The Mandel Files, Volume 2: The Nano Flower

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  ‘Don’t mock me, Captain Greg,’ Sinclair said smartly. ‘You know it’s truth as much as I do. All of us are guided, one way or another.’ He raised his voice. ‘Isn’t that right, Miss Julia?’

  The crash team had been filing out of the passage behind. Greg saw Rick and Julia emerge, both pulling their hoods off.

  Julia took in the cave with a stoic glance. ‘I came looking for my husband,’ she said, ‘Nothing more.’

  ‘And yet this edifice you call New London cost you billions. More billions than you’ll ever see returned to your corporate balance sheet. Now why is that, I wonder? Do you see beyond the physical, Julia Evans?’

  She shrugged.

  Sinclair carried on round the shore towards a brightly lit archway. This time the passage was much shorter, ten metres, with a sharp right-angle turn at the end. A wave of warm humid air blew straight into Greg’s face as he turned the corner, bringing a thick, living smell of vegetation with it. Bright, hazy red light dazzled him.

  When he blinked the moisture from his eyes, he found himself standing on the top of a broad stone staircase, looking down on the biggest cave yet, easily eighty metres across, twenty high. A village of reed huts was clumped together on the far side. A ring of ten big Solaris spots on the ceiling shone with a strong gold-pink light, fluorescing the thin water vapour around them into hemispherical nimbuses. A Hollywood sunset, Greg thought.

  The floor had been levelled and covered with gene-tailored arable moss, reminding him of Greenland. Rows of circular troughs had been built around the huts for more substantial plants, young fruit trees were already flourishing, trellises supported grape vines, yellow melons hung over the edges. A herringbone network of irrigation hoses lay on the floor between the troughs, the pattern barely visible under the tide of moss.

  A broad square pedestal had been set up in the centre of the village, supporting six large flatscreens in a hexagonal arrangement. The two facing Greg looked almost completely black, though they could be showing some tiny silver smudges, he was too far away to be certain.

  Children were playing around the pedestal. Adults walked about, tending to the troughs, working in an area that was obviously a communal kitchen, with aluminium tables and benches. Greg guessed at about a hundred and fifty people all told. He wasn’t prepared for it. Commune-mentality Greens in sleeping bags, candles and camp fires, huddled into dark clefts, chewing cold fruit, zombie pupae. That was the theory he’d built.

  But this … This was designer underclass. Or perhaps not. Perhaps New London’s innate perfection carried on even down here, a natural extension of the philosophy which suffused Hyde Cavern. Julia’s principle of success with style.

  The Celestial Apostles did believe in the future, after all, however it diverged from the mainstream. And some of them were tech-types.

  Sinclair started to descend the stairs, stretching out his arms, laughing wildly. ‘I’m back. I’m back. ’Tis me returned to you all.’

  The Celestials nearest the staircase turned to look, smiles turning to alarm as armour suits clumped out of the passage. Yells and cries went up.

  ‘No, no,’ Sinclair shouted. ‘You’ve nothing to be afraid of. Tomorrow is come. I’ve brought it to you.’

  He reached the floor of the cave and started to gather Celestials to him, ruffling the heads of the children, embracing the adults. An archetypal tribe father.

  ‘Look,’ he said. ‘Look.’ And pointed.

  Julia was halfway down the staircase as the murmur of astonishment began. It spread out in a wave; the Celestials edged towards the foot of the staircase, ignoring Greg and the others. The children were shy and curious, adults incredulous. Two of the crash team moved protectively in front of Julia.

  ‘She knows the dawn we await is real,’ Sinclair said. ‘She came to us because our path is right.’

  ‘You should shut the old prick up,’ Suzi’s voice said in Greg’s earpiece. ‘The daft sods will want miracles next. And we can’t deliver.’

  ‘Too late,’ he whispered back.

  Sinclair folded his arms across his chest and faced Julia. ‘Behold, my kingdom. Yours to command.’

  Julia studied the faces in front of her, they were all quiet, waiting for her to speak. Greg sensed a curious calm settle in Julia’s mind.

  ‘You have all waited a long time for this day,’ she said. ‘And it hasn’t been without its trials. But tomorrow the change we all expect will come.’ And she smiled warmly.

