Mindstar Rising

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

"Of course Kendric wouldn't know Wolf's name," Eleanor snapped irritably. "He's the man at the top, the one with the cleanest hands in town. He buys people who buy people who buy Wolf. That's why there was no response to the name, there'll be a whole chain of tekmercs between him and the cutting edge of the operation to get rid of Philip Evans. It's like that precaution you use in gear, what do you call it? And keep still."

"Cut-offs." Greg's voice had a throaty rasp to it.

She'd got his hands spread out on the chalet's kitchen bar, spraying his knuckles with Colman's dermal seal. From her own past experience she knew it stung, but it was the best on the market. The treacly salve fizzed over his grazes, quickly solidifying into a flexible powder-blue membrane which would enhance tissue repair, moulting after a couple of days.

Eleanor concentrated on keeping her hand steady as she moved the can back and forth, getting an even deposit. Her shoulders ached, and her back was cramped from hunching over him for three-quarters of an hour. She was getting tired, and her temperament showed it.

The lion roar of the Triumph bike trailing the Duo into the Berrybut estate had triggered some kind of premonition in her. She'd come running from the shore as Des helped Greg out of the Duo. There seemed to be blood all over him, his Stewart sweater was torn, he couldn't walk without leaning on Des.

She'd felt resentful as Suzi and Des carried him into the chalet: an invasion of her personal space. The chalet was symbolic with all that was good in life right now. They were violating that, harbingers of pain and violence. She knew she'd always associate them with disruption now, no matter how much Greg praised them.

They'd seen Greg on to the lounge sofa and departed on the Triumph, Suzi, surprisingly, as awkward as she was. Who would have thought the girl possessed that much sensitivity?

Eleanor had been thankful for her animal husbandry courses, it let her deal with his injuries without the vapours, keeping a rigid leash on her nausea. She'd frozen his nose and clotted the burst blood vessels inside, painted numb-all on his swollen left eye, immobilised his left ankle in a thick sock of quik-set medical polymer, and generally cleaned him up. The clothes would have to go, though; she'd throw them on the bonfire tonight.

"You're right," he said. "Tell you, I thought I'd got it all sussed. I thought Kendric would light up like a Christmas tree when I mentioned Wolf. It was the proof I'd need to convince Morgan Walshaw. And I've got to convince him somehow. Kendric is absolutely jungle-crazed about Julia."

"I know," she said. "I reviewed the surveillance memox the Trinities made."

"That's not the half of it. Kendric really is—" He broke off, letting out a long painful breath. "That's why I went on board. I'm worried about Julia, what he'll do. Stupid of me. Breaking all the rules about personal involvement. So you wind up with me looking like this. Sorry. Not a nice sight for you."

She'd never heard him sound so dejected. She leant over the bar and touched her lips to his face. "I couldn't live with the kind of man who felt nothing for her. You wouldn't be human."

"That's been said before."

"Not by me." She began spraying again. "Besides, this is nothing; superficial apart from the ankle, and that'll be all right in a week."

"Good. Anyway, my visit wasn't a complete disaster. You remember Katerina Cawthorp?"

Eleanor paused, flipping through her mental files. "Friend of Julia's?"

"Got it. Well, right now she's living with Kendric and Hermione."

"And Hermione?"

That brought a weak grin to his lips. "Yeah. That's how Kendric must've found out about Philip Evans's NN core. He would be bound to question Katerina about every aspect of her relationship with Julia, and that includes her time at Wilholm. She told him about the NN core. There is no mole, never has been."

"So how did Kendric get hold of the Zanthus security monitor programs?"

"A top-notch solo hotrod burnt into Walshaw's cores. Kendric could afford it."

She finished spraying on the dermal seal, and inspected his hand. "But what about the buyout?"

"Yeah," he admitted. "I still don't understand that. But the blitz was definitely a vengeance act. Katerina proves that; she's the link, the common factor. God, Eleanor, you wouldn't believe what he's done to that poor kid. Tell you, she's a virtual cyborg, no messing." He flexed his fingers gingerly, watching the dermal-seal stretch over his knuckles.

"Has he drugged her?" she asked.

"Sort of. That's something else we'll have to sort out when this is finished. Christ, as if we didn't have enough to do identifying Wolf and the remaining hotrods."

"You know, if you wanted to flush some compromising evidence out of Kendric's brain you should've asked him how much the blitz had cost him. Then you'd have seen the guilt, clear-cut and irrefutable. I'll have to bind that forefinger."

"Bugger. Next time I'll take you along. Someone who can think straight."

Her heart fell. "Oh, Greg, you're not thinking of going back there are you? Wasn't this enough?"

"No, I'm not marching up to confront Kendric again; I've learned my lesson. From now on the macho routine is all down to Morgan Walshaw and his hardliners. Hopefully, all I have to do is wait for Royan to backtrack Wolf's payments to O'Donal, find out who the hell he is. Then we can start establishing how Wolf is plugged in with Kendric. The proof's there, somewhere, like you said, another intermediary between Wolf and Kendric, maybe two. But I'm convinced it's him at the end of the trail. Does that sound paranoid to you?"

