“You go start the engines,” she said. “I’ll see to this. I’ve never held you back yet.” She started to rummage through the kit box, hunting for a medical nanonic package.
Len went out onto the deck and untied the silicon-fibre cables mooring the Coogan , slinging the ends over the side. They were expensive, and hard to come by, but it would take another quarter of an hour if he went stumbling round the banks coiling them all up properly.
The furnace was quite cool, but the electron-matrix crystals had enough power to take Coogan an easy seventy kilometres downstream before they were drained. He started the motors, shoving the trader boat out from under the lacework awning of cut branches veiling it from casual eyes. As if there were any of those left on the river, he mused.
Getting underway was a miraculous morale booster. Alone on the lively Zamjan amid the first tinges of dawn’s grey light he could almost believe they were trading again. Simple times, watching the wheel-house’s basic instrumentation, and enjoying the prospect of milking another batch of dumb dreamers at the next village. He even managed to keep his mind from the macabre corpse in the galley.
They had gone six kilometres almost due west, helped by the broad river’s swift current, when Len saw two dark smudges on the water up ahead. Swithland and Hycel were steaming towards him. A great cleft had been made in the Swithland ’s prow, and the superstructure was leaning over at a hellish angle; but neither seemed to be affecting her speed.
The short-range radio block beside the forward-sweep mass-detector let out a bleep, then the general contact band came on. “Hoi there, Captain Buchannan, this is the Hycel . Reduce speed and prepare to come alongside.”
Len ignored it. He steered a couple of degrees to starboard. The two paddle-boats altered course to match. Blocking him.
“Come on, Buchannan, what do you hope to gain? That pitiful little boat can’t out-race us. One way or the other, you’re coming on board. Now heave to.”
Len thought of the burns the lad had inflicted with his bare hand, the flickering lighting panel. It was all way beyond anything he could hope to understand or resolve. There was no going back to life as it had been, not now. And in the main it had been a good life.
He increased the power to the motors, and held the course steady, aiming for the Hycel ’s growing prow. With a bit of luck Gail would never know.
He was still standing resolutely behind the Coogan ’s wheel when the two boats collided. The Hycel with its greater bulk and stalwart hull rode the impact easily, smashing the flimsy Coogan apart like so much kindling, and sucking the debris below its hull in a riot of bubbles.
Various chunks of wood and plastic bobbed about in the paddle-boat’s wake, spinning in the turbulent water. Thick black oil patches welled up among them. The current slowly pushed the scraps of wreckage downriver, dispersing them over a wide area. Within quarter of an hour there was no evidence left to illustrate the trader boat’s demise.
Swithland and Hycel continued on their way upriver without slowing.
Joshua Calvert was surprised to find himself enjoying the train journey. He had almost expected to see a nineteenth-century steam engine pumping out clouds of white smoke and clanking pistons spinning iron wheels. Reality was a sleek eight-wheel tractor unit with magnetic axle-motors powered from electron matrices, pulling six coaches.
The Kavanaghs had provided him with a first-class ticket, so he sat in a private compartment with his feet up on the opposite seat, watching the sprawling forests and picturesque hamlets go past. Dahybi Yadev sat next to him, eyelids blinking heavily as a mild stimulant program trickled through his neural nanonics. In the end they had decided that Ashly Hanson should remain behind to operate the Lady Mac ’s MSV as the crew emptied the mayope from her cargo holds. Dahybi had volunteered to take his place quickly enough, and as the nodes had been glitch free on the trip to Norfolk, Joshua had agreed. The rest of the crew had been detailed to maintenance duty. Sarha had sulked at the prospect, she’d been looking forward to an extended leave exploring the gentle planet.
The train compartment’s PA came on to announce they were pulling in to Colsterworth Station. Joshua stretched his limbs, and loaded a formal etiquette program into his neural nanonics. He had found it in Lady Mac ’s memory cores; his father must have visited the planet at some time, though he had never mentioned it. The program might well turn out to be a saviour, country-dwelling Norfolk was supposed to be even more stuffy than swinging cosmopolitan Boston. Pursing his lips at the prospect, Joshua shook Dahybi Yadev’s shoulder. “Come on, cancel the program. We’ve arrived.”
Dahybi’s face lost its narcotic expression, and he squinted out of the window. “This is it?”
“This is it.”
“It looks like a field with a couple of houses in it.”
“Don’t yell that kind of comment about, for God’s sake. Here.” He datavised a copy of the etiquette program over. “Keep that in primary mode. We don’t want to annoy our benefactor.”
Dahybi ran through some of the social jurisprudence listed in the program. “Bloody hell, I think Lady Mac fell through a time warp to get here.”
Joshua rang for the steward to carry their cases. The etiquette program said the man should be tipped five per cent of the ticket price, or a shilling, whichever was the larger sum.
Colsterworth Station consisted of two stone platforms, covered with broad wooden canopies supported by ornate wrought-iron pillars. The waiting-room and ticket office were built from red brick, and a row of metal brackets along the front wall were used to hold big hanging baskets full of bright flowering plants. Appearance was a priority to the stationmaster; the scarlet and cream paintwork was kept gleaming the whole year round, brasswork was polished, and his staff were always smartly turned out.
Such persistence had paid off handsomely today. He was standing next to the heir to Cricklade herself, Louise Kavanagh, who had remarked how nice it all looked.
