Peter Hamilton - The Mandel Files

There were seven of them in the group that emerged from the public lobby below the Governor’s Residence. They stood clustered together on the lava-like surface of the ring road which ran round the base of the southern endcap, looking across the open parkiand, not quite sure where to go first. Very touristy, Greg thought, not that he was particularly concerned with stealth. But they did give the impression of a booked party. No need to draw unnecessary attention. Charlotte and Suzi were with him, of course; along with Rick and Melvyn; while a couple of the crash team, Teresa Farrow and Jim Sharman, completed the group. Lloyd McDonald had set up a dedicated mission office in the security centre, where he was reviewing reports from the police and his own personnel from inside the Cavern.

“Where we headed?” Suzi asked.

“Not sure. Lloyd will call us as soon as someone spots a Celestial Apostle.” He sucked in some air, glancing round Hyde Cavern. A tiny secretion struck up a certain restlessness, but there was no call towards any particular part of the cylindrical landscape. “But in the mean time, we’ll try the beach. The one where you met the priest, Charlotte.”

Charlotte nodded. “All right.”

Other pedestrians were glancing at her as they passed. Greg had to admit she looked sensational. Perhaps he ought to have asked her to wear something less conspicuous.

It isn’t her clothes, he told himself, it’s your hormones.

Rick had stuck close to her side on the way down from the Residence, making small talk, absolutely not looking at the top’s scoop neck. The way she dealt with the attention was a frictionless wall of politeness, nothing that would encourage, nothing to take offence at. It was a neat trick. Poor old Rick.

He took his cybofax out of a jacket pocket, and pulled a map of New London’s train network from the colony’s memory core. There were stations every two hundred metres round the endcap. He started walking towards the nearest one.

“I’ve just heard from Sean Francis,” Melvyn said. “Julia Evans is on her way up.”

“When will she be here?”

“Three hours.”

“What’s the matter, doesn’t she trust us?” Suzi grumbled.

“Give her a break,” Greg said. It came out flatter than he intended. “She needs that atomic structuring technology. Once I confirmed the alien was here she didn’t have many choices.”

“Yeah,” Suzi said. “This alien thing, knowing it’s here somewhere, ain’t helping calm me. Why doesn’t it show itself?”

“It hasn’t demonstrated any hostility,” Rick said.

“Not yet,” Suzi said knowingly. She patted the Browning in her shoulder holster.

Rick gave a despairing sigh.

The vine-roped balconies gave way to sheer rock cliff, and the road bowed out from the base. They walked over a gently curved mock-stone bridge across the neck of a lake. A waterfall emerged from a cleft in the rock a kilometre above; Greg had to tilt his head right back to see its apex. The crinkled rock behind it was thick with creepers and slimy algae. He tracked the ragged white plume as it curved sideways through the air, thundering into the lake twenty metres away. The air was full of a fine spray, leaving the side of the bridge permanently slicked.

“Freaky world,” Suzi said above the noise.

“Yeah,” Greg called back. The endcap rose vertically for the first hundred metres, which was as high as the balconies and windows went, above that it sank into a slight depression of blank rock, with the lighting tube sprouting out of the centre. He could see another five of the exotic Coriolis waterfalls spaced round it at regular intervals.

The train station was on the other side of the bridge, below ground. They took an escalator down to a whitewalled, spotlessly clean platform. Greg asked the station ‘ware for a private coach. There was a rush of dry air from the tunnel, and the bullet-nosed aluminium cylinder glided out, hovering a couple of centimetres above the single rail. They all trooped in, and Greg showed his Event Horizon card to the driver panel, requesting the Kenton station.

The fall-surf beach was spread out along one side of a deep horseshoe-shaped cove which hugged the foot of the northern endcap. This time there was no cliff of balconies at the base, the endcap was a simple shallow hemisphere carved out of the rock. The six Coriolis waterfalls were replicated, but lacking the severe drop of their southern endcap counterparts. They flowed down channels cut in the rock, clinging to the curve. One of them emptied into the cove with a dramatic foam cloud of spray. Thin rainbows swirled inside it.

Greg watched in amazement as a woman on a surfboard shot out of the mist, flying across the cove. Another followed her. He looked up.

The fall-surfers were dotted at fifty-metre intervals all the way back up the waterfall. Where it jetted out of the endcap, a kilometre above him, he could just make out a small metal platform like a broad diving-board. A tiny dark figure leapt off it, descending almost vertically to start with, low gravity only just managing to provide the stability for a lazy glide. The tail of the long board barely touched the water. Then gravity took hold, building constantly as the curve of the endcap increased underneath the surfer. His speed began to pick up. By the time he reached the bottom he was travelling at a hellish velocity.

They all heard a gleeful whoop as he exploded out of the waterfall’s foam cloud and flashed past, slicing out a long creamy wake. He had almost reached the end of the cove before he slowed to a halt and began paddling back to shore.

“Now that is something else,” Suzi muttered in admiration.

Greg knew what she meant, his immediate reaction was: I want to try that.

Charlotte stared up at the waterfall with a fond smile. “It takes a lot of nerve to kick off the first time. But after that it’s addictive.”

“You’ve done it?” Suzi asked, slightly envious.

“Oh, yes. fall-surfing is one of their greatest tourist traps. It looks wild, but actually it’s very safe.”

“I’m sure it is,” Greg said. “But it isn’t on our agenda.” He led them along the path towards the cove, Suzi grumbling behind him.

The beach itself had a Riviera look, organized, colourful, and crowded. Bars that were little more than wooden planks under dried-palm roofs lined the bluff above the sand. Behind them was a more substantial row of restaurants. Regimental squares of sunbeds covered the top half of the beach, competing for space with netball pitches. The powder-fine sand was dazzlingly white. Waiters in white shirts and dark-green bow ties scurried between the bars and sunbeds, carrying trays of drinks.

Greg walked along the crumbling sandy soil of the bluff.

There was a steady drift of families coming up the steps from the beach, carrying their bags and towels, small children with tired-looking faces.

Suzi stayed at his side, looking out over the bodies lying on the sunbeds. Rick and Charlotte were still together, locked at the centre of a protective triangle formed by the three hardliners. Greg was pleased with their unobtrusive professionalism.

Teresa Farrow was a psychic, equipped with sac implants; he could discern her espersense pervading the beach and the bars, alert for hazards. She had told him she possessed an empathy similar to his, but no intuition.

Jim Sharman was one of the crash team’s tech specialists. All of the team members had one or two fields of expertise.

“Can you see him?” he asked Charlotte.

She was standing at the top of some stairs. “No, he isn’t here. Sorry.”

“I didn’t expect to find him first time,” he said, and gave her a reassuring smile.