He dropped his gaze again. The first four out of the five kilometres between him and the other endcap was lush green parkland. Hyde Cavern's rock floor had been shaped with gentle undulations, silver streams meandered through the coombs, low waterfalls feeding calm lakes. There were copses of young saplings, tree-lined avenues of yellow pebbles wandered like serpents across the grass. White Hellenistic buildings were dotted about, each at the centre of its own garden. They were the focus of New London's social life—theatres, restaurants, clubs, pubs, reception halls, churches, two sports amphitheatres. People didn't live out in the Cavern, groundspace was too valuable; instead the lower fifth of the southern endcap housed the warren of living quarters, offices, light engineering factories, and hotels.

The last kilometre of Hyde Cavern was filled with the miniature sea, a band of salt water running round the foot of the northern endcap, its parkside coast wrinkled with secluded coves and broad beaches of white sand. Tiny islands studded the middle of the sea, covered by a dense shaggy thatch of vegetation. Just looking at it made Greg want to run over and dive in.

He gripped the balcony rail and peered over. They were about twenty metres above a broad rock roadway running round the base of the endcap; people in light clothes strolled about idly, the far side was a bicycle lane, nests of café tables with bright parasols sprawled out directly below him. Balconies stretched away on either side, vines with huge heart-shaped leaves twining round the iron support columns, long mauve flower clusters formed a fringe above his head, bunches of green grapes dangled on either side. He picked one; it tasted sweet, succulent, and seedless.

Suzi, Rick, and Charlotte had come out of the bedroom to join him. And even Suzi was quiet as she looked round.

"Where were you when you met the Celestial priest?" he asked Charlotte. The girl hadn't put ten words together since they'd lifted off from Listoel. Her thought currents were tightly wound, slow but deliberate, there was a lot of concern and guilt accumulating inside her skull.

She frowned lightly, searching the shoreline. "There." She pointed to a point high up on the right-hand curve. "It's the fall-surf beach near the Kenton station."

"Ah, tourist zone," Sean said. "The beaches round there all have bars and sunbeds, game pits, that kind of thing. It's popular with the younger ones." He smiled at Charlotte.

"Do the Celestial Apostles often try recruiting there?" Greg asked.

"They vary. Routine would trap them, yes? But they do tend to prefer the tourist zones."

Greg turned his back on the distracting vista of Hyde Cavern, gathering his thoughts. "OK, I want every available policeman assigned to foot patrol. Have them cover the kind of public areas the Celestials frequent. I'm looking for any kind of activity by the Celestials, recruiting, picking the fruit, whatever. Specifically, they're to look out for older male Celestials. If they see anything they're to report in, but under no circumstances apprehend. The last thing I want now is for them to go to ground."

"All right," Sean said. "It'll take a while to organize."

"No problem, but I want it started this afternoon. We'll take a look ourselves in a little while."

"I'd like something to eat, please," Charlotte said.

"Good idea," Greg said. "We'll get changed, have a bite." He checked his watch. "Meet back here in an hour, half-past three. OK?"

"Yes, thank you." Charlotte gave him a quick courteous smile.

"I'll have the cook rustle something up for you," Sean said.

"Send Melvyn Ambler and Lloyd McDonald straight in when they arrive," Greg said. "And Charlotte." She looked round, eyes wide and sad. "Don't go anywhere without your hardline guard. You're the single most important person on New London right now."

He got a brief flustered nod.

"I'll show you your room," Michele Waddington said, opening the door.

Suzi winked. "I'll stick with her till the hardliners arrive."

"Fine, thanks Suzi." He ran his hands back through his hair, it was sweaty and tangled after four hours of that tightfitting cap.

The jacuzzi came on at his voice command, and he began to take off the hot shipsuit.

CHAPTER THIRTY

As soon as Royan shimmered through the protective programs Julia had thrown round her processor implant she could tell he was excited, face all tight and bright.

Snowy, how's it going?

Not good. I've got you mucking about with microbes. Event Horizon is under threat from superior technology. My hold over the New Conservatives is slipping. Greg's off chasing after an alien. And Victor's furious with you for hiding this personality package in Kiley's 'ware. He had to go out to the Farm in person.

Some of his infuriating bonhomie faded, the image turning translucent for an instant as the features reshaped themselves into a more serious attitude. His sympathetic expression offered concern.

That was him all the way through, knowing exactly which buttons to press. And she always bloody let him.

I'm sorry, Snowy. Truth to tell, I'm surprised you needed to access this package at all. It's been going so well, really. I was right about the microbes, they are the greatest discovery since America, since… the wheel. God, Snowy, they're magnificent. Truly. They're going to make you mine again, Snowy. They'll bring us back together. Equals and lovers. He gave her a lopsided smile. Fated, it's written in the stars.

Once he'd been able to make her smile and dance and blush with his romanticism. Fifteen years ago, when the peace of a beachside bungalow and whole days spent making love were more important than anything. When just the touch of him lit a fire in her blood.

The only thing I see in the stars these days is how much New London has cost me, in red figures a thousand kilometres high. And only mental cripples leading Mild lives believe in astrology, as you so often told me. Now what the bloody hell have you been doing? Have you stitched that space plant together yet?

There was no movement in the pixels that composed his face, no show of hurt, which just made it worse. Julia responded with her own front of stubbornness, refusing to be bullied.

I discovered something about the microbe genetics, Royan said. Did my earlier recordings tell you about the inner toroid shells being inert?

Yes.

Well, I did a bit more work on them. A second project, alongside my asteroid dissemination plant. I was curious that only the outer shell contained active gene toroids; so I removed the outer shell from one sphere, and used the remainder as the basis of a clone.

You did what?

Cloned it.

His image dissolved. The cell which replaced him was a sac of white shadows, foggy inside. It reminded her of a flaccid jellyfish. The nucleus was a dark ovoid core at the centre, surrounded by a snowstorm of white organdies.

Her perception point drifted through the cell wall, carrying her up to the nucleus. She stopped just outside, observing the internal structure through a smoky membrane which gave everything a rusty tint. At the heart of the nucleus was the sphere of alien chromosomes. She felt like a small child pressed up against a shop window, complacent and dreamy.

I used an ordinary moss cell as a base, Royan said. I removed its terrestrial DNA, and replaced it with the modified alien gene sphere. I studied the sphere's reproduction process, it's very similar to DNA replication. Cell division starts with a generation of ring-like threads, chromonemata equivalents, which anneal to the toroids, facilitating duplication; then the two sets of toroids are split apart and regroup at separate ends of the cell, ready for the fusion.