Part 29 (1/2)

The buzzing noise came from somewhere behind him, distant.

At first he thought it was another shuttle, but as the sound grew louder he realized it was something else. An engine noise, maybe? Robot cleaners? Go-karts?

It was hard to resist taking glances behind him as he walked.

The sound was taking for ever to catch up with him. Whatever it was, it was loud, audible from a long way away...

The buzzing became a roaring, somewhere close behind, just around the curve of the Needle's eye. Chris was just starting to wonder if he was in trouble when they came into view.

A pair of tiny biplanes. Child sized. Corridor sized.

208.

Chris stared as the miniature aircraft sped towards him. There were two kids in each teenagers, he saw, as they got close enough for him to really get a handle on the size. Three teenagers, one little kid. All of them whooping and laughing as they roared towards him.

They shot past him on either side, a deafening, Dopplered wall of sound. He laughed out loud as they screamed down the corridor, leaving him behind. Now that that was the way to travel! was the way to travel!

The kids were waiting for him at the next tube station, their toy aeroplanes parked to one side, up against the window. They sat on the steps that led up to the transport, giggling.

The eldest looked around eighteen, willowy and pretty with a big smile. She stood up and waved at him with a white handkerchief as he jogged towards them. The others were a boy and girl in their mid-teens, and the little girl, who was maybe six or seven.

'These are great!' he said, coming to halt near the biplanes. 'I would have given a limb to have one like this.' He stroked the plane's wing.

'Watch it, mate,' said the plane.

The children all giggled as he s.n.a.t.c.hed his hand back. 'I'm Chris,' he said. 'Chris Cwej.'

'We know,' said the middle girl. 'You came here with Aunty Roz.'

Leabie's kids. He should have guessed right away. Purebloods, with expensive corrected genotypes and bepples on top, he imagined. Healthy and strong and very beautiful.

'I'm pleased to meet you,' he said. 'I wish I could fit into one of these planes.'

'I'm Gugwani,' the eldest girl said. She walked up to him, a slender figure in a cotton dress and red shoes. 'That's Somezi '

the boy ' that's Mantsebo, and the little one is Thandiwe.'

'I'm not little,' said Thandiwe. 'I'm six.'

Something b.u.mped the back of Chris's leg. He turned, to see the red biplane. 'You got security clearance?'

'Check the guest list,' said Chris.

209.

The plane thought about it for a moment. 'Yep, you're cleared.

Just remember I've got my scanner on you. Right?'

Chris smiled at Gugwani, who beamed mightily in return.

Typical low-level AI, desperate to show it wasn't anybody's servant. 'I'll bet these planes never let you get up to anything,' he said.

'You'd be surprised,' she said. 'Do you like our house?'

Chris looked around. 'Yes,' he said, eventually. Prompting more fits of giggles from the kids.

It suddenly struck him what they were laughing about. Stupid hick from the lower levels, gawping at the palace.

'Don't take it personally,' the biplane told him. 'They do this to everyone.'

'But guys, I was going to walk all the way around the building.'

'You can finish later.'

'Are you sure we can all fit in this tube train?'

'I'll sit next to you.'

'Can I sit on your lap, Mantsebo?'

'Of course, child up you go!'

'Hey, Chris, look out the window as we go.'

'Which section is your room in?'

'Let me check the map... blue section, third level, corridor twenty-one, suite eighteen.'

'See, you just type that into the controls, and it takes you to the nearest station.'

'Stop wriggling, Thandiwe!'

'Makes you dizzzzzeeeeee!'

'I bet you kids spend all your time going round and round in this thing.'

'No, the planes are better.'

'Was it OK to just leave them there?'

'They'll put themselves away.'

'Here we are!'

Chris and the four children piled out of the tube. They led him along through wide, carpeted hallways until they came to a door with a liquid crystal label: SUITE 18, MR CHRISTOPHER CWEJ.

210.

The door slid back and they went inside. It was a huge, carpeted s.p.a.ce like a hotel lobby, with a fountain set into the floor. There were doors at intervals around the walls. 'OK,' said Chris, 'which one's mine?'