The Mandel Files

by Peter F. Hamilton

  Julia could see the duplicate toroids building, swelling out of the rings which had latched on to the originals. The last shell opened to expose a single molecular globe at the core, individual atoms arranged in what resembled a geodesic framework. Then all the twinned toroids were peeling apart. Two complete sets of the unfolded genes were now diffused throughout the cell. She thought it looked as if the membrane had been filled with a pair of crumpled oil stains, unable to merge, slithering endlessly round each other. Then they began to contract. It was the unfolding in reverse, shell segments recombining with bewildering speed, weaving round each other in a perfectly synchronized dance, snapping shut.

  She let it all happen without protest, absorbed by the complexity and dynamics. Life reduced to fundamentals, its fabric more grandiose than any human cathedral. Royan was right, it was hard to believe nature, chance, could produce this chemical mechanism unaided.

  When it was finished there were two gene spheres with nucleus membranes gradually thickening around them. The cell began to elongate, the separate nuclei pulling apart. A pinch began halfway between them. Then there were two cells, just touching.

  Fascinating, isn’t it? Royan asked; he used a hollow tone.

  I’ve seen terrestrial cell duplication. This is no different Evolution obviously results in the simplest solution to the problem each time. A galactic constant. She observed the two cells; their organelles seemed firmer now, more compact. Black rings were beginning to flood each nucleus again.

  You’ve grown very cynical, said Royan. The point of all this is that the second shell pattern is a viable one. I only initiated the first division; as you can see the reproduction mechanism carried on.

  And it grew into a plant, she said. One that looked like a cross between a fern and a cactus.

  How did you know?

  You carried it with you when you left the North Sea Farm.

  Oh.Trust Victor to find that out. He’s keen, that one.

  What’s all this supposed to prove? she asked.

  Come on, Snowy! The second shell was a completely new species. Doesn’t that strike you as being incredibly neat? The alien genes are arranged in a numerical sequence. Since when has mathematics governed nature?

  Life is chemistry, she said. Everything can be reduced to numbers and formulae in the end. That’s what genes are, ultimately, chemical numbers. The microbe’s genetic structure is neater than ours; that’s only to be expected in something a couple of billion years more advanced than we are. The second shell plant is probably the form the microbe evolved from. Human DNA contains all sorts of vestigial codes-tails, pelts-and we still haven’t got rid of our appendix.

  No way, Snowy. Nothing as complex as a plant could devolve into a microbe in one generation.

  There’s all that garbage in the outer shell’s toroid sequence. How much did you say, ninety per cent of it? That will represent the intermediate stage, the devolution process; the garbage has to come from somewhere, after all.

  Possibly, but it’s still very strange.

  What about the third shell? she asked. Did you try cloning that?

  Not when this recording was made, I haven’t had the time. Perhaps I’m a little bit afraid. That plant unnerved me, Snowy. lt shouldn’t exist, it really shouldn’t.

  Did it flower, Royan? Did the bloom remind you of us, how we used to be?

  There was a bud forming when I left the Farm, that’s all I know.

  You sent me a flower-

  Because I love you.

  No, it’s a warning, like all these packages. What could you be warning me about? The asteroid disseminator plant? What happened to that project?

  Success, I think I used modified microbes in symbiosis with gene-tailored landcoral.

  He flipped the image again. She was tiring of his pixel virtuoso act, her teeth pressing together somewhere outside the void of this node generated universe. Patience was the one quality she always cherished, like water it could erode any resistance, a weapon she could always rely on. But now she wanted all this settled, finished, over with.

  It was the microbe again, that same black tacky globe Kiley had scooped up. But different this time. Flattened slightly. And the surface texture was silkier, she was sure. A second appeared beside it; egg shaped. This one was even darker. They turned slowly below her perception point, giving her an all-over view.

