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."

He and Eleanor had taken their honeymoon on one of the Lakehurst-class airships, that was back in the days when all long-distance flights were made by airships. Two weeks spent circling around Greenland and back down Canada's east coast. A first-class cabin to themselves, day trips to resort centres, the eager buzz of third-class passengers on their way to a new life on homesteads springing up behind the retreating permafrost. The black shape was evocative, tripping his mind's gates, delicious memories spilling out along his synapses.

Above all was the gentleness, time spent entwined, time spent floating above fresh landscapes, above sunsets and dawns, gourmet meals, idle chatter, laughter. It had been stately.

He rued the day of the airship's passing, replaced with hypersonic planes powered by Julia's all-pervasive gigaconductor. The last commercial trans-Atlantic airship flight had rated half a column in The Times one morning; he'd passed the cybofax over the breakfast table to Eleanor who quirked her lips in remorse. They had always said they would repeat the trip, but then there had been the kids, the groves to tend, responsibilities. Now all it ever could be was a sunny memory.

Greg had never really adapted to hypersonics, the second age of air travel; two-and-a-quarter hours to New Zealand from England; Japan a hundred-minute streak over the slushy remnants of the North Pole. Where could you escape in a world like that?

Jason Whitehurst had found the answer the hard way. The Pegasus had broken away from the Italian mainland over Genoa, hitting Mach eight above the Ligurian Sea. They were passing over the Straits of Gibraltar fifteen minutes later without slowing down, curving round north-west Africa to line up on the Cape Verde islands. Total elapsed time from Julia sending him the co-ordinates to arrival at the Colonel Maitland was forty-seven minutes.

"We've just been given landing clearance by the captain," Pearse called.

"Fine," Greg said. "Take her down." He stood up as Pearse spoke into the handset. Suzi got to her feet beside him. He noticed she used her arms to push herself up out of the deep chair. "You OK?"

She pulled a face. "Sod it, yeah, I'll do."

The leg of her shellsuit was torn, stained with a ribbon of blood, blue dermal seal visible through the open fabric. And what would Jason Whitehurst make of that?

Greg's face still stung, but he'd checked it in the toilet mirror. Appearance-wise it wasn't too bad. His leather jacket had deflected a lot of the glass splinters. Out of the three of them, he had come off best. Even his neurohormone hangover had run its course.