I screwed up, she told him. Reiger got me with an airbuster.
Suzi, Suzi, I taught you better.
Sorry, Greg. She could see the weirdest egg, translucent, white and pale blue, dark shape at the centre. Julia's face, frightened and angry. Is that the alien?
Yeah.
Don't look much.
Julia's getting it sorted, no messing.
Great. Then the image began to slip away.
Arm Loral Missiles.
That was strange, she certainly didn't have the mental strength left to load orders into the implant. But somehow her thoughts were being pushed up a very steep hill into her processor node.
Target Image: Muscle-Armour Suit.
Greg, was that you?
Sure thing, we're going to get Reiger yet, you and I, no messing.
Launch Two Missiles.
She couldn't tell if they had fired or not. Even the memory ghosts had fled. There was only blackness, without form.
Greg, don't let my kid grow up like me.
Oh, Suzi.
Promise me, Greg.
Greg?
Bollocks.
CHAPTER FORTY
The gothic-biology fabric of the chamber seemed an appropriate setting, Julia thought, as she listened to Royan. Neither one thing nor the other, rock or disseminator plant, both gone awry, stalled and incomplete.
Her anger had drained away, as it always did when she concentrated on assimilating the intricacies of a problem. But this time, that cool logical state of reasoning she exercised, the famed Evans rationality, was in danger of crumbling away. Her eyes couldn't linger on Royan for more than a few seconds at a time. Royan, trapped inside this creature, this grotesque chimera. The deliberate physical ruining of his body. Once again. She knew exactly how much that would tyrannize his soul. And all her guilt from knowing it was because of the gulf between them that he had been driven here, to this ignominy, If they had never met, if she hadn't tried to bind him to her, if…
Her mind was going through the routine at a virtually subconscious level, processor nodes analysing the data she was hearing, coding it, assigning it storage space in her memory nodes. All ready to be run through a logic matrix when the time came. Her decision. But all she really wanted to do was take Royan in her arms and hold him. To be free of all this punishing pressure, and live. Just for once, escape from what both of them were.
God, or fate, never seemed to give that option to an Evans.
Greg moaned, eyes widening in shock. His knees sagged, and Rick just caught him before he fell.
"What is it?" she demanded.
"Suzi," he said, voice coming from the back of his throat. His features clenched in effort.
"What do we do?" Rick asked.
"Wait," she said. "It's all we can do."
Greg moaned again.
She glanced at the Hexaëmeron, wondering whether to call the crash team hardliners in. But it didn't seem to be doing anything; its surface was awash with shimmering refraction patterns. She'd been relying on Greg to provide any advance warning in case it turned hostile.
"Dead," Greg said numbly. "Suzi's dead."
"How?" Julia asked.
"She went after Leol Reiger; they tangled in the caves somewhere."
"Is Reiger dead?"
"Dunno. We loosed off Suzi's missiles. Might have got him." He steadied himself against Rick, and straightened his back ponderously.
"Reiger," said Royan. "I've heard of him. Tekmerc with a high hazard rating. Is he Jepson's agent?"
"Yes, he's Jepson's." She gave the Hexaëmeron a long stare. "The one you summoned. Do you have a reason why I should allow you to live?"
"I am not a hazard, Julia Evans, to you or your world," the Hexaëmeron's smooth voice said. "I am, as stated, simply a midwife. When the species I contain have birthed, my time will be over. Royan is guilty of judging me by his own human standards. My planet's life is sturdy, yes, but also highly organized. It is not as competitive as terrestrial organisms."
"What do you mean organized?" she asked.
"Plants supply animals with all the nourishment they need. Animals are non-carnivorous, they do not prey on each other as is the common practice on your Earth. Our life harmonizes."
"Fascist Gaia's world," Royan said. "Everything knows its place, and stays there. But where would our place be?"
"Is that it?" Julia asked. "Some kind of shared consciousness? An insect mentality?"
"Not at all. Organization is different from obedience. Animal and insect forms have all evolved high social orders. Clannish, if you like. Once established in a territory they will not venture outside."
"That sounds detrimental to me," Julia said. "You'd need a certain amount of cross-breeding to continue species viability."
"Naturally, each clan maintains contact with its neighbours, and major species have a degree of conscious control over their own germ plasm."
"I still find that trait quite incredible," Julia said. "Perhaps the most frightening aspect of all. Even if I believe you can vouch for the non-belligerence of the individual species you contain, what is to prevent them from altering beyond recognition within a few generations? If they react and adapt to their environment, they'll have to undergo considerable alteration, physical and mental. And I have to ask myself how they'll react to humans. For we are not saints. Nor are our animals. Let loose on Earth, aliens would have to protect themselves from the ignorant, the frightened, not to mention the ideologically inclined. Can you guarantee that these species of yours will not grow horns and fangs, will not hit back?"
"No, of course not. Not if those circumstances arise. That is why I suggested Mars to Royan. It would be worthwhile to consider; I offer to purchase Mars from the human race. You would act as my agent, profiting accordingly. Negotiate for me, Julia Evans, I do not lay claim to that skill, and you are the world's acknowledged expert. You have the material and political means to bring about this arrangement. In return, I will multiply myself and function as a fully-operational asteroid disseminator plant. One that will respond only to you. In addition, Venus could be terraformed. I contain the genetic codes for an algae which would digest Venus's atmospheric carbon dioxide. With the resources and wealth that asteroid dissemination would make available to you, the algae's production in sufficient quantities would pose no problem. Accelerating Venus's rotation to a twenty-four-hour period would probably be beyond my ability to supply. But I would provide Event Horizon with a human chemistry compatible food crop which will thrive in days that last four Earth months. I can bloom, Julia Evans, if you let me."
Julia hesitated for a moment. She didn't doubt the Hexaëmeron could back the offer with solid bioware—alien bioware—and if any word of the offer leaked it would snowball, become irresistible. Politicians would welcome the Hexaëmeron with open arms; the wealth it could provide was enough to fulfil any manifesto. She either stopped it, killed it, now, or events would be ripped beyond even her ability to control. Intelligent benign aliens on Mars, the asteroids converted to bullion vaults, Venus tamed. So very tempting; she could play Midas to the Hexaëmeron's Dionysus.
And look what happened to Midas.
She glanced round. Rick had an overawed, slightly beleaguered expression on his young face, dazed and doting.
Greg was gaunt, lost in his own torment over Suzi. Consulting Royan was an impossibility; she knew he'd never give her any advice on this, saying, "Look where my expertise has got us." Even if she had been blind to everything else between them, she was sure of that.
It made her frightened for what would happen afterwards; with the Hexaëmeron free or the Hexaëmeron destroyed, the two of them would still be left to resolve whatever they had. And how wretched he was going to be, not only at failing his one chance at equality, but for creating such a danger and quandary, for disappointing her, making her angry, and stressing her virtually to breaking point. It might even be pushing her love too far. She was afraid to think about that. Instinct and concern had brought her this far, but what was left?