“Still beautiful, still beautiful.” Helena watched his eyes, they were dancing away as usual, the earth over his shoulder. They shared their mother’s eyes, and having different fathers had never affected their relationship. Michael always treated her like a kid sister.
Longevity tended to tighten extended family networks, but it also placed a distance between immediate relatives, a phenomena Helena knew she fit right into. Helena considered Michael to be the one person on Earth she actually cherished. His friendship was the only one she actively chose to maintain.
“And the men with guns?” she asked.
Michael rolled his eyes in response and said nothing.
“You OK, chick?” he asked, all serious for a moment. Of those who called her in the immediate aftermath of Africa and the fateful press conference, he had been the only one to ask if she was OK. The only one not solely interested in what had happened, the gory details an afterthought.
“Just about. You heard about The Blast, I take it. It’s been a busy time down here.”
“Guess so,” said Michael noncommittally. “Bad workmanship; bad timing.”
“Not really, but it can wait until you’re back on terra firma,” said Helena. “I’ve not been able to slack off like you. It’s work, work, work down here.”
“Well, you know the main reason I came into space was so I didn’t have to get up for work in the morning. I always hated the rush hour.” His face was utterly straight.
“I’d guessed as much,” said Helena. “The commute is a ball breaker though.”
“Hey, news flash,” said Michael, his grin widening as he prepared to share some controversial piece of gossip about the family.
“Listening,” said Helena, clasping her hands under her chin as was their custom when one had family news for the other.
“Mum,” was all he said to start with.
“What now?” asked Helena.
“She’s decided to take a sabbatical from legal and paint for a couple of years. Said she’d had enough of filing briefs that wouldn’t be read until after the war had concluded. If then. As usual, no one could argue with her logic and they let her go. As far as I know she’s somewhere in Nord Jutland. Has been for nigh on fifteen months.”
Helena gasped in disbelief.
“I know, right? You’d think someone would have spoken to her in that time, told the rest of us. I feel like a bad son, not knowing.”
Helena poked the picture, “I thought we’d stopped worrying about her? We agreed!”
“Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t know.” He looked genuinely dismayed. “She’s taken her beloved pets and even a number of servants and promising artists with her. From what Iain was saying they’re all rather attractive fourth generation males….”
“The pets or the servants?” asked Helena dryly.
There was a clank from somewhere behind Michael. He winced. “Don’t worry about that Hels, these army boys have hands like sides of beef. No finesse, not a piano player amongst them.”
She smiled at the humour, knowing it hid real fear. “Michael, do you remember what happened to my biological father?”
Michael cocked his head to the side.
“Not really, I knew him sort of, but he was always away working on something or another. Mum’s never been one to hang around long enough for family to pay her visits, has she.” He stretched out a bit. “To be honest you’d be better off asking her, but you know what that means.”
Helena nodded; it would mean going to see her in person. Helena’s mother refused to speak to her children unless they deigned to visit. Catching up with her was the main problem, followed by the fact that most of her offspring considered her slightly mad and definitely unpleasant. Most of the men who fathered her children took longer to come to the same conclusion, but they all did eventually. Those who were longer on the uptake were left behind as she flitted from one posting to another as the fancy took her.
“I guess you’re right,” said Helena.
“What’s on your mind?” he asked casually.
“I was thinking of his attendant, you know, the one who we treated like a horse when we were kids.”
Michael barked out a laugh as the screen warned them communication would cease in sixty seconds. “Hels, you rode him if I remember and, unless you’ve thrust it from your mind, I was thirty when you were doing that. He was a Hound you know. Seems the old boffin saw him as a friend.” He shook his head at the weirdness of it.
“I think Johannes has him now,” said Helena
“Yeah, that sounds about right, I remember he was granted longevity for such faithful service to the Family. If you’re after reminiscences, speak to Johannes,” said Michael, roughly rubbing his chin with the tips of his fingers.
He thought for a moment. “Though I doubt he’ll let you ride him now.”
“Bye Mike,” said Helena.
“Bye sis, love you.”
“You too,” said Helena, and the link was severed as Michael’s station continued its journey around the planet.
JOHANNES, Johannes, Johannes. All roads led to Johannes.
It might easily take her a week to locate Edith, and there was no guarantee she’d be any closer to her father, even if she did locate her.
Johannes was no fool and would smell something in a flash if Helena started plying him with questions. Helena settled on Adam. He was his father’s son. A century of obeying one man had, in Helena’s opinion, turned him into a lapdog.
She spent an afternoon thinking of how to wheedle the information she wanted from him instead of focussing on a planned meeting with the head of Northern African Materials and Resourcing about nine grams of missing Unbihexium. It wasn’t hard to do.
“Adam?”
“Hello, Hels? Is that you? Sorry about the line, the damned Blast ruined the data feed through this section of the Centre. They keep promising it’ll be fixed tomorrow. Trouble is, it always seems to be today.” He smiled at his own joke.
“Look, you know,” Helena bit her lip and tried her best to look sheepish. She let her face flush slightly around her cheeks and her pupils dilated. “I just wanted to say sorry. You know.”
