Great North Road

by Peter F. Hamilton

  The runway had been extended since the first successful Daedalus flight, the dozers and compactors working round the clock . . . not that Angela could really see much difference. It still looked like a tiny streak of mud from the air, although there were definitely turning circles at both ends now.

  Their undercarriage clunked down. Angela saw Josh trying to crush his seat’s metal struts, and grinned. Then they were on the ground, and bouncing about wildly, decelerating hard. Everyone winced as the pallets and biolabs strained at their hold-down straps. The straps held, though, and soon the plane had taxied off the runway.

  The ramp lowered, letting the bright St Libran sunlight flood in, making them all blink and scramble for their sunglasses. A wash of hot humid air replaced the conditioned atmosphere they’d been breathing, bringing with it a strange musty spice scent. Spores from a billion native plants, Angela recognized warily, the sentinels of the jungle, a clear warning to humans that this was alien territory. Milliseeds she liked, the smaller reproductive microorganisms from the planet’s astonishing zebra botany she could do without. Human tissue was a real attractive nutrient source to some of it.

  She trooped down the ramp, several obedient paces behind Vance Elston. Today’s odd cirrus cover was still above her, motionless in the becalmed air. Despite the brightness, it was a gloomy way to arrive, another portent in collusion with the vegetation odour, adding to her mistrust of the forward base. She took a tube of sunscreen from her pocket and applied it to her arms. Her T-shirt was an HDA-issue scoop-neck. One minute in the jungle and she’d already weakened. The long-sleeved T-shirts she’d bought from Birk-Unwin were somewhere near the bottom of her bag; they were just too damn hot to wear. She proudly stuck with the garters, though.

  Edzell was a miniature version of the HDA compound at Abellia Airport. A cluster of Qwik-Kabins formed the centre of the camp, housing the new Observation Centre, alongside the logistics corps offices, and a field hospital. Rows of the black tents were lined up behind, along with another big mess tent. Engineering shops had been set up, big open-ended hemispheres of plastic where mechanics checked over ground vehicles. But mainly, Edzell was an equipment staging post. Rows and rows of pallets were already starting to build up, along with helicopters and vehicles scheduled to fly on to the next forward camp as soon as the e-Rays found a suitable site beyond the Eclipse Mountains. However, the biggest single cargo Edzell stored was bioil. Huge bladder tanks had been laid out on the other side of the runway, thick rubbery cubes that were pumped full by the expedition’s single Daedalus tanker every time it touched down. That was all it did now: fly continual circuits night and day, bringing biav and bioil to the thirsty vehicles and helicopters and fuel cells.

  Once the mobile biolabs had lumbered down the ramp, a self-loading pallet truck went inside the Daedalus to extract the remaining cargo. Paresh’s squad were detailed to put up everyone’s tents.

  ‘That’s what I’m here for,’ Gillian Kowalski grumbled. ‘Fucking servant for the science prats.’

  ‘We’re security,’ Paresh told them as they tramped along after the self-loader truck. ‘But while we’re here, we’re also general aides to whoever beckons. You’ll soon be doing a lot worse than putting up a tent. Get used to it.’

  Atyeo moved up beside Angela. ‘What did you do to him?’ he asked in a low voice. ‘He’s been like this since the two of you got back.’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Ah, well no wonder, then. Man had his hopes up high.’

  ‘Man drank too much beer,’ she said.

  Atyeo laughed.

  Angela helped to put the tents up, adding to the rows of shiny black, heat-junkie triangles already lined up. Nobody hurried, not in the stifling humidity. They were distracted by the ground crew readying the last e-Ray for launch. The e-Ray AD-7090-EW50 AAV (Autonomous Airborne Vehicle) was built by Neiti Aeronautic, and was a sensor-laden drone intended to provide HDA with a decent, comprehensive back-up sensor coverage during a Zanthswarm when satellites were being knocked out of space. A simple pinched-delta planform, twelve metres long, with a ten-metre wingspan, its upper fuselage skin was a single black photovoltaic collector, providing 10kw to power the trio of motors that drove a large twin-blade rear propeller, augmented by a dozen helium bubbles incorporated within the fuselage providing extra lift, making it half-dirigible.

