The Nano Flower Part 15

She picked up a metre-long model of an old-style military tilt-fan. It wa~ heavier than she'd expected. The miniature missiles looked very realistic. 'What can you do with this indoors?'

Fabian flipped his lock of hair aside. 'Nothing, stupid. I fly it from the Colonel's landing pad. Do you want to come up and try it? I'll let you use the remote, it's dead easy.'

'Maybe later. Where do you get all this stuff from? You must go on week-long shopping expeditions when the Colonel Maidand reaches a town.'

'Oh no, I pick it all out from catalogue channels, and have it forwarded to our next airport. The Gulfstream collects it for me.'

'I see.' Jason Whitehurst hadn't been exaggerating when he said he kept Fabian on board the Colonel Mauland the whole time. She didn't approve of that at all. Not that she could ever say so.

'I'll have the maids clean it up if you don't like it,' Fabian offered generously.

'I don't think your father could afford the overtime bill.'

Fabian burst into gleeful laughter. 'How do you do that?'

'What?'

'Everything you say is always just right. The clothes you wear make you look utterly fantastic. You can swim well. You're a super dancer. You know about everywhere in the world, not just what countries look like, but their politics as well. You're like a superwoman, or something.'

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'That's age, Fabian. When you're as ancient as me, you'll have learnt it all as well.'

Fabian dropped his eyes. 'You're not old.'

'You're very sweet.'

'You said you wouldn't call me things like sweet and cute again,' he said petulantly. 'Not now I'm your lover.'

'Sorry.'

'Charlotte?'

'Yes.'

'Can we do it again?'

He might be bright, she thought, but he had a gra.s.shopper mind. 'I think we might, yes.'

Fabian scrunched up the choc-ice wrapper and lobbed it in the direction of the bin, then bounced on to the bed beside her. 'I forgot, you're incredibly s.e.xy too.' He said it timidly, as though he was swearing in church.

'Thank you.' Charlotte straightened her legs, and lay on her side next to him. 'Remember what I like?' She kissed him, hand running over his belly. Her voice deepened. 'How to make me ask you for more?'

Watching her face closely, Fabian reached out and undid the bikini top. He smiled greedily as the triangular sc.r.a.ps of fabric came free in his hands, and began to stroke the length of her ribcage the way she'd taught him. 'What's it like in s.p.a.ce?'

Charlotte groaned, the mood spoilt. 'Oh, heavens, Fabian. I've told you all I possibly can. If you want to know any more, you'll have to go there.'

'No. I meant, you know, that... freefall s.e.x.'

'Oh. Unearthly delights.'

'What?' he choked.

'Unearthly delights, that's what the New Londoners call'Wizard! So what's it like?'

'I don't know. Never had the chance to try it.'

'No?'

She could read him like a book. He didn't believe her. 'No. But I admit I was thinking of it; I met a nice local boy while I was there. But I cut four days off the end of my holiday and came home early. So I never got the chance in the end. I expect it's overrated, tourist board propaganda.'

'You packed up a holiday in s.p.a.ce early! Whatever for?'

Charlotte swore silently. This airs.h.i.+p flight was affecting her more than she liked, her self-discipline was going all to h.e.l.l. 'I had to get back for some business, and then there was the Newflelds ball. Why? Would you rather I was still up there?'

'No! Crikey, Charlotte,' he said, genuinely indignant. 'Don't say things like that.'

She ran a hand over his chin, momentarily confounded by the lack of stubble.

Fabian drew a quick breath. 'Hey, listen, I've just had a lremendous idea. We can go up to New London together. Right? You heard Father say I could go in a couple of years. Well, I will. It'll be wizard. We could spend the whole time in freefall. Unearthly delights!' He giggled and clapped his hands exultantly.

It took a supreme effort to maintain her light smile. Dear G.o.d, he was a besotted teenager who thought she was going to stay with him till death us do part, amen. s.e.x equals love, they all thought that at his age. How could she have been so stupid, getting herself into this situation? It could only ever end in heartbreak now.

