The Mandel Files, Volume 2: The Nano Flower

by Peter F. Hamilton

  ‘Great,’ he said sourly. ‘At least I know why I’m being shot at.’

  ‘I don’t care what price Whitehurst puts on Fielder, Greg. But you’ve got to come back with her. The ident card we gave you is linked directly to the company’s main account, so pay him whatever he asks and don’t worry about it. Besides, I don’t think he really understands what he’s gone and got himself involved in. Unless that airship is armed like a destroyer, he’s seriously underestimated how eager we all are to get our hands on Charlotte Fielder.’

  ‘OK, Julia, it’s your money. And please try to find out who we’re up against. If we know, we can watch them, find out what their moves are.’

  ‘I’ll do what I can.’

  ‘OK, I’ll call you after we get Fielder.’

  She ordered the phone off.

  Access Security File: Reiger, Leol; Tekmerc. She closed her eyes and let the profile open out in her mind. Victor had assembled a surprisingly large amount of information on the tekmerc, including a psychological report. Greg had been right, Leol Reiger’s mentality bordered on sociopathic.

  That’s a mean-looking bugger, Juliet. What’re you planning on doing about him?

  Leol Reiger’s deals seemed to glow like blue neon in the formless grey mist of the node interface; the number of fatalities involved, those confirmed plus estimates. Forty-eight in the last nine years. Rumours of more, when he was just an ordinary hardliner, before he came to Victor’s attention as a deal maker.

  Exactly what I told Greg. Turn Victor loose on him. But that’ll take time, for the moment I want to know who’s hired him.

  Assemble Personality Package.

  She was back in the isolation of the ’ware universe, the blank depthless emptiness. Her processor nodes were integrating the package, following the formula Royan had devised; freezing and copying specific segments of her thought patterns, digitizing them.

  In its compressed, dormant, state she could access the composite’s multiple data planes, all neatly folded in on each other; sequences of memory, response logic, identity, motivation. They were slices of her mind, the crucial portions; subconscious inhibitions and emotional reticence rooted out, discarded. It was a streamlined edition of her own mentality.

  Julia formulated her instructions carefully, loading them into the personality package. She withdrew, leaving herself alone with Leol Reiger’s sleazy profile. Her eyes flicked open, reducing the profile to a smoky shadow overlaying the warm browns of the study.

  A representation of the personality package was floating in one of the terminal’s cubes, a dark green sphere with a multi-segmented surface, reminding her of an insect eye.

  She began to type on the terminal, summoning up a finance transfer order, then entered Leol Reiger’s Zürich bank account number, reading it direct from his profile.

  You’re giving Leol Reiger ten thousand Eurofrancs? her grandfather asked.

  That’s right. She watched the representation of the transfer order form in the cube, a translucent blue starfish. Easiest way I know of accessing the bank’s mainframe. The arms of the starfish were closing around the personality package.

  Bloody hell, I don’t know what the world’s coming to.

  There was no sign of the intricately rucked green sphere; its surface had been covered by a smooth blue shell. Julia tested the assembled composite with a couple of security probe programs. Its integrity held.

  You know a better way? she asked.

  No. A mental sigh accompanied the admission.

  Right, then. She tapped the download key, and the data composite squirted into Leol Reiger’s Zürich bank.

  Julia made a brief kissing motion after it. There was a nostalgic thrill in watching it go. She hadn’t done any serious hotrodding for years. If only the conspiracy theorists knew. Julia Evans’s hobby was criminal data piracy. They’d have a field day with that one.

  She could have routed the request through Victor’s division, put pressure on the bank to squirt over Leol Reiger’s account data. Corporate entities did co-operate to a reasonable degree, especially with regard to tekmercs. But Zürich banks still clung to their independence. It would take a lot of pressure, and time.

  A hiss of compressors penetrated the window. She turned to see the Pegasus carrying Victor Tyo and Dr Parnell lifting of the lawn. The scene looked vaguely surreal, like something out of a five-star resort advert; all it lacked was a couple of smiling models posing at a table by the pool, sipping something potent and cool.

  Julia ran her hands through her hair, and turned back to the terminal. Time to find out just how widespread the knowledge of atomic structuring was. With at least two other groups chasing after Royan, she was starting to wonder exactly how many routes there were to the alien.

  The terminal accessed Event Horizon’s main communication network for her, and she loaded a cut-off program at the junction. If anyone tried to backtrack her call the best they’d be able to come up with was English Telecom’s Peterborough exchange. She entered the Gracious Services number.

  There was no phone on the other end; England’s hacker circuit had illegal catchment programs loaded into every exchange in the country. It pulled out her call and plugged her straight in.

  There was a nervous flicker across her terminal’s flatscreen, then it printed:

  WELCOME TO GRACIOUS SERVICES.

  WE AIM TO PLEASE.

  DATA FOUND, OR MONEY RETURNED.

  NO ACCESS TOO BIG OR TOO SMALL.

  JUST REMEMBER OUR CARDINAL RULE: DO NOT ASK

  FOR CREDIT!!!

  PLEASE ENTER YOUR HANDLE.

  Julia thought for a moment; she hadn’t actually used the circuit from this side before. Royan had signed her on as a novice hotrod when he was teaching her to write dark programs, saying the experience would do her good. She had run several burns against various companies and government departments, competing against the other hotrods for the client’s money. It was a race, the one who pulled the data first cleaned up, minus the umpire’s cut. Competition sharpened her mind to a considerable degree.

  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? I 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 GIGA-CONDUCTOR.

  ‘And don’t I know it,’ she murmured, then typed: I UNDERSTAND BLUEPRINCE. DEAL FOR ME, PLEASE.

  OK, THEY DON’T HAVE MUCH, SO WHAT THEY’LL DO IS POOL WHAT THEY HAVE GOT. I’LL TABULATE FOR YOU, BUT ITS 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.

&nbs
p; I wish I still had a bed. I wouldn’t have bothered getting out of it this morning. Actually paying these criminals, bloody hell! In 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, JOHNATHAN-HEWIT, SEIMENS, BOEING, MUTIZEN, MITSUBISHI, SPARAVIZ, RENAULT, GLOBECAST, HONDA, GENERAL ELECTRIC, EVENT HORIZON, EMBRAER, SAAB, 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 Müller 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 readout 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 Zürich 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 WiIholm’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. 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. Do I 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.r />
  Hush, Snowy. Watch, learn.

  Jupiter grew, becoming a salmon-pink disc, distinct cloud-bands hovering or 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 Io’s plasma tours, 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, Kiley – 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.