The Nano Flower

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

They told Charlotte about Baronski after she woke up. It was his death which finally cancelled all her links with the past. She had relied on him so much, which she hadn't realized up until then. But now there was nothing left for her, nothing at all; no one to call, nowhere to go.

So she made it her job to look after Fabian. The last promise made to a dead man. And Fabian needed looking after. His life had been fifteen years of luxury, of staff existing solely to run around after him, of any material possession he wanted a single phone call away. That was all he knew. He went into major sulks if his meals weren't ready on time. And now he'd seen his home and father fall out of the sky. Burning.

She was sure the Event Horizon medics didn't appreciate how deep it went. They had written him off as another shock case. Tranquilizers, a couple of weeks' therapy, a few months to recover, and it would all be over. They were used to treating combat casualties, not lost, traumatized teenagers.

He wouldn't even cry any more. They were given a room together in the platform's little clinic. She had woken some time after midnight to see him lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling. He spent the rest of the night nestled in her arms, dozing off in the early hours.

After breakfast the duty nurse found her some clothes; a pair of stonewashed Levi's, trainers, and an Organic Flux Capacity tour sweatshirt. She turned up the bottom of the Levi's to stop them from flopping over the trainers, and asked for a belt to pinch the oversize waist. Charlotte stared at herself in the bathroom mirror and shuddered. A Grunge disciple dressing down. At least nobody I know will see me wearing this, thank heavens.

Then it was time to wait again. None of the clinic staff quite seemed to know what their status was, whether they were guests or prisoners.

Suzi had been in the next room, her knee wrapped in bioware membranes, plugged into medical 'ware stacks with thick bundles of fibre-optic cable. Charlotte had thanked her for getting them off the Colonel Maitland, had a few words; but Suzi didn't know what was going on either. "Greg'll be back soon," she said. "We'll find out what's going down then. And you'll have your big moment." The casual way she said it chilled Charlotte, like she didn't have any choice but to tell them what they wanted to know, reducing her to a cyborg. Her life was being programmed by others. Nothing really new in that. But that didn't make it the same.

Delivering that bloody flower. Her one spark of independence in years. She knew she shouldn't have done it. But delivering a flower from a lover—it was just fun. Harmless fun. How could it possibly have ended like this?

Baronski would have known what to do next. In fact, he would have warned her off in the first place. If only she had confided in him.

In the end, Fabian's blank-faced suffering had got to her. She asked to go outside for a breath of fresh air. They even had to have a hardline escort for that.

Outside was heat, noise, and the smell. They walked along one side of the platform, looking down on the two-metre generator vent pipes peeing brown water into the ocean, it stank of salt and sulphur. The bass thundering noise of the cascades made her feel queasy.

"Pure shark shit," said Josh Bailey, the crash team member who was with them. "We have to live with it the whole time. I'm almost immune by now."

"Lucky you." Charlotte knew she ought to show an interest. "Establish a minimum rapport with everyone you meet," Baronski had told her. "Try to understand where they fit into life, how they relate to you." Except it all seemed a little pointless now.

Fabian leant on the rail and stared silently at the three waterfalls staining the green ocean. It was green, she saw, because of the minute algae flecks floating in it. Like thick soup.

She put her hand over his. "He wouldn't have felt anything, Fabian."

"You saw that gondola! He burnt to death. It's a horrible way to die."

"He would have been unconscious from the smoke long before the flames reached the study."

His head twisted round, eyes frantic for a moment, wanting to believe. "Do you think so?"

"Whenever houses catch on fire, that's always the reason people don't get out; overcome by smoke."

"Oh." He dropped his head again to stare at the sloppy water. "I've never lived in a house."

"You'll get used to it."

"Yes. I suppose…" He stiffened, speaking with brittle dignity. "I suppose you'll be leaving me now."

"No, not unless you want me to."

He glanced up, too frightened to believe. "But you're not being paid any more. And I heard them tell you Baronski is dead."

"Fabian." She turned him to face her, putting her hands on his cheeks so he couldn't look away. "Your father's money never bought you the time we spent together."

He started crying as his mouth parted in a smile.

"Oh, Fabian." She cuddled him to her, kissing the top of his head. His arms tightened round her with desperate strength.

