Peter Hamilton - The Mandel Files

Vassili grunted. “No. No you’re right at that, Gregory. I have a responsibility here, some independence from our glorious knowledgeable Marshals. I’d never get the Defence Minister post anyway, I lack the politics. So here I am, tsar of sixty thousand square kilometres, even if three-fifths of it is still under the ice.”

The glacier was visible on the western horizon, a pristine white line disrupting the fusion of land and sky. It was beginning to shoot out orange-pink reflections of the rising sun. The image had a dream clarity about it. Greg stared, fascinated.

“Does it keep you busy, Vassili?” he asked.

“Bah, we’re here to guarantee the zemstvo’s boundaries until it’s granted full independence by the UN. We’ve got the Indian zone to the north, and the French to the south. I don’t think either of them is going to invade us, do you, Gregory?”

“No.”

“All we are is a glorified police force, saving the zemstvo from paying for their own. Not that the colonists could afford a police force, anyway. My troops spend their evenings stopping fights between drunks. That’s all the farmers do, Gregory, plant their gene-tailored arable moss over this desolation during the day, and drink at night. They come out here with such high hopes, stars in their eyes. Then they see the true reality of Greenland. A desert of grubby shingle, and rivers of sterile water colder than yeti’s blood. This land they have bought will take a century to transform into the garden they were promised. They expected freedom, and they’ve found they’ve indentured their children. Of course they drink, but I forgive them for it. What else can I do?”

“Dreams are never cheap, Vassili.”

“I know. But it saddens me to see so much heartache. They are so naïve. Never trust a man with stars in his eyes, Gregory. Never.”

Greg was still facing the distant glacier. There was a cool wind gusting off it, ruffling his hair. The air was so clear.

He knew Event Horizon had funded a couple of settlements in the English zone. But Julia never mentioned them being a problem; Perhaps her smallholders had been equipped with drone planters. She did favour technological solutions to everything. But then colonizing Greenland was a very technical proposition. The idea behind the UN opening it up to settlers in the wake of the retreating ice was to turn it into a giant arable country. There was no ecology that would be destroyed by gene-tailored crops, no indigenous species to be usurped. Even the soil was devoid of bacteria. The farmers could use intensive cultivation techniques over every square metre with impunity.

He rubbed his arms. “It’s cold here. I’d forgotten what real mountain air could be like.”

“You English are wimps. It’s too hot, it’s too cold, it’s too wet. Never satisfied.”

“Yeah, right,” Greg turned back to Vassili. “At least we’re allowed to complain.”

Vassili made a farting sound. “Now we’ve found the glories of democracy, when do Russians ever do anything else?”

Greg glanced at the four young officers standing blank-faced behind Vassili. “I need to talk with you, Vassili.”

“Bah, one phone call telling me you’re coming. Then another from the Defence Ministry itself telling me to be vigilant this morning, there are to be no unaccountable accidents in my airspace. So I ask myself, all this for my old orange farmer friend?”

“I’m not farming right now. It’s the middle of the bloody picking season, and I’ve been dragged away.”

“They never leave us alone, do they, Gregory?” Vassili said soberly.

“This isn’t the Army, the English government, Vassili. I’m doing this for another friend of mine.”

Vassili’s bushy eyebrows rose. “This must be a tremendous friendship you have.”

Greg jerked a thumb back at the Pegasus. “Julia Evans, the owner of Event Horizon.”

“The Queen of Peterborough herself? What circles we two poor footsore soldiers move in these days, Gregory. Come then, come and tell me how a simple Russian general can be of help to the richest woman in the world.”

Vassili’s office was on the second floor of the airport building, taking up the entire western end, which gave him three glass walls looking out over Nova Kirov, the embryonic farms, and the glacier. There was a desk and high-back chairs, several bookcases, a long table for staff officer briefings. All the furniture was made from hard Siberian pine, with simple geometric carvings; it was old looking, cracked and worn, polished a thousand times. A battered samovar bubbled away on a table in the corner, its charcoal glowing rose-gold, filling the air with wisps of arid smoke. Polished artillery shells were lined up on bookcases and the desk. One wall had a row of framed pictures, beribboned generals Greg didn’t recognize, Yeltsin, Defence Minister Evgeniy Schitov. One frame held a metre length of helicopter blade; there was a chunk missing, as though some animal had taken a bite out of it. It was from a Mi-24 Hind K. Greg had been in it, liaising with Vassili’s troops, when it was hit by AA fire from the Jihad Legion. Thankfully, the pilot’s autorotation technique had been flawless.

Vassili poured two cups of tea from his samovar as Greg sat at the long table. The tap squeaked each time he turned it. “It’s been in my family since before the Bolshevik Revolution,” he explained. “I get the Air Force boys to fly my charcoal in. A general has some privileges.” He put the cup down in front of Greg. “Have you cut yourself shaving, Gregory?”

Greg’s hand went to the scar by his eye. The dermal seal membrane had peeled off during the night, but the new flesh was pink and tender. “Did you hear about the Colonel Maitland crash?”

Vassili sat opposite him, frowning. “The airship? Certainly, it was on the news channels last night. It caught fire somewhere over the Atlantic. Most of the crew got out. You were on board?”

“Yeah. Tell you, it didn’t catch fire, by accident.”

“Gregory, my friend, you are too old and too slow to be thinking of combat. Leave it to the stalwarts like that fine young man accompanying you. Please.”

“Christ, don’t you start.”

Vassili chuckled, and blew on the top of his cup. “So, what is it that Julia Evans wishes to know?”

“Is the Russian government mounting a covert deal against Event Horizon? And if so, she’d like to negotiate a peaceful solution.”

Vassili put his cup down without drinking any of the tea. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah.” Greg didn’t like the way Vassili was looking at him, almost hurt. He hadn’t liked asking, either. Maybe coming here hadn’t been such a good idea.

“You seriously think my government would do such a thing?”

“I don’t think you would, Vassili. But someone inside the republic is going balls out against her. I need to know who.”

“Tell me, Gregory. Start at the beginning, and tell me all of it.”

Greg took a sip of tea, and started to talk.

Vassili’s rounded face was thoughtful when he finished. “No, it is not the Russian government that is doing this,” he said. “I would know. I have been informed of this atomic structuring science. This Clifford Jepson you talk of approached Mikoyan two days ago with his development sharing proposition. Naturally as good Russians, Mikoyan informed the Defence Ministry. You’ll see that I’m telling the truth, Gregory.”

Greg pushed his empty cup over the table to Vassili, meeting the general’s eyes. “I don’t need to use my gland on you, Vassili.”

“Bah, so morbid and serious you sound, Gregory. I have been of some help to you, have I not? Would you not do the same for me?”

“You have my address, and I’m on the phone. I can’t offer you air defence cover, though.”