Peter Hamilton - The Mandel Files

Oh, so that takes the tekmerc penetration mission out of the possible, and into the improbable.

Looks like it.

Thanks for telling me. Do you want to sit in on the conference?

Yes yes yes.

Wilholm itself was a splendid eighteenth-century manor house. A broad grey stone façade with pink and yellow roses climbing the sturdy trelliswork on either side of the overhanging portico. The long windows were fitted with silvered glass against the heat. Julia saw a hundred tiny reflections of herself climbing out of the Rolls. Lucas, her butler, was walking down the steps to greet her.

There were a couple of other cars parked outside. Morgan’s caramel-coloured Rover and a cobalt-blue Ford which she guessed was Ranasfari’s.

“A pleasant morning, ma’am?” Lucas asked. He was in his mid-sixties, wearing a tailcoat with bright brass buttons, wonderfully dignified. The PSP had kept him on the dole for ten years, saying personal service was a humiliating anachronism, and they’d find him proper employment. The day after Philip Evans bought Wilholm he had cycled out from Peterborough and asked for a job. The manor functioned so smoothly under his supervision; and he’d never attended corporate management-training courses.

She handed him her raincoat and boater. “Let’s say, I covered a lot of ground.”

He inclined his head. “Yes, ma’am. Mr and Mrs Mandel have just passed the gatehouse, they will be here shortly.”

“Great. Show them up to the study as soon as they arrive.” She raced up the steps and through the big double doors. Most of her major friends together, working on a problem, and including her. It looked like being a great afternoon.

The study was on the first floor. Julia took her deep-purple blazer off as she went up the curving staircase. She was still undoing her slim bow tie as she barged into the study. Morgan Walshaw and Cormac Ranasfari were waiting, along with Gabriel Thompson.

Gabriel was the only person Julia knew who was ageing in reverse. The woman was another ex-Mindstar officer Greg had introduced her to. Her gland had been taken out two years ago, the precognition faculty it educed having brought too many psychological problems. Seeing into the future, Gabriel lived in perpetual fear of watching her own death drawing steadily closer. After leaving the army she had gone to seed, badly.

Now, with the gland out, she was taking care of her appearance again; she watched her diet, kept up her health, and was beginning to expand her interests. After starting out as a dowdy spinster who looked about fifty-five, she had worked her way down to become a pleasant-faced forty-five-year-old, with a pretty brisk attitude to life. Although Julia had detected some brittleness on more than one occasion.

Officially Gabriel was acting as adviser to Event Horizon’s security division while Morgan set up a team of psychics-Greg had refused the assignment point-blank. The two of them had moved into the same house eighteen months ago.

“Hello, Gabriel,” Julia said brightly. She gave Morgan a quick peck on the cheek as she carried on down the long oak table which filled the centre of the study. “Thank you for coming, Cormac.”

Cormac had half risen from his own armchair; he ducked his head before reseating himself.

Julia plopped down in the hard chair at the head of the table, and activated the terminal in front of her. “I asked Royan to attend, is that all right?” she asked Morgan. He didn’t strictly approve of Royan.

“Certainly.”

Her fingers pecked at the terminal’s keyboard, loading the familiar code. Above the stone fireplace, the flatscreen she used for videoconferencing flickered dimly.

PLUGGED IN, it printed in bold orange letters.

Royan always refused to use a vocal synthesizer; the closest he came was the silent speech when her nodes were interfaced with the ‘ware stacks in his room. Eleanor had described him to her once. Ever since, Julia had experienced a subtle guilt at her relief that she would never actually have to meet him. Although a bleak presence always seemed to float on the periphery of their electronic link, as if he was struggling to project himself through at her.

You’re paranoid, girl, she told herself.

Another code and Grandpa was there, plugged into the study’s systems. She talked banalities with the three of them as the first raindrops of the afternoon began to speckle the lead-framed windows. Sluggish grey douds lumbered over the Nene valley, making the oak-panelled study seem funereal. Wall-mounted biolum globes came on, giant luininous pearls on curving tubular brass arms.

Lucas’s unmistakable soft knock sounded on the door. He ushered Greg and Eleanor in.

Julia listened to their résumé of the case, trying to conceal a shudder when Greg ran through his interview with Liam Bursken. She could see he was still wound up about it, and it took a lot to affect Greg. Whenever she glanced at Cormac, he had the same politely attentive expression in place.

Can’t fool me, Cormac, she thought, not any more. His aloofness was a defence against the craziness and stupidity of the world, as much as his physical retreat into his laboratory complex. But now the world had pierced clean through and bitten him.

With some surprise, she realized she was actually feeling sorry for him.

After Eleanor finished talking Julia asked Greg to squirt all the police files stored in his cybofax into the NN core. “Grandpa can run correlation exercises for us,” she said.

“That’s right, bloody skivvy I am,” Philip muttered. “Nice to know why I was invited.”

Greg smiled thinly and aimed his cybofax at her terminal. Eleanor added the bytes she’d built up.

“So it’s definitely not one of the students,” Gabriel said thoughtfully.

“Yes, I’m sure they didn’t kill Kitchener,” said Greg. “Although how my opinion would stand up in court, I’m not so certain about. But the physical evidence does tend to corroborate my interviews. Besides, none of them had a mind anything like Bursken’s.”

“Your opinion is good enough for me,” Morgan said.

“Even your new friend Rosette Harding-Clarke is in the clear,” Eleanor flashed Greg a spartan grin. “Her family is very rich, and according to Julia’s legal office the child wouldn’t get a penny out of Kitchener’s estate. If the Harding-Clarkes were poor, Rosette might have been able to apply for a maintenance order against the estate. However, the question doesn’t arise.”

“Then it must have been a tekmerc snuff,” Morgan said.

YOUR SECURITY GEAR PROTECTING LAUNDE ABBEY WAS THE BEST NO ONE ON THE CIRCUIT HAS HEARD OF ANYBODY WANTING TO BUY THE KIND OF PROGRAMS WHICH COULD BURN THROUGH.

Morgan turned his head to look at the flatscreen. “How reliable are your sources?”

VERY VERY VERY

“Somebody got in.”

“I still maintain it would be difficult for anyone to get in and out of the Chater valley that night,” Greg said.

“Then who did do it?” Walshaw asked, his voice had risen a notch.

Gabriel caught his eye, a silent rebuke.

“Logically, it was a tekmerc snuff,” Greg said unhappily. “Nobody else would have the know-how and operational expertise to get in and out without leaving a trace. That’s what I find incredible. There wasn’t a single trace, not one.” He shook his head.

“We’re missing method and motive at the moment,” Eleanor said.

MOTIVE I HAVE PLENTY OF

“What?” Julia asked.

ACCORDING TO THE CIRCUIT KITCHENER WAS WORKING ON A BORON PROTON REACTOR FOR YOU.

“Edward was doing no such thing,” Cormac objected.

Philip chortled, the sound reverberating out of hidden speakers, directionless. “Ah, but it fIts, m’boy. Doesn’t it? Kitchener’s speciality was atomic and molecular interaction. A successful boron proton reaction would be almost as worthwhile as giga-conductor. Look at it from an economic point of view, a successful boron proton fusion produces energized helium, that’s all, no pollutants, no radioactive emission. It’s a bloody marvel, or it would be if we could build one. Kitchener is just the kind of man to iron out the bugs involved in getting a smooth fusion process going.”