The Nano Flower

by Peter F. Hamilton

  She paid with her new Amex, adding a pair of Ferranti shades as a last thought. The appalling shipsuit went into a Toska's bag, and she carried it out into the arcade, resisting the temptation to leave it behind.

  Back in the arcade she looked longingly at an Arden salon, wishing she had time to do something about her hair, the cap had simply killed it dead. Tomorrow, she promised herself.

  * * * *

  It was ten past three when Charlotte got back to her room in the Governor's Residence. Suzi's room was on one side, Rick Parnell's on the other. Thankfully there was no one about to see her. It wasn't that Greg had forbidden her from going out, but the implication was there. The sensation as the door closed behind Teresa Farrow was reminiscent of the one she used to have sneaking out of the care home, a giddy relief.

  Her room had black and green walls, an elaborate jungle print; the Scandinavian furniture was cut from redwood and left unvarnished, giving it a raw feel. The paradise birds in the large white cage by the balcony doors started to shrill wildly.

  Charlotte blew them a kiss and picked up her flight bag from the bed. "Just going to clean up," she told Teresa Farrow, and skipped into the bathroom.

  She was in two minds whether or not to call Fabian. She felt as though she was exploiting him, deliberately abusing his grief to help her achieve her revenge. But when she had suggested they get even with the Dolgoprudnensky, the two of them alone in their room at the platform's clinic, she'd seen that insouciant spark return. The prospect of retribution had animated him. It wasn't the sort of hope she particularly wanted to see in him, but it was hope of a kind. And that number-cruncher brain of his had rapidly cooked up several possible scenarios. She'd made suggestions of her own, helping to refine and fine-tune the idea. But now the time had come to actually commit herself, doubts were rising.

  No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy. More than one of her patrons had told her that; surprising how many of them were ex-military. And this wasn't something they'd ever have a second chance at. It had to work first time.

  It was risky.

  Charlotte raised her hand, the bioware sheath was like a two-fingered glove, flesh coloured; there was a constant warm itch underneath. No, she couldn't forget what Nia Korovilla had done, what she'd been ordered to do, and by whom.

  She put the seat down on the toilet, sat on it, and unzipped her flight bag. Below the Levi's and neatly folded Organic Flux Capacity sweatshirt was her gold Amstrad cybofax. Heaven alone knew how the wafer had stayed inside her shorts pockets while she was charging around the Colonel Maitland, but there it was, the only possession she had left that was truly hers.

  She entered Fabian's personal number, then ran the scrambler program. The Amstrad's screen fuzzed with static, then stabilized to show Fabian's face. He was smiling nervously.

  "Crikey, Charlotte, I thought you were never going to call. Anastasia docked an hour ago."

  "I've been busy."

  "Any sign of the alien?"

  "No, none. We're going to go out looking for my Celestial priest in quarter of an hour."

  "Oh. Well, good luck."

  "Thanks."

  "Are we going to do it?"

  "Yes, Fabian, we're doing it."

  "Terrific! Switch to conference mode and call Kirilov. Have you still got the number?"

  "Yes," she said with some exasperation.

  She pulled the number he'd given her from the cybofax's memory, and entered it in the phone circuit. The Amstrad's screen split in two, Fabian on one side, the other remained blank.

  "Yes?" a male voice asked, a heavy Slav accent.

  "We want to speak with Mr. Kirilov," Fabian said.

  "There is nobody of that name here."

  Fabian flipped his hair aside impatiently. "Rubbish. Tell Pavel Kirilov that it's Fabian Whitehurst and Charlotte Fielder calling."

  Names put a coolness in her belly, names meant there was no going back. And she was pretty sure Pavel Kirilov wouldn't be happy discovering his identity was being bandied about.

  A man's face appeared on the cybofax screen. She studied him closely. There was nothing exceptional about him, late forties or early fifties, thinning hair, gaunt cheeks, in fact—she almost smiled—the man bore a more than superficial resemblance to Lenin.

