takes to light twenty city blocks,' said Mona.

As they drew closer, the Satellite filled their scope of vision and they could make out hundreds of maintenance dish jockeys working on repairs across the dish's surface. They wore magnetic boots and were tethered to the dish's gantry by bungee cords and climbing rings. Their movements were skilled and graceful, as they launched themselves into s.p.a.ce, then snapped back to exactly the point they needed to be.

'I bet that's not as easy as it looks,' said Ditto, wiping his mouth. 'I'm glad it's not me going out there.'

The console radio beeped three times.

'Incoming,' said Mona, opening a channel. A voice issued through the speakers.

The voice was as cold as s.p.a.ce itself.

'Unidentified HALO, this is Satellite Command, you are in Myishi s.p.a.ce.'

Stefan removed his harness, pulling himself and Ditto along the floor railing.

'We read you, Satellite,' he said into the reed mike. 'Just fishing out the access code.'

'Thirty seconds,' said the voice. 'Then we will initiate targeting.'

Stefan pulled his vid-phone from his pocket and searched the menu for outgoing calls. He selected the last call he had made to Ellen Faustino at Myishi Tower and ran the video. On the phone's tiny screen Ellen appeared, explaining to Stefan why she could not get a spot on the Satellite. To ill.u.s.trate her point, she swivelled her computer screen to show him the backlog. The company list was clearly visible on the screen. And beside each company, its access code and timetable.

'OK, Satellite. We're a maintenance team from Krom Automobiles.'

'You're from Krom?' said the security man. 'In that bucket of bolts?'

'Hey, we're maintenance, not royalty,' said Stefan, trying to sound injured. 'The five p.m. advertis.e.m.e.nt is skipping so they sent us up to clip on a new panel.'

'We could have fixed that from up here. Seems an awful long way to come.'

'No offence, but you guys charge an arm and a leg just to polish the solar panels, and we were in the neighbourhood. We have the code, so just light up the port for us.'

'Punch in the code first. Then we'll talk about your maintenance port.'

Stefan handed his phone to Mona, who punched in the relevant ten-digit code twice. The second time to verify.'OK,' said security grudgingly. 'You're in. Port seventy-five. Follow the landing lights and don't leave your port.'

'Roger that, Satellite. You have a nice day now.'

The order to follow the landing lights was un-necessary, as it was the computer that locked on to the red beacons' frequency and directed the HALO to port seventy- five. The beacon lights were arranged in concentric circles that acted like a target, pulling them closer to a steel walkway that extended from the dish; one of several hundred that were attached in this quarter. The Krom logo was painted on the walkway. The ship docked with a grating jar and two dish jockeys rushed to secure forward and aft cables.

'We're in,' said Stefan, unhooking Ditto. 'Get the cables ready while I put on my suit.' He grabbed a suitcase from the overhead locker and disappeared into the latrine.

Ditto unwound a snaky conduit from the loading bay. Inside were two cables. A power cable and a modem lead. The ancient ship was not equipped with wireless capability for this volume of information.

'As far as Myishi know, we're just charging the batteries and replacing the Krom video chip, but while he's out there the bossman slips in the modem lead and we hijack the Satellite for a sneaky search.'

'How long will that take?'

'Not long, Cosmo. About a minute should do it. Any longer and Myishi will realize what we're doing. There's also the fact that the real Krom team are due here soon.'

Stefan emerged from the latrine. He was not wearing the suit.

'It's off,' he said. 'We'll have to find another way.'

Mona swivelled her chair to face him. 'What? Another way? Why?'

Stefan held out the suit. The name Floyd was scrawled on the nametag in red paint.

'This suit. It's too small.'

'No,' said Mona. 's.p.a.cesuits are one size fits all. The arms and legs are concertina design.'

Stefan sighed. 'Generally, yes. But this suit is last century. Tailored for an individual. A short individual. It's not going to work. Cast off, before we're found out.'

Mona popped the clips on her G-Vest. 'I'll go then, Stefan.'

'Even if I liked the idea, it's not practical. You're the pilot, Mona. If the computer goes down, which it very well could in this flying junkyard, then it's up to you to get us home, or within a hundred miles of it.'Mona chewed her lip. Stefan was right.

'Ditto. You've been around computers. You go.'

The Bartoli Baby folded his arms across his chest. The body language was clear for everybody to see. But just in case there was some uncertainty he said. 'In your dreams, Vasquez. A case full of growth hormone couldn't tempt me into that suit. In any case, like Stefan said, the suit isn't adjustable. You put me in that thing and I'll look like a baby playing at dressing up.'

