Mindstar Rising

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Julia took the broad stairs of Wilholm Manor two at a time, her burst of speed nearly skidding her feet from under her when she reached the hall's polished tiles. She pushed up the heavy iron latch on the front. Rachel came out of the old butler's pantry, looking miffed; it should have been Steven on duty, but he'd called in sick. The disapproving expression fell from her face to be replaced by her usual natural diligence.

Julia enjoyed the momentary lapse. So Rachel was human after all. Wonder who was in there with her?

She pushed the big oak door open and went outside. It was raining lightly, drops falling vertically from a high almost nebulous cloud sheet. The air seemed solid with humidity. She stood under the portico, heart pumping strongly.

You in a hurry, girl?

Julia clamped down on her racing thoughts as the silent voice whispered into her brain, resenting the way her grandfather was interpreting her actions. He'd loaded a personality package, coded OtherEyes, into one of her processor nodes, digesting her body's senses in real-time, feeding the formatted sensations back to his NN core.

I'd go crazy otherwise, he'd pleaded. Camera images are no substitute, flat and insipid; I'm human, damn it, I need human touch and smell, heat and cold. Not all the time, just the occasional reminder. Keep in touch with the real world.

So she'd acquiesced; and still wasn't sure if it was such a good idea. She'd carefully reviewed the processor node's basic management program, making sure its neural-interface flow was strictly one-way. Acceptance only. None of her thoughts could seep in for him to examine. Not bloody likely. But despite the precautions, it meant having Grandpa chuntering away inside her mind the whole time OtherEyes was loaded.

There were advantages—his insights could be illuminating—but he did moan so.

From her position she could see a pair of forlorn-looking wheelbarrows that'd been abandoned down at the far end of the garden, piled high with weeds. She didn't blame the gardeners for taking a break from the heat and damp. She was already perspiring under her white cotton summer dress. Her skin itched.

Too bloody hot it is, Juliet.

Show me your April, she asked, on some fey impulse.

For an instant the trees lost their leaves, their branches becoming thick black crockery cracks superimposed on a band of sombre grey landscape. There were no flowers in the garden, though the shrubs were covered in a crop of glossy scarlet berries. Steam shifted to clammy mist, cold water droplets clinging to branches and grass. Icy air cut through her thin dress. Small bedraggled birds pecked for worms in the slushy gravel. A remote style of beauty, lonely.

The strange apparition withered. She was rubbing her bare arms against the lingering impression of chill.

Now those were the days, her grandfather said happily.

I suppose.

But she wouldn't want it to happen very often, say every five years.

The Duo rolled out of the warm drizzle, and pulled up close to the portico. There was someone sitting in the passenger seat. Julia smiled a welcome.

Isn't he a bit old, Juliet?

Her smile locked.

Greg is a nice man, Grandpa. He doesn't patronise me like everyone else. You've no idea what a relief that is.

She was going to have to go back over the processor node's inputs; he was learning far too much of her private self, that aspect of personality which should remain secret. Her own body language was playing traitor.

Greg got out of the Duo, scurrying quickly round the rear of the car for the shelter of the portico. He shook out the collar of his leather jacket, nodded at Rachel. He wasn't bothering with suits any more, Julia noted. Levis and T-shirts were more agreeable on him, anyway; he'd never looked quite right in a suit, caged. It was great to think he felt familiar enough around her to relax, let her see his real self. Most people were so guarded with her.

"Hello, Greg. Was it something important?" Or did you come just to see me? Unlikely, but…

Lovesick. Your knees have gone all watery, Juliet. Mental laughter.

Grandpa, if you don't stop that right now I'll cancel the link. First and final warning, OK?

No bloody sense of humour, that's your trouble, m'girl.

Greg was looking at her strangely, head slightly cocked as though he was concentrating on a faint voice. "Could be," he said pleasantly. "Brought someone to see you and your grandfather."

The woman getting out of the Duo's passenger seat, with some difficulty, was about fifty, Julia thought as she sized her up. Dressed in a pleated maroon skirt and a flower-print blouse under a woollen jacket, a double string of pearls around her neck. Her fading fair hair had been given a light perm. Julia didn't quite know what to make of her. She certainly couldn't be Greg's girlfriend. Surely? Perhaps his aunt.

Now there's a candidate for a healthy diet if ever I saw one.

It took a great deal of willpower not to clench her fists. And what must Greg be seeing in her mind?

Shut! Up! Julia shouted into the node.

"This is Gabriel Thompson," Greg was saying. "My Mindstar colleague."

Julia forgot all about the exasperating intrusion in her mind, suddenly excited and fearful in a way she couldn't explain. She opened her mouth.

"Yes, I can," said Gabriel.

