• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1792 0

still, after all these years, hate him as she had so obviously hated him as a teenager, and after what he had said on the disc he had sent her? He had made the recording on the free world of Tyler, and it had proved the hardest speech he'd ever had to make. He'd lost count of the number of times he'd had to re-record it. He told her simply of his conversion. He said that he regretted their differences in the past, and expressed the hope that they might build a meaningful relationship in the future, belated though that was. What he really wanted to tell her - the details of this mission which would surely redeem him in her eyes - he could not entrust to disc. He resolved that although he was sworn to absolute secrecy - even his aides did not know everything - he would make an exception and tell Ella what was happening, when they finally met.

He waited until seven, and only then decided that she was not going to turn up. He settled his bill and left, deep in thought. After the air-conditioned chill of the restaurant, the night air outside was sultry and cloying. The Mercedes was waiting at the kerb. Sassoon appeared from where he'd been keeping watch on the restaurant and opened the rear door. Hunter ducked into the car. Rossilini glanced at him in the rear-view mirror. "The morgue, sir?"

"No - take me to Orly. Rue Chabrol."

They set off and motored through the rapidly falling twilight. Hunter leaned forward. "Mr Rossilini..."

"Sir?"

"Am I correct in thinking that you have a daughter?"

The driver glanced at him in the mirror. "Yes, sir."

"How old is she?"

"Nine, sir."

"Have you seen her recently?"

"No, not for two years."

Hunter smiled to himself. "Well, as soon as we've finished with this business, Mr Rossilini, I suggest you take yourself off to... Benedict's world, isn't it? - and make sure you visit your daughter. Understood?"

Rossilini exchanged a glance with Sassoon. They probably thought he was going soft in the head. "Understood, sir."

"Good, Mr Rossilini. Very good." Hunter sat back and watched the passing suburbs fall into dereliction and decay the further they drove from central Paris.

They passed Orly spaceport and turned into the district where Ella lived. They passed down narrow streets between warehouses and storage units owned by the spaceport authorities. Rossilini accelerated over the last kilometre.

The alien vegetation began as a fibrous matting on the pavement, and the further they drove into the district of cheap tenement rows the more prolific the growth became, climbing the facades of the four-storey buildings, crossing the street in great rafts of gnarled and tangled ground-roots. By the time they arrived at the north end of the Rue Chabrol, only the occasional glimpse of building could be seen beneath the all-consuming plant-life: an odd patch of brickwork here, a cleared window there. Rossilini braked and Hunter peered out at the neighbourhood where his daughter had chosen to make her home. Between the overgrown rows of apartment buildings on either side, the street was a trench filled with a riotous jungle. It was hard to imagine how anyone gained access to the shrouded properties. It occurred to Hunter that perhaps Ella had moved out since his contacts had found her address. She might never have received his disc, which would explain why she had not shown up at the restaurant.

He made out the caged run which penetrated the street jungle, a dark tunnel which passed through the slick green leaves and fronds. He opened the door and climbed out, the heat and the heady scent of alien pollen hitting him in a wave. Sassoon was beside him. "Sir?"

"It's okay, Mr Sassoon. Just a little personal pilgrimage."

Sassoon glanced down the run. "Do you think it wise?"

"Stay in the car if you don't feel up to it."

"I didn't mean..." Sassoon began. "I'm coming with you. You don't know what kind of creatures live in there."

Hunter smiled to himself as he gazed up at the overgrown buildings. "Just artists and anarchists, I suspect, Mr Sassoon." He stepped into the wire-mesh corridor and entered