Ryker spirals lower. Torreya is standing frozen in the middle of a shaggy meadow, her hands pressed to her cheeks. A cloud of rainbow-hued butterflies is swirling around her, disturbed by her frantic passage.
‘Hundreds,’ she breathes tremulously. ‘Hundreds and hundreds.’
The expression on the face of both siblings is one of absolute enchantment. Laurus recalls his trip through Longthorpe, its soiled air, the stagnant puddles with their scum of dead, half-melted insects. She has probably never seen a butterfly in her life before.
His cargo agents are instructed to scan the inventory of every visiting starship in search of exotic caterpillars. The estate is going to be turned into a lepidopterist’s heaven.
*
Today Torreya is all rakish smiles as she brings in Laurus’s breakfast tray. He grins back at her as he takes the candy bud she holds out to him. This is going to become a ritual he guesses.
‘Another one?’ Camassia asks.
‘Yes!’ Torreya shouts gleefully. ‘It’s a fairy tale one. We’ve been thinking about it for a while, so it wasn’t difficult. We just needed yesterday to make it right. The butterflies you’ve got here in the estate are beautiful, Laurus.’
Laurus pops the candy bud in his mouth. ‘Glad you like them.’
‘I would have loved to see the forest Laurus talks about,’ Camassia says wistfully.
Laurus notes a more than idle interest in the girl’s tone.
‘Why didn’t you say?’ Torreya asks.
‘You mean you’ve still got one?’
‘Course. The machine keeps growing them till Jante tells it to stop.’
‘You mean you don’t have to fill in each one separately?’ Laurus asks.
‘No.’
He sips his tea thoughtfully. The strange machine is even more complex than he originally expected. ‘Do you know if Jante’s father transcribed a candy bud about how the machine was built?’
Torreya screws her face up, listening to some silent voice. ‘No, he didn’t. Sorry.’
Laurus accepts that it isn’t going to be easy, he never thought it would be. He will have to assemble a team of high-grade biotechnology experts, the most loyal ones he can find. They will analyse the machine’s components and genetics to discover its secrets. Such research will have to be done circumspectly. If any hint of this breakthrough escapes, then every laboratory on Tropicana will launch a crash project to acquire candy-bud technology.
‘What are we going to do today?’ Torreya asks.
‘Well, I’ve got a lot of work to do,’ Laurus says. ‘But Camassia and Abelia are free, why don’t you all go out for a picnic.’
*
In his youth, Laurus had been a prince of the Eldrath Kingdom, back in Earth’s dawn times when the world was flat and the oceans ended in infinite waterfalls. He lived in a city of crystal spires that was built around one of the tallest mountains in the land. The royal palace sat atop the pinnacle, from where it was said you could see halfway across the world.
When the warning of marauders reached the citadel, he led his knight warriors in defence of his father’s realm. There were thirty of them, in mirror-bright armour, flying to war on the back of their giant butterflies.
The village on the edge of the Desolation was besieged by trolls and goblins, with fires raging through the wattle-and-daub cottages, and the harsh cries of battle echoing through the air.
Laurus drew his silver longsword, holding it high. ‘In the name of the King and our Mother Goddess, I swear none of this fellowship shall rest until the Rok lord’s spawn are driven from this land,’ he shouted.
The other knight warriors drew their swords in unison, and shouted their accord. Together they urged their steeds down on the village.
The trolls and goblins they faced were huge scarred brutes with blue-green skin and yellow poisonous fangs. But their anger and viciousness made them cumbersome, and they had no true sword skill, just an urge to maim and kill. Their wild sword swings were always slow and inaccurate. Laurus weaved amongst them, using his longsword with terrible accuracy. A quick powerful thrust would send his enemy crashing to the ground, a dark yellow stain bubbling out of the wound.
The battle raged all day amid the black oily smoke, and flames, and muddy cobbles. Laurus eluded all injury, although the enemy directed their fiercest assaults against him; enraged by the sight of his slim golden crown denoting him a prince of the house of Eldrath.
Night was falling when the last goblin was dispatched. The village cheered their prince and his knight warriors. And a beautiful maiden with red hair falling to her waist came forward to offer him wine from a golden chalice.
