Peter Hamilton - The Mandel Files

Yeah.

I love you, Snowy.

I’ll remember.

He hung his head, and vanished.

Calculated, she reminded herself sternly, a coldly logical emotion.

The arcade was cut seventy metres directly into Hyde Cavern’s southern endcap; there was no moving walkway, just a broad floor of green and red stone tiles.

Hard cavernlight shone through a rosette of stained glass above the entrance, casting a colourful dapple over the shoppers milling near by. Big shiny brass fans spun slowly above the hanging biolum globes, circulating the air. It was cool, quiet and relaxing.

The small shops reminded Charlotte of the ones she had toured in Rodeo Drive, exclusive and exquisite. If they had a fault, it was the sheer monotony of tastefulness; everything blended, colours and shapes. It would be so easy to get sucked in. Designers had built their reputations on those interiors. Some of the names were familiar. Parent companies treating New London as a prestige showcase. After all, there were a lot of their clientele who came up here for casinos and low-gravity hotels, simply for the cachet of having left Earth. But seeing a 300k.p.h. Lotus Commodore for sale in a space colony that didn’t even have roads appealed to her sense of the ridiculous.

She walked past the car showroom window, almost smiling. Teresa Farrow, her bodyguard from the crash team, gave the streamlined, royal-purple sports car a fast glance, shaking her head. There was something about the hardline woman, a sort of vagueness, which convinced Charlotte she was another psychic. Her mind vigilant on some unknown level, alert for trouble.

But she hadn’t objected when Charlotte said she wanted to come down to the arcade. It was practically underneath the Governor’s Residence anyway.

The American Express office was halfway down the arcade on the right. Charlotte pushed the glass door open, walking straight into the reception area. It looked like the office of some ancient legal partnership, dark wood panels and shiny red leather chairs.

“You’re going to think me terribly silly,” she said, in her gushy voice, to the uniformed girl behind the desk. “But I left my card on Earth. I must have forgotten it when I changed into my shipsuit.”

The girl smiled brightly. “That’s quite all right, madam.

We’re here to help.”

Obtaining a replacement didn’t take long. A data construct to fill out. A thumbprint check, the company’s memory core on Earth confirming she was who she said she was, that she had an account with them. Cancelling her original card, wherever it was by now. Being nibbled by perplexed fish, presumably.

Two minutes later she was back out in the arcade, heading for a Toska’s store she had noticed earlier. It had fluffy white carpets, purple marble pillars, huge gilt-framed mirrors, a thousand choices. And best of all the assistants understood, they knew the best ranges for her age group, what suited her hair and figure.

She sat on the ashgrove chair sipping a mineral water, and watched the life-sized hologram of herself as it ran through permutations-tops, trousers, shorts, skirts. The assistants made suggestions about colours, possible accessories.

She wound up taking a body-hugging top with a modest neck line, made out of cloned snakeskin. The material was dry and thin, but stretched like rubber, its grey and cream scales had a wonderful mart shine, and it was so soft. The hologram flicked through a catalogue of skirts and shorts, and she chose a cornflower-blue mid-thigh skirt to match. It was a sportsy combination, light enough for Hyde Cavern and showing off without posing. Consummate, she decided; Baronski would have been proud, God bless him. Just looking at herself in the mirror was a heady boost. Her life righting itself again. It was a shame about having to wear tights, the skirt was great for her legs; but running round the Colonel Maitland had given her a lot of scratches and not all of the dermal seal had flaked off.

She paid with her new Amex, adding a pair of Ferranti shades as a last thought. The appalling shipsuit went into a Toska’s bag, and she carried it out into the arcade, resisting the temptation to leave it behind.

Back in the arcade she looked longingly at an Arden salon, wishing she had time to do something about her hair, the cap had simply killed it dead. Tomorrow, she promised herself.

It was ten past three when Charlotte got back to her room in the Governor’s Residence. Suzi’s room was on one side, Rick Parnell’s on the other. Thankfully there was no one about to see her. It wasn’t that Greg had forbidden her from going out, but the implication was there. The sensation as the door closed behind Teresa Farrow was reminiscent of the one she used to have sneaking out of the care home, a giddy relief.

Her room had black and green walls, an elaborate jungle print; the Scandinavian furniture was cut from redwood and left unvarnished, giving it a raw feel. The paradise birds in the large white cage by the balcony doors started to shrill wildly.

Charlotte blew them a kiss and picked up her flight bag from the bed. “Just going to clean up,” she told Teresa Farrow, and skipped into the bathroom.

She was in two minds whether or not to call Fabian. She felt as though she was exploiting him, deliberately abusing his grief to help her achieve her revenge. But when she had suggested they get even with the Dolgoprudnensky, the two of them alone in their room at the platform’s clinic, she’d seen that insouciant spark return. The prospect of retribution had animated him. It wasn’t the sort of hope she particularly wanted to see in him, but it was hope of a kind. And that number-cruncher brain of his had rapidly cooked up several possible scenarios. She’d made suggestions of her own, helping to refine and fine-tune the idea. But now the time had come to actually commit herself, doubts were rising.

No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy. More than one of her patrons had told her that; surprising how many of them were ex-military. And this wasn’t something they’d ever have a second chance at. It had to work first time.

It was risky.

Charlotte raised her hand, the bioware sheath was like a two-fingered glove, flesh coloured; there was a constant warm itch underneath. No, she couldn’t forget what Nia Korovilla had done, what she’d been ordered to do, and by whom.

She put the seat down on the toilet, sat on it, and unzipped her flight bag. Below the Levi’s and neatly folded Organic Flux Capacity sweatshirt was her gold Amstrad cybofax. Heaven alone knew how the wafer had stayed inside her shorts pockets while she was charging around the Colonel Maitland, but there it was, the only possession she had left that was truly hers.

She entered Fabian’s personal number, then ran the scrambler program. The Amstrad’s screen fuzzed with static, then stabilized to show Fabian’s face. He was smiling nervously.

“Crikey, Charlotte, I thought you were never going to call. Anastasia docked an hour ago.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“Any sign of the alien?”

“No, none. We’re going to go out looking for my Celestial priest in quarter of an hour.”

“Oh. Well, good luck.”

“Thanks.”

“Are we going to do it?”

“Yes, Fabian, we’re doing it.”

“Terrific! Switch to conference mode and call Kirilov. Have you still got the number?”

“Yes,” she said with some exasperation.

She pulled the number he’d given her from the cybofax’s memory, and entered it in the phone circuit. The Amstrad’s screen split in two, Fabian on one side, the other remained blank.

“Yes?” a male voice asked, a heavy Slav accent.

“We want to speak with Mr Kirilov,” Fabian said.