  This is what I was after all along, Snowy. The flat one has had its miners/absorption process beefed up. While the ovoid’s thermal conversion efficiency has been enhanced by a factor of five. I combined them with landcoral in a sandwich arrangement The landcoral will act as a basic organic framework, growing a crust over the asteroid which provides a skeleton for the microbes to grow on. Its outer surface will support a layer of the thermal conversion microbes to energize the polyp’s nutrient fluid, rather than photosynthesis, while on the inside, the other microbes gobble up the rock. I had to sequence in a second capillary network to transfer the dissolved compounds to the discharge pores. Later I’ll add collection pods, and hopefully some kind of filter mechanism so you get pure deposits in each pod. Gases might be a problem, though. But this will do for now.

  This symbiosis arrangement is a bit crude, isn’t it? Julia asked. Somehow, wholehearted praise would have seemed like surrendering.

  It’s only a proof of concept prototype, Snowy. The first generation. I’m not even sure if it will work externally, exposed to a vacuum. Maybe we’ll have to gnaw at asteroids from within. Once I’ve demonstrated its viability, we can get the research divisions to work on refining it. Top-grade geneticists should be able to splice all this into a single genetic structure.

  Event Horizon genetic research divisions, Julia thought privately. She reviewed the arrangement again, implications sleeting through her mind, if Royan was right, if the microbe’s traits could be loaded into landcoral cells the way he said, producing a single space-adapted bioware organism, then there really would be rivers of metal pouring into the global economy. Enough to support Western-level consumerism right across the globe. Nice idea. No, nice theory, she corrected herself sharply; she’d had too many dreams stall and degenerate into mediocrity to believe in technology based utopia ideals now.

  For all his determination, Royan wasn’t rooted in the real world. The central concept was sound, but the ancillary industries-the fleets of spaceships needed to pick up the metal and minerals, the industrial modules necessary to convert it into foamedsteel landing bodies, more recovery fleets, more factories to use it, the energy they would need-that would take time and money to organize. Besides, New London had cubic kilometres of ore in reserve already; and there were four more asteroid capture missions currently underway. Taken together, just those five asteroids would produce enough exotic metal and raw material to supply global demand for another twenty years.

  Sounds too good to be true, she said carefully. Have you considered what it would take to put it into practice?

  Nothing else, he said. The answer she knew he would give her.

  Don’t you see, Snowy? The asteroid disseminator plant is a living machine. The very first. I’m on the verge of creating nanoware here, Snowy, the most powerful technology there is. Once you’ve cracked this you can do anything, it’s pure von Neumannism, self-replicating, and capable of producing anything you can supply a blueprint of. After they’ve been developed properly the cells can be programmed to dismantle an asteroid, or carve out a chamber like Hyde Cavern; they can be grown Into an O’Neill colony or a teaspoon and anything in between; you can put together minute specialist clusters that’ll float through the human bloodstream repairing tissue damage, airborne spores that can break up the world’s carbon dioxide, reverse the Warming. Nanoware rules the micro and the macro, Snowy. And this splice is only the beginning.

  She wondered how that would square up against atomic structuring technology. Were the two complementary, or antagonistic? If she didn’t get the nuclear force generator data for Event Horizon, could s
he counter with asteroid dissemination? Save the company that way. More questions, problems.

  And who would benefit? The turmoil from one new revolutionary technology was bad enough, introducing two that were this radical would produce utter chaos. She remembered what had followed Event Horizon’s success with the gigaconductor; whole companies becoming obsolete overnight, workers thrown on the dole; it had redefined economies all over the planet. And that was in a time when the power and transport industries had declined to virtually nothing.

  But right now the global economy was powerfully upbeat, expansion was running at nine per cent, there was investment, confidence, stability. The planet was in better shape than it had been for decades.

