The Mandel Files, Volume 2: The Nano Flower

by Peter F. Hamilton

  35

  Greg could feel his skin cooling slowly. The energy-dissipater suit he wore was made from thermal-shunt fibres intended to absorb and deflect maser and laser energy, and they continually pumped out the heat his body generated. It was a one-way flow through the suit’s inner insulation layer, making sure he didn’t cook in his own juices. But it could get uncomfortably chilly when he wasn’t moving.

  The hood, with its gas filters and integral photon amp, was slung over his shoulder. A cap with a throat mike and earpiece plugged him into the suit’s ’ware and communication circuits.

  He watched the biolum strips on the subway tunnel wall slide by, throwing pulses of pink-tinged light through the coach’s windows. Sinclair was always the first to get caught, sitting up in the front, his pale face suddenly printed with deep shadows, like an undertaker’s doll.

  Julia was next, lines of exhaustion brought into unkind relief. She was also wearing one of the black form-fitting energy-dissipater suits, its hood hanging down her back. Her eyes were open, showing her adrift in her own thoughts.

  Rick was twitching continually, unused to the cloying grip of the dissipater suit’s fabric. Tension pulled his expression down into doubt, a big contrast to the anticipation shining in his eyes.

  After that, the fans of light swept along the row of motionless muscle-armour suits standing in the aisle. There were nine of them, dull black metalloceramic humanoids. The background hum of their internal systems sounded bleakly oppressive in the small coach, an ominous reminder of how much power each of them contained.

  The only one Greg could recognize for sure was Suzi. The smallest, standing at the head of the line, with a Honeywell carbine and a Konica rip gun clipped to the waist of the suit, four Loral missiles in slim launch tubes attached behind her shoulders.

  The other twelve members of the crash team were riding in a second coach, directly behind them.

  Sinclair hadn’t liked that. ‘I’ll not be having these demon heathens in the caves, Captain Greg. They’ll be frightening the children for sure,’ he’d complained when the muscle-armour suits had marched into the security centre train station.

  ‘Tough,’ Greg had said. ‘We need them. Besides, you might wind up being glad of them. We’ve no idea how the alien is going to respond to our contact.’

  ‘Oh, come on now, Captain Greg, all I said was I’d show you where I was given the flower. You never said nothing about this invading army.’

  ‘They won’t lay a finger on any of your followers,’ Julia had said. ‘You have my word on that.’

  Sinclair had gaped, features twisting into delighted astonishment. ‘By all that’s holy. ’Tis really you.’

  ‘Yes, it’s me.’

  ‘Well now, me darling, I can hardly doubt your word, now can I?’ He had bowed as far as his portly frame allowed him.

  The train drew into Moorgate station, just behind the foot of the northern endcap. Greg stepped out of the coach, finding himself in a large oblong rock chamber, with six platforms laid out in parallel. It was obviously a staging area for the crews digging the second chamber. Rails disappeared up four smaller tunnels in the north wall. Beyond the last platform there was a collection of heavy machinery laid out like a small town; lorry-sized electrical transformers, big spherical tanks, and the ribbed cylinders of turbo-pump casings. A crisscross grid of two-metre pipes, heavy-duty plastic tubes, and thick power cables led away from them into eight service tunnels.

  Moorgate station was deserted except for Bernard Kemp and a youngish WPC who were standing waiting on the platform.

  Bernard Kemp’s mood hadn’t improved, Greg observed. The sergeant gave Sinclair a look of undisguised contempt, then started when Julia emerged from the coach. The WPC came to attention.

  Julia lifted her hand in an airy gesture. ‘There’s no need for that,’ she told the woman.

  ‘We’ve secured the station, sir,’ Bernard Kemp told Greg as the crash team piled out of the coach. ‘And the transport controller has shut down this line’s traffic: there’ll be no more coaches in. All the construction and mining crews in the second chamber will use the Lancaster Gate station when they come off shift.’ He watched the coach carrying the remainder of the crash team glide to a halt. ‘Exactly what is going on, sir, ma’am?’

  ‘Just like the Governor says, a biohazard alert,’ Greg said.

  ‘A biohazard?’

