Kitchener’s head was intact, showing an almost serene peace-fulness. But the body … Ripped. Torn. Squashed. The ribcage had been clawed open, pulped organs spread across the bed.
Nicholas’s scream burst out of his mouth. The roaring in his ears meant he couldn’t even hear it. He was vaguely aware of the other students crowding in behind him.
His leg muscles pitched him on to the floor, and he vomited helplessly on to Kitchener’s superb Chinese carpet.
3
The nineteen-fifties vintage Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow glided along at eighty kilometres an hour, its white-walled tyres soaking up all the punishment the gritty ruts of the decrepit M11 could inflict without a hint of exertion. Julia Evans adored the old car; it was the absolute last word in style and its rugged old-fashioned engineering was easily equal to the strengthened suspension and broad silicone rubber tyres of any modern car. Apart from a closed loop recombiner cell which allowed it to continue burning petrol without leaking fumes into the atmosphere, and the installation of various security systems, it hadn’t needed any modifications to cope with England’s decaying road network.
Outside the darkened glass she could see the rug of grass, weeds, and lush emerald moss which had swamped the hard shoulder; even the crash barriers along the central reservation had been swallowed up by bindweed, snow-white trumpet-shaped flowers pushing out from between the cloak of broad leaves. The original tarmac surface was still in use, scored by deep tyre-ruts along each carriageway; this afternoon it was solid because of the weekend’s cooling rains, but for nine months of the year the sun reduced the roads to swaths of mushy black treacle.
The New Conservative government agreed in principle that nationwide road refurbishment should be given priority, coating the millions of kilometres of tarmac with a layer of tough thermo-cured cellulose, but they were hanging back until giga-conductor-powered vehicles became widespread before starting.
The Rolls approached junction ten, and the lead car in their four-strong police escort switched on its blue strobe lights. There seemed to be a lot of people lining the slip road.
‘Who are they?’ Julia asked.
Rachel Griffith, one of her two permanent bodyguards, was sitting in the jump seat opposite. A twenty-five-year-old security division hard-liner, wearing a smart blue two-piece suit. She turned round, scanning the road ahead. Her lean face flashed Julia a quick reassuring smile. ‘Just some protesters,’ she said. ‘You and the Prime Minister at the same event is a publicity opportunity they can’t ignore.’
Julia nodded. Rachel had been with her for five years, tough, smart, and loyal. She liked to think of her as a friend as well. If Rachel wasn’t worried, there was nothing to be worried about.
‘This is as near to the Institute as they can get,’ said Morgan Walshaw, Event Horizon’s security chief, from the second jump seat. Even sitting, he couldn’t appear relaxed, spine stiff, shoulders squared, wearing an immaculate charcoal-grey suit. He fitted her conception of a crusty old retired Home Counties general perfectly. Except Morgan was far shrewder than any general. Thank God.
He was sixty-two years old, silver-grey hair clipped down to a centimetre from his skull, the thick, tanned skin of his face heavily crossed with narrow lines, hard-set light-blue eyes which always made her feel incredibly guilty whenever he stared at her. Everything she did eventually filtered back to him: nights out with her girl friends in Peterborough’s clubs, holiday adventures, party antics, boys. Morgan had been with the company for years, protecting her grandfather, and now her, a job he performed with superb efficiency and complete devotion. His approval was always tremendously important to her, mainly because he would never make a gratuitous compliment. She had to earn it, something that never happened with most of the people in her life. And words of praise had indeed been awarded, albeit grudgingly, with more frequency in recent years. She often caught herself wishing he was her real father. The knowledge that he would be retiring in a few years was something she always tried to bury right at the back of her mind; it was a horrifying thought.
Access RollSpeech, Julia told her bioware processor node silently. Colourless words flowed from one of the three memory nodes buried at the back of her skull, forming a ghostly script behind her eyes. She reviewed it for what must have been the tenth time since breakfast. Event Horizon’s PR department had written it for her, but she’d made a few alterations. It had sounded terribly stilted before. She couldn’t forget it, of course, not with the nodes reinforcing her memory, but they couldn’t help her out if she stumbled over pronunciation.
