The Logos Probe

By Jack Cross

It's the brutal 2080s. And technology's turned feral. Enter a denuded overpopulated world where a corrupt, decaying society faces cataclysmic war and where remarkable scientific advances are available only to the rich. The white hope in this disaster is Alexander Logos - an innovator with vast enterprises and part of a cartel of shadowy world leaders.

His Research Lab does work for the Pentagon and CIA. And 'Everyoung', his secretive medical conglomerate, dispenses 'permayouth' for billionaires. Enter Don West, a hard up science journalist hired to write Logos Corp propaganda. But West gets too involved. He becomes obsessed with one of Logos's twin daughters.

And this draws him into the dark side of the family and its outrageous projects. What would you sacrifice to stay young? This grim SF explores the emerging sciences of nano and bio-tech, artificial intelligence, xenotransplantation, stem-cell seeding, human cloning, tissue banks and robotics. (95,000 words)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Buzzword Books
• Release date: Jan 25, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311750549

Jack Cross

Jack Cross is a professional author with several published books to his credit as well as numerous short stories. His passion is science fiction.

Book preview

GLOSSARY

1. LIMBO

Equipment purred, clicked.

The room stayed warm.

The dim light—always on.

She couldn't move.

With so little sensory input, her memories were vague dreams. She was no longer sure of anything and mostly slept. The one thing she clearly remembered was her first sight of the outside world.

She'd hidden from the family's security squad—she was just five and saw it as a game—then had slipped out with her Huggie doll through the food machine waste chute.

She'd emerged on a stinking, littered street. People stumbled along carrying bundles as if escaping some disaster. All had filthy faces. Some had missing limbs.

A ragged man crouched by a wall was tending a fire in a tin drum. Beside the drum was a machete, stained with blood and rust. He called, 'Come here, little princess,' and held out a black hand like a claw.

Then she saw what he was doing.

He was cooking a severed arm.

She'd dropped her doll and run shrieking back to the house.

She clung to that memory now like someone dangling by a rope from a cliff.

There was one more thing she was sure of. The number 2081. It blinked on a digital wall display that showed monotonously changing numbers. A long time ago, she'd tried to work them out. Time, date, humidity, temperature, BP, heart rate, blood count...?

But the number 2081 remained constant.

It had to be the year.

And when she looked far left, she could half-see the next one along. The next whatever-it-was. A pale oval on a complex stand.

A technician sometimes came to adjust tubing, electrodes, readings. His steps and the times he stopped meant there were five of them in the room.

The man would work down the row until he stood in front of her, then lean forward. His white smock would snag and his smell foul the aseptic air. His gloved hands would probe beneath her. He'd shine a light into her eyes.

She had no breath but tried to cry out, 'Please switch me off.'

A buzzer would sound below her and something glow red.

The man would glance at the glow, lines deepening near his mouth.

He'd say, 'Fat chance, rich prick,' and move off.

It was all that ever happened.

2. ASSIGNMENT

The Land Rover hummed along the access road, its studded tyres chipping the black ice. On each side, the sea of garbage rippled with rats. Far off, abandoned excavators formed mantis-shapes against the bleak Welsh sky.

Rat-catchers, filthy and in rags, pelted the vehicle with trash. They carried glue-traps and batteries linked to bare-wire grids. Catching rats, West thought, was more honourable than flogging long pig. On a good day these noble scavengers would sell enough low-carbohydrate mince to patch their sores and perhaps buy oblivion with drugs.

'Looks more like a shit pit than methane plant,' Clapton said, arms behind his head. He'd ordered the driving seat to lounge position because even this track had a guide-strip. He belched, then took his last antacid tablet. 'They're really going to fire this up again?'

West nodded automatically, fretting about the faulty circuit on his bathroom's security shutter. These days he went through the house checking everything three times but, as soon as he got out the door, was unsure he had. The way he was going, he'd need a serotonin re-uptake inhibitor. A degree in Medical Sciences taught you how much could go wrong.

Then he thought about his row with Vita and their wreck of a marriage. Life sucked.

They reached the reclamation area. Clapton told the vehicle to stop and checked the scene through his viewfinder. 'The money shot here's a one-eighty pan from the crap to the covered shit.'

West said, 'Right.' It was hardly mesmerising stuff and such pretension was absurd. Clapton was a director/cameraman who cranked out corporate docos. And he wrote scripts for the poor bastard—soul shredding but he needed the dough.

He stared at the wasteland. 'At least you Poms had a bash at alternative energies.'

'Fat lot of good with Asia still pumping fumes. In a world like this, recycling should be a sacred act.' Clapton signed at the window to lower three inches then tossed out the antacid packet.