Cosmo's throat dried up suddenly. No one would ask him to go. He was the rookie. It was up to him to volunteer.

'I'll do it,'he blurted.

Stefan pointed a stiff ringer at him.

'No,' he said, with considerable finality. 'Shut up, Cosmo. You don't know what you're saying.'

Cosmo's brain agreed. He had no idea what he was saying, but he was part of the team and this job needed to be done. 'I'll go. The suit will fit me. I just have to plug in a few wires, right?

Mona was not as ecstatic as he thought she would be. 'I don't know, Cosmo. It could get dangerous. Maybe we should forget it.'

Ditto floated to head height. 'Listen to Vasquez, kid. It's not the job I'd worry about, it's the drifting off into s.p.a.ce for all eternity.'

Cosmo pointed out the windscreen. The walkway was barely twenty feet long.

'I can see the port from here. I'll be tied on all the way. What could go wrong?'

Ditto slapped his own forehead. 'You had to say it, didn't you? You're jinxed now for sure.'

'I know how important this is,' argued Cosmo. 'If we go back to Satellite City without the scan, then how long will it be before we get another chance? I don't see what the problem is. This is far less dangerous than running around rooftops, and you had no problem with that.'

'I know, Cosmo,' said Stefan. 'But I've learned a lot in the past week. I've come to my senses.'

Cosmo held out his hands for the suit. 'Five minutes and we have a map of every Parasite nest in the city.'

Stefan gave it to him. 'Five minutes, Cosmo. Then we're pulling you in.'

Cosmo had the world at his feet. Looking down through the walkway's wire mesh, he could see the Earth over fifty miles below. From up here it seemed damaged. Through gaps in the multicoloured smog banks, Cosmo could clearly make out the Los Angeles brush fires that had been worldwide news for over a month now.

The Satellite dish loomed overhead like a frozen tidal wave, poised to crash down on him and all the shuttles docked at the various ports. There were at least forty other ships anch.o.r.ed along this level alone. Dozens of dish jockeys were doing exactly what he was doing now, linking their HALO computer with the Satellite.

There was no intercom in Floyd's helmet, so the only thing Cosmo could hear was his own breathing, amplified by the bubble helmet. At least the visor had been coated with an anti-fog spray, so his vision remained clear apart from several scratch and pockmarks in the crystal visor.

Cos...o...b..gan to talk to himself, for some company.

'OK, Cosmo. Nothing to it. Collect the conduit and plug it into the port. Attach the piggyback, wait for sixty seconds, then reel the conduit back in. Easy.'

Floyd's boots were not magnetic so Cosmo had to drag himself along the ship's hull inch by inch. s.p.a.ce seemed to suck him gently, willing him to let go. But even if he did, there was a bungee cord securing him to the HALO.

'Nothing can go wrong. Get to work.'

Stefan and Mona were at the porthole, watching him anxiously. Cosmo gave them the thumbs up, then bent low to retrieve the conduit from the air-locked tube through which Ditto was feeding it. He dragged the ribbed white tubing out, attaching it to a Velcro strip on his chest. His movements were slow and awkward in the low gravity.

Cosmo headed for the port, struggling to control his limbs while all around dish jockeys bounced and pirouetted across the face of the dish.

The safety rail seemed tiny inside his padded gloves and he checked constantly to make sure that he actually had a grip on it. Inch by inch he hauled himself along the walkway, his boots floating behind him, the bungee umbilical undulating like a slow- motion skipping rope.

At last, Cosmo reached the Satellite dish. His first job was to attach Lincoln's pirate plate. He slipped the Lockheed panel from a flapped pocket and clamped it directly on to another one. The panels were so thin that from a distance it would be almost impossible to spot. Only ten more feet to the uplink ports. Handrails crisscrossed the dish's surface and Cosmo pulled himself upwards trailing both cables behind him. Five feet now, almost within reach.

The modem and power sockets had a flip-up safety cover. All Cosmo had to do was open it up, and plug in both cables. Simple, except he couldn't reach. With the dish's curve, the safety cover was further away than the solar panels and Floyd's bungee cable was a couple of feet too short. Cosmo stretched the cable to the limit of its elasticity, but it was still too short. It seemed incredible to come this far only to be foiled by the last few feet.He turned slowly towards the shuttle. Inside, Mona was beckoning him back.

'What can I do?' he asked himself, his voice bouncing around the helmet. 'There's no other way.'

Except to untie the bungee cord. Just for a second.

The idea popped into his head from nowhere. Untie the cord? Madness.

Just for a second. Clip it to the rails and plug in. Two steps and you're there.

Maybe, but one false move and you're lost in s.p.a.ce.

Two steps.