The Nano Flower

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Julia watched the study door close behind the two men. Rick Parnell had been more or less what she'd expected, except for his physical size; an intellectual, socially out of his depth. Wasn't royalty supposed to be able to put anyone at their ease? That was one trick she had never mastered. It always took three or four meetings with people before they started to relax around her. Apart from Victor, of course, she couldn't think of a time when Victor had been reticent around her. Always honest, that was Victor's big attraction. And loyal, which went far beyond professional integrity. Julia quickly put a brake on that stray thought.

You shouldn't be so dishonest with yourself, Juliet, her grandfather said gently.

She hadn't realized the NN cores were still plugged in.

I wasn't being dishonest, just practical.

Poor Juliet, so many problems, so many unknowns.

You're getting quite dismally sentimental in your old age.

Listen, my girl. I know this is immortality, but it's tasteless, odourless, and numb; and it isn't going to get any better. Maybe I should have gone for the angels and demons deal after all.

You don't have glands, Grandpa, you don't need the outside world.

No, but I like it.

Oh, all right, anything for peace and quiet.

Load OtherEyes. She felt the package squirt into one of her processor nodes, it was a fragment of her grandfather, a sub-personality, formatting her sensory impulses and relaying them back to his NN core. In effect, he was riding her nervous system, a tactual tourist.

Happy now? Julia asked. She gave him access to her sensorium about once a week; he always claimed he needed to receive the physical sensations to stop himself going insane. Julia doubted it, her two NN cores never made the same request, and her grandfather had skipped the last four months of both her pregnancies.

"Too bloody weird, Juliet," he had told her. "Remember this is a lad who grew up in the sixties—the Beatles, Apollo moonshots, and black and white telly—that's my stomping ground, simple times. Looking round this brain-wrecked world half of me thinks I'm in hell already."

That's better, thank you, Juliet.

His silent voice always sounded closer when OtherEyes was loaded, which was impossible. She stretched her arms, wriggling her fingers, then breathed in deeply.

Oh, terrific, that grand old smell of chilly conditioned air. Can't beat it. You live in a bloody spaceship, you do, girl.

She laughed. I'll take a walk out in the gardens for you later. Daniella and Matthew are in the pool, I could join them.

An eerie wisp of pride slithered through her brain at the mention of her children. Not hers, not the usual background of paternal pride.

They're good kids, they are, Juliet. My great-grandchildren. Even if they do keep taking Brutus into the pool.

Oh, not again! I've told Qoi not to let them.

There was a mental chuckle. Brutus doesn't harm anybody, it's not as if he's got fleas. Besides, I remember a little girl who would have stabled her horse in her bedroom if I'd let her.

If you're going to get all asinine maudlin, you can go back where you came from.

So cold and ruthless we are now, Juliet, how we've grown.

The communication channel widened to incorporate her two NN cores.

We've found Jason Whitehurst's airship, NN core one said. There was a brief impression of excitement. We didn't even have to go extralegal. Stratotransit PLC holds the Euro-flight Agency franchise for traffic control, and Event Horizon owns twelve per cent of Stratotransit, so our request for a memory squirt was perfectly legitimate.

Good, so where are they?

Stratotransit tracked the Colonel Maitland leaving Monaco and flying west across the Mediterranean, then out into the Atlantic over the Straits of Gibraltar. That's where radar coverage ends, so we've been relying on our Earth Resource platforms to track her from there.

One of the terminal cubes in front of her lit up. Julia recognized the Iberian peninsula and north-west Africa, both glowing in various shades of red. The sea was a light green.

You are seeing an enhanced infrared image, NN core one explained. The image expanded, centring on the Straits of Gibraltar. Julia could make out the drop flow, a tongue of emerald green that seemed to shimmer. A blue dot crept into the picture.

There they are. They crossed at night, which is significant. It was the only time they were in sight of land after leaving Monaco.

The image was expanding again, shifting west and south. The Colonel Maitland flew north of the Canaries, then out over the ocean.

The Colonel Maitland is currently seven hundred kilometres due west of the Cape Verde islands, and holding station, NN core one said. That's the absolute middle of nowhere. For the last ten hours, all it's done is compensated for the wind.

Julia stared at the blue dot, virtually equidistant from both landmasses, Africa and South America. You mean only someone with our resources could locate the Colonel Maitland right now?

Yes, for all its size, the damn thing is tiny on an oceanic scale. Unless you have access to the same Stratotransit and satellite data as we do, there's no way you could find it.

What about the usual communication links? she asked. Call Jason Whitehurst up and locate him via a transponder.

Jason is too wily for that; pulling transponder co-ordinates out of Intelsat is an ancient hotrod trick. There's no transponder response to his number.

You mean he's totally incommunicado?

Far from it; one of security's ELINT satellites has an orbit which passes close enough to scan the Colonel Maitland. We waited until the latest results were squirted over to us before telling you we'd found Jason. It turns out the Colonel Maitland is operating some kind of localized jammer.

Is that why we can't get any response from Charlotte Fielder's cybofax?

Could well be, if she's on board. But Jason Whitehurst certainly hasn't been struck dumb. He's using his own comsat to squirt data about among his cargo agents, and the bit rate is approaching maximum capacity. And the uplink to geosync orbit is a very tight beam; but the ELINT intercepted a portion while it was overhead. Jason Whitehurst is receiving a vast amount of kombinate finance reviews which his agents have bought from commercial intelligence companies.

