Alastair Reynolds - Blue Remembered Earth

‘Hire an outsider, then.’

‘Third-party involvement would present unacceptable risks,’ Lucas said, pausing to tug at his shirt collar where it was sticking to his skin. Like Hector he was both muscular and comfortably taller than Geoffrey. ‘I hardly need add that you are an Akinya.’

‘What my brother means,’ Hector said, ‘is that you’re blood, and you have blood ties on the Moon, especially in the African-administered sector. If you can’t be trusted, who can?’

Geoffrey thought for a few seconds, striving to give away as little as possible. Let the two manipulators stew for a while, wondering if he was going to take the bait.

‘This matter on the Moon – what are we talking about?’

‘A loose end,’ Hector said.

‘What kind? I’m not agreeing to anything until I know what’s involved.’

‘Despite the complexity of Eunice’s estate and affairs,’ Lucas said, ‘the execution of our due-diligence audit has proceeded without complication. The sweeps have turned up nothing of concern, and certainly nothing that need raise questions beyond the immediate family.’

‘There is, however, a box,’ Hector said.

Geoffrey raised a hand to shield his eyes from the sun. ‘What kind?’

‘A safe-deposit box,’ Lucas said. ‘Is the concept familiar to you?’

‘You’ll have to explain it to me. Being but a lowly scientist, anything to do with money or banking is completely outside my comprehension. Yes, of course I know what a safe-deposit box is. Where is it?’

‘In a bank on the Moon,’ Hector said, ‘the name and location of which we’ll disclose once you’re under way.’

‘You’re worried about skeletons.’

The corner of Lucas’s mouth twitched. Geoffrey wondered if the empathy shunt was making him unusually prone to literal-mindedness, unable to see past a metaphor.

‘We need to know what’s in that box,’ he said.

‘It’s a simple request,’ Hector said. ‘Go to the Moon, on our expense account. Open the box. Ascertain its contents. Report back to the household. You can leave tomorrow – there’s a slot on the Libreville elevator. You’ll be on the Moon inside three days, your work done inside four. And then you’re free to do whatever you like. Play tourist. Visit Sunday. Broaden your—’

‘Horizons. Yes.’

Hector’s expression clouded over at Geoffrey’s tone. ‘Something I said?’

‘Never mind.’ Geoffrey paused. ‘I have to admire the two of you, you know. Year after year, I’ve come crawling on my hands and knees asking for more funding. I’ve begged and borrowed, pleading my case against a wall of indifference, not just from my mother and father but from the two of you. At best I’ve got a token increase, just enough to shut me up until next time. Meanwhile, the family pisses a fortune into repairing the blowpipe without me even being told about it, and when you do need a favour, you suddenly find all this money you can throw at my feet. Have you any idea how insignificant that makes me feel?’

‘If you’d rather the incentives were downscaled,’ Lucas said, ‘that can be arranged.’

‘I’m taking you for every yuan. You want this done badly enough, I doubt you’d open with your highest offer.’

‘Don’t overstep the mark,’ Hector said. ‘We could just as easily approach Sunday and make the same request of her.’

‘But you won’t, because you think Sunday’s a borderline anarchist who’s secretly plotting the downfall of the entire system-wide economy. No, I’m your last best hope, or you wouldn’t have come.’ Geoffrey steeled himself. ‘So let’s talk terms. I want a fivefold increase in research funding, inflation-linked and guaranteed for the next decade. None of that’s negotiable: we either agree to it here and now, or I walk away.’

‘To decline an offer now,’ Lucas said, ‘could prove disadvantageous when the next funding round arrives.’

‘No,’ Hector said gently. ‘He has made his point, and he is right to expect assurances. In his shoes, would we behave any differently?’

Lucas looked queasy, as if the idea of being in Geoffrey’s shoes made him faintly nauseous. It was the first human emotion that had managed to squeeze past the empathy shunt, Geoffrey thought.

‘You’re probably right,’ Lucas allowed.

‘He’s an Akinya – he still has the bargaining instinct. Are we agreed that Geoffrey’s terms are acceptable?’

Lucas’s nod was as grudging as possible.

‘We have all committed this conversation to memory?’ Hector asked.

‘Every second,’ Geoffrey said.

‘Then let it be binding.’ Hector offered his hand, which Geoffrey took after a moment’s hesitation, followed by Lucas’s. Geoffrey blinked the image of them shaking.

‘Don’t look on it as a chore,’ Hector said. ‘Look on it as a break from the routine. You’ll enjoy it, I know. And it will be good for you to look in on your sister.’

‘We would, of course, request that you refrain from any discussion of this matter with your sister,’ Lucas said.

Geoffrey said nothing, nor made any visible acknowledgement of what Lucas said. He just turned and walked off, leaving the cousins standing there.

Matilda was still keeping watch over her charges. She regarded him, emitted a low vocalisation, not precisely a threat rumble but registering mild elephantine disgruntlement, then returned to the examination of the patch of ground before her, scudding dirt and stones aside with her trunk in the desultory, half-hearted manner of someone who had forgotten quite why they had commenced a fundamentally pointless task in the first place.

‘Sorry, Matilda. I didn’t ask them to come out here.’

She didn’t understand him, of course. But he was sure she was irritated with the coming and going of the odd-smelling strangers and their annoying, high-whining machine.

He halted before her and considered activating the link again, pushing it higher than before, to see what was really going on in her head. But he was too disorientated for that, too unsure of his own feelings.

‘I think I might have made a mistake,’ Geoffrey said. ‘But if I did, I did it for the right reasons. For you, and the other elephants.’

Matilda rumbled softly and bent her trunk around to scratch under her left ear.

‘I’ll be gone for a little while,’ Geoffrey went on. ‘Probably not more than a week, all told. Ten days at most. I have to go up to the Moon, and… well, I’ll be back as quickly as I can. You’ll manage without me, won’t you?’

Matilda began poking around again. She wouldn’t just manage without him, Geoffrey thought. She’d barely notice his absence.

‘If anything comes up, I’ll send Memphis.’

Oblivious to his reassurance, she continued her foraging.

The woman from the bank apologised for keeping him waiting, although in fact it had been no more than minutes. Her name was Marjorie Hu, and she appeared genuinely keen to be of assistance, as if he’d caught her on a slow day where any break in routine was welcome.

‘I’m Geoffrey Akinya,’ he said, falteringly. ‘A relative of the late Eunice Akinya. Her grandson.’

‘In which case I’m very sorry for your loss, sir.’

‘Thank you,’ he said solemnly, allowing a judicious pause before proceeding with business. ‘Eunice held a safe-deposit box with this branch. I understand that as a family member I have the authority to examine the contents.’

‘Let me look into that for you, sir. There was some rebuilding work a while back, so we might have moved the box to another branch. Do you know when the box was assigned?’

‘Some time ago.’ He had no idea. The cousins hadn’t told him, assuming they even knew. ‘But it’ll still be on the Moon?’