The Nano Flower

"Yes, as soon as it is appropriate to make such an a

"I'll contact Clifford Jepson right away."

"Thank you, Minister. It's always a joy to learn exactly who I can depend on. I certainly shan't forget what you've done today."

Michael Harcourt gave a slight bow. There was no trace of his smile left. "Whatever I can, Julia, you know that. Always."

"Goodbye, Minister." She made it come out like a pronouncement. Rewarded by his flash of alarm just before his picture vanished.

She should never have allowed this situation to arise; it was her own fault; if she'd kept on top of the political scene, been decisive about Wales, the prospect of a leadership contest would never have arisen, allowing openings for people like Michael Harcourt. In fact she should never have let a Globecast puppet become Minister for Industry in the first place. Attention to detail; once she'd applied the maxim ruthlessly. But there had been so many distractions lately, worry building like a spring stormfront. Fu

Arrange a conference with David Marchant, she said. I know we've left it late for damage limitation, but let's see what he can do. We can't have Harcourt as PM.

Who left it late? her grandfather queried drily.

Ignore him. We'll get on to it, NN core two said. Victor called while you were talking to Michael Harcourt. He's found the spaceplane and the payload facility room which handled Kiley. I'm accessing their memory cores now.

Fine. The patio's fuchsia flowers were bobbing in the light breeze, utterly beautiful, something God's own origami artist had folded together. Several bees had found them, crawling inside their ruff of petals. Julia watched them while she waited for the results of the memory core search, remembering other flowers on the bluff behind the bungalow. They were artificial, too, not gene-tailored, but placed there, organized. All of her environments were organized, Prior's Fen Atoll, Wilholm, the Mahone Bay island, resorts. She spent her time in bubbles of perfection.

A brief flash of alien flowers blossoming in Wilholm's borders. She almost had it, the impression was vivid, crystalline.

Then the idea was gone.

We've found him, NN core two said.

This time the burst of emotion was absent as Royan materialized in her mind. Adoration would have been too painful.

Hello, Snowy. I suppose It must be getting bad. Tracking down this package means I screwed up, right?

I don't know. I'm looking for an alien starship.

His image appeared thoughtful. Do you think I can help you?

You warned me about it.

Sorry, I don't have any memory of that. It must be in my future.

When were you recorded?

June.

What have you been doing since the probe returned?

Made progress. Once I confirmed Kiley had brought back some microbes I had three more processor nodes implanted.

Oh, Royan, she said despairingly. How many times had they argued over implants? He had wanted them so badly after he was recovered and showing an interest in helping her with Event Horizon. She grudgingly paid for four, two processors, two memory stores.

I can handle it, he said calmly. I knew you'd complain about that.

I'm not going to argue with a package, she said. What happened to the microbes?

I loaded my implants with biochemistry and genetics data, and started to map their chromosomes.

The package squirted an image of the microbe's genetic structure. It looked like a Christmas tree bauble, a softly gleaming metallic-purple sphere hanging in the null-space of the node universe. As it grew larger she saw the surface was mottled with minute rings, it began to resemble a twined ball of chain.

Familiarity overwhelmed her. Dear Lord, that's the same genetic structure as the flower.

What flower, Snowy?

You sent me a flower, an alien flower. It has toroidal chromosome-equivalents stacked in concentric shells. Just like that.

I don't understand. The flower came from a starship?

I… Yes, no, something. Greg said there was something behind the flower, waiting. He must have sensed the starship. What else could it be?

And I warned you about it?

That's right. She thought furiously, summoning up a logic matrix from her processor node. The question was simple enough, trying to formulate a correlation between the microbes Kiley returned and a starship, it couldn't be coincidence. Her processor reduced the question to equations, naked digits, feeding them into the matrix's cha

The equations flowed through the matrix cha

No, I don't believe that's your answer, Snowy.

Why not?

I managed to identify some of the toroid sequences. I'll show you.

She watched the gleaming purple sphere turn. The chain was begi

This is just the outer shell, Snowy.

Dear Lord. The cylinder stretched out above and below her, there were no ends in sight. And you thought you could tame this?

It's all a question of processing power. Everything is solveable given time. I taught you that, remember?

So what have you solved?

Below her, the colour began to change. Fans of pale light were shining into the cylinder, as if slots had appeared in the wall of chain letting in the dawn sun. They began to build, moving up towards her. When they were level, she could see it was lengths of the chain itself that were brightening. Individual toroids in the lengths glowed, becoming translucent; in some cases there were only twenty or thirty of them strung together, in others there were over a hundred. They were filled with alphanumeric codes.

It's fu

What do you mean?

The genes which dictate the microbe's structure are all contained in the outer shell The rest, the i

They have no purpose?

The i

Is it important?

I'm not sure. it doesn't affect the microbe in any way.

What's the significance of the sequences you have managed to identify? Why do they show the microbe isn't part of a waste dump?

It's not impossible, Snowy, I didn't say that, just highly unlikely. You see, I've found the sequences for the mechanism which breaks down minerals in rock. The genetic mother-lode.

A lot of the glowing toroids reverted to purple, the majority of the ones that were left were situated in a broad band of the cylinder above her perception point. These ones, Royan said. It's like an osmotic process, but dry. The microbe envelope can be made porous to selected molecules, and gradually they diffuse across. And these—the glowing toroids began to blank out, others came on to replace them, scattered the whole length of the cylinder. These control its thermal absorption mechanism. The microbe becomes functional in a temperature gradient, one side hotter than the other. Perfect energy utilization for a space environment.