Not a person, West thought, skilled at leaving a shallower footprint on the earth. Admittedly, the man's heart was in the right place. But, like most people with appropriately positioned hearts, he had the clout of a testicle in a mincer.

Besides, it was too late for crusades. Opportunity's window was bricked up. When nature became Cronus it took every skill just to survive.

Governments and corporations did nothing. Just put out spin. And fought like the now extinct Tasmanian Devil over the few resources left. That was why, near the Thames, they were marking tide-lines on the buildings. And why tourists saw much of Venice and Amsterdam from glass-bottomed boats.

They reached the plant—a group of vast rusting sheds. He stared at the ruin. So many projects like this—wrecked! He said, 'We should do a ninety-minutes for Channel Four on the Yellow Sea algae farms...' Once he would have meant it. The comment was wistful, now.

Clapton rubbed thumb on Levantine forefinger. 'Show me the money, my son.'

They reached the security compound. The guards who checked them through had antiquated tasers and staggered. They had ataxia—the symptom of Zom addicts. One couldn't stop blinking, as if he had a sister to sell.

Clapton told the car to park and make an infrared sweep. The screen showed just one man in the admin block. Clapton instructed the wagon to let them out but to stay on alert. It replied, 'Yes, Mr Clapton. I will relay any further heat signatures.'

In the drab office, they met a caretaker with thick red braces. He handed them interactive brochures blotched with age. He explained that the plant had once generated half a million tons of methane yearly. That it had heated 250,000 homes—until pressure from petro-chems had forced it to shut.

Typical, West thought. Few groups were as ruthless as the anti-alternative energy lobby. He said, 'What was the spin?'

'Leachate.' Total beat-up.'

Clapton scratched his arse thoughtfully. 'What's leachate?'

'Chemicals and heavy metals that dissolve in rainwater and leak into rivers and soils. But there's no leak here. We've got synthetic and clay liners, storage tank, monitoring well—total containment. The sods just wanted to shut us down.' The man's chuckle sounded like a dead branch scraping the rusty iron. 'Now I'll show you over the compressor and generator buildings.'

As West made notes and fretted about his life, he glanced at his colleague who was self-importantly checking camera angles. The guy was a threatened species—only scored low-budget jobs. What was next? A semiconductor smelter? A sewerage bottling plant?

On the drive back through the wasteland, he ordered his seat to 'recline' and listened to the lulling sound of the hub motors coping with the potholes. Each unlucky dip sent them out of phase—a metaphor for his life—because his British excursion had failed. He'd started at the bottom and stayed there. He was homesick for the relentless sunlight and shimmering droughts of Oz.

He was shocked back to the present by shrill electronic Bach from his Mypo. He switched the small device to receive and the display unfolded to wide-screen.

It showed the face of a gaunt man against a wall of interactive kits and vidbooks. 'Donald West, I presume?' The manner and accent were Establishment. 'Stanley Masters here, publishing director of Brandt and Blaxford...'

West tried to look equally nonchalant, aware his face was being transmitted as well.

'...and I haven't had the pleasure of meeting you but Figgis suggested we speak.'

'Really?' He felt a trickle of hope. Brandt and Blaxford had published both his vidbooks, promoted e-sales and cracked the netversities. He'd worked with their commissioning editor, Roger Figgis, but hadn't met the publisher.

'We're developing a concept that could have significant sales.' The man gave a condescending smile. 'It requires a scientific mind and the ability to synthesise strands. I know it sounds a bit top down. But we're wondering if it might interest you?'

'Very much.' Right now, anything would interest him.

'Good. Now it's sensitive so I can't reveal specifics on the phone. But just to whet your appetite, it involves one Alexander Logos.'

Logos? Christ! The tycoon was the Architect of the Age. A universal brand. A technological colossus.

'So could we possibly have a chat here on Wednesday? Say about ten?'

'That's fine. Wednesday. Fine. That's fine.' He didn't have to check his organiser.

'Excellent. Be good to meet you.'

As the screen folded, Clapton said, 'You look like you've won the pools.'

3. FLIGHT PLAN

They were at 75,000 feet and travelling at Mach 6.1., which, Logos knew, was supposed to be impossible even for a military aircraft.

The plane was a classified prototype, a magneto hydrodynamic—faster even than a pulsed-cycle hypersonic. And its flight crew expected the experience to intrigue him. But when you had everything life could offer, perks like this were a yawn.

The cockpit's colour displays reminded him of a Christmas tree he'd had as a child. In time-edited memory that tree still glowed. He peered through the slit-like forward windows at jewel-bright dots in blackness. 'Are those stars?'