  ‘Yeah. But not a biology we know much about. OK?’ Greg didn’t even want to tell him that, God alone knew what kind of rumours it would start, but he felt he owed the sergeant something for all the inconvenience.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Bernard Kemp said reluctantly. His eyes kept wandering back to Julia.

  ‘Right, now you two take one of our coaches, and report back to your headquarters,’ Greg told the sergeant. He waited until the door slid shut behind them, then turned to Sinclair. ‘OK. Where now?’

  Sinclair looked at the crash team and sighed. ‘The Celestial Apostles, we had something … good. Nothing grand, I do declare, no Utopia, but we got along fine. The only quarrels were the quarrels that people should have, little things by the by. We all believed together, you see; that was enough to bind us.’

  ‘But that was all due to change tomorrow anyway, right?’ Greg asked.

  ‘Ah, now, Captain Greg, there you go again. Spoiling the rhythm, just when I was working up a fine head of indignation. You’re a hard man, you are. No respect.’ He gave Julia a mocking smile. ‘I’m surprised at you, a lady with a vision past mine. You shouldn’t be associating with the likes of him. Terribly bad for you, it is.’

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ Julia said. ‘Greg’s one of my real friends.’

  ‘Oh, Holy Mary, and I’m to deliver us into your tender hands, am I? Lord forgive me.’ He dropped over the side of the platform with surprising ease, and started walking down the rail towards the north wall.

  Greg landed lightly behind him, then turned to help Julia. The crash team began to jump down, the resonant hammer blows of their boots hitting the rock echoing round the silent chamber.

  Sinclair looked round, and muttered a despairing, ‘Jesus.’

  Greg took the lead as Sinclair led them past the rail tunnels, heading towards the heavy machinery at the end of the chamber. A small secretion awoke his intuition, and allowed him to expand his espersense. The three psychics in the crash team had used their sacs to activate their own psi abilities. They all exchanged mental grins of acknowledgement.

  It was going to be one of the service tunnels that carried pipes and cables up to the second chamber, Greg decided. He whispered a request for a link to Melvyn Ambler into his throat mike. ‘Melvyn, I’ll go in on Sinclair’s heels, but I want two of your tech specialists behind me. I’ll know if we’re heading into anything lethal, or if Sinclair’s brewing up trouble. But there are bound to be sensors.’

  ‘Roger,’ Melvyn acknowledged. ‘Carlos, Lesley, up front. Ms Evans, could you and Rick move into the middle of the team, please?’

  Greg sensed the beginnings of resentment rustling round in Julia’s mind. He ordered the communication circuit off. ‘Best place,’ he said, and held her eye.

  ‘Yeah, all right.’

  Sinclair walked into one of the service tunnels, a simple tube three metres in diameter. Inside was a remote, basic world; walls scored by the blades of the mining machine which had cut it, a metre-wide pipe fastened to the rock at waist height by solid metal brackets, cables strung from the ceiling in long hoops which made him duck every few metres. The rock was cold, leaching warmth from the air, minute beads of condensation clung to every surface. Long oblong grids had been laid down to give a narrow level floor. Dim biolum panels were stuck to the wall every five metres. Greg could see a tiny silver trickle of water underneath the metal grid.

  He reckoned they’d gone about seventy metres when Sinclair halted.

  ‘Would you be so kind as to give me a hand here, Captain Greg?’ Sinclair asked as he bent over. ‘Me b
ack isn’t what it used to be.’

  He stuck a couple of fingers through the grid, and fished up a wire hoop. ‘Here we go. Just tug on that. It’ll come up like a trapdoor.’

  Greg sensed a tingle of satisfaction in Sinclair’s thought currents, nothing malicious.

  ‘I’m registering some magnetic patterns,’ Carlos said. ‘They came on when Sinclair picked up that loop. This section of the tunnel is wired. Something just above you, sir, small and delicate. Probably a photon amp and mike. I’m jamming the processor.’

  ‘Will they know that?’ Greg asked.

  ‘Not unless it was military grade hardware; it should just seem as though the hardware is down.’

  Greg couldn’t believe the Celestial Apostles would use military ’ware. They’d know someone was coming, but not who. He got a grip on the hoop, and pulled. It was heavier than he expected.

