Mindstar Rising

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

A pair of dolphins spiralled around Eleanor, silver bubbles streaming out from their flashing tails, wrapping her at the centre of an ephemeral DNA helix. Playful scamps. She'd come to love the freedom of the water over the last few weeks. Down here, surrounded by quiet pastel light, tranquillity reigned; life's ordinary worries simply didn't exist below the surface. Sometimes she spent hours swimming along the bottom of Rutland Water; one small part of her mind checking the long rows of water-fruit rooted in the silt, while her memories and imagination roamed free. Daydreaming really, but this gentle universe understood and forgave.

The marine-adepts had warned her about the state. "Blue lost", they called it. But she couldn't believe it was that dangerous. Besides, the reservoir was finite, not like the oceans they talked of, where some of their kind never returned. Swimming away to the edge of the world.

She helped tend their crops three or four days each week; with inflation the way it was, the water-fruit money came in useful. And she could spend the time thinking about life, the world, and Greg, weaving the strands in fanciful convolutions; so that when she left the water behind her mind was spring-fresh and eager for the sights, sounds, and sensations of land again. Mental batteries recharged. The world outside that ever-damned kibbutz was too big to endure in one unbroken passage.

She felt a dolphin snout poking her legs, upsetting her balance. It was Rusty, the big old male. She knew him pretty well by now, though some of the others were hard to distinguish. Rusty had a regular ridge of scar tissue running from just behind his eyes down to his dorsal fin. The marine-adepts never talked about it, so she never asked. But something had been grafted on to him at one time. She didn't like to think what.

They'd brought eight dolphins with them to the reservoir to help harvest their water-fruit. The dolphins' long, powerful snouts could snip clean through a water-fruit's ropy root. All of them were ex-Navy fish, their biochemistry subtly adjusted, enabling them to live comfortably in fresh water as well as salt. Greg said that was so they could be sent on missions up rivers. But whatever Rusty had been made to do back then hadn't affected his personality; he could be a mischievous devil when he wanted to be.

Like now.

She suddenly found herself flipped upside-down, whirl currents from his thrashing tail tumbling her further. The remains of Middle Hambleton spun past her eyes. Shady rectangular outlines of razed buildings rising from the dark grey-green alluvial muck. One day she was determined she'd explore those sad ruins properly.

She stretched her arms out, slowing herself, then bent her legs, altering her centre of gravity, righting herself. A shadow passed over her, Rusty streaking away, beyond retribution. She let herself float upwards.

At the back of her mind she was marvelling at her own enjoyment. She, a girl who couldn't even swim six weeks ago, even though the kibbutz at Egleton was right beside the reservoir. The marine-adepts had thought that hilarious.

For the first few weeks after she'd moved into Greg's chalet she'd had a sense of being divorced from selected sections of his life. Apart from the Edith Weston villagers everyone he knew was ex-military; the marine-adepts, Gabriel, that mysterious bunch of people in Peterborough he'd referred to obliquely a couple of times, even the dolphins. They were a hard-shelled clique, one that'd formed out of shared combat experiences. She could never possibly be admitted to that. And the marine-adepts were naturally reticent around other people; it wasn't quite a racial thing, but they did look unusual until you were used to them. The only time they left the reservoir was to drive their water-fruit crop to Oakham's railway station.

Breaking through their mistrust had been hard going. The turning point had come when Nicole had finally taken over her swimming lessons, more out of exasperation than kindness, she'd thought at the time. But a bond had formed once she realised how keen Eleanor was, and the rest of the floating village's residents had gradually come to accept her. A triumph she considered equal to walking out on the kibbutz in the first place.

She could never hope to match the marine-adepts in the water. They had webbed feet which enabled them to move through the water with a grace rivalling the dolphins, and their boosted haemoglobin allowed them to stay submerged for up to a quarter of an hour at a time. But with flippers and a bioware mirror-lung recycling her breath she was quite capable of helping them in the laborious nurturing of the water-fruit. Planting the kernels deep in the silt, watching out for fungal decay in the young shoots, clearing away tendrils of the reservoir's ubiquitous fibrous weed which could choke the mushy pumpkin-like globes. The marine-adepts had staked out eight separate fields in the reservoir, and earned quite a decent living from them.

Her only real failure among Greg's friends had been Gabriel Thompson. The woman was so stuck-up and short-tempered Eleanor had wound up simply ignoring her. She suspected Gabriel had a jealousy problem. Always mothering Greg.

She broke surface five hundred metres off shore, about a kilometre away from the Berrybut time-share estate. The sun was low in the sky, and she could see flames rising from the estate's bonfire.

Rusty's chitter tore the air ten metres behind her. She slapped the water three times and he vanished again. Some Navy dolphins had been fitted with bioware processor nodes to make them totally obedient to human orders. But Nicole said the Navy had left Rusty's brain alone. The marine-adepts used a hand-signal language to talk with the reservoir dolphins. Eleanor had mastered most of it, and Rusty nearly always did as she asked. That little edge of irrepressible uncertainty in his behaviour was what made him such fun.

