Arguing with her was like one of those games where you’ve got to jiggle a little plastic box around until all the little ball-bearings have settled in the holes. He’d always hated them and he’d always got one for Christmas. “Fine,” he said. “It’s not like I’ve got anything better to do. But you’re going to talk to your lunatic uncle and get the police off my back. Otherwise, I suggest you buy yourself a really good calculator.”
Folding towels for the next four hours gave him time to think. Although Matasuntha wasn’t the sort of person he’d usually believe if she told him he was breathing, he had the feeling that parts of what she’d told him were probably the truth. Pieter had lured him here as a backup; well, that he could believe, though he wished he couldn’t. Also, the girl on the train hadn’t been Matasuntha, and she didn’t appear to know about YouSpace. In which case, Pieter and Call-me-Bill’s secret, illicit project was something else; and YouSpace –
Didn’t fit in anywhere. Something else Pieter was playing around with, nothing to do with Matasuntha or Uncle Bill. Pure coincidence? Sure, and the soft swishing overhead was the lazy wing beats of the flocks of circling pigs. Refusing to touch with a ten-foot pole the issue of how come a hedge fund manager was also a top-flight quantum physicist – one that he’d never heard of – he tried to come up with some reason why Pieter should’ve inflicted that terrible plaything on him at the same time as enticing him here to do cutting-edge mathsy stuff. He batted the idea round in his mind until his synapses were raw, but he could squeeze out only one possibility. Max. YouSpace was Pieter’s way of passing on some information about Max, while making it impossible for anyone who couldn’t solve the impossible equation that got you inside the bottle to intercept it.
As a hypothesis, it was still about as likely as free universal healthcare in the United States, but it was all he could think of. For one thing, Max was dead, had been for years. Therefore, anything to do with him could hardly be particularly urgent. Had Pieter known Max? No evidence for that whatsoever. His original hypothesis was that Pieter had dropped false hints about Max purely in order to lure him into YouSpace. That still made a kind of sense; turning it on its head, so that the Max stuff was both real and important, made no sense at all. In fact, he’d be inclined to reject the whole theory out of hand, except that it was the only one he’d got. Also, there was a nagging feeling at the back of his mind that there was something; hopelessly vague but just strong enough to keep him from walking out on the whole horrible mess, changing his name and making a new life for himself in Ulan Bator.
Nothing for it; he was going to have to try YouSpace again. As soon as he made the decision, a heavy weight seemed to press down on him, making him wonder if being stuck where he was with a bunch of devious lunatics was really as bad as all that. Or prison, even; he could go to the police and they’d put him in a nice quiet cell for a few months until they figured out that he couldn’t possibly have killed Pieter, during which time he could catch up on his reading, sew a few mailbags, nothing taxing or bewildering, and no being suddenly plunged into unexpected life-threatening situations where everybody knew what was going on except him. It was tempting, no question about that. But-
Screw you, Max, he thought. But.
“Where are you going?” she asked, as he headed for the door.
“Toilet.”
“Oh.” She frowned at him, as though he’d just claimed a day off for the funeral of his sixth grandmother. “Well, don’t be long.”
“I’ll be as long as it takes,” he replied with dignity, and bolted.
“I’m sorry,” said a voice in his head, “Could you repeat that?”
He stared. This wasn’t –
Not in his head. In his helmet. “Mission Control calling Alpha One. Please repeat. Over.”
In front of him, through the glass of his helmet visor, he saw a red desert meet a pink sky. He turned his head, and the movement nearly knocked him off his feet. He staggered, left the ground for a split second, and landed gently.