"I'm frightened," he croaked.

"So am I. But it isn't so bad if you've got someone to share it with you."

They embraced for a long time. Being that close, wordless but knowing, wasn't something she wanted to break. And she had told him the truth, fear was easier to weather this way.

She saw the Pegasus slide out of the western sky, three sharply pointed fighter planes enclosing it in a tight formation. It was heading straight for the platform. Charlotte watched it knowingly, a little twist of tension rising.

Josh Bailey's cybofax bleeped.

"Don't bother," she told him. "That'll be for me."

Fabian tagged along automatically behind her. It could have been a problem when they reached the conference room, Josh Bailey looked like he was about to object, but Charlotte sent him a silent plea, and he shrugged, waving them both through the door.

That was when she finally met Julia Evans, in the flesh, shaking hands, actually saying hello in a voice that quavered alarmingly. The back of her legs trembled slightly, as if she'd run a marathon. But Julia Evans only smiled weakly, murmuring a few encouraging words. Charlotte virtually fled to her seat at the table in relief. There were none of the expected allegations, no hostility. Julia Evans didn't blame her for any of the trouble.

She watched unobtrusively as Julia Evans said something to Fabian, her finger tracing the shrinking bruise round his eye where the maid had struck him. The clinic medics had reduced the swelling to virtually nothing. Fabian just blushed and looked at the floor.

Charlotte was sitting next to Suzi who had come in ahead of them. The small hardline woman was in one of the Event Horizon security team tracksuits. There was a slight bulge in the fabric round her knee; but her stride had been natural enough.

Rick Parnell introduced himself, and promptly sat in a chair at the end of the table, just beating Greg to it. Greg seemed momentarily put out, but settled for the next chair down. Victor Tyo sat opposite her, activating the terminal in front of him.

Fabian took his chair beside her, fumbling for her hand below the table. She gave him a quick squeeze of reassurance.

The three flatscreens on the wall lit up as Julia Evans sat at the head of the table. One of them showed the face of an old man, the other two were of Julia herself, none of them had any background.

"They are synthesized images," Julia explained. "My grandfather and I have our memories stored in neural network cores."

Philip Evans; Charlotte remembered him, Event Horizon's founder. She'd heard enough after dinner talk to know he had played a large part in the downfall of the PSP.

The whole concept was amazing. Julia could be in two places at once, three, four—No wonder Event Horizon worked so perfectly. Charlotte felt a smile of admiration building. It really was true, nobody could beat Julia Evans. Reality was actually greater than legend.

"That's how you burned into the Colonel Maitland's 'ware," Fabian said. He sounded impressed.

"Yes. And I'd be obliged if you two treated the knowledge of the NN cores' existence, and anything we discuss here today, as completely confidential, please."

"Yes, of course," Charlotte said. She nudged Fabian.

"Yes," he agreed.

"Good. Now then, I understand Nia Korovilla was asking you about the flower, Charlotte?"

"Yes, she wanted to know who gave it to me."

"A lot of people do," Greg said softly. "Will you tell us?"

This was where she had planned on doing her bargaining; a trade, money, and guaranteed safety for what she knew. But she didn't know what sort of price to ask for, and some hard little core of anger inside wanted something to be done about Baronski, wanted justice. She strongly suspected that the kind of people who killed the old man weren't the kind who ever sat in courts to be tried. And Fabian would need protecting as well.

Julia Evans was the only person who could sort out those kind of loose ends for her. It would be for the best if she wasn't antagonized.

"Yes," Charlotte said. "He never told me his name, just that he was a priest."

"Describe him, please," Greg said.

"I suppose he was at least fifty-five, probably sixty; medium height, four or five centimetres shorter than me, very pale face, flabby neck, greying hair in a pony tail. He had a great smile, I mean, you just looked at him and knew you could trust him," she trailed off limply. It sounded silly said out loud, but his smile had been the reason she agreed to deliver the flower.

"Not Royan," Julia said.

"Would you recognize him if you saw him again?" Greg asked.

"Yes, absolutely," she said. "He was wearing a dove-grey jumpsuit, an old one, but it was clean. All the Celestials were clean."

Victor looked up from his terminal. "You mean this happened in New London?"

