Boa constrictor arms circled round her, and he gave her a hug, kissing her cheek. "Goddamn, gal, you finally did it, you left him and ran away to me."
"Stop it," she giggled and slapped at his shoulder. "I'm legally hitched to him till death do us part, you were at the wedding. So behave yourself."
He gave a theatrical sigh and put her down. "You're looking good, Eleanor."
"Thanks."
They stood and looked at each other for a long moment. Teddy was one of Greg's oldest friends; they had both served together back in Turkey. She had been secretly thrilled at gaining Teddy's trust; approval like that came hard, but it brought her orbit just that fraction closer to Greg's.
"What's that?" She pointed to his left hand. It was covered in a thin flexible foam of blue dermal seal.
"Bit of extra-parliamentary action couple o' days back. Nothing bad."
Eleanor heard Suzi's soft snort. She could guess just how fierce it had been.
"Oh, Teddy."
He rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, I know. I'll be careful."
"That'll be the day."
He put his arm round her shoulder, and walked to the back of the room, away from the communications operators. "Tell me something. You're here to see Royan, right?"
"Yes."
"Special visit, coming by yourself. This some sort o' deal Greg's working on?" He sat on the edge of a wooden table covered in maps and thick folders, resting his buttocks on the edge. The legs let out little creaks of stress.
"Yes."
Teddy's expression turned serious, forbidding. "He's outta that, gal. He's got the farm, he's got you. You got a job now, you gotta keep him out. He's made it, clean free. Outta all this shit."
She put a hand on his forearm. "No hardlining, Teddy. I wouldn't let him do that again, you know I wouldn't. This is just a case for Julia. It's puzzling, and it's ever so slightly bloody weird, but it's nothing physical. OK?"
Teddy worried at his front teeth with a fingernail. "Julia?"
The tone was indecisive.
"Yes. She needs his espersense."
"There's other psychics. This themed shit they's shovelling out these days."
"Name one as good as Greg."
"Yeah," he growled. "Well, you tell that rich bitch from me, it's her ass if anything happens to Greg." His eyebrows lifted in emphasis. "Or you."
She stood on tiptoes and planted a kiss on his forehead. "You're gorgeous."
"Jesus, shit."
Was he actually blushing?
"What is this flicking case, anyway? Gotta be heavy duty shit for her to ask in the first place. Last time we rapped, she's as hot as me for Greg to quit."
"Edward Kitchener. She needs to know who killed him."
"The physics guy? Why?"
"He was working on something for her." She put her hands up in surrender. "Don't ask me what. I don't understand a word of it."
"Yeah, well, I can see why you need to rap with Son. Crap like that, right up his alley. Now don't you go tie up all his capacity, we need him too, more'n ever right now."
Her lips turned down. "Teddy…"
"No choice, gal." He waved at the two screens covering Walton. "Fucking Party's crawling like ants down there. Someone gotta stomp on 'em. Don't see no police doing it. Or this new flicking wonder government we got lumbered with. You ask Julia, you don't believe me. Three o' her factories hit by thermal bombs this month, not five klicks from here."
She nodded weakly. Trinities and Blackshirts; it was all a far more deadly version of the apparatchiks and Inquisitors game, a game with no rules, nor time limit, nor physical boundary. She knew from bitter experience that it wasn't something which could be solved by police, the due process of law; Greg's last Event Horizon case had shown her that. In that respect the world terrified her, there was too much subterranean activity; too much hidden from public view. Dark circuitry wiring subliminal power shifts. Ignorance could be a blissful thing, almost enviable.
He patted her gently. "Don't you fret so, gal. You ain't got the face for it. Now then, been too long, you gotta stop by more often."
"You know where the farm is, Teddy. I'd like you to come and see it some time. Stay over for a few nights. You know how much Greg would love that."
"Turtle out of its shell, gal." He glanced about the room, taking his time, as if he hadn't seen it for a while, checking to see that everything was in its proper place. "Sides, won't be here much longer." His voice dropped to a doleful whisper. "Not long now. I can feel it coming, gal, like summer heat. Ain't nobody got no respect for the Trinities no more. Time was, you could walk down any street in this town, and you'd get treated like a superhero. Well, that time's over now. But we know what we gonna do 'fore we go. Bibles in hand, AKs primed, yes sir. We ain't gonna turn tail now. Gonna finish what we started. Gonna finish those Card Carrying Sons of bitches, gonna finish them but good."
"I'll give this a miss," Suzi said when the lift opened on the tower's top floor.
"There's nothing that ultra-hush about it," Eleanor protested.
"Nah, 'sall right. I'll be downstairs when you want out." She pressed the button for the ground floor, forcing Eleanor to hop out. The lift doors slid shut, cutting off Suzi's wave and wolfish grin; and any chance to argue.
Eleanor thought she knew the real reason. Julia's Austrian clinic had been good, repairing all the physical damage both of them had suffered. But the memories of its infliction were hard to suppress. Royan could act as an all too potent reminder.
The corridor was narrow, windowless. A long ceiling-mounted biolum strip, with an emission decaying into the green edge of the spectrum, lit her way. She stopped outside 206, and knocked.
Qoi opened the door, a fifteen-year-old Oriental girl in a blue silk robe. She bowed deeply. "Pleasure to see you again, Miss Eleanor." Her voice was high-pitched and scratchy.
Eleanor followed her into the tiny hall, as always slightly uncomfortable at Royan's combination nurse and guardian angel. The door to the lounge slid open, and Qoi ushered her through, doll-like face smiling politely.
The air was hot, saturated with a smell of vegetation that was almost fungal, a dozen braids of flower perfume clotted together. Long plant troughs were laid out on the floor, hosting a fabulous collection of flowers, vivid primary colours shining under the glare of the ceiling's Solaris spots. Little wheeled robots roamed among them; they looked as if they had been cobbled together out of a dozen different cybertoy kits by someone working from a very distant memory of a cartoon-channel mechanoid. Forks, copper watering roses, and secateurs protruded with no sense of rationale.
One wall was completely obscured by the glass bricks of ancient television screens, removed from their cases and bolted into a grid of metal struts. They were all switched on, showing a multitude of channel 'casts and data sheets. A broad workbench was piled high with gear modules, parts of gear modules, individual components, circuit boards, pieces of mechanical junk; two big waldo arms stood silent sentry duty at each end.
A camera on an aluminum tripod followed her cautious steps round the troughs. It acted as Royan's eyes, fibre-optic cable plugged into the black modem balls in his eye sockets.
He was sitting on a metallic green nineteen-fifties dentist's chair in the centre of the room. Sitting wasn't quite the right word: propped up, wedged in by cushions. Royan had no legs or arms; plastic cups covered the end of each stump, axon splices, trailing more fibre-optic cables to banks of 'ware cabinets next to the bench. His torso was covered by a white T-shirt spotted with food stains down the front.