Julia looked at the cube again, translating the blue dot into an airship drifting idly over the ocean. What had Victor said? No such thing as coincidence. And Greg said the same thing often enough.

Grandpa, do you notice the similarity here? I'm looking for this Charlotte Fielder girl, and I've also initiated a search through kombinate finance records because of the offers Mutizen and Clifford Jepson have made to me. Jason Whitehurst has got Charlotte Fielder, and what's he busy doing?

Spot on, Juliet. Notice something else as well?

What?

This atomic structuring technology cropped up more or less at the same time as Royan warned us about aliens. A technology that is so different it isn't even a breakthrough in the usual sense of the word, because nobody's even been working on it. A technology whose origins are bloody difficult to track down.

"Bugger," she said out loud. He was right. Which was precisely what made him so indispensable, not just his experience, but an alternative viewpoint.

We should've realized that, she said to her two NN cores.

Yes, was the curiously hollow answer. A fragment of resentment.

Right, let's make up for the lapse. One of you contact Peter Cavendish, tell him to start putting some pressure on Eduard Muller and Mutizen. Explain to them that we've had a counter-offer for a partnership in atomic structuring, and they'll have to put in a revised bid if they want Event Horizon as a partner. Then I want one of our Atlantic antenna platforms reprogrammed to plug into the Colonel Maitland's satellite circuits. I want to talk to Jason Whitehurst, get him to accept a visit from Greg and Suzi.

No problem, said NN core two. I'm redirecting one of the dish foci now.

Fine. What about Jason Whitehurst's profile?

Interesting. I can find no reference to Fabian Whitehurst's birth certificate in any public memory core. The birth was simply not registered. However, I've been accessing recent gossipcasts, the boy has been to several society parties over the last nine months.

The terminal's second cube came alive, showing her the image of a mid-teens boy with long, floppy dark hair. She could see some resemblance to Jason. The boy was a lively one, she thought, bright and sparky; years of trying to contain Matthew taught her the signs.

I wonder why Jason never mentioned him to me? she mused.

There was no need for him to tell you, her grandfather said. No reason why you should know.

Grandpa, if anyone I know has a child I'm given their age, school record, told they adore dogs and horses, and get shown their hologram, all within fifteen seconds. Anything that'll get them invited to play with Daniella and Matthew. And this Fabian looks about the same age as Daniella.

Jason Whitehurst isn't an arriviste.

Maybe not. But why isn't there a record of Fabian's birth?

Got me there, girl.

OK, I want a more detailed profile of Jason Whitehurst assembled, centred on his life sixteen, fifteen, and fourteen years ago. Finance, personal, the works, every byte. I don't know exactly how old this Fabian child is, but he's around that age. Find a trace of him. Look for unexplained payments to women, and possibly medical clinics as well. Given Jason's sexual orientation, I'd guess at an in vitro fertilization and a host mother.

You got it, Juliet.

I have established a link with the Colonel Maitland, NN core two said.

Jason Whitehurst appeared on the study's phone screen. He was sitting at some kind of desk, wearing a white shirt, open at the neck to reveal an MCC cravat. There was a window behind him, showing nothing by sky.

"Julia, this is a somewhat unexpected pleasure. I wasn't aware I was taking incoming calls."

"I know, Jason, and I apologize for interrupting your communication circuits like this, but we do need to talk."

"Certainly, I was going to call you today anyway."

Julia felt a trickle of relief in her mind. At least they weren't going to play the euphemisms game. She tried to gauge his mood, which wasn't easy over a phone vid. But he was definitely riding an up.

She thought for a moment, unsure of what to say. What exactly was she asking him for? Charlotte Fielder, or should there be something more?

"I'm looking for someone, a Miss Charlotte Fielder. Apparently she left the Newfields ball with your son, Fabian."

There was a slight tightening around Jason Whitehurst's mouth at the mention of Fabian. "She left with me, that is so."

Interesting, her grandfather said. The old bastard's cagey about the tyke.

Do you think I could use that? she asked.

Bloody hell, girl, don't you ever listen to me? Don't ever ask a question unless you already know the answer. How would you use the boy? Tell me that, hey?

Sorry, Grandpa. It was just that she was so used to negotiating from a position of strength. Spoilt.

"I'd like to talk to her, Jason."

"There are several people who would, my dear Julia. But I'm sure you and I can sort out a deal."

Bugger the man, her grandfather said. Juliet, you have got to get that Fielder girl. She's not something he can sell twice. If she knows where the flower came from, then she knows where the alien is, and quite possibly all that atomic structuring technology. He's going to ask for a ridiculous sum, but pay it. You can't afford not to.

Maybe, Grandpa, but we can certainly apply some pressure here.

Jason Whitehurst was regarding her with polite expectation.

"I'd like you to receive my representative," she told him. "He can be at the Colonel Maitland in an hour or so. And he's fully empowered to negotiate on my behalf."

"I hadn't anticipated face-to-face meetings, Julia. My intention is to hold an auction. How else could I ascertain her true worth?"

