«Another one?» Camassia asks.
«Yes!» Torreya shouts gleefully. «It's a fairy tale one. We've been thinking about it for a while, so it wasn't difficult. We just needed yesterday to make it right. The butterflies you've got here in the estate are beautiful, Laurus.»
Laurus pops the candy bud in his mouth. «Glad you like them.»
«I would have loved to see the forest Laurus talks about,» Camassia says wistfully.
Laurus notes a more than idle interest in the girl's tone.
«Why didn't you say?» Torreya asks.
«You mean you've still got one?»
«Course. The machine keeps growing them till Jante tells it to stop.»
«You mean you don't have to fill in each one separately?» Laurus asks.
«No.»
He sips his tea thoughtfully. The strange machine is even more complex than he originally expected. «Do you know if Jante's father transcribed a candy bud about how the machine was built?»
Torreya screws her face up, listening to some silent voice. «No, he didn't. Sorry.»
Laurus accepts that it isn't going to be easy, he never thought it would be. He will have to assemble a team of high-grade biotechnology experts, the most loyal ones he can find. They will analyse the machine's components and genetics to discover its secrets. Such research will have to be done circumspectly. If any hint of this breakthrough escapes, then every laboratory on Tropicana will launch a crash project to acquire candy-bud technology.
«What are we going to do today?» Torreya asks.
«Well, I've got a lot of work to do,» Laurus says. «But Camassia and Abelia are free, why don't you all go out for a picnic.»
In his youth, Laurus had been a prince of the Eldrath Kingdom, back in Earth's dawn times when the world was flat and the oceans ended in infinite waterfalls. He lived in a city of crystal spires that was built around one of the tallest mountains in the land. The royal palace sat atop the pinnacle, from where it was said you could see halfway across the world.
When the warning of marauders reached the citadel, he led his knight warriors in defence of his father's realm. There were thirty of them, in mirror-bright armour, flying to war on the back of their giant butterflies.
The village on the edge of the Desolation was besieged by trolls and goblins, with fires raging through the wattle-and-daub cottages, and the harsh cries of battle echoing through the air.
Laurus drew his silver longsword, holding it high. «In the name of the King and our Mother Goddess, I swear none of this fellowship shall rest until the Rok lord's spawn are driven from this land,» he shouted.
The other knight warriors drew their swords in unison, and shouted their accord. Together they urged their steeds down on the village.
The trolls and goblins they faced were huge scarred brutes with blue-green skin and yellow poisonous fangs. But their anger and viciousness made them cumbersome, and they had no true sword skill, just an urge to maim and kill. Their wild sword swings were always slow and inaccurate. Laurus weaved amongst them, using his longsword with terrible accuracy. A quick powerful thrust would send his enemy crashing to the ground, a dark yellow stain bubbling out of the wound.
The battle raged all day amid the black oily smoke, and flames, and muddy cobbles. Laurus eluded all injury, although the enemy directed their fiercest assaults against him; enraged by the sight of his slim golden crown denoting him a prince of the house of Eldrath.
Night was falling when the last goblin was dispatched. The village cheered their prince and his knight warriors. And a beautiful maiden with red hair falling to her waist came forward to offer him wine from a golden chalice.
Laurus could not forget the sensation of flying that incredible steed, with his long black hair flowing free, cheeks tingling in the wind, and mighty rainbow wings rippling effortlessly on either side of him.
And he's still flying. The three girls are below, resting in the long grass under the shade of a big magnolia tree. There's a little lake twenty metres away, tangerine-coloured fish sliding through the dark water.
Ryker glides to a silent halt in the branches above the girls. None of them have seen him.
«I was frightened at first,» Torreya is saying, «especially at night. But after a while you get used to it, and nobody ever came into the factory site.» She's reciting her life, listening to Camassia and Abelia recounting tall tales. All part of making friends.
Laurus listens to the giggles and outraged groans of disbelief, longing to be a part of the group.
«You're lucky Laurus found you,» Camassia says. «He'll look after you all right, and he knows how to make the most from your candy buds.»
Torreya is lying on her belly, chin resting on her hands. She smiles dreamily, watching a ladybird climb up a stalk of grass in front of her face. «Yes, I know.»
Abelia jumps to her feet. «Oh, come on, it's so hot!» She slips the navy-blue dress from her shoulders, and wriggles out of the skirt. Laurus hasn't seen her naked in daylight before. He marvels at the brown skin, hair like ripe wheat, perfectly shaped breasts, strong legs. «Come on!» she taunts devilishly, and makes a dash for the lake.
Camassia follows suit; and then Torreya, completely unabashed.
For the ability to transcribe this scene into a candy bud, Laurus would sell his soul. He wants it to stretch for ever and ever. Three golden bodies racing across the ragged grass, laughing, vibrant. The shrieks and splashing as they dive into the water, sending the fish fleeing into the deeps.
This is where it will happen, Laurus decides. In the shade of the magnolia blooms, her body spread open like a star, amid the moisture and the heat.
He's not sure he can wait two years.
Laurus has instructed his staff to set up the machine in the mansion's coldhouse conservatory, where it is sheltered from the sun's abrasive power by darkened glass and large overhanging fern fronds. Conditioners are whining softly as they maintain a temperate climate. Spring is coming to an end for the terrestrial plants growing out of the troughs and borders. The daffodils are starting to fade, and the fuchsia flowers are popping.
Two flaccid olive-green elephant ear membranes have been draped over a metal framework above the seed beds, photosynthesizing the machine's nutrient fluids. A tube patched in to the overhead irrigation pipes supplies water to the internal systems when they run dry.
«Does it snow in here?» Torreya asks.
«No,» Laurus says. «There are frosts, though. We switch them on for the winter months.»
Torreya wanders on ahead, her head swivelling from side to side as she examines the new-old shrubs and trees in the brick-lined border.
«I'd like to have some people take a look at your machine,» Laurus tells her. «Will you mind that?»
«No,» she says. «What is this tree?»
«An oak. They'll duplicate it for me, and I'll sell the candy buds the new machines produce. But I'd like you and Jante to stay on here. You can earn a lot of money with those fantasies of yours.»
She turns off into a passage lined by dense braids of cyclamen. «I don't want to leave. They're not going to dissect the main corm, are they?»
«No, certainly not. They'll just sample a few cells to obtain the DNA, so we can understand how it works. They'll start in a week or so.»
And then will come the task of setting up production lines. Selecting the information to transcribe. Finding fantasyscape artists as skilful as Torreya and Jante. The establishment of multi-stellar markets. Decades of work. And to what end, exactly? Laurus suddenly feels depressingly old.