Orlandine paused and remembered that meeting on one of the Sol stations that had changed the course of her life.

‘Hi, I’m Jonas Trent,’ he had said. ‘You would be Orlandine?’

She had glanced across at him as he took the seat opposite. He was pale, quite then, dressed in black slacks, a canary yellow shirt, a jacket made of black diamond-shaped plates of composite bonded to something like leather, and wide braces that had a shifting pattern of snakes. Seeing he was auged, through her gridlink — the minimum internal hardware required to take the carapace she was not wearing at that time—she sent him a personal contact query. The personal details that his aug settings allowed her were skeletal: he was a hundred and four years old, unattached, a sensocord rep, born on Earth… all the usual details but little more. Nothing there to tell her how he knew of her, or why he approached her now.

She sipped her espresso. ‘What can I do for you?’

He grinned. ‘As we always like to say, it’s not what you can do for me—’

She interrupted, ‘I’m haiman, so do you honestly think I need to buy any sensocordings? I’m now logging this encounter as an infringement—’

He interrupted, ‘Don’t—I’m not here to sell you anything.’

She did not log the personal-space infringement anyway. A person like this would know exactly who to approach and when, so he must be here for some other reason. He took out a rounded brushed-metal box, reached across the table and placed it before her.

‘I’ve been paid very well to act as an intermediary. All I can tell you is that there’s a certain object inside, and a memtab explaining exactly what that object is. I am only instructed to tell you that it is a “gift from an admirer”.’

She peered at the box. ‘My kind are often the target of Separatists, or, rather, would be targets. I’m cautious.’ She slid the box back across the table to him. ‘You open it.’

With a grimace, he picked it up and popped it open, then put it down and slid it back across. ‘See, no problem.’

In the foam packing rested a dull egg. Next to it lay a memtab—a piece of crystal the size of her fingernail. She pulled her palmtop from her belt and inserted the tab into the relevant port. The screen displayed the ovoid itself and, while she watched, it opened like a flower to expose a smaller ovoid inside covered with slightly shifting cubic patterns. A frame appeared over this with the figure x1000 beside it—indicating magnification. The frame expanded, filled the screen, then another appeared and did the same. Then again and again, until displaying the most densely packed nano-technology she had ever seen. Finally the image blinked out. Trying to recall it, she found the original recording had been wiped by a subprogram.

‘What is this?’ she asked, merely for form’s sake, since she already knew.

He stood, saying, ‘Ciao.’ He walked away.

A gift from an admirer.

Upon her return to the Cassius project she ran a search through the nets for this Jonas Trent. It seemed he had stepped out of the airlock of another of the Sol-system stations without the benefit of a spacesuit. It took all her expertise to avoid the semi-AI program that subsequently came after her, for the enquiry into his death remained open, and the program now wanted to know all about her and her interest in him.

‘They will learn about the gift’—a secret admirer.

Orlandine returned to the Heliotrope only to find the auto-factory had run out of some raw materials. But raw materials abounded all around her. She donned an assister frame intended for heavy work, took up a gravsled, and left the ship via the small rear hold. She then cut a small exit out of the giant pillar and stepped out into the vastness beyond. The endless acres of floor stretched away into the distance, layered many feet deep with the substance of the Cassius gas giant. Here most periodic table elements were available to her in compound form, but she possessed the tools to separate and recombine them, and the ship’s fusion reactor supplied the energy to operate those tools. Using a diamond saw extruded by the frame she wore, she began cutting blocks from the icy layer and loading them on the sled. She was satisfied she had everything here; everything she could possibly want.

‘It is protected,’ said Hourne, the ship’s AI.

‘Protected?’ Blegg continued gazing at the artefact, now with numerous optic interfaces in position all around its rim.

‘And encrypted,’ the AI added.

‘You were getting something from the fragments of crystal found by Shayden—so what did you find there?’

‘DNA,’ the AI replied. ‘And numerous possible variations thereof.’

Blegg turned away from the viewing window to scan around the control centre. Two haimans, fifteen humans and five Golem worked at consoles, carrying out whatever tasks the AI felt best suited their specialities. The woman, with only her blonde plaits showing because her face was thrust inside a VR mask, specialized in crystal micro-scanning using only UV and indigo light. The two haimans were fast, almost instinctive, programmers; they did not seem to be doing much, but that meant nothing—if they were doing a lot it would not show in any physical way.

‘A message?’ Blegg wondered.

Al Hourne continued, ‘Shayden’s skin cells bonded to the surface of the crystal, were read at the molecular level, her DNA copied in virtual format, and in the same format possible variations processed. It was these that fed back through the optic interface she connected. That piece of crystal then began rapidly to degrade.’

‘This could happen to the entire artefact?’ Blegg watched one of the Golem reach up to pull aside his shirt, then a flap of syntheflesh underneath that to insert an optic plug. Directly controlling something—perhaps one of the telefactors.

‘It is possible. I believe this one protective measure will ensure the contained information does not fall into the hands, tentacles or claws of alien lifeforms.’

Blegg grinned. He liked this AI—it possessed a dry sense of humour.

‘You’re keeping it clean, then.’

‘Yes, now, but even though this object came from an environment in which DNA could not remain intact, just by bringing it aboard this station, it must have come in contact with complete DNA strands. That it has not self-destructed suggests different rules apply to the whole. I suspect those fragments that broke away then cued themselves to disintegrate. This would prevent any hostiles from cutting the artefact apart to obtain its secrets.’

‘So what is happening through the main interfaces with it?’

‘It absorbed the data I transmitted into it, but returned nothing until I sent in a search program. That program came back with three-dimensional measurements for the human eye.’

‘I see. We are not just dealing with data storage here, are we?’

‘The semi-AI program I later sent in returned with a hologram of the human anus—in full colour.’

Blegg laughed out loud. ‘So what does it want?’ he finally asked.

‘From having read human DNA it has constructed virtual representations of human beings. It can read molecules by touch. Scanning indicates nanoscale sensory apparatus imbedded in the surface. I am presently transmitting language files into it with five-level data back-up.’

‘Five level?’

‘Apple, for example, is represented by that word in every current human language, also a hologram, genetic coding and variations, context links to human biology, mythology, semantics—’

‘Okay, I get the picture. Let’s hope whatever is inside there gets it too.’

‘I believe it already has. Observe.’

Blegg turned to see a hologram of a naked woman rise out of the carpet. She wore a fig leaf and, while he watched, took a large bite out of a juicy apple she held.