The roll out was going to be the technological event of the year; she couldn’t afford to make a mistake. There were going to be too many people, too many channel cameras. It felt as though a squadron of butterflies were performing dynamic aerobatic routines in her stomach.
The four-thousand-pound Sabareni suit she had chosen to wear for the ceremony was sheer silk, a bright coral pink. The tailored jacket had a broad collar and large white buttons, its skirt was straight, hem five centimetres above her knees. Sabareni was one of her favourite designers, the suit made her feel wonderfully elegant. She had decided against ostentatious jewellery, settling for her usual gold St Christopher, and a Cartier diamond brooch. Her maid had straightened her chestnut hair so that it fell down her back almost to her hips; it was a lot of trouble to condition, but after growing it for a decade, she was damned if she was going to have it cut now. Besides, a lot of girls were copying the ‘Julia’ hair style. She had a media profile which rock stars and channel celebrities could only fantasize about.
Exit RollSpeech. If she didn’t know it now she never would.
She could hear the faint shouts of the protesters through the thick glass. ‘They look too well-fed to be dole dependants,’ she observed as the Rolls left the motorway, cruising past a big green and gold sign which read:
DUXFORD
Event Horizon Astronautics Institute
A rank of police, wearing bulky navy-blue riot uniforms, stood along the side of the slip road, arms linked, forming a human barricade to keep the protesters back from the little convoy. The protesters Julia could see seemed to be in their early twenties, dressed in T-shirts and jeans, most of them male. They were clean, healthy. Probably students.
‘Most of them come from colleges at Cambridge,’ Morgan said.
Julia awarded herself a mental point.
‘Rent-a-mob fodder,’ he continued. ‘They were bussed out here this morning by a couple of radical groups, Human Frontier and the Christian Luddites, they actually get paid attendance money. Nobody would come otherwise.’
Access Company Security File: Christian Luddites, Radical Group. She had never heard of them before, the name conjured up all sorts of amusing images. Their file squirted into her mind, illusive datastacks she could run or hold on a whim, not quite sight, not quite sound. Raw neural information. The Christian Luddites claimed to be a back-to-the-earth movement, rejecting technology in all forms except for medical purposes. Security said there were possible links with ex-apparatchiks, as yet unproven. They had fifteen chapters, spread around the major cities, a couple more in Europe. A detailed membership list had been compiled. She scanned the hierarchy, most of whom were involved in other small intense activist groups. Today’s radicals were a nepotistic incestuous lot, she thought.
Cancel File.
‘It must cost a lot of money to mount protests if you’re paying attendance fees,’ she said. ‘Where did it all come from originally?’
‘We’re looking in to it,’ Morgan said.
‘Shouldn’t be allowed,’ said Patrick Browning, who was sitting next to her. ‘They’re just gaining publicity at your expense.’ He gave her his positive smile, the one that said he would champion her against the whole world if need be.
Patrick was twenty-one, with golden blond hair coming down to his collar, a very handsome angular face, deep hazel eyes that held just a hint of wickedness, and a body which any Greek god
would envy. His family were wealthy, a typical European finance dynasty, with interests in shipping, construction, and medium-scale engineering, operating through anonymous Zurich and Austrian offices. So money wasn’t quite so much an issue as it had been with previous boyfriends. He had just earned a business administration degree at Oxford, which gave him a nice air of self-confidence; coming on top of his debonair mannerisms and beautifully realized sense of fun, it made him virtually irresistible.
Five weeks ago she had been at a party when she overheard his previous girlfriend, Angela Molloy, boasting that he had the rutting stamina of a bull in springtime. Throughout the following fortnight it seemed as though Patrick couldn’t go to a party or club without bumping into Julia. It was uncanny, one might almost suspect fate was pushing them together. After he realized how many mutual interests they had, asking her for a date was only logical.