  Angela and the squad started applauding as it took flight. The black triangle juddered its way upwards. When it was five metres off the ground, the big rear propeller started turning, adding some stability. It would take ten hours to reach its operational station on the other side of the Eclipse Mountains, two thousand kilometres away. But once there it would loiter, flying a long lazy figure-eight pattern constantly for up to five hundred days without needing maintenance; relaying communications all the way back down the chain of its sibling e-Rays to Abellia.

  The squad finished putting up tents by mid-afternoon, and the lieutenant hadn’t detailed them with anything else. Up above, the single roof of high cloud was starting to break up in the strengthening winds.

  ‘Can we go swimming?’ Omar asked. ‘The lake’s only half a klick away.’

  ‘No way,’ Ramon said. ‘I’m not getting my balls bitten off by a ten-metre native shark.’

  ‘There are no fish,’ Angela said. ‘Like there are no animals or insects.’

  ‘And Ramon has no balls anyway,’ Mohammed chuckled.

  Paresh checked with the lieutenant. ‘We can go swimming,’ he announced. ‘But there’s a briefing at eighteen hundred hours. We’re going to start perimeter patrols tonight.’

  ‘What? Angela just said there’s nothing here.’

  ‘Hey!’ she protested. ‘I said there aren’t any fish. I didn’t promise you anything else.’

  ‘We’re on perimeter detail,’ Paresh said. ‘Maybe the monster’s not here, but we need to keep sharp, build up some appreciation for the jungle and how to operate here. Be ready for it. And tomorrow, when the xenobiology teams head out to do their sampling shit, we escort them too. Come on, people, this isn’t a fucking holiday. Get real.’

  Subdued, the squad pulled towels and swimwear from their bags, and headed off towards the lake. Out here, the native plants seemed to have more vigour than they did around Abellia Airport. Vines were already twining eager tendrils up the support legs of the Qwik-Kabins. The route to the lake was worn, with tramped-down brown-green grass budding new blades from every break, brighter blue-green shoots stabbing upwards like fine bristles.

  ‘Are you avoiding me?’ Angela asked.

  Fine alert soldier Paresh made – she’d sneaked up on him along the path. He wasn’t walking with anyone else, and nobody wanted to walk with him.

  ‘No,’ he said grumpily.

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘I just . . . I don’t know what happened.’

  ‘I do. We both got stupidly toxed. No big deal.’

  ‘It—’ He waited until Audrie and Josh walked past, both of them half-smirking as they looked on curiously, eager to watch the lovers’ tiff.

  ‘Oh,’ Angela said in exasperation. ‘Stop.’

  ‘I didn’t say anything.’

  ‘No, stop walking.’

  He did as he was told, and Angela stood beside him while the rest of the squad passed. ‘Catch you all in a minute,’ she told DiRito who was at the back of the line.

  He grinned, saying nothing.

  ‘That’s never happened before, right?’ Angela challenged. ‘The morning part, I mean.’

  Paresh’s face twisted up. Angry at first, then just plain miserable. ‘I guess I’d had more than I realized.’

  ‘Uh huh. You do get that I’m a lot older than you, don’t you?’

  ‘Yeah. It’s difficult, you know, you look like you’re maybe twenty, but I get it.’

  ‘Even before jail, I’d lost count of how many men who had their first never happened before. So either I’m like a human damping rod, or it might be a little more common t
han you guys like to admit. Either way, it doesn’t bother me.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Said, but not really meant.

  She sighed. The male ego . . . ‘Is that the monster over there?’

  ‘What?’ He looked around in alarm.

  ‘I thought I saw something move, Colonel.’

  ‘I’m not a, oh ah.’

  ‘Over there. In those bushes.’

  His own grin was returning. ‘Those thick bushes?’

  ‘Thick bushes away from this path, that nobody can see through.’

  ‘Could be dangerous.’

  ‘Very dangerous. They look quite prickly to me.’

  ‘I’ve got a towel.’

  ‘Me too. Shall we investigate?’

  ‘I think we ought to.’