  Pavel Kirilov gave them a tight-lipped smile. "So, it is you, young Fabian. You've grown, I think, since we met last. And Miss Fielder, of course, I recognize you from your picture. May I say how glad I am you both survived the Colonel Maitland crash. The reports I received on the incident were most confused."

  "My father's dead," Fabian said.

  "Yes, I know. I'm sorry. He was a valued client."

  "And I inherit everything."

  Pavel Kirilov inclined his head. "Indeed."

  "So I want to carry on with the timber shipments, and the ship charters from Odessa. Just like before. The company agents will handle the details."

  "That's very astute of you, Fabian. I'm sure we can come to some arrangement with your father's estate."

  "Good."

  "May I ask you how you escaped from the Colonel Maitland?"

  "I have friends," Fabian said. He smirked.

  Charlotte hoped Fabian's confidence wasn't going to overload his prudence. Perhaps she should've insisted on dealing with Kirilov by herself. Too late now.

  "I see." Pavel Kirilov pulled at his lower lip. "Well, as long as you're safe now."

  "I want to do a deal," Fabian said.

  "What sort of deal, Fabian?" Pave! Kirilov asked.

  "We know where the alien is."

  "Which alien is this?"

  "Nia Korovilla is dead as well," Charlotte said. She caught Pavel Kirilov throwing a glance at someone off-camera.

  "You seem remarkably well informed, Miss Fielder."

  "I've picked up a lot in the last few years I've spent working for you, Mr. Kirilov."

  She was surprised when all Pavel Kirilov did was laugh. "I'm afraid that I know where the alien is as well. But I thank you for your offer."

  "No, you don't," said Fabian. "You just know the contact point is New London. Only Charlotte knows exactly where the flower came from."

  "I have all the information I require," Pavel Kirilov said.

  "Are you sure?" she asked. "Really sure? Remember, we already knew that you know the flower was handed over to me in New London. Why would we phone if that was all you needed? The fact is, you require a lot more data if you want to find the alien."

  Pavel Kirilov hesitated. "This additional data, you are offering to sell it?"

  "No, we're offering you a partnership."

  "In what?"

  "In atomic structuring technology. We secure the construction data for a nuclear force generator. You market it to a kombinate as you originally intended. And we take a percentage. Simple."

  Pavel Kirilov patted his hands together in front of his face. "My God, a child and a—You really know what you're talking about, don't you?"

  "You got it," Fabian said triumphantly.

  "Are you interested?" Charlotte asked. She was jamming her knees together to stop her legs from shaking. "If not, we can always call Event Horizon or Clifford Jepson, offer them the generator data."

  "What sort of percentage?" Pavel Kirilov asked impassively.

  "Five. And as a guarantee, Fabian and I are to be named on the patent application which you and the kombinate file."

  "I'm interested. No doubt you have devised a foolproof method of handover."

  "Yes. We're up in New London now."

  Pavel Kirilov raised his eyebrows. "You have the generator data already?"

  "We'll provide it for you," she said. "But it does have to be you, in person. No one else. I don't mean come alone or anything."

  "How very gratifying."

  "We have our own hardliners with us. So we'll meet here, on neutral territory, and we'll explain how we want to handle the actual transfer." She held her breath.

  Pavel K
irilov gave her a reluctant nod. "Baronski would be pleased to see the way you've turned out. You're a credit to him, Miss Fielder, if not to me. Where exactly in New London do you wish to meet me? Should I wear a carnation in my lapel, knot my tie in a certain fashion?"

  She tried to ignore the sarcasm, but there was a lot of weight behind it; one of the largest crime lords in Europe focusing on her. Displeased.

  "The more important they think themselves, the greater the disdain they feel they must show," Baronski had told her. "They can only intimidate you if you allow yourself to believe in this charade. None of it is real, they are acting. Imagine yourself as a channel critic and watch for the flaws in their performance."

  Charlotte said nothing.

  "Well?" Pavel Kirilov asked.

  He wanted to know, he needed them. God bless you, Dmitri, she wished silently. "Phone me exactly one hour before you dock," she said. "I will tell you where to wait, you may bring up to four hardline bodyguards for your personal safety. But if you phone after you arrive, if you send someone else in your place, if there are more than four hardliners, then the deal is off."