Julia gaped, elated, then suspicious. Recovering her composure. "You must know that is the first thing everyone is going to ask you by now," she countered.

"True." And there was a burst of humour in the woman's deep-set leathery eyes. Gone almost before it registered.

She looks so sad, Julia thought. Haunted.

If her ability is real, then she will be able to see her own death approaching. How would you feel about that, Juliet?

"There must be an easy way of proving you can see the future," Julia persisted as the three of them walked up the stairs toward the study. Rachel had gone back to the butler's pantry, satisfied Greg and Gabriel posed no threat.

"I can give you a short-term localised prediction, but you must remember that you possess the ability to alter that future. Nothing is a certainty. For instance, I could tell you what I see you eating for dinner tonight; but it would be singularly pointless as you could order the cook to prepare something else just to prove the prediction wrong."

"So make it something I won't alter." She glanced at Greg to see if he approved of her badgering. He must've understood how intrigued people would be.

Eighth time you've looked at him.

Wipe OtherEyes.

The abrupt silence was like an empty hole, torn out. She felt a fragment of guilt, this was Grandpa she was punishing. But he shouldn't abuse the privilege, he had to learn that.

Gabriel's eyes had that distant focus, just like Greg. As though the gland lifted them out of this universe for a while.

"This afternoon, four o'clock, you'll get a call from your precision cybernetics division in London. The manager will submit the last quarter returns; and he'll keep emphasising the efficiency figures, they're up by five per cent."

"All right," Julia said enthusiastically. Four o'clock, an hour and a half, she could wait that long. Typical of regional managers to fish for compliments.

"Unless you call him first and ask for the report," Gabriel pointed out.

"I won't. I think I believe anyway. You'd never be so bold if you weren't certain."

Greg and Gabriel both seemed content with her answer. She showed them into the study, walking straight to her seat at the head of the table.

"Look, Grandpa, Greg's come to visit us, and he's brought a friend."

Julia noticed Gabriel's reticence as she sat down. The woman's gaze never left the black column on the table as she perched on the front edge of the wooden seat. If she really could see the future how could anything shock her?

Julia listened to her grandfather saying hello in a civil tone, giving away nothing. Then Greg started to report on his progress to date. Her eyes wandered while he was speaking and she saw Gabriel was using the gland again.

"Bugger," Philip Evans exclaimed when Greg had finished. "That fucking Ministry of Defence, more bloody trouble than it's worth. I never knew it leaked that badly. The whole hacker circuit, you say?"

"'Fraid so, they all know you've cracked the giga-conductor, and been awarded development contracts."

"So it could be any of the kombinates," Julia said. "You've no leads."

"A lot of negatives, which is cutting down the field considerably. At the moment my personal suspicion is Kendric di Girolamo and a highly placed mole. Place as much emphasis on that as you wish."

"Vengeance." Philip Evans sounded sceptical. "If he's that twisted why not try to assassinate Juliet here? Got to be cheaper than buying eight hotrod hackers, and their silence. She's well protected, but no security is proof against a professional hardliner tekmerc, not when he's striking out of the blue."

She shrank a little inside, compressed by steely arctic fingers. It's only theory, she told herself, don't let it bother you. But there was no need for him to say it quite so bluntly.

"I don't know," said Greg. "I still don't understand why Kendric allowed Julia to buy him out. Even if he didn't know about the giga-conductor when he started the memox-spoiler operation, he certainly did by the time she confronted him."

"I see what you mean," Julia said. "We filed the patent on November the fifteenth, and informed the Ministry of Defence on the seventeenth. Even assuming Kendric doesn't have a mole feeding him data, he ought to have known it existed by the end of the year at the latest, like your contact did; which would've given him months to work out the implications before I hit him with the buyout. He should've held on for all he was worth, risked family displeasure over Siebruk Orbital. For those stakes they would've forgiven him anything. In fact, now he has withdrawn the di Girolamo house, they're going to be furious with him when I go public with the giga-conductor and they realise what they've lost out on." The idea of Kendric giving up bothered her deeply. Kendric was smart and crafty. That bastard would have something in reserve. She knew he would.

Gabriel stirred, blinking rapidly. "Wilholm's staff are clear," she announced.

"From what?" Julia asked.

"From knowing your grandfather is stored in this NN core. They hadn't put it together like your father."

Julia knew her cheeks were reddening at the reminder, and didn't care, not any more. "How do you know?"

"I scanned the possible futures where Greg interviews each of them this afternoon, he wouldn't find any culpability. Oh, except that your gardeners are flogging ten per cent of Wilholm's vegetables on the village market."

"Little buggers," Philip squawked.

"Oh shush, Grandpa, I know all about that."

"How come?"

"I'm mistress of the manor, remember? It's my job to know." She turned back to Gabriel. "I thought you said nothing about the future was certain?"

