Peter Hamilton - The Mandel Files

“Is it an angel or a demon?” Sinclair asked.

“Neither,” said Julia. “It’s hope. A very noble sort of hope.”

“For who?”

“Maybe a lot of people. The whole Earth is going to be given proof we’re not alone in the galaxy, and never have been. They’ll see it written in the sky tonight. And God knows this world deserves to be touched with wonder.”

“You’re a religious woman, Miss Julia?”

“Yes, I suppose I am.”

The tail of the alien rushed by. Swallowed by the darkness in seconds. Greg hadn’t really appreciated how fast the bloody thing was moving. Muscles unknotted, his legs were shaking.

Circles of light from the helmet spots on the hardliners’ suits shone on the opposite wall. He stepped out into the middle of the passage. The alien presence was dwindling, a dawn-washed star at the back of his mind. Julia was staring into the gloom after it.

“Regrets?” he asked.

“Not one. It was all I could do.”

He put his arm round her shoulder, and gave her a little hug. Doubts were still cluttering the peripheries of her mind.

“I said you were the best when it comes to decisions,” he told her.

She grinned up at him. “Thanks, Greg. And you, too, Rick. I’m deep in your debt; I would never have thought of that by myself.”

“No,” Rick said. “There’s nothing to thank, this was the zenith of my professional life, I’ve justified fifteen years’ work and dreaming, and you made it possible.” He was solemnly intent, nearly entreating. Julia’s grin became a little laboured.

“Come on, I think we’d better get going,” Greg said.

“Yes,” Julia said. “I must get in touch with Victor and Sean, there will be the most awful panic if I don’t inform them what’s about to happen.”

Greg had half expected to meet the alien again in the caves. Two or three times he thought he could hear something rumbling, a sound like boulders being slowly ground together. But the only sign of its presence was an oval tunnel which had been bored into the storage cave, saving them from wriggling along the narrow crack. The rock had been sheered clean, giving it a polished-marble finish.

“Is it ahead of us?” Greg asked Julia.

“No. I want to get back to Hyde Cavern quickly.”

“So it made this opening for you?”

“Yes.”

Shelves and cargo pods had been smashed against the rear wall of the storage cave where the wave had flung them, walls and ceiling were dripping wet. There was no sign of any of the fruit.

“The hardliners must have breached the lake,” Greg said.

“So where did all the water go?” Rick asked. “We never saw any, and we were lower down than this.”

“Used up,” Julia said without hesitating.

“Are you in contact with that thing?” Greg asked.

“Not exactly, but there was some feedback when I squirted my memories over. I know what it can do, and I know how I’ll use it. The water is only the start. It needs a lot of organic chemicals.” She sighed. “I hope it leaves enough hydrocarbons to germinate the second chamber’s biosphere.”

The extent of the damage in the village cave surprised Greg. It must have been a brute of a fight. The crash team were splashing about through ankle-deep water. He counted seventeen armour suits laid out in a row. One of them was small, badly scored.

Suzi had been so young when they first met, barely a teenager, frightened and determined, emotionally scarred. One of the best Trinities he had ever trained, soaking up every word, bright and quick. She never had a childhood, not the kind his kids at Hambleton were getting. Instead he taught her how to kill, then threw her straight into the front line. She hadn’t known anything else, her entire life moulded by a bunch of drunken Party militia, a random fling of the dice. If they had turned down another street, ransacked someone else’s hotel, it would’ve been so different. Suzi was smart enough to have made it in any field. Never had the chance to try. That was what they’d fought for together, back in Peterborough, so that the next generation could live real lives again. And they’d been right, Julia and her achievements proved that.

He turned to Julia as she picked her way over dead fish, button nose wrinkled in dismay. She recoiled from the heat in his expression.

“Are you quite sure you and the alien dealt with Leol Reiger?” he asked.

She nodded hurriedly, eyes dark with emotion. He hadn’t seen her that vulnerable-looking for seventeen years.

Greg’s earpiece hissed with static, then Melvyn was talking in a breathless voice. “I was about to send out a scout party for you. I was worried the water might have trapped you.”

Three of the suited figures were walking towards them. Julia fumbled round in her hood, and found the small mike. “Do you have a communication circuit with Victor?” she asked.

“Not a chance, our fibre optic went down in the combat.” He paused. “Greg-”

“I know,” Greg said.

“We’re leaving now,” Julia said. “Get your team together.” She started for the staircase.

“But there’s still five tekmercs unaccounted for,” Melvyn protested.

“Are all your people here?”

“I detailed four to take our wounded out, but the rest are here, yes.”

“Then get them out.”

“Yes, ma’am. What about the tekmercs?”

“Leave them to the alien, they won’t escape.”

“You found it?” Melvyn asked. Greg heard a thousand questions in his voice.

“Yes,” Julia said.

“Lordy, me boy, you should have seen the beastie,” Sinclair said. “A kilometre long, it was, black as hell.”

“Where’s Royan?” Melvyn asked.

Julia’s step faltered. “Gone.”

Fragments of data traffic bounced down the service tunnel as Greg led them out into Moorgate station, his earpiece picking up snatches of shouting voices. Half of New London’s security staff were waiting for them. He could see paramedics easing the crash team casualties into a hospital coach, the four armour-suited members standing close by.

Victor came at a dead run as they emerged from the service tunnel. He stopped short half a metre from Julia, looking her up and down. “You’re all right,” he said, he sounded scared.

Julia smiled. “Yes, Victor, I’m all right.”

Victor cleared his throat, and glanced back down the service tunnel. “What about Royan, did you find him?”

“Yeah,” Greg said. “But he’s not coming back, not with us.” He sat down on one of the big pipes next to a turbopump casing. Now the tension and adrenalin drive were abating, the exertions of the last two days were making themselves felt. The immediacy was lost; always the same after combat, and that’s what this had been, even without the physical side. His neurohormone hangover was nagging, cutting him off from the emotional by-play of the security staff, Victor and Julia, Rick; Sinclair’s doolally inspirations. And he didn’t care. He wanted out of his dissipater suit, then a bath, a drink, and a call to Eleanor. Maybe the other way round.

“And the alien?” Victor asked.

“It’s agreed to leave,” Julia said. “Have you got your cybofax on you?”

Victor handed it over.

“Get all these people out of here,” Julia said as she entered a code into the wafer. “And clear all the other northern endcap stations as well.”

“Why, what’s happening?”

Her eyes glinted challengingly. “There’s going to be a slight adjustment to New London.”

Victor appealed to Greg.

“Don’t look at me, she made the deal.”

“What, with the alien?”

“Yeah.”

Victor glanced back at Julia. Like a teenager hit with first-love blues, Greg thought.