  They walked away from the track to the lake, then started running. By the time they reached the sprawl of bushes and thinthillow trees they were both laughing. Angela wiggled her way past the tight packed branches of hayneleaf, making the mauve seed pods pop and the ruddy screw-like spirals zip out in short arcs.

  There was a flat patch of ground inside, and they sank down to their knees, kissing urgently. Angela put both arms up, letting him pull her T-shirt off. Then her hand was inside his fatigue trousers, feeling his cock stiffening.

  ‘I get to go on top,’ she said.

  ‘Yes ma’am.’

  ‘Call me ma’am again, and you’re dead.’ She pushed him down, and straddled him. Sirius shone down on them, a glare-point ruler in the vast cobalt empire of St Libra sky. It was gloriously hot on her naked skin, crowning her body. She adored the moment, adored the bright heat, adored the other heat which came from finally having a man inside her again, adored being here amid the trees and bushes, being free in the wildlands. This was where her real new life began, the start of the fightback. Returning to Abellia, with its wealth and skin-deep glitz, had too many memories shackling her to what had been. But out here in the jungle, this was different to everything that had gone before.

  *

  There were five resident girlfriends in Bartram’s mansion in 2121. Angela had tried to keep her emotional distance from them, as Bartram did from her; aiming for being colleagues rather than building up any friendships. That wasn’t so easy with Olivia-Jay. That sunny-girl personality was switched to maximum all the time. Angela suspected all the effusiveness was covering up for some deeper insecurity or low self-esteem. But if it was a mask, if she truly loathed what she had to do, Olivia-Jay never let it slip. So it was hard to keep pushing her away. After a while Angela didn’t bother. It turned out that having Olivia-Jay as a friend was quite useful.

  They let the Jag’s auto take them into town in the morning. It had rained not an hour earlier, so the roof was up to keep the spray out. Another thirty minutes and the bright Sirius sunlight would have burned away the last of the moisture. As it was, Angela could see steam rising off the tarmac.

  ‘I talked to Meshean last night,’ Olivia-Jay said as they turned on to the Rue de Montessuy, which would take them along the Osuan valley, almost all the way to the old town itself.

  ‘Oh?’ Angela wasn’t that interested; Meshean had been one of her predecessors, leaving the mansion a couple of months ago.

  ‘She’s started her history and politics course at Istanbul University.’

  ‘That’s great. Good for her.’

  ‘Do you think you’ll go back to Imperial College?’

  ‘Not sure. Haven’t really thought about it.’

  ‘Oh. But when you go back to Earth you’ll have enough money to live properly and study.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Angela smiled at the girl. Trouble with Olivia-Jay was she truly believed in happy endings. She had so many plans for what she would do afterwards with all the money. Her middle-class background was never more obvious than when she daydreamed about the future ten years hence: settling down on a new world, getting married, and having five kids. That was when Angela had to lock her own mask into place and not unleash a torrent of scorn at such bourgeois delusion. Olivia-Jay would have been too hurt by a friend shattering her dumb illusions. Maybe that whole ridiculous white knight scenario she was holding out for was the one thing which kept her smiling through. Though Angela had her suspicions about that – Olivia-Jay was just a little too uninhibited in bed to put any real meat on the whole dippy routine.

  Bartram seemed to believe it. Or at least he’d never called her out. But then Bartram wouldn’t bother. That would have meant engaging with his girlfriends, showing an interest. Marc-Anthony had nailed it when he said there was no true involvement. With the whole billionaire mansion retreat Bartram had crafted himself a specific fantasy, whereby girlfriends draped themselves decorously around the lounge he was using, or the dining room, or poolside, or bedroom. They were there to complement the mansion’s decor and grand artwork – that and fuck when told to.

