Peter Hamilton - The Mandel Files

She had never seen a star so gloriously radiant. It was probably bright enough to cast a shadow at night; but Peterborough’s permanent light haze made it impossible to know for sure.

They had a good view of the city from their penthouse in the Castlewood condominium, especially the futureopolis of Prior’s Fen Atoll. The day they moved in she spent hours on the balcony staring out at the mega-structures that seemed to float on the green-hued swamp.

She thought it strange that she had never visited Peterborough before; after all it was an incredible focal point for wealth. But after she arrived, she realized it ordered a different sort of money to the type she was used to. Peterborough’s money was active money, it was finance consortium muscle, corporate power, political influence; the only gambling here was the venture capital backing industrial research lab. Nobody hoarded money in Peterborough, they worked it; the static, emasculated trusts which enabled her patrons to indulgently through life shrank from this city’s vitality.

Prior’s Fen epitomized the new culture, bold, purposeful architecture sticking two defiant fingers up to the dead past. The antithesis of Monaco.

It had been a long journey between the two cities and the physical distance was the least of the gulf she had bridged. But now she’d found it, she knew she wouldn’t be leaving.

There were stockbrokers to see in the morning. A new chapter of life to begin.

Victor Tyo had brought Dmitri Baronski’s private memory cores with him when he returned from the Prezda with her furniture and clothes and trinkets. “I figured you were the best person to sort through the bytes,” he had told her. “The rest of Baronski’s girls should be told where they stand. And somehow I don’t think they’ll be too keen on hearing it from me.”

She’d given every piece of that clothing to a charity shop in Stanground, along with the cheaper jewellery. The other girls she had called one at a time, telling them the way it was now, arranging for them to pick up their cut from Dmitri’s Zurich account. But the rest of the data, the finance and industry gossip the old man was supposed to squirt over to the Dolgoprudnensky, that was interesting. She could see some valuable deals opening up if the knowledge was exploited properly by Fabian’s cargo agents.

The breeze was growing chilly now. She went back into the bedroom, sliding the glass door shut behind her. Fragments of the city’s street lighting leaked round the edges of the curtains, giving the room’s white furniture a phosphorescent hue.

Fabian was asleep, sprawled belly down across the double bed where she’d left him. She wondered if it was illegal for a guardian to sleep with her ward. More than likely. If only he wasn’t so terribly young. But he was hers for three whole years, until he was eighteen. Nothing in her life had lasted three years before. And after three years, well… Dreams were part of Peterborough too.

She smiled down at him, and slipped the robe from her shoulders. He stirred as she slid on to the bed beside him.

“Fabian,” she called softly.

His eyes opened drowsily, and he grinned up at her. “Am I dreaming?”

She kissed his brow. “What do you think?”

Julia combed the sweat-damped hair from his eyes as he lay back on the pillows. He really is very handsome, she thought. Funny I never noticed before. Or was that never wanted to notice before? It would have been complicated.

Then she frowned, and peered at his face. “I don’t believe it! You’re looking guilty already.”

“Certainly not,” Victor protested. “What you’re seeing is plain relief. I thought-”

“What?” she asked eagerly. It was fun teasing him, she hadn’t been free to tease a man like this for a long time. It was fun having him in bed too. Nothing astonishing, but that would come with time. She intended there would be a lot of time from now on.

Victor shrugged. “Rick.”

“Oh, him. No. He was sweet, and hunky too, of course.”

“Thank you very much, ma’am.”

She giggled. “Not my type, though. Outside of his work, there’s nothing of interest about him. Sad really.”

“My heart bleeds.”

She waited a while. “I’m extremely grateful to him, though. I would never have thought of flying the Hexaëmeron away. Lord, the thought of having to make that choice still makes me feel cold.”

“It won’t happen again.”

“Thank heavens.” She rested her head on his chest. “I’m going to reward Rick, show him just how appreciative I am.”

“How?”

“Give him his radio telescope, that Steropes he’s forever whining about.”

“You serious?”

“Yes. We know it’s not a pointless search any more. That puts a whole new perspective on SETI. Now people have been convinced there is life in the galaxy they’ll expect a follow-up. And I want Event Horizon to maintain its leadership in the field.”

“There isn’t going to be much doubt about that, I’m afraid. Greg certainly isn’t going to come forward to claim any credit for what happened up at New London. And Sinclair is already a channel celebrity with his religious ‘cast; telling the world how you tamed the Beast and liberated the New Jerusalem. So that’s another brick firmly cemented in the wall of legend. Julia Evans, superwoman.”

“Bugger.” She hadn’t thought of that aspect. Perhaps Greg… No, that wouldn’t be fair at all. “Oh well, at least Steropes won’t put a strain on my finances now.”

“Too true. That second chamber is quite something, even if the miners didn’t appreciate losing their jobs five years ahead of schedule.”

The two of them had walked the length of the second chamber the day after the alien left, their boots kicking up puffs of arid dust. It was a landscape of rock turrets and deep zigzag canyons, delicate arched stone bridges reinforced with cores of solid iron. Instant geology; she’d seen the smoothness of water-etched curves, run her spacesuit glove over weather-chewed redstone outcrops. Yet for all its pristine state, the solid cyclorama engendered a sense of déjà-vu. It was the landscape of her childhood, a composition drawn from memory. There had been few nights when she hadn’t sat on the rocks above the First Salvation Church warren and watched the sun set above the desert.

“All part of the deal,” she said. “The alien was me, after all, remember? A completed second chamber gives Event Horizon a considerable financial boost. What did you expect?”

“Was that really necessary?” he asked quietly. “Showing your memories to that thing?”

“It was the deal, Victor. How else could we be sure the Hexaëmeron would leave? And not just leave, but travel a long way before it resurrects its planet’s species. The Centauri system would be no use. Our own ark starships will be there in less than a century; perhaps even sooner if Beswick ever does work out how to open a wormhole. But with my personality loaded in, I guarantee it won’t stop for fifty-sixty light-years. Good enough, I think.”

“Not much of a deal for the alien. We’re free of it, you make a profit. What did it get?”

“It got to live, Victor. Death was the only other option. And that would have been a monumental crime. Planetary genocide. I’m not sure I could have sanctioned that. But it can wait for a couple of millennia until it finds a barren star system to colonize, it’s already waited billions of years.”

“If you say so,” he said reluctantly. “And what about us? What sort of combination do we make? You build it and I protect it?”

There was a tremble in his voice, slight though, well concealed, it wouldn’t register with many people. Do I know him that well already, or have I always known? “Something like that. I don’t think you’re cut out for life as a househusband.”