  "Very well, Miss Fielder, Fabian. I agree."

  "All right!" Fabian grinned.

  "But. If you are unable to provide me with the generator data, or if you try and sell the data to my rivals, then you will wish you had stayed on board the Colonel Maitland. Do I make myself clear? This is not a game. If you genuinely know what is going on, you will understand this."

  "We understand," Charlotte said.

  "Good. I shall make arrangements for a flight, expect me within six hours." His image disappeared from the Amstrad's screen.

  Charlotte's muscles felt drained, her palms were damp and sticky.

  Fabian was laughing like a mad thing. "What a team! What a team! We did it, we nailed the bastard." His face jiggled about on the screen.

  "Oh, Christ," she murmured. The enormity of what she'd done was beginning to register.

  "What's the matter? It's over. We did it. We won!"

  "It's only just started, Fabian."

  "Rubbish, stupid. He's on his way. That's all we needed. Once he's phoned you and confirmed he's docking, we'll tell Julia Evans." His lip curled up. "She'll have to act then. There's no way she'll allow Kirilov into New London, not with you and the alien and that Royan chap all up there together. And there Pavel Kirilov will be, in a spaceship, all alone. A sitting duck. I mean, do you know what kind of Strategic Defence weapons they've got up there?"

  "No, Fabian, I don't."

  "Hundreds and hundreds; masers, lasers, particle beams; and everyone knows Julia's got her own electron-compression warheads too. Ten megatons apiece. Scrunch! She'll dissect him."

  Trust Fabian to know about heavy duty weaponry, something in the male make-up drew them to it. Small boys and shiny warplanes went hand in hand, big boys too, come to that. "And then us, I should think," she said quickly.

  "Oh come on, Charlotte. We're doing her a favour. You heard her say she'd hunt Kirilov down afterwards. Well, we've gone and saved her all the trouble. We've given him to her on a plate. And she won't be able to shirk off this time. All she has to do now is give one order, and Kirilov is a cloud of hot atoms."

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  There were seven of them in the group that emerged from the public lobby below the Governor's Residence. They stood clustered together on the lava-like surface of the ring road which ran round the base of the southern endcap, looking across the open parkland, not quite sure where to go first. Very touristy, Greg thought, not that he was particularly concerned with stealth. But they did give the impression of a booked party. No need to draw unnecessary attention. Charlotte and Suzi were with him, of course; along with Rick and Melvyn; while a couple of the crash team, Teresa Farrow and Jim Sharman, completed the group. Lloyd McDonald had set up a dedicated mission office in the security centre, where he was reviewing reports from the police and his own personnel from inside the Cavern.

  "Where we headed?" Suzi asked.

  "Not sure. Lloyd will call us as soon as someone spots a Celestial Apostle." He sucked in some air, glancing round Hyde Cavern. A tiny secretion struck up a certain restlessness, but there was no call towards any particular part of the cylindrical landscape. "But in the mean time, we'll try the beach. The one where you met the priest, Charlotte."

  Charlotte nodded. "All right."

  Other pedestrians were glancing at her as they passed. Greg had to admit she looked sensational. Perhaps he ought to have asked her to wear something less conspicuous.

  It isn't her clothes, he told himself, it's your hormones.

  Rick had stuck close to her side on the way down from the Residence, making small talk, absolutely not looking at the top's scoop neck. The way she dealt with the attention was a frictionless wall of politeness, nothing that would encourage, nothing to take offence at. It was a neat trick. Poor old Rick.

  He took his cybofax out of a jacket pocket, and pulled a map of New London's train network from the colony's memory core. There were stations every two hundred metres round the endcap. He started walking towards the nearest one.

  "I've just heard from Sean Francis," Melvyn said. "Julia Evans is on her way up."

  "When will she be here?"

  "Three hours."

  "What's the matter, doesn't she trust us?" Suzi grumbled.

  "Give her a break," Greg said. It came out flatter than he intended. "She needs that atomic structuring technology. Once I confirmed the alien was here she didn't have many choices."