Fabian was waiting, flushed and deliriously expectant.

'A couple of years is a long time to wait.' She took hold of his hands, and placed them firmly on her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. 'And I know some pretty good earthly delights.'

Charlotte let the shower's hot spray play over her back, soapy water running down her thighs and calves. It felt good, relaxing her. The sharp jets of water pounded into her skin like a scratchy ma.s.sage. Steam swirled around, warming her all the way through.

What the h.e.l.l was she going to do about Fabian? He wasn't a bad kid, certainly he deserved a lot better than her and his father. The obvious thing to do was cut and run as soon as she reached French Guiana. He was young, resilient, he'd get over her fast enough. Except she knew how much it would hurt hint. How much she would hurt him.

She couldn't bear the thought of that trusting, mischievous face screwed up in misery. In itself an unusual, and disturbing, admission.

G.o.d d.a.m.n Jason Whitehurst for not bringing up his son properly. And G.o.d d.a.m.n Baronski for not knowing what Jason Whitehurst had wanted her for. The old boy was normally so careful about what he got his girls into.

Charlotte gave her hair a final rinse and turned off the shower. She wrapped a big towel around herself, then used another to dry her hair. The robe she'd worn over her bikini to walk about in through the gondola was lying on the damp tiles, soaking up the condensation the shower had thrown out. It could stay there now. The maid could clean it. b.i.t.c.h.

She sat down in front of the mirror, and combed out her hair. Her cabin hadn't got that stale stuffy taste in the air like Fabian's. It gave her room to breathe, room to move. Having her own cabin was the only real plus of this a.s.signment. She liked the times she was on her own, an interval when she could be reflective, when every move and word wasn't an effort.

She looked at the image in the mirror, stretching, wriggling her toes. 'Gawd luv us, ducks. See 'ow grand we is nahdays.' She giggled. Funny, it was harder to do that accent now than the upper-middle-cla.s.s one Baronski had patiently coached her in. The past really had died.

Charlotte got up and searched through her bedside cabinet. Her gold Amstrad cybofax was in the second drawer. She took it out and sat on the bed, curling her legs up. 'Phone function,' she told the wafer, then gave it Baronski's number. He probably couldn't help her out of her predicament straight away, but she could vent a lot of her frustration on him. It was something he was always good at, always there as a shoulder to cry on. Everyone needed someone like that, life would be unlivable otherwise. And in any case, she needed to tell him she wouldn't be going to Odessa. He liked his girls to keep in touch.

142.

UNABLE TOACQUIRESATELLITELINKAGE, the cybofax screen printed.

Charlotte stared at it. Unable? She climbed off the bed and walked over to the window. The jet-black solar envelope hull of the airs.h.i.+p curved away above her like a medium-sized moon. No wonder the cybofax's signal couldn't reach the geostationary antenna platform.

There was a standard terminal on the other side of the bed, but she s.h.i.+ed away. If she was going to have a decent rant at Baronski about Whitehurst she didn't want to do it on the man's own 'ware. More than one of her patrons had routinely recorded calls.

Charlotte began looking through drawers for her Ashmi jumpsuit. She could go up to the landing pad, the cybofax would work from there.

Maybe if she stuck out this a.s.signment for another month, push Fabian away gradually. That might work, no hard feelings on either side, and a wonderful memory of first love for the rest of his life. But another month of this? At least in French Guiana there would be the beach bars, and some decent nightlife.

Charlotte was zipping up the jumpsuit when there was a rap at the door. The maid came in.

'Mr Jason would like to see you,' she said. 'OK, I'll be about twenty minutes.'

'He said now.' There was a definite gloat in the voice.

Fabian had shown her where his father's study was, in the midsection of the lower gondola deck, but they hadn't gone in. Now Charlotte found it was equipped with ultra-modern fittings, the first she'd seen on board. Walls, floor, and ceiling were a silver-white composite; flatscreens showed h.o.m.olographic maps of the globe, coastlines glowing sharply, cities and ports tagged with ten-digit codes. Jason Whitehurst was sitting behind a smoked-gla.s.s desk that resembled a rectangular mushroom. She could see tiny red and green lights inside the gla.s.s top, squiggling like trapped fireflies. It was the only piece of furniture in the room.

