Peter Hamilton - Mindstar Rising

You're lucky you've still got that one. Father is efficient.

Julia's awareness shifted as the thematic image faded. She was plugged directly into Wilholm's myriad gear systems, a bright-glowing three-dimensional cobweb of data channels. New strands were coming on-line at a phenomenal rate as the antithesis poured through it, purging the virus.

A quick status check showed her that there were only three functional servos out of the eight which steered Wilholm's one remaining satellite dish. Accelerated time stretched for what seemed like aeons as the dish swivelled round on its axis to point at the western horizon. Her grandfather had overridden the servos' safety limiters, allowing them to take a double load. Temperature sensors relayed the heat from overloaded motors straight into her medulla, interpreted as scalding hands.

Sorry, Juliet.

Her pain vanished.

The dish's rotation halted, smaller azimuth servos began tracking it across the sky.

Co-ords ready for loading, Mr. Philip. Got them down to half a metre.

Anything within three hundred metres would be enough , Julia said.

Don't brag so, girl , Philip said as he loaded the figures into an OtherEyes personality package. But a sliver of pride escaped from his thoughts.

So, that just leaves the reactivation code. Juliet, your honour.

She allowed herself one moment of supremely self-indulgent satisfaction.

Access AvengingAngel. The long string of binary digits emerged from her nodes to hang between the three of them. Her grandfather integrated it into the OtherEyes personality package. The completed data construct squirted into the dish transmitter, streaming upwards at light-speed.

This time, you bastard, this time I'll get you.

In his mind the theory was perfect. They weren't particularly high up, and the mud around the tower shouldn't have been deep. Of course, there was no way of actually testing it in advance.

Greg hit the thin coating of surface water and kept on going, his momentum only slowing when the water reached his thighs. He let his knees bend, absorbing inertia. Thick viscous goo rose up his shins, embedding them. That was the point where his left hand thumped into the water, finally overloading his beleaguered cortical node. Greg screamed at the lancets of pain its faltering barricade let through. Brilliant starbursts of light danced across his vision.

His feet were resting on something solid. He could see guttering orange light washing across a big clump of reeds about three metres in front of him, marking the perimeter of a low mound of rubble. A gable end was sticking up in the middle of it, inclined at forty-five degrees, supported by a buttress of rafters which resembled some bizarre geometric whale skeleton.

The water had come up to the bottom of his ribcage, leaving his folded legs entirely under the mud. Greg tried to straighten his knees. It took an age before even the faintest tremble of motion began. The mud refused to let go.

Panic churned his gut. He had absolutely nothing to grip, nothing he could use to drag himself out. His legs muscles had to do all the work. And any second now Kendric's crewmen would be storming out of the tower.

"Where are you, Greg?" Gabriel called.

"I'm coming." Was he rising fractionally faster? The pain from his left hand had been suppressed again, making it easier to concentrate. He could feel the mud sliding down his thighs. "Get into the reeds. Go on! Move."

His buttocks left the mud behind, and he stood up. There was water up to the top of his legs, the mud still incarcerated his knees. Greg brought his left foot out of the mud's suction clutch, standing stork-style, then fell forwards, windmilling his arms.

The strain on his right knee was incredible, his body weight was trying to bend it in exactly the opposite direction to which it was designed to hinge. He grabbed at the reeds with his right hand, pulling himself along towards the cover of the mound. The mud relinquished its hold on his right leg with extreme reluctance.

A chorus of wild shouting broke out behind him. Mark's voice rose above the others, bawling to bring some lights.

Greg grasped at another clump of reeds. His progress was a combination of swimming, slithering and crawling, all at a snail's pace. He was completely hampered by his desperation to avoid any commotion. Thankfully, the reeds began to get thicker and higher.

He heard a long erratic stutter of muffled thuds from behind him, and guessed at food cans rupturing in the fire.

A quick glance round let him see the tower, a black phallic monolith probing a cloud-smeared night sky. The first floor's broken window was a glaring yellow rectangle, while others glowed with biolum's softer pink-white radiance; sketchy shadows were moving about inside. Several people were dashing about on the grass ring around the tower's base; three were splashing through the shallows, but not venturing far. If they wanted to get across to the reeds they'd have to get down on their bellies and squirm; it was the only way. They didn't have the motivation. A couple of intense torch beams stabbed out, scouring the reeds.

Greg rolled back on to his stomach and began his serpent wriggle again. Thirty seconds later there was hard ground under his elbows. Reeds competing with stiff blades of grass. He was using his knees as well as his elbows now, scuttling towards the gable end, and cover. He knew exactly what Kendric and Armstrong would do next. Flinty pebbles and rapier grass lacerated his skin. Somewhere over to his left another heavy body was burrowing through the vegetation.

An electromagnetic rifle opened up, warbling loudly. Bullets thudded into the mound, pinged against the brickwork, ricocheted off, whining. Greg kept going.

"Get over there." That was Kendric's unmistakably enraged voice. Murmurs of argument followed.

The white torchlight trimmed the tips of the reeds around Greg. Tiny reddish-brown ovate flowers glowed lambently. Midges formed a silver galaxy overhead. The light passed on. The electromagnetic rifle had fallen silent.

Greg reached the sloping brickwork. Gabriel was ahead of him, panting heavily at the end of a streaky mud trail.

"God, the smell," she exclaimed.

"What smell?"

"Some people."

He climbed gingerly to his feet. The island they were on was about twenty metres at its widest. Greg had cherished a half-notion that the mounds would all be connected. But the next one was a good forty metres away. Algae-curdled water sloshed like crude oil between the two. It didn't look as though there was much of it on top of the mud.

"Clothes off," Greg said, then flinched as the electromagnetic rifle poured another fusillade of bullets into the gable end.

"Do what?" Gabriel asked. She was cradling her left hand again. Her face was haggard, totally lethargic.

"We've got a lot of swimming to do. Clothes are going to drag us under."

"Swim where?"

"Clear of the tower, remember? Kilometre at least. How long have we got?"

Gabriel closed her eyes. "About twenty minutes, maybe less."

"Do we survive?"

"Some of us do, some of us don't." She sounded completely disinterested.

Greg ducked his head round the side of the bricks, bringing it back fast. "Bugger!"

"Now what?"

"They've put the fire out. I was hoping it would be a beacon to the ships on the Nene. Somebody might report it."

That brought a half-hysterical giggle from Gabriel, ending in a gurgling cough. "Don't you worry, Greg. Lots of people are going to see your tower before tonight's out. You betcha."

"Oh, yeah." He felt stupid. "Let's go." He started shrugging out of the dinner jacket, clenching his teeth as his left hand dragged through the arm, it'd swollen badly, skin stretched taut, pulling open the grazes. Trousers followed, and the discovery that buckles are tricky one-handed.