The Nano Flower

  "What's a genesis pulse?"

  "Special message, a shout that says "Here we are!" to the universe at large. You use a dish like the Arecibo to beam a strong signal at a star cluster with a high quota of Sol-like stars. Put in plenty of data about local life and culture, star co-ordinates—you do that by triangulating with known quasars. We send out a couple every year. Give it a millennium, we might even get an answer."

  "So there's no way you can run a search for me, then?"

  Rick Panel swivelled his chair, and tapped the hologram of the giant dish. "This is Steropes, we've spent twenty per cent of our budget and three years refining the design. You persuade our lovely lady boss to part with two billion pounds New Sterling and in five years I'll have it up and running for you. If you've lost a hydrogen atom inside the solar system, this beauty will be able to find it for you."

  Victor held back on the urge to shout. "I meant, starting today."

  "God, no. No way, sorry."

  "Shit."

  Rick Parnell clenched his hands tight, as if he was praying. "OK, I've been straight with you. Now, what have you got? What made you come in here and ask me this?"

  "We are in possession of certain evidence which suggests that first contact has already been initiated."

  Rick Parnell's lips moved around the words, repeating them silently. "Oh, God. What evidence?" he croaked.

  "An artefact."

  "What fucking artefact?"

  "A biological one."

  Rick Parnell lent right over the desk, fired by excitement and trepidation. "High order?"

  "Pardon me?"

  "I mean, more advanced than the microbes?" His hands spun for emphasis, urging Victor on like a football coach.

  Victor felt a real tingle of alarm. Greg had once explained to him how his intuition manifested itself, a cold that wasn't physical. This was something similar. "Slow down. Which microbes are we talking about?"

  Rick Parnell let out a groan and flopped back into his chair. "After the turn of the century the Japanese NASDA agency sent an unmanned probe called Matoyaii out to Jupiter. It was designed to measure the near-Jupiter environment, from the ionosphere out to it's plasma torus. That's a pretty active area, saturated with radiation, the planetary radio emissions; and then there's the magnetosphere, the flux-tube, small moons, the ring bands. Fascinating to see how they all interact. Thing was, when mission control manoeuvred the Matoyaii in close to a ring particle the on-board spectroscope started to register some pretty odd hydrocarbon patterns. Nothing conclusive, nothing final, you understand. Intensive analysis wasn't possible, the sensors weren't designed for microscopic examination. And the hydrocarbon deposits were minute. Specks really, like dust motes. If they were microbes, they could've been captured by the gravity field, and settled on the ring particles."

  "They were alive?" Victor asked.

  "More than likely. The theory's been around since the middle of the twentieth century. High-order organic forms couldn't survive interstellar transit, they couldn't contain enough energy, not for the time-scales and distances involved. But something like a microbe or a germ, they might just make it. Go into a kind of suspended animation between stars, they're small enough to withstand freezing. The microbes were even put forward as an hypothesis for flu epidemics, literally a plague from space."

  "So there is life on other planets," Victor said, half to himself.

  "Now you question it!" Rick Parnell exclaimed in exasperation.

  "What we found might have been a joke, an elaborate bioware construct. But not any more, not with you telling me this."

  Rick Parnell smiled affably. "Well, we'll know about the microbes for certain when Royan gets back, of course."

  Victor looked up sharply, meeting a sincere expectant gaze.

  Chapter Eleven

  The bishop was from the trendier wing of the Church of England, a Campaign for Orbital Disarmament badge prominent on his lapel. His wiry grey hair blew about in the light breeze as he stood at the microphone at the front of the stage. He kept slipping youth-culture sound bites into his speech in an effort to hold the younger members of the audience.

  It sounded bizarre to Julia, like a Victorian toff getting enthusiastic about the lifestyle of New Age communes. Her early years had been spent with the First Salvation Church in Arizona ; it was more cult than religion, but she had picked up a basic belief in Christian teachings and ethics which had never been discarded. She found the bishop squirm-inducing, almost making her feel ashamed about her faith.

