The Nano Flower

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Greg pressed himself against the rough surface of the passage wall as the alien behemoth squirmed past. He could almost believe neurohormone abuse had sprained his synapses into hallucinosis, abandoning him in a universe of the mind's whimsy. In a way he wished it were true, that would mean the alien wasn't real.

Two metres in diameter, a skin like coarse leather, coloured sable-black, gruesomely supple, and possessing more inertia than a rampant dinosaur. Shadowform thought currents purled along its length, distorted human idiosyncrasies, anything but reassuring in their metamorphosis. Human without humanity.

"A serpent of the night," Sinclair cried. "Satan incarnate."

Strong eddies of air whipped past Greg's face, bringing a scent of corruption, of ripe fruit mouldering on branches. He coughed, eyelids blinking against the acridity.

"Hail Mary, for all me sins I beg your forgiveness," Sinclair said. His eyes were right shut.

"It won't hurt you," Julia said, her voice raised above the rasp of alien skin slithering over rock. Her thought currents had a self-assured tranquillity Greg envied.

"Not this," Sinclair cried. "I didn't want this. You've let loose the beast. I wanted an end to madness, the start of justice."

"It's harmless," Rick said. "Believe me. That's what we've done, neutered it. You'll never see it again."

Sinclair opened one eye, and shivered.

Greg wondered just how big the alien was now. There must have been a lot of disseminator plant to give it this much bulk.

"Is it an angel or a demon?" Sinclair asked.

"Neither," said Julia. "It's hope. A very noble sort of hope."

"For who?"

"Maybe a lot of people. The whole Earth is going to be given proof we're not alone in the galaxy, and never have been. They'll see it written in the sky tonight. And God knows this world deserves to be touched with wonder."

"You're a religious woman, Miss Julia?"

"Yes, I suppose I am."

The tail of the alien rushed by. Swallowed by the darkness in seconds. Greg hadn't really appreciated how fast the bloody thing was moving. Muscles unknotted, his legs were shaking.

Circles of light from the helmet spots on the hardliners' suits shone on the opposite wall. He stepped out into the middle of the passage. The alien presence was dwindling, a dawn-washed star at the back of his mind. Julia was staring into the gloom after it.

"Regrets?" he asked.

"Not one. It was all I could do."

He put his arm round her shoulder, and gave her a little hug. Doubts were still cluttering the peripheries of her mind.

"I said you were the best when it comes to decisions," he told her.

She grinned up at him. "Thanks, Greg. And you, too, Rick. I'm deep in your debt; I would never have thought of that by myself."

"No," Rick said. "There's nothing to thank, this was the zenith of my professional life, I've justified fifteen years' work and dreaming, and you made it possible." He was solemnly intent, nearly entreating. Julia's grin became a little laboured.

"Come on, I think we'd better get going," Greg said.

"Yes," Julia said. "I must get in touch with Victor and Sean, there will be the most awful panic if I don't inform them what's about to happen."

Greg had half expected to meet the alien again in the caves. Two or three times he thought he could hear something rumbling, a sound like boulders being slowly ground together. But the only sign of its presence was an oval tunnel which had been bored into the storage cave, saving them from wriggling along the narrow crack. The rock had been sheered clean, giving it a polished-marble finish.

"Is it ahead of us?" Greg asked Julia.

"No. I want to get back to Hyde Cavern quickly."

"So it made this opening for you?"

"Yes."

Shelves and cargo pods had been smashed against the rear wall of the storage cave where the wave had flung them, walls and ceiling were dripping wet. There was no sign of any of the fruit.

"The hardliners must have breached the lake," Greg said.

"So where did all the water go?" Rick asked. "We never saw any, and we were lower down than this."

"Used up," Julia said without hesitating.

"Are you in contact with that thing?" Greg asked.

"Not exactly, but there was some feedback when I squirted my memories over. I know what it can do, and I know how I'll use it. The water is only the start. It needs a lot of organic chemicals." She sighed. "I hope it leaves enough hydrocarbons to germinate the second chamber's biosphere."

