Peter Hamilton - Mindstar Rising

There was a thunderclap blow-out, and the prow of the hovercraft bucked up into the air, losing rigidity, light beams strafing the sky. Three bodies and pieces of loose equipment were catapulted in a short arc. A tremendous spume of water jetted up as the propeller hit the algae, chewing through. One of the bodies fell into its base. The shredded hovercraft hull flopped back down. The lights went out, and the spume died.

It began to rain gobs of mud and algae, pattering down over a wide area.

One mind had survived, the body which housed it writhing feebly. Another body was facedown in the water, Toby. Of the third there was no sign.

Greg waded forward. It was easy going. A vast patch of the street had been stripped of its covering of algae.

Gabriel was floating on her back, half submerged. Greg got his hand under her head and lifted her. She coughed weakly. "I did it, didn't I, Greg? Just like you wanted."

"Sure did, and no messing."

"Did you get 'em?"

"Yeah, they aren't going to hazard anyone again."

Four light beams pinioned him. Kendric's hovercraft was turning down into the street. He froze into place. Too exhausted to run. Besides, he could never have left Gabriel.

The hovercraft approached at a cautious unhurried pace. Greg shielded his eyes against the glare. Kendric was standing in the prow, in front of the Perspex windscreen. The epitome of the great white hunter, electromagnetic rifle cradled in a light grip, one foot on the gunwale.

Greg saw it coming, reading it straight from Gabriel's mind. Genuine telepathy. His mouth gaped, and he pointed high into the western sky.

Kendric's mind registered sublime contempt that Greg would try such a pathetic stunt. Then vacillation set in, precisely because it was so unlikely. He looked round to follow the direction of Greg's accusing finger, just in time to see a frigid saffron dawn expand across the sky above Wisbech.

The light source was directly above them, a cold dazzling star which crawled through the genuine constellations at an infinitesimal pace. Its radiance was throwing shadows as sharp-edged as daylight. Greg could see wisps of fluffy cloud gusting high overhead, they must've been kilometres away.

Gabriel began to laugh.

The false star was as intense as noonday sunlight, then brighter. It began to elongate. Brick walls glared scarlet. Dew-mottled algae sparkled like a diamanté ice floe.

Intuition whispered into Greg's brain. He knew. The Merlin. Then his far-flung espersense delivered the final shock, a single band of incendiary thought originating from the spaceprobe's bioware nodes: Philip Evans's unholy vengeance glee as he hurtled inexorably towards Leopold Armstrong.

The Merlin descended at orbital velocity, boring a vacuum-tunnel through the lower atmosphere. A purple-white plasma comet with a rigid incandescent tail of superionised air, stabbing down like some monstrously overpowered strategic defence laser.

Greg flung his arms desperately over his face, trying to save his eyes. There was carmine blood-light, then sable blackness.

The blast wave was a white-noise tsunami. It plucked Greg out of the mire and sent him spinning through space. He could see the street's houses disintegrating, slates taking flight, bricks avalanching. The air had become a blizzard of giant splinters and powdery fragments.

He saw the tower. Rather, where the tower had been: a thick column of fusion-hot air fountaining up into the darkening sky. Its flickering vermilion fluorescence was sheathed by ragged braids of ebony soot-clouds. Garish blue-green static webs discharged around its mushrooming crown.

For a liquid, the water was incredibly hard.

Greg woke to peace, body and mind. Blissful. He could feel his entire body except for his left hand, and nothing hurt, nothing felt abused. There was just warmth and softness.

Makes a bloody change.

He opened his eyes. Even the light was gentle, pale pearl.

Rapid blinking resolved the blurred shapes around him.

He was lying on his back looking up at an ivory-coloured ceiling with inset biolum strips. A young man in a white medical-style coat was removing an electrode hoop from his forehead.

"Welcome back, Mr. Mandel," he said.

That humourless tone, his intent professionalism. He had to belong to Event Horizon.

"There is no need to worry," the doctor assured Greg. "You are a patient in Event Horizon's Liezen clinic—that's in Austria."

"Who's worrying?"

The doctor nodded earnestly. "Ah, good. Sometimes there is disorientation following a prolonged somnolence induction."

"What do you call prolonged?"

"Eight days. In addition to your physical injuries you were suffering from advanced cerebral stress due to an overdose of neurohormones. I've loaded a prohibition order into your cortical node preventing any gland secretions. Come back in three months, and I'll wipe the order; or you might consider having the gland itself extracted." His nose twitched. "I don't approve of them, personally."

"Thank you, Doctor." Julia's cut-crystal voice chopped off any further admonishments. "That will be all."

The doctor sighed resignedly, and backed away.

Greg turned his head, He was in a small tidy room with plenty of medical gear modules stacked beside the bed. A picture window looked out over sunny parkland dotted with grazing llamas.

The bed was elevating him smoothly into a sitting position. His arms lay outside the ochre blankets. A chalky-coloured bioware bladder had been inflated around his left hand, trailing scores of fine fibre-optic cables to the gear modules, its nutrient fluid veins pulsing rhythmically. Just as well, he didn't particularly fancy looking at the hand.

Julia was wearing a crinkled navy-blue sundress. The skirt was shorter than her usual, its hem hovering well above her knees. She was watching him with silent diligence.

"The hair's nice," Greg told her. Tiny corkscrew curls had fluffed it out into a candyfloss cloud. A chain of minute blue flowers formed a delicate tiara above her brow. Given a posy of primroses she would've made a good bridesmaid, he thought.

"Oh, you think so?" A dainty long-fingered hand lifted to pat a few of the more wayward strands. "Adrian likes it this way."

"Lucky old Adrian."

The door closed behind the doctor.

Julia's face fell, giving him a woeful stare. "I'm so sorry, Greg. Really I am. None of this need have happened. It's all my fault."

"Don't be silly."

"But it is."

Greg listened as she launched into an explanation about the Cray files, her mistrust, the St. Christopher. There was no energy in him to power any strong feelings about it, one way or the other, anger or despair. The issue seemed an abstract. It was over, all it could ever be now was an exercise in 'what if'. The whole bloody great cock-up was down to his over-reliance on mystic intuition, treating it as infallible, giving logical thought the big elbow. His own stupid fault.

He let out a long dispirited sigh, and said, "Forgiven. Besides, you were right, I should've seen Ellis's connection with the PSP. And I missed Steven as well. That's got to make us quits."

"Really? Did you really mean you forgive me?" She was studying his face, trepidation lurking in her expressive tawny eyes.

Julia wanted absolution, so he smiled and said, "Yeah, I really do. No messing." He'd sought it for himself often enough. He could hardly deny her.

She flashed him a hundred-watt grin and sat on the edge of the bed. "I've been terrified of you waking up all week. You were the last loose end. I've made my peace with everyone else."

"Everyone?" His thoughts moved slowly. "Hey, what about Gabriel?"

"She's all right. Everyone is all right now. Treating you all at the clinic was the least I could do." Her lips came together pensively. "They took Gabriel's gland out two days ago. She insisted, said it was part of her deal."