The morning train from Boston pulled in slowly, and the stationmaster checked his watch. “Thirty seconds late.”
Louise Kavanagh inclined her head graciously at the stout little man. On her other side William Elphinstone shuffled his feet impatiently. She silently prayed for him not to make a complete mess of things. He was so impetuous at times, and he looked totally out of place in his grey suit; field working clothes were much more apposite on him.
For herself, she’d carefully chosen a pale lavender dress with puff sleeves to wear. Nanny had helped to pleat her hair into an elaborate weave at the back of her head which ended in a long pony-tail. Hopefully the combination would give her a suitably dignified appearance.
The train halted, its first three coaches taking up the entire length of the platform. Doors banged open noisily, and passengers started to climb down. She straightened her back to get a better look at the people emerging from the first-class coach.
“There they are,” William Elphinstone said.
Louise wasn’t entirely sure what she’d been expecting, although she was pretty sure in her own mind that starship captains were wise, serious, and mature responsible men, perhaps a bit like her father (except without the temper). Who else would be entrusted with such a fearsome responsibility? What a captain did not look like, even in her most fantastical dreams, was a young man with strong regular features, six foot tall, wearing a smart, exotically stylish uniform that emphasized his powerful build. But there was the silver star on his shoulder, plain for all the world to see.
Louise swallowed hard, tried to remember the words she was supposed to say, and stepped forwards with a polite smile in place. “Captain Calvert, I’m Louise Kavanagh; my father apologizes for not being here to greet you in person, but the estate is very busy right now and requires his full attention. So I’d like to welcome you to Cricklade myself, and hope you enjoy your stay.” Which was almost what she’d rehearsed, but there was something about enjoying his train journey which had been missed out. Oh, well . . .
Joshua took her hand in an emphatic grip. “That’s very kind of you, Louise. And I must say I consider myself most fortunate that your father is so occupied, because there simply cannot be a nicer way of being welcomed to Cricklade than by a young lady as beautiful as yourself.”
Louise knew her cheeks would be colouring, and wanted to turn and hide. What a juvenile reaction. He was only being polite. But so utterly charming. And he sounded sincere. Could he really think that about her? Her discipline had gone all to pieces. “Hello,” she said to Dahybi Yadev. Which was so dreadfully gauche. Her blush deepened. She realized Joshua was still holding her hand.
“My starflight engineering officer,” Joshua said, with a slight bow.
Louise recovered, and introduced William Elphinstone as an estate manager, not mentioning he was only a trainee. Which he should have been grateful for, but she got the distinct impression he wasn’t terribly impressed with the starship captain.
“We have a carriage laid on to take you to the manor,” William said. He signalled to the driver to take Joshua’s bags from the steward.
“That’s really most thoughtful of you,” Joshua told Louise.
Dimples appeared in her cheeks. “This way.” She gestured to the platform exit.
Joshua thought the waiting carriage looked like an oversized pram fitted with modern lightweight wheels. But the two black horses moved it along at a fair clip, and the ride over the rutted track was comfortably smooth. There hadn’t been much to Colsterworth, it was a rural market town with very few industries; the countryside economy revolved around the farms. Its houses were mostly built from locally quarried stone with a bluish tinge. Doors and windows were almost always arched.
When they rode down the busy High Street, pedestrians nudged one another and glanced over as the carriage went by. At first Joshua thought they were looking at him and Dahybi, but then he realized it was Louise who drew their attention.
Outside Colsterworth the rolling countryside was a patchwork of small fields separated by immaculately layered hedges. Streams wound down through the gentle valleys, while spinneys clung to the rounded heights and deeper folds. The wheat and barley had already been harvested, he saw. Plenty of haystacks were dotted about, steeply sloping tops netted against the expected winter winds. Tractors were ploughing the stubble back into the rich red soil before drilling the second crop. There would be just enough time for the stalks to ripen before the long autumn and winter seasons began.
“You don’t have any proscription against power tractors, then?” Joshua asked.
“Certainly not,” William Elphinstone replied. “We’re a stable society, Captain, not a backward one. We use whatever is appropriate to maintain the status quo, and give people a decent standard of living at the same time. Using horses to plough every field would be pure drudgery. That’s not what Norfolk is about. Our founders wanted pastoral life to be enjoyable for all.” To Joshua’s ears he sounded defensive, but then he had been on edge since they’d been introduced.
“Where does all the power come from?” Joshua asked.
“Solar cells are sufficient for domestic utilities, but ninety per cent of the electricity used for industry and agriculture is geothermal. We buy in thermal-potential fibres from the Confederation and drill them three or four miles down into the mantle. Most towns have five or six heat shafts; they’re virtually maintenance free, and the fibres last for a couple of centuries. It’s a much neater solution than building hydro dams everywhere and flooding valleys.”
Interesting how he said Confederation, Joshua thought, almost as if Norfolk wasn’t a part of it.
“All this must seem terribly cumbersome to you, I expect,” Louise said.
“Not at all,” Joshua answered. “What I’ve seen so far is admirable. You should visit some of the so-called advanced worlds I’ve been to. Technology comes with a very high price in terms of society, they have dreadful levels of crime and vice. Some urban areas have decayed into complete no-go zones.”
“Three people were murdered on Kesteven last year,” Louise said.