The extent of the damage in the village cave surprised Greg. It must have been a brute of a fight. The crash team were splashing about through ankle-deep water. He counted seventeen armour suits laid out in a row. One of them was small, badly scored.

Suzi had been so young when they first met, barely a teenager, frightened and determined, emotionally scarred. One of the best Trinities he had ever trained, soaking up every word, bright and quick. She never had a childhood, not the kind his kids at Hambleton were getting. Instead he taught her how to kill, then threw her straight into the front line. She hadn't known anything else, her entire life moulded by a bunch of drunken Party militia, a random fling of the dice. If they had turned down another street, ransacked someone else's hotel, it would've been so different. Suzi was smart enough to have made it in any field. Never had the chance to try. That was what they'd fought for together, back in Peterborough, so that the next generation could live real lives again. And they'd been right, Julia and her achievements proved that.

He turned to Julia as she picked her way over dead fish, button nose wrinkled in dismay. She recoiled from the heat in his expression.

"Are you quite sure you and the alien dealt with Leol Reiger?" he asked.

She nodded hurriedly, eyes dark with emotion. He hadn't seen her that vulnerable-looking for seventeen years.

Greg's earpiece hissed with static, then Melvyn was talking in a breathless voice. "I was about to send out a scout party for you. I was worried the water might have trapped you."

Three of the suited figures were walking towards them. Julia fumbled round in her hood, and found the small mike. "Do you have a communication circuit with Victor?" she asked.

"Not a chance, our fibre optic went down in the combat." He paused. "Greg—"

"I know," Greg said.

"We're leaving now," Julia said. "Get your team together." She started for the staircase.

"But there's still five tekmercs unaccounted for," Melvyn protested.

"Are all your people here?"

"I detailed four to take our wounded out, but the rest are here, yes."

"Then get them out."

"Yes, ma'am. What about the tekmercs?"

"Leave them to the alien, they won't escape."

"You found it?" Melvyn asked. Greg heard a thousand questions in his voice.

"Yes," Julia said.

"Lordy, me boy, you should have seen the beastie," Sinclair said. "A kilometre long, it was, black as hell."

"Where's Royan?" Melvyn asked.

Julia's step faltered. "Gone."

Fragments of data traffic bounced down the service tunnel as Greg led them out into Moorgate station, his earpiece picking up snatches of shouting voices. Half of New London's security staff were waiting for them. He could see paramedics easing the crash team casualties into a hospital coach, the four armour-suited members standing close by.

Victor came at a dead run as they emerged from the service tunnel. He stopped short half a metre from Julia, looking her up and down. "You're all right," he said, he sounded scared.

Julia smiled. "Yes, Victor, I'm all right."

Victor cleared his throat, and glanced back down the service tunnel. "What about Royan, did you find him?"

"Yeah," Greg said. "But he's not coming back, not with us." He sat down on one of the big pipes next to a turbopump casing. Now the tension and adrenalin drive were abating, the exertions of the last two days were making themselves felt. The immediacy was lost; always the same after combat, and that's what this had been, even without the physical side. His neurohormone hangover was nagging, cutting him off from the emotional by-play of the security staff, Victor and Julia, Rick; Sinclair's doolally inspirations. And he didn't care. He wanted out of his dissipater suit, then a bath, a drink, and a call to Eleanor. Maybe the other way round.

"And the alien?" Victor asked.

"It's agreed to leave," Julia said. "Have you got your cybofax on you?"

Victor handed it over.

"Get all these people out of here," Julia said as she entered a code into the wafer. "And clear all the other northern endcap stations as well."

"Why, what's happening?"

Her eyes glinted challengingly. "There's going to be a slight adjustment to New London."

Victor appealed to Greg.

"Don't look at me, she made the deal."

"What, with the alien?"

"Yeah."

Victor glanced back at Julia. Like a teenager hit with first-love blues, Greg thought.

