The Nano Flower

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The SETI office was livening up. Rick Parnell's original staff of twelve had been complemented with twenty people from the Astronautics Institute's astronomy department. The two teams were working together to realign Event Horizon's radio and optical telescopes on Jupiter. The SETI people were elated at the prospect of practical hardware-orientated work at long last, the astronomers coldly angry at having their observations disrupted. Tempers were getting frayed. It didn't help that Victor had called in Eddie Coghlan's security programmers to prevent any possible data leakage from the new linkages being established between the observatories and the SETI office.

Victor stood in the doorway to Rick Parnell's office, next to his bodyguard, and watched the shirtsleeved crew knuckle down. The tense hustle of activity was beginning to resemble a bank's trading floor. It was always the same routine: one of the terminal operators would sit up straight and wave a hand in some unknown sign language, then a knot of technicians and managers would form around them, arguing hotly. Tiger teams, loaded with authority and practical knowledge—in theory. There would be data requests fired into the terminal, thick folders broken open and consulted, cybofaxes performing simple calculations. When the decision was finally made the knot would break up, and another would form around a different terminal.

Victor was irksomely familiar with the scene, crisis management, or more often damage assessment and limitation. It was going to be a long afternoon for the SETI office, and an even longer night.

It said a lot for Julia's management that when something as outré as a search of Jupiter did spring up out of the blue, she could simply plug the appropriate division into the top of the company's command structure and get results. He was even mildly surprised at the way Rick had coped with the unexpected burden. Give the man his due, he hadn't started swaggering round like a mini-Napoleon.

Rick was sitting at his desk, jacket draped over the back of his chair, its collar getting more crumpled every time he leaned back. Both his terminal cubes were alive with whirling graphics. Every now and then he would nod encouragingly at them.

"What happens to the radio telescope data after you receive it?" Victor asked.

Rick looked up. "It's squirted direct into one of the Institute's lightware crunchers. We've been sponsoring university groups to write signal analysis programs in preparation for Steropes. All we have to do is pull them from our memory core, load them into the cruncher, and run the raw signal data through them. Of course, establishing their integrity in the lightware cruncher is going to take time; but my people are on top of it. We should be ready to start in a couple of hours."

"And the optical data?"

"Standard image comparison technique. Take two pictures of the same patch of sky a week apart, and see what's changed, if there's anything new appeared. We're in luck there. Aldrin did its last Jupiter survey five years ago, and it's all on file in the Institute's library. Galileo mission control is going to repeat that survey for me, starting in three and a half hours. So if your alien has arrived in the last five years, we should be able to spot it—providing it's larger than a hundred metres in diameter."

"How long is the comparison going to take?"

"Virtually instantaneous, given the processing power we've got available these days." He held up a hand, palm outward. "But the survey itself will take a couple of days."

Victor didn't say anything. He'd been expecting the whole process to take at least a week. Astronomy had always seemed a glacial science to him; impressive incomprehensible machinery focusing on remote segments of the sky, providing building blocks for abstruse papers on cosmology. Arguments about how the universe was put together invariably went way over his head, but Julia thought it was important enough to finance to the tune of fifty million New Sterling each year.

"They were none too happy about that," Rick said.

Victor roused himself. "Who?"

"Galileo mission control. I've screwed up their observation schedule good and proper. There are items that were requested five years ago on that schedule."

"Tough. We all work for the same lady, pure science departments are no different to anyone else. It's her telescope, it looks at whatever she wants."

Rick clasped his hands together, grinning. "Lord save us from these heathen hordes."

Victor sat in front of the desk, staring up at the big hologram of Steropes. "Is the data from the radio telescopes coming through all right? Requisitioning astronomical signals isn't exactly a familiar field for my people."

"Yes, quite all right." He put the cubes on hold and bent down to open a desk drawer. "You want a beer?"

"No, thanks."

Rick produced a can of Ruddles bitter. "That Julia Evans, she's quite something."

"Yes."

"I mean, not just smart, attractive with it." He tugged the can's tab back.

"Yes."

He swallowed some beer and looked thoughtful. "Do you think Royan is still alive?"

"He was a week ago."

