He and Eleanor had taken their honeymoon on one of the Lakehurst-class airships, that was back in the days when all long-distance flights were made by airships. Two weeks spent circling around Greenland and back down Canada's east coast. A first-class cabin to themselves, day trips to resort centres, the eager buzz of third-class passengers on their way to a new life on homesteads springing up behind the retreating permafrost. The black shape was evocative, tripping his mind's gates, delicious memories spilling out along his synapses.
Above all was the gentleness, time spent entwined, time spent floating above fresh landscapes, above sunsets and dawns, gourmet meals, idle chatter, laughter. It had been stately.
He rued the day of the airship's passing, replaced with hypersonic planes powered by Julia's all-pervasive gigaconductor. The last commercial trans-Atlantic airship flight had rated half a column in The Times one morning; he'd passed the cybofax over the breakfast table to Eleanor who quirked her lips in remorse. They had always said they would repeat the trip, but then there had been the kids, the groves to tend, responsibilities. Now all it ever could be was a sunny memory.
Greg had never really adapted to hypersonics, the second age of air travel; two-and-a-quarter hours to New Zealand from England; Japan a hundred-minute streak over the slushy remnants of the North Pole. Where could you escape in a world like that?
Jason Whitehurst had found the answer the hard way. The Pegasus had broken away from the Italian mainland over Genoa, hitting Mach eight above the Ligurian Sea. They were passing over the Straits of Gibraltar fifteen minutes later without slowing down, curving round north-west Africa to line up on the Cape Verde islands. Total elapsed time from Julia sending him the co-ordinates to arrival at the Colonel Maitland was forty-seven minutes.
"We've just been given landing clearance by the captain," Pearse called.
"Fine," Greg said. "Take her down." He stood up as Pearse spoke into the handset. Suzi got to her feet beside him. He noticed she used her arms to push herself up out of the deep chair. "You OK?"
She pulled a face. "Sod it, yeah, I'll do."
The leg of her shellsuit was torn, stained with a ribbon of blood, blue dermal seal visible through the open fabric. And what would Jason Whitehurst make of that?
Greg's face still stung, but he'd checked it in the toilet mirror. Appearance-wise it wasn't too bad. His leather jacket had deflected a lot of the glass splinters. Out of the three of them, he had come off best. Even his neurohormone hangover had run its course.
Two converging lines of bright strobe lights were flashing along the top of the Colonel Maitland, leading them in towards the recessed landing pad. At the front edge of the pad a large blister rose out of the fuselage, which he guessed was a hangar for Jason Whitehurst's own plane.
Greg walked forward as the Pegasus descended, compensating for the inclined deck. The chair at the front of the cabin had been straightened and tilted horizontal. Malcolm was lying on it; all he had on were jockey shorts, his brown skin mottled with big patches of dermal seal. Diagnostic probes were stuck to his torso and the nape of his neck, the medical unit's screen showing an écorché representation of his body, large sections coloured amber, two red pinpoints near his spine.
"Is he going to be all right?" Greg asked Rachel.
She looked up from the plasma bladder's LCD. "Yes. Nothing critical punctured or broken, just blood-loss trauma. But we got the plasma into him in time. He might need some skin replacement for his back, otherwise fine."
"Thank Christ for that."
"Never thought I'd be doing this again."
"Yeah, you and me both," he said.
The Pegasus touched down with a slight tremor.
Greg shrugged out of his jacket. "Pearse, give me a Tokarev and shoulder holster."
"Right." The hardliner went to one of the lockers. "Suzi, do you want a holster for your Browning?"
"Nah, I stowed it."
Greg glanced at her. The Puma bag had been lost in the Prezda's well. Her shellsuit wasn't all that baggy, though. He didn't ask.
Pearse handed him the holster. "You want me to come with you?"
"No," Greg said, velcroing the holster's straps. "The deal is for me and Suzi. We shouldn't be more than half an hour, forty minutes at the outside. Buy the girl and bring her back. After that we zip Malcolm here straight to a decent medical facility."
"Buy the girl," Pearse repeated. "That sounds so… God, I don't know. Medieval?"
"Something like that." Greg checked the Tokarev's charge before slotting it into the holster. "But it's preferable to the alternative, for her and us." He pulled his jacket back on, and pressed the belly hatch activation button.
There were two people waiting for them on the pad. Hard-liners, dressed in dark grey trousers and light jade V-neck sweaters, as if they were cabin stewards.
Greg ordered a small neurohormone secretion. The hardliners were cautious, but not hostile.
They took a lift down to the gondola, riding in silence. A long windowless corridor, lit by a bright biolum strip, blank doors in either wall, and nobody else in sight. He thought the hardliners were leading them towards the prow, but it was difficult to be certain. A cleaning drone rolled past them going in the opposite direction.
He sensed the background shimmer of the crew's minds, a continual whisper of emotions. Reassuring to know the Colonel Maitland wasn't actually the ghost ship it looked.
The hardliners stopped outside one of the doors near the end of the corridor. It opened into Jason Whitehurst's clinically plain study. He was sitting behind his glass desk, playing with an old-fashioned gold Parker biro. The hologram display inside the desk top was angled so that it could only be read by him. From where Greg stood inside the door the symbology array was just an Expressionist laser frieze. Pretty, but meaningless.
A grey rectangle on the floor in front of the desk began to bulge up, silently sculpting itself into a settee.
"Please," Jason Whitehurst opened his hand, gesturing at the newly formed settee.
Greg sat, sensing the two hardliners behind him withdrawing. Suzi plonked herself down beside him, her heels barely reached the floor.
"Do you require medical attention?" Jason Whitehurst asked Suzi. He was looking at her knee, the torn shellsuit leg. "I have a doctor on board. Someone my age, it is advisable…" He trailed off with a dismissive wave.
"I've already had it patched, thanks," Suzi said.
"Of course."
"A hazard on our way here," Greg said. He studied the mind before him. Jason Whitehurst put on a good front. Behind the bemused tolerance expression he was hiding a mix of fretfulness and expectancy. Greg recognized the mind set. Jason Whitehurst was a masterclass gambler, it was his out, his bang. He didn't merely play the game, he was part of the game.
"You see, we're not the only people looking for you," Greg said. He wanted a reaction, see how Jason Whitehurst bore up under some pressure.
"I am aware of this," Jason Whitehurst said. "After all, the delectable Charlotte is in some demand, a valuable commodity. I simply did what I always do in such a case, and trade on it."
"A pity you didn't think to warn Baronski."
"Is he in some sort of trouble?"
"You judge. Suzi and I managed to escape the tekmerc team that was going to interrogate him about Fielder's location. That's where we picked up our little scratches."
Jason Whitehurst pulled on his beard. Greg sensed the first traces of alarm rising into his mind, thought currents brightening.
"Baronski knew the risks," Jason Whitehurst said bluntly.
"Baronski was a cautious man. He didn't know what Fielder has got herself involved in; if he had, he would have stopped her."