  The grid came up with a loud squeak, revealing solid darkness. He slipped the energy dissipater suit’s hood over his head, feeling the wet lick of the photon amp adhering to the skin round his eyes. His universe shifted to a weathered blue and grey grisaille, and the darkness receded.

  There was a large crack running along the bottom of the tunnel. It had been widened below the grid, chiselled away with some kind of power tool. The jagged hole was over a metre wide, rough-hewn steps leading downwards. He bled in the infrared, adding a faint pink hue to the image. But there were no hot spots, no sign of life.

  ‘Is there anybody on duty below?’ Greg asked.

  ‘Certainly not, Captain Greg. What would we be wanting with look outs? We’re not criminals, we’re believers.’

  Greg hopped across the hole to Sinclair. There wasn’t room in the tunnel to get past anyone. He probed round with his espersense, the crash team invading his consciousness, a complicated mélange of emotions. Nobody else.

  ‘Melvyn, it’s clear for the first fifteen metres.’

  ‘Roger. Carlos, Lesley, secure the entrance please.’

  The first armoured figure waddled gracelessly up to the lip of the hole, massive in the restricted width of the tunnel. Infrared picked out ruby shimmers around its joints, fluctuating at each movement. Greg wondered if any of them would be able to fit down the steps.

  Carlos held out an arm and dropped a thick ten-centimetre reconnaissance disk down into the hole. Greg watched the miniature UFO swoop into the cave, its motor glowing, tracing a crimson line that curved through the air like a bent laser beam.

  ‘No hazards visible,’ Carlos reported. He started down the steps. His arms scraped the rock on either side, sending up a burst of vivid orange sparks.

  Greg winced.

  Lesley followed with more grinding noises.

  ‘I see you don’t intend on creeping up on my folk,’ Sinclair said.

  ‘Is it all this narrow?’ Greg asked.

  ‘No. And you’ll be going to thank the Lord for that this next Sunday.’

  ‘I might just do that.’

  It was unlike any cave Greg had ever seen on Earth. The rock had been split along natural fracture lines, crystalline weaknesses, stress lines, veins of metal in the ore. Greg imagined a tracery of hairline cracks spreading down from the electron-compression blast crater, cancerous shadows eating through the rock. Pressure differences clashing at each shock wave. Some of the internal structure around the fractures must have compacted, while others had wrenched apart in a parody of tectonic faults, creating vast empty fissures.

  For every sheer surface there was a corresponding plane above, razor-sharp ridges had left torn gauges, the angular root-pattern of shining metal veins was perfectly twinned. It was the most intricate three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle ever made. And for the first time in his life, Greg felt claustrophobic. Floor and ceiling so obviously fitted together – they belonged together. Jaws of a vice, waiting.

  Sinclair waited until all the crash team came down the steps from the service tunnel, then took a torch out of his pocket. ‘Now then, would you be so good as to close the grid above you there?’

  The light of Sinclair’s weak beam was picked up by Greg’s photon amp, illuminating the cave like a Solaris spot. He saw a couple of power cables trailing out of the crack next to the steps, snaking away into the gloom. The Celestials must have spliced them into the lines up in the service tunnel.

  ‘We’ll reel out an optical cable as we go,’ Melvyn said as the last team member pulled the grid back into place. ‘Keep our communications with the security centre open.’

  ‘Yeah, OK,’ said Greg. He gestured at the red power cables. ‘Is this your power source?’ he asked Sinclair.

  ‘One of them, Captain Greg. Space is awash with energy. The light, the radiation, the wind from the sun. Bountiful it is. I’m sure Miss Julia here doesn’t begrudge us this mere trickle.’

  ‘Sure she doesn’t. So where were you given the flower?’

  ‘This way.’ He started following the red cables, stepping lightly over the crumpled rock.

  The cave turned out to be about fifty metres across, its floor a gentle upward slope. Sinclair was heading for a bottleneck crevice opposite the stairs. There was no dust, Greg noticed, none of the little drifts of soil and bat droppings that contaminated natural caves.

