The Nano Flower Part 44

'Can I go up to New London with Charlotte?'

'I don't think so. You'll be a lot safer here. Charlotte will be back in a couple of days.'

Fabian's sullen expression darkened, but he didn't push it. Charlotte's arm had slipped round him, giving him a rea.s.suring hug.

Suzi felt like cheering the kid on, someone who wasn't totally intimidated by Julia. f.u.c.k knows, there were few enough in the world.

T.

he sun hadn't quite risen high enough to burn the dew off Wilholm's lawns. Julia's Pegasus sent the pale grey and silver droplets scurrying in vast interference patterns as it landed.

She walked down the stairs from the belly hatch to be greeted with kisses and shouts from her animated children. Brutus barked at her, then started sniffing round her feet.

'You've been gone all night.'

'Where did you go?'

'Was it with Uncle Greg?'

'Do you know where Daddy is yet?'

She put her arms around both of them, hugging tight. They started to walk towards the manor together, Daniella skipping.

Julia took a deep breath. 'I'm sorry I had to rush off. It was Listoel. Yes. And, I think we might now.' She laughed at Matthew, his jaw had dropped as he tried to match answers to questions.

'Where do you think Daddy is?' Daniella asked.

'New London. Your Uncle Greg is going up there today to find out if he truly is. We should know by tonight. I might have to leave again.'

'Can we come?'

'No. If I find Daddy, I'll bring him straight back here. Promise.'

Daniella and Matthew exchanged a look, annoyed and half relieved. Julia grinned at them. 'Come on, I've got a teleconference in a minute, but we'll have some elevenses together first.'

'No interruptions?' Matthew asked suspiciously.

'None at all.'

David Marchant had been the first New Conservative Prime

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN.

368.

Minister elected after the PSP fell, a position he held for twelve years and two further elections before finally standing down in favour of his successor, Joshua Wheaton. Julia had found herself regretting his decision with increasing frequency over the last five years. Wheaton was too much like Harcourt, an image merchant desperate for public support, a spin doctor's cyborg. At least Marchant had the guts to make unpopular decisions on occasion. These days he had settled into a cosy role of elder statesman and New Conservative grandee. Always on the channel current affair casts, ready with an opinion and a quip. Perceived as the power behind Wheaton's throne. An accurate enough a.s.sessment.

When his image appeared on the study's flatscreen she felt herself relaxing. There had been a lot of head to head sessions in the old days, hammering out deals to their mutual advantage. Nowadays it was done through an army of a.s.sistants and lawyers, departmental interfaces, industry and government working groups, advisory committees.

One reason why the whole Harcourt problem had arisen in the first place. No hands-on control any more.

'h.e.l.lo, Julia,' he said. As always a rich resonant voice, instantly trustworthy.

'Morning, David. I have.a problem.'

'Whatever I can do, Julia, you know that.'

'Choosing a better successor would have been a good start.'

David Marchant smiled wisely. 'Joshua is right for these times, as I was for mine. We needed strong leaders.h.i.+p to recover from the Warming and the PSP, and now we need to loosen up a little, consolidate.'

'There's a difference between loose and falling to pieces. Wheaton has lost just about all of his authority, over the country and the party. And I have Michael Harcourt on my back because of it.'

'Michael is an ambitious man, admittedly.'

'Michael is a bought man.'

David Marchant laughed. 'You're just annoyed because it isn't you who owns him.'

'He isn't from your wing of the party. And if he does s.n.a.t.c.h 369.

the premiers.h.i.+p from Wheaton, he'll purge the cabinet. You really will have to become a professional current affairs presenter if you want your voice to be heard after that. Trouble is, Jepson runs Globecast too. You'll be locked out. Give you a chance to get your golf handicap down: she said maliciously. Marchant hated sports; when Peterborough United won the FA cup she had sat next to him in Wembley's royal box for the match. He had emptied two hip flasks of whisky. Out of boredom, he always claimed..

'If you'd given Wheaton some support over Wales none of this would have happened, Julia.'

'Life isn't as black and white as it used to be in your day, David. Politics isn't as simple, nothing is as simple. Which is a step to the good.'

'Hardly, Julia; complexity is a step towards chaos.'

'And simplicity makes control easy,' she countered wryly. 'It's oppressive.'

'The PSP was oppressive, Julia, never us. We created the economic environment you thrived in, you have a lot to be grateful for. And as long as we remain in Westminster, Event Horizon can go on expanding. You have carte blanche, you know that.'

'Event Horizon is already large enough, thank you. Besides, pure capitalism is as unsavoury as pure communism. I never favoured either extreme. There has to be a degree of regulation, and responsibility. A social market somewhere in the middle.'

'That's rich, coming from you. You know the gains to be made from our policies. Without us acting in tandem this country would only be a second-rate European state, not the leading power we are today.'

'You people, you're always so hemmed in by geography, aren't you? It ruins your thinking. The rest of Europe, the rest of the world for that matter, needs to develop their economies to the same level as England. If for no other reason than if they're poor they can't buy our goods.'

'Nice in theory, Julia. You'll never see it in practice. Governments are too parochial, too protective. They have to be; it's how they get elected.'

370.

She favoured him with an indolent smile. 'Unless they're Welsh governments.'

'Touche. So what did that little s.h.i.+t Harcourt offer you?'

'He claims a direct line to Jepson, which he'll use to tell me what the other bids are. That's his edge. The rest of it was a standard government to industry inducement package.'

'Hmm.' David Marchant rubbed the bridge of his nose, thinking hard. 'Well, of course, the inducement package will remain, that goes without saying. After all, my natural successors are placed in the Exchequer as well as Number Ten. That just leaves us with the problem of the actual bid. Fortunately, the PM can offer you Treasury backing for any offer you make to Jepson. In which case anything Harcourt tells you becomes irrelevant. I imagine Wheaton will consider a more appropriate position for him afterwards; Minister we can all blame for traffic jams, or somesuch. I take it you are arranging a suitable figure for Jepson with your financial backing consortium.'

