Peter Hamilton - The Mandel Files

“A flower is a very simple organism,” Julia said, the slightest quaver in her voice betraying the severe fright Greg was observing in her thoughts. “It attracts insects to assist in pollination, nothing more. Naturally an alien flower will look similar to our own.”

“So this planet it came from has bees as well, does it?”

“The individual species of plants and animals won’t resemble ours, but given a planet with anything remotely approaching Earth’s climate they will certainly be analogous. Evolutionary factors will remain pretty constant throughout the universe, the simplest solution always applies. Think how many plants have developed since life began on Earth, all of them variants on a central theme.”

“What rubbish.”

“Please, Eleanor,” Julia said painfully. “I wish you were right, I really do. I wanted the geneticists to be completly wrong. But the flower has nothing like our DNA. The chromosome-equivalents are toroidal, arranged in concentric shells. My geneticists say the sphere they form is unholy complex, and definitely not from this solar system.”

“For complex, read ‘advanced’,” Victor Tyo said. “The geneticists estimate the source planet could be anything up to a couple of billion years further up the evolutionary ladder than Earth. The gene sphere is much larger than terrestrial DNA strands.”

It didn’t really register with Greg, nonsense numbers. He ordered a gland secretion, concentrating inwards. There was no truth to be gained from intuition, only a sense of what might be, hints. He scrambled round for a sign of fear, that the flower was dangerous. But there was only the original tremendous unease, amplified to a cloying presence. He imagined this was what being haunted must be like.

He rose from the near-trance state.

“The flower,” Greg said. “It’s not lethal, but I get a sense of weight behind it, a pressure building up.”

“The aliens?” Victor Tyo asked.

“No,” Greg gave him a wry smile. “No spaceships, no Martian invasion fleet. But there’s something… biding time.”

“There is a ship, something had to bring it here,” Victor said. “They’re close, watching us, hell they’re probably even down here among us. How would we know? We’ve no idea what they look like, what they’re capable of. God Almighty, entities from another planet.” Perhaps it was just the emphasis his boyish face gave to any deeply felt emotion, but Victor’s dismay seemed to be on the point of crushing him.

“Aliens might have the technological advantage over us,”

Greg said. “But I’d be very surprised if they could land on Earth without the strategic defence networks picking them up. Am I right, Julia?”

She gave a subdued nod. “Yes. The sensor coverage is good, it has to be given the potential for kinetic assaults. You could orbit a ship two hundred thousand kilometres out without being spotted, fair enough, but the chances of detection increase with every kilometre you travel closer to Earth. Once you’re within fifteen thousand kilometres of the surface you’re visible. It doesn’t matter how good your stealth technology is, any physical body passing through the planetary magnetosphere generates a flux that the sensors will pick up. We’re tracking hundreds of thousands of objects up there, anything from discarded solar panels to composite bolts.”

“So where did the flower come from?” Eleanor asked.

Julia shook her head slowly. “I don’t know. And that’s what really worries me. I can’t believe even aliens have the ability to circumvent our technology to that extent.”

“You said you could feel a pressure,” Victor said. What kind of pressure?”

Greg shrugged, uncertain how to express it in words. “Something waiting.”

“Look,” Julia said. We know there’s been some kind of first contact; that there is, or has been, a ship visit the Earth, or at least the solar system. That’s your presence; no big mystery there. What I want to know is, how is Royan tied in? That’s what I came for, Greg. Where is he?”

“I don’t know. But you were right about the flower being a message. It might even be a warning.”

“Then why didn’t he say so?” she asked hotly.

Greg realized how much worry and concern was bottled up behind her tawny eyes.

“Wrong question,” he said. “We should be asking: what’s he warning us about? And why such a baroque warning? If he had enough liberty to send off flowers, why not just give you a call? At the very least he could squirt us a data package.”

“Bugger your questions, Greg! I want to know what’s happened to Royan.”

“Well, what did you expect? A seance?” He cursed as soon as he said it.

Julia blushed.

“No,” Eleanor said levelly, her eyes never leaving Julia. “You want the girl, don’t you? The one who gave Rachel the box.”

The blush deepened, she nodded once. “She’s the link. The only one we’ve got.”

Greg looked at Eleanor, then back to Julia. “I can’t,” he said, appalled at how much it cost to say. “Not me, not any more. Sorry.”

“Bloody right you can’t,” Eleanor said coolly. She fixed Julia with a stare. “Look around you; four children, a fifth on the way, the farm, the picking season.”

“I know,” Julia whispered. “But… aliens, Eleanor. It goes beyond me and Royan, though I wish to God it didn’t. Who else can I trust? Who would you trust? You want these aliens to contact the religious fundamentalist movements first? One of the South American dictatorships? We have to find him, quickly and quietly. Greg’s a gland psychic, worth ten of these new sac users, and he’s had proper training. The best there is, and my friend, Royan’s friend. Who else can I ask?”

Greg narrowed his eyes. Julia’s compulsion had always been stronger than any psychic power. And combine it with logic as well…

“Give me a name, Greg, someone better; Lord, someone your equal would do.”

“How the bloody hell would I know?” he snapped. “I left that game sixteen years ago. Victor? You must have whole memory cores full of psychics.”

“I do,” Victor said quietly. “And we reviewed them, that’s why we’re here. I’m sorry. These modern sac users are good, but they don’t have your training, your strength. Mindstar hunted out people with the highest potential. Today, anyone who has a minor flash of talent can take a themed neurohormone and think he’s some kind of warlock. In a lot of respects themed neurohormones are a step backwards; and no one ever developed one to boost intuition.”

“Jesus wept!”

“Royan’s out there, Greg,” Julia said. “Negotiating with aliens, holding them off, leading them in. Lord, I don’t know which. But I have got to find out, Greg. Please?”

He looked helplessly at Eleanor. She fumbled for his hand, and gave him a squeeze. He tightened his grip round her shoulder.

“He is a friend,” Eleanor said in a tiny voice. She sounded as though she was trying to convince herself and failing miserably.

“Yeah, he is that.”

“You’re not hardlining, Gregory,” Eleanor said firmly. “Not at your age.”

He twisted under the look in her eyes, wanting to object, or at least have it said in private. The trouble was she was quite right. At fifty-two he would be hopelessly outclassed by today’s youngsters. Logic and intuition were in concord over that, worst luck. And if there was one certainty about all of this, there was going to be trouble. Royan’s method of contact alone was evidence of that.

Nothing ever simple, nothing ever straightforward. His bloody life story.

“No problem in that direction, at all,” Victor said smoothly.

“One of Event Horizon’s security crash teams will be on permanent alert to assist you. With hypersonic transport, they can be anywhere on the globe within forty minutes. And of course you’ll have as many of my hardliners accompanying you as you want. All you have to do is ask the questions.”