'You bet,' the General grunted. 'This baby almost takes you into orbit. Blast, huh?'

Logos didn't reply. The man was a pigmy of comprehension and only smart men were worth exploiting. He peered back at the stars—at this dream within a dream. Dreams, the signature of things, onion-layers of unreality. Because men believe that they already possess consciousness, they give themselves little trouble to acquire it. Nietzsche's sleepwalkers attacking sleepwalkers. No wonder the world was stuffed.

The General tapped the test pilot's shoulder. 'Captain Brennan. Meet Alexander Logos.'

The man twisted to shake his hand, 'Good to meet you, sir. Admire your projects.' He was flying-by-mind. A control ring with sensors banded the shaved part of his scalp.

Logos faked interest. 'Where's the laser control?'

The pilot pointed to a display panel. 'This MFD's slaved to the OSO's acquisition in the mole-hole.'

Thank you, Logos thought, for that techno drivel.

'Multifunctional electronic display,' The General explained. 'Connects with the defensive and offensive systems in back. The laser attacks at the speed of light, to use our favourite phrase.'

Logos stared at the top of the pilot's head where a small island of hair remained—stubble-short with razor cut stars. Hair, the barometer of vanity. The flyboy loved himself.

'Captain,' the General said, 'can you pull some Gs?'

The mind-slaved throttle quadrants moved back and the fighter-style stick forward. The nose dipped, they tilted to the right, the engine roar intensified, and the horizon indicator explained why stars were sliding diagonally across the windows.

Logos grabbed a handhold. The angle pained his rheumatic hip. He felt like bawling them out but that wouldn't do at all. He was the Great Man—the celebrity they were wetting themselves to impress.

He flashed the General a parody of the confidence man's honest gaze—a look to fool no one but a simpleton or intellectual—then delivered his trademark non-committal comment. 'That's really something.' When dealing with idiots, less was more. Well, more or less.

His hip hurt. Bloody thing. Hip replacement? No. Sod it. With each twinge of age, he wondered more about Everyoung. And, each time, common sense advised him to forget it. The Institute was his cash cow, not his personal salvation. In a world obsessed with physical immortality, he'd made a fortune from the fear of death and ageing. But, unlike Sophia, his wife—that macabre result of interventions—he refused to be caught in his own trap.

'Got any particular questions, sir?' the escorting General asked.

'No.' To reduce the General to the particular would prompt a lecture he could do without.

'Find it useful?'

'Bit to think about there.' Again, the non-committal phrase to cauterise conversation. Like a dog expecting walkies, he stared expectantly at the hatch.

With a burst of near-human intelligence, the General opened it. 'There you go, sir.'

'Thank you, General. Very interesting.'

He stepped out onto the expanded-metal grid.

Disorienting.

Because never, in the last ten minutes, had they left the dusty ground of Edwards Air Force Base. But the simulator had convinced him he was still aloft. So, if life were a dream, then this hydraulic-ram-mounted box with its instant CGI was a dream within a dream.

And I, who tell you that you dream, also dream my dream.

He watched the metal gangway lowering from the observation platform where others waited for their turn in the contraption. They were a select group privy to the 'black' world, all with SAR, compartmentalised security clearances. People whose rapacity, sagacity, tenacity had propelled them to the top like scum. Even the wisest of you is but a discord, and a hybrid of plant and phantom.

A phantom was approaching on the now level white metal bridge. Bowman, the diminutive Swiss Chief of Staff. As he squeezed past him he said, 'Vas gut?'

'Yawhol,' Logos smiled. He liked Bowman. The man was a bullshit-free zone. In fact, the two of them traded secrets. More, in fact, than those here suspected.

Logos reached the end of the catwalk, stepped onto the platform, and rejoined Lex Riddington, his corporation's business manager.

Riddington, tall with grey wavy hair, said, 'Impressive?'

'No. An example of hidebound thinking. Why isn't it a bloody UAV like any sensible warplane?'

'Because of the new employment contracts. The cheapest avionics software is a pilot again. Full circle.' He flashed the grin that served as his psychological-raincoat. By the way, I just had a call from Masters. He's found some bunny to write the book.'

'Good.' The book was sorely needed. Perception was all.

An attractive female officer approached them—immaculate uniform, clockwork deportment. 'This way, please, gentlemen and I'll show you the docks.'

Riddington, who saw each woman as a prospect, attacked her with his can-opener grin. 'So you're on cat-herding detail?'

'Yes, sir,' she said and strutted ahead, thighs clam-tight.

She took them to a purpose-built hangar for prototypes of the wedge-shaped aircraft where techbots with protective rubber tracks worked on the wing of the nearest plane. She pointed to the spotless floor. 'No fuel or