She felt the change in water pressure as he rose underneath her, then she was straddling him, clutching desperately at his dorsal fin as he began to surge forwards. Homeward-bound fishermen in their white hire boats stared with open-mouthed astonishment as she sped past, slicing out an arc of creamy foam in her wake.

Rusty let her off fifteen metres from the shore, where the bottom started to shelve. A flock of panicky flamingos took flight, pumping wings creaking the air above her. She gave her steed an affectionate slap and waded ashore, arms aching from hanging on against the buffeting water.

The familiar claimed her as she walked up the slope to chalet six. Meat roasting on the bonfire, pork by the smell of it. Dusty whirlwind of the football game, rampaging along the side of the spinney. Swapping easy greetings with the few adults milling about. Dogs underfoot, Labradors, who made the best rabbiters. A couple of wolf-whistles following her progress. She smiled at that. Something else she wouldn't have been able to cope with before.

She wore a one-piece costume whenever she went into the water now. The polka-dot bikini which Greg had bought her was far too skimpy for any serious diving—typical lecherous male. Not that she wanted to change him. Night-time with Greg was one continuous orgy, hot, strenuous, sweaty, and tremendously exciting; another fruit forbidden to her at the kibbutz.

The Duo was parked in its usual spot. She was looking forward to hearing what he'd been called away to, the message he'd left on the terminal had been oddly brief.

She shrugged out of the mirror-lung, and plugged its nutrient coupling into the support gear on the veranda.

Greg was inside, dressed in an old purple sweatshirt and shorts, fooling around with the kitchen gear. Whatever he was cooking smelt good.

"My saviour." She gave him a radiant smile. "After your message I wasn't sure if you'd be back, and I haven't got the energy left to cook."

He slurped a spoonful of the sauce he was simmering.

"Béarnaise, it's nice, try some." He held up the spoon.

She took a sip as his other arm slipped around her waist, hand coming to rest on her buttock. "You're right, not bad." For a moment she thought he was going to dump the meal and urge her into the bedroom. He always got turned on by the sight of her in a wet swimming costume. And there was plenty of time before she was due behind the bar at the Wheatsheaf. But then she looked closely at his face, and wrinkled her nose up. "God, you look awful."

"Thank you."

"Sorry… but, what have you been up to?"

"Do me one favour," he implored.

"What?"

"Just don't tell me I look like I've seen a ghost."

"I don't like it," Eleanor murmured.

It was long past midnight, the time for honest talk. They were lying on top of the big bed, the duvet crumpled up somewhere on the floor. The heat from making love beneath it would have been intolerable. As it was, they'd left the window full open, curtains wide to let the balmy night air flow around their bodies.

A quarter-moon was riding high in the sky, bathing the room with a spectral phosphorescence. She stretched out on her side beside him, her hands pillowing her head.

"Why not?" There was a certain tenseness in his voice.

"Just don't," she said.

"Female intuition?"

"Something like that."

He wet the tip of his forefinger and began to trace a line from her shoulder to the flare of her hips, innocently curious. "I'm supposed to be the one with the hyper-senses."

"You want logic? OK. It's too big. You're a one-man band, they're warring armies. They're out to kill each other, Greg. That security man, Walshaw, said as much. This giga-conductor stuff, it pushes the stakes too high. You don't know who the other side is, you don't know who to watch out for. There are an awful lot of kombinates who will suffer because of the giga-conductor. Any one of them could decide they don't want you interfering."

"Firstly, I share Julia's conviction that Kendric di Girolamo is involved somewhere, the mole is his plant. So at least I know one direction of attack which I should be guarding myself from. And secondly, I'm not convinced that it is the giga-conductor which is the root cause of the blitz. Erasing Philip Evans's memories wouldn't halt its introduction, not with the Ministry of Defence pushing it. He's important, but not that important, no matter what he likes to think. I suppose it's partially conceit. By maintaining that Event Horizon can't do without him, he's justifying the expense of the NN core. I'm not so sure. Julia has inherited his drive, more if anything; and she's bright, she learns fast. She's just very young, that's all. No crime. The company won't fail with her in charge."

"A personal vendetta extended to wiping a Turing personality program? Come on, nobody's that obsessive."

"Don't you believe it. Philip Evans trod hard on a lot of toes to build up Event Horizon. In any case…"

"What?" She looked at him intently, seeing the confusion on his moonlit face.

"Philip Evans's memories aren't just a simple Turing program, there's more to it. He's not alive, I'll grant you that. But neither is he wholly dead. I saw something with my espersense."

Eleanor stroked his abdominal muscles lightly, fingers dancing as she considered what he'd said. She never quite knew how to interpret his psi ability, it all sounded so vague and mystical, like tarot cards and reading tea leaves. Yet he did have the talent, no denying that. Her father's horror and fright still returned to her occasionally.

"All right," she said, "if it is di Girolamo, or someone else, looking for vengeance, they are even less likely to appreciate you coming between them and the Evans family."

"All I shall be doing is interviewing Event Horizon personnel to find their mole, and seeing if my own contacts know anything about the blitz. There's no danger in that." He took her hand and brought it up to his lips, kissing her knuckles. "Look, this is what I've been wanting to break into for years. It's a regular case, just interviews and data correlation, and it pays regular money. I'm not going to touch the hardline side."

