Hamilton, Peter F – Mindstar Rising

Ten minutes. There was a light rap on the door. • ‘Come in,’ she said, furious at the sudden quaver afflicting her voice. She almost let out a whimper of relief when she saw it was Adrian. He was wrapped in his burgundy towelling robe. Bare feet, no pyjamas. She blipped the lock. Sealing him in. ‘Julia!’ There was a note of surprised admiration in his voice; and desire lighting his eyes as he drank down the sight of her. She couldn’t stand it anymore, and ran at him. Swept up in strong warm arms. Spinning round and round. Both of them laughing jubilantly. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE O n Saturday morning Greg parked the Duo in a side street just outside New Eastheld, and handed over a flyer to the local teeny-bopper extortionists before walking out into the plush precinct’s tranquil boulevards. He’d used the Event Horizon card to splash out on new light-grey slacks, blue canvas sneakers, and a jade-green pure wool Stewart sweater. His usual jeans and T-shirt would’ve aggrieved the private police squad which New Eastfleld’s residents employed. One major contributory factor to Peterborough’s post-Warming prosperity had been its burgeoning maritime links. The Nene allowed cargo ships to sail right into the heart of the city. They docked at a new port and warehouse complex which had sprung up in the place of the old shopping precinct and Queensgate mall. In addition to the commercial shipping, an armada of nearly seven thousand small boats had set out from the Norfolk Broads as the Antarctic ice melted, converging on the city. They’d anchored around the island suburb of Stanground; their moorings evolving into a hugely complicated maze of jetties built out of timber scavenged from the roofs and floors of deluged buildings out in the Fens. The boats at the centre were trapped there now, ten years’ worth of rubbish clogging the water around them, embedding them in an artificial bog. He’d heard that around ten thousand people lived in the sprawling boat-town. The actual figure was uncertain, Stanground’s inherent chaos made council hall governance nigh on impossible. An aspect which the residents took full advantage of. The narrow twisting channels were Peterborough’s main haven for smugglers, pumping hard currency Eurofrancs into the city’s economy. Finally, there was an impressive squadron of pleasure craft. The potential of the city’s industrial vigour, coupled with the ~48 PETER F. HAMILTON loose around here. One of us made barman at a pub the crews use, nothing they like better than slagging off their owners.’ ‘Sounds good so far. What have you got for me?’ Suzi wriggled a hand free and pointed at the screens. ‘This Kendric, he’s a fucking Martian. Not of this earth, y’know? The lives these yacht people lead. Un-be-lievable! Tell you something, though, no way is he a card carrier. I mean, the PSP’s local chairpricks, they had it all, right? Eternal junket time. But they haven’t got nothing compared to this geezer. The money he’s got. He wouldn’t last five minutes if they ever got back in power.’ ‘Ah.’ He’d wondered about the peak of vexation in her mind. ‘No, Kendric’s not .Party. But my guess is that he’s involved in a spoiler against Event Horizon. And with the economy all shaky with inflation right now, Event Horizon taking a tumble would be serious bad news. The only people who’ll benefit are the PSP relics in legitimate opposition. That good enough for you?’ ‘What’s the spoiler?’ ‘Ministry of Defence. Ultra-hush.’ ‘Figures,’ she agreed without much enthusiasm. ‘Son told us Kendric was plugged into big-league corporate operations.’ Greg studied the various images on the five screens. Mirriam was the biggest yacht in the marina. Sixty-five metres long, gleaming silver-white, with jet-black ports. Crewmen stripped to the waist were visible, washing down the wide afterdeck. ‘Is Kendric on board right now?’ ‘Yeah, as always. Believe me, nothing at all happens in this marina before noon. They’re all too busy sleeping off last night’s orgies. Right now, it’s business time for Kendric. He holds a couple of conference sessions in the mid-deck lounge each day. There’s a whole bunch of squarearse lawyer types who turn up each morning to see him. Don’t know what they rap about in the cabin, Mirriam’s ports are screened, but anything they say out on the deck we’ve got on a memox cartridge for you.’ Her eyebrows puckered up. ‘Isn’t that Julia Evans girl in charge of Event Horizon now?’ ‘Yeah. She owns it.’ MINOSTAR RISING 249 ‘No shit? Heard Kendric on about her. . .’ Suzi began typing on a keyboard. ‘Remember the file code,’ she muttered, and consulted a cybofax. ‘Here we go.’ One of the small screens changed to a scene on the Mirriam’s broad afterdeck. Greg squinted down at it. Kendric was sitting on one of the plastic redliners, dressed in an open-neck shirt and tailored shorts, drinking from a tall cut-crystal glass. The man with him was in a suit, his collar undone, tie hanging loose. He looked to be in his late forties, a flat bulldog face with red skin. ‘Here,’ said Suzi. She handed Greg an earpiece. missing out badly,’ the man in the suit was saying, in a faint Scottish brogue. ‘Our Party is damn near down, Kendtic, it cannot last long. Terrible thing, food’s short, there’s no gear, no methane for the farms. People are going to the spivs like never before. There’s a hell of a turnover in silver right now. If you could just have a wee word with young Julia Evans, come to an arrangement wi’ her till the Party goes down. I can ship it out by the tonne.’ ‘Impossible,’ Kendric said flatly. His face was dangerously hard. ‘That frigid bitch and I have severed all our business contacts. There will be no resumption.’ “Tis a lot o’ money, Kendric.’ ‘Ride it out. I’m closing some deals that will make the black currency market utterly trivial. And I certainly shall not forget your forbearance.’ The man in the suit shook his head sadly, and took a drink from his glass. The image froze. ‘Didn’t mean much at the time,’ said Suzi. She pecked at the keyboard again. This time it was evening. A gauzy layer of cumulus cloud glowed copper above the Mirriam. There was a crowd of about fifteen people drinking on the afterdeck, the women in low-cut cocktail dresses; men in suits or blazers. Laughter, clamorous conversation, and the chink of glasses filled the earpiece. Kendric was standing at the stern with two other men. One tall and slim with thinning blond hair, the second a handsome African in brightly coloured northern tribal robes. 252 PETER F. HAMILTON detected a glint of amusement in her mind. She scrabbled amongst the gear modules and caine back with a memox crystal. ‘This has got all the visitors’ faces and times they turned up. We managed to get names for a few of them.’ One of the flatscreens switched to the Mirriam’s blueprints. ‘There are always at least four people left on board,’ Suzi said, pointing at it. ‘We think we’ve got their cabins assigned, but you can never be sure.’ Names had been superimposed over the various cabins. ‘Great. Where did you get the specs from?’ Greg asked. ‘Son snatched them. Mirriam’s hull was built in Finland, but she was fitted out up in Tyneside. Apparently the English ” are still unbeatable when it comes to quality handicrafts.’ Greg squirted the memox crystal data into his cybofax, and began skipping through the faces. The images were good, high definition, most seemed to be staring straight into the lens. Morgan Waishaw should be able to assemble profiles on them. ‘Oh yeah,’ Suzy muttered. ‘They’ve got themselves a permanent doxy on board, too. She don’t do much; too flicking stoned the whole time by the look of her. That Kendric, mйnage a quatre every night, some stud, huh?’ Greg flipped through the index until he came to the girl; she’d been given a number, but no name. Her face appeared on the cybofax’s little screen. ‘That’s some looker,’ Suzi said, craning over his shoulder. ‘Wouldn’t mind her for myself.’ ‘Has she been on board the whole time?’ ‘Yeah, since we’ve been watching, anyway. Why, you know her?’ ‘Yes. Her name is Katerina Cawthorp.’

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