The Nano Flower

CHAPTER NINE

It was the sun again, inexplicably wrong. Charlotte finally twigged the reason when she was having a latish breakfast in the Colonel Maitland's aft dining-room.

Fabian sat opposite her as usual. He acted dazed, almost in shock, barely eating his cereal. Every time he looked at her it was with an unsettling degree of reverence.

But then Fabian was a boy in lust. He was also a remarkably fast learner. She had spent a strenuous two hours last night coping with his enthusiasms and demands before he finally drifted off into an exhausted sleep, then he'd been ready for more this morning. Which was why they turned up late at the table.

Jason Whitehurst was already sitting at the table waiting for them. He greeted them with an unabashed smile. "Ah, glad to see you young people are getting on so well."

Fabian blushed hot crimson.

Jason Whitehurst had chosen his cereal, unperturbed, and ordered his cybofax to display the London Times, which he read as he ate.

Charlotte could hear the waiter squeezing fresh orange juice at the side table behind her. She started in on her own cereal bowl. The sun was filling the dining room with a liquid rose-gold light, rising into view directly behind Jason Whitehurst. She stared at it, feeling cold despite the thick Cotton of her summer dress.

Jason Whitehurst looked up from his cybofax. "Something wrong, my dear?"

"West," she said numbly. "We're heading west."

"That's right."

"But Odessa is east of Monaco. I thought we were going around Italy, then up into the Black Sea."

"No." Jason Whitehurst inspected a slice of toast, then began buttering it. "My agent has taken care of my business in Odessa. There's no need to go there now. Great relief all round, one expects. I told you what it was like."

The waiter put a glass of orange down in front of Charlotte. She ignored it. "Where are we going, then?"

"Going?" Jason Whitehurst affected puzzlement. "Why, my dear girl, the Colonel Maitland simply drifts. On a whim and a prayer, I always say. I had a notion that South America would be nice. You and Fabian could laze around on the beach, that sort of thing, whatever it is a boy and a girl do together these days. How does that sound, young man?"

"Great, father," Fabian said cautiously.

"Which country in South America?" Charlotte asked. It was hard to maintain her pose of polite seminal interest.

"Oh, I don't know. I really hadn't given it any thought, to be woundingly honest. Why, have you got any preferences?"

For once she was stuck for a reply. There was a small part of her mind thinking that Baronski would be shaking his head in dismay; questioning her patron's intent, letting her own disapproval show. It simply was not done. But either Jason Whitehurst was the most carefree soul she'd ever met, or he was being deliberately obtuse.

She'd heard of patrons like that, not that there were many, thank heavens. Instead of physical mastery, they went in for nasty psychological games. Mental kinks designed to rip the sense of order from a bewildered girl, reduce her to a disorientated nervous wreck. It gave them a sense of power. A mind set which got its bang from destruction.

Charlotte remembered talking to one of the women tutors that Baronski had sent her round to learn the extras which put her so far above the others of her trade. The woman had told her it was all down to age and bitter jealousy; the patrons wanted to punish the girls for their youth and beauty, something their money could never bring back to them.

Charlotte reckoned that no one with a trading empire as large as Jason Whitehurst could have the kind of slapdash mind he alluded to.

She ran quickly through her options. "French Guiana is supposed to be nice," she said with cheerful enthusiasm. "It has some wonderful beaches. Then there's the tropical nature park we could tour; that has some of the oldest original rain forest on the continent. And they're still discovering new insect species each year." French Guiana was also one of the closest South American countries to Europe; which meant the voyage would be over as quickly as possible, and she could skip out.

"I can't somehow imagine Fabian being vastly interested in bugs; is that right, young man?"

Fabian looked at Charlotte, then at his father. Trapped, not wanting to disappoint either. She felt sorry for him.

"Isn't French Guiana where Devil's Island is?" Fabian asked.

Jason Whitehurst pulled at his beard. "Yes, do you know, I think you're right there. The jolly Ile du Diable. I might have guessed a red-blooded lad like you would show an interest in the totally macabre. Still, can't be helped, all part of growing up. So, French Guiana it is, then."

Charlotte dived straight into the Colonel Maitland's pool and started doing lengths, a smooth easy freestyle with a neat flip at each end. It was one of the best ways she knew of working off frustration, losing herself in the mechanical spin of limbs, not having to think. She stopped after thirty lengths; the pool was smaller than she was used to. There wasn't the distance to work up a decent speed, or maybe she was just spoilt.

