Mindstar Rising

by Peter F. Hamilton

  Julia was silent for a minute, then said, "Thanks for not saying any of this in front of Grandpa."

  He glared at her, feeling his hands ache as his blood rose.

  "Now what?" she cried.

  "There's just nothing that gets through to you, is there? I tell you that there's a maniac out there who wants your blood; that you're responsible for your best friend being raped twice a day for over a fortnight, that her mind's being systematically destroyed, and all you say is thanks for not telling a swarm of electrons floating round in a mutated vegetable. You fucking ice-bitch!"

  "Well, for Christ's sake what do you want from me!" she screamed back. "I know all about bloody Kendric. I know more than anybody. I knew he was behind this right from the beginning. But all you cleverdick hardliners did was charge off after moles and hotrods. Nobody ever listens to a word I say, I'm just a nothing. I'm a signature on the bottom of papers. A performing seal. Well I'm not. I'll bloody well show all of you. Nobody's going to treat me like a joke after this."

  "I'm going to kill that bastard di Girolamo for what he's done to me and Grandpa. And you, gland freak, you're going to get the proof for me, like you've been paid for. That's all you are, a paid freako let out of the zoo. And if you want to stay out of your cage, freako, you'll do what I bloody well tell you!"

  Greg slapped her. Not hard, his hand was still sore. But Julia stared at him for one frozen horrified second, then burst into tears.

  Greg raised his eyes heavenwards, cursing his own blundering stupidity. He saw the gardeners walking past the Duo, their wellingtons squelching through the puddles on the lawn. They glanced over at the car, its hot muffled voices, grey-misted windows, seeing a figure hunched up in the front seat, face in hands, rocking back and forth. One turned to the other and barked a remark, there was a burst of lusty laughter, and they walked on. The shallow imprints left by their footprints slowly filled with muddy water behind them.

  "Greg? I didn't mean it."

  "I know. I'm sorry I slapped you."

  "Didn't hurt."

  Her cheeks were smeared with silver snail's trails of tears, nature's aphrodisiac. She looked terribly fragile and appealing. The ivory tower princess fallen to earth with a bump, lost and frightened in the world she'd only ever glimpsed from afar. Greg wanted to put his arms round her and give her a big comforting hug. Resistance came hard.

  A big teardrop formed on the bottom of her chin. "Greg, he doesn't want me," she said in a tiny voice.

  "Julia—"

  "No really." Red-rimmed eyes blinked in anguish. "He's already had me."

  She was suddenly in his arms, pressed against him, shivering uncontrollably. He hugged her, stroking her spine to give what reassurance he could. Praying he'd misheard, knowing he hadn't.

  "I was fifteen," she said.

  "Shush. It's over."

  "No, I want to say it."

  He studied her face, seeing the need; his espersense slid behind the hot skin and damp eyes. She really was terrified of Kendric. Funny, he'd never noticed that before, but she'd always toughed out any mention of his name. "Then tell me."

  "It was my fifteenth birthday party. I'd never been happier, the PSP had just fallen, Grandpa's illness hadn't developed, and me and all my friends were dressed up in such wonderful dresses. Kendric came with a present for me, perfume, all gift-wrapped. Uncle Kendric. He and Grandpa hadn't fallen out then, you see. He gave me the perfume, and said that was only half of the present. He told me his nieces and nephews were all going to go cruising on the Mirriam for a fortnight, a di Girolamo family outing, and would I like to come. I pleaded with Grandpa to let me go. Grandpa never can say no to me. And then when I went on board there was only Kendric, no relatives, no family cruise. He was waiting for me. My present. I was too young, too stupidly blind with romance to realise. He was so handsome, the older man, rich, and cultured, and charming. God was he charming. You can't know what a man like that is capable of doing to the mind of a silly fifteen-year-old. The whole thing was like a channel drama made by the best director in the world, alone together on a yacht, surrounded by sea, shorelines, and golden sunsets. I loved every second of it. Believed every word he said. He hadn't married Hermione then. I thought I was the one. I was going to marry him. I was going to have his babies for him. I didn't believe God could create a monster like Kendric. Not on this world, the Good Earth."

