Lightning burst across the valley, ragged sheets of plasma ripping the gloom apart. It revealed the small powder-blue composite geodesic dome sitting like some baroque technological sentry on the brow of the valley. Nicholas could see a couple of the hexagonal panels were missing. The gravity wave detector which it housed was now long abandoned. In the height of summer sheep used the dome for shade.
Another bout of lightning erupted overhead, vivid blue-white forks lashing down, giving him the impression that the sky itself was fracturing. One of the flashes was bright enough to dazzle him and he jerked back from the window, fists rubbing the blotchy purple after-images from his eyes.
Thunder rattled the glass. The farmer’s vehicle had gone. Humidity was steaming up the windows.
Nicholas abandoned the monsoon with a reluctance rooted in a perennial child-awe of the elements. He turned on the conditioner to cope with the rampant humidity, punched up some Bil Yi Somanzer from his music deck, then retreated back to his desk. His room was on the top floor of the Abbey, a large L-shape, with old but expensive furniture. It had a small private bathroom at one end. The bed was a large circular affair, easily big enough for two, which often made him think of Isabel on sleepless nights. There was an array of large globular cacti in red clay pots on a copper-topped table below the window: he was mildly worried that he wasn’t watering them properly, there had been no sign of the flowers Kitchener told him to watch out for.
He hadn’t brought much to the room himself, a couple of big rock band holoprints, his music deck, reproduction star-charts, some reference books (paper ones); his clothes didn’t take up half of the drawer space in the solid oak chest, and the wardrobe was almost empty. He had been too nervous back when he arrived to bring much in the way of personal possessions, unsure what liberties Kitchener would tolerate – after all, the Abbey was nothing like student digs. Of course, now he knew the old boy didn’t care what the students did in their rooms, or at least claimed he didn’t.
Bil Yi’s Angel High thumped out of the speakers, drowning the sound of the storm in howling guitar riffs. Nicholas activated his desk-top terminal; it was a beautiful piece of gear, a top-of-the-range Hitachi model with twin studio-quality holographic projection cubes. He used the keyboard to access the CNES mission control memory core in Toulouse and requested the latest batch of results from the Antomine 12 astronomy satellite platform. A map of gamma ray sources began to fill one of the cubes, and he called up his frequency analysis program. It was a marvellous sensation, being able to punch a data request into any public-access memory core on the planet without having to worry about departmental budgets. Back at the university, a request like this one would need to be referred almost back up to the dean. Kitchener’s data costs must be phenomenal, but all his students had to pay for were their own clothes and incidentals.
His subroutines jumped into the second cube, and he started to integrate them. Kitchener might or might not ask how his gravity-lens research project was progressing at supper but he wanted to be ready with some kind of report. The old boy simply didn’t tolerate fools at all, let alone gladly. That fact alone did wonders for Nicholas’s self-esteem. He knew he was bright, his effortless formal first at Cambridge proved that: but the downside was the trouble he had trying to fit in to the university’s social scene; he had always preferred his studies to the politics and culture-vulturing of his fellow students. Bookish eremitism was all right at university, you could get lost in the crowd and nobody would notice, but it wasn’t possible at Launde. Yet Kitchener had agreed after a mere ten-minute interview, during which Nicholas had mumbled virtually every answer to the old boy’s questions.
‘We can sort you out here,’ Kitchener had said wryly, and winked, ‘there’s more than one type of education to be had at Launde.’
Nicholas had experienced the unsettling notion that Kitchener had perceived the sense of destitute isolation which had clung to him for as long as he could remember.
After he got in to Launde Abbey, money ceased to be a problem for the first time in his life. His parents had always been proud of his university scholarship, but they hadn’t been able to contribute much to his grant; they were smallholders, barely able to feed themselves and his sister. He went to Cambridge a month after the People’s Socialism Party fell; the country was in complete turmoil, jobs and money were scarce. He scraped through the first year working as a fast-food cook grilling krillburgers in the furnace heat of a cramped McDonald’s kitchen for six nights a week. It wasn’t until halfway through his second year that the economy stabilized, and the New Conservative government began to prioritize the education department. But after he graduated and then received that golden invitation, sponsorship for the two-year sojourn had been ridiculously easy to find. Eight medium-sized companies and three giant kombinates had made him an offer. In the end he settled for accepting the money of Randon, a French-based ’ware and energy systems manufacturer, mainly because it was coupled with the promise of a guaranteed research position afterwards.