“Eh?” said Adam. “I’m not sure I follow.” The screen fuzzed out for a moment and his face came clear once again.
“For Africa. I behaved like an ass.”
“Oooooh.” Comprehension dawned on his face. “Don’t worry about it. I saw what you’d been through, not sure I could have handled myself with such aplomb.” He shrugged as if to say ‘what are you going to do’.
“I know, but you know, it’s important to me. I think it’s part of what I need to do. To say sorry that is.” She paused long enough to appear angry with herself. “Listen to me, I sound like such a self-absorbed imbecile.”
Adam didn’t disagree; which irked Helena a little. Pillock.
“If you’d not found us when you did I’m not sure we’d have made it out of there.”
Adam looked gratified, “It’s amazing how reassuring having eight marines behind you is. I thought you’d never get on the bloody transport.”
“Me neither,” said Helena.
Adam thought about the scene for a moment, “Father’s Hound was there though, so I imagine you’d have hung on for a while longer.”
“I suppose so. Shame about Edward though huh?”
“Part of his life Hels, part of his life,” said Adam indifferently. Helena wanted to smack him, remembered that this was why she tried not to speak to Adam more than she had to.
“I suppose the Hound’s off on his next errand then, the war must keep him busy.”
“Rex?” asked Adam in surprise. “No. Not at all, he’s father’s personal Hound, family heirloom I believe. Yours was a special case. No, right now he’s here in London, fast asleep.” Adam winked, “A well-earned reward for the months he’d been out.”
Helena was quick to change the subject. “You weren’t near the Blast were you?”
“
Me? No. Out on the town.” He hesitated, “Guy was there though.”
“Guy?” asked Helena, struck by how sympathetic she felt.
“Sorry Hels, a friend of mine, worked together in Budapest a few years back. He was here with Anasto, intellectual property lawyer. Funeral’s on Friday.”
“I’m sorry Adam,” said Helena and, to her surprise, actually meant it.
“Thanks Hels, and you know I appreciate the call.” He smiled warmly at her. Their relationship had always been distant, and Helena felt the smallest of pangs at deceiving him into thinking it had changed.
“Hels, before you go, there’re a few other members of the family who would like to hear what you’ve said to me. Give ‘em a call. There’re a lot of people who care for you and I’m glad you’re feeling better.”
“Uh, thanks,” said Helena, and they ended the call.
SO THE HOUND was with her Uncle or, at least, in his care close by London. Deceiving her uncle was not really a prospect. It was easy enough to mislead the neutral and favourably disposed. It was sometimes even easy to misdirect and fog those hostile to oneself. But to deceive those already observantly suspicious was more of a challenge. And Johannes was as smart as anyone she could think of.
Helena sat and chewed on her fingernails for a while, trying to think of the best way to use her uncle’s own perceptiveness against him. Adam was naive; he would certainly mention the conversation to Johannes the next time they spoke.
Since Helena had no way of knowing when that would be, she had to plan for the eventuality that Johannes would already have formed an opinion on her apology.
HELENA GOT a drink and sat by the window in her lounge, staring out at the city. The explosion might have been visible from her apartment, but from this distance, there was no sign of the damage it had caused. Small specks shuffled about the sky, occasionally passing close enough that their passengers could be seen. Most haulage stayed close to the ground, but infrequently a long cargo train would snake its way across London’s skyline.
Stirring the drink with her index finger, Helena focussed on the middle distance and tried to think. Johannes was the most cunning person she had ever met. His position within Euros was not only due to this facet of his personality; it was generally agreed by the rest of the family that it had enhanced it, like a virtuous circle.
An outright lie would not work.
She settled on what she believed would play not only to his vanity but would allay his suspicion and fuel his sense of power.
Helena left the flat, set on putting her plan into motion immediately. She caught a sky taxi and paid the usual excess energy tax in order to travel across town to her uncle’s City home. She was taking a risk. She only knew the location of one of Johannes’ flats in London. It was possible Johannes had a number of residences scattered around the city; the Hound could be at any one of them.
If that was the case, she felt reassured that it was equally unlikely Johannes would be at her destination, and she would lose little in turning up at an empty building.
Johannes’ pied à terre was spread across four floors, one-four-seven to one-five-zero, of a Euros controlled tower, only a mile from their main London complex. The sky taxi was permitted to dock on the one hundred and fortieth floor, access to higher levels being restricted to personal vehicles belonging to residents.
Helena checked herself in at the reception that served the top twenty floors of the block and made her way up in one of the external glass lifts. The view over London was extraordinary, on a clear day it was possible to see to the south coast. Helena drank it in, as she always did. It was not often she had the opportunity to visit residences this high, and she relished it.
It was said that from the observation deck on the top floor of Amasthen’s Spire in New York it was possible to see the curvature of the earth.
The flat opened up to her, with the residency’s AI informing Helena that Johannes was in Paris for three days. She was welcomed in and given permission to stay.
Helena was immediately suspicious. She had never been to her Uncle’s London home on her own before. To find that she was welcomed and given security clearance sufficient to live in the block was unnerving.
