The block of squares expanded to fill her vision, regaining their focus.
There, Royan said in awe. In the middle of a desolation more profound than Gomorrah: life itself. And what life.
The photon-amp focus was at its ultimate resolution, centred on a clump of microbes. They looked like a smear of caviare, tiny spheres, tar-black, sticky; they glistened with a dull pink light thrown by Jupiter's albedo.
Call it Jesus, call it Gaia, call it Allah, said Royan. Whatever name you wish to bestow, but don't tell me God doesn't exist. The true miracle of this universe is life itself. Left to fate, to random chance groupings of amino acids in the primal soup, it could never happen. Never! We may evolve as Darwin said, man may not have been made in God's image; but that spark, that very first spark of origin from which we grew, that was not nature. That was a blessing. We are not a side product of an uncaring cosmos, a chemical joke.
You're preaching to the converted, remember? She wasn't surprised by his outburst, nor its intensity; both of them had a strong quasi-religious background; her at the First Salvation Church, him with the Trinities, it was another thread in their bond.
Kiley's sampling waldo slid out, micromanipulator claws closing around the clump of microbes. It retracted and placed them delicately inside the probe's collection flask.
Cold gas thrusters fired again, backing Kiley away from the rock. The lightware processors began to check over the propulsion systems.
You did this for me? Julia asked.
I did. Do you see now, Snowy? Do you see the why of it?
Kiley's chemical thrusters fired for a long time, lifting it out of the ring's inclination, into free space where the plasma drive could be used. Star trackers locked on to their target constellations, orientating the probe for its flyby manoeuvre burns.
No, she said, inexplicably humbled by the admission. She could sit and think, run a logic matrix, tear the problem apart. Answers never eluded her when she was in that state, a determined computer/human fusion. But somehow just the thought of expending all that effort inhibited her. Perhaps this appalling vastness of the gas giant's domain had numbed her into dormancy.
Kiley was shedding mass, discarding its primary mission modules, the sampling waldos, precision attitude thrusters, photon-amp booms, laser scanners, all peeling off like mounting scales. She watched them go, oblong boxes and spidery cybernetic arms, adding to the gas giant's ring. In a few thousand years vacuum ablation would reduce them to tissue flakes, a swarm of slowly dissipating metallic confetti.
The melancholia had really gripped now. The Kiley memory was its own Trojan, draining her.
It's like this, Snowy: the theorists, Rick Parnell and his merry band, they all say the microbes survived their flight between stars because they are simple primitive organisms.
They're wrong. I know they're wrong. How could they be primitive? They are life's pinnacle, separated from amoebas by billions of years of evolution. These microbes, Snowy, came from a dying world, travelling Christ knows how far to get here—certainly there are no burnt-out stars in our immediate section of the galaxy. Think of it, their planet, its sun growing cold, a freezing atmosphere bleeding off into space, oceans evaporated, mountains fallen. Anything that could adapt to survive such a decaying environment would have to be the toughest, most forbidding, most ruthless form of life imaginable. Then, when whatever it was that eventually triumphed—plant, or algae, or even animal—was all that was left, it made the final jump. It adapted to space. It abandoned its birthworld and achieved species immortality.
That's what we all strive for, Snowy, deep down. Continuation, the biological imperative. It drives us, preordains our movements from before we are born, it is universal and irrefutable. That, if you like, is our spiritual burden.
I think I see now, she said. The microbes are a stronger form of life than any on Earth, more potent.
And more, he said, eagerness swelling like a wave. They live—thrive—in a vacuum. I want to tame them, Snowy. I want to put them to use, make them work for us. Extraterrestrial bioware, a kind of green space technology, and all at your disposal. My wedding present, at last.
Kiley's plasma drive came on, a two-minute burn, nudging the probe in towards Jupiter and the flyby. A slingshot manoeuvre that would fling it out of the gas giant's gravity field and back to Earth.
Is that what you did when the microbes got back? she asked. Manipulate them?
So I believe, that's certainly what I intended when I left this package for you.
There must be more, then.
Yes. A diary. A daily package, so you could see my progress. And then if anything went wrong, you'd be able to see what I was working on before it happened.
Daily?
Perhaps not. But there will be accounts, lab notes, reviews, explanations, tables of results.
Where, Royan? I need them. Today. Now.
If you're following me, you'll find them.
Oh, God, she called out, furious, frightened. What have you done, what are you doing? The chaos you've caused.
The smile reappeared. That's me, Snowy. The king of misrule. You know that's me. You loved that part of me, it excited you, as your power did to me. Opposites.
God damn you! You've no right.
Don't cry, not for me. I'm not worth it. If I've screwed up, you'll put me back together again. You're so good at that.
When I find you, I won't patch you up, I'll tear you to bloody pieces.
That's my Snowy. He laughed.
Cancel Integrity Monitored Link to Processor Node One. Squirt Package into NN Core Two.
The study materialized about her again. The light pouring through the windows was oppressively harsh after Jupiter's gloaming. She blinked rapidly.
What do I want with him? NN core two asked peevishly.
Run a total review of Kiley's sensor memories.
Oh yes, Io's volcanos.
That sort of affinity had unnerved her for a week or so after the first NN core had come on line. Now she just took it for granted. The NN core would comb through Kiley's sensor memories, running comparisons against existing star maps. That was how Io's volcanos had been discovered, by accident, reviewing old Voyager pictures for a guidance plot.
Maybe, just maybe, Kiley had recorded the starship.
Julia pushed the chair back, and pulled her shoes off. She walked over to the window. Daniella and Matthew were still splashing about in the pool. And they had got that damn dog in with them. The times she'd told them.
She pressed her cheek against the window, watching them. The worry which her entrancement with Jupiter had suppressed was beginning to rise. Microbes and starships. Which was she supposed to be looking for? And Royan, uncertain enough to leave her warnings, perhaps the most chilling aspect of the whole affair. He was always so cocksure.
It wasn't as if she could offload the burden, confess to someone. "Bugger you, Royan," she snapped.
The terminal on the desk bleeped for attention. Now what?
She braced herself and turned.
Her personality package had returned from Eienso's mainframe. Clifford Jepson had paid the money into Leol Reiger's account.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The Pegasus was spiralling down towards the Colonel Maitland. Greg watched the vast bulk of the airship appear on the bulkhead flatscreen, its contra-rotating fans dawdling in a doldrum calm. Their shallow approach angle showed it as a large black oval above the glistening deep-blue of the ocean. He found it disconcerting, the absorptive black surface, sharp edges, it didn't seem to belong here at the centre of nature's passive domain, an intrusive foreigner.
"So why the guilty smile?" Suzi asked.
Greg clamped his lips together, he hadn't realized he was smiling. "Nothing."