"Right." Rick took another swallow. "I want to ask you something. I meant to ask Julia Evans, but, well… I didn't know quite where I stood with her. The thing is, I suppose she's assembling some sort of team to contact this alien when we find it."

"I've no idea; but put like that, somebody will have to meet it."

"I want in," Rick said quickly. He bent forwards over the desk, knuckles whitening as he gripped the Ruddles tightly. "Damn it, I'm loyal, I'll even keep quiet about it afterwards if that's what's needed. But I want to be there."

"I'll tell her. I should think she would've included you anyway. Who else has spent a lifetime thinking about aliens?" He wondered if it had come out sarcastically; he hadn't intended it to.

Rick searched his face intently for a moment, then sat back. "Thanks."

Julia Evans Access Request, Victor's processor node told him.

Expedite Channel.

Hello, Victor, how's it going? Julia asked.

Surprisingly well. The astronomy department won't be asking you to their Christmas party, their schedules have been shot to pieces; but the radio signal data is beginning to come in. Rick and his team are preparing to shove it through some kind of specialist analysis program. The optical review is going to take longer, couple of days, Rick says.

OK, fine, first the good news. Royan's Kiley probe is back, and it brought some microbes.

How did you find that out?

Your idea. There was a personality package waiting in bay F37's memory core.

One of Royan's?

Yes.

What did he say?

That he was going to modify the microbes into something useful. A more advanced form of bio ware. And that he wasn't totally confident about the outcome, which is why he left the package, so that if anything goes wrong we'll be able to understand the problem.

There are more packages?

Yes, but he didn't say where. Have you tracked down that spaceplane crew?

No, I've been organizing security for the SETI office, but I'll get on to it. Did Royan say if there was a starship orbiting Jupiter?

No, but the Kiley's sensors probably wouldn't have seen it anyway, they were attuned to the micro, not the macro. My NN cores are reviewing the star tracker memories. I don't hold out much hope.

This isn't making a lot of sense yet. At what point did Royan make contact with the starship aliens?

No idea, but we might find out soon. I've located Jason Whitehurst, and he's agreed to meet Greg and Suzi. Get this, they can put in a bid for Charlotte Fielder.

A bid?

Yes. Jason was preparing to sell her to the highest bidder. Fortunately the auction hasn't started.

Ye gods. Anything else?

Leol Reiger is being paid by Clifford Jepson. And I think there's a connection between the alien and atomic structuring. It's too much of a coincidence having them both turn up at the same time, virtually the same day.

I can buy that. So we're in a race?

Beginning to look that way.

OK, Julia, I'll find that spaceplane crew, and your NN cores can access every memox core they ever plugged into.

Right. Let me know when you've got them.

Straight away, count on it.

I always do, Victor.

Cancel Channel to Julia Evans.

Rick was crumpling up his Ruddles can, head cocked to one side, giving Victor a shrewd stare.

Victor got up and went to stand by the window, looking down on Building One's assembly hall. "Which is bay F37?" he asked.

The can landed in the bin. "That one." Rick pointed.

"Fine. Do you know the members of the assembly crew that put Kiley together?"

"Some of them, yes."

"You'd better introduce me, then."

The manager of assembly bay F37 was William Terrell, who told them it was the Newton's Apple which had boosted Kiley into orbit. Victor accessed the Institute's 'ware, and tracked the spaceplane down to Spaceplane Preparation Building Two where it was being readied for flight.

He and Rick took a personnel cart over to the big hangar-like structure. Flight bay twelve, where the Newton's Apple was being prepped, was a large white-walled chamber with overhead hoists and five large empty cargo pod cradles in the centre.

Newton's Apple was a Clarke-class spaceplane, a swept-wing delta planform with a span of fifty metres, sixty metres long. The fuselage was a lo-friction pearl-white metalloceramic, gleaming brightly under the big biolum panels in the ceiling. Maintenance crews in blue overalls were checking round the undercarriage bogies. Red power cables as thick as Victor's arm were plugged into hatches in the underbelly, charging up the giga-conductor cells. The rear clamshell doors were already shut, its cargo pods loaded.

The flight cabin was small, with room for five people. They found the captain, Irving Diwan, at the pilot's console running through preflight checks.