"Perhaps you don't appreciate just how high the stakes are in this instance, Jason. I don't think an open bidding session would be to your advantage. Acknowledging that you hold Fielder could prove dangerous. Someone uncovering the location of the Colonel Maitland was inevitable. If nothing else, the amount of effort I've expended in finding you ought to tell you how deep you're in. Of course, you know you can trust me not to exploit the knowledge. But there are some parties involved here who won't hold your physical safety in such high regard."

Jason Whitehurst pulled on his beard. "Just the one man?"

"Absolutely, his name's Greg Mandel, and he'll have an assistant with him. They'll arrive in an ordinary civil Pegasus. Your landing pad can accommodate that."

"Very well, Julia. I'll see him." He held up a warning finger. "Nothing more. If your financial offer proves acceptable, he can take Fielder with him when he leaves. If not, you will have to compete with your rivals on a level pitch."

Julia leant forwards, schooling her face into an earnest expression. "Thank you, Jason. But please take care, at least suspend your dealings with anyone else until after Greg Mandel arrives. I don't want them finding out where you are, you're too valuable to me right now."

"I appreciate the concern, Julia. Don't worry about me." His image blanked out.

Julia let out a heavy breath, staring round the study, not really seeing it. Whenever she did have to work at Wilholm, she always used the study. With its dark panelling, chilly stone mantelpiece, and sombre glass-cased books it had the right air of sobriety. The decisions taken in here…

Atta girl, Philip Evans said. Once Greg and Suzi get out to the Colonel Maitland, old Jason's going to find his options decreasing rapidly. You did exactly the right thing.

Thank you, Grandpa. He always seemed to know when she was down. Although the mix of tension and depression that was wiring up her muscles must have given him a strong clue.

She fed the desk terminal the code for a secure link to Greg's cybofax. When his face appeared there were some small cuts on his cheeks, a splash of blue dermal seal near one eye. He was trying to damp down a scowl.

She sucked in her lower lip. It wasn't supposed to be like this. Not Greg hardlining. She had promised Eleanor that, promised herself. All she wanted was Royan. "Dear Lord, are you all OK?" Victor had mentioned there had been trouble at the Prezda, a tekmerc called Reiger; but nothing about Greg being injured.

"Yeah, more or less. I don't know what sort of commendations Victor hands out, but Malcolm Ramkartra earned his today."

She just nodded meekly at the screen.

Greg seemed to relent. "I guess we were lucky, nothing a first aid kit can't patch up." He dropped his voice. "But you've gone and dumped Suzi straight into a blood vendetta. This Reiger bloke is a right fucking loony, and no messing. Two of his team were killed, and he blames Suzi for the whole shooting match. That's serious trouble, Julia. People like this, it ain't over till one of them's snuffed."

"Whatever she needs, Greg, she's got it, you know that."

"Yeah, but you know Suzi, she won't take it." His voice was still low, almost inaudible.

"Then Victor will just have get rid of Reiger for her," she heard herself saying.

"Right." He looked loaded up with remorse, like she felt.

"I've got you the co-ordinates of Jason Whitehurst's airship. And more, he's agreed to meet you and Suzi as my representatives."

"Hey, well done."

She ordered the terminal to squirt the co-ordinates over to the Pegasus. "Not entirely good news, Greg. When I called, he was getting ready to sell Charlotte Fielder to the highest bidder."

"Christ. Just how many groups are we playing against?"

"I don't know. But you can tell Suzi that crack of hers about acquiring starship technology is starting to look uncomfortably true. I've been getting some pretty strange offers from kombinates and other major-league players today, all concerning some radical technology. Our alien isn't entirely the big hush we thought it was. I'd say the first one to reach Royan is going to hit the technological jackpot. That's why you're experiencing all this heat."

"Great," he said sourly. "At least I know why I'm being shot at."

"I don't care what price Whitehurst puts on Fielder, Greg. But you've got to come back with her. The ident card we gave you is linked directly to the company's main account, so pay him whatever he asks and don't worry about it. Besides, I don't think he really understands what he's gone and got himself involved in. Unless that airship is armed like a destroyer, he's seriously underestimated how eager we all are to get our hands on Charlotte Fielder."

"OK, Julia, it's your money. And please try to find out who we're up against. If we know, we can watch them, find out what their moves are."

"I'll do what I can."

"OK, I'll call you after we get Fielder."

She ordered the phone off.

Access Security File: Reiger, Leol; Tekmerc. She closed her eyes and let the profile open out in her mind. Victor had assembled a surprisingly large amount of information on the tekmerc, including a psychological report. Greg had been right, Leol Reiger's mentality bordered on sociopathic.

That's a mean-looking bugger, Juliet. What're you planning on doing about him?

Leol Reiger's deals seemed to glow like blue neon in the formless grey mist of the node interface; the number of fatalities involved, those confirmed plus estimates. Forty-eight in the last nine years. Rumours of more, when he was just an ordinary hardliner, before he came to Victor's attention as a deal maker.

Exactly what I told Greg. Turn Victor loose on him. But that'll take time, for the moment I want to know who's hired him.

Assemble Personality Package.

She was back in the isolation of the 'ware universe, the blank depthless emptiness. Her processor nodes were integrating the package, following the formula Royan had devised; freezing and copying specific segments of her thought patterns, digitizing them.

In its compressed, dormant, state she could access the composite's multiple data planes, all neatly folded in on each other; sequences of memory, response logic, identity, motivation. They were slices of her mind, the crucial portions; subconscious inhibitions and emotional reticence rooted out, discarded. It was a streamlined edition of her own mentality.

