Peter Hamilton - The Mandel Files

She let out a heartfelt sigh, squirming in his arms as his tongue licked below her ear. “Not this morning. Busy.”

“Afternoon?”

She nodded eagerly. Adrian was insatiable. Wonderfully, fabulously insatiable.

Alaka had been disappointed by the non-appearance of their star guest at most of the functions after Friday night. But she didn’t give a flying fig about that. This was love.

And Adrian felt the same ahout her, so enraptured he’d come back to Wilholm with her on Sunday night.

“I’m afraid to let you out of my sight,” he’d said. “I can hardly believe a girl like you would even look at someone like me.”

So she did her best to convince him, realizing his every wicked fantasy on her big apricot silk bed, and in the jacuzzi, the shower, dresser chair, deep-pile rug. And Adrian could be very wicked indeed.

Her grandfather hadn’t said anything about Adrian coming to stay, not a peep. She hoped that meant he’d finally accepted her as an equal. Part of his kindness before, she knew now, had been the type a teacher shows a gifted pupil. That she could be groomed to manage Event Horizon was his driving concern. She forgave him that. Right now she could forgive anybody anything.

OtherEyes Access Request: Please Juliet.

“All afternoon,” Adrian growled insistently.

“Absolutely.” He was going back to the college in the evening, which would give them a solid six hours to practice yet more of that rapturous sex. Then there was next weekend to look forward to. Thank the Lord Cambridge wasn’t far away. Although she would’ve travelled to Tasmania for him.

Julia heard the sound of tyres on the drive, and began to disentangle herself. Suddenly wondering what the hell she must look like; hair tangled, front of her dress damp from where she’d pressed against Adrian, cheeks flushed, and grinning like a madwoman. Greg would hardly need his empathy to see what she’d been getting up to.

Adrian kept hold of her hand as the little Duo pulled up in front of the portico. The car’s arrival frightened Wilholm’s flock of snow-white doves into flight above her.

Open Channel to NN Core. Load OtherEyes, Limiter# Three. Sight and hearing only, so her grandfather wouldn’t be able to sense her racing heart, nor experience Adrian’s adventurous hands.

Thank you so very much, Philip Evans said. So sorry to trouble you. In case it’s of the remotest interest, we think the Trojan program which Gabriel predicted has been loaded into the Event Horizon datanet. There was a highly sophisticated code melt in our Doncaster silicon-fibre plant ‘ware two minutes ago; they are scheduled to squirt their production data to me in another five minutes.

Julia suddenly hated the real world for intruding on her private happiness, it seemed to delight in conspiring to reduce her time with Adrian-Greg’s visit, unseen hackers. Why couldn’t they leave her alone? Petty grubbing manipulators, all of them, pissing in the wind. They weren’t going to alter society, nor bankrupt Event Horizon, nor make the Sun revolve around the Earth, turn water into wine. The sum total of their activities was so near to zero as to be derisory. People were so bloody stupid, and insensitive; animals that’d learnt how to wear clothes.

Her arm tightened instinctively around Adrian. He didn’t know how much of a comfort he was.

Don’t be so sarcastic, Grandpa, it’s very unbecoming. Have Walshaw’s security programmers managed to backtrack?

Not yet.

Total surprise.

Give them some credit, Juliet, that melt was hard to spot.

If they’d written a decent guardian program in the first place there wouldn’t have been a melt through.

Her grandfather answered with a reproachful silence. Surprising what could be read from emptiness.

Greg climbed out of the Duo. Julia let out an involuntary gasp. His left eye was swollen and black, heavily bruised; a moulded white surgical dressing covered his nose; his hands seemed to be all blue dermal membrane; he was limping.

Christ!

“What happened?!” she demanded anxiously.

He smiled heavily. “I had a little chat with your friend, Kendric di Girolamo.”

“My God! He did this to you?”

“His bodyguards.”

“Oh, Greg. You shouldn’t even be out of bed. Come along with you, out of this hot sun.”

Greg shrugged. “Not as bad as it looks.” His eyes were fixed on Adrian. Accusing, Julia thought, certainly not indifferent. My God, could he be jealous?

Adrian stirred uncomfortably under the stare, gripping her hand that little bit tighter.

“Adrian, isn’t it?” Greg asked.

“Yes, sir.”

They reminded her of two stags, scraping hoofs before they locked antlers. Disturbing to think she might be the cause, but then again it didn’t exactly hurt her ego.

Greg’s cut lips quirked slightly, breaking the spell. “The name’s Greg. Nice to see you again.”

Adrian relaxed a little at her side.

She gave him a huge sunny smile. “This conference won’t take long, darling. Would you see to Tobias, I’ve been neglecting him shockingly.”

“Sure thing.” He pecked her cheek and gave Greg a quick curious glance before heading off towards the stables.

Another thing about him, he understood the way Event Horizon business dominated her life, and made allowance, never making unreasonable demands. There weren’t many who’d do that. He was going to make a smashing doctor with that kind of sympathy.

“Nice lad,” Greg offered as they reached the shade of the portico. There was sweat on his forehead.

She slipped her arm into his, steadying his walk; glad to have someone trustworthy to confide in. “Nice? Greg, he’s gorgeous. And you should see him with his shirt off. Totally hunky!”

“Lucky Adrian.”

Doncaster is squirting, now!

Julia nearly groaned aloud. How could she have forgotten about Grandpa? He would’ve heard every word. That bloody OtherEyes was going to have to be rewritten again.

Greg was looking at her speculatively. A blush was rising up her cheeks.

Morgan Walshaw was waiting for them in the study. He did a double take at Greg’s injuries, frowning, then signalled them to sit.

Julia pulled out her chair at the head of the table. The dark polished surface in front of her was cluttered with gear modules and cubes. Morgan Walshaw was devouring information from three cubes fed by an elaborate-looking customized terminal. Next to her grandfather’s NN core was a Commodore bioware number cruncher, a maroon hexagonal block fifty centimetres across and twelve high. A thick bundle of fibre-optic cables linked it to the study’s communication consoles. Her grandfather called it junior; he’d unplugged his NN core from Event Horizon’s datanet, plugging in the Commodore as a replacement. It’d been loaded with a Turing personality responses program; and he’d spent the last three days reformatting it to shuffle Event Horizon’s data squirts in a routine fashion.

“Will you look at that.” Her grandfather’s gruff voice rumbled around the study.

The biggest cube on the table was displaying a schematic of the Commodore’s databuses, a nightmare mobius topology of fine turquoise lines binding together a miniature globular cluster of sparkling jade stars.

A cadaverous pink stain had begun to wash through the image, spreading down the lines and branching at every star, tainting everything in its path.

“Christ, the bugger’s expansion rate is phenomenal. About fifth power,” the directionless voice exclaimed.

The cube showed an unhealthy homogenous pink blob.

“Six seconds from reception to total domination. Incredible. Whoever they are, they’re serious. I would never have been able to stop it if it’d got into the NN core. That’s all down to Gabriel. Where is she, Greg?”