Sean Francis's face appeared on the cybofax screen. "Ma'am. You're all right, yes?"

Julia sucked in her cheeks. "Yes, so it seems. Sean, order a complete evacuation of all personnel in the second chamber, miners, technicians, supervisors. Absolutely everyone, they are to use the emergency capsules. I want them out fast."

Sean looked shocked. "What's happening?"

"The alien will be entering the second chamber soon. And while I think of it, make sure the orb foundry plant crew evacuate as well. Then clear every spacecraft within a five-hundred-kilometre radius of New London, and that includes all the cargo tugs and personnel commuters. Everything, understood?"

"My God, if it's that dangerous shouldn't I order a full-scale evacuation?"

"It's not dangerous," Julia said quickly. "Just very, very big."

"Big," Sean mouthed silently. "All right, I'll initiate the procedures now."

"Thank you, Sean," Julia said. "And have Maria power up my Falcon. We'll be at the southern hub docking complex in five minutes."

"You're leaving?" Sean asked. It wasn't quite an accusation.

"Certainly not. I'm reserving a grandstand seat; after what we've been through we've earned it."

"Yes, ma'am."

Julia sat beside Greg, and slipped her arm through his. She was effervescent. It was a lovely sight, he thought, like watching time in retreat, her face smoothing out.

"How about you boys?" Julia glanced up at Rick and Victor, tip of her tongue caught between her lips. "You coming?"

Victor and Rick exchanged a nervous glance, not quite sure how to react to this teasing, girlish Julia.

Greg chuckled at them, and allowed her to haul him to his feet. Muscles creaked in protest, but she was right, he couldn't miss it. At least somebody had got what they wanted out of all this.

Space was full of bright orange sparks, a wide cyclonic circle spinning out of New London's northern hub like some giant Catherine wheel display. The Falcon glided smoothly towards them, maintaining a steady two-kilometre separation distance from the bulk of the asteroid.

"Just how many people have you got building the second chamber?" Rick asked. He was floating parallel to the cabin roof, gawping out at the pyrotechnic armada of emergency escape capsules.

Julia clucked her tongue, concentrating on the data the processor nodes were feeding her. "About three and a half thousand all told. The capsules can hold up to eight people. They've launched most of them."

Maria snorted. "A thousand vomit comets, the mind boggles."

Greg tightened his grip on the back of her chair. Maria had been grumpy since they left New London's southern hub docking crater. He got the impression she didn't like being crowded out like this. The four of them hanging on behind her, peering out through the slim, graphic-laden windscreen.

"How are we doing, Sean?" Julia asked.

"The emergency capsules are all clear," Sean's voice reported. "But there are fifteen reported cases of broken limbs, and numerous minor injuries. We very nearly had a panic situation after all the rumours which have been circulating. Our second chamber schedule has been ripped to pieces. It'll take weeks to get back to full operational efficiency. Some of the gear just isn't designed for instant shutdown, yes?"

"There is no schedule any more, Sean. So don't worry about it."

"If you say so, ma'am," he said in a tired voice. "We've suspended traffic movements around the asteroid, apart from yourself. How soon before we can start picking up the emergency capsules?"

"As soon as they pass the five-hundred-kilometre limit."

"Yes, ma'am."

The sparks around the edge of the expanding circle were dimming and going out.

"Where do you want to watch from?" Maria asked.

"Take us round to the northern hub crater," Julia said. "But not too close."

A flurry of purple lines swept across the windscreen. Greg heard the reaction control thrusters fire. The Falcon was sliding up level with the shoal of emergency capsules, the sunlit length of the mirror spindle crept into view round the northern end of the asteroid.

"I've got damage reports coming in from the second chamber's environmental maintenance section," Sean called. "Five hydrocarbon storage tanks have been breached, massive fluid loss."

"Don't send any repair crews down to them," Julia said.

"But—"

"None, Sean."

"There's another three tanks gone," a note of frustration was clogging Sean's voice. "We're going to lose them all."