  His initial feeling of claustrophobia was fading. Bubbling up in its wake came a twinge of expectation. Foolishly he felt bright to the point of being cheerful. It wasn’t quite his usual intuition, more like instinct. On the right path and getting closer. The same blind compulsion a salmon feels as the unique surge of fresh water from the mouth of its birth river finally flows around it.

  The alien.

  Was this the bewitchment Sinclair experienced? God knows, it was cogent enough to be mistaken for divine guidance.

  A grin tugged at his lips. You’re enjoying this, you idiot.

  A glimmer of light was shining out of the crevice ahead of him. He pulled his dissipater-suit hood off, initially confused by the monochrome gloaming he found himself immersed in. A swirl of air cooled his sweaty face. The light coming from the crevice was blocked out as Sinclair moved into it. Greg hurried after him.

  There was a horizontal oval passage leading away beyond the entrance, its sides crimping together. Biolum globes dangled on slim chains from the roof. Their radiance was decaying into greenish blue, giving the wrinkled passage a biotic appearance, as if it had been grown, the inside of a giant root. Sound would carry here, Greg knew, the rough clanking of the crash team’s boots against the rock rolling on ahead of them.

  ‘Is it worth it?’ he asked Sinclair. ‘Living like this, hiding in caves?’

  ‘Well now, Captain Greg, we walk the park in the day, sun ourselves, dance in the rain, take our children to the beach. Nobody starves; to be sure, I even weigh in a little over the odds meself. And here we are, with Miss Julia Evans herself coming to see what it is that attracts us here. ’Tis only due to people like you that we can’t live in the southern endcap. Men and women have a right to live in space. We shouldn’t be persecuted for exercising that right.’

  Greg grunted and gave up.

  There was another cave at the end of the passage, a big lenticular bubble of air. They came out halfway up one side, looking down on a forest of sharp conical outcrops. Someone had left a cluster of biolum globes sitting on the top of the spires near the centre. Sinclair led them down to the bottom on a path which had been hacked into the rock, then straight into another passage.

  ‘Christ, Julia, this is one badly fucked asteroid,’ Suzi said. ‘This many catacombs, it’s gotta be leaking air all over the shop. Did you know it had so many busted rocks?’

  ‘Seismic analysis showed there were eight major fault zones,’ Julia answered. ‘All of them occur where different strata intersect. There were five deep in the interior, two of those got excavated to make room for Hyde Cavern. This is the third, the fourth will be excavated for the second cavern, and the last is down at the northern end of the second cavern. We had to vitrify a square kilom
etre of Hyde Cavern’s floor after it was excavated, because it bordered on an external fault zone. And we’ll have to do the same thing to the second cavern when it’s finished. But New London’s integrity is sound.’

  And Royan would know about all the seismic analysis and the fault zones, Greg thought, probably more than the Celestials did.

  He heard the water when he was still twenty metres from the end of the passage, a suckling sound that grew with each step. The passage opened out into a cave about fifty or sixty metres across. Greg thought it must have had a deeply concave floor, the surface of the dark lake which filled it possessed the kind of stillness which he associated with depth. On the other side, a streamer of water oozed out of a fissure near the roof, slithering down the wall, making the sounds he’d heard. Ripples spread out from its base, dying away before they reached the middle of the lake.

  ‘We’re below the Cavern level,’ Melvyn said. ‘There must be a leak in the freshwater streams.’

  ‘Integrity, huh?’ Suzi murmured.

  Greg trailed after Sinclair along a crescent-shaped shelf of rock that served as a shore, running three-quarters of the way round the side of the cave. A row of bright biolum panels on the wall above him fired harsh pink-white beams out across the lake. Serpents of reflected light twisted over the damp black walls.

  A flick of movement caught his eye, and he turned in time to see a ring of ripples out on the lake accompanied by a quick chop as the water came together.

  ‘Hey, it’s got fish in it,’ Greg said.

  ‘Indeed there is, Captain Greg, some of the finest rainbow trout this side o’ heaven. I thank the Lord for his providence every night.’ Sinclair stood right by the edge of the water, and crossed himself. The darkness of his thought currents were a clue to just how seriously he meant what he said. ‘I found this lake, Captain Greg. It was shown to me, like Moses and his burning bush. I heard the call, and brought me friends down here to sanctity and solitude where we wait for the new dawn.’