Julia formulated her instructions carefully, loading them into the personality package. She withdrew, leaving herself alone with Leol Reiger's sleazy profile. Her eyes flicked open, reducing the profile to a smoky shadow overlaying the warm browns of the study.

A representation of the personality package was floating in one of the terminal's cubes, a dark green sphere with a multi-segmented surface, reminding her of an insect eye.

She began to type on the terminal, summoning up a finance transfer order, then entered Leol Reiger's Zurich bank account number, reading it direct from his profile.

You're giving Leol Reiger ten thousand Eurofrancs? her grandfather asked.

That's right. She watched the representation of the transfer order form in the cube, a translucent blue starfish. Easiest way I know of accessing the bank's mainframe. The arms of the starfish were closing around the personality package.

Bloody hell, I don't know what the world's coming to.

There was no sign of the intricately nicked green sphere; its surface had been covered by a smooth blue shell. Julia tested the assembled composite with a couple of security probe programs. Its integrity held.

You know a better way? she asked.

No. A mental sigh accompanied the admission.

Right, then. She tapped the download key, and the data composite squirted into Leol Reiger's Zurich bank.

Julia made a brief kissing motion after it. There was a nostalgic thrill in watching it go. She hadn't done any serious hotrodding for years. If only the conspiracy theorists knew. Julia Evans's hobby was criminal data piracy. They'd have a field day with that one.

She could have routed the request through Victor's division, put pressure on the bank to squirt over Leol Reiger's account data. Corporate entities did co-operate to a reasonable degree, especially with regard to tekmercs. But Zurich banks still clung to their independence. It would take a lot of pressure, and time.

A hiss of compressors penetrated the window. She turned to see the Pegasus carrying Victor Tyo and Dr Parnell lifting off the lawn. The scene looked vaguely surreal, like something out of a five-star resort advert; all it lacked was a couple of smiling models posing at a table by the pool, sipping something potent and cool.

Julia ran her hands through her hair, and turned back to the terminal. Time to find out just how widespread the knowledge of atomic structuring was. With at least two other groups chasing after Royan, she was starting to wonder exactly how many routes there were to the alien.

The terminal accessed Event Horizon's main communication network for here and she loaded a cut-off program at the junction. If anyone tried to backtrack her call the best they'd be able to come up with was English Telecom's Peterborough exchange. She entered the Gracious Services number.

There was no phone on the other end; England's hacker circuit had illegal catchment programs loaded into every exchange in the country. It pulled out her call and plugged her straight in.

There was a nervous flicker across her terminal's flatscreen, then it printed:

WELCOME TO GRACIOUS SERVICES.

WE AIM TO PLEASE

DATA FOUND, OR MONEY RETURNED.

NO ACCESS TOO BIG OR TOO SMALL.

JUST REMEMBER OUR CARDINAL RULE:

DO NOT ASK FOR CREDIT!!!

PLEASE ENTER YOUR HANDLE.

Julia thought for a moment; she hadn't actually used the circuit from this side before. Royan had signed her on as a novice hotrod when he was teaching her to write dark programs, saying the experience would do her good. She had run several burns against various companies and government departments, competing against the other hotrods for the client's money. It was a race, the one who pulled the data first cleaned up, minus the umpire's cut. Competition sharpened her mind to a considerable degree.

She grinned furtively and typed: MARIE ANTOINETTE.

GOOD AFTERNOON, MARIE ANTOINETTE YOUR

UMPIRE IS BLUEPRINCE. WHAT SERVICE DO YOU REQUIRE?

BULLETIN BOARD.

ALL RIGHT MARIE ANTOINETTE, THERE ARE ELEVEN

HOTRODS PLUGGED IN, AND EACH OF THEM HAS A

MEMORY CORE LOADED WITH BASEBORN BYTES. WHAT

DO YOU WANT TO KNOW?

ONE) HOW MANY COMPANIES ARE PLUGGED INTO ATOMIC STRUCTURING TECHNOLOGY?

TWO) ARE ANY OF THEM IN POSSESSION OF THE THEORY FOR CONSTRUCTING A NUCLEAR FORCE GENERATOR?

THREE) WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF ATOMIC STRUCTURING TECHNOLOGY? I WILL ACCEPT ORIGIN RUMOURS IF HARD FACTS ARE UNAVAILABLE.

Her message stayed on the flatscreen for over a minute before it cleared.

I'M NOT QUITE SURE WHAT YOU WANT US FOR, MARIE ANTOINETTE, SIX HOTRODS HADN'T EVEN HEARD OF ATOMIC STRUCTURING. AND THOSE THAT DO SAY THEIR BYTES AREN'T GOING TO COME CHEAP. ATOMIC STRUCTURING IS THE BIGGEST ULTRA-HUSH TECHNOLOGY SINCE EVENT HORIZON CRACKED THE GIGACONDUCTOR.

"And don't I know it," she murmured, then typed: I UNDERSTAND BLUEPRINCE. DEAL FOR ME, PLEASE.

OK, THEY DONT HAVE MUCH, SO WHAT THEY'LL DO IS POOL WHAT THEY HAVE GOT. I'LL TABULATE FOR YOU, BUT IT'S A FLAT FEE SIXTY THOUSAND POUNDS NEW STERLING EACH, AND YOU TAKE THE RISK THAT THE DATA IS REPLICATED FIVE TIMES. ARE YOU STILL INTERESTED?