"You won't," Julia replied, imperturbable.

"Jesus Christ, the command centre reports a rotational instability. The centre of gravity is shifting in the second chamber."

"Sean, please. Nothing is going to harm New London."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Julia—" Victor began.

Her hand came down on top of his. "It's all right, Victor, really."

"OK." He nodded with obvious reluctance.

Greg wanted to say something, do something to reassure Victor and the people back in the asteroid. Julia's faith was unshakeable, but it was all internal, noncommunicative. He'd believed himself, of course, when the alien had slithered past him, although there was no real way to convey his conviction. Just hang on and pray Julia could deliver, once again.

The emergency capsules' solid rockets had all burnt out, leaving their white and green strobes winking against the backdrop of stars as they deserted New London.

Another burst from the reaction-control thrusters halted the Falcon's drift. They were keeping station fifteen hundred metres out from the mirror spindle. It sliced the starfield in half, an open silver-white gridwork six kilometres long, with the tubular sand duct running down the centre. The foundry plant at the end was a shadowy profile lost in the mirror's umbra, red strobes flashing silently around its empty capsule hatches.

The Falcon rotated around its long axis, bringing the northern hub crater into view.

"Now," Julia said reverently. Her hand was still clamped over Victor's, dainty knuckles whitening.

Greg could see right down into the crater; it was larger than its southern hub counterpart, a couple of kilometres across, a deep conical bite out of the rock. The sides were smooth black glass, streaked with ash-grey rays. It was inert now, but it must have been a good approximation of hell while the electron-compression devices had gnawed it out.

A backscatter of stale light from the big mirror illuminated the sloping walls. The concave floor was three hundred and fifty metres wide, covered with a ribbing of pale metal braces that held down the spindle bearing, a fat gold foil-covered ring containing the superconductor magnets which suspended and rotated the spindle. The sand duct ran straight through the middle of the ring, disappearing into a jet-black bore hole in the crater floor.

"We've lost every datalink into the second chamber," Sean said. "And that includes the foundry plant. But something is tapping the power lines, the load is one hundred per cent capacity. We're having to powerdown some of Hyde Cavern to cope."

"Thank you, Sean," Julia sang. "It's important you maintain the power supply. The drain will only be for a few hours."

Greg couldn't move his attention from the spindle bearing. Intuitive expectation was building up inside him, despite the vestigial neurohormone hangover, the rosy glow before the dawn. Maybe Sinclair wasn't so brain-wrecked after all.

Just outside the spindle bearing ring a small circle of the crater floor cracked open, palpitating like a minor earthquake, then crumbled inwards. Greg's shout died in his throat, his view was inverted, which threw him for a moment; but the floor of the crater was vertical to the asteroid's rotational gravity. The debris should have rolled down the crater wall and fallen out of the lip, instead it had fallen horizontally.

"It's started," he said meekly.

"Where?" Julia hissed.

"Base of the spindle."

A white worm of alien flesh was rising out of the new hole, waxy and pellucid, its tip swaying slowly, as if it was searching. He thought of a maggot clawing out of an apple, then the scale hit him.

"Bloody hell," Victor mumbled.

Julia just giggled.

A second hole fell inwards. Cracks were spreading across the crater floor. The worm's tip began to expand, engulfing the nearby section of the ring bearing. More white tips were reaching blindly out of the ruptured rock.

"What's it doing?" Maria asked.

"Finishing off the second chamber for me," Julia said. "That was part of the deal. I'll have to ship up a lot of hydrocarbons to replace what it's soaked up, but I'll be saving money on the mining operation. Swings and roundabouts, it ought to show a profit in the end."

The white bulk of the alien had completely enveloped the spindle bearing ring. In fact, Greg saw the whole of the crater floor was now a single expanse of undulating white mire. There was no sign of the bracing ribs. A tremor ran up the spindle.

"I hope it won't warp," Julia said in concern.