  The topics Bartram did discuss with them were politics, music, medical science, market economics, and sports – specifically the English League One football. That was why the girlfriends were all recruited from universities, so they could hold their own in conversation and even put forward their own opinion. Karah, surprisingly, was a first-year genetics student, with her eye firmly on an Ivy League med school scholarship, which was in her contract as the final bonus; Lady Evangeline, the fiery politics student and token leftie, was going to be a GE Commissioner one day if she didn’t bring about the downfall of the whole corrupt establishment first; Coi, the sharp-as-nano finance analyst whose netlens glasses brimmed with figures from dawn till dusk, was destined to run either a national treasury or a trans-stellar bank. So it was Olivia-Jay who turned out to be the musical prodigy, able to play the antique Steinway grand piano in the seventh floor’s lounge with a virtuosity which had quite startled Angela the first time she heard it; she was equally adept at guitar, but her true talent lay with a voice that was smooth and husky as twenty-year-old malt. That left Angela as the sporty tomboy: she knew every League One player – their club, position, and form for the last few seasons – and could argue for hours about what formation play managers should and shouldn’t use. It had taken months of reviewing classic games, memorizing results, players, managers, League One gossip, but she could now talk the great game with the best of them. There was being a whore, and then there was just plain debasing yourself – but it had paid off. Apparently, the football girlfriend position hadn’t been filled for a while. The first thing Bartram had said when Marc-Anthony introduced them was: ‘So explain the offside rule to me, then.’

  The Jag pulled into the car park behind Velasco Beach. It was early afternoon, and the southerly wind and shepherd moonlets conjunction was raising a reasonable swell on the ocean. Angela and Olivia-Jay stood on the new promenade along the back of the sands and watched surfers riding the curls.

  ‘Can you do that?’ Olivia-Jay asked, her expression going all wistful as she watched the lean beach-suited figures showing off.

  ‘I haven’t for a while,’ Angela admitted. ‘I’m way out of practice.’

  ‘Will you teach me? We could get some boards delivered to the mansion.’

  Angela had just known that would be her response. ‘I suppose we could.’

  ‘Oh thank you!’ Olivia-Jay gave her a big hug and kiss.

  Angela kissed her back, smiling at the girl’s simple glee.

  ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

  ‘You’d survive.’ Angela put her arm round the girl’s shoulder. ‘Now come on, let’s make the most of our time out.’

  They wandered into the narrow streets of the old town. The buildings close to the sea were mainly old warehouses and engineering shops, all metal frame and cheap panelling, their original purpose modified by sharp developers into bargain apartments and small individual stores. It wasn’t the rich who used them, they had their own grander streets with exclusive malls and arcades and spars. This part of town belonged to the lowly contract workers.

  Angela led
them into Maslen’s café on Leseur Street, where the owner favoured east European synth pop from thirty years ago. She ordered a mint tea, while Olivia-Jay asked for an espresso with a syrup shot. Both girls looked at the row of amazing pastries and cup cakes that Maslen himself baked in the kitchen out back, but the notion that they might get to taste one was a rebellion too far. All their food was carefully measured and prepared at the mansion, and they had to log on daily to the gym machines or use a monitor band to record a jog round the grounds or a swim. He might be a gossip, a toxsoak, a fibber, and a shameless vanity merchant, but Marc-Anthony took his job very seriously. The girlfriends had their weight limit written into their contract, along with fitness levels and general physical appearance. Even tan shades were detailed – Olivia-Jay had to sunbathe nude for ninety minutes daily, a clause requiring her to turn over every ten minutes, to maintain her dark complexion; while the Celtic-skinned Karah couldn’t risk going outside without fullblock cream on. Lady Evangeline wasn’t allowed to trim her waist-length raven tresses. Angela herself was required to exercise twice as hard as the others. He did like his stereotypes did Bartram.

  ‘The surfboards are on their way,’ Olivia-Jay announced happily as Angela chose a white plastic table by the window to sit at.

  Angela put her jazzy orange and black beachbag behind the chair and picked up her Japanese-style tea cup with both hands, blowing at the surface to cool it. ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ she said.

  Olivia-Jay’s behaviour, the impulse buy, didn’t bother her any more. The boards would be ridiculously expensive, since everything in Abellia was either flown or shipped in, adding to the cost. It didn’t matter – anything the girlfriends wanted was just loaded onto the mansion’s general finance tab. Should they want to, they could keep the things they bought afterwards. Though loading up with jewellery from Abellia’s fanciful brand showcase emporiums earned them a ten-minute diatribe about gratitude in Marc-Anthony’s office.