  ‘Oh, bollocks,’ Suzi said as the Celestials started to applaud. ‘She’s flipped. She’s totally fucking flipped.’

  Tears were forming in Sinclair’s eyes. There were calls of ‘How?’ coming from the crowd.

  Greg left them behind and walked into the middle of the village for a closer look at the flatscreens; the move was intuitive. All the screens were showing images of space, taken from cameras on the outside of New London as far as he could tell. There was the archipelago, and Earth, the Moon, silver flowers of industrial modules.

  ‘I didn’t know who you were before,’ said a voice behind him. It was the Oriental girl in the black net top who had handed him the leaflet in the Trump Nugget castle quadrangle. She was carrying a baby, about eighteen months old, who looked at Greg with wide brown eyes.

  ‘A lot of us saw you in the Cavern this afternoon,’ she went on. ‘We thought you’d stolen Sinclair from us.’

  ‘I was just looking for him. Julia Evans wanted to see him.’

  The girl smiled pertly. ‘I can’t believe that’s really her. Even though I believed in Sinclair. But it’s actually happening, isn’t it? All the things he told us. How is she going to save us?’

  ‘It’s a bit complicated. All plugged in to alien technology.’ He moved on round the flatscreens, searching. There was something to see here, something to watch for. The impulse was irresistible.

  ‘An alien?’ the girl asked, intrigued. ‘Are you making fun of us?’

  ‘No, I’m perfectly serious.’

  ‘Sinclair always said that our souls would be liberated by a celestial angel; and that we would be safe up here while stars fell upon the Earth and smote it. And there would be locusts and plague, too. I was never really sure. Could your alien be the same thing as Sinclair’s angel, do you think?’

  He gave the gently zany girl a sideways glance. ‘I’ve no idea, theology and xenobiology aren’t my strong points. What are these flatscreens for?’

  ‘So we can watch for the dawn of change to emerge from the stars.’ The tone wasn’t quite self-mocking, but close. ‘Perhaps your alien’s star.’

  ‘The images are real-time?’

  ‘Yes. Tol plugged the flatscreens into the colony’s datanets.’

  ‘Who’s Tol?’

  ‘A brother.’

  Greg stopped in front of a flatscreen showing a view of the southern hub crater, the docking spindle covered a third of the screen. ‘He must be a very technical lad.’

  ‘Yes, he is. He knows everything there is to know about the asteroid’s communication networks, he used to belong to one of the big channel companies.’ She giggled. ‘He’s been with Sinclair almost since the beginning. I don’t think he really believes in the Celestial Revelation, but he contributes as much as anyone. Five of the children are his, as well. Including Zena here.’ she bounced the softly cooing baby on her hip.

  ‘Busy man,’ Greg said. One star was brightening, edging across the screen. He stared at it, and knew.

  ‘Melvyn,’ he called.

  ‘Greg,’ Melvyn’s voice was equally urgent. ‘Victor’s on line. He reckons there’s a tekmerc squad on the way.’

  The Celestial Apostles didn’t like it.

  ‘The time for running and hiding is over,’ Sinclair protested plaintively.

  ‘Nobody is asking you to run,’ Melvyn’s voice clanged out of his suit speaker. ‘We just want you safely out of the way.’

  ‘This is our home, now, Mr Ambler. We live
here. We built this place with the sweat of our brows.’

  ‘You may live anywhere in New London you wish after this,’ Julia said. ‘That’s what you told me you wanted.’

  ‘That I did, yes. But why do you have to wait until these monster criminals come down here? Why not waylay them somewhere else?’

  Greg listened to the argument with half an ear. The collective mind tone of the Celestials was nervous. And a fair proportion were practical types. They’d go. What he and Julia wanted was for Sinclair to carry on and show them where the drone had been. He suspected Sinclair was angling for concessions.

  ‘They’d better get a move on,’ Suzi grumbled. She was standing beside him as he watched the spaceplane approach New London.

  ‘Yeah. You going to stay here with the ambush team?’

  ‘Fucking right I am.’

  ‘Well, don’t annoy Melvyn, OK? He doesn’t need it.’

  ‘Oh, thanks for the confidence. I’m fluid enough to take orders when I have to.’