Greg thought the alien was flowing up the spindle, until he realized it was the spindle itself which was moving. With a lumbrous inexorability that made him wag his head in disbelief, the girders began to slide past the Falcon's nose. The alien was pushing the spindle up out of the crater.

Light and shadows shifted round in the cabin as the huge foundry mirror was impelled away from the asteroid. Nobody had spoken for some time; even Sean Francis had remained quiet. Greg began to relax, soaking it all in; he would never have to buy another round in Hambleton's pub again. I was there.

A white column of alien flesh was mounting below the base of the spindle, guiding it away. He guessed it was about three hundred metres high when the top peeled open, releasing the gold ring of the bearing. It must have imparted a final shove, because he was sure the spindle picked up speed. The white column sank back into the crater. For a moment the floor of the crater was covered by a lake of white flesh, then a dimple formed at the centre and began to deepen.

"You say it's going to hollow out the second chamber for you?" Rick asked.

"Yes. Mine the rock, and refine it. Exactly what Royan dreamed of. You see, he was right. In the end." The grin dropped from her face, and she glanced at Victor for reassurance. He gave her a narrow smile.

All that was visible of the alien was a thin white rim around the base of the crater wall, the rest of it had sunk out of sight, leaving a gaping shaft. A dove-grey globe, three hundred metres in diameter, levitated up out of the centre. The scene reminded Greg of an active-hologram poster he'd bought Oliver for his eighth birthday, time-lapse Earthrise from the Moon. Sedate and unstoppable. They watched it in silence.

"I wonder what that one is," Julia said after the grey globe left the shaft. "It can't be a metal, not with that albedo."

The spindle bearing ring had cleared the top of the crater, with the globe a kilometre behind. A second globe emerged from the shaft, a light metallic blue this time.

"You mean they're all going to be different?" Greg asked.

"Absolutely, yes. Minerals and metals all separated out, with a purity our large-scale refineries can't match. That's something else which will save me a bundle."

A third globe was emerging, another metal one, its mirrorbright surface reflecting warped constellations.

Greg watched the alien disgorging globes for over three hours. Fatigue only affected his body, shutting it down. His mind remained alert, fascinated at the slow carnival of elements riding by outside. The majority of globes were either iron or silica, three hundred metres in diameter. But there were smaller globes, the rarer minerals, dark greens and yellows and blues. Eight batches of them had emerged in clusters at the same time as the ordinary globes, like satellite moons swarming round a gas giant.

It took a while for the end of the procession to register. The last globe, a brick-red colour, which Julia said was probably zircon, had travelled halfway up the crater before he noticed the alien flesh dilating out from the rim to recover the shaft.

"Is that it?" Maria asked.

"This is the last phase," Julia said. "The cells will be regrouping; they've been spread pretty thin around the second chamber for the mining and refining. It's a big area to cover, I'm glad half of it was complete before the alien started."

"Last phase?" Victor queried.

"Departure."

Greg wondered if it was fate again that put New London over the middle of the Atlantic while Europe was still in darkness, awaiting the dawn. The asteroid would be visible from four continents: Europe, Africa, and North and South America. All of them with perfect viewing conditions.

Did people make the era, or did the necessity of the time throw up the right people? Either way, Greg thought, God had singled out Julia, and no messing.

They had listened to some of the channels while the globes had risen out of the crater. The whole world knew something was going on up at New London, that the Co-Defence League's geosynchronous Strategic Defence platforms had been used for the first time, that Julia Evans herself was up there, that she'd ordered an evacuation.

She told Sean to plug the asteroid back into the communications net, mainly to try and reassure people that the emergency wasn't life-threatening. The Globecast franchise office had been transmitting pictures of the refined globes back to Earth ever since. Greg could taste a sweet irony in that. What would Clifford Jepson be thinking?

Maria turned the Falcon again, pointing its tail at the northern hub. Greg could see the seemingly infinite line of sunlit globes stretching towards Polaris, like multicoloured stars raining down from heaven.