Laurus could not forget the sensation of flying that incredible steed, with his long black hair flowing free, cheeks tingling in the wind, and mighty rainbow wings rippling effortlessly on either side of him.
*
And he’s still flying. The three girls are below, resting in the long grass under the shade of a big magnolia tree. There’s a little lake twenty metres away, tangerine-coloured fish sliding through the dark water.
Ryker glides to a silent halt in the branches above the girls. None of them have seen him.
‘I was frightened at first,’ Torreya is saying, ‘especially at night. But after a while you get used to it, and nobody ever came into the factory site.’ She’s reciting her life, listening to Camassia and Abelia recounting tall tales. All part of making friends.
Laurus listens to the giggles and outraged groans of disbelief, longing to be a part of the group.
‘You’re lucky Laurus found you,’ Camassia says. ‘He’ll look after you all right, and he knows how to make the most from your candy buds.’
Torreya is lying on her belly, chin resting on her hands. She smiles dreamily, watching a ladybird climb up a stalk of grass in front of her face. ‘Yes, I know.’
Abelia jumps to her feet. ‘Oh, come on, it’s so hot!’ She slips the navy-blue dress from her shoulders, and wriggles out of the skirt. Laurus hasn’t seen her naked in daylight before. He marvels at the brown skin, hair like ripe wheat, perfectly shaped breasts, strong legs. ‘Come on!’ she taunts devilishly, and makes a dash for the lake.
Camassia follows suit; and then Torreya, completely unabashed.
For the ability to transcribe this scene into a candy bud, Laurus would sell his soul. He wants it to stretch for ever and ever. Three golden bodies racing across the ragged grass, laughing, vibrant. The shrieks and splashing as they dive into the water, sending the fish fleeing into the deeps.
This is where it will happen, Laurus decides. In the shade of the magnolia blooms, her body spread open like a star, amid the moisture and the heat.
He’s not sure he can wait two years.
*
Laurus has instructed his staff to set up the machine in the mansion’s coldhouse conservatory, where it is sheltered from the sun’s abrasive power by darkened glass and large overhanging fern fronds. Conditioners are whining softly as they maintain a temperate climate. Spring is coming to an end for the terrestrial plants growing out of the troughs and borders. The daffodils are starting to fade, and the fuchsia flowers are popping.
Two flaccid olive-green elephant ear membranes have been draped over a metal framework above the seeds beds, photosynthesizing the machine’s nutrient fluids. A tube patched in to the overhead irrigation pipes supplies water to the internal systems when they run dry.
‘Does it snow in here?’ Torreya asks.
‘No,’ Laurus says. ‘There are frosts, though. We switch them on for the winter months.’
Torreya wanders on ahead, her head swivelling from side to side as she examines the new-old shrubs and trees in the brick-lined border.
‘I’d like to have some people take a look at your machine,’ Laurus tells her. ‘Will you mind that?’
‘No,’ she says. ‘What is this tree?’
‘An oak. They’ll duplicate it for me, and I’ll sell the candy buds the new machines produce. But I?
??d like you and Jante to stay on here. You can earn a lot of money with those fantasies of yours.’
She turns off into a passage lined by dense braids of cyclamen. ‘I don’t want to leave. They’re not going to dissect the main corm, are they?’
‘No, certainly not. They’ll just sample a few cells to obtain the DNA, so we can understand how it works. They’ll start in a week or so.’
And then will come the task of setting up production lines. Selecting the information to transcribe. Finding fantasy-scape artists as skilful as Torreya and Jante. The establishment of multi-stellar markets. Decades of work. And to what end, exactly? Laurus suddenly feels depressingly old.
‘It’s valuable, isn’t it, Laurus? Our machine, I mean. Camassia says it is.’
‘She’s quite right.’
‘Will there be enough money to buy Jante new eyes and legs?’ Torreya asks, her voice echoing round the trellis walls of climbing plants.
Laurus has lost track of her; she’s not in the cyclamen passage, nor the forsythia avenue. ‘One day,’ he calls out. The thought of giving Jante eyes is an anathema, the boy might lose his imagination.