I'M INTERESTED.

YOU CHOSE YOURSELF A GOOD HANDLE, MARIE ANTOINETTE. PLEASE DEPOSIT THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS NEW STERLING INTO TIZZAMUND BANK, ZURICH, ACCOUNT NUMBER WRU2384ASE.

You're not actually going to pay them, are you, Juliet? Her grandfather asked.

Her hands poised over the terminal keys. "Fraid so. I need to know how widespread this knowledge is. And I need to know quickly. This is the simplest way. Whatever information is floating around, the circuit will have plugged into it. They're very good, you know.

I wish I still had a bed. I wouldn't have bothered getting out of it this morning. Actually paying these criminals, bloody hell in my day they would have been rounded up and forced to hand the information over. Cattle prods wouldn't come amiss.

Julia giggled and authorized the credit transfer from one of her Cayman slush funds.

YOUR CREDIT IS STAGGERING, MARIE ANTOINETTE. I HOPE IT WAS WORTH IT. HERE'S YOUR BULLETIN:

THE FOLLOWING COMPANIES ARE NOW KNOWN TO POSSESS THE BEHAVIOURAL EQUATIONS OF THE STRONG NUCLEAR FORCE: DASTEIN, JOHNA THANHEWIT SEIMENS, BOEING, MUTIZEN, MITSUBISHI, SPARAVIZ, RENAULT GLOBECAST HONDA, GENERAL ELECTRIC, EVENT HORIZON, EMBRAER, SMB, MIKOYAN, AND ROCKWELL. IN ADDITION, THE DEFENCE MINISTRIES OF THE FOLLOWING COUNTRIES ARE ALSO IN POSSESSION OF THE BEHAVIOURAL EQUATIONS: AUSTRALIA, BRAZIL, CHINA, CANADA, ENGLAND, FRANCE, GERMANY, JAPAN, RUSSIA, USA, SOUTH AFRICA, AND TAIWAN. THE SENIOR STAFF OF ALL SEVEN MAJOR DEFENCE ALLIANCES HAVE NOW BEEN INFORMED OF THE EXISTENCE OF THE EQUATIONS, AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS.

Julia sat up in the chair, consternation acting like a static charge crawling over her skin. Dear Lord, can you read that, Grandpa?

Too bloody true I can read it, Juliet. What the hell do those prats in commercial intelligence think they're pissing about at? Are they on strike, for Christ's sake?

I don't know, she told him wearily. We never heard even a whisper, nothing. And why hasn't the English MOD been in contact with us?

AS TO THE ORIGIN OF THE ORIGINAL EQUATIONS:

TWO-THIRDS OF THE COMPANIES LISTED ARE KNOWN TO HAVE BEEN APPROACHED BY GLOBECAST. THEY WERE OFFERED A PARTNERSHIP IN THE MARKETING AND PRODUCTION OF ATOMIC STRUCTURING TECHNOLOGY IN RETURN FOR GLOBECAST PROVIDING THEM WITH THE GENERATOR THEORY. MOST OF THE SUBSEQUENT DEALS BEING STRUCK BETWEEN COMPANIES ARE CONCERNED WITH SHARING THE DEVELOPMENT COSTS OF SUCH A GENERATOR. THIS WOULD IMPLY THAT GLOBECAST IS IN SOLE POSSESSION OF THE THEORY WHICH WILL ALLOW CONSTRUCTION OF THE NUCLEAR FORCE GENERATOR. I HOPE THAT'S WHAT YOU WANTED TO SEE, MARIE ANTOINETTE.

HOW LONG HAS GLOBECAST BEEN OFFERING PARTNERSHIPS FOR? she typed.

THREE DAYS. THE FINAL BIDS ARE TO BE SUBMITTED WITHIN TWO DAYS, AND THE HIGHEST BID TO BE ANNOUNCED TWELVE HOURS LATER.

THANK YOU, BLUEPRINCE

PLEASURE'S ALL MINE. THE NEXT TIME YOU PLUG INTO THE CIRCUIT YOU ASK FOR ME, I'LL GET YOU THE BEST DEALS GOING. BLUEPRINCE SIGNING OFF.

The terminal screen reverted to its menu display. Julia focused on a spot just in front of the flatscreen, lifted out of time. She didn't even have to run the data through the logic matrix function of her processor nodes. Globecast was obviously being used as some kind of distribution agent, almost an auctioneer. Although it didn't have a monopoly, Mutizen proved that. Eduard Muller wouldn't have offered her a partnership unless he could produce the generator theory.

Two sources. Two aliens?

She let the real world claim her back. Her personality package had returned to the terminal. She scanned the read-out and laughed. It had squirted itself out of the bank's mainframe by transferring nine hundred thousand Eurofrancs from Leol Reiger's account back to Event Horizon's finance division. There was a total of fifty-seven Eurofrancs left in his account.

You have an evil mind, Juliet, even in its salami version.

And who did I inherit it from?

She began to read Reiger's account statement. The last deposit had been made two days ago, for two hundred and fifty thousand Eurofrancs. There was no name, just an account number for another Zurich bank, the Eienso.

We have a result from the memory core of bay F37, NN core one reported. There was a strange sense of confusion and high spirits in the tone. You'll want to access this.