'Yes,' she said grudgingly. Another b.l.o.o.d.y problem. Her finance division chief had briefed her during the flight from Listoel; the banks and finance houses were terrified by atomic 3tructurng, running round like headless chickens. It was making business extremely difficult in the money markets.

'Good. Simply put in a figure you know the kombinates can't match. We will bridge the gap between that and the imount the banks will advance you. Blank cheque, Julia. And interest free.'

'It will run to tens of billions, if not hundreds.'

'So? Taxpayers are a bottomless source of money for governments. And they're not going anywhere.'

'As a taxpayer, I object.'

'Ah, but, Julia, you don't pay much tax, do you? New Conservative policies see to that.'

'What about Wales?'

'I'm sure that if you have a chat with Joshua Wheaton he'll convince you to see our point of view Perhaps you could say a few words to that effect when you leave Number Ten, there's always a lot of reporters hanging around outside.'

371.

'Tell me one thing, David. Why do the New Conservatives want to hang on to Wales?'

'A large country is a stable and strong country. Without Wales, we would be weakened, possibly fatally. I have no intention of allowing that to happen, to waste all we have built over the last seventeen years. It would be national suicide.'

'And you would lose your majority in Westminster.'

David Marchant gave a delicate shrug. 'If we lose, you lose, Julia.' The flatscreen went blank.

Going to be one of those days, I think, Juliet, her grandpa said.

Yes. And if I'm not extremely careful, it might be the last.

You should have told him about the alien.

No. I don't want people like him to make first contact; there's first impressions to consider as well.

And Royan is the perfect choice for that, is he, girl?

She couldn't answer.

Julia went upstairs for a shower after the teleconference. Wilhom's master bedroom was large, with a high ceiling, its windows looking out over the lake. A Paris design house had been contracted for the decoration, giving it walls of royal purple and emerald, a mossy cream carpet, gold fittings, heavy curtains that hung from the ceiling to the floor. A solid four-poster made from oak, with a plain white silk canopy.

On impulse she sat on Royan's side of the bed and opened the door of his cabinet. Inside she found a couple of bottles of aftershave, comb, a hardback set of The Lord of the Rings, AV memox crystal recordings of black and white films from the nineteen-forties and fifties, a cybofax that must have been ten years old, it was so bulky.

She took them all out and arranged them on the bed, lining them up according to size. Not much of a legacy. She remembered buying him the cybofax, the Tolkien books too, come to that.

Clothes? She slid open the door to his walk-through wardrobe. The biolums came on automatically. Dust filters kept the air clean. She walked between the two rails, her hand 372.

brus.h.i.+ng along his s.h.i.+rts and jackets and waistcoats, setting them swaying gently. The shoe rack along the far wall was well stocked: cowboy boots, suede ankle boots, trainers, alligator shoes, hiking boots. Some of them hadn't even been worn. Then there were ties, belts, hats.

She let the styles and colours sink into her mind, seeing him in various combinations. He'd grown into quite a sharp dresser.

But what had he been wearing the day he left? She couldn't remember. There was no spare hanger.

The wardrobe, the beside cabinet, they shook loose memories. Not her usual processor indexed recollections, real memories. Human memories. They were twinned with emotional responses. Messy.

She left the cube of clean silence, shutting the door behind her. He hadn't cared enough about the clothes to take them with him. They were hers as much as the manor and the company. He wore them for her, when he was with her. Plugging into the role she'd given him.

Kirsten McAndrews was waiting for her in the study, sitting behind a terminal on the long central table. A dark African vase had been placed in the middle, full of pale pink rose buds. They gave off a thin aromatic scent.

Julia took her own chair at the head. Open Channel to Selfcores. 1 want you to run a search thmugh patent office memory cores and see if Clifford has filed anything on the generator yet.

He hadn't yesterday, we checked, NN core one said.

Well, check again, and a.s.sign a monitor routine to keep me updated. As soon as it's filed I want to know.

Isee, NN core two said. Why hasn't he filed one already?

Quite. By telling people he has the generator data for sale he's exposed himself to every hotrod and tekmerc in existence running a s.n.a.t.c.h deal against him, not to mention us and kombinate security, probably certain defence ministries too with these stakes. All he has to do is file it with a patent office and he's covered.

373.

He ain't got i1 Philip Evans said.

That's what I'm beginning to think, Grandpa. Which means he's batting on a very sticky wicket. He must know that if I get to the alien before it squirts him the generator data I'll make it an offer that'll be difficult to refuse. Event Horizon has interests in every human discipline. Whatever it wants, I ought to be able to supply it Then why didn't it contact you in the first place, girl?

I don't know. More to the point, if it is up in New London how did it contact Clifford? That's something we've overlooked. It couldn't have been a direct broadcast from the asteroid.

We don't know what the alien's technological limits are, NN core one said. 1 mean, how could it get into New London unnoticed in the first place? The strategic defence sensor coverage up there is just as good as the low Earth orbit networks.

Ask Royan, she said bitterly. He's the expert.

Right, we'll keep you updated.

Cancel Channel to Selfcores. 'How is Peter Cavendish progressing with Mutizen?' she asked.

'Ah yes,' Kirsten typed rapidly on her terminal. 'Problems there. I've scheduled a meeting for ten thirty; he said they seem to be stalling.'

Julia allowed herself a moment of satisfaction amid the gloom. Greg was right, Mutizen's offer was a blind. G.o.d d.a.m.n the Dolgoprudnensky.

SelfCores Access Request.

Expedite.