143.

The heels of her leather ankle boots clicked loudly as she walked towards him.

'Chair,' Jason Whitehurst said. A circle of floor in front of his desk turned grey. It extruded upwards, a smooth cylinder at first, then it began to flow, like something organic caught by time-lapse photography.

Charlotte sat tentatively in the curving scoop chair which formed. It felt as hard as rock under her fingernails.

'You attempted to use your cybofax to make an external call,' Jason Whitehurst said.

'Yes.'

'I must ask you not to do that again. I am conducting some very delicate negotiations at the moment.'

'I won't interrupt them. It was just a call to a friend.'

'You called Baronski.'

Charlotte began to wonder if it had been the bulk of the airs.h.i.+p hull which had blocked the call, after all. 'That's right. He likes to know where I am, and as we're not going to Odessa-'

'He likes to know what you hear.'

'Pardon me?'

'Baronski deals in the information you supply him. That will not be the case on this voyage.'

'I wasn't going to say anything about you. I don't know anything about you.'

'Nor will you. I purchased you purely to provide Fabian with some amus.e.m.e.nt, nothing more. Now that is all.'

It took a moment for the dismissal to sink in. Charlotte rose on legs which were suddenly trembling. Once the door had slid shut behind her she rubbed her eyes. Her knuckles seemed to be very damp.

CHAPTER TEN.

T.

he Pegasus carrying Victor Tyo to Duxford settled on to the rooftop pad with a slight rocking motion as the undercarriage absorbed the plane's weight. The stewardess opened the belly hatch, and Victor trotted down the stairs. His bodyguard followed a few paces behind.

He supposed the necessity of having a bodyguard was an oblique compliment to his own efficiency. The latest generation of tekmercs tended to take failure personally, regarding their activities as something companies should tolerate, like fires or bad debts. If their deals got blown, it wasn't their fault. Like petulant children caught shoplifting.

It was a problem which meant simply blowing the covert operations they mounted against Event Horizon wasn't good enough any more. He had to root out the whole nest of them involved every time.

The current price for a.s.sa.s.sinating Victor Tyo was half a million Eurofrancs, offered by Eugene Selby after his attempt to s.n.a.t.c.h research data on magnetic logic circuits ended with his hotrods being backtracked and taken out by a couple of Foxhound missiles. The price for killing that a.s.sa.s.sin should he or she prove successful was a million Eurofrancs. A quarter of a million Eurofrancs could be picked up by anyone who cared to reveal Eugene Selby's present geographical coordinates.

Victor's life was nearly all tangled up in deterrent circles like that these days. It didn't particularly bother him. All part of the game. His choice to be a player had been made long ago.

Right back when he joined the security division, Morgan Waishaw had told him, 'Once in, never out; this job is for always.' He'd been young enough then to nod seriously and say, 'Yes, sir, I understand perfectly.' Understand, but not completely appreciate. Always was turning out to be a long time.

145.

Lately he'd taken to saying the same thing to recruits himself. His division had grown in proportion with the commercial side of Event Horizon; it matched national intelligence agencies in size, possessing the tactical strike power equal to a couple of RAF squadrons.

The three major opposition parties at Westminster were constantly demanding enquiries into tekmerc-planted rumours of his activities, and even the New Conservatives were becoming nervous. If it hadn't been for the fact that ministers needed Julia on their side over Wales, incidents like the Selby deal could well result in the police taking a more active interest. As if they had the capacity to deal with tekmercs, but try telling that to politicians. Event Horizon security wasn't the cause of problems, it was the result of them.

His staff were currently monitoring eighteen separate tekmerc deals being mounted against the company. There was definitely a leak somewhere inside the biochemical division, which even the psychics couldn't pin down. And now he had aliens coming at him.

I wonder what old Walshaw would make of that one?

