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? / 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 ln 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.
&nb
sp; 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, KiIey-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 thi
rd 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 itseif. 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 itseif. 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.
The Mandel Files Page 109