  She'd chosen to sit with the rest of the parents, in a plastic chair set out on the browning grass of Oakham School's playing fields. The governors had wanted her up on the makeshift wooden platform with the bishop and other dignitaries, or at least in the front row of the seats. She turned that down with a flatness which left them thinking they'd mortally offended her. Worried glances had flown like startled sparrows.

  People were so stupidly sensitive. Did they think she was some sort of mafia princess who kept a black book?

  There were about five hundred parents listening to the speeches and waiting for the prize giving. The men in grey tropical-weave suits, putting a brave face on the bishop's verbal meandering; wives in light colourful dresses and elaborate hats, smiling brittlely.

  She had deliberately fled into the middle of them, seeking anonymity; sitting with Eleanor in the hope she would blend in. Some chance. Between the two of them, she and Eleanor had six children to manage, then there were her seven hard-liner bodyguards. Her party had taken over an entire row of the hard chairs.

  Eleanor fanned herself with the programme, glancing at her slim Rolex. "He can't go on for much longer," she muttered out of the corner of her mouth.

  "No, they'll lynch him soon," Julia agreed.

  "Will the hardliners do it?" Matthew, her eight-year-old son, asked eagerly.

  "Don't be silly," Anita Mandel told him imperiously. "Aunty Julia was being sarcastic. Don't you know what sarcastic is?"

  "Of course—" Matthew began fiercely.

  Julia and Eleanor silenced them before the argument got out of hand. Julia put her arm round her son, and gave him a hug. He resembled his father so closely, a constant raw-nerve reminder of all she was missing.

  Eleanor took another look at her Rolex. "They'll be in Monaco now."

  "I didn't want to ask Greg to do this, you know."

  "I know," Eleanor said wearily. She put her hand on her belly and shifted uncomfortably in the chair.

  Julia felt even more guilt crystallizing around her, it was like a prison cell she had to carry round.

  The bishop sat down to a sharp burst of applause. The headmaster rose and began his introduction to the prizes. Julia gave Daniella a final check over to make sure her uniform was tidy. Daniella had won her year's history prize. Julia was secretly thankful it wasn't the economics prize; that would've been too much like Daniella bursting a gut for the subject she believed her mother wanted her to excel in. Not that she would be unhappy if Daniella showed a natural inclination towards the qualities necessary for a career in Event Horizon, she just didn't want the girl to feel constrained.

  Julia leaned in towards Eleanor. "It's foolish of me, in a way. I'm relying on Royan as a psychological crutch. Find him, and the world is going to be at rights again. Fat chance. Find him, and we find the flower's origin. Our problems will only just be beginning."

  "There's no going back now," Eleanor said. "Like it or not, the human race isn't alone any more."

  "Yes, but why all this secrecy? Why not just land on the White House lawn like they do in the channel shows?"

  "The eco-warriors would laser them dead for bringing a million gruesome new varieties of bugs to the planet."

  "That's something," Julia said thoughtfully. "Suppose we never can meet in the flesh, that the risk of bacteriological contamination is too high. All we'll ever be able to do is trade information."

  "That's one answer for you, then," Eleanor said. "They
aren't here to trade, they're listening, tapping our datanets and taking the information. The cosmic equivalent of data pirates."

  And who better to help them than Royan, Julia thought. "Yeah, could be. Let's hope it is something that simple."

  * * * *

  The marquee was full of parents and pupils, standing with drinks in their hands, talking with animated voices. The sixth formers who were leaving were busy swapping addresses, promising faithfully to stay in touch. They had that slightly apprehensive air about them. Julia could remember the feeling herself: the day her grandfather had died, his body at least, and she was the sole legal owner of Event Horizon. The future was loaded with promise, but it was still totally uncharted, dark country. Scary at that age.

  Eleanor's crack about contamination kept running through her mind. Surely there must be some risk from unknown germs? Yet Royan had sent her a freshly cut flower. He couldn't have been worried.