A bulge rose in the middle of the alien flesh, quickly distending, lengthening. It formed a conical spike six hundred metres high, then stopped. The tip began to lean over, tracing a widening spiral as the asteroid's rotation carried it round.

Greg could sense the anticipation flooding out of the alien, a mix of excitement and fear. Julia's personality had given it emotions, it could feel, and it was scared, nerving itself up.

Nothing lasts for ever, he told it sorrowfully.

The alien jumped. A vast spasm rippled down its flanks, hitting the base of the crater wall, and it let go. It was changing shape almost at once, contracting into a sphere four hundred and fifty metres in diameter.

Greg reckoned it was travelling a lot faster than any of the globes; its trajectory taking it away from New London's rotation axis and the line of globes. When it slipped above the crater rim and into the direct sunlight the flesh changed colour, darkening to ebony.

"Do you want to follow it?" Maria asked.

"No," Julia said. "We can see from here."

New London was seven kilometres behind it when the alien began its metamorphosis. The flesh flowed again, flattening out into a lentoid shape. Greg saw a circular silver stain emerge at the centre and split into six arms, spreading out to the rim.

"That looks like metal," he said.

"It is," Julia agreed. "Titanium motes that are only a few atoms in diameter. The cells can manipulate them to form a surface coating quite easily."

Greg gave her an uneasy glance, wondering again just how much of a union existed between them.

The alien was still expanding, a disk two kilometres wide now, the titanium completely covering one side, facing the sun full on, painfully bright to look at.

"I did the right thing, didn't I, Greg?" Julia asked.

"Yeah, both ways. I've had to sit back and endure what happened between you and Royan, my friends. That hurt, Julia. And this thing," he waved a hand at the windscreen. The alien was retreating from New London, still growing, ten—fifteen kilometres across now, at least. That made it hard to believe it was leaving. It was such an overwhelming presence, breaking down his conviction of a neatly completed deal. "Look at it. We couldn't have let that loose in the solar system. It's too powerful. You can't ignore it; either it would have engulfed us, or we would have abused it, little people twisting it to serve parochial needs. And there are a lot of little people in the world, Julia. Maybe that's why you stand out so much."

"Maybe."

Size was the killer, forcing him to accept his own insignificance. New London was big, but the asteroid was something that had been tamed, he could admire that. But now he could finally appreciate Royan's internal defeat, his broken soul. Royan had known what was at stake, that was why he'd been prepared to use the gamma mines.

The alien had become two-dimensional, a veil of titanium atoms that lacked the substance of a mirage. He guessed there must be a net of cables to support the sail and provide some degree of control. But they were probably no thicker than a gossamer thread. Invisible and irrelevant.

A hundred and twenty kilometres in diameter, and it didn't even seem to be slowing down. A flat white-hole eruption.

Maria backed the Falcon eighty kilometres away, a leisurely thirty-minute manoeuvre. When they stopped, the alien was two hundred and sixty kilometres in diameter.

The measurement had to come from the Falcon's sensors, its dimensions defeated the human eye. Such vastness perturbed his comfortable visual references, cheating him into believing the sail was down. In his mind it had become a featureless silver landscape; not an artifact or a living creature. Logic warring with belief. He was truly in alien country now.

Four hundred kilometres in diameter. The sail engulfed half of the universe; powerful waves of sunlight would roll across it, washing over the Falcon and dazzling Greg before the windscreen's electrochromic filters cut in.

He experienced the figment kiss as the sail reached five hundred kilometres in diameter. A strand of thought spun out from the knot of cells at the centre of the sail, the one he couldn't see, but knew was there. Julia's teasing lips brushed his.

And he was standing on a beach of white sand with the deep blue ocean before him, stretching his arms wide in primal welcome to the rising sun, soaking his naked body with its warmth. He dived cleanly into the water, striking out for the shore beyond the far horizon, abandoning the past with giddy joy.

The ghost haze of solar ions gusted against the alien sail, beginning the long push out to the stars.