The Engineer Reconditioned by Neal Asher Page B

used the time profitably, putting a probe down into the seas of Haden and discovering many of the same plants and creatures that now flourished in the isolation chamber.
    "This certainly could be the Jain home world," said Chapra.
    "Any world could be the Jain home world," said Abaron.
    Chapra waited for an explanation.
    "Our Jain has ably demonstrated how it can re-engineer any life form, and how it can build life forms from component atoms. How much has it re-engineered itself? Haven't we done the same? There are humans with gills and fins, humans with compound eyes and exoskeletons, humans who can live in ten gees."
    "Very true," said Chapra. "We might even be Jain."
    That shut Abaron up for a long time. When he finally spoke again it was to say, "We have to learn to speak to it now. We have to learn its language."
    Chapra was in thorough agreement, but even she was not sure where to start. The Jain might speak using ultrasound, pheromones, molecular messages, and it might not speak at all. Its language might have billions of words, no words, ten words, or it might ignore them because it felt depressed. Scan of its wide neural structure showed a hugely complex organ in its skull, a spinal column almost as wide as that skull, and from which branched nerve channels as thick as a human arm, leading to sub-brains in the torso that were easily as complex as human brains, then leading to each of its eight tentacles, eight interfaces.
    "It's back at its machine," observed Abaron. "Will it even listen when it's there?" They watched it at work, tentacles moving here and there across the surface of its machine.
    "The ends of those tentacles are interfaces and they are crammed with microscopic manipulators," said Chapra. "There must be mating plugs and microscopic controls all over the surface of that thing."
    "The entire surface is perhaps one control system," said Abaron.
    "The machine is expanding," Box abruptly told them. Chapra reached for her touch controls then realised she did not have to bother; they could see it now. The mouths of the tubes had been approximately forty centimetres wide and the entire structure two metres across. It was visibly growing now, in pulses.
    "The machine is drawing in and circulating water," said Box. No need to confirm. They could see the movement. They watched as it drew in shrimps and water plants. Only water came out.
    "It's making something quite big now," said Abaron.
    "Oh really," said Chapra, her hands rattling over her console. She swore under her breath when she realised Box was still not allowing her to scan the machine, then she abruptly folded her arms and sat back.
    The machine expanded until it was four metres across, the top of it out of the water, the mouths of the tubes three quarters of a metre across. In a couple of the tubes they could see flickers of light as from an undersea welder. It drew in some of the bigger crustaceans. They did not come out again.
    "Looks like it's getting there," said Abaron.
    The Jain reached inside one of the tubes, pulled out something bulky, a soft mollusc from its shell. It towed this object to the jetty, and with much effort heaved it up out of the water.
    "Oh my God," said Abaron.
    On the jetty lay a female human child of perhaps five years. At the base of her back, etched in the purples and reds of a birth mark, was the triangular interface. As they watched the child vomited water then slowly stood up. Her skin was very red.
    "The heat," said Chapra.
    The door to the lock opened and Judd strode into the chamber.
    The Jubilan communications satellite was a confetti of bright metal wrapped around a silver ovoid half a kilometre across. Geostationary above Jubal it glittered like some huge Christmas decoration. Around it, like a swarm of silver bees, glinted shuttle craft and loaders. The dark wedge of the Samurai was in harsh contrast as it slid into realspace trailing streamers of red fire. From this wedge of night sped four hardly visible