  ‘Sure you are; I can read minds, remember?’

  ‘Bollocks. All you know is that I’m pissed off with Leol fucking Reiger. Don’t take no genius.’

  ‘Reiger’s squad are bound to be in muscle-armour suits. How are you going to know which one is him?’

  ‘ ’Cos the bastard walks with a swagger. Even in a suit, Greg, he walks with a swagger. I’ll know him when I see him.’

  The spaceplane’s auxiliary reaction drive came on, a vivid white spear of plasma extending across half of the starfield.

  Sinclair started shouting orders, spurred by the sight. The Celestials were running round, collecting children, picking up flight bags stuffed with clothes.

  Sinclair grabbed one of the girls. ‘Where’s Tol?’ he demanded loudly.

  ‘I haven’t seen him,’ she said.

  ‘Holy Mary, the lad’s probably off in the caves with a girl. All he thinks about, you know,’ Sinclair told Julia. ‘Terrible it is, but his heart’s in the right place.’

  ‘You’ll have to put someone else in charge,’ she said.

  ‘Right you are there. Marcus!’ he bellowed. ‘For the love of Mary, Marcus, where are you?’

  One of the Celestials rushed over to Sinclair; Greg recognized him as a member of one of the afternoon’s leaflet teams.

  ‘I’ll send a couple of the crash team with them to make sure they get out all right,’ Julia said.

  ‘That’s very kind of you,’ Sinclair said.

  Greg smiled. Even down here, Julia was automatically in charge.

  Eventually the Celestials were shepherded into a single agitated group. Some of the younger children were crying.

  Sinclair stood on the rock staircase to talk to them, Julia at his side. ‘You can’t use the Moorgate station, take them out through the Whitechapel entrance,’ he told Marcus. ‘It’s the quickest from here.’

  ‘There will be some of my company security people waiting for you,’ Julia said. ‘Not the police, all right? They’ll put you up in a hotel for tonight. After that, we’ll sort out where you’re going to live permanently.’

  The spaceplane’s plasma drive cut off, revealing a small grey triangle floating beyond the end of the docking spindle. Pinpoint twinkles of blue light flickered around its nose, and it began to turn in towards the crater.

  ‘Come an’ get it,’ Suzi said.

  Greg’s intuition seemed to have dried up. He watched the spaceplane manoeuvring round the spindle, free of any presentiment.

  Rick joined the two of them on the pedestal, giving the space-plane a sober glance.

  ‘You joining us?’ Greg asked.

  ‘Yes. It’s what I came for. And I haven’t been much use so far.’

  ‘Nobody expects you to hardline, Rick. Your job starts after we make contact.’

  The crack was slanted over at a good twenty degrees, one of several around the village cave. Sinclair had to clamber a metre off the arable moss floor before he could squeeze into it.

  ‘Down here?’ Greg asked.

  And Sinclair actually seemed embarrassed about it. ‘That’s right, Captain Greg. The, er, younger folk use it quite a lot, if you take me meaning. The walls on the huts there, they aren’t very thick.’

  ‘Got you,’ Greg said.

  ‘It opens up a bit further down,’ Sinclair said encouragingly. ‘Your tin men’ll be all right after that.’

  ‘Right.’ Three of the crash team were coming with them, Teresa Farrow, Jim Sharman, and Carlos Monetti. He took another look at the narrow crack. If they did meet anything hazardous in there, then targeting it would be a brute. ‘Hold it, Sinclair; Carlos, you go first. I want fire-power available if push comes to shove.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Carlos said gladly. He clamped his gauntlets on the side of the crack and walked himself up. Little splinters of rock spilled down.

  Someone had found the controls for the Solaris spots. They flared white, throwing everything into sharply defined contours.

  Melvyn was busy organizing his crash team, sending them ranging into the village, and exploring the other cracks and fissures leading out of the cave.

  ‘Hey, Greg,’ Suzi said. ‘Give Royan’s arse a kick from me, OK?’

  ‘No messing.’

  Sinclair wriggled into the crack after Carlos. Greg levered himself up. The aliens’ presence was a cold burning star ahead of him, exerting a gravity which acted on his thoughts alone, pulling him on. He sucked in his belly, and slipped into the crack.