All of Launde’s graduates tended to enjoy a privileged position later in life; Kitchener did seem to have a knack for spotting genuine potential: they formed one of the most élitist old-boy networks in the world. It was all part of the price of spending two years isolated in the middle of nowhere. Nicholas didn’t mind that at all; after his appalling first year at Cambridge, he thought it was quite a bargain.
Supper at Launde Abbey was held at half-past seven prompt each night. Everybody attended, no matter how engrossed they were with their work. It was one of Kitchener’s house rules. He didn’t lay down many, but God help the student who broke one of them.
Nicholas had a quick shower then put on a clean pale-blue T-shirt before he left his room at quarter-past seven. It was dark outside, the wind soughing plaintively as it slithered around the chimney-stacks.
Uri Pabari and Liz Foxton were coming out of Uri’s room, a couple of doors down from Nicholas’s. They were talking in low, heated voices as they emerged into the corridor, some sort of argument. Both of them looked belligerent, faces hard and unyielding.
An awkward grin flickered over Nicholas’s lips. He hated it when people argued in the Abbey; cramped together as they were, everyone else always seemed to get dragged in. It was doubly excruciating when the argument was a personal one. And he had enough experience to recognize a personal argument between Liz and Uri. It didn’t happen often, but when it did …
They caught sight of him, and the sibilant words stopped. There was a moment’s hesitation during which they held some invisible negotiation, then Uri’s arm was round her shoulder and they walked towards him. He waited, trying to hide his trepidation. They were both older than him; Uri was twenty-four, Liz twenty-two, in their final year at Launde.
Out of all the students at Launde, Nicholas felt closest to Liz. She wasn’t quite as stilted as him when it came to other people, but she was one of the quietest, always giving the impression of thoughtful reserve. She was half a head shorter than him, with a pleasant round face, hazel eyes, and shoulder-length raven hair. Tonight she wore a simple fuchsia one-piece dress, its skirt coming just below her knees, something indefinably American about its cut.
By contrast, Uri was perpetually easygoing. The ex-Israeli had a dark complexion and a thick mass of curly jet-black hair that reached his shoulders. His build was stocky, yet he was the same one-metre-eighty height as Nicholas, a combination which made his varsity rugby team welcome him to their ranks with open arms. Recently he had piled a couple of kilos on around his waist, which Liz had started to nag him about during meals. He was in jeans and a bright-green rugby shirt.
‘Missed your swim?’ Liz asked as the three of them walked down the stairs.
Nicholas nodded. ‘Yes, but I managed to catch up on some of my datawork.’
‘No formal graduation exams, no last month sweat and panic … That’s the thing about this place.’ She grinned, mimicking Kitchener’s waspy tone. ‘You know wheth
er or not your mind can work, it’s not up to me to tell you.’
The Abbey’s rooms were divided into two distinct groups: the formal ones, which had been maintained in a reasonable degree of the original style despite the privation of the PSP decade which followed the physical and economic chaos of the Warming; and the rest, which were turned over to Kitchener’s lifelong pursuit of quantifying the entire universe: the two laboratories, a compact heavily cybernated engineering shop, the computer centre, Kitchener’s study, a small lecture theatre, and a library with hundreds of paper books. The dining room was definitely one of the former; its gold-brown wooden panelling had been immaculately preserved, and the Jacobean fireplace never failed to impress Nicholas. It had been furnished with a long Edwardian mahogany table, polished to a gleam; the fragile-looking chairs around it were upholstered with dull rouge leather, covered with a web of ochre cracks. Nicholas was always terrified he would split one of the antique masterpieces when he sat on it. Above the table, two biolum chandeliers emitted a bright, slightly pink, light.
