The Nano Flower gm-3

by Peter Hamilton

  "Roger," Melvyn acknowledged. "Carlos, Lesley, up front. Ms Evans, could you and Rick move into the middle of the team, please?"

  Greg sensed the beginnings of resentment rustling round in Julia's mind. He ordered the communication circuit off. "Best place," he said, and held her eye.

  "Yeah, all right."

  Sinclair walked into one of the service tunnels, a simple tube three metres in diameter. Inside was a remote, basic world; walls scored by the blades of the mining machine which had cut it, a metre-wide pipe fastened to the rock at waist height by solid metal brackets, cables strung from the ceiling in long hoops which made him duck every few metres. The rock was cold, leaching warmth from the air, minute beads of condensation clung to every surface. Long oblong grids had been laid down to give a narrow level floor. Dim biolum panels were stuck to the wall every five metres. Greg could see a tiny silver trickle of water underneath the metal grid.

  He reckoned they'd gone about seventy metres when Sinclair halted.

  "Would you be so kind as to give me a hand here, Captain Greg?" Sinclair asked as he bent over. "Me back isn't what it used to be."

  He stuck a couple of fingers through the grid, and fished up a wire hoop. "Here we go. Just tug on that. It'll come up like a trapdoor."

  Greg sensed a tingle of satisfaction in Sinclair's thought currents, nothing malicious.

  "I'm registering some magnetic patterns," Carlos said. "They came on when Sinclair picked up that loop. This section of the tunnel is wired. Something just above you, sir, small and delicate. Probably a photon amp and mike. I'm jamming the processor."

  "Will they know that?" Greg asked.

  "Not unless it was military grade hardware; it should just seem as though the hardware is down."

  Greg couldn't believe the Celestial Apostles would use military 'ware. They'd know someone was coming, but not who. He got a grip on the hoop, and pulled. It was heavier than he expected.

  The grid came up with a loud squeak, revealing solid darkness. He slipped the energy dissipater suit's hood over his head, feeling the wet lick of the photon amp adhering to the skin round his eyes. His universe shifted to a weathered blue and grey grisaille, and the darkness receded.

  There was a large crack running along the bottom of the tunnel. It had been widened below the grid, chiselled away with some kind of power tool. The jagged hole was over a metre wide, rough-hewn steps leading downwards. He bled in the infrared, adding a faint pink hue to the image. But there were no hot spots, no sign of life.

  "Is there anybody on duty below?" Greg asked.

  "Certainly not, Captain Greg. What would we be wanting with look outs? We're not criminals, we're believers."

  Greg hopped across the hole to Sinclair. There wasn't room in the tunnel to get past anyone. He probed round with his espersense, the crash team invading his consciousness, a complicated mélange of emotions. Nobody else.

  "Melvyn, it's clear for the first fifteen metres."

  "Roger. Carlos, Lesley, secure the entrance please."

  The first armoured figure waddled gracelessly up to the lip of the hole, massive in the restricted width of the tunnel. Infrared picked out ruby shimmers around its joints, fluctuating at each movement. Greg wondered if any of them would be able to fit down the steps.

  Carlos held out an arm and dropped a thick ten-centimetre reconnaissance disk down into the hole. Greg watched the miniature UFO swoop into the cave, its motor glowing, tracing a crimson line that curved through the air like a bent laser beam.

  "No hazards visible," Carlos reported. He started down the steps. His arms scraped the rock on either side, sending up a burst of vivid orange sparks.

  Greg winced.

  Lesley followed with more grinding noises.

  "I see you don't intend on creeping up on my folk," Sinclair said.

  "Is it all this narrow?" Greg asked.

  "No. And you'll be going to thank the Lord for that this next Sunday."

  "I might just do that."

  It was unlike any cave Greg had ever seen on Earth. The rock had been split along natural fracture lines, crystalline weaknesses, stress lines, veins of metal in the ore. Greg imagined a tracery of hairline cracks spreading down from the electron-compression blast crater, cancerous shadows eating through the rock. Pressure differences clashing at each shock wave. Some of the internal structure around the fractures must have compacted, while others had wrenched apart in a parody of tectonic faults, creating vast empty fissures.

