Though she didn’t know it, Kings Cross was the geographical heart of the tremendous Westminster Dome, which at thirty kilometres in diameter enclosed most of the original city, from Ealing in the west to Woolwich in the east. Ever since the first small protective domes went up over London (a meagre four km wide to start with—the best Twenty-first Century materials technology could manage), preservation orders had been slapped on every building of historical or architectural significance, which the conservationists basically defined as anything not built from concrete. By the time the Westminster Dome was constructed over that initial cluster of ageing weather shields, the outlying districts had undergone significant changes, but any Londoner from the mid Nineteenth Century onwards would have been able to find their way around the central portion without too much trouble. It was essentially one of the largest lived-in museums on the planet.
The nine smaller domes circling round outside the Westminster, however, were a different matter. London didn’t have the megatowers of New York, but the arcology still housed a quarter of a billion people beneath its geodesic crystal roofs. The outer domes were purpose built, four hundred square kilometres apiece of thoroughly modern arcology, with only tiny little zones of original buildings left as curios amid the gleaming condos, skyscrapers, and malls.
Louise wasn’t aware of them at all. She could see on the other side of the oaks that the plaza was encircled by a wide road jammed with sleek vehicles, all driving so close together you couldn’t walk between them. The vehicles merged in and out of the giant roundabout from wide streets that radiated away between the beautiful ancient grey-stone buildings surrounding the plaza. When she raised her gaze above the blue-slate roofs and their elaborate chimney stacks, she could see even grander and taller buildings behind them. Then beyond those . . . It was as though she was standing at the bottom of a mighty crater whose walls were made entirely from buildings. Around the plaza they were elegant and unique, with each one somehow merging cleanly into its neighbours to form compact refined streets; but they grew from that to plainer, larger skyscrapers, spaced further apart. The towers’ artistry came from the overall shape rather than detailed embellishments, moulded to suggest Gothic, Roman, Art Deco, and Alpine Bavarian influences among others.
And gathering all those disparate architectural siblings within its sheltering embrace was the external wall. A single redoubtable cliff of windows, a mosaic of panes so dense it blended into a seamless band of glass, blazing gold under the noonday sun. Out of that, rose the dome itself, an artificial sky of crystal.
Louise sat down heavily on the plaza’s stone slabs, and let out a whoosh of breath. Gen sat beside her, arms folded protectively round her shoulder bag. London’s pedestrians flowed round them, eyes consummately averted.
“It’s very big, isn’t it?” Gen said quietly.
“Certainly is.” All those buildings, so many people. Despite feeling light headed, a weight of worry was threatening to sink her again. How in heaven’s name am I going to find a single person amid this multitude? Especially when they probably don’t want to be found.
“Fletcher would really love this.”
Louise looked at her sister. “Yes. I think he would.”
“Do you suppose he’d recognize any of it?”
“There may be bits left over from his time. Some of these buildings look quite old. We’ll have to look it up in the local library memory.” She broke off and smiled. That’s it, everything you ever need to know is in the processor memories. Banneth will be listed somewhere, I just have to program in the right search. “Come on. Hotel first. Then we’ll get something to eat. How does that sound?”
“Jolly nice. What hotel are we going to?”
“Give me a moment.” She took her processor block out, and started querying the arcology’s general information centre. Category visitors, subsection residential. Central, and civilized. They’d wind up paying more for a classy hotel, but at least they’d be safe. Louise knew there were parts of Earth’s arcologies that were terribly crime-ridden. And besides, “Kavanaghs never stay anywhere that doesn’t have a four-star rating,” Daddy had said once.
Information slid down the screen. They didn’t seem to have star ratings here, so she just went by price. Central London hotels, apparently, cost as much to run as starships. At least the beds will be a lot more comfortable.
“The Ritz,” she said finally.
That just left getting there. With Genevieve getting progressively more impatient, as evidenced by overloud sighs and shuffling feet, Louise requested surface transport options from Kings Cross to the Ritz. After ten minutes struggling with horribly complicated maps and London Metro timetables that kept flashing up she realized she wasn’t quite as adept at operating the block as she thought she was. However, the screen did tell her there were taxis available.
“We’ll take a cab.”
Under Gen’s ungenerously sceptical look, she picked her shoulder bag up, and started off towards the oaks at the rim of the plaza. Flocks of parakeets and budgerigars pecking at the stone slabs stampeded out of her way. Most of the subway entrances had the name of the streets they led to, but a few had the London Transport symbol on top: blue circle cut by a red line, with a crown in the middle. Louise went down one to find herself in a short passage that opened out into a narrow parking bay. Five identical silver-blue taxi cars were waiting silently, streamlined bubbles with very fat tyres.
