Free Blue Remembered Earth by Alastair Reynolds Page A

had a bad fall during the match. What should I tell him?’
    ‘That there was nothing in it.’
    Hector cocked his head. ‘Nothing?’
    ‘Nothing worth worrying about. Just an old glove.’
    ‘An old glove.’ Hector barked out a laugh. ‘Could you possibly be a little more specific, cousin?’
    ‘It’s from a spacesuit, I think – an old one. Can’t be worth much – must be millions like it still kicking around.’
    ‘She left it there for a reason.’
    ‘I suppose.’ Geoffrey gave an easy-going shrug, as if it was no longer his problem to worry about such things. ‘I’ll bring it home, if you’re interested.’
    ‘You’re at the premises now, right?’
    ‘No, I’m at the Copetown train terminal, on my way to Sunday. I couldn’t call you from the . . . premises – no aug reach.’
    ‘But the item is back where you found it?’
    ‘Yes,’ Geoffrey said, and for a moment the lie had emerged so effortlessly, so plausibly, that it felt as if he had spoken the truth. He swallowed hard, sudden dryness in his throat. ‘I can collect it before I come back down.’
    ‘Perhaps that wouldn’t be a bad idea.’ Hector’s figment was looking at him with . . . something. Naked, boiling contempt, perhaps, that Geoffrey had been so easily manipulated into doing the cousins’ bidding. Perhaps he should have shown more spine, talked up the offer even more. Maybe even told them to go fuck themselves. They’d have respected that.
    ‘I’ll bring it back. Seriously, though – it’s just an old glove.’
    ‘Whatever it is, it belongs in the family’s care now, not up on the Moon. How long before your train leaves?’
    Geoffrey made a show of looking up at the destination board. ‘A few minutes.’
    ‘It’s a shame you didn’t call me from the premises.’ Hector chopped his hand dismissively, as if he had better things to do than be cross with Geoffrey. ‘No matter. Fetch it on the way down, and enjoy the rest of your trip. Be sure to pass on my best wishes to your sister, of course.’
    ‘I will.’
    ‘While remembering what we said about this matter staying between the three of us.’
    ‘My lips are sealed.’
    ‘Very good. And we’ll see you back at the household. Ching home if you need to discuss anything in depth, but otherwise consider yourself on well-deserved vacation. I’m sure Memphis will be in touch if anything requires your immediate input.’
    Geoffrey smiled tightly. ‘Wish Lucas well with his leg.’
    ‘I shall.’
    The figment vanished. Geoffrey found the next train to Verne – they ran every thirty minutes – and bought himself a business-class ticket. Damned if he was slumming it when the cousins were picking up the tab.
    He was soon on his way, sitting alone in a nearly empty carriage, digging through a foil-wrapped chicken curry, lulled into drowsiness by the hypnotic rush of speeding scenery. But all the while he was thinking about the thing inside his bag, now shoved in the overhead rack. But for the fact that he had sensed its bulk and mass inside his holdall as he made his way to the station, he could easily have imagined that he’d taken nothing with him after all.
    Copernicus had been sunlit when Geoffrey arrived, but ever since then he had been moving east, towards an inevitable encounter with the terminator, the moving line of division between the Moon’s illuminated and shadowed faces. They hit it just west of the Mare Tranquillitatis, as the train was winding its way down from the uplands between the Ariadaeus and Hyginus Rilles. Geoffrey happened to glance up, and for an awful, lurching moment it looked as if the train was about to hurtle off the top of a sheer cliff into an immense sucking black sea below. Just as suddenly they were speeding over that sea, the train casting a wavering, rippling pool of light across the gently undulating ground which served only to intensify the darkness beyond it. Against the unlit immensity of the great sea the train appeared to