Wait one, Julia said. She reprogrammed her personality package, and squirted it into the Eienso's mainframe. Go ahead.

There was a data package waiting in the manor's 'ware for her. Its guardian program was solid, no probe programs could break in.

Most of the files listed as stored in the assembly bay's memory core are fabrications, NN core one said. According to the Institute's administrative records, bay F37 was being used to assemble a fish breeding pen filter for New London during the time Kiley was being built. But when we opened a channel direct to the bay's core to access the suspect files, we found the package stored inside. It squirted directly into Wilholm's 'ware, knew all the third-level access codes.

Query identity? she shot at the quiescent package.

Request Snowy access, it replied.

"Royan." She said it out loud, but she couldn't hear her own voice. Sorry, Grandpa, I need the processor capacity.

Yeah, all right, he grumbled. But you still owe me a visit to the gardens, and a hug for each of the children.

I won't forget. Wipe OtherEyes. She felt him go, a spectre slipping out of her consciousness. His absence left her with a slight taste of regret in her mind. Initiate Processor Node One Data Isolation/Examination Procedure. Load Data Package.

The package squirted into her processor node, and the interfaces sealed, isolating it inside. She had written the data-bus guardian program herself, if anything tried to broach the barrier the processor would wipe instantly. Her three memory nodes contained a vast amount of confidential data, as well as indexing the personal recollections she treasured, she wasn't about to risk any kind of virus attack.

Open Integrity Monitored Link to Processor Node One.

It would mean a millisecond delay in communication while her second processor node analysed the package's output, searching the downloaded bytes for a Trojan program.

She ran a quick review of processor node one's management layout. The package had expanded to fill all the available capacity, but there had been no attempt to insinuate itself in the management routines.

Hello, Royan, she sent.

Snowy His smile filled her mind, flooding her synapses with warmth and longing, triggering a cascade of poignant associations. She sagged in the study's chair, sniffing hard.

He stood behind the smile, wearing the leather flying jacket she had bought for him. His arms lifted from his side in a gesture of helplessness, lips puckering up. The movement, like a lot of his mannerisms, had been copied from one of his physiotherapists who always shrugged like that when he asked how much longer he would have to stay in the clinic.

Well, here I am, trapped like a bug in amber, Royan said. You write good guardian programs.

I had the best teacher. I'm sorry I can't let you out. There are just so many unknowns about my current situation, I can't take the risk you are a Trojan. Not that you could do any real damage to my nodes, but I'd hate to lose the memories, and then there's the time it would take to write an antithesis to purge any virus.

You sound paranoid.

I don't know what your situation is, so I can't judge objectively.

Things getting bad, are they?

Yes. But I'm coping.

I wish I could help, but I've been in the assembly bay's memory core since April. No current data.

Why were you left in storage?

A fallback, a warning if anything went wrong. I presume something has, else you wouldn't have come looking.

I don't know. Wrong with what?

He smiled again, protectively. My darling Snowy. There's so much to show you. Here, come fly with me. He reached out with an open hand.

Impenetrable night folded about her, then the stars came out one by one. There was no horizon, when she looked down there was no ground. Drifting in space. Five slender silvery booms extended out from her, probing the vacuum.

These are the Kiley flight memories, Royan said. The approach phase. There, see?

In front of her was a bright orange-brown dot, its glow somehow malevolent. She could hear its cry over the radio bands, a crackling roar. Lonely, random.

A stillborn star weeping, Royan whispered reverently. Can you imagine what we have missed? Can you imagine the beauty of a double sunrise?

Kiley, it's back now isn't it? It came back.

Hush, Snowy. Watch, learn.

Jupiter grew, becoming a salmon-pink disc, distinct cloud-bands hovering on the edge of resolution. Moons expanded from dark stars to solid worlds, coloured grey and brown, mottled and streaked. New senses swept in, magnetic, particle, electromagnetic, overlaying the basic image with bolder shadings. Jupiter nestled at the centre of colossal energy storms. Pellucid petals of blue and pink light whorled protectively around the gas giant, the white halo of it's plasma torus, intangible sleet of ions blowing outward.

The electric gusts flowed around her, soothing her thoughts, lost in marvel.

What would our world be like, Snowy, if we could perceive it with these senses? How colourful and exciting.

Why did you come here? she asked. And why alone? I would have shared all this, I would have been a part of it with you.

Because it is I who was a part of you, Snowy. I have been since the day you rescued me. I guess I make a bad prince consort after all.

You had everything.

I had everything you gave me. This—Jupiter, Kiley—was my chance for the roles to be reversed.

To make it on your own?

Yes. To be your equal.

You always were.

No. Not really. With or without me, you would still have achieved what you have today.

You brought me the electron-compression data.

If not me, then your money would have found a way. It always does.

What did you hope to achieve? How would this space probe give you equality?

The microbes, Snowy. As soon as I heard of the Matoyaii results I knew they were genuine, that the sensor results weren't an aberration. They existed, I could feel it. Just like Greg and his intuition. They were real, alive, waiting for me. It was like being born again, I'd been given a purpose to live.

