Mindstar Rising gm-1 Page 6

  Greg's espersense sent a cold, distinctly prickly sensation dancing along his spine as they approached. Beneath those perfect shells something disquietingly unpleasant lurked.

  "Philip. Wonderful party," the man said, his accent faintly continental. "Thanks so much for the invite."

  Philip returned the smile, although Greg knew him well enough by now to see how laboured it was without resorting to his espersense.

  "Kendric, glad you could come," he said. "I'd like you to meet my new secretary. Greg, this is Kendric di Girolamo, my good friend and business colleague."

  Kendric smiled with reptilian snobbery. "Ah, the English. Always so eager to do down the foreign devil. Actually, Greg, I am Philip's financial partner. Without me Event Horizon would be a fifth-rate clothing sweat-shop on some squalid North Sea trawler."

  "Don't flatter yourself," Evans said in a tight flat voice. "I can find twenty money men bobbing about any time I look into a sewer."

  "You see," Kendric appealed to Greg, "a socialist at heart. He has the true Red's loathing of bankers."

  The knuckles on Julia's hand were blanched as she gripped her grandfather's shoulder, holding back the tiger.

  The sight of someone as ill as Evans being deliberately provoked was infuriating. Greg allowed the neurohormones to flood out from the gland and focused his mind on ice—hard, sharp, helium-cold. A slim blade of this, needle-sharp tip resting lightly on Kendric's brow, directly above his nose. "Don't let's spoil the party atmosphere," he said gently.

  Kendric appeared momentarily annoyed by a mere pawn interrupting his grand game.

  Greg thrust his eidolon knife forwards. Penetration, root pattern of frost blossoming, congealing the brain to a blue-black rock of iron.

  It felt so right, so easy. The power was there, fuelled by that kilowatt pulse of anger.

  Kendric blinked in alarmed confusion, swaying as if caught by a sudden squall. The hauteur which had been swirling triumphantly across his thoughts flash-evaporated. His knees nearly buckled, he took an unsteady step backwards before he regained his balance.

  Greg's own unexpected flame withered, sucked back to whatever secret recess it originated from. Its departure left a copper taste filming his suddenly arid throat. He turned to the woman. "I don't believe we've been introduced."

  "My wife, Hermione," Kendric said warily; and she held her gloved hand out, the jewels of her rings sparkling brightly.

  Her eyes swept Greg up and down with adulterous interest. She seemed mildly disappointed when all he did was shake her long-fingered hand.

  He found himself comparing her to Eleanor. Only a few years separated them, and put in a dress like that Eleanor would be equally awesome. Except Eleanor would laugh herself silly at the notion of haute couture, and she'd never be able to mix at this kind of party— Ashamed, he jammed that progression of thoughts to a rapid halt.

  "Married, Mr. Mandel?" Hermione enquired. Her voice was the audio equivalent of Katerina's dress, husky and full of forbidden promise. Now why did he keep associating those two?

  "No."

  "Pity. Married men are so much more fun."

  Temptation had never beckoned so strongly before. She was one hell of a woman, but there was something bloody creepy scratching away behind that beautiful façade.

  "We will talk later," Kendric said to Philip in a toneless voice. "Scotland needs to be finalised. Yes?"

  "Yes," Philip conceded.

  Satisfied with this minor victory he moved on to give Julia a light kiss. Hermione followed suit, then wafted away with a final airy, "Ciao." But not before she winked at Greg.

  Julia stood rigidly still for the embrace. Greg's espersense informed him she was squirming inside. She had good reason, there was a burst of unclean excitement in Hermione's mind as their cheeks touched.

  "Who the hell are they?" Greg asked as soon as they were out of earshot.

  Julia was kneeling anxiously by her grandfather's powerchair. The old man had sagged physically. His mind was grey.

  She looked up at Greg with shrewdly questioning eyes. "Thank you for making Kendric back off," she said.

  He detected her thoughts flying at light speed, never losing coherence. Odd. Unique, in fact.

  "You have a gland," she said after a few seconds.

  Philip's low chuckle was malicious. "Too late, Juliet, you've had your three."

  "Oh, you," she poked him with a finger in mock-exasperation. But there was an underlying current of annoyance.