“Now what?” Genevieve said.
Louise consulted the block. She walked up to the first taxi, and keyed the Commence Journey icon on the block’s screen. The door hissed out five centimetres, then slid back along the body. “We get in,” she told her sister smugly.
“Oh very clever. What happens if you don’t have a block to do that for you?”
“I don’t know.” She couldn’t see a handle anywhere. “I suppose everyone on this world is taught how to use things like this. Most of them have neural nanonics, after all.”
There wasn’t much room inside, enough for four seats with deep curving backs. Louise shoved her bag in the storage bin underneath, and studied the screen again. The block was interfacing with the taxi’s control processor, which made life a lot simpler for her. The whole activation procedure was presented to her as a simple, easy-to-understand-menu. She fed in their destination, and the door slid shut. The taxi told the block what their fee was (as much as the vac-train fare from Mount Kenya), and explained how to use the seat straps.
“Ready?” she asked Gen, when they’d fastened themselves in.
“Yes.” The little girl couldn’t hide her enthusiasm.
Louise held her Jovian Bank disk up to the small panel on the taxi’s central column, and transferred the money over. They started to roll forward. The taxi took them up a steep ramp, accelerating fast enough to press the sisters back into their seat cushioning. The reason was simple enough, they emerged right in the middle of the traffic racing round the Kings Cross plaza, slotting in without the slightest fuss.
Genevieve laughed excitedly as they zipped across several lanes, then slowed slightly to turn off down one of the broad streets. “Golly, this is better than the aeroambulance.” The little girl grinned.
Louise rolled her eyes. Though once she accepted the fact that the control processor did know how to drive, she began to breathe normally again. The buildings rushing past were old and sombre, which gave them a dignity all of their own. On the other side of the pavement barrier, pedestrians jostled their way along in a permanent scrum.
“I never knew there were so many people,” Gen said. “London must have more than live on the whole of Norfolk.”
“Probably,” Louise agreed.
The taxi took them a third of the way round the expressway, then turned off, heading back down to ground level. There were parks on both sides of the road when they started their descent, then buildings rose up to their left, and they were back on one of the ancient streets again. The pavements here didn’t seem so crowded. They slowed drastically, pulling over to the right alongside a large cube of white-grey stone with tall windows lined by iron railings and a steep state roof. An open arcade ran along the front, supported by wide arches. The taxi stopped level with a gate in the roadside barrier, which a doorman opened smartly. He was dressed in a dark blue coat and top hat, a double row of brass buttons gleamed down his chest. At last, Louise felt at home. This was something she could deal with.
If the doorman was surprised at who climbed out of the taxi he never showed it. “Are you staying here, miss?” he asked.
“I hope so, yes.”
He nodded politely, and ushered them under the arcade towards the main entrance.
Genevieve eyed the front of the stolid building sceptically. “It looks dreadfully gloomy.”
The lobby inside was white and gold, with chandeliers resembling frost-encrusted branches that had dazzling stars at the tip of each twig. Arches along the long central aisle opened into big rooms that were full of prim white tables where people were sitting having tea. Waiters in long black tailcoats bustled about, carrying trays with silver teapots and very tempting cakes.
Louise marched confidently over to the gleaming oak reception desk. “A twin room, please.”
The young woman standing behind smiled professionally. “Yes, madam. How long for?”
“Um. A week to start with.”
“Of course. I’ll need your ident flek, please, to register. And there is a deposit.”
“Oh, we haven’t got an ident flek.”
“We’re from Norfolk,” Gen said eagerly.
The receptionist’s composure flickered. “Really?” She cleared her throat. “If you’re from offworld, your passports will be satisfactory.”
Louise handed the passports over, thinking briefly of Endron again, and wondering how much trouble the Martian was in right now. The receptionist scanned the passports in a block and took the deposit from Louise. A bellboy came forward and relieved the sisters of their bags before showing them into a lift.
Their room was on the fourth floor, with a large window overlooking the park. The decor was so reminiscent of the kind Norfolk landowners worshiped it gave Louise a sense of dйjа vu; regal-purple wallpaper and furniture so old the wood was virtually black beneath the polish. Her feet sank into a carpet well over an inch thick.
“Where are we?” Gen asked the bellboy. She was pressed up against the window, staring out. “I mean, what’s that park called?”
“That’s Green Park, miss.”
“So are we near anywhere famous?”
“Buckingham Palace is on the other side of the park.”