"Sorry, didn't I say? Yes. It was during my holiday."

Julia and Greg were both grinning at each other. "You went up to New London after New Zealand?" Greg asked.

"How did you—?"

"Tell you, Charlotte, you're a very important person. Victor here has a big profile on you."

"Yes." She swallowed. "I took a flight from Mangonui spaceport."

"With your patron?"

"No. I said it was a holiday. I went by myself."

"How did you pay for it?"

"I didn't. It was a farewell gift from my last patron, all expenses paid. Baronski let me keep it. I normally have to hand the gifts over, but he could hardly sell it, so he let me go ahead."

Victor let out a groan. "No wonder we couldn't trace you through Amex. What was this patron's name?"

"Ali Murdad."

"Did he send you up there to collect the flower?" Greg asked. "Or any other kind of favour?"

"No. It was a genuine holiday for me."

"I have confirmed the ticket," one of Julia's images said. "A regal-class package with Thomas Cook, booked by Aflaj Industrial Cybernetics—Ali Murdad listed as a director. A fortnight at the High Savoy, with a universal club and resort access card."

"That's right," she said.

"Tell us about this priest," Greg said. "Are you certain he was a Celestial Apostle?"

"Yes. There was a group of them working round the tourists at the fall surf beach. A couple of them spoke to me, they were about my age, they explained what the Celestials were. They were very devout, I don't mean silly like the Hare Krishnas or deadly dull like the Jehovah's Witnesses, they had a sense of humour, but they really believed our destiny lies out among the stars. They asked me if I wanted to stay up in New London permanently; they said it wouldn't be a hard life, not like the cults that exploit children down here, but it was fairly basic. That didn't seem to bother them, they believe it's only temporary, when this divine event of theirs finally occurs everything will change. I think they expect to receive a higher blessing than everyone else, or be the first people admitted into heaven, or something along those lines. Being a Celestial Apostle was certainly supposed to be a step up the ladder towards God."

"But you turned them down?"

"Hell, yes—I can go up to New London any time I want. I'm not spending the rest of my life boring the pants off tourists with nutty creeds. Besides, they seemed a bit simple, you know? Dreamy types."

"And was this priest one of the pair which spoke to you?"

"No, he came over when they left. He knew my name, though, that was the funny thing. I got the impression he was waiting for the other two to finish. He said he was sorry they had failed to show me the light, then he asked me if I'd do a friend of his a favour."

"What was the friend's name?" Victor asked.

"He said he couldn't tell me for obvious reasons."

Julia smiled as if she already knew. "Go on."

"He asked me to deliver something to you. He said it was a gift from your lover, but that no one must know. I thought—well, you already have a husband, you see, so there was this other secret man in your life. It was romantic and exciting, me being asked to be a go-between for you. I couldn't say no. You're… well, you're Julia Evans, aren't you? I would have been involved in something delicious, I might even have been asked to do it again. So I cut short my holiday and flew back. Dmitri Baronski got me the ticket for the Newfields ball." She stared determinedly at her finger nails, mortified. Whatever would Fabian think of her, acting like a schoolgirl.

"He knew your name," Greg said in the silence that followed, "he knew you had the contacts necessary to get into Monaco's social event of the year at a day's notice, and he knew you had the savoir-faire to deliver the flower. Some Celestial Apostle."

"You think that's him, boy?" Philip Evans asked. "The alien?"

"Alien?" Charlotte gasped. Fabian lurched upright in his chair, staring at Philip Evans's image.

Nobody said anything, they were all looking at Greg, waiting for him to speak, like he was some sort of guru or something, she thought. He blinked slowly, and focused on her. She shifted uncomfortably, feeling Fabian's hand in her own, the damp smooth skin tightening its grip silently. Greg didn't just look at you, she decided, he judged you. A psychic. The realization didn't make her any more comfortable. There were stories — "You said you broke off your holiday to deliver the flower?" Greg asked.

"Yes." Her throat was contracting.

"How much of it did you miss?"

"Four days, Ali's package was for a fortnight. But I changed my ticket for an earlier flight. The agent said there was no problem. I landed at Capetown then caught a connecting flight."

"Ah." A smile spread across his face. "I think we'd better fill you in on a few points."