People always gave Victor a fast distrustful glance when they were introduced to him. It was one of those things—royalty got bows, channel stars got asked for autographs, lovers got kissed, security men got nervous assessments. He had learnt to accept it, part of the routine.

It didn't happen with Irving Diwan. The captain had purple-black skin, a shaved scalp with a single dreadlock on top, worn in a flat spiral; when he stood up he was fifteen centimetres taller than Victor, putting his eyes level with Rick's. He grinned with delight when Victor showed him his card.

"Head of security? What have we been caught doing, sympathizing with Welsh separatists?"

Meg Knowles, the payload officer, gave him a sharp accusatory stare. He shrugged back.

"I'm here to ask about the Kiley probe," Victor said. "Do You remember it? I need to know if it was recovered by the Newton's Apple."

"Sure," Meg Knowles said. She was sitting at the horseshoe-shaped payload monitoring console behind the pilot's seat. "I remember the Kiley recovery, it was in early April. I had to snag it with the arm. I'd never seen space hardware in such a state before. Its particle-protection foam had taken a real pounding in Jupiter's ring."

"What about unloading it?" Victor asked. "Can you remember which flight bay you used?"

"There are only five equipped to handle space probes. I think we used number seventeen," she said.

"Great." Open Channel to Julia Evans. "How about after that? Do you know where the Kiley was taken?"

Meg Knowles paused, staring off into space.

NN Core One On Line. Sorry, Victor, my flesh and blood self is dealing with Michael Harcourt right now. I can interrupt if it's important.

No, don't bother. This is more relevant to you in any case. I've learned that Kiley was recovered this April by a Clarke-class spaceplane called Newton's Apple, they unloaded it in flight bay seventeen.

Fine work, Victor, I'll plug into the spaceplane and the flight bay's 'ware, see if there's another of Royan's personality packages waiting.

Right, and I'll see if I can find out what happened to it after it was unloaded. Cancel Channel to Julia Evans.

"Hey," Irving Diwan protested. The payload monitoring console had activated itself, data was flowing through its four cubes so fast it was an unreadable blur. "What the hell?"

"Leave it," Victor ordered as Irving Diwan reached for the console's keyboard.

"But the flight 'ware doesn't respond to my node orders. It's malfunctioning."

"No, it isn't. Leave it."

The pilot exchanged a glance with Meg Knowles who had steeled her expression into tight-lipped pique.

"Did you do that?" Rick asked; he sounded more amused than anything.

"Sort of." Victor turned back to Meg Knowles. "The unloading?"

"Yeah, right. I have to stick around, you know. Not like these glam pilot jockeys. While a payload is on board, I'm responsible for it. That means I'm here for loading and unloading. I was interested in Kiley, the first sample from a gas giant. So I was surprised by the way it got played down, no channel news teams, no Institute planetologists. You'd think there'd be somebody. But there's just Royan and the regular flight bay crew. I stuck with Kiley until it was in the payload facility room. They drained out the reaction mass and discharged the giga-conductor cells; then it was put into an ordinary commercial container and driven off."

The data in the console's cubes froze, Victor saw a dark green sphere suspended inside one of them, a honeycomb tracery of minute folds furrowing its surface. It winked out. The console shut down. Irving Diwan swore softly, and shook his head.

"Did Royan say where he was taking it?" Victor asked.

"No, but the container was from the North Sea Farm company, its logo was on the side. You know, that daft one with the seahorse. That's why I remember it. I thought it was pretty odd, sending a space probe to a sea farm."

"Yeah," Victor said. A blank container would have been the obvious choice. So Royan had wanted it to be noticed. Laying a trail in bright flashing red neon. It was all a game, even something as momentous as alien microbes, a game, new and fascinating. He felt real anger then. Royan was risking everything Julia had built, and at the end, win or lose, he wouldn't particularly care. He'd just move on to whatever proved bright and glittery enough to capture his attention next, leaving everyone else to shovel up the shit.

His cybofax shrilled loudly. Emergency code. Victor pulled the wafer out of his jacket pocket, and scanned the security division status display rushing down the little screen. The crash teams had launched to rescue Greg and Suzi.

"Come on!" he called to Rick, and took the metal stairs out of the cabin three at a time.