Limit by Frank Schätzing

Author:Frank Schätzing [Schätzing, Frank]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Jo Fletcher Books
Published: 2013-11-14T23:00:00+00:00

Berlin, Germany

A glowing circuit board. A mildewed spider’s web against a black background. Colonies of endlessly interwoven deep-sea organisms, the neuron landscape of an endlessly sprawling brain, a cosmos slipping away. At night, and seen from a great height, the world looks like anything but a globe illuminated only by streetlamps, neon signs, cars and house lights, by exhausted taxi drivers and shift workers, by the perpetual search for diversion and by worries which find their expression in sleeplessness and apartments lit up into the early hours. What – in the eyes of an extraterrestrial observer – might look like a coded message, actually means: Yes, we are alone in the universe, everyone for themselves and all for one, and we’re here in the dark wilderness too, except that we’re underdeveloped, poor and cut off from everything.

Jericho stared indecisively out of the window. Yoyo had dozed off in her seat, the jet was preparing for landing. Tu didn’t like engaging in conversation while he was at the controls. Left to his own devices, Jericho had tried for a while to wring information about Ndongo’s current time in office out of the internet, but the media interest in Equatorial Guinea seemed to have vanished with Mayé’s departure. He suddenly felt his motivation ebbing away. Yoyo’s light, melodic snoring had the air of a soliloquy to it. Her chest rose and sank, then she gave a start and her eyes rolled under her eyelids. Jericho watched her. It was almost as though the confusing moment of intimacy they had shared had never happened.

He turned his head and let his gaze wander out over the ghost of light as it become steadily denser. At a height of ten kilometres, he had felt a gnawing loneliness, too far from the Earth, not close enough to the skies. He was grateful for every metre that the plane sank closer to the ground, allowing the strange pattern to form familiar pictures again. Buildings, streets and squares created the illusion of familiarity. Jericho had been in Berlin a number of times. He spoke German well, not perfectly, because he had never made the effort to learn it, but what he could say was accent-free. As soon as he put his mind to swotting up on a language he mastered it in a matter of weeks, and, in any case, just listening was enough to be able to understand.

He fervently hoped that they would find Andre Donner still alive.

At 04.14, they landed in Berlin Brandenburg airport. Tu set off to arrange a hire car. When he came back he was morosely waving an Audi stick.

‘I would have preferred another make,’ he moaned as they crossed the neon wasteland of the parking lot in search of their vehicle. Jericho trotted behind him with his rucksack slung over his shoulder, accompanied by a shuffling and sedated-looking Yoyo, whom they had barely managed to wake. Apart from Diane and some hardware, he had nothing else with him. Tu had refused to take him to Xintiandi before their departure so he could pack a few essentials.

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