  For every sheer surface there was a corresponding plane above, razor-sharp ridges had left torn gouges, the angular root-pattern of shining metal veins was perfectly twinned. It was the most intricate three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle ever made. And for the first time in his life, Greg felt claustrophobic. Floor and ceiling so obviously fitted together—they belonged together. Jaws of a vice, waiting.

  Sinclair waited until all the crash team came down the steps from the service tunnel, then took a torch out of his pocket. "Now then, would you be so good as to close the grid above you there?"

  The light of Sinclair's weak beam was picked up by Greg's photon amp, illuminating the cave like a solaris spot. He saw a couple of power cables trailing out of the crack next to the steps, snaking away into the gloom. The Celestials must have spliced them into the lines up in the service tunnel.

  "We'll reel out an optical cable as we go," Melvyn said as the last team member pulled the grid back into place. "Keep our communications with the security centre open."

  "Yeah, OK," said Greg. He gestured at the red power cables. "Is this your power source?" he asked Sinclair.

  "One of them, Captain Greg. Space is awash with energy. The light, the radiation, the wind from the sun. Bountiful it is. I'm sure Miss Julia here doesn't begrudge us this mere trickle."

  "Sure she doesn't. So where were you given the flower?"

  "This way." He started following the red cables, stepping lightly over the crumpled rock.

  The cave turned out to be about fifty metres across, its floor a gentle upward slope. Sinclair was heading for a bottleneck crevice opposite the stairs. There was no dust, Greg noticed, none of the little drifts of soil and bat droppings that contaminated natural caves.

  His initial feeling of claustrophobia was fading. Bubbling up in its wake came a twinge of expectation. Foolishly he felt bright to the point of being cheerful. It wasn't quite his usual intuition, more like instinct. On the right path and getting closer. The same blind compulsion a salmon feels as the unique surge of fresh water from the mouth of its birth river finally flows around it.

  The alien.

  Was this the bewitchment Sinclair experienced? God knows, it was cogent enough to be mistaken for divine guidance.

  A grin tugged at his lips. You're enjoying this, you idiot.

  A glimmer of light was shining out of the crevice ahead of him. He pulled his dissipater-suit hood off, initially confused by the monochrome gloaming he found himself immersed in. A swirl of air cooled his sweaty face. The light coming from the crevice was blocked out as Sinclair moved into it. Greg hurried after him.

  There was a horizontal oval passage leading away beyond the entrance, its sides crimping together. Biolum globes dangled on slim chains from the roof. Their radiance was decaying into greenish blue, giving the wrinkled passage a biotic appearance, as if it had been grown, the inside of a giant root. Sound would carry here, Greg knew, the rough clanking of the crash team's boots against the rock rolling on ahead of them.

  "Is it worth it?" he asked Sinclair. "Living like this, hiding in caves?"

  "Well now, Captain Greg, we walk the park in the day, sun ourselves, dance in the rain, take our children to the beach. Nobody starves; to be sure, I even weigh in a little over the odds meself. And here we are, with Miss Julia Evans herself coming to see what it is that attracts us here. 'Tis only due to people like you that we can't live in the southern endcap. Men and women have a right to live in space. We shouldn't be persecuted for exerci
sing that right."

  Greg grunted and gave up.

  There was another cave at the end of the passage, a big lenticular bubble of air. They came out halfway up one side, looking down on a forest of sharp conical outcrops. Someone had left a cluster of biolum globes sitting on the top of the spires near the centre. Sinclair led them down to the bottom on a path which had been hacked into the rock, then straight into another passage.

  "Christ, Julia, this is one badly fucked asteroid," Suzi said. "This many catacombs, it's gotta be leaking air all over the shop. Did you know it had so many busted rocks?"

  "Seismic analysis showed there were eight major fault zones," Julia answered. "All of them occur where different strata intersect. There were five deep in the interior, two of those got excavated to make room for Hyde Cavern. This is the third, the fourth will be excavated for the second cavern, and the last is down at the northern end of the second cavern. We had to vitrify a square kilometre of Hyde Cavern's floor after it was excavated, because it bordered on an external fault zone. And we'll have to do the same thing to the second cavern when it's finished. But New London's integrity is sound."