  She finished with a limp twitch of her lips. Greg carefully brushed some tangled wisps of hair from her face.

  "God," she choked. "You must think I'm bloody worthless."

  "I think you're quite beautiful, actually."

  Punished eyes widened in surprise.

  "Yes," he said. "I never got in touch after you sent all that gear to the chalet, I didn't trust myself."

  "With me?"

  He gave a slight nod.

  "Oh." She wiped the back of her hand across her face, spreading her tears around. Greg smiled, and pulled a paper hanky from the glove compartment.

  They drew apart a little. But the spark of intimacy remained. It would always be there, he knew, carried to the grave.

  He cleared his throat, resentful that some analytical part of his brain never switched off, not even through this. "Julia, did you tell Kendric about the giga-conductor?"

  She wiped the last tear away and crumpled the hanky. "No. All this happened a year before Grandpa told me about Ranasfari and the giga-conductor research project; Ranasfari wasn't even close to a cryogenic giga-conductor then. Kendric didn't have any ulterior motive for seducing me. I was just fun, a notch on his bedpost. He enjoys it, the game he plays in his mind, me and all the other dumb little girls are no different to his business deals. The lies and clever words corrupt us, then we belong to him, worship him. He gets as much satisfaction from our beguilement as he does from the sex. He's a power junkie."

  He looked away, trying to lose the terrible image of Julia, a younger, smaller, more delicate Julia, lying below Kendric.

  "You will get the proof, won't you, Greg?" she asked urgently. "I'm so scared of him. I've not told anybody that before, but he frightens me."

  "I'll provide the proof Morgan Walshaw insists on, no messing." He kneaded his temple with thumb and forefinger. "There's a couple of things I want you to do for me."

  She regarded him with comic seriousness. "Anything."

  "Firstly, go back into the house and have a word with Walshaw. I want your personal protection stepped up. You're not the only one Kendric frightens; before yesterday I hadn't realised exactly how warped that man is. He is quite capable of having you killed. Especially now he realises that his games are over. It's gloves-off time, I'm afraid, Julia."

  "Right."

  "Secondly: Katerina. I'm going to put a stop to that."

  "I don't understand."

  "Snatch her from the Mirriam, and then shove her through detoxification treatment. But that's going to cost."

  "Money doesn't bother me."

  "Right. I suppose it'll have to be in America or the Caribbean. I haven't looked into it, hell, I don't even know if you can detoxify a phyltre user. If not, then it'll be a good research project for Event Horizon to undertake."

  Julia nodded in relief. "I promise, Greg. Whatever it takes. Event Horizon has a clinic in Austria, they can do anything there."

  Greg didn't share her glibness about that, but at least she was genuinely intent on making amends. "Fine. I'll snatch her back tonight."

  "Tonight?"

  "Yes. I don't want to leave her on the Mirriam a minute longer than necessary, I'd develop nightmares. I'll bring her to Event Horizon's finance division offices. Your people can take her from there."

  "I'll come."

  "No, Julia."

  "Yes. The finance division is just as secure as Wilholm. And I want to see her. After all, I'm the one who put her there, and I've had a taste of what she's been through."

  He nearly started to say no again, but there wasn't a logical argument against her goi
ng. Besides, he could see Julia wasn't going to be moved. Philip Evans wasn't the only one she could wrap around her little finger. "All right, but you get Walshaw to make the travel arrangements, and turn up around midnight prepared for a long wait."

  "Do you want the company security hardliners to help you?"

  "No. I'm not familiar with their capabilities. I do know all about the people I'm going to be using."

  "What people? Tekmercs?" she asked with frank curiosity.

  "Tell you sometime."

  She gave him a timid smile. "That's a date."

  Greg turned the jammer off, and Julia opened her door. "Julia."

  She froze with her legs out of the car.

  "Don't try so hard, girl. You're not exactly a frump, you know."

  Her smile widened, becoming coquettish. "And Adrian isn't just a lump of muscle, either. He's very bright, and kind. And I like him a lot."

  "Then I'm happy for you. See you later."

  He didn't rate a wave this time; she simply stood watching him drive off, looking small and sad. He folded the rear-view mirror's image up and tucked it away in a corner of his mind. The last thing he needed now was any more guilt rattling round inside his skull.