They were inside the orbit of Io now, Kiley sliding through the penumbra, falling in towards the gas giant. Perspective altered, Jupiter was definitely below now. Something so vast could never be overhead. Its curvature was flattening out, edges merging with distance, cloudscape expanding into an unending plane. if she looked up she could see Io; a volcano's mushroom fountain of sulphur just north of the equator belching upwards. A cold dragon flame cascading in glorious low gravity slow motion.

The stormband below Kiley was a pallid rust-yellow, ocean-sized elliptical cyclones and anti-cyclones of ammonium hydrosulfide grinding in conflict, buffeted by supersonic jetstreams. Clots of white cloud bloomed as whirlwind vortices sucked frozen ammonia crystals up from the hidden depths. They spilled into the churning cyclone walls like cream into coffee, diffusing and dispersing.

Then the terminator was ahead of them, a shadow straddling the nearly flat horizon. Firefly lights twinkled beyond.

Was I such a challenge to you? Julia asked sadly. I thought you were the one person in the world who saw me as me, as Snowy, not some plutocrat bitch. I was alive then, when you held me.

Your heritage is the challenge, the barrier. Not you. You, Snowy, you I love. Did you need to be told that?

I could give it all up. For you.

No, no, no.

No.

You are the one who is complete, Snowy. I envy you that. Me, I still have to find your peak And I can. I can.

Kiley glided into the umbra. It was night below, but not dark. Lightning twisted between the imperious cloud mountains, tattered dazzling streamers that illuminated thousands of square kilometres with each elemental discharge. Comets sank down gracefully amid the storms, rocky detritus from the rings sucked in by the monstrous gravity field, braked by the ionosphere, flaring purple, spitting a tail of, slowly dimming sparks.

Kiley began its deceleration burn, sending out a five-hundred-metre spear of plasma. The top of the atmosphere was only seventy-five kilometres below now. Julia could sense the massive flux currents seething through the thin fog of molecules, glowing red veins pulsing strongly.

The burn ended abruptly. The image juddered as explosive bolts fired. Empty spherical hydrogen tanks and lenticular giga-conductor cells separated, tumbling away. Small chemical thrusters fired, stabilizing the modules which remained. Kiley began its coast up to the rings.

Do you see now, Snowy? The silent savagery of this place, its hostility. Yet amid all this, there is life.

Kiley found the microbes?

Oh, yes.

Is that all it found?

How could there be more?

A spaceship, a starship.

No. Is that what you are dealing with, a starship? Your trouble.

I don't know, Royan, I really don't. I've got people working on it, Greg, Victor, Suzi.

The old team. That's nice. They're good, they'll find you an answer.

They need to find you, Royan. Where are you?

I don't know. How could I?

Then why were you left in storage? What are you here to warn me about?

Potential. The potential of the microbes. But I was so sure. I had it all worked out.

Show me.

The rock reminded her of Phobos. It had that same barren grey-yellow colour, a battered potato outline. Except it was much smaller, barely a hundred metres long, sixty wide. Kiley hovered beside it, optical sensor images degraded by the dry mist of ring particles. Wavering braids of dust motes and sulphur atoms shimmered in the raw sunlight, moving sluggishly.

Jupiter's crescent eclipsed the starfield a hundred and twenty thousand kilometres away. Even from this height, the dancing lights of the darkside were easily seen. Like Earth's cities, she thought, the idea momentarily distorting scale.

Kiley's close-range sensors were stirring, focusing on the rock. It had worn down over the aeons, its surface abraded by the gentle unceasing caress of dust. Impact craters and jagged fracture cliffs smoothed down to soft curves. One end was scarred by a white, splash-pattern of methane frost, tapering rays extending their grip over a third of its length.

Lasers swept the rock from end to end, building a cartographic profile within the on-board lightware processors.

Cold gas precision positioning thrusters fired, moving the probe closer in centimetre increments. When it hovered a metre above the rock, microfocus photon amps telescoped out of their cruise phase sheaths, aligning themselves on the surface.

The image changed, a lunar mare strewn with boulders; Julia knew she was seeing the dust motes sticking to the rock. Kiley's lightware processors began to run a spectrographic analysis program. She watched the image alter, as if it had been overlaid with a grid of square lenses. Data began to flow back into the probe's lightware as the blurred squares were examined one by one.

Kiley's photon amps quartered a square metre of the rock's surface a millimetre at a time, then it fired its cold gas thrusters and moved to the next section. Again. Again.

The fourth time, one of the photon-amp grid squares flared red. The eight surrounding ones were immediately reviewed by the spectrographic program. It registered carbon, hydrogen, and various trace minerals.

The block of squares expanded to fill her vision, regaining their focus.

There, Royan said in awe. In the middle of a desolation more profound than Gomorrah: life itself. And what life.

The photon-amp focus was at its ultimate resolution, centred on a clump of microbes. They looked like a smear of caviare, tiny spheres, tar-black, sticky; they glistened with a dull pink light thrown by Jupiter's albedo.

Call it Jesus, call it Gaia, call it Allah, said Royan. Whatever name you wish to bestow, but don't tell me God doesn't exist. The true miracle of this universe is life itself. Left to fate, to random chance groupings of amino acids in the primal soup, it could never happen. Never! We may evolve as Darwin said, man may not have been made in God's image; but that spark, that very first spark of origin from which we grew, that was not nature. That was a blessing. We are not a side product of an uncaring cosmos, a chemical joke.

