"Yeah?" The voice was male, flat and uninterested.
"I want to speak to Teddy—Father."
"No shit?"
"Now!"
Eleanor thought she'd blown it, there was only aching silence. Cursing her brittle nerves.
The screen cleared to show Teddy's face. "Eleanor, right? What's up, gal?"
She let out a sob of relief.
Teddy's frown grew as she explained. She wondered if she was coming over like a hysterical jilted girl. He had to realise how important this was.
"Greg didn't leave any message for you at all?" Teddy asked when she finished. And he was taking it seriously. Her confidence rose a fraction; she wasn't alone any more.
"None."
"That ain't right," Teddy said. "Greg would always cover himself, standard procedure. And Gabriel's cybofax is dead too?"
"Yes; at least, English Telecom says both of them are outside the satellite footprint."
Teddy paused for a moment. "OK, my people left 'em going into the Event Horizon finance division office. I can't believe the company would waste 'em. They knew they could trust Greg, and it ain't that sort've deal anyway. 'Sides, they let my people get clear. Thing that bothers me is Gabriel. She's like invincible, you know?" He started typing on his terminal keyboard, looking at something off camera. Unintelligible voices stuttered in the background. "OK, I want you to call that Morgan Walshaw guy for me. You'll get shoved around by secretaries and the like, don't take no shit. Insist on speaking to him. Him only. Ask him if he knows where Greg is. Then call me right back; you'll get straight through this time. I'm gonna see what I can find out about Gabriel, if she ever got back."
"How?"
Teddy's face melted into a fast keen grin. "I got friends everywhere."
"Oh." She felt foolish asking.
"Eleanor, you did good calling me, gal. We'll get him back for you."
And he was gone before she could thank him.
Eleanor tugged on a silk blouse before she called Event Horizon, respectable from the waist up, twisting damp hair into a ponytail. Morgan Walshaw's number was in the terminal's memory core.
The screen lit with a polite-looking young man in a neat powder-blue business suit.
Eleanor swallowed. "This is Mandel Investigative Services," she said. "I'm returning Mr. Walshaw's call on a case we're covering for him."
He shrugged; friendly, she thought.
"I'm sorry," he said. "We can't reach Mr. Walshaw at the moment."
"If you check you'll see our company is cleared for direct access."
"Hey, I'm not giving you the run-around, not someone as pretty as you. Mr. Walshaw really is out of touch."
"Isn't that unusual?"
"Very. There's some big glitch in our communications net right now, really shot it up. It's headless-chicken chaos around here at the moment."
"I see." But she wasn't sure she believed.
"Listen, if it's really urgent why don't I call you back as soon as the glitch has been debugged? We've got Mandel Investigative Services number on file. Who shall I ask for?"
"Eleanor, Eleanor Broady."
"Pleased to meet you Eleanor, I'm Bernard Murton."
"That's very kind of you to offer, Bernard. Have you any idea how long it'll take to debug this glitch?"
"Nope, sorry." He smiled ingratiatingly. She wondered if he'd have enough courage to ask her out for a drink. Struck by how bizarre this all was, being chatted up by a randy assistant while God knows what was happening to Greg. Sliding her mind back on to the problem.
"This data package I've got for Walshaw is very important," she said. "I don't suppose you could tell me where he is, I could hand-deliver it."
"Er, sure, no ultra-hush about that. He's with Miss Evans at her home. But you won't be able to get in. It's sealed up tight, something to do with the communication glitch. They don't tell me anything."
"Thanks, Bernard." She broke the connection before he could say anything else.
There was a number for Wilholm in the terminal memory, listed as private.
Should've done this to start with, Eleanor thought as the connection was placed. Greg always said go straight to the top for real results.
The terminal's flatscreen dissolved into a tricolour snowstorm, red, green, and yellow specks skipping about. The speaker hissed with static.
Eleanor stared at it uncomprehendingly, then cleared the order, ready to try again.
ERROR, flashed the flatscreen as she punched up the menu.
An icy dread settled on her skin, like a fast autumn-morning frost. Piercing clean into her heart. This was something to do with Greg, she knew it was. Greg, Event Horizon, Julia, Gabriel, Walshaw, Katerina, all bound together in some devil's tangle. Thoroughly spooked, she punched up the menu again.
ERROR.
ERROR.
ERROR.
The flatscreen went dead, not even that absurd will-o'-the-wisp nebula.
Eleanor snatched up the Trinities card and ran out into the twilight. "Duncan!" People turned to look at her, pale ovals of surprise and concern. "Duncan!"
He was abruptly standing in front of her, face rapt with a mixture of eagerness and trepidation.
"Your terminal, I have to use your terminal!" she cried.
Duncan seemed startled, her frantic urgency taking a moment to sink in. "Right-oh, sure."
Eleanor wanted to grab him and shake him as he fidgeted through his cards, eventually finding the right one for his door with a shy apologetic grimace. "Is it Greg? Is he all right?"
"Yes. No. I'm not sure, that's why I need the terminal."
The door swung open. "Here we go." Duncan had an old Emerson terminal, the keyboard worn, some of the touch tabs completely blank. He tapped the power stud.
Eleanor punched out the phone function with a pulse of anarchic energy, then showed her Trinities card to the key. Duncan's face went white when he saw the bold fist and thorn cross emblem, eyes widening. "I'll er… be outside."
Teddy's face appeared, leaning forwards, squinting. "Hell, what's happened with you, gal?"
She told him, barely coherent, words falling over each other in her rush to expel them. Made an effort to calm down.
"Not good," he scowled. "Gabriel never made it home either. We wanna find out where they was headed, we gotta talk to Walshaw or that Julia Evans gal."
"Can't. The security man said Wilholm was sealed up, that I wouldn't be able to get in."
"And they ain't taking no calls, neither," Teddy said. "Hostile to 'em, even. Strange. Something in there they don't want no one to see. Ask me and it's something plugged into whatever the Christ is going down. Gotta be. Lay you down good money on that, gal. You know what?"
"What?"
"Reckon we oughta take a look-see." There was a dense gleam of excitement in his eyes, some of his tension draining away.
"Yes, but—how?"
"Ain't nowhere God can't reach, not if he really wants to."
"Can you get to Wilholm tonight?"
"Yes."
"OK, I'll round me up a few troops, meet you outside the main entrance in an hour. How's that grab you?"
"Great." And she was lumbered with the problem of transport.
"Everything all right?" Duncan called as she ran down the slope to the water.
"Fine." Lying. Curious eyes tracking her flight.
There were three rowing boats tied up at the Berrybut estate's little wharf, one of them was Greg's. She unwound the painter from its hoop and hopped in. The floating village was three kilometres away, an impossible distance. Why oh why didn't the marine-adepts even have a cybofax between them? Isolation was fine, but not to that extreme.
Eleanor began to row, lifting one of the oars out every ten or so strokes to slap the water three times.