Peter Hamilton - Fallen Fragon

"Which is what I shall be attending, while you can just stay in the five-star resort hotel next door. One of my aides has pulled out, leaving a room already paid for. You can sleep in as late as you like, or even for the whole five days if you want. You can have room service meals on a twenty-four-hour-a-day basis. There's a fully equipped sports center and pool free to guests. The dome lighting is rigged for tropical climate if you want to lounge around getting a tan. Your room includes unlimited datapool access. There's live music every night. And you don't have to see me or even have a meal with me the entire time. So... do you want to give your mother a break for a few days before term starts?"

Lawrence looked across at his mother, who was smiling gamely. Her stress lines had become permanent since his last brother had been born. He knew she was taking prescription antidepressants, washed down with vodka, and hated her for being so weak. He hated himself even more for being so harsh on her. It was this whole fucking stupid world that was rotten. "I... Yeah. Great. Sounds cool. Thanks."

"Thanks. Good Fate, wonders never cease on this planet, do they?"

Lawrence scowled again.

Three days later, he wasn't actually enjoying himself, but he was relaxing. The hotel building was in a dome all by itself, a fifteen-story triangle of broad glass-fronted balconies right in the center where guests could look out over humid, verdant parkland. It seemed as if every bush and tree was sprouting some kind of brightly colored flower. Branches and leaves had been infused with a vitality lacking to ordinary plants—you could virtually watch the glossy shoots growing. The tough Bermuda grass was mown every night by the gardening robots, but it was still like walking over a layer of thick sponge in the morning.

Lawrence lay back on the sun lounger, shifting his shoulders around on the cushioning until he was completely comfortable. The big lights overhead were warmer than the ones in the tropical dome of his family's estate, sending out rays that soaked right through him. He'd found a spot on the broad curve of paving that surrounded the big circular swimming pool, away from everyone else, but close enough to the open bar to signal to the waiter. Amazingly, nobody bugged him about how old he was when he ordered drinks! He'd started out on beers yesterday before moving on to the list of cocktails. Some of them were pretty disgusting despite the intriguing colors and foliage, and he'd almost gone back to beer. Then he found margaritas.

The girl was in the pool again. Lawrence moved up the backrest slightly so he could see the whole area without having to turn his head. He was wearing mirrorshades with a built-in audio interface to his bracelet pearl, while optronic membranes covered his eyes underneath. So he could either play some i's or sneak a look at the people in the pool or even doze off, and nobody would be able to tell. Yesterday he'd been playing Halo Stars and guzzling down his beers before he noticed her.

She was, he guessed, about sixteen, blond, her thick straight hair cut off level with her shoulders, and tall with legs that were fabulously athletic. In fact her whole body was lithe and trim. He could see that easily enough thanks to the small black bikini she'd worn.

Lawrence had spent the rest of the afternoon watching her and sipping his margarita. There was a whole gang of kids messing about around the pool, from his own age down to about seven or eight. Conference kids, he guessed, left to themselves while the adults discussed the intricacies of bridge building. He didn't join in. For one thing he wasn't so hot on socializing. Never knew what to say to a complete stranger. And then there was his body. He wasn't self-conscious, of course. But out here in the open wearing just his swim trunks he was keenly aware how much heavier he was than the other seventeen-year-old boys. Despite his height and general size, which the school's coaches were convinced would be advantageous for football and field events, he had no interest in joining any of the teams and wasting valuable i-hours by training. That lack of exercise meant that unlike the rest of his year his puppy fat hadn't burned off. It was unusual in a world where most children had been given some degree of germline v-writing to improve their general physiology, as he could see around him. It wasn't just the girl who glowed with health. Even so, she stood out: the other girls having fun in the pool were attractive, but she was stunning. He couldn't say why he found her so irresistible, exactly. She had a narrow face, with wide lips and prominent cheekbones, features that were attractive, but not outstanding. And her gray eyes were never still, always taking in the world around her with wonder. In the end he decided that was her magic—she was so full of life. Others obviously agreed with him; she had a harem of boys longer than a comet's tail following her around.

He watched silently as she splashed about in the pool. Then the group were diving and jumping in. Chasing about around the side, throwing each other in. Lobbing a ball about. Rushing over to their sun lounger to grab a quick gulp of Coke before jumping back in. All the while she was laughing and shouting.

She levered herself up out of the water directly ahead of Lawrence, lean muscles taut, water glistening over her skin. His breath grew hot as he pictured that incredible body shivering in delight while he ran his hands over her, taking as much time as he wanted. Sweet Fate, he wanted to fuck her badly. Really badly. His cock was growing hard inside his trunks. He had to hurriedly activate the bracelet pearl, optronic membranes wiping out the sight of her behind a deluge of astronomical data.

Running away would have looked odd. And he'd seen Naomi Karamann using one of the sun loungers on the other side of the bar. She was—allegedly—his father's executive assistant. Lawrence didn't have to be told she was the same as all the assistant nannies who came and went on a near-monthly basis. A beautiful girl in her early twenties, with dark ebony skin and a very full figure. She walked about the side of the pool in a scarlet swimsuit designed for provocation rather than swimming. At no time had she shown any interest in the conference. The night before, Lawrence had seen his father and her join a big group of businessmen for dinner in the hotel's restaurant. She'd been dressed in some silver backless gown, her hair glittering with embedded gold.

No doubt if she saw him acting strangely his father would hear about it. So he stayed immersed in Halo Stars, gliding over the astonishingly detailed cityscapes of alien cultures. The i-media game was the new market leader. It was an import from Earth, where teams of designers and AS extrapolators must surely have spent years generating the concept. It featured a large band of inhabited stars wrapped around the center of the galaxy, where hundreds of alien races coexisted in a peaceful commonwealth. The first-person player was the pilot of a trade and exploration ship, the Ebris. Whatever settled world the ship landed on, there was some problem or requirement that could be solved by tracking down a resource that another world in the Halo possessed, be it technological, artistic, raw material, medical, or even spiritual. Lawrence was in the middle of a sequence where he was making his way toward a domain that had bred the methane-grazing botanical organisms that a species of sentient octopeds needed to complete their colonization of a new planet. But he could only get the botanicals by trading them for a specific mineral that formed on low-gravity planets with an argon atmosphere. To do that he first had to put together a survey and mining team. Once that was done he would fly scouting missions through a dozen likely star systems, hunting for the right class of planet. And this particular segment had already opened up several further opportunities for his ship.