And Angela had been quite right.
‘They have a perfect right to be there,’ Julia said neutrally. ‘This county paid the most appalling price so that individuals had the right to express opinions again, however extreme or unwelcome. Only PSP apparatchiks try to oppress people for saying what they think.’ She met Rachel’s eye levelly, reading the meticulously contained amusement in the hardliner’s composed expression.
Patrick paled slightly at the rebuke, for an instant looking like a five-year-old who had just had his chocolate bar confiscated. ‘Yes,’ he said carefully. ‘But I don’t like it when it’s you they’re expressing about.’
Julia nodded fractionally. There were substantial dividends to be collected by keeping boys on their toes, unsure precisely where they stood. That way they always knew exactly who was in charge.
She leant over Patrick to get a closer look at the placards being waved. It wasn’t strictly necessary, the protesters were on both sides of the slip road, but the angle would give Patrick a good view down her cleavage. She held back on a smile when she caught his eyes straying down to her neckline. Mr Suave was no different to any of the others, Mr Hormones in masquerade. Easy meat.
She read some of the placards, the usual obscenities and crude caricatures printed in yellow and pink fluorocolours, then started to giggle.
‘What is it?’ Morgan asked. He was peering out of the window.
‘That one.’ She pointed.
A red-haired youth in a blue sweatshirt held up a kelpboard placard which said:
Julia already owns the Earth,
don’t let her have the stars as well.
Company security guards in immaculate grey-blue uniforms saluted sharply as they passed through the first of the Astronautics Institute’s ten gates. The police escort peeled away, leaving the Rolls to drive on to Building One alone. The circular structure was made up from an outer ring of offices, laboratories, design bureaux, computer centres, cybernetic integration bays, and test facilities; five storeys high, eight hundred metres in diameter, presenting a polished cliff-face of green-silver glass to the outside world. A jet-black dome of solar collector panels roofed a central space hardware assembly hall.
In the distance she could see Building Two, a twin of One, as yet unoccupied; contractors were busy dismantling the scaffolding. A week late, they were going to pay a hefty penalty clause for that. Architectural data constructs of Building Three were already well advanced, big enough to put One and Two inside then rattle them around.
Julia always got a kick out of the Institute; its sheer size, sprawled over the old Imperial War Museum site and now beginning to creep out towards Thriplow, was a spectacular statement of intent. Event Horizon was staking out its claim on the future for everyone to see, rekindling the old High Frontier dream. There was something fundamentally exciting about commanding such a grandiose venture.
Philip Evans, her grandfather, had started to build the Institute a month after the PSP fell. He believed passionately that space industry would be the catalyst in reinvigorating the country’s post-Warming economy. His aim was to develop a centre of excellence where every discipline of space industry could be cultivated and refined, ensuring the company had complete technological independence.
Microgee material processing had already established itself as a hugely profitable enterprise. The number of low Earth orbit factory modules churning out ’ware chips, crystals, exotic compounds, and super-strength monolattice filament had grown steadily even during the worst of the global recession which followed the Warming. But the raw materials the factories needed had to be lifted from Earth, battling against gravity throughout the whole ascent. Philip Evans’s vision had the giga-conductor revolution reducing launch costs to a fraction of the chemically powered boosters’, increasing profits by orders of magnitude. After that, he predicated, the exploitation of extraterrestrial resources would become economically feasible, and he was determined that as the solar system opened up England would be the trail-blazer, with Event Horizon at the forefront. Julia had inherited that faith along with the material reality.
She had continued to pour money and resources into the Institute and its ambitious programmes in the two years since he died, despite all the pressure and criticisms from the company’s financial backing consortium. Now the first phase of her plan was coming to fruition, after Heaven alone knew how many minor setbacks and delays.
Today was the day she would shut those whining know-nothings up for good. She wanted to sing and shout for the sheer joy of it. If nothing else, Patrick was in for the night of his life tonight.