  She took a sip of mineral water from her glass, and pretended to study one of the paintings lined up along the back of the marquee, a hummingbird in flight, wings blurred as if in motion. It was part of the school art department's exhibition of work by the pupils.

  Open Channel to SelfCores, What did the genetics lab report say about humans picking up a possible infection from the flower?

  Virtually zero, NN core one answered. In fact the problem is reversed. There was no equivalent to our bacteria in the flower. Appendix fifteen suggested that symbiotic bacteria, such as the terrestrial nitrogen-fixing rhizobia, have been incorporated into the parent plant's genetic code; and the natural resistance to parasites has evolved and strengthened to such a point where the parasites died off.

  Wouldn't the parasites evolve in tandem? she asked.

  If they had, then the laboratory should have found some on the flower. There were none, ergo they have died off.

  So we are a bacteriological threat to the aliens?

  Possibly. There are three options. One, that contact with us would be extremely dangerous for them, that they will have no immunity to our primitive diseases. Two, their immune systems are so advanced that our germs and bacteria will be no threat at all. Three, that our respective biochemistry is so different that there can be no cross-infection. However, given that the flower's cell composition was so similar to terrestrial cells, for example the inclusion of cellulose and lignin in the cell membrane, the third option is the least likely.

  So even if full contact is established, we may not be able to meet?

  Insufficient data, you know that, NN core two chided.

  Yes. Sorry, I just hate this floundering around in the dark.

  We know, remember?

  Two of you do, she countered, teasing.

  They know, Juliet, but I care.

  Thank you, Grandpa.

  We have some good news for you, NN core two said.

  Please, I could do with some.

  Greg has discovered the name of the courier, a Charlotte Diane Fielder. She is one of Dmitri Baronski's girls.

  Baronski? Julia knew the name, his operation, but he was very second-rate. Or rather, he made sure he stayed second-rate. Always targeting the idle rich and society figures. Never doing anything that would bring a kombinate security division down on him. A man who'd found his niche, feeding off parasites. This is slightly out of his league, isn't it?

  Yes, if he is involved. Charlotte Fielder has been lifted from Monaco, and it was a very professional deal. Greg suggested that the same people who took a sample of the flower are now holding Fielder.

  Where is he now? she asked.

  On his way back to Monaco's airport. He is going to visit Baronski to see if he knows Fielder's current whereabouts.

  OK, keep monitoring the situation.

  "Marry me," an American voice said. "Marry me and let me take you away from all this."

  Julia turned from the hummingbird to see Clifford Jepson standing at her side, grinning ingratiatingly. The president of Globecast was in his forties with a round berry-brown face, thick black hair combed back, channel newsman smile. She knew it was all a forgery, cosmetic face and hormone hair.

  Like Julia, Clifford Jepson had inherited his position; and Globecast had nearly doubled its share price in the eight years since he'd been its president. He also carried on his father's underclass arms trading, which was less welcome news. Julia had used him to supply the Trinities. And she'd questioned the wisdom ever since.

  She really liked his father, her uncle Horace. But Clifford Jepson seemed to think that it was a friendship which he'd inherited along with Globecast. He hadn't, but his position made him just equal enough to talk without being stilted.

  Julia glanced round, and saw Melanie Jepson talking to the headmaster. She was a beautiful woman, early twenties, blonde hair so fine it was almost white, a spectacular figure.

  "You've got it all wrong, Clifford," she said drily. "Middle-aged businessmen with midlife crises are supposed to leave frumpish old wives for dazzling young actresses, not the other way round."

  "Nothing frumpish about you, Julia. You know I've always held a torch for you."

  "Spare me, you'll be calling me a real woman next."

  He looked at the hummingbird painting. "Not bad, sharpen up the colours, add some life to the eyes, could be the makings of a decent artist there. Nice to see the old forms being adhered to. Kids these days, all they do is talk to their graphic simulators."