"Crikey, is there anything you're no good at?" Fabian asked. "I thought I was a good swimmer, but you just left me standing."

"Sorry. I was a bit wound up over Odessa."

"Oh." The corner of his mouth depressed. "Father can be a bit, well, casual, at times. I suppose it must be unusual unless you're used to it."

She swung her legs up, and floated on her back. Now probably wasn't a good time to ask what happened to his father's previous girls, if they left in floods of tears.

"Now I know where we're heading I'll be all right." She began to swish her feet, heading for the window. "You didn't have to say you wanted to go to French Guiana, you know. I wouldn't have been offended."

"No, really, I wanted to go." He started swimming beside her. "Well, all right, not the trees and caterpillars and things. But I would like to see Devil's Island. And the beaches, with you."

Charlotte steadied herself on the side of the pool by the window. She looked down thoughtfully on the water below. "Where are we now, do you think?"

Fabian held on to the side, eyes on her rather than the water. "It's the Atlantic, we're west of Africa. I can get you the exact co-ordinates if you want."

"No, thank you Fabian, that's all right. It's just a pity we missed seeing Gibraltar. Have you ever been there before?"

"No."

"If the Colonel Maitland comes back to the Mediterranean some time, then remember to ask your father to show you. The Straits drop flow is quite something, that tiny little gap is the only place the Mediterranean basin can fill up from. Thermal expansion didn't raise the Mediterranean's level as high as the oceans, the water was warmer to start with. So the Atlantic is still a good couple of metres higher, and that's after nearly twenty-five years. They won't reach equipoise for a long time yet."

"Did you ride it?"

"No. I was too scared, the drop flow is over five kilometres long. I watched the macho loonies doing it, through. You sit in one of the overhang cafes on the rock, and your bones shake from the turbulence round the base, the sound is like one continual thunderclap. They reckon the rock itself will be gone in a few more decades. Nothing can resist that sort of pressure."

She remembered more, the sleek canoe-like capsules that people rode the Straits drop flow in, like phosphene dots zipping across her vision as she watched that incredible surge of white water from the safety of the café. Three of the people in her group had wanted to try it, knowing full well the drop flow claimed a couple of lives a week.

She thought at the time how little regard they had for their own lives. There was a degeneracy building in the world's rich, becoming more advanced with each generation. There used to be a kind of adventurism in the excitement they sought, the power boat racing, desert car rallies, polar trekking. But now the element of calculation was missing from the risks they took, superseded by recklessness, a return to the live fast die young ideal. She supposed it was an answer to the increasing jadedness of their existence, in this world so much pleasure could be bought on the cheap. Their urge towards self-destruction set them apart from the poor again.

"Sounds great," he said.

She realized he hadn't really been listening. He was still looking at her, query and longing bound up in his worshipful stare. What would he be like when he was eighteen? "I'll do a deal with you, Fabian."

"What?"

"If you take my bikini off, I'll pull your trunks down."

Fabian's bedroom had been furnished with the same expensive care and attention lavished on the rest of the airship—an antique dresser, upholstered Nordic chairs, Chinese carpet, two pale still-life paintings in slim plain gilt frames. But the drawer had scratches, and a very odd purple stain that was still sticky; T-shirts, towels, and shorts hung all over the chairs; shoes and blade roller skates dotted that carpet; bawdy holograms of bimbo bands had been tacked up on the walls.

Fabian was a pretty ordinary teenager after all. One den the size of a small warehouse wasn't nearly large enough for all his rubbish.

Charlotte had only ever seen it when the light was low, in daylight it was even worse. She sat cross-legged in the middle of the bed, with her bikini back on, watching Fabian. He was squatting on his towel in front of the big wall-mounted flatscreen; it was tuned to French MTV, playing an old Rolling Stones track, the sound muted. But he was looking down at his cybofax, doing the London Times crossword with one hand, holding a choc-ice bar in the other.

She had never seen anyone do the crossword so fast. He would take a bite from the ice-cream and read the clues, then his fingers would dance over the keys. There was never any hesitation, no referring back to the cybofax's dictionary function. She was tempted to ask him about a bioware node again; but that would make an issue out of it. Besides, she didn't think Fabian had lied back at the pool yesterday. She didn't think Fabian would know how to lie to her about anything.

So how could he demolish the crossword like this?

"Doesn't the maid ever clean up here?" Charlotte asked.

Fabian looked round with bemused curiosity. "The staff take my clothes and stuff to be washed. But I'd lose everything if it was put into drawers."