You're preaching to the converted, remember? She wasn't surprised by his outburst, nor its intensity; both of them had a strong quasi-religious background; her at the First Salvation Church, him with the Trinities, it was another thread in their bond.

Kiley's sampling waldo slid out, micromanipulator claws closing around the clump of microbes. It retracted and placed them delicately inside the probe's collection flask.

Cold gas thrusters fired again, backing Kiley away from the rock. The lightware processors began to check over the propulsion systems.

You did this for me? Julia asked.

I did. Do you see now, Snowy? Do you see the why of it?

Kiley's chemical thrusters fired for a long time, lifting it out of the ring's inclination, into free space where the plasma drive could be used. Star trackers locked on to their target constellations, orientating the probe for its flyby manoeuvre burns.

No, she said, inexplicably humbled by the admission. She could sit and think, run a logic matrix, tear the problem apart. Answers never eluded her when she was in that state, a determined computer/human fusion. But somehow just the thought of expending all that effort inhibited her. Perhaps this appalling vastness of the gas giant's domain had numbed her into dormancy.

Kiley was shedding mass, discarding its primary mission modules, the sampling waldos, precision attitude thrusters, photon-amp booms, laser scanners, all peeling off like mounting scales. She watched them go, oblong boxes and spidery cybernetic arms, adding to the gas giant's ring. In a few thousand years vacuum ablation would reduce them to tissue flakes, a swarm of slowly dissipating metallic confetti.

The melancholia had really gripped now. The Kiley memory was its own Trojan, draining her.

It's like this, Snowy: the theorists, Rick Parnell and his merry band, they all say the microbes survived their flight between stars because they are simple primitive organisms.

They're wrong. I know they're wrong. How could they be primitive? They are life's pinnacle, separated from amoebas by billions of years of evolution. These microbes, Snowy, came from a dying world, travelling Christ knows how far to get here—certainly there are no burnt-out stars in our immediate section of the galaxy. Think of it, their planet, its sun growing cold, a freezing atmosphere bleeding off into space, oceans evaporated, mountains fallen. Anything that could adapt to survive such a decaying environment would have to be the toughest, most forbidding, most ruthless form of life imaginable. Then, when whatever it was that eventually triumphed—plant, or algae, or even animal—was all that was left, it made the final jump. It adapted to space. It abandoned its birthworld and achieved species immortality.

That's what we all strive for, Snowy, deep down. Continuation, the biological imperative. It drives us, preordains our movements from before we are born, it is universal and irrefutable. That, if you like, is our spiritual burden.

I think I see now, she said. The microbes are a stronger form of life than any on Earth, more potent.

And more, he said, eagerness swelling like a wave. They live—thrive—in a vacuum. I want to tame them, Snowy. I want to put them to use, make them work for us. Extraterrestrial bioware, a kind of green space technology, and all at your disposal. My wedding present, at last.

Kiley's plasma drive came on, a two-minute burn, nudging the probe in towards Jupiter and the flyby. A slingshot manoeuvre that would fling it out of the gas giant's gravity field and back to Earth.

Is that what you did when the microbes got back? she asked. Manipulate them?

So I believe, that's certainly what I intended when I left this package for you.

There must be more, then.

Yes. A diary. A daily package, so you could see my progress. And then if anything went wrong, you'd be able to see what I was working on before it happened.

Daily?

Perhaps not. But there will be accounts, lab notes, reviews, explanations, tables of results.

Where, Royan? I need them. Today. Now.

If you're following me, you'll find them.

Oh, God, she called out, furious, frightened. What have you done, what are you doing? The chaos you've caused.

The smile reappeared. That's me, Snowy. The king of misrule. You know that's me. You loved that part of me, it excited you, as your power did to me. Opposites.

God damn you! You've no right.

Don't cry, not for me. I'm not worth it. If I've screwed up, you'll put me back together again. You're so good at that.

When I find you, I won't patch you up, I'll tear you to bloody pieces.

That's my Snowy. He laughed.

Cancel Integrity Monitored Link to Processor Node One. Squirt Package into NN Core Two.

The study materialized about her again. The light pouring through the windows was oppressively harsh after Jupiter's gloaming. She blinked rapidly.

What do I want with him? NN core two asked peevishly.

Run a total review of Kiley's sensor memories.

Oh yes, Io's volcanos.

That sort of affinity had unnerved her for a week or so after the first NN core had come on line. Now she just took it for granted. The NN core would comb through Kiley's sensor memories, running comparisons against existing star maps. That was how Io's volcanos had been discovered, by accident, reviewing old Voyager pictures for a guidance plot.

Maybe, just maybe, Kiley had recorded the starship.

Julia pushed the chair back, and pulled her shoes off. She walked over to the window. Daniella and Matthew were still splashing about in the pool. And they had got that damn dog in with them. The times she'd told them.

She pressed her cheek against the window, watching them. The worry which her entrancement with Jupiter had suppressed was beginning to rise. Microbes and starships. Which was she supposed to be looking for? And Royan, uncertain enough to leave her warnings, perhaps the most chilling aspect of the whole affair. He was always so cocksure.

It wasn't as if she could offload the burden, confess to someone. "Bugger you, Royan," she snapped.

The terminal on the desk bleeped for attention. Now what?

She braced herself and turned.

Her personality package had returned from Eienso's mainframe. Clifford Jepson had paid the money into Leol Reiger's account.