Building One’s vast car park was full to capacity with company minibuses and rank after rank of scooters – private cars were still a rarity. The Rolls drove past it, and out on to the concrete desert on the other side of the building. Two long temporary seating stands had been erected on the apron, covered from possible showers by red and white striped canvas awnings; they formed a broad avenue, leading away from Building One’s huge multi-segment sliding doors. There were seven thousand invited guests waiting for her: Institute personnel and their families, premier-grade executives from most of the kombinates, channel celebrities, politicians, the Prime Minister, Prince Harry, even a few friends.
A press stand had been built at the far end of the avenue. Every place was taken, which gave her a final heart-flutter of nerves. She had secretly hoped the reporters would all still be up in Scotland after the momentous weekend.
Over a hundred cameras swivelled round as the Rolls drew up beside the VIP podium at the side of Building One’s doors. Julia took a breath as the Institute’s general manager scuttled forwards to open the door, then climbed out with a professional smile in place.
Julia was thankful that the usual January heat was tempered by scrappy clouds and a full breeze. If it was up to her there wouldn’t even be a ceremony, but politics dictated otherwise, and the workforce needed some kind of recognition for their efforts. So she sat patiently while the bunting flapped noisily overhead and overdressed women kept a surreptitious hand on wide hats.
The Prime Minister, David Marchant, made the first speech; he was a dignified fifty-two-year-old in a blue-grey suit, the embodiment of calm competence. He praised Philip Evans and Julia for their foresight and optimism, then moved on to the workforce and complimented their professionalism, followed up by a couple of political points against the three main parliamentary opposition groups. Julia found herself envying his delivery; he avoided rhetoric and theatrical emphasis, the words just flowed. When it was her turn she accessed the speech and let her words glide straight from the node to her vocal cords, promising that her commitment to funding the space programme remained unchanged, giving a brief outline of projects that would be initiated over the next three years – the larger low Earth orbit dormitory station, expanded science programme, constructing a manned asteroid-survey craft – and managed to get in a joke about one of the engineering apprentices who had been strung up from a hoist by his mates a couple of months ago. She had been on an inspection tour of Building One at the time. It brought an appreciative ch
eer from the section of the stands where the workers and their families were sitting.
She handed over to Prince Harry for the actual roll out. He got more applause than she had. But then royalty always did. Since the Second Restoration people saw them as a continuity jump-lead to the past; they were a symbol of good times, when there was no Warming and no PSP. Now they were back, and life was picking up again.
Building One’s doors slid open ponderously when Prince Harry pressed the button on the pedestal, somewhat predictably a band struck up the ‘Zarathustra’ theme, and the Clarke-class spaceplane emerged into the afternoon sunlight, escorted by a troupe of engineers in spotless white overalls. It had a swept delta planform with a fifty-metre span, sixty metres long; the metalloceramic hull was an all-over frost-white, except for the scarlet Dragonflight escutcheons on the fin. Two streamlined cylindrical nacelles blended seamlessly with the underbelly, air-scoop ramps closed; reaction-control thruster clusters on the nose and around the wedge-shaped clamshell doors at the rear were masked by protective covers, remove before flight tags dangling.
Julia clapped along with everyone else, impressed despite herself. The spaceplane was giga-conductor powered, the first of its kind, capable of lifting fifty tonnes into orbit without burning a single hydrocarbon molecule to injure the diseased atmosphere any further. Event Horizon already had orders for two hundred and twenty-seven, with options on another three hundred.
It was an icon to the new age which the giga-conductor was ushering in. The power-storage system was the ideal cheap, easy to manufacture Green solution to the energy problems of the post-Warming world, where hostility to petrol and coal was a tangible, occasionally fatal, aspect of life. And Event Horizon held the worldwide patent; every kombinate, company, and state factory on the planet paid her for the privilege of manufacturing it. The royalty revenue was already over two billion Eurofrancs a year, and it had only been available for twenty-three months. Every nation was racing to restructure their transport systems around it.