  "Di Girolamo is moneyed European aristocracy," he explained. "And he's right about us having financial ties; although being my partner is a complete load of balls. Did you ever buy any of my gear when the PSP was in power?"

  "Yeah. A flatscreen, and a microwave too, I think. Who didn't?"

  "And how did you pay for 'em?"

  "Fish mainly, some vegetables."

  "OK. The point is this: at the local level it was all done by barter. There was no hard cash involved. I would fly the gear in, and my spivs would distribute it, sometimes through the black market, sometimes through the Party Allocation Bureau. So far a normal company production/delivery set-up, right? But none of your fruit and veg is any use to me, I can't pay the bankers with ten tonnes of oranges. So that's where Kendric and his team of spivs comes in; he makes sure I get paid in hard currency. His spivs take the barter goods and exchange them for gold or silver or diamonds, some sort of precious commodity acceptable internationally—New Sterling was no good, it was a restricted currency under the PSP. They lift them out of the country, and Kendric converts them into Eurofrancs for me. It was a huge operation at the end, nearly two hundred thousand people; which is partly why the PSP never shut us down, you'd need a hundred new prisons to cope. Since the Second Restoration I've been busy turning my spivs into a legitimate commercial retail network—they're entitled to it, the loyalty they showed me. But now New Sterling has been opened, there's no need for Kendric's people any more, not in this country."

  "Kendric also used to make himself a tidy profit while he was arranging the exchange," Julia put in coldly.

  "I would've thought you could have arranged the exchange by yourself without any trouble," Greg said.

  "Nothing is ever simple, Greg," Philip replied. "Kendric's management of the exchange was part of my original arrangement with my backing consortium. I needed a hell of a lot of cash to fund Listoel, and I didn't have the necessary contacts with the broker cartels back in those days, not for something that dodgy. Kendric did. His family finance house is old and respectable, well established in the money market. And he offered me the lowest rates, a point below the usual interest charges in fact. We got on quite well back then, despite his faults he is an excellent money man. The trouble is, he's been getting a mite uppity of late, thinks he should have a say in running Event Horizon. Involve the consortium with the managerial decision process. Bollocks. I'm not having a hundred vice-presidents sticking their bloody oars in."

  "So why are you still tied in with him? You're legitimate now."

  "Scotland," Julia said bitterly.

  "'Fraid so," Philip confirmed. "The PSP is still in power north of the border so my arrangement with Kendric is still operating up there. Our respective spivs are virtually one group now, they've worked together for so long. It'd be very difficult to disentangle the two, not worth the effort and expense, especially as the Scottish card carriers aren't going to last another twenty months."

  "And of course the di Girolamo house has an eight per cent stake in Event Horizon's backing consortium. And guess who their representative on the board is."

  "I still don't get it," Greg complained. "Why should a legitimate banker offer an illegal operation like yours a low rate in the first place? At the very least he should've asked for the standard commercial rate. And there are enough solid ventures in the Pacific Rim Market without having to go out on a limb here."

  "It's the way he is, boy," Philip said quietly. "He doesn't actually need to get involve
d in anything at all. The family trust provides him with more money than he could ever possibly spend. But he's sharp. He sees what happens to others of his kind—they party; they ski, power-glide, race cars and boats, take nine-month yachting holidays; they get loaded or stoned every night; and at age thirty-five the police are pulling them out of the marina. Half of the time it's suicide, the rest it's burnout. So instead of pursuing cheap thrills, Kendric gets his buzz by going right out on the edge. He plays the master-class game, backing smugglers like me, leveraged buyouts, corrupting politicians, software piracy, design piracy—I bought the Sony flatscreen templates Event Horizon uses from him. It's money versus money. His ingenuity and determination are taxed to the extreme, but he can't actually get hurt. I might not like him personally, but I admit he's been mighty useful. And he's exploited that position to grab his family house a big interest in Event Horizon. Clever. I like to think I'd have done the same."

  "I'll get rid of him," Julia whispered fiercely. Her tawny eyes were burning holes in Kendric's back as he chatted up a brace of glossy starlets.