  Chapter Thirty

  Greg drove into Peterborough. under a sky which the sun had transformed into a bitter saffron hemisphere raked with the occasional static pillar of cloud. He turned up the windscreen's opacity, muting its eye-smarting intensity. There was a taut thread of pain running through his cortex, the neurohormones' legacy.

  It wasn't helped by wondering how he was going to square what he was doing with his promise to Eleanor. And then there was tonight's snatch looming large. Another unforeseen. Events were ganging up on him, dictating his actions.

  The conspiracy was unnerving, tenaciously eroding any sensation of control over his life. He was a squaddie back in Turkey, utterly dependent on the wisdom of hidden enigmatic generals and the throw of God's dice. Never again, he'd sworn. Easy to say.

  He blended the Duo into the arterial flux of traffic flowing through Peterborough's outlying suburbs; a dawn-to-dusk convoy hauling the city's lifeblood of goods from the industrial sectors to the port and the railway marshalling yard.

  Hendaly Street was the same as all the rest in New Eastfield, a long straight gorge of white buildings with grand arched entrances, wide balconies, dark windows, and ranks of flags fluttering on high. Pagoda trees thrust up out of the pavements in the centre of brick tubs; people sat on the benches round them, pensioners soaking up the sun, youngsters with VR bands plugged into gamer decks. Eleanor would enjoy living here.

  He had to stamp hard on the brake as the red light came on ahead of the Duo. Its meaning had almost been lost down the years. Working traffic lights, by God!

  The frontage of the Castlewood condominium was eighty metres long, standing back from the other buildings along the street, and screened with a discreet row of tall Caucasian elms.

  The entrance was below ground level, served by a private loop of road with card-activated barriers at each end.

  Greg parked a hundred metres further down the street and showed his card to the meter, punching in for six hours.

  "Six hours?" a voice queried. "I wish I had an expense account like that."

  Greg turned, and smiled. "Victor. You're looking good."

  Victor Tyo's baby-faced good looks smiled back. "Riding high, thanks to you. I was promoted up to captain after our Zanthus excursion, got assigned to the command division down by the estuary. I guess Walshaw must approve of me."

  "You're my contact today?"

  "Yes. Again. I was at the office when the call came in." He tipped a nod at the Castlewood. "We've had it under observation for twenty-five minutes now."

  "We?"

  "The rest of my squad. They're covering all possible exits. We wouldn't want our man to filter out without us knowing. I've already checked with the concierge, Ellis is at home right now. A human concierge, by the way, this place is definitely for premier-rankers. I couldn't afford to rent the broom cupboard in there."

  Walshaw hadn't actually mentioned anything about a squad, but Greg could appreciate his reasoning. Ellis wasn't the end of the line, but he was near. His confidence rose a fraction. Backup wouldn't come amiss, not if they were as on-the-ball as young Victor.

  "Will this be a long operation?" he was asking. "Some of the observation positions are improvised, temporary."

  "It shouldn't take more than an hour, two at the outside."

  "Fine, Did you fall down some stairs?"

  Greg's hand went to the stiff white mould over his nose. "Not exactly. A run-in with a friend of Mr. Ellis."

  "I see. Do you want a weapon before we go in?"

  "Are you carrying?"

  "Yes. A Lucas laser pistol."

  "That ought to be enough. You keep it." Greg began to walk towards the Castlewood's nearest barrier.

  "Fine." Victor showed a card to the gate beside the barrier. "Concierge's pass," he explained.

  Greg lifted an appreciative eyebrow. And only a twenty-minute head start. Morgan Walshaw ought to start worrying for his job. "Will it open the apartment doors as well?"

  Victor did his best not to appear smug. "Of course."

  The Castlewood was built in a U-shape. The two wings had a conservatory-style glass roof slung between them, curving down to form a transparent wall at the open end. The glass was tinted amber, cooling the sunlight which shone down on a bowling green, tennis courts, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, and a separate diving pool. Four tiers of balconies made a giant amphitheatre of the enclosure. Their long strips of silvered sliding doors staring down on the athletically inclined with blank impersonality.