  36

  The empty corridors were faintly unnerving. Before the alarms had gone off the security centre had been a bustling, lively place. Now the moving walkway rattled hollowly in the deserted main corridor as the hardliner escorted Charlotte to the security centre’s command post.

  They stepped off the end of the walkway in front of a bank of seven lifts, the two at the far end were big service shafts. Security personnel were struggling with large flat-bed drones loaded with bulky machinery, trying to fit them through a service lift’s doors. They were the first people Charlotte had seen since leaving Lloyd McDonald’s office.

  ‘What’s all that for?’ she asked the hardliner as they waited for their lift.

  ‘Cutting gear by the look of it,’ he replied.

  He’d been polite the whole time. Naturally. His eyes switching between her legs and her face. But he didn’t know what was going on any more than she did. Nothing good, she knew, not with those alarms going off.

  The lift arrived, and they descended.

  There were three guards outside the command centre’s door, all of them armed. He had to show his card to a cybofax one of them carried before they were allowed through the door.

  Inside was a big circular room with rings of consoles, large flatscreens round the wall, a giant cube at the centre of the vaulting rock ceiling. She picked up on the current of worry infecting all the people sitting behind the consoles, their serious faces, strained voices.

  ‘Over here.’ Her hardliner gestured at a glass-walled office. She could see Victor, Sean, and Lloyd inside.

  Just as she got to the door she saw Fabian’s face on a phone flatscreen, her legs almost faltered. Then Victor’s expression registered. She wanted to turn and run.

  ‘Fabian here has just told us that the pair of you managed to convince Pavel Kirilov to come up to New London,’ Victor said.

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered.

  ‘I don’t bloody well believe this. You let him know you survived the Colonel Maitland, and then invited him up here? He will do anything to obtain the generator data, including ripping it out of you. And I do mean rip.’

  ‘Kirilov started all this!’ Fabian shouted from the phone’s speaker. ‘My father is dead because of him.’

  ‘And Julia Evans told you quite plainly that he would be dealt with,’ Victor said.

  ‘Oh, sure. Sometime,’ Fabian said petulantly.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘We did it so we could be cert
ain,’ Charlotte said.

  ‘What do you mean, certain?’

  ‘You didn’t seem interested. I thought … well, I wanted to be absolutely sure Pavel Kirilov was dealt with. Dmitri Baronski was killed too,’ she added lamely.

  ‘Didn’t you listen to a word said at Listoel?’ Victor demanded. ‘We have got other, more urgent, problems right now. Third-rate crime lords have to wait their turn. But we would have got round to Kirilov, nobody screws Event Horizon about like he’s done and gets away with it. You were given Julia Evans’s word on it. What more do you want, a thumbprinted contract?’

  Charlotte rubbed her bare arms, suddenly chilly in the air-conditioned office. The disgust and contempt in Victor’s voice was almost unbearable.

  ‘Just one shot from a Strategic Defence platform,’ she pleaded. ‘That’s all it needs. Pavel Kirilov is going to call me before his spaceplane docks, we’ll know when he’s in range.’

  ‘No, he’s not going to call you,’ Lloyd said. ‘And we’re not shooting anyone right now. We can’t, thanks to you.’

  She gave him a fearful glance.

  ‘Screen six,’ he said, and pointed through the glass.

  The delta-wing spaceplane was inside the lip of the southern hub crater, hanging below the docking spindle. Small blue flames stabbed out of the reaction-control nozzles, lining it up for a landing on the crater wall. Two sets of doors had hinged open on either side of the dorsal ridge. Black thermal-dump panels had concertinaed out, and folded back parallel with the wings, making way for silvered dishes and framework racks to rise out of their recesses. Charlotte peered forwards. There were squat cylinders nestling in the racks, their front ends were like insect eyes, a multisegment hemisphere of black chrome lenses, a large bell-shaped nozzle protruded from the rear. Now she knew what to look for, she could see the gold-foil covered boxes of lasers on telescopic arms rising above the dishes.

  ‘That’s Kirilov?’ she asked, her voice had become a croak.

  ‘Oh no,’ Victor said. ‘Kirilov is still on his approach phase. That’s Leol Reiger. You remember him? The two of you almost met on the Colonel Maitland.’