Penumbra (11 page)

‘That’d suggest an operating failure in the Delta relay. It can be remedied by inserting a Manx sub-routine. Of course, you wouldn’t have this problem with a Schulmann program.’

The engineer nodded. ‘That’s what I thought.’

He stood and escorted Bennett around the cat-walk encircling the ship, stopping from time to time to point out some interesting addition or design feature.

They paused before the projecting nose-cone. Bennett peered inside at the spacious flight-deck, with wraparound consoles and gimbal couches. Hell, there was room enough in there to contain his old Viper tug, and then some.

‘I’ve heard about how you saved the
Northrop,
Bennett. Impressive piece of piloting. Saved . . . how many crew? Ten? And valuable cargo.’

Bennett shrugged. He hated it when people dragged out the old
Northrop
episode. ‘It was a long time ago,’ he said. ‘Getting on for twelve years.’

In truth, he knew how lucky he’d been when the
Northrop’
s guidance system had packed up and he’d brought the ship down on manual. The weather conditions had been perfect and he’d had no time in which to panic.

‘Quit the modesty, Bennett. You were a hero. If it wasn’t for you, the ship would’ve smacked the tarmac good.’

‘I think that whoever was on duty then would have done the same as me.’

‘We’ll never know - because they
weren’t
on duty then. But you were. And you pulled out all the stops.’

It had been a strange time, the days following the near accident. The press coverage, the approbation of the Redwood high-ups . . . But his father had brought him down to earth. ‘It’s truly amazing what the involuntary responses are capable of when one’s life is under threat. . .’ It was his only comment on the affair, and Bennett had not forgotten his sense of crushing disappointment. All he’d wanted was a handshake and a simple, ‘Well done.’

They strolled around the starship, chatting casually about every aspect of space flight and exploration. If this was a preliminary interview, Bennett felt that it was going well.

‘Do you have any idea why Mackendrick wanted to interview me?’ he asked. ‘He mentioned something about a project.’

The engineer pursed his lips, considering. ‘I do know that this ship’s due out in two or three days, bound for an unexplored quadrant of the galaxy.’

Bennett smiled to himself. The kid in him would have loved the story-book adventure aspect of the ‘project’ . . .

At the far end of the pit, a woman emerged from one of the pre-fab offices and picked her way between discarded ion-drives and honeycomb radiation baffles. She paused beneath the gantry and looked up. ‘Mr Mackendrick, there’s a call for you.’

The engineer signalled down. ‘I’ll take it up here.’

He glanced at Bennett, as if to judge how he’d taken the deception, then moved off along the gantry.

Bennett watched him take a communicator from his breast pocket and begin a rapid dialogue, less annoyed than mystified by Mackendrick’s duplicity.

The engineer he’d been talking to bore little resemblance to the man who had contacted him last night. The engineer was slight, thin-faced and balding, whereas the earlier Mackendrick had been broad and stocky, with a full head of grey curls. But, as Bennett studied the man speaking into the communicator, he discerned in the lines of the aged face a likeness to the Mackendrick of last night. It was as if he’d shed fifty pounds overnight, and aged thirty years.

Mackendrick returned the communicator to his pocket and rejoined Bennett. He held out his hand. ‘Mackendrick,’ he said. ‘Call me Mack, though.’ He regarded Bennett intently. ‘I hope my little game didn’t offend you?’

Bennett shrugged. ‘I suppose you get a kick from playing the engineer?’

Mackendrick laughed. ‘I don’t make a habit of it, Bennett. But my reputation precedes me. People aren’t themselves in the company of the billionaire director of the Mackendrick Foundation. They act, put on a show. I wanted to talk to you before you knew who I was.’ He peered at Bennett, one eye screwed shut. ‘I suppose you’re wondering who called you last night?’

‘Some kind of computer-enhanced image,’ Bennett guessed, ‘perhaps taken from a shot of you twenty years ago?’

‘Right, Bennett. Or almost. Not twenty years ago - five. Why do you think I quit active exploration five years ago? It was my damned life, Bennett. Then wham! and I’m flat on my back in hospital with some damned viral complaint and my surgeons are running around like headless chickens thinking I’m going to kick it there and then. Well, they pulled me round - I pulled me round - but it left me looking like shit. And call me vain or egocentric or whatever the hell, but I didn’t want Dan Redwood or Patel or any other of those bastards rubbing their hands and thinking I’m losing it, so I conference now via the com-link, and I look like a million dollars.’

Bennett listened to Mackendrick and knew he should have felt awed in the presence of the eccentric tycoon, but the fact was that something about the man put Bennett at ease.

‘Can I ask you something, Mr Mackendrick?’

‘Fire away. And it’s Mack, for Chrissake.’

‘What’s going on here? I mean, why me?’

‘Why you? Because you’re a good pilot—’

‘Redwood suspended me yesterday—’

‘Redwood!’ Mackendrick almost spat the name. ‘Listen to me.’

He clapped Bennett’s shoulder and led him on a lap of the gantry. Bennett found the intimacy of the gesture at once intimidating and confiding.

‘What I’m telling you here is strictly confidential, between you and me. The simple fact is that you and Ten Lee were fall guys. Redwood have a deal ongoing with Consolidated Colonial for three hundred Viper-class tugs and shuttles, and their operating systems. The deal’s worth billions. But, you see, the Viper’s operating systems are shot. There’s a major glitch in there that their computer whiz-kids can’t work out.’