"Not in the future, no," said Gabriel. "But if the staff had known about the NN core and passed on the data, that would mean they'd pieced the knowledge together in the past, it's already happened, an immutable fact."

"Yah… right." It sounded kind of screwy, but the nodes confirmed the logic. Providing you believed in precognition in the first place.

"That just leaves Dillan, then," Philip said, and Julia knew that tone of voice well enough. They were heading for another blazing row once Greg and Gabriel left. She wondered if Gabriel had seen it already? The woman's alleged ability was disturbing. It might be a good idea to be out on Tobias at four o'clock.

"Not quite," Greg pointed out. "We still have the whole NN core team to interview tomorrow, as well as the security division headquarters staff."

"I know all the NN core team, they're good people, boy. No worries on that score. It'll be Dillan, or someone in security, or even this mole of yours, you'll see."

"The NN core team still have to be checked off," Greg said, polite but unyielding. "Process of elimination; old procedure, but it can't be improved on."

"Don't interfere with the experts, Grandpa. Isn't that what you always say?"

"Juliet, you're impossible!" Even with his construct voice he managed to convey affection.

A truce. She pulled a face at the NN core.

"What about you, Gabriel?" Philip asked. "Can't you see the results of these interviews Greg is going to hold?"

"Sorry. That's tomorrow morning, and several kilometres away. Can't stretch that far."

"Well, what about if Greg was to interview Dillan? Today, here?"

Gabriel stiffened. "Your son has no idea whether or not he told anybody. He is only aware of your translocation on odd occasions," she said reproachfully. The implication for responsibility hovered almost tangibly in the air.

Julia realised that Gabriel was more redoubtable than her appearance suggested. Like Greg, the gland gave her total access to a soul's weakness. Did Grandpa have a soul? That old-style April chill closed around her.

Primate Marcus was preaching to her again, hand on Bible, scorning hubris and human greed. Temptations that would result in your ultimate downfall. Sweet Jesus had shown people the way by rejecting both.

And Grandpa certainly hadn't abandoned anything.

"What about the NN core?" Greg asked.

"Yes," said Gabriel. "Though it could go either way."

"What's that supposed to mean, m'dear?" Philip Evans asked.

"As I explained to Julia, the future is never definite," Gabriel said. "There are a multitude of alternate possibilities. The best indicator of certainty is when a lot of those futures hold a common theme. You understand? It's like gambling. If two-thirds of the possible futures which I see have it raining tomorrow, then it will most likely rain. But it isn't an absolute. The further into the future, the more hazy my predictions."

"So what's going to go both ways?" Julia asked raptly.

"A second attack on your grandfather's NN core. I'd say there was a sixty per cent probability it will happen."

"Does this attack succeed?" Philip asked.

"Not if you take simple preventive measures," Gabriel said. "Forewarned is forearmed. Do you believe me?"

"Damn right I do, m'dear. What sort of attack, a data-squirt blitz like last time?"

Gabriel paused, frowning. Ice-maiden formidable. Julia had the impression a lot of it was theatre, like a gypsy's crystal ball. Overawing the superstitious peasants.

"A Trojan program. It's indexed as an ordinary factory-quota update, but once inside your filters it multiplies like a hot rabbit, expanding to take up all the available memory capacity."

"When?"

"If it happens, it'll be some time on Tuesday morning. Of course, the nearer we get to the event the more specific I can get; and I can also give you more accurate odds."

"I want to know every change, m'dear. No matter what time of the day or night, you get in contact with me whenever those odds shift."

"Can't you tell us who sends the Trojan?" Julia asked plaintively.

"I'm sorry. Wherever the origin of the attack is, it's not close to Wilholm."

Julia sat back and sighed wanly.

"Whoever they are, they seem determined," Greg said thoughtfully.

"It has to be a personal vendetta," Julia said. "That means Kendric's behind it, and the mole exists, doesn't it?"

"Possibly," Greg said. He seemed strangely reluctant to commit himself. But she knew. It was Kendric. She'd always known. There was almost a feeling of contentment accompanying the conviction.

"I'd like you to get some of your security programmers hooked into the Event Horizon datanet," Greg said. "See if they can backtrack the hotrods if this second attack does happen."

"Good idea, boy. I'll get Walshaw on it."

Greg and Gabriel rose. He gave Julia an encouraging smile. "Don't worry, it's just a question of waiting to see which lead takes us to the organiser. After tomorrow's interviews our options should be clear enough to start making some headway."

She couldn't draw as much comfort from his words as she would've liked. The promises were too vague. But at least he was trying to help her, some part of him cared.

The two of them departed, leaving her alone in the study with the feverishly active memories of a dead man, and the hot rain swatting the window.