Cecil Cameron was lounging in one of the chairs, the last of the second-year students. A rangy twenty-four-year-old with frizzy blond hair, cut short. He was using his kinaware left hand to open a bottle of white Sussex wine, chrome-black metalloceramic nails shining dully every time he twisted the corkscrew. The hand’s leathery skin had a silver sheen, which Cecil said he had chosen in preference to flesh-tone. ‘Why bother going through life being boring? If you’re enhanced, then flaunt it.’ He claimed he’d lost his forearm in an anti-PSP riot. True or not, and Nicholas wasn’t entirely convinced, Cecil exploited his hand and the interest it earned him quite shamelessly to his own advantage.
Kinaware was still rare (and expensive) enough to draw attention wherever he went. Not that the six students got out much: a weekly trip to the Old Plough in Braunston, the nearest village; an occasional foray into Oakham. Cecil was forever bitching about the confines of the Abbey, and worked a little too hard on projecting his boisterous image. But Nicholas had to admit he was a first-rate solid-state physicist.
‘Don’t look so eager, proles,’ Cecil drawled. ‘The storm means Mrs Mayberry isn’t here. Our lord and master sent her home after lunch. So it’s cook it yourself night tonight.’
Nicholas and Uri let out a groan.
‘So why aren’t you cooking it?’ Liz asked.
Cecil flashed her a smile. ‘I always find the female of the species is so much better at that kind of thing.’
‘Pighead!’
‘Go on, admit it, did you really want to taste my cooking? Besides, I looked in a minute ago, little Isabel is coping just fine.’
‘Isabel’s cooking supper?’ Nicholas asked. He hoped it had come out sounding like an innocent enquiry.
Cecil’s smile broadened. ‘Yes. All by herself. Say, Nick, why don’t you go and see if she wants a hand, or anything else?’
Nicholas could hear what sounded like a chuckle coming from Uri. He refused to turn and find out for sure. ‘Yes, all right,’ he said.
Liz was giggling by the time he reached the door into the kitchen. Well, let them, he thought; he didn’t mind the steady joshing the others gave him now, it was all part of a day at Launde Abbey. Funny what you could get used to if it went on long enough.
Isabel Spalvas had arrived at the same time as him, a mathematician from Cardiff University. At first he didn’t even have the nerve to meet her eyes when they were talking – not that they talked much, he could never think of anything to say. But mortification at his own pathetic shyness eventually bullied him out of his shell. They were going to be under the same roof for two years, if nothing else he could talk to her as if she was just one of the boys, it was often the simplest approach. That way at least they’d be friends, then maybe, just maybe …
The kitchen had a long matt-black cast-iron range running along one whitewashed plaster wall, with a set of copper pots and even an antique bedwarmer, hanging above it. A wicker basket stood at the end, piled high with logs, but for once the fire was out. The big square wooden table in the middle of the room was covered in dishes and trays; there was a mound of wet lettuce leaves drying out in a colander next to a collection of sliced tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes, and chives.
Isabel was busy carving a joint of ham. She was the same age as Nicholas, twenty-one, about a head smaller, with sandy-blonde hair that was arranged in a mass of tiny curls just brushing her shoulders. The way she was bent over the table meant the strands obscured her face, but he could visualize her features perfectly, at any time. Almost invisible lashes framed enchantingly clear ice-blue eyes, pale freckles decorated the top half of her cheeks, the lips were narrow. Nicholas was fascinated by the dainty features, how expressive they could be: fearsomely intent when she was listening to Kitchener, beaming sunlight smiles when she was happy, when the students got together for their evening meetings in one of the rooms. She laughed most at Cecil’s jokes, of course, and Rosette’s acid gossip; Nicholas never had been able to master the art of perfectly timed one-liners, or even rugby club style stories.
He paused for a second, content just to look at her, for once without all the others nudging and pointing. She was wearing tight, faded jeans, and a sleeveless white blouse, with Mrs Mayberry’s brown apron tied round her waist. One day he’d have the courage to come out and say what he felt to her face, say that she was gorgeous, say that she made the whole world worth living in. And after that he’d lean forwards for a kiss. One day.
‘Hello, Isabel,’ he blurted. Damn, that had come out too loud and gushy.
She glanced up from the joint. ‘Hi, Nick. It’s going to be salad tonight, I’m afraid.’