  Charles Ellis owned a penthouse apartment on the fourth storey, at the tip of the east wing. One of the most expensive in the condominium. Victor stood outside the door, glancing at Greg for permission.

  He held his hand up for the young security captain to wait, and probed with his espersense. There was only one mind inside, a muddled knot of everyday worries and conflicts. Not expecting trouble.

  "He's alone," Greg said. "To the right as we go in." He pointed through the wall.

  "Fine," Victor acknowledged respectfully. He showed the concierge card to the lock. There was a soft click.

  The apartment was five large rooms laid out in parallel, with a hall running along the back of them. Surprisingly, the decor was old-fashioned throughout. Uninspiring, sober prints and dingy Victorian furnishings, all black wood and thick legs draped in cream-coloured lace. The internal doors were heavy varnished hardwood, with brass hinges and handles, opening into rooms with dark dressers and tables. Chairs were gilt-edged, upholstered in plain shiny powder-blue fabric, marble-top tables with bronze legs.

  The lounge where they found Charles Ellis had six glass-fronted teak wall cabinets exhibiting hundreds of beautifully detailed porcelain figurines. There was a profusion of styles, with animals predominating; whoever owned them was obviously a dedicated collector. Rich, too, though Greg was no real judge, but money had its own special telltale radiance. And it haunted those shelves. He could feel the love and craftsmanship which had been expended in the fashioning of each exquisite piece.

  Ellis was a small man in his early fifties, barely over one and a quarter metres tall. His body and limbs didn't quite seem to match, his torso was barrel-shaped, going to fat, but his legs and arms were long and thin, spindly. He had a narrow head, with tight-stretched skin, thin bloodless lips, and a prominent brow overhanging nicotine-yellow eyes. Lank oily hair brushed his collar, leaving a sprinkling of dandruff. He hadn't shaved for a few days, his stubble patchy and grey.

  His imbalanced frame was wrapped in a paisley smoking jacket with a quilted green collar. He was sitting in a high-backed Buckingham chair watching a news channel on a big Philips flatscreen, thick velvet drapes hung on either side of it, like theatre curtains. The flatscreen was showing a rooftop view of some desert city, indef
inably African; its streets were awash with refugee trains, twisters of black smoke rising from shattered temple domes. A chrome-silver fighter flashed overhead, discharging a barrage of area-denial submunitions; tiny parachutes mushroomed in mid-air, lowering the shoal of AP shrapnel mines gently on to the beleaguered city.

  Charles Ellis turned his head towards Greg and Victor, disturbed by the draught as they opened the lounge door. His facial muscles twitched, pulling the skin even tighter over his jawbone.

  The flatscreen darkened as he rose from the chair, curtains swishing across it; he had to push hard with his bandy arms to lift himself. "How did you get in?" he asked.

  "Door was open," Greg said.

  "You're lying. What do you want?"

  "Data."

  His expression was thunderstruck. "How did you know? Nobody knows I deal in data."

  Greg gave him a lopsided apologetic smile. "Somebody does. Cover him."

  Ellis swayed backwards as Victor produced his Lucas pistol. "No violence, no violence." It was almost a mantra.

  Greg walked across the room and looked down on the Castlewood's dark blue diving pool. The lounge was on the corner of the building, two sides of it were glass. The balcony ran all the way round, one-third of it under the condominium's weather-resistant covering.

  "Whoever you are, you're an idiot," Ellis said, "You have absolutely no conception of what you've gone and walked into. The kind of people I associate with can tread you back into the mire that gave you birth."

  Greg smiled right back at him, baring his teeth. "I know. That's why we came, for your top-rank friends."

  Whatever Ellis was going to say died on his tongue.

  "Wolf," Greg said. Naked alarm rocked Charles Ellis's already fraught mind. "Medeor." It produced the same response. "Tentimes."

  "Never heard of them."

  "Wrong. I'm psychic, you see."

  Ellis's face hardened, forestalling the onrush of fear and suspicion kindling behind his eyes.

  "In fact, you are Wolf, aren't you?"

  True, the mind before him blurted helplessly.

  "Thank you," said Greg.

  Ellis looked at him with revulsion and hatred.