That is something else he is going to have to research carefully. Torreya and Jante can hardly provide an endless number of different fantasies to fill the candy buds once he starts mass-producing them. Although in the three days they have been at the estate they have dreamt up three new fantasies.
Will it only be children, with their joy and uninhibited imagination, who’ll be the universe’s fantasyscape artists?
‘Some day soon, Laurus,’ Torreya’s disembodied voice urges. ‘Jante just loves the estate. With eyes and legs he can run through all of it himself. That’s the very best present anyone can have. It’s so gorgeous here, better than any silly candy bud land. The whole world must envy you.’
Laurus is following her voice down a corridor of laburnum trees that are in full bloom. Sunlight shimmers off their flower clusters, transforming the air to a lemon haze. He turns the corner by a clump of white angel’s trumpets. Torreya is standing beside the machine, and even that seems to have thrived in its new home. Laurus doesn’t remember its organic components as being so large.
‘As soon as we can,’ he says.
Torreya smiles her irrepressible smile, and holds out a newly plucked candy bud. Refusing the warmth and trust in her sparkling eyes is an impossibility.
*
The starling is already eighty metres off the ground. Laurus thinks it must have owl-eye transplants in order to fly so unerringly in the dead of night like this.
Ryker hurtles down, and Laurus feels feathers, malleable flesh, and delicate bones captured within his talons. In his rage he wrenches the starling’s head clean off. The candy bud which the little bird was carrying tumbles away, and not even Ryker can see where it falls.
Laurus contents himself with the knowledge that they are still well inside the estate’s defensive perimeter. Should any animal try and recover the candy bud, the estate’s hounds and kestrels will deal with them.
He drops the starling’s body so he will have a rough marker when the search begins tomorrow.
Now the big eagle banks sharply and heads back towards the mansion in a fast silent swoop. The ground is a montage of misty grey shadows, trees are puffy jet-black outlines, easily dodged. He can discern no individual landmarks, speed has reduced features to a slipstream blur.
He curses his own foolishness, the satellite of vanity. He should have known, should have anticipated. The Laurus of old would have. Three days Torreya and Jante have been at the estate, and already news of the candy buds has leaked. Programmable neurophysin synthesis is too big, the stakes are now high enough to tempt mid-range players into the field. There will be no allies in this war.
Ryker soars over the last row of trees and the mansion is dead ahead, its lighted windows glaringly bright to the eagle’s gloaming-acclimatized eyes. Camassia is still fifty metres from the side door. There’s no urgency to her stride, no hint of furtiveness. One of his girls taking an evening stroll, nobody would question her right.
She’s a cool one, he admits. Kochia’s eyes and ears for eighteen months, and Laurus never knew. Only the importance of the candy buds made her break cover and risk a handover to the starling.
Laurus thinks he still has a chance to salvage his dominant position. Kochia and his Palmetto operation are small, weak. If Laurus acts swiftly the damage might yet be contained.
He activates his cortical chip’s datalink. ‘Mine,’ he tells the enforcers. But first he wants the bitch to know.
Ryker’s wings slap the air with a loud fop. Camassia jerks around at the sound. He can see the shock on her face as Ryker plunges towards her. Hand-sized steel talons stretch wide. She starts to run.
*
Laurus is visiting Torreya in her room to see how she is settling in. Over four days the guest bedroom has metamorphosed beyond recognition. Holographic posters cover the walls, windows looking out across Tropicana’s northern polar continent. Dazzling temples of ice drift past in the sky-blue water. Shorelines are crinkled by deep fjords. Timeless and exquisite. But Laurus is the first to admit that the images are feeble parodies compared to the candy bud fantasies. The new pastel-coloured furniture is soft and puffy. Shiny hardback books of fictional mythology from his library are strewn all over the floor. It’s nice to see them actually being used and appreciated for once. Every flat surface is now home to a cuddly Animate Animal. He thinks there must be over thirty of them. There is a scuffed hologram cube on the bedside dresser, containing a smiling woman. It seems out of kilter with the deliberate cosiness organic to the room. He vaguely recalls seeing it at the old office building.