  And Royan would know about all the seismic analysis and the fault zones, Greg thought, probably more than the Celestials did.

  He heard the water when he was still twenty metres from the end of the passage, a suckling sound that grew with each step. The passage opened out into a cave about fifty or sixty metres across. Greg thought it must have had a deeply concave floor, the surface of the dark lake which filled it possessed the kind of stillness which he associated with depth. On the other side, a streamer of water oozed out of a fissure near the roof, slithering down the wall, making the sounds he'd heard. Ripples spread out from its base, dying away before they reached the middle of the lake.

  "We're below the Cavern level," Melvyn said. "There must be a leak in the freshwater streams."

  "Integrity, huh?" Suzi murmured.

  Greg trailed after Sinclair along a crescent-shaped shelf of rock that served as a shore, running three-quarters of the way round the side of the cave. A row of bright biolum panels on the wall above him fired harsh pink-white beams out across the lake. Serpents of reflected light twisted over the damp black walls.

  A flick of movement caught his eye, and he turned in time to see a ring of ripples out on the lake accompanied by a quick chop as the water came together.

  "Hey, it's got fish in it," Greg said.

  "Indeed there is, Captain Greg, some of the finest rainbow trout this side o' heaven. I thank the Lord for his providence every night." Sinclair stood right by the edge of the water, and crossed himself. The darkness of his thought currents were a clue to just how seriously he meant what he said. "I found this lake, Captain Greg. It was shown to me, like Moses and his burning bush. I heard the call, and brought me friends down here to sanctity and solitude where we wait for the new dawn."

  "Tomorrow?"

  "Don't mock me, Captain Greg," Sinclair said smartly. "You know it's truth as much as I do. All of us are guided, one way or another." He raised his voice. "Isn't that right, Miss Julia?"

  The crash team had been filing out of the passage behind. Greg saw Rick and Julia emerge, both pulling their hoods off.

  Julia took in the cave with a stoic glance. "I came looking for my husband," she said, "Nothing more."

  "And yet this edifice you call New London cost you billions. More billions than you'll ever see returned to your corporate balance sheet. Now why is that, I wonder? Do you see beyond the physical, Julia Evans?"

  She shrugged.

  Sinclair carried on round the shore towards a brightly lit archway. This time the passage was much shorter, ten metres, with a sharp right-angle turn at the end. A wave of warm humid air blew straight into Greg's face as he turned the corner, bringing a thick, living smell of vegetation with it. Bright, hazy red light dazzled him.

  When he blinked the moisture from his eyes, he found himself standing on the top of a broad stone staircase, looking down on the biggest cave yet, easily eighty metres across, twenty high. A village of reed huts was clumped together on the far side. A ring of ten big Solaris spots on the ceiling shone with a strong gold-pink light, fluorescing the thin water vapour around them into hemispherical nimbuses. A Hollywood sunset, Greg thought.

  The floor had been levelled and covered with gene-tailored arable moss, reminding him of Greenland. Rows of circular troughs had been built around the huts for more substantial plants, young fruit trees were already flourishing, trellises supported grape vines, yellow melons hung over the edges. A herringbone network of irrigation hoses lay on the floor between the troughs, the pattern barely visible under the tide of moss.

  A broad square pedestal had been set up in the centre of the village, supporting six large flatscreens in a hexagonal arrangement. The two facing Greg looked almost completely black, though they could be showing some tiny silver smudges, he was too far away to be certain.

  Children were playing around the pedestal. Adults walked about, tending to the troughs, working in an area that was obviously a communal kitchen, with aluminium tables and benches. Greg guessed at about a hundred and fifty people all told. He wasn't prepared for it. Commune-mentality. Greens in sleeping bags, candles and camp fires, huddled into dark clefts, chewing cold fruit, zombie pupae. That was the theory he'd built.