‘You haven’t done all this yourself, have you? You should have said, I would have helped. I did some cooking when I was at Cambridge. I got quite good at it.’
‘It’s all right, Mrs Mayberry prepared most of it after lunch. You didn’t think she’d trust us with it, did you? I’m just finishing off. Do you think this’ll be enough?’ She wagged the knife at the plate of meat she had cut.
‘Yes, fine. If they want any more, Cecil can cut it.’
‘Hmm, that’ll be the day.’
‘Is there anything I can do?’
‘Take the trays through, would you.’
‘Right.’ He grabbed the one nearest to him, piled high with plates and dishes.
‘Not that one!’
Nicholas put it down with a guilty lurch. The plates threatened to keel over. Isabel put her hand out hurriedly to stop them.
‘Those are the plates from lunch, Nick,’ she said with a tinge of reproach.
‘Sorry.’ How stupid, he raged silently. He knew the heat he could feel on his face was a crimson blush.
‘Try this one,’ she said in a gentler voice.
He picked up the one she indicated, and turned for the door, feeling totally worthless.
‘Nick. Thank you for offering to help. None of the others did.’
She was giving him a soft smile, and there was something in her expression which said she understood.
‘That’s OK, any time.’
Nicholas and Uri were setting the places when Edward Kitchener and Rosette Harding-Clarke came in at twenty-nine minutes past seven. He saw the old boy was in his usual clothes, baggy white trousers, white cotton shirt, cream-yellow jacket with a blue silk handkerchief tucked into his breast pocket, and a tiny red bow tie, which always made Nicholas think a butterfly had landed on his collar. There was still an air of the tiger left in Kitchener, age was not a gift he accepted gracefully. He was reasonably slim, carrying himself with undiminished vigour; his face was a long one, with skin stretched thinly around his jaw, scratchy with stubble; a crew-cut of silver hair looked almost like a cap.
Rosette Harding-Clarke walked beside him, taller by ten centimetres, an athletic-looking twenty-three-year-old, with soft auburn hair, styled so that long wavy strands licked her back well below her shoulder-blades. Her presence alone i
ntimidated Nicholas. She had arrived along with him and Isabel, with a degree in quantum mechanics from Oxford, but her aristocratic background gave her a self-confidence which he found daunting. He had suffered too many casual put-downs from her social clique at Cambridge not to flinch each time that steel-edged Knightsbridge voice sliced through the air. She was wearing dark-grey tweedy trousers and a scarlet waistcoat with shiny brass buttons, the top two undone. And nothing underneath, Nicholas soon realized. He prayed he wasn’t blushing again, but Rosette could be overpoweringly sexy when she wanted to be.
Kitchener and Rosette were arm in arm. Like lovers, Nicholas thought, which he privately suspected was true. It wasn’t only Kitchener’s attitude towards his fellow physicists which caused conflict in his earlier years. Tabloid channel ’casts were always sniping with rumours of him and female students. And how Kitchener had lapped that up, relishing his media-appointed role as the notorious roué! There had even been a statement, shortly after he bought Launde Abbey, that he was only going to invite female students to become his tyros, providing himself with a harem of muses. He never had, of course, it was always a fifty-fifty split, but which member of the general public made the effort to discover that? The legend remained solidly intact.
‘Anybody been watching the newscasts?’ Kitchener asked after he sat in the carver’s chair at the head of the table.
‘I’ve been correlating the gamma ray data from Antomine 12,’ Nicholas said.
‘Well done, lad. Glad somebody’s doing something in this slackers’ paradise. Now what about that little problem I set you on magnetosphere induction generators, hey, have you solved that yet?’
‘No, sorry, the gravity lens idea was fascinating, and nobody else has been tabulating the data the way I am,’ Nicholas offered by way of compensation. He ducked his head, unsure how it would be received. The topics for research were always set by Kitchener, but sometimes the old boy displayed a complete lack of interest in the answers. You could never work out what he was going to press you on, which could get disconcerting. That aside, Nicholas reckoned he’d learnt more about the methodology of analysing problems in the three months he’d been at Launde Abbey than in his three years at university. Kitchener did have the most extraordinary insights at times.
The Mandel Files, Volume 1 Page 49