Torreya clutches a fluffy AA koala to her chest, giggling as the toy rubs its head against her, purring affectionately.
‘Aren’t they wonderful?’ Torreya says. ‘All the people in the house have given me one. They gave some to Jante, too. You’re all so kind to us.’
Laurus can only smile weakly as he hands her the huge AA panda he’s brought. It’s almost as tall as she is. Torreya stands on the bed and kisses him, then bounces on the mattress as the panda hugs her, crooning with delight.
‘I’m going to name him St Peter,’ she declares. ‘Because he’s your present. And he’ll sleep with me at night, I’ll be safe from anything then.’
The damp tingle on his cheek where she kissed him sets off a warm contentment.
‘Shame Camassia had to go,’ Torreya says. ‘I like her a lot.’
‘Yes. But her family need her to help with their island plantation now her cousin’s married.’
‘Can I go and visit her?’
‘Maybe. Some time.’
‘And Erigeron’s away as well,’ she says with a vexed expression. ‘He’s nice. He helps Jante move around, and he tells funny stories, too.’
The thought of his near-psychopathic enforcer reciting fairy stories to please the children is one that amuses Laurus immensely. ‘He’ll be back in a couple of days. He’s driven over to Palmetto to sort out some business contracts for me.’
‘I didn’t know he was one of your company managers.’
‘Erigeron is very versatile. Who’s the woman?’ he asks to deflect further questions.
Torreya’s face is momentarily still. She glances guiltily at the old hologram cube. The woman is young, mid-twenties, very beautiful, smiling wistfully. Her hair is a light ginger, tumbling over her shoulders.
‘My mother. She died when Jante was born.’
‘I’m sorry.’ But the woman is definitely Torreya’s mother; he can pick out the shared features, identical green eyes, the hair colour.
‘Everyone back in Longthorpe who knew her said she was special,’ Torreya says. ‘A real lady, that’s what. Her name was Nemesia.’
*
After lunch, Laurus took Torreya down the hill to the city zoo. He thought it would make a grand treat, bolstering her spirits after Camassia’s abrupt
departure.
In all his hundred and twenty years Laurus had never found the time to visit the zoo before. But it was a lovely afternoon, and they held hands as they walked down the leafy lanes between the compounds.
Torreya pressed herself to the railings, smiling and pointing at the exhibits, asking a stream of questions. She would often narrow her eyes and concentrate intensely on what she was seeing, which he came to recognize as using her affinity bond with Jante, letting her brother enjoy the afternoon as much as she did. It would be interesting to see if the visit resulted in a new fantasyscape.
Laurus found himself enjoying the trip. Tropicana had no aboriginal land animals, its one mountain range above water was too small to support that kind of complex evolution. Instead its citizens had to import all their creatures, which were chosen to be benign. Here in the zoo, terrestrial and xenoc predators and carnivores roared and hissed and hooted at each other.
Torreya hauled him over to one of the ice cream stalls, and he had to borrow some coins from one of the enforcer squad to pay for the cornets. He never carried money, never had the need before.
Ice cream and an endless sunny afternoon with Torreya, it was heaven.
*
Laurus wakes in the middle of the night, his body as cold as ice. The name has connected; one of his girls was called Nemesia. How long ago? His recollection is unclear. He peers at Abelia, a child with a woman’s body, curled up on her side, wisps of hair lying across her face. In sleep, her small sharp features are angelic.
He closes his eyes, and finds he cannot even sketch her face in the blackness. In the forty years since his wife died there have been hundreds just like her to enliven his bed. Used then discarded for younger, fresher flesh. Placing one out of the multitude is an impossibility. But still, Nemesia must have been a favourite for even this tenuous yet resilient memory to have survived so long. The Nemesia he is thinking of stood under thin beams of slowly shifting sunlight as she undressed for him, letting the gold rain lick her skin. How long?
*
While Laurus was an entity of pure energy, he’d roamed at will across the cosmos, satisfying his curiosity about nature’s astronomical spectacles. He had witnessed binary sunrises on desert worlds. Watched the detonation of quasars. Floated within the ring systems of gas giant planets. Explored the supergiant stars of the galactic core.