  But this… This was designer underclass. Or perhaps not. Perhaps New London's innate perfection carried on even down here, a natural extension of the philosophy which suffused Hyde Cavern. Julia's principle of success with style.

  The Celestial Apostles did believe in the future, after all, however it diverged from the mainstream. And some of them were tech-types.

  Sinclair started to descend the stairs, stretching out his arms, laughing wildly. "I'm back. I'm back. 'Tis me returned to you all."

  The Celestials nearest the staircase turned to look, smiles turning to alarm as armour suits clumped out of the passage. Yells and cries went up.

  "No, no," Sinclair shouted. "You've nothing to be afraid of. Tomorrow is come. I've brought it to you."

  He reached the floor of the cave and started to gather Celestials to him, ruffling the heads of the children, embracing the adults. An archetypal tribe father.

  "Look," he said. "Look." And pointed.

  Julia was halfway down the staircase as the murmur of astonishment began. It spread out in a wave; the Celestials edged towards the foot of the staircase, ignoring Greg and the others. The children were shy and curious, adults incredulous. Two of the crash team moved protectively in front of Julia.

  "She knows the dawn we await is real," Sinclair said. "She came to us because our path is right."

  "You should shut the old prick up," Suzi's voice said in Greg's earpiece. "The daft sods will want miracles next. And we can't deliver."

  "Too late," he whispered back.

  Sinclair folded his arms across his chest and faced Julia. "Behold, my kingdom. Yours to command."

  Julia studied the faces in front of her, they were all quiet, waiting for her to speak. Greg sensed a curious calm settle in Julia's mind.

  "You have all waited a long time for this day," she said. "And it hasn't been without its trials. But tomorrow the change we all expect will come." And she smiled warmly.

  "Oh, bollocks," Suzi said as the Celestials started to applaud. "She's flipped. She's totally flicking flipped."

  Tears were forming in Sinclair's eyes. There were calls of "How?" coming from the crowd.

  Greg left them behind and walked into the middle of the village for a closer look at the flatscreens; the move was intuitive. All the screens were showing images of space, taken from cameras on the outside of New London as far as he could tell. There was the archipelago, and Earth, the Moon, silver flowers of industrial modules.

  "I didn't know who you were before," said a voice behind him. It was the Oriental girl in the black net top who had handed him the leaflet in the Trump Nugget castle qua
drangle. She was carrying a baby, about eighteen months old, who looked at Greg with wide brown eyes.

  "A lot of us saw you in the Cavern this afternoon," she went on. "We thought you'd stolen Sinclair from us."

  "I was just looking for him. Julia Evans wanted to see him."

  The girl smiled pertly. "I can't believe that's really her. Even though I believed in Sinclair. But it's actually happening, isn't it? All the things he told us. How is she going to save us?"

  "It's a bit complicated. All plugged in to alien technology." He moved on round the flatscreens, searching. There was something to see here, something to watch for. The impulse was irresistible.

  "An alien?" the girl asked, intrigued. "Are you making fun of us?"

  "No, I'm perfectly serious."

  "Sinclair always said that our souls would be liberated by a celestial angel; and that we would be safe up here while stars fell upon the Earth and smote it. And there would be locusts and plague, too. I was never really sure. Could your alien be the same thing as Sinclair's angel, do you think?"

  He gave the gently zany girl a sideways glance. "I've no idea, theology and xenobiology aren't my strong points. What are these flatscreens for?"

  "So we can watch for the dawn of change to emerge from the stars." The tone wasn't quite self-mocking, but close. "Perhaps your alien's star."

  "The images are real-time?"

  "Yes. Tol plugged the flatscreens into the colony's datanets."

  "Who's Tol?"

  "A brother."

  Greg stopped in front of a flatscreen showing a view of the southern hub crater, the docking spindle covered a third of the screen. "He must be a very technical lad."

  "Yes, he is. He knows everything there is to know about the asteroid's communication networks, he used to belong to one of the big channel companies." She giggled. "He's been with Sinclair almost since the beginning. I don't think he really believes in the Celestial Revelation, but he contributes as much as anyone. Five of the children are his, as well. Including Zena here." she bounced the softly cooing baby on her hip.