Her grandfather answered with a reproachful silence. Surprising what could be read from emptiness.
Greg climbed out of the Duo. Julia let out an involuntary gasp. His left eye was swollen and black, heavily bruised; a moulded white surgical dressing covered his nose; his hands seemed to be all blue dermal membrane; he was limping.
Christ!
"What happened?!" she demanded anxiously.
He smiled heavily. "I had a little chat with your friend, Kendric di Girolamo."
"My God! He did this to you?"
"His bodyguards."
"Oh, Greg. You shouldn't even be out of bed. Come along with you, out of this hot sun."
Greg shrugged. "Not as bad as it looks." His eyes were fixed on Adrian. Accusing, Julia thought, certainly not indifferent. My God, could he be jealous?
Adrian stirred uncomfortably under the stare, gripping her hand that little bit tighter.
"Adrian, isn't it?" Greg asked.
"Yes, sir."
They reminded her of two stags, scraping hoofs before they locked antlers. Disturbing to think she might be the cause, but then again it didn't exactly hurt her ego.
Greg's cut lips quirked slightly, breaking the spell. "The name's Greg. Nice to see you again."
Adrian relaxed a little at her side.
She gave him a huge sunny smile. "This conference won't take long, darling. Would you see to Tobias, I've been neglecting him shockingly."
"Sure thing." He pecked her cheek and gave Greg a quick curious glance before heading off towards the stables.
Another thing about him, he understood the way Event Horizon business dominated her life, and made allowance, never making unreasonable demands. There weren't many who'd do that. He was going to make a smashing doctor with that kind of sympathy.
"Nice lad," Greg offered as they reached the shade of the portico. There was sweat on his forehead.
She slipped her arm into his, steadying his walk; glad to have someone trustworthy to confide in. "Nice? Greg, he's gorgeous. And you should see him with his shirt off. Totally hunky!"
"Lucky Adrian."
Doncaster is squirting, now!
Julia nearly groaned aloud. How could she have forgotten about Grandpa? He would've heard every word. That bloody OtherEyes was going to have to be rewritten again.
Greg was looking at her speculatively. A blush was rising up her cheeks.
Morgan Walshaw was waiting for them in the study. He did a double take at Greg's injuries, frowning, then signalled them to sit.
Julia pulled out her chair at the head of the table. The dark polished surface in front of her was cluttered with gear modules and cubes. Morgan Walshaw was devouring information from three cubes fed by an elaborate-looking customised terminal. Next to her grandfather's NN core was a Commodore bioware number cruncher, a maroon hexagonal block fifty centimetres across and twelve high. A thick bundle of fibre-optic cables linked it to the study's communication consoles. Her grandfather called it junior; he'd unplugged his NN core from Event Horizon's datanet, plugging in the Commodore as a replacement. It'd been loaded with a Turing personality-responses program; and he'd spent the last three days reformatting it to shuffle Event Horizon's data squirts in a routine fashion.
"Will you look at that." Her grandfather's gruff voice rumbled around the study.
The biggest cube on the table was displaying a schematic of the Commodore's databuses, a nightmare mobius topology of fine turquoise lines binding together a miniature globular cluster of sparkling jade stars.
A cadaverous pink stain had begun to wash through the image, spreading down the lines and branching at every star, tainting everything in its path.
"Christ, the bugger's expansion rate is phenomenal. About fifth power," the directionless voice exclaimed.
The cube showed an unhealthy homogenous pink blob.
"Six seconds from reception to total domination. Incredible. Whoever they are, they're serious. I would never have been able to stop it if it'd got into the NN core. That's all down to Gabriel. Where is she, Greg?"
"Her psi function takes a lot out of her. She's at home recuperating."
"Well, try and get her back here. I want to thank her personally."
If Greg was aware of the irony he didn't show it. "I'll tell her."
"So. Kendric had you roughed up, did he, boy?"
"My fault. I confronted him."
"Why?" Julia asked.
"Taking a shortcut. I wanted to establish that Kendric was the one who paid Wolf."
"Well, of course he is," she exclaimed.
Greg shook his head gingerly. "No. That's the problem. Kendric isn't directly behind the blitz. Not that I could prove, anyway. My intuition says he's involved in some way, though."
"Well, there you are then," she said.
"I wanted something a little more concrete."
"What for?"
She saw Greg and Walshaw exchange an edgy glance. It was so bloody annoying. Why couldn't they speak in front of her?
"Concrete proof for concrete action," Walshaw said quietly.
"Oh." She put her hands flat on the table, studying the nails intently.
"It wasn't a complete waste of time," Greg said. "I think I can prove Kendric does know about the NN core."
"Ah!" Philip said triumphantly.
Julia suddenly realised Greg was staring right at her.
"Katerina Cawthorp is living with Kendric on his yacht," Greg said.
"Still?" Julia blurted.
"You knew about it?"
"I knew she'd gone off with him, I was there when it happened. I thought Kendric was another of her one-night stands. Kats is like that, you see. Bit of a bed-hopper."
"What I'd like to know is whether or not she's bright enough to work out that your grandfather was planning to translocate his memories into the NN core," Greg said. "She was here for a few days. The opportunity exists."
"A week." Julia stared pensively at the leather-bound books on the wall shelving, not bothering to cut in the processor node. Remembering all those years she and Kats had spent together at school. Only time's perspective gave them a totally different slant, like an old play whose plot she'd forgotten. They'd seemed like great days while they were happening, insufferably tedious now. "Kats never paid any attention to classes, too busy with boys," she said slowly, reluctant to condemn. "But no, she's not stupid. It's just that I find it hard to believe Kats would bother listening to idle business chatter, let alone interpret it."
"She wouldn't have to interpret it, Kendric would do that for himself," Greg said.
"I'm sure I never mentioned the NN core project in front of her. I wouldn't have, there'd be no point, science and finance simply don't fit into her world view. And Grandpa and I certainly never discussed it at meals."
"She may have overheard it being mentioned. There's a certain thrill in eavesdropping on the conversations of someone as powerful as your grandfather. Even if she couldn't make sense of it at the time she might remember what was said."
"True enough," said Walshaw. "Though the Kendric connection is still circumstantial."
"Don't be obtuse, Morgan," Julia said. After all Greg had gone through he didn't deserve disparaging observations. "Of course Kendric's guilty, he reeks of it."
"I wasn't disagreeing," the security chief said mildly. "It is the degree of Kendric's involvement which seems to be unresolved."
"Not the exact degree, no," Greg said. "But he's in deep, no messing. And I think we can rule out a mole now we know about Katerina." He glanced at Walshaw for confirmation.
"Yes."
"OK, that just leaves the question of why Kendric allowed Julia to buy him out. I still don't understand that, and it bothers me. We know he's in trouble with the family over the money he withdrew from Event Horizon's backing consortium, and he's working on some deals to try and fill the gap, provide the house with an equal return. That's got to be the key, these deals of his. And they're tied up with you somewhere." He shot Julia a fast glance.