"No, I believe your intuition works; and like you say, having Katerina on his yacht explains how he knew about the NN core." She consulted the Event Horizon terminal. The first-aid kit's diagnostic was plugged into it, the cube showing a white-shadow schematic of Greg's body. His pain points glowed a mild amber; she'd treated all of them. He was relaxed now, growing drowsy from the general tranquilliser she'd given him earlier. She held open his right eyelid, shining the pencil light directly on the pupil, then away, watching the dilation. The terminal said it was within acceptable limits. "Have you been overdoing the gland?"

"Used it a bit, nothing much."

She thought he sounded defensive. Not that she could even begin to give a qualified opinion on neurohormone abuse. Just a feeling, though; he appeared enervated, more than the cuts and sprains could account for. Why did men always try and disguise their weaknesses? "I think you might be slightly concussed. A hospital check-up wouldn't hurt."

"No need to bother them. I'll spend tomorrow resting."

"Promise?"

"All that's scheduled is a trip to Wilholm Manor to check out Gabriel's prediction of a second attack against the NN core."

She peeled the diagnostic pick-up from the nape of his neck where it was interfacing with his cortical node and coiled up the fibre-optic lead. The compact unit slotted neatly into the moulded foam of the first-aid kit; a well-worn aluminium case, Army-green with a big red cross painted on. Surplus to requirements, Greg had told her. There was a comprehensive range of dressings and medicine inside, all top quality. She'd thought he was a hypochondriac when she first saw it.

"That's all right then," she said, "providing your new billionaire girlfriend doesn't excite you too much."

"Please! Give me a break."

"Oh, I almost forgot. Dr. Ranasfari called this morning, charming man, left a message for you." She licked her lips at the memory. "He made a pass at me."

"Shit."

"Greg!"

"Sorry. You're kidding. Ranasfari? He made a pass at you? Never."

"He did. Men have been known to."

"Impossible, my dear. Ranasfari doesn't like people, any people. We're not rationally precise data packages."

"Don't be so bitchy, or are you just jealous?"

"Neither, simply observant. So what did the good doctor want to tell me?"

"There was definitely an outlaw instruction beamed up to the Merlin, shutting it down. Seven seconds are missing from the uplink's log, an hour before the shutdown. He said it was a very sophisticated interruption. They probably wouldn't have spotted it if you hadn't told them to search for it. They're reviewing the Institute's 'ware memory cores to see if someone snatched the Merlin codes. But so far they haven't found any trace of a breach. He says whoever did it must be the best hotrod in existence, covering their tracks like that. The Institute 'ware has premier-grade data-guardian programs, the security programmers thought they were unbreakable." Greg was staring at her, confusion and disbelief tugging at his face. Lost. "Something wrong?"

"Ranasfari can't have said that. It doesn't fit."

Seeing him like this, exhausted, wounded, and cripplingly despondent she felt an overwhelming surge of affection for him. The case had been taxing him; punished by the gland, driven by his own ruthless brand of determination, beaten up by Kendric's bastards. Maxed out. All she wanted to do was help, ease the burden. If only he didn't have this stupid code of his, always giving a hundred per cent. It was too much of him.

"Well, Ranasfari did say it. And it's time you were in bed, Greg Mandel."

"No, no, you don't understand. The blitz was a vengeance attack."

"Yes, you said. You proved Kendric ordered it."

"Yeah, well, sort of."

"The Merlin," she said, beginning to understand.

"If the Merlin was deliberately sabotaged," he said, "then the blitz was part of a kombinate spoiler operation."

"You are concussed. There's nothing to say the Merlin shutdown couldn't be vengeance, too. Kendric wanting to wipe Philip Evans, and damage Event Horizon at the same time by undermining confidence in the giga-conductor cells. Hit Julia from both sides at once. After all, we know he's already used a top-grade hotrod against Event Horizon to pull the security monitors. He probably used the same hotrod to shut down the Merlin."

"Oh, yeah, right."

It was obvious he wasn't convinced. She began to speak with slow deliberation, voicing her thoughts almost as they formed. "The motive for launching the blitz depends on whether Kendric knew of Philip Evans's NN core. If he did, it was him out for vengeance; if not, it was a kombinate spoiler. Right?"

"That's about the size of it."

"Good. So, how bright is Katerina?"

"What?"

"Don't you see? It all hangs on her, whether or not she knew about the NN core. And from what you've told me about her before she met Kendric, she sounds like the all-time champion bimbo. Could she have worked out what was going down at Wilholm?"

His eyes closed, face pained. "Dunno. She had a good education."

"Means nothing. Who would know if she's got enough brains?"

"Julia, I suppose. Certainly poor old Adrian. I knew it would happen, that she'd dump him. Should've warned him, given him the benefit. He wouldn't have listened."

Eleanor ignored his ramblings. Knowing the sense of excitement derived from solving human intricacies. Finally appreciating how Greg could become so wrapped up in his cases. There was a certain addictive quality to unravelling the carefully crafted deceits of other people, it was a form of conquest, outsmarting them. "Then you'll just have to ask Julia. But not today, I think."