Greg Mandel 02.50 Family Matters SS by Peter F. Hamilton

Author:Peter F. Hamilton [Hamilton, Peter F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781447287414
Published: 2014-08-28T00:00:00+00:00

3

The Saturday Morning Wake-Up Call

Greg managed three hours of sleep before Christine decided it was time to begin another bright new day. His eyes blinked open as her cries began. Nothing in focus, mouth tasted foul, limbs too heavy to move. Classic symptoms – if only it were a hangover, that would mean he’d enjoyed some of last night.

‘I’ll get her,’ Eleanor grumbled.

The duvet was tugged across him as she clambered out of bed and went over to the cot. ‘Isn’t it my turn?’ he asked as the timbre of the crying changed.

‘Oh, who cares?’ Eleanor snapped back. ‘I just want her to shut up.’

He did the sensible thing, and kept quiet. In his army days he’d gone without sleep for days at a time during some covert missions deep into enemy territory. Oh, to be back in those halcyon times. Christine could teach the Jihad legion a thing or two about tenacity.

Eleanor started to change their daughter’s nappy.

The doorbell rang. Greg knew he’d misheard that. When he squinted, the digital clock just made it into focus: 6:23. The bell went again. He and Eleanor stared at each other.

‘Who the hell . . .?’

Whoever they were, they started knocking.

The hall tiles were cold against his feet as he hopped over them to the front door. He managed to pull his dressing gown shut just before he flicked the lock over and pulled the door open. A young man with broad bull-like shoulders had his arm raised to knock again.

‘What the bloody hell do you want?’ Greg yelled. ‘Do you know what time it is?’ Christine was wailing plaintively behind him.

The young man’s defiance melted away into mild confusion. ‘Eleanor lives here, doesn’t she?’

‘Yes.’ Greg noticed what the man was wearing, a pair of dark dungarees with a cross-stitched on the front, blue wool shirt, sturdy black leather boots. It was his turn for a recoil; he hadn’t seen a kibbutznik since the night he faced down Eleanor’s father. ‘Who are you?’ He ordered a tiny secretion from his gland, imagining a tiny mushroom squirt of white liquid scudding round his brain, neurohormones soaking into synaptic clefts. Actually, the physiological function was nothing like that; picturing it at all was a psychological quirk that most Mindstar Brigade veterans employed. There’s no natural internal part of the human body that can be consciously activated; only muscles, and you can see that happen. So the mind copes by giving itself a picture of animation to explain the onrush of ethereal sensation. The result left him sensing an agitated haze of thoughts, entwined by grief. The man had forced himself to the Mandel farm against all kinds of deep-rooted doubts.

‘I’m Andy,’ he said as though puzzled that Greg didn’t already know – as though his name explained everything. ‘Andy Broady. Eleanor’s brother.’

Andy sat in a chair at the kitchen table, uncomfortable despite the cushion. He’d glanced round with a type of jealous surprise at the oak cupboards and tiled work surfaces. Greg followed his gaze with a mild embarrassment.

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