‘You sound pretty sure about that.’

‘Pretty sure? Listen, kid, I’m one hundred per cent sure. I
know.
I have spies in Redwood. I know more about what’s happening in the computer labs than Dan Redwood himself, because my spies’ll tell me, but his men are shit scared of telling him the truth. That the programming systems are crap and if Consolidated Colonial gets wind of the stink, then the billion-plus deal is off.’

‘So the other day . . . ?’

Mackendrick was nodding. ‘You almost total the tug, and a starship into the bargain, and you swear it’s an operating system, but does Control listen? You bet your ass they don’t. It’s Bennett and Theneka with red faces before the disciplinary committee, and believe me, if you stayed with Redwood you’d be kicked so far away from the Vipers your butts would still be smarting come Christmas.’ He waved a hand in a disgusted gesture. ‘Screw Redwood. My people’ve been telling me for years that you’re a damned good pilot, so when the opportunity arose, I took it.’

They paused beside the twin exhaust vents of the Schulmann-Dearing boosters. Mackendrick leaned against the rail, staring down into the pit.

‘You mentioned a project?’ Bennett said.

Mackendrick nodded, glanced at him. ‘How would you like to pilot the Cobra here, interstellar?’

Bennett wondered if his sudden sweat was wholly a result of the sun. ‘Exactly where to?’

Mackendrick looked at him. ‘We’re heading so far across sidereal space, Bennett, that it’s totally off the usual exploration vector.’

Bennett had a dozen questions he wanted to ask, all at once.

‘I’m interested,’ he said. ‘But why me? You’ve got a hundred pilots just as qualified—’

‘That’s debatable, Bennett. I wanted someone who’s good in the gravity well, in adverse weather conditions. Your handling of the
Northrop
back in sixty-eight proved you’re more than capable.’

‘When’s the planned flight date?’

‘Later,’ Mackendrick said. ‘I’ll answer that and any other questions when the systems analyst arrives. I’ll go through the project then and we can talk it over.’ He glanced at this watch. ‘She’s due pretty soon. In the meantime, how about coffee?’

He led the way back down the gantry and across the pit to the line of offices. Bennett followed Mackendrick into a plush chamber fitted with mock-wood panelling and hung with moving 3D images of planetary panoramas. The tycoon gestured to a suite of sofas and prepared the coffee. Bennett sat down, noticing as he did so a pillow and blanket stuffed into a storage unit against the far wall. So Mackendrick, like the workaholic of repute, slept
in situ
while working in the compound.

On a desk in the corner of the room was a pix showing a younger and healthier Mackendrick with a striking Indian woman in a sari. Mackendrick was cradling a baby in his arms, something proud and proprietorial in his pose.

Mackendrick passed Bennett a cup of coffee and lowered himself into an armchair.

‘I heard about your father,’ Mackendrick said. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘News travels fast.’

‘I have my contacts.’ He paused. ‘I take it you weren’t close?’

Bennett smiled. ‘That’s something of an understatement. We didn’t see eye to eye, I suppose you might say. On anything.’

‘Join the club,’ Mackendrick said, indicating a pix on the wall above the desk. It showed a suited, middle-aged man clutching the hand of a small, stocky boy on the steps of some imposing building. ‘My father, Alistair Mackendrick, founder of the foundation. Now he, Bennett, was a bastard of the first water. He wanted me to join him in academe, but I wasn’t having it. You don’t know how satisfying it was to open the foundation up to the actual exploration of space, not just the theory.’

Bennett sipped his coffee, wondering if Mackendrick’s little speech was another trick to win him over. His gaze wandered back to the pix of Mackendrick and the Indian woman. The tycoon noticed.

‘Naheed, my wife,’ he said. ‘We met while I was working at the Calcutta shipyards. She was the daughter of a well-to-do merchant. I never believed until then that I could fall in love. Didn’t believe I had it in me, and was determined to remain single. And the thought of having children . . .’ He paused and smiled sadly. ‘It’s amazing how your views change when you meet someone you feel you want to be with for the rest of your life.’

Bennett recalled no mention of his wife in the biographical essay he’d read that morning.

Mackendrick looked from the pix to Bennett. ‘Naheed died almost thirteen years ago,’ he said quietly. ‘Leukaemia. There was nothing we could do. For all my wealth . . .’

Bennett looked away from the tycoon. To change the subject he indicated the pix and said, ‘You had a son?’

‘A daughter. Sita.’ Mackendrick shook his head. ‘Sadly, I no longer see her.’

Perhaps, Bennett thought, this explained Mackendrick’s single-minded dedication to his work.

Mackendrick looked up, through the window overlooking the pit. ‘And at last the tardy analyst decides to honour us,’ he said.

A small figure, reduced by the distance, was making its way down the zig-zag steps. Minutes later Mackendrick’s secretary knocked and opened the door. A tiny woman in a bright red flight-suit, barefoot as on the first occasion Bennett had made her acquaintance, stepped into the room.

‘Ten Lee . . .’ Bennett said.

‘Joshua.’ The Viet-Zambian inclined her head but did not smile. ‘Mack told me last night that I might be working with you again, if you decided to join us. I resigned from Redwood immediately.’

Bennett nodded. ‘I just might be joining you.’

He was surprised again by her diminutive stature. As she stood before him, her head barely reached his sternum. A small rucksack was strapped to her shoulders, its weight giving her back the pert curve of a reed.