CHAPTER FOUR
For ten months of the year Hambleton village slumbered tranquilly under the scorching English sun, the rural idyll of a nineteenth century that existed only in wishful daydreams and apocryphal historical dramas. It was nestled at the western end of a long whale-back peninsula which jutted out into the vast Rutland Water reservoir, surrounded by a quilt of lush citrus groves which had sprung up in the aftermath of the Warming. Through those quiet ten months the groves were maintained by a handful of labourers who lived locally. But twice a year the trees fruited, and the peninsula played host to an invasion of travellers which quadrupled the population overnight. Such an influx could never be anything other than a rumbustious fiesta, awaited with a mixture of trepidation and delight by the residents.
This July the convoy of travellers hunting work at the groves stretched the entire length of the road which ran along the peninsula spine. There were genuine horse-drawn gypsy caravans, brightly painted in primary colours with elaborate trim; twentieth-century vans with long strips of bright chrome, bulky custom-built trailers towed by four-wheel-drive Rangers, converted buses, and sleek ultra-modern land cruisers. Kids screamed and ran among the stationary vehicles, playing their incomprehensible games. Dogs barked excitedly and tripped the children. Goats and donkeys added their querulous cries to the hullabaloo. Adults stood in groups round the cabs talking in quiet murmurs. Smells of cooking drifted through the stifling air.
From where Greg Mandel stood at the gate of the camp field it looked like a real carnival. He always enjoyed the first two weeks of July, blistering heat, fruit hanging ripe in the groves, the campfire meals, music and dancing under the stars. There were even the odd days when they got some picking done.
"Roll it through," he yelled up at the driver in the trailer cab. The vehicle had been converted from a redundant Army AT Hauler chassis, eight metres long, with six wheel sets. It rumbled into the field, leaving deep ruts in the mud.
"How many is that?" he asked Christine, his eldest daughter.
"Nineteen. Room for lots more yet, no messing." She grinned happily. The twice-yearly picking seasons were dizzy times for the four Mandel children. New faces, old friends, no school, late nights, extra money for helping with the crop.
"How many teams do you want this year?" Derek Peters asked. He was standing beside Greg, a grizzled old family chief, wearing dungarees and a porkpie hat. He was the first traveller to arrive looking for work when Greg and Eleanor moved into the rundown farm sixteen years ago. Since then he'd been back each time, in summer for the oranges and limes, and November for the smaller tangerine crop. He knew most of the travellers, advising Greg who to take on, who the trouble makers were.
"About thirty-five," Greg said. "That ought to see us through. There was a lot of blossom in the east grove this year."
"You'll make it to kombinate level yet," Derek said.
Greg shrugged, inwardly pleased by the compliment. The year he and Eleanor began converting the farm's old meadows, he had struggled to plant two groves in time for his first crop; now he had nearly fifty hectares of the Hambleton peninsula covered with gene-tailored citrus trees. All of them on the prime southern slope where they received the most sunlight.
There were eleven other citrus plantations on the peninsula, taking advantage of the reservoir's superabundance of water to irrigate the thirsty trees. But the Mandel plantation was easily the largest, which meant Greg was invariably elected chairman of the local Citrus Growers' Association. His cosy lifestyle, his respectability, was something he looked upon with a strong sense of irony. Not that he would ever consider abandoning the groves, not now.
When he and Eleanor set up their new home on the peninsula he hadn't been at all sure of the idea. Up until then his life had been given over almost exclusively to combat or conflicts of one kind or another. A professional soldier, he had joined the Army at eighteen, serving in a paratroop regiment until the joint services' psi-assessment test found him to be esp positive; whereupon he wound up with a hurried transfer to the newly formed Mindstar Brigade. After the Army came the Trinities, and a hot brutal decade slugging it out against the People's Constables on Peterborough's streets. But unlike the majority of the Trinities he made an attempt to cut free once the PSP fell; living in an old timeshare estate chalet on the shore of the reservoir, trying to make ends meet as a private detective. A role his espersense made him ideal for.
Two years spent grubbing away on desultory poorly paid cases and enduring lonely bachelor nights. Two years trying to build a reputation for professionalism and competence.
And ultimately it paid off. He was hired by Event Horizon to track down the source of a security violation in their orbital factory. The case grew in size and complexity until he was finally confronting some PSP relics who had squirted a virus into Philip Evans's NN core. At the same time Eleanor came into his life. The two events combining to change his mundane world out of all recognition.
An extremely grateful Julia paid him a ridiculously lavish fee for resolving the case. They could have lived quite comfortably off the interest alone, which made the prospect of carrying on as a detective seem stupid. But they had to do something, aristocratic lotus-eating, endless parties, and global tourism didn't appeal to either of them. So they bought the farm: Greg had been a picker before often enough, a good supply of ready cash during the PSP years; and Eleanor grew up on an agricultural kibbutz.
By and large, it had been a good choice. Apart from one relapse, when Julia had used something approaching moral blackmail to coerce him into helping the police with a murder investigation which threatened to tarnish Event Horizon's esteem, his previous life drifted away from him. He was happy to let it. The old memories of violence and sorrow grew progressively more inaccessible, veiled by a cold. discouraging fog.
The next vehicle trundled up to the camp field's gate. Greg reckoned this year's convoy was the largest yet. With the New Conservatives giving road repair a high priority, traffic in general was on the increase. Another ten years would have people worrying about gridlock again—he had to explain the word to Christine, a relic of his own youth. To someone who had grown up with roads that were little more than moss-clogged tracks it was an unbelievable concept. But three years ago the big Transport Department remoulder vehicle had laid a thermo-hardened cellulose strip over Hambleton peninsula's crumbling tarmac road, and she had fallen into thoughtful silence. That was one part of the post-Warming boom he could do without. But with each of Hambleton's plantations taking on pickers the convoy families should all find work this summer. He ought to bring that up at the next Association meeting; if they ever had to start turning away large numbers it could lead to resentment. Maybe he could sound Derek out about it first. He scrawled a quick note on his cybofax wafer.
"Hey wow," Christine growled.
Greg looked up at the new arrivals. Two boys driving an old blue-sprayed ambulance, he could just make out the words Northampton Health Authority down the side.
"Alan and Simon," Derek said. "Cousins."
Everybody was a cousin or an in-law, if they weren't they didn't get past the gate. Greg never could work out what qualified them as family, it certainly wasn't anything as simple as genetics.
"First year by themselves," Derek added.
Greg could see that for himself, they were both about twenty, fresh-faced and apprehensive. The ambulance's tyres were bald. "You ever done any picking before?" he asked.