  In any case, present-day cybernetics was a form of large-scale von Neumannism. And at least with cybernetics there was room for people-designers, maintenance crews, civil engineers who built the factories. Their hierarchy might be top-heavy with ‘ware-literate staff, but there were still jobs for the semi-skilled, semi-literate, some dignity, keeping them off the dole. What would they do in a world where you could get a ten-bedroom mansion just by planting a nanoware kernel in the ground, then watch it grow like a flower?

  Should I suppress this before it starts? Do I have the right, or even the wisdom? That’s what it boils down to. Another bloody decision I have to make. Always me.

  She felt the blood hot in her cheeks. All right, you’ve modffied the microbes in the laboratory. Does this arrangement actually work in practice?

  It has up until the moment I was recorded, he said. I grew a small prototype in the Farm laboratory’s clone vat, checked that the two modified microbes functioned the way they were supposed to. I had to do a bit more tailoring, a few modifications. But the penultimate stage is completed. That’s why this recording exists, to tell you I’m ready to see if the asteroid disseminator plant works, if the polyp and the microbes will operate as an integrated unit. I’m going up to New London to run some field trials.

  Then something must have happened, she said.

  The image of the microbes popped, Royan was standing before her perception point. Snowy, if it has, if I’ve screwed up, then do whatever you have to.

  Yeah.

  I love you, Snowy.

  I’ll remember.

  He hung his head, and vanished.

  Calculated, she reminded herself sternly, a coldly logical emotion.

  CHAPTER 31

  The arcade was cut seventy metres directly into Hyde Cavern’s southern endcap; there was no moving walkway, just a broad floor of green and red stone tiles.

  Hard cavernlight shone through a rosette of stained glass above the entrance, casting a colourful dapple over the shoppers milling near by. Big shiny brass fans spun slowly above the hanging biolum globes, circulating the air. It was cool, quiet and relaxing.

  The small shops reminded Charlotte of the ones she had toured in Rodeo Drive, exclusive and exquisite. If they had a fault, it was the sheer monotony of tastefulness; everything blended, colours and shapes. It would be so easy to get sucked in. Designers had built their reputations on those interiors. Some of the names were familiar. Parent companies treating New London as a prestige showcase. After all, there were a lot of their clientele who came up here for casinos and low-gravity hotels, simply for the cachet of having left Earth. But seeing a 300k.p.h. Lotus Commodore for sale in a space colony that didn’t even have roads appealed to her sense of the ridiculous.

  She walked past the car showroom window, almost smiling. Teresa Farrow, her bodyguard from the crash team, gave the streamlined, royal-purple sports car a fast glance, shaking her head. There was something about the hardline woman, a sort of vagueness, which convinced Charlotte she was another psychic. Her mind vigilant on some unknown level, alert for trouble.

  But she hadn’t objected when Charlotte said she wanted to come down to the arcade. It was practically underneath the Governor’s Residence anyway.

  The American Express office was halfway down the arcade on the right. Charlotte pushed the glass door open, walking straight into the reception area. It looked like the office of some ancient legal partnership, dark wood panels and shiny red leather chairs.

  “You’re going to think me terribly silly,” she said, in her gushy voice, to the uniformed girl behind the desk. “But I left my card on Earth. I must have forgotten it when I changed into my shipsuit.”

  The girl smiled brightly. “That’s quite all right, madam.

  We’re here to help.”

  Obtaining a replacement didn’t take long. A data construct to fill out. A thumbprint check, the company’s memory core on Earth confirming she was who she said she was, that she had an account with them. Cancelling her original card, wherever it was by now. Being nibbled by perplexed fish, presumably.

  Two minutes later she was back out in the arcade, heading for a Toska’s store she had noticed earlier. It had fluffy white carpets, purple marble pillars, huge gilt-framed mirrors, a thousand choices. And best of all the assistants understood, they knew the best ranges for her age group, what suited her hair and figure.

  She sat on the ashgrove chair sipping a mineral water, and watched the life-sized hologram of herself as it ran through permutations-tops, trousers, shorts, skirts. The assistants made suggestions about colours, possible accessories.