  Philip patted her hand tenderly. "You be very careful around him, Juliet. He eats little girls like you for breakfast, both ways."

  Greg could sense her raw hostility, barely held in check by her grandfather's cautionary tones.

  He sat next to Dr. Ranasfari for the meal, an exercise in tedium; the man seemed to be a sense of humour-free zone. Ranasfari's doctorate was in solid-state physics, and his conversation was mostly of a professional nature; it all flew way over Greg's head. Although, curiously enough, Ranasfari loosened up most when he was talking to the ever-jovial Horace Jepson.

  In the event, dogged perseverance finally enabled Greg to check him out as clean. He couldn't believe Ranasfari even knew what duplicitous meant. The Doctor had a very rarefied personality, perfectly content within the confines of his own synthetic universe. A genuine specimen of a head-in-the-clouds professor. Whatever project Philip Evans had him working on it was completely safe.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Wilholm's library was a long, airy room on the ground floor, its arched ceiling painted with quasi-religious murals in rich, dark reds, greens, blues, and browns. Below this unchristian pantheon, glass-fronted shelves ran the length of the walls, illuminated from within by tiny biolum strips; there were matching marble fireplaces at each end of the room, an oriel window giving a view out across the rear lawns. Three tables spaced down the centre had genuine nineteenth-century reading-lamps at each seat. The air-conditioning was set to keep it degrees cooler than the rest of the manor. It was the room Julia preferred to work in: bringing Event Horizon data into her bedroom always seemed intrusive somehow. There had to be some distinction between private and working life, especially as she had so little of the former.

  She sat in a plain admiral's chair behind a polished rosewood table, wearing a hyacinth cardigan over a peach chambray button-through dress, watching interviews on a big wall-mounted flatscreen. The image was coming over the company datanet from Stanstead.

  Morgan Walshaw had commandeered a whole floor in the company's airport administration block, using it to keep the furnace operators in isolation while they were processed.

  He and Greg were doing the interviews in a modern office with a window wall overlooking the giant new freight hangar which Event Horizon used. Both of them sitting behind a chrome-and-glass desk, Morgan Walshaw in his usual suit; Greg in a red-and-white-striped shirt with braiding down the placket, a black-and-white mosaic tie.

  It was a tedious way to spend the day, but she persevered. A penance for her earlier misdemeanour, that and a refuge, occupying her mind so that memories of Adrian couldn't encroach in that sneakily persistent way they did whenever she had a spare moment. He'd left this morning, together with Kats, the pair of them driving off on his Vickers bike, holographic flame transfers sparkling along the chrome gearmounting. Julia had watched them go, kicking up a cloud of dust and gravel as they zoomed off down the drive, hard rock blaring from the speakers. It looked like a lot of fun.

  Now monotony and responsibility had closed in on her again. Alone in a room with a thousand leather-bound books, not one of which she would ever read. Neither would Grandpa, come to that. They were just part of the ritual of being rich. Put into warehouse storage abroad while the PSP ruled, and brought back here for glass-shelf storage. The tangibility of money. Stupid.

  Greg and Morgan Walshaw were stretching in their swivel chairs as they waited for the next furnace operator to come in. Julia poured herself another cup of tea from the silver service on the table, and munched a Cadbury's orange cream from the plate of biscuits. She'd never really paid much attention to Event Horizon's security division before, it was an alien subculture with its own language and etiquette and violence. Too much like an elaborate lethal game, freelance tekmercs and company operatives playing against each other at the expense of their employers. One of her bodyguards, Steven, had told her that once you were in security you never came out.

  She'd secretly hoped to see a bit of action, a few sparks fly, in addition to learning more about the investigation procedures Morgan Walshaw used. But the interviews Greg had been running seemed to be fairly straightforward — Name—Sorry to interrupt your furlough, but it is urgent—We're reviewing the contamination losses of memox crystals—Do you have any idea why it should be so high? — Have you ever been approached by anyone who wanted you to act against the company? Seven or eight questions then he'd say OK and Morgan Walshaw would dismiss them. So far they hadn't uncovered anyone involved with the spoiler operation.

