Peter Hamilton - The Mandel Files

She gave Royan challenges he could never have conceived of back in Mucklands Wood, she gave him a love he’d never known before, she gave him the most exquisite pair of children. Then she had to stand beside him and watch him lose interest in each one of her gifts. It made her feel so small and destitute, for she had nothing else left to give. Finally, when he walked out without any explanation, she was left clinging desperately to the children in a reflex defence. They were all she had left of the good times, and her sole hope for the future.

Three men were already in the office waiting for her. The first was Peter Cavendish, the director of Event Horizon’s collaborative ventures office. A bulky fifty-year-old with snow-white hair, his charcoal suit showing signs of being worn too long. Accompanying him was Nicholas Beswick, a physics professor who unfailingly managed to set Julia’s nerves on edge with his combination of eagerness and timidity. Nicholas Beswick was basically a complete nerd, but one whose understanding of quantum mechanics was unsurpassed, making him tremendously important to Event Horizon. It was his research team which five years ago had finally produced a processor that utilized one-dimensional wire to carry single electrons. The technology had invigorated the global ‘ware industry to a degree which hadn’t been seen since the late nineteen-eighties. The amount of money licensed production of quantum-wire processor chips raked in for Event Horizon was second only to that of the gigaconductor royalties.

Nicholas Beswick half bowed, half flinched when Julia entered the office. She gave him a gracious smile as she sat behind her desk, and turned down the window’s opacity to let the wan early morning light flood the big room. There were no flowers in the vases yet, the tower’s daytime maintenance crew were only just starting their shift.

“Thanks for coming in so quickly, Julia,” Peter Cavendish said. “I know it was short notice, but I really do think this is important enough to warrant your personal attention.”

“Yes, so I understand. Can you give me a summary of where we stand before Mutizen’s negotiator arrives, please.”

Peter Cavendish settled into one of the high-backed chairs in front of her desk. “Mutizen came to us yesterday with what is a pretty standard proposal. They claimed they have made a breakthrough in atomic structuring, and asked if we would go into partnership with them to develop and market the technology. They offered us a look at their data under a confidentiality contract. If we decide not to join them we can’t research or sell the same technology for five years. Since we don’t have any atomic structuring projects right now, I agreed. We were in a no-lose situation. That’s what I thought.”

“This atomic structuring process,” she asked. “You mean they can just assemble blocks of atoms in any pattern they want?”

Nicholas Beswick rocked forwards in his chair, an eager schoolboy grin on his face. “Yes, that’s exactly it. We didn’t quite comprehend the implications until after we reviewed their data. At first we were under the assumption that it was just an improved method of our current solid-state assembly techniques; as you know quantum-wire construction is still fairly laborious even with today’s ion positioners. But it turned out that Mutizen was talking about a method of locking atoms into place with coherent emissions of gluons, the field particles of the strong nuclear force. They operate directly on the quarks which make up neutrons and protons. If it is possible to manipulate the force like this you could literally solidify air, turn it into a block stronger than monolatrice filament.” He sighed, breath hissing through his teeth. “Ms Evans, I’m not kidding, the potential of this thing frightens the living shit out of me. My staff have been working out applications more or less nonstop ever since they got Mutizen’s data package. It can strengthen metal to make it impregnable, harden a bubble of air over a city to withstand a nuclear attack, squeeze deuterium together for fusion, manipulate weather fronts, heck, we could probably even produce lumps of neutronium-”

“Have Mutizen actually physically demonstrated it?” she asked sharply.

“If they have, they haven’t told us,” Peter Cavendish said. “This was just a taster to gain our undivided attention.”

“And believe me it worked,” Nicholas Beswick said. “All we’ve been given so far is the force’s behavioural equations. No word on the method of generation.”

“Hmmm.” Julia stared at Nicholas Beswick until he started to redden. “You’re the best I’ve got, Nicholas, can you see how to build a nuclear force generator?”

He made a farting sound with his lips. “No way, sorry. It’s totally beyond me. In fact, gluon emission of the type they describe isn’t even explainable with our current understanding of quantum chromodynamics. They must have something totally and radically new.”

“But the rest of it makes sense to you?” she persisted.

“Absolutely, the maths checks out perfectly. That’s not difficult at all, we do know enough about quark properties to confirm their predictions.”

“Interesting.” Julia switched her gaze to the ceiling. Open Channel to SelfCores. What do you three think?

Mutizen hasn’t built a working nuclear force generator, her grandfather said. It stands to reason. If they had, they wouldn’t be offering you a partnership.

Yes, but why offer me a partnership anyway? They have a lead in a field which no one else even knew existed. Why not just keep plugging away?

Mutizen is a heavy industry kombinate, NN core one said. Their production is geared towards cars, ships, civil engineering plant, macro-cybernetics, more or less anything mechanical, with mining and foundry divisions. Interesting that a kombinate like that should have a research team working on such fundamental physics in the first place.

I concur, NN core two said.

Me too, Juliet. The obvious conclusion is that the data isn’t theirs. And they don’t have the means to develop it themselves, which is why they’ve come running to you. No skin off their nose. You say yes, and crack the generator; they’re plugged into a whole new technology with a minimal outlay. Trouble is, if Event Horizon commits funds and research teams to developing the technology, and in the mean time the real owner emerges with the completed system, you’re going to be out in the cold. The gigaconductor and New London aren’t going to be worth bugger-all if this atomic structuring is haif as good as Beswick reckons.

You mean I’ve got a little more bargaining power than we thought originally?

Damn right, m’girl! Screw the bastards for every penny you can get-

A smile touched Julia’s lips. Good old Grandpa, they weren’t made like that any more. Yes, you’re probably right. What I can certainly do is buy us a breathing space. In the mean time, I think it would be a good idea to try and track down the source of this atomic structuring concept. Assemble the most comprehensive profile of Mutizen possible, turn over their financial backing consortiums, review their research personnel for a likely candidate in the atomic structuring field-someone like Beswick. The works. Then get our economic intelligence division to see if any of the other kombinates are building up an investment reserve. If one of them is working on atomic structuring they’re going to need some hefty production facilities when it’s perfected.

My girl.

We’ll initiate now, said NN core two.

Julia pondered whether to squirt a personality package into Mutizen’s management cores to see what it could find, and decided to wait until the preliminary findings were complete first. She refocused on Peter Cavendish and Nicholas Beswick. “Tea, please, Kirsten, we might as well do this properly. And have Mutizen’s negotiator come in now. What’s his name, anyway?”