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?

"If you can do this," she said carefully to the Hexaëmeron, "if you can provide so much, why did you call for Clifford Jepson? Why not just ask for me in the first place?"

"But I did," said the Hexaëmeron. "You or Clifford Jepson, both of you are similar, both of you with the right political contacts, both of you in positions of direct influence. You both make your own decisions without consultations or reference, and you are not afraid to make those decisions even if they go against what is seen as being in the public interest. Had Clifford Jepson arrived first, I would have offered him the same as I now do to you. Either way, I win."

"The whole world hates a smart-arse," Royan said.

Julia walked right up to the Hexaëmeron's quivering shell, stopping with her nose almost touching. "Is it telling the truth, Greg?"

"Yeah, as far as I can tell. At least it's very earnest."

Now she was close she could see Royan's nose had been eaten away, there were no lips left, and his eyes—she was sure they were missing. The Hexaëmeron had done that, in a moment of fear and panic Royan had said. Could what was virtually a machine intelligence fear and panic? "Keep scanning it, I have a question to ask. I must know if the answer is honest."

"OK."

"Was the microbe spliced together, or was it natural?" She held her breath. Had they been deliberately manufactured, set loose on the universe with the intent of conquering?

"That is a null question," the Hexaëmeron said. "There were no laboratories involved, no instruments nor machines. All that was left alive contracted to this. What I am. The sentience coadunation molecule at the centre of the gene sphere was a product of necessity. Designed, perhaps, though you would call it being driven. There was no free will involved. Primordial life originated as a microbe, as was the first, so is the last. The difference is the genetic codes. Six billion years of history. Do you consider you have the right to extinguish that, Julia Evans?"

"Nobody should have to decide this," she said, almost to herself. "Not something like this."

"Anyone who has the ability to decide, will decide. This is inevitable. If you were unable to decide, you would not be here, Event Horizon would not exist in the form it does. There can be no abrogation of your position."

"Royan?" she appealed.

His deliquescent face remained devoid of emotion. "You already know the answer, don't you, Snowy? The Hexaëmeron is God's creature. Why it's here, I don't pretend to understand. But I'm sorry I wasn't strong enough to decide in your place, I would do anything to spare you this. But I guess this is His test for you."

She gave Greg a forlorn look.

He returned a sad smile. "Tell you, Julia; this, you, it's all way out of my league. But the alien is right, if anyone's to decide, it should be you. I'd rather it was you."

"There is one thing I can add," Rick said quietly. "A third option."

"Go on."

"Send it back."

There were no NN cores to consult. And it had been a long time since she hadn't had a second and third opinion on every topic under the sun. She carefully cancelled the waiting logic matrix in her processor node. Then there was just her, alone.

Julia made her choice.

It was a standard personality package, configured to establish control in whatever system it found itself operating in. She had to add a few modifications first.

When the squirt was complete it checked its own integrity, then began to re-format the command routines of the cellular array it was stored in. This time there was a difference; as well as altering the processing structure's programs, it could change the actual physical nature of the network itself. Protean cells elongated and joined together, forming a complex new topology, their membranes' permeability altered.

Julia's mentality unfolded into the new neural network. Satisfied she was now in total control of a clump of cells over a metre in diameter she sent a go code to her flesh-and-blood self.

Memories streamed in, of Peterborough and Wilholm and Event Horizon and the children and Royan; regressing, Grandpa alive, school in Switzerland, Mother and Father—she hadn't thought of them for over a decade, childhood in the desert sandstone warrens. Not just the visual image, but sounds, tastes, smells, textures, raw emotion. She grew from the present back down into the past. Complete.

Her sensorium was different, three-hundred-and-sixty degrees spherical; optical reception extending from infrared up into high ultra violet; vibration acceptance was so sensitive she could actually hear the big mining machines cutting out New London's second chamber; the magnetic and electromagnetic spectrums were strange; as was the chemical reception. She began to modify cells and compose filter programs. Chemical reception was easy to translate into smell, once she'd tagged the molecular formulae. Magnetic and electromagnetic she translated into black and white, seeing the gigaconductor cell in Greg's Tokarev laser shining brightly. It was the all-directions-at-once panorama which gave her the most trouble; she began to adapt her sensory reception and interpretation routines, enlarging the associated neurone structure. Her attention stopped flicking round nervously, and started to accommodate the whole view.

"Have you confirmed your operability?" the Hexaëmeron asked.

"Yes."

"Very well, Julia Evans, I defer to your authority. This idea goes against every instinct I possess. I am the micro, destined to timeless embrace of the cosmos. This brash voyage goes against nature. Gambling all on one risky flight. What strange, hasty creatures you are."

"It's just youthful enthusiasm, the inability to resist challenge. We dream, that is our flaw, and our beauty. Your strength is physical, ours lies in conviction of self."

She felt the Hexaëmeron's consciousness fading into dormancy. Her control routines extended out through the remaining cells as it retreated.

"Royan, darling? I'm here with you now." She said it without a hint of trepidation; the emotion mechanism still existed, but she had superseded it, becoming the Julia Evans everyone always thought she was. A minor pulse of amusement trickled through the prohibition, and she sent a smile image at him.