"What do you mean, break into? I thought this is what you did."

"Part time," he said. "But this is the second time in a few months that Event Horizon has called me in to sort out their problems. No amount of advertising and PR work can generate that kind of reputation. This could be what I need to make the switch. I could maybe put myself on a business footing, get an office, a secretary, some assistants—hell, pay taxes too. I think I'd like that."

She moved closer, resting against him, feeling hot sweaty skin pressing into her belly. It was a funny mood he was in; indecisive, which wasn't like him at all. "I don't want to change you, Greg."

He grinned and patted her backside lightly. "Too late, you already have. Don't you want me to have a regular job?"

"I'd like that, yes. But I don't want you getting hurt trying to build some kind of impossible reputation."

"Tell you, there's no worry on that score, I'll be perfectly safe, Gabriel's coming with me."

"I see." It would have to be Gabriel he took along. Eleanor reckoned her psi ability was completely tabloid. But if she started protesting now he'd think she was just being childishly petulant. And she could hardly see the two of them running off together, Gabriel had to be at least ten years older than Greg. Whatever bond they had between them was locked safely in the past.

"I'm only being practical," he said. "Gabriel can spot trouble long before it starts. And whilst we're on the subject of practical, you might care to look at the chalet walls sometime. We're providing a home for more insects than you'll find at a natural history museum."

"Money," she said in disgust. "It always boils down to money."

"The way the world's built. Nothing to do with me."

She rested her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat. "I know. I wasn't angry at you."

"There's something else wrong, too," he said. "I simply cannot believe a mole, no matter how highly placed, could breach a security cordon which Morgan Walshaw set up; certainly not a security cordon around something as ultra-hush as the giga-conductor. The stuff is Event Horizon's entire future. You haven't met him, but take it from me, he's as good as they come. Reliable, smart, experienced, he just doesn't make elementary mistakes. If it had been breached at any time in the last ten years, he'd know."

Eleanor thought he was saying it mechanically, as though he was trying to convince himself with repetition. "So the mole isn't an executive, he's on the inside of the cordon."

He shifted his shoulders, restless. "Doubtful, Walshaw would arrange to have every one of Ranasfari's research team vetted and constantly reviewed. And if the mole was on the inside, how come he knew of Philip Evans's NN core?"

"Oh, yes. Hey, what about a psychic? Surely someone with a gland could peer in on both the giga-conductor laboratory and the clinic where they spliced the NN core together?"

"Unlikely, although I admit it's possible. There aren't many of us, not even worldwide. And the premier-grades, the ones whose esp is powerful enough to reach into Event Horizon's research facilities from a distance, you can count them on one hand. Not that they're used for anything so mundane as trawling in any case. It's like this; to bring in a premier-grade psychic you have to know there's something worthwhile for them to peek. Almost a catch-twenty-two scenario. Normally, premier-grades are brought in to acquire specific items, like a formula or template. And as Event Horizon has already patented the giga-conductor that would seem to preclude their involvement. If a kombinate had acquired the giga-conductor's molecular structure they would've slapped down the patent before Event Horizon. The blitz would never have happened."

"A prescient like Gabriel, then. One of them looked into the future and saw Event Horizon churning out the giga-conductor, and sold the information to a kombinate."

"Gabriel is the best prescient there is, and she didn't know, not even with her own future interwoven with the giga-conductor."

Eleanor nearly said that it could've been a prescient who wasn't so totally neurotic as Gabriel, but held her peace. Greg could get quite unreasonably defensive when it came to the silly woman. It was the military clique thing again. She knew she would never be able to appreciate the kind of combat traumas which they had been through together in Turkey.

"So what are you trying to say?" she asked.

"Just that it doesn't ring straight. Blitzing the core out of spite isn't kombinate behaviour."

"It was a vendetta, then."

He let out a long wistful sigh, frowning. "Wish I knew."

"Poor Greg."

She snuggled closer, brushing her breasts provocatively against his torso as she slid on top of him. Greg had a thing about big breasts, which she exploited ruthlessly when they were having sex. He glanced down owlishly, frown fading.

"I was thinking," he said. "Why don't you come with me when I visit my contacts? There's one in Peterborough I'll probably visit."

She tried not to show any surprise. Nicole had dropped the occasional hint that he'd taken an active part in the events leading up to the Second Restoration, and she'd guessed that was tied up somewhere with his old Army mates in Peterborough. But he'd never offered to introduce them before.

"I'd like that." Short pause. "Will Gabriel be coming?"

"Er, no. The contact I'm thinking of doesn't like too many visitors. We can go the day after tomorrow; I fixed up to take Gabriel to Duxford in the morning, interview Ranasfari's people. Shouldn't take long."

"Right." She thought it was about time to lighten the atmosphere, take him away from intrigue and human failings. She tapped a hard fingernail on his sternum. "Now what about this Julia? She sounds a bit of a handful to me."

"She is. You'll never guess what she wanted me to do."

"What?" She couldn't help the note of bright curiosity which bubbled into her voice.

"I'll show you."