of his mansion these days.
Erigeron has sent his affinity-bonded ferret into the office building, scouting out the interior. The jet-black creature puts Laurus in mind of a snake with paws, but it does possess an astonishing ability to wriggle through the smallest of gaps as if its bones were flexible.
According to Erigeron, the only humans inside are the girl and a young boy who seems to be injured. He also says there is some kind of machine in the room, powered by a photosynthetic membrane hanging under the skylight. Laurus is regretting that each affinity bond is unique and impregnable. He would like to have seen for himself; all Ryker can offer him is blurred outlines through algae-crusted skylights.
The conclusion he has grudgingly arrived at is that the inventor of these candy buds is elsewhere. He could wait, mount a surveillance operation to see if the inventor shows up. But he is too near now to adopt a circumspect approach, every delay could mean someone else learning about candy buds. If this knowledge were to go elsewhere his own power would be lost. This is a matter of survival now.
Very well, the girl will simply have to provide him with the inventor's location. There are methods available for guaranteeing truth.
«Go,» he tells Erigeron.
The enforcer squad penetrates the office building with deceptive efficiency; their sleek hounds racing ahead of them, sensors alert for booby traps. Laurus feels an excitement that has been missing for decades as he watches the armour-clad figures disappear into the gloomy interior.
Erigeron emerges two minutes later and pushes up his helmet visor to reveal a bleak angular face. «All secure, Mr Laurus. We've got 'em cornered for you.»
Laurus strides forwards, eagerness firing his blood.
• • •
The room's light comes from a single soot-stained skylight high above. A pile of cushions and dirty blankets makes up a sleeping nest in one corner. There's an oven built out of loose bricks, small broken branches crackling inside, casting a dull ruby glow. The feral squalor of the den is more or less what Laurus expected, except for the books. There are hundreds of them, tall stacks of mouldering paperbacks leaning at precarious angles. Those at the bottom of the pile have already decayed beyond rescue, their pages agglutinating into a single pulp brickette.
Laurus has a collection of books at his mansion, leather-bound classics imported from Kulu. He knows of no one else on Tropicana who has books. Everyone else uses space chips.
The girl is crouched beside an ancient hospital commode, her arms thrown protectively around a small boy with greasy red hair, no more than seven or eight. A yellowing bandage is wrapped round his head, covering his eyes. Cheesy tears are leaking from the linen, crusting on his cheeks. His legs have wasted away, now little more than a layer of pale skin stretched over the bones, the waxy surface rucked by tightly knotted blue veins.
Laurus glances round at the enforcer squad. Their plasma carbines are trained on the two frightened children, hounds quiver at the ready. The girl's wide green eyes are moist from barely contained tears. Shame tweaks him. «That's enough,» he says. «Erigeron, you stay. The rest of you, leave us now.»
Laurus squats down next to the children as the squad clumps out. His creaky joints protest the posture.
«What's your name?» he asks the girl. Now he's face to face with her, he sees how pretty she is; ragged shoulder-length ginger hair which looks like it needs a good wash, and her skin is milk-white and gently freckled. He's curious, to retain that pallor under Tropicana's sun would require dermal tailoring, which isn't cheap.
She flinches at his closeness, but doesn't relinquish her hold on the boy. «Torreya,» she says.
«Sorry if we scared you, Torreya, we didn't mean to. Are your parents around?»
She shakes her head slowly. «No. There's just me and Jante left now.»
Laurus inclines his head at the boy. «Your brother?»
«Yes.»
«What's the matter with him?»
«His daddy said he was ill. More ill than his daddy could cure, but he was going to learn how. Then after he cured Jante and himself we could all leave here.»
Laurus looks at the blind crippled boy again. There's no telling what has ruined his legs. Longthorpe is riddled with toxicants, a whole stratum of eternity drums lying below the crumbling topsoil to provide a stable foundation for the large industrial buildings which were supposed to rejuvenate the area's economy. Laurus remembers the Council-backed development project from nearly eighty years ago. But eternity has turned out to be less than fifty years. The factories were never built. So Longthorpe remains too poor to have any clout in the Council chamber and thus insist on clean-up programmes.
Jante points upwards. «Is that your bird?» he asks in a high, curious voice.
Ryker is perched on the edge of the grubby skylight, his huge menacing head peering down.
«Yes,» Laurus says. His eyes narrow with suspicion. «How did you know he was there?»
«His daddy gave us an affinity bond,» Torreya says. «I see for him. I don't mind. Jante was so lonely inside his head. And it was only supposed to be until his daddy understood how to cure him.»
«So where is your father now?» Laurus asks.
Her eyes drop. «I think he's dead. He was very sick. Sort of inside, you know? He used to cough up blood a lot. Then it started to get worse, and one morning he was gone. So we didn't see, I suppose.»
«How was your father going to learn how to cure Jante?»
«With the candy buds, of course.» She turns and gestures into the darker half of the room.
The machine is a customized life-support module. A graft of hardware and bitek; metal, plastic, and organic components fused in such an uncompromising fashion that Laurus can't help but feel its perversity is somehow intended to dismay. The globose-ribbed plant growing out of the centre has the appearance of a glochidless cactus, over a metre high, as hard and dark as teak.
At the centre, its meristem areola is a gooey gelatin patch from which the tiny candy buds emerge, growing along the rib vertices. They look like glaucous pebble cacti, a couple of centimetres in diameter, dappled by mauve rings.
One of Laurus's biotechnicians examined the candy bud obtained from the
Laurus can only stare at the bizarre living machine as the forest journey memory returns to him with a vengeance.
«Are these the candy buds you've been selling?» he asks. «The ones with the forest in them?»
Torreya sniffs uncertainly, then nods.
Something like frost is creeping along Laurus's spine. There is only the one machine. «And the candy buds with the prehistoric animals as well?»
«Yes.»
«Where did this device come from?» Although he's sure he knows.
«Jante's father grew it,» Torreya replies. «He was a plant geneticist, he said he used to develop algae that could eat rocks to refine chemicals out of it. But the company shut down the lab after an accident; and he didn't have the money to get Jante and himself fixed in hospital. So he said he was going to put medical information into the candy buds and become his own doctor.»
«And the fantasy lands?» Laurus asks. «Where did they come from?»
Torreya flicks a guilty glance at Jante. And Laurus begins to understand.
«Jante, tell me where the fantasy lands come from, there's a good boy,» he says. He's smiling at Torreya, a smile that is polite and humourless.
«I do them,» Jante blurts, and there's a trace of panic in his high voice. «I've got an affinity bond with the machine's bioware processors. Daddy gave it me. He said someone ought to fill up the candy buds with something, they shouldn't be wasted. So Torry reads books for us, and I think about the places in them.»