She picked up a metre-long model of an old-style military tilt-fan. It was heavier than she'd expected. The miniature missiles looked very realistic. "What can you do with this indoors?"

Fabian flipped his lock of hair aside. "Nothing, stupid. I fly it from the Colonel's landing pad. Do you want to come up and try it? I'll let you use the remote, it's dead easy."

"Maybe later. Where do you get all this stuff from? You must go on week-long shopping expeditions when the Colonel Maitland reaches a town."

"Oh no, I pick it all out from catalogue channels, and have it forwarded to our next airport. The Gulfstream collects it for me."

"I see." Jason Whitehurst hadn't been exaggerating when he said he kept Fabian on board the Colonel Maitland the whole time. She didn't approve of that at all. Not that she could ever say so.

"I'll have the maids clean it up if you don't like it," Fabian offered generously.

"I don't think your father could afford the overtime bill."

Fabian burst into gleeful laughter. "How do you do that?"

"What?"

"Everything you say is always just right. The clothes you wear make you look utterly fantastic. You can swim well. You're a super dancer. You know about everywhere in the world, not just what countries look like, but their politics as well. You're like a superwoman, or something."

"That's age, Fabian. When you're as ancient as me, you'll have learnt it all as well."

Fabian dropped his eyes. "You're not old."

"You're very sweet."

"You said you wouldn't call me things like sweet and cute again," he said petulantly. "Not now I'm your lover."

"Sorry."

"Charlotte?"

"Yes."

"Can we do it again?"

He might be bright, she thought, but he had a grasshopper mind. "I think we might, yes."

Fabian scrunched up the choc-ice wrapper and lobbed it in the direction of the bin, then bounced on to the bed beside her. "I forgot, you're incredibly sexy too." He said it timidly, as though he was swearing in church.

"Thank you." Charlotte straightened her legs, and lay on her side next to him. "Remember what I like?" She kissed him, hand running over his belly. Her voice deepened. "How to make me ask you for more?"

Watching her face closely, Fabian reached out and undid the bikini top. He smiled greedily as the triangular scraps of fabric came free in his hands, and began to stroke the length of her ribcage the way she'd taught him. "What's it like in space?"

Charlotte groaned, the mood spoilt. "Oh, heavens, Fabian. I've told you all I possibly can. If you want to know any more, you'll have to go there."

"No. I meant, you know, that… freefall sex."

"Oh. Unearthly delights."

"What?" he choked.

"Unearthly delights, that's what the New Londoners call freefall sex."

"Wizard! So what's it like?"

"I don't know. Never had the chance to try it."

"No?"

She could read him like a book. He didn't believe her. "No. But I admit I was thinking of it; I met a nice local boy while I was there. But I cut four days off the end of my holiday and came home early. So I never got the chance in the end. I expect it's overrated, tourist board propaganda."

"You packed up a holiday in space early! Whatever for?"

Charlotte swore silently. This airship flight was affecting her more than she liked, her self-discipline was going all to hell. "I had to get back for some business, and then there was the Newfields ball. Why? Would you rather I was still up there?"

"No! Crikey, Charlotte," he said, genuinely indignant. "Don't say things like that."

She ran a hand over his chin, momentarily confounded by the lack of stubble.

Fabian drew a quick breath. "Hey, listen, I've just had a tremendous idea. We can go up to New London together. Right? You heard Father say I could go in a couple of years. Well, I will. It'll be wizard. We could spend the whole time in freefall. Unearthly delights!" He giggled and clapped his hands exultantly.

It took a supreme effort to maintain her light smile. Dear God, he was a besotted teenager who thought she was going to stay with him till death us do part, amen. Sex equals love, they all thought that at his age. How could she have been so stupid, getting herself into this situation? It could only ever end in heartbreak now.

Fabian was waiting, flushed and deliriously expectant.

"A couple of years is a long time to wait." She took hold of his hands, and placed them firmly on her breasts. "And I know some pretty good earthly delights."

Charlotte let the shower's hot spray play over her back, soapy water running down her thighs and calves. It felt good, relaxing her. The sharp jets of water pounded into her skin like a scratchy massage. Steam swirled around, warming her all the way through.

What the hell was she going to do about Fabian? He wasn't a bad kid, certainly he deserved a lot better than her and his father. The obvious thing to do was cut and run as soon as she reached French Guiana. He was young, resilient, he'd get over her fast enough. Except she knew how much it would hurt him. How much she would hurt him.

She couldn't bear the thought of that trusting, mischievous face screwed up in misery. In itself an unusual, and disturbing, admission.