It wasn't that life had been easier in his day, but at least the battle lines were a h.e.l.l of a lot clearer.

It was hot outside the hypersonic, although Duxford was spared Peterborough's swamp humidity; that was something he'd never acclimatized to. The plane had landed on the roof of Building One at the Event Horizon Astronautics Inst.i.tute. It was typical of the s.p.a.ce industry to use that kind of nomenclature, he thought, reflecting the medium they dealt in. Cold, vast, and soulless.

Building One was a five-storey ring of offices and laboratories, eight hundred metres in diameter. The circular s.p.a.ce they enclosed was covered by a domed solar collector roof, rising up beside him like a crack into s.p.a.ce, sucking light and heat from the air. Looking the other way, Victor could just make out the stone buildings of Cambridge's colleges, trembling in the heat haze. The rest of the city was a pastiche of red brick and black solar panels. Hardly any modern buildings. It made a pleasant change.

Building Th'~ was a clone of Building One, sitting a kilometre away, on the site of the old War Museum buildings, its green-silver gla.s.s wall bouncing spears of tinted sunlight at him. Building Three was the big brother of the first two, its outer ring fifteen storeys high, sixteen hundred metres in diameter. A mile, back in Birmingham where Victor grew up, where they still clung to the real England of pints and inches with the obstinacy of people frightened by the seemingly perpetual flux which the Warming had brought early in the millennium. Searching for the sanctuary of stability in erstwhile customs.

s.p.a.ceplanes hummed gracefully through the sky, big swept-wing delta shapes; arriving from the west and landing, departures racing away to the east. The long line of pads that accommodated them had been built along Duxford's old runway, he remembered. The War Museum's original geography was all very vague in his mind now. He could barely recall the lie of the land before Building One had gone up, seventeen years ago. Change hadn't stopped after the Greenhouse Effect plateaued, if anything it had redoubled its confusion.

Building Four was half completed, another one the size of Three; the first three storeys of gla.s.s already in place, as if the green-silver panes were organic, a crust that grew up the naked concrete and composite structure. And he knew that Julia had begun preliminary discussions with the bankers and finance houses for Building Five.

Even after all this time, after penetrating the Evans mystique, seeing her angry, frightened, sad, and drunk, he still looked on Julia as a figure of awe. People were fascinated by her because of her money, blinded by it. n.o.body understood, she had a thousand critics, snipers, detractors. All of them claiming they could do the job better. He knew different, Julia actually cared about the country. In that she was almost unique in an era of multinationalism, the abrasion of significant borders; but she insisted the critical divisions of Event Horizon were all sited in England. The software writers, the research teams, product designers, the factories which produced the 'ware chips. Other countries were given the a.s.sembly lines, the metal-bas.h.i.+ng subsidiaries, but the heart 147.

of every piece of Event Horizon gear was built in England. That was where the real work lay, the real challenge, real money. The princ.i.p.al reason England's trade balance was permanently in the black.

And Duxford was the grand prize. Over half of the company's giga-conductor royalties had been invested here. The Inst.i.tute pulled together every human engineering discipline, taxed ingenuity to its limits, gave England an unbeatable technological and economic edge over the rest of the European Market Alliance nations. s.p.a.ce hardware subcontracts were only placed with English companies. The external supply industry that had risen to support Julia's s.p.a.ce programme provided secure jobs for over a million people, the Inst.i.tute itself employed a hundred and fifty thousand at Duxford alone, and more in orbit and up at New London.

The money she poured into orbital materials processing modules and the New London project was frightening. She'd been doing it for a solid fifteen years without ever showing weakness or doubt. And only now was she beginning to get anything like a decent return. n.o.body else had that sort of faith; in their own vision, in the scientists, technicians, and astronauts who'd captured the asteroid. Victor knew that if it'd been up to him, he would've abandoned s.p.a.ce to the kombinates and government agencies a long time ago.

Without Julia Evans the world would be a much poorer place. She cared about people, and n.o.body appreciated it. Except him.