  She wound up taking a body-hugging top with a modest neck line, made out of cloned snakeskin. The material was dry and thin, but stretched like rubber, its grey and cream scales had a wonderful mart shine, and it was so soft. The hologram flicked through a catalogue of skirts and shorts, and she chose a cornflower-blue mid-thigh skirt to match. It was a sportsy combination, light enough for Hyde Cavern and showing off without posing. Consummate, she decided; Baronski would have been proud, God bless him. Just looking at herself in the mirror was a heady boost. Her life righting itself again. It was a shame about having to wear tights, the skirt was great for her legs; but running round the Colonel Maitland had given her a lot of scratches and not all of the dermal seal had flaked off.

  She paid with her new Amex, adding a pair of Ferranti shades as a last thought. The appalling shipsuit went into a Toska’s bag, and she carried it out into the arcade, resisting the temptation to leave it behind.

  Back in the arcade she looked longingly at an Arden salon, wishing she had time to do something about her hair, the cap had simply killed it dead. Tomorrow, she promised herself.

  It was ten past three when Charlotte got back to her room in the Governor’s Residence. Suzi’s room was on one side, Rick Parnell’s on the other. Thankfully there was no one about to see her. It wasn’t that Greg had forbidden her from going out, but the implication was there. The sensation as the door closed behind Teresa Farrow was reminiscent of the one she used to have sneaking out of the care home, a giddy relief.

  Her room had black and green walls, an elaborate jungle print; the Scandinavian furniture was cut from redwood and left unvarnished, giving it a raw feel. The paradise birds in the large white cage by the balcony doors started to shrill wildly.

  Charlotte blew them a kiss and picked up her flight bag from the bed. “Just going to clean up,” she told Teresa Farrow, and skipped into the bathroom.

  She was in two minds whether or not to call Fabian. She felt as though she was exploiting him, deliberately abusing his grief to help her achieve her revenge. But when she had suggested they get even with the Dolgoprudnensky, the two of them alone in their room at the platform’s clinic, she’d seen that insouciant spark return. The prospect of retribution had animated him. It wasn’t the sort of hope she particularly wanted to see in him, but it was hope of a kind. And that number-cruncher brain of his had rapidly cooked up several possible scenarios. She’d made suggestions of her own, helping to refine and fine-tune the idea. But now the time had come to actually commit herself, doubts were rising.

  No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy. More than one of her patrons had told her that; surprising how many of
them were ex-military. And this wasn’t something they’d ever have a second chance at. It had to work first time.

  It was risky.

  Charlotte raised her hand, the bioware sheath was like a two-fingered glove, flesh coloured; there was a constant warm itch underneath. No, she couldn’t forget what Nia Korovilla had done, what she’d been ordered to do, and by whom.

  She put the seat down on the toilet, sat on it, and unzipped her flight bag. Below the Levi’s and neatly folded Organic Flux Capacity sweatshirt was her gold Amstrad cybofax. Heaven alone knew how the wafer had stayed inside her shorts pockets while she was charging around the Colonel Maitland, but there it was, the only possession she had left that was truly hers.

  She entered Fabian’s personal number, then ran the scrambler program. The Amstrad’s screen fuzzed with static, then stabilized to show Fabian’s face. He was smiling nervously.

  “Crikey, Charlotte, I thought you were never going to call. Anastasia docked an hour ago.”

  “I’ve been busy.”

  “Any sign of the alien?”

  “No, none. We’re going to go out looking for my Celestial priest in quarter of an hour.”

  “Oh. Well, good luck.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Are we going to do it?”

  “Yes, Fabian, we’re doing it.”

  “Terrific! Switch to conference mode and call Kirilov. Have you still got the number?”

  “Yes,” she said with some exasperation.

  She pulled the number he’d given her from the cybofax’s memory, and entered it in the phone circuit. The Amstrad’s screen split in two, Fabian on one side, the other remained blank.