God damn Jason Whitehurst for not bringing up his son properly. And God damn Baronski for not knowing what Jason Whitehurst had wanted her for. The old boy was normally so careful about what he got his girls into.

Charlotte gave her hair a final rinse and turned off the shower. She wrapped a big towel around herself, then used another to dry her hair. The robe she'd worn over her bikini to walk about in through the gondola was lying on the damp tiles, soaking up the condensation the shower had thrown out. It could stay there now. The maid could clean it. Bitch.

She sat down in front of the mirror, and combed out her hair. Her cabin hadn't got that stale stuffy taste in the air like Fabian's. It gave her room to breathe, room to move. Having her own cabin was the only real plus of this assignment. She liked the times she was on her own, an interval when she could be reflective, when every move and word wasn't an effort.

She looked at the image in the mirror, stretching, wriggling her toes. "Gawd luv us, ducks. See 'ow grand we is nahdays." She giggled. Funny, it was harder to do that accent now than the upper-middle-class one Baronski had patiently coached her in. The past really had died.

Charlotte got up and searched through her bedside cabinet. Her gold Amstrad cybofax was in the second drawer. She took it out and sat on the bed, curling her legs up. "Phone function," she told the wafer, then gave it Baronski's number. He probably couldn't help her out of her predicament straight away, but she could vent a lot of her frustration on him. It was something he was always good at, always there as a shoulder to cry on. Everyone needed someone like that, life would be unlivable otherwise. And in any case, she needed to tell him she wouldn't be going to Odessa. He liked his girls to keep in touch.

UNABLE TO ACQUIRE SATELLITE LINKAGE, the cybofax screen printed.

Charlotte stared at it. Unable? She climbed off the bed and walked over to the window. The jet-black solar envelope hull of the airship curved away above her like a medium-sized moon. No wonder the cybofax's signal couldn't reach the geostationary antenna platform.

There was a standard terminal on the other side of the bed, but she shied away. If she was going to have a decent rant at Baronski about Whitehurst she didn't want to do it on the man's own 'ware. More than one of her patrons had routinely recorded calls.

Charlotte began looking through drawers for her Ashmi jumpsuit. She could go up to the landing pad, the cybofax would work from there.

Maybe if she stuck out this assignment for another month, push Fabian away gradually. That might work, no hard feelings on either side, and a wonderful memory of first love for the rest of his life. But another month of this? At least in French Guiana there would be the beach bars, and some decent nightlife.

Charlotte was zipping up the jumpsuit when there was a rap at the door. The maid came in.

"Mr. Jason would like to see you," she said.

"OK, I'll be about twenty minutes."

"He said now." There was a definite gloat in the voice.

Fabian had shown her where his father's study was, in the midsection of the lower gondola deck, but they hadn't gone in. Now Charlotte found it was equipped with ultra-modern fittings, the first she'd seen on board. Walls, floor, and ceiling were a silver-white composite; flatscreens showed homolographic maps of the globe, coastlines glowing sharply, cities and ports tagged with ten-digit codes. Jason Whitehurst was sitting behind a smoked-glass desk that resembled a rectangular mushroom. She could see tiny red and green lights inside the glass top, squiggling like trapped fireflies. It was the only piece of furniture in the room.

The heels of her leather ankle boots clicked loudly as she walked towards him.

"Chair," Jason Whitehurst said. A circle of floor in front of his desk turned grey. It extruded upwards, a smooth cylinder at first, then it began to flow, like something organic caught by time-lapse photography.

Charlotte sat tentatively in the curving scoop chair which formed. It felt as hard as rock under her fingernails.

"You attempted to use your cybofax to make an external call," Jason Whitehurst said.

"Yes."

"I must ask you not to do that again. I am conducting some very delicate negotiations at the moment."

"I won't interrupt them. It was just a call to a friend."

"You called Baronski."

Charlotte began to wonder if it had been the bulk of the airship hull which had blocked the call, after all. "That's right. He likes to know where I am, and as we're not going to Odessa—"

"He likes to know what you hear."

"Pardon me?"

"Baronski deals in the information you supply him. That will not be the case on this voyage."

"I wasn't going to say anything about you. I don't know anything about you."

"Nor will you. I purchased you purely to provide Fabian with some amusement, nothing more. Now that is all."

It took a moment for the dismissal to sink in. Charlotte rose on legs which were suddenly trembling. Once the door had slid shut behind her she rubbed her eyes. Her knuckles seemed to be very damp.