The flat’s AI let her know Johannes had granted this permission a month ago. Helena breathed a small sigh of relief. A part of her had leapt to the conclusion he had given permission because he somehow knew that she was coming and why. A month ago coincided with her return from Southern Africa; he couldn’t have known then how things would play out.
Nevertheless, she spent the first ten minutes tiptoeing from room to room, worried that someone was about to jump out and demand to know why she was there.
Catching sight of herself in a mirror brought her up short. With a self-directed, embarrassed grin, she relaxed.
She was only familiar with the first two floors of the apartment. The numerous family parties and Euros events she had been to were always hosted in their large open spaces. Johannes was enamoured of the minimalist neonihilist school of Escoban from the early 22nd century with its clean multidimensional fractals and subdued colour schemes. Even though his personal tastes were muted in the rooms he used for public gatherings, visitors immediately knew his aesthetic. With the aid of a moderately famous designer, he had created spaces that physically encouraged conversation and mingling.
Tentatively coming to the stairs, and to unfamiliar territory, she made her way up to find that the third level was nothing more elaborate than office space: almost entirely open plan, with two small rooms on the western side that were used as storage. The office was plain: there were none of the expensive sculptures or installations that adorned the lushly decorated reception rooms of the first floor.
Which only left the fourth floor. Johannes had laid it out as a personal space. As far as she knew, he was not in a sexual relationship so she did not expect to find traces of men or women other than her Uncle. After searching through three bedrooms, the en-suites, a sumptuous kitchen and another study, Helena slumped into Johannes’ large office armchair in resignation. The Hound was not being kept there.
She swivelled around to face the view over the city. Will the war come to London? She thought. What will the world look like if Indexiv ascends over Euros in Europe?
“Why have you disturbed my sleep?” asked a voice next to her ear.
Helena froze.
“I am sleepy,” said the voice, slightly further away from her now. Helena had heard nothing, scented nothing in the air, seen no heat signatures.
It was not an Oligarch. The only guest who would have no personal belongings and leave no trace would be a servant.
Helena swivelled back to face the room. Rex was standing looking at her. His arms hung limply by his side and his hair was ruffled. He might have been alert, but the vestiges of sleep still hung on to him. His eyes were anything except drowsy.
“I want you to come with me,” said Helena.
“OK,” said the Hound. “Will I get to sleep?” He asked, looking hopeful.
Yes,” said Helena. The thinnest of smiles broke across his face. It was the first time Helena had ever seen him smile.
Everything held together as Helena took him back to her building; she couldn’t believe her good fortune in getting him out of the place unobstructed. Rex did not speak on the way home and, a number of times, Helena was worried he would simply drift off to sleep in the taxi. The Normal piloting the small shuttle would not know the difference between the Hound and an Oligarch, unless Rex went to sleep and started snuffling and whining, something that was common enough in the popular imagination for him to be recognised for what he was.
She stopped long enough at home to shoot off a message to work, saying she was going to take a day’s holiday and would be in on Thursday. Her chest was tight, causing her to jerk about at any noise in case someone had come for her now she had the Hound.
Rex tried to curl up on her sofa. He was so intent on sleep that she had to ma
ke him stay on his feet in order to prevent him from simply shutting down.
She asked her Tertiary AI to contact David’s building to see if he was at home while she began preparations to leave for the outskirts of the city.
Out of nowhere, brightly coloured parrots and doves filled the flat. They swooped in through the western wall, landing on her sofa, tables and shelves. Helena stood there dumbly until the birds started chattering to each other in French and Spanish. One of the larger parrots who had settled himself down on her living room table found a briefcase from somewhere and, opening it, pulled out a haddock which it then shared around to a chorus of La Marseillaise. Helena could not quite make out how the parrot picked the haddock up nor how it cut the fish into neatly trimmed portions, but it was enough to give the game away.
Turning to the Hound she said, “Can you stop dreaming?”
He looked at her and sighed so heavily she could feel all nine months he’d been awake. The birds faded away, leaving the apartment empty.
How far did that spread? asked her AI, but Helena suspected the Hound wouldn’t be able to tell her whether or not the birds had flown across someone else’s flat before coming through her wall. It had been an unconscious act that, on a moment’s reflection, she decided was fitting. It certainly tallied with the story Isaac had told.
“Right, time to go,” said Helena.
“Where?” asked the Hound. His body language was suddenly edgy. It was unlike a Hound to question instructions. Then again, he nominally belonged to her Uncle, not her.
“There are some people I would like you to meet,” said Helena. It should have been meaningless to the Hound, whose brain was engineered to have a reduced awareness of time beyond the immediate. Like a child.
“How long will it take to get there?” he asked.
Helena did not trust a taxi to be discreet. She’d planned on catching a city shuttle out of town, which left a walk of approximately one kilometre to David’s house. She wasn’t happy leaving while the Hound was asking questions so hung on, willing to wait until he was content.
“Half an hour,” said Helena.
“Helena Woolf,” said the Hound absently, as if he was unaware of the words he had spoken.
A Family War: The Oligarchy - Book 1 Page 31