  "Bloody hell, crook and art critic. Clifford, what are you doing here?"

  He waved his glass in the direction of his wife. "Getting the kids down for entry. I'm based in Europe more often than not these days. So we thought they could board over here, give them a chance of some permanency in their lives. Trouble is, the entrance list for this place is getting kinda full these days. Can't think why."

  That was another aspect of life Julia didn't enjoy. She'd chosen Oakham School because it was good, and near Wilholm, and Greg and Eleanor sent their children to it. Daniella and Matthew wouldn't be friendless when they arrived, nor would they have to board, a notion she couldn't bear. The arrangement had been confidential, but within a week of Daniella starting every entry place for the next ten years had been booked solid. Rumour had it that places for Matthew's year had been traded for over a quarter of a million Eurofrancs.

  "Clifford, Bonnie's only two," she said.

  "Thirty months, and every bit as pretty as her mom."

  "Oh, well, I wish you luck. It's a good school, Daniella and Matthew enjoy it here." She walked on to the next painting, a rusting petrol-driven car with a Coke bottle growing out of its roof. A couple of parents were engrossed with it. The woman nudged her husband who looked up, and gave a start when he saw Julia. She gave them a flicker of a smile.

  "Julia, I was being serious about us."

  Why couldn't he take the hint? "I'm a mother with two children, remember?"

  "You're a single parent, who's been alone for eight months." His face was sober.

  "What do you know about it?"

  "That he's a fool. That he won't be coming back."

  "He will."

  "Face it Julia, eight months."

  "Eight months or eight years, it makes no difference to me. I'll wait."

  Clifford Jepson gulped down the remainder of his drink. When she looked closely, she saw he was strangely apprehensive. Almost frightened.

  "Can we talk?" he asked.

  "Not if you're going to make any more indecent proposals."

  "It's important, Julia."

  The last thing she wanted was to talk shop. Oliver, Anita, and Richy had pulled Eleanor away to see the exhibitions various departments were staging, Matthew and his bodyguard had gone with them. Daniella and Christine were part of a big group of girls in a corner of the marquee, Daniella's bodyguard wearing a tired tolerant expression.

  "Five minutes," she said.

  The sports field was almost deserted. A group of school maintenance staff had already started to dismantle
the stage, ten boys were stacking up the chairs under the supervision of a master. Ahead of her, the first Xl's cricket square was a bright strip of emerald, standing out from the rest of the field's parched grass. Over to one side the score board was still showing the result of the last match. It was one of the old-fashioned affairs, a small boxy pavilion dating from the last century, with junior boys scurrying about inside changing the numbers round.

  Matthew had to explain how it worked the first time she and Royan came to watch a match. She was amazed at the primitiveness of it, the scorer even used a big paper ledger to keep the runs in. Royan, of course, had loved the idea. It'd been a good afternoon, she remembered, after the match they'd taken Matthew, Daniella and some of their friends to have tea at a café in the town. A big noisy party, where the children had all eaten too much cake. None of them cared who she was.

  Julia sat on one of the wooden seats dotted around the pitch's boundary line, tugging the brim of her hat down against the glare. The air was dusty, tickling the back of her throat.

  Clifford Jepson sat beside her, grimacing at the stains of ancient bird droppings on the cracked wood. A line of their bodyguards had fanned out behind them to form a phalanx against casual intrusion by any of the other parents.

  "Marriage was only half the proposition," he said. "It's a start, an opening to something much bigger, grander."

  "Merging Event Horizon and Globecast so our children could take over the world. No, thank you, Clifford. You forget I could buy Globecast if I really wanted to."

  His PR smile turned tight. "Will you hear me out? I'm not talking about Globecast. Right now, I'm holding something that's gonna grow and grow. It's big, Julia, the biggest. I'm offering you a partnership."

  Open Channel to SelfCores. I think you three had better listen to this. "A partnership in what?" she asked.