Free Manhattan in Reverse by Peter F. Hamilton Page A

problems, but there are some textures and tastes which elude the formulators.’
    I took a sip, and pursed my lips in appreciation. ‘That’s good. Very good.’
    ‘I’m glad. You’re someone I think I’d like to have on my side.’
    ‘Oh?’
    He sat back and grinned at me. ‘The other families are unhappy to say the least about our settlement claim on this system. And you are the person they send to test the waters. That’s quite a responsibility for any representative. I would have loved to sit in on your briefing sessions and hear what was said about us terrible Caesars.’
    ‘Your head would start spinning after the first five hours,’ I told him, dryly. ‘Mine certainly did.’
    ‘So what is it you’d like your redoubtable ship and crew to do while they’re here?’
    ‘It is a genuine scientific mission,’ I told him. ‘We’d like to study the bacterial life you’ve located in the moons here. Politics of settlement aside, it is tremendously important, especially after Mars turned out to be so barren.’
    ‘I certainly have no objection to that. Are we going to be shown the data?’
    ‘Of course.’ I managed to sound suitably shocked. ‘Actually, I was going to propose several joint expeditions. We did bring three long-duration science station vehicles with us that can be deployed on any of the lunar surfaces.’
    Ricardo Savill Caesar tented his forefingers, and rested his chin on the point. ‘What kind of duration do these vehicles have?’
    ‘A couple of weeks without resupply. Basically they’re just large caravans we link up to a tractor unit. They’re fully mobile.’
    ‘And you envisage dispatching a mission to each moon?’
    ‘Yes. We’re also going to drop a number of probes into Jupiter to investigate its structural composition.’
    ‘Interesting. How far down do you believe they can reach?’
    ‘We want to examine the supercritical fluid level, the surface of it at least.’
    He raised an eyebrow. ‘I shall be most impressed if your probe design is good enough to reach that level. The furthest we’ve ever reached is seven hundred kilometres down.’
    ‘Our engineers seem quite confident it can be reached. The family has always given solid-state science a high priority.’
    ‘A kind of technological machismo.’
    ‘I suppose so.’
    ‘Well, this is all very exciting. I’m very keen to offer you our fullest co-operation and assistance. My science team has been looking forward to your arrival for months. I don’t think they’ll be disappointed. Fresh angles are always so rewarding, I find.’
    I showed him a satisfied nod. This stalemate was the outcome with the highest probability according to our council strategists. We’d established that our family was free to roam where it chose on any of the moons, but not to stay. Which meant the most popular, if somewhat whimsical, theory was unlikely. Several senior family councils had advanced the notion that the Caesars had discovered high-order life out here, and wanted to keep it for themselves. After all, since they found bacteria in the undersurface seas of both Ganymede and Europa, then more complex life was an ultra-remote possibility. Personally, I had always considered that just too far-fetched. More curiously, Ricardo Savill Caesar hadn’t objected to us probing Jupiter itself. The second most likely theory was that they’d found something of extraordinary value in its atmosphere. Again unlikely. There had been dozens of robot probes sent here in the decades before their flight. Which put me far enough down the list to start considering alien spaceships and survivors of Atlantis. Not an enjoyable prospect for any rational man. But as Ricardo Savill Caesar wasn’t giving anything away, my options were reducing. It was an annoying challenge. He knew that I knew the reason for the settlement claim had to be staring right at me. I simply couldn’t see it.
    I told myself it didn’t matter. I never expected to catch it