  The impression Julia got from the screen was remoteness. Greg never smiled, never frowned, his tone was scrupulously impartial, he hardly appeared to be aware of the interviewees. She wondered what she'd feel if she was sitting there in the office with him. A tingling in her head as his espersense teased apart her emotions for examination? Her grandfather had said he couldn't read individual thoughts. Julia wasn't sure, he seemed so judgemental.

  Julia sipped her tea as the next furnace operator came in. The woman was the fifteenth to be interviewed, a forty-three-year-old called Angie Kirkpatrick, wearing a khaki sports shirt and Cambridge-blue tracksuit trousers; medium height, fit-looking, self-assured—but then all of them were.

  Angie Kirkpatrick sat on the other side of the desk from Greg and Morgan Walshaw, her expression of polite expectation carefully composed. Julia knew something was wrong straight away. Kirkpatrick probably wasn't aware of it, she had nothing to compare her interview to. But Julia could see Greg was sitting straighter, more attentive. Morgan Walshaw had picked up on Greg's state, too. Julia studied Kirkpatrick closely, still unable to see any evidence of culpability.

  "We're investigating the high contamination level of memox crystals coming out of Zanthus," Greg said. "But then you guessed that, didn't you?"

  "The contamination has been quite high," Angie said.

  "Wrong answer," said Greg. "How long have you been working the spoiler?"

  "What?"

  "The whole eight months?"

  "I don't know—"

  "Seven months?"

  "Listen!"

  "Six?"

  "Hey, you can't just—"

  "Five?"

  "Start accusing me—"

  Greg leaned back in his chair and smiled. Julia was very glad she wasn't receiving that smile, it was predatory.

  "Five months," said Greg, a simple statement of fact.

  "This… What is this?" Angie demanded. She was looking straight at Morgan Walshaw.

  "It's word association," Greg said. "I say a word, and I watch to see how your mind reacts. Is there stress and guilt, or is there merely innocent confusion? It doesn't matter what your verbal answer is, your thoughts don't lie."

  Julia almost felt a pang of sympathy for the woman. Betrayed by her own soul. Greg's ability was eerie, silent, unfelt, and devastatingly accurate. A whole heritage of fear was built around people who could divine thoughts. Q
uite rightly, surely everyone was entitled to some core of privacy. She pulled her cardigan tighter over her shoulders.

  "Stress and guilt, that's what peaked at five months," Greg said.

  "You've got a gland," Angie said. Her defiance had gone.

  "That's right."

  She flushed hard. "I… I hadn't got any choice. They knew. Things. About me. Christ, I don't know how they found out."

  "Just give us the details," said Walshaw, sounding bored, or perhaps weary.

  "What'll happen?" Angie asked.

  "To you? We probably won't prosecute, if you're being truthful about them blackmailing you. But you won't ever work in orbit again, not for anyone, we'll make quite sure of that."

  "I didn't have any choice!"

  "You could've come to us, we could've set a counter trap."

  "I don't know. There's no difference between you, any of you. People like me, well, it's not fair."

  "Never is," Walshaw muttered.

  Watching Angie hunching in on herself, Julia realised the woman had already submitted, the fight had gone out of her. She was going to do exactly what Walshaw told her to. What an awesome reputation psychics had, that even their presence could sap the will like that. No wonder the PSP had been so troubled about the animosity of the Mindstar Brigade veterans.

  "How did they turn you?" Greg asked.

  Angie flinched when he spoke. "Are you still looking into my mind?"

  "Yes."

  She nodded reluctantly. "OK. I was doing some uppers. Zanthus, it gets to you, you know? Four months in a dormitory can, everyone crammed together at night, recycled piss to wash with, can't taste your food. It just gets to you. It's no High Frontier dream, only sounds that way from down here. Anyway, it gets to the stage where you've really got to force yourself to turn up at Stanstead at the end of your furlough. I've got two daughters, see, they're beautiful kids, really—smart, happy. I take care of them when I'm on furlough, my ex has them when I'm up there. I hate the idea of him having them at all, but some choice, right? So seven years of this shit is too much; my eldest, she's fifteen, she's got a boyfriend, she's got exams this year. I should be there. Saying goodbye, it hurts like hell. So six months ago I've got to take something to ease the pain."