  "Yeah," Suzi said. "This alien thing, knowing it's here somewhere, ain't helping calm me. Why doesn't it show itself?"

  "It hasn't demonstrated any hostility," Rick said.

  "Not yet," Suzi said knowingly. She patted the Browning in her shoulder holster.

  Rick gave a despairing sigh.

  The vine-roped balconies gave way to sheer rock cliff, and the road bowed out from the base. They walked over a gently curved mock-stone bridge across the neck of a lake. A waterfall emerged from a cleft in the rock a kilometre above; Greg had to tilt his head right back to see its apex. The crinkled rock behind it was thick with creepers and slimy algae. He tracked the ragged white plume as it curved sideways through the air, thundering into the lake twenty metres away. The air was full of a fine spray, leaving the side of the bridge permanently slicked.

  "Freaky world," Suzi said above the noise.

  "Yeah," Greg called back. The endcap rose vertically for the first hundred metres, which was as high as the balconies and windows went, above that it sank into a slight depression of blank rock, with the lighting tube sprouting out of the centre. He could see another five of the exotic Coriolis waterfalls spaced round it at regular intervals.

  The train station was on the other side of the bridge, below ground. They took an escalator down to a whitewalled, spotlessly clean platform. Greg asked the station 'ware for a private coach. There was a rush of dry air from the tunnel, and the bullet-nosed aluminium cylinder glided out, hovering a couple of centimetres above the single rail. They all trooped in, and Greg showed his Event Horizon card to the driver panel, requesting the Kenton station.

  * * * *

  The fall-surf beach was spread out along one side of a deep horseshoe-shaped cove which hugged the foot of the northern endcap. This time there was no cliff of balconies at the base, the endcap was a simple shallow hemisphere carved out of the rock. The six Coriolis waterfalls were replicated, but lacking the severe drop of their southern endcap counterparts. They flowed down channels cut in the rock, clinging to the curve. One of them emptied into the cove with a dramatic foam cloud of spray. Thin rainbows swirled inside it.

  Greg watched in amazement as a woman on a surfboard shot out of the mist, flying across the cove. Another followed her. He looked up.

  The fall-surfers were dotted at fifty-metre intervals all the way back up the waterfall. Where it jetted out of the endcap, a kilometre above him, he could just make
out a small metal platform like a broad diving-board. A tiny dark figure leapt off it, descending almost vertically to start with, low gravity only just managing to provide the stability for a lazy glide. The tail of the long board barely touched the water. Then gravity took hold, building constantly as the curve of the endcap increased underneath the surfer. His speed began to pick up. By the time he reached the bottom he was travelling at a hellish velocity.

  They all heard a gleeful whoop as he exploded out of the waterfall's foam cloud and flashed past, slicing out a long creamy wake. He had almost reached the end of the cove before he slowed to a halt and began paddling back to shore.

  "Now that is something else," Suzi muttered in admiration.

  Greg knew what she meant, his immediate reaction was: I want to try that.

  Charlotte stared up at the waterfall with a fond smile. "It takes a lot of nerve to kick off the first time. But after that it's addictive."

  "You've done it?" Suzi asked, slightly envious.

  "Oh, yes. Fall-surfing is one of their greatest tourist traps. It looks wild, but actually it's very safe."

  "I'm sure it is," Greg said. "But it isn't on our agenda." He led them along the path towards the cove, Suzi grumbling behind him.

  The beach itself had a Riviera look, organized, colourful, and crowded. Bars that were little more than wooden planks under dried-palm roofs lined the bluff above the sand. Behind them was a more substantial row of restaurants. Regimental squares of sunbeds covered the top half of the beach, competing for space with netball pitches. The powder-fine sand was dazzlingly white. Waiters in white shirts and dark-green bow ties scurried between the bars and sunbeds, carrying trays of drinks.

  Greg walked along the crumbling sandy soil of the bluff.

  There was a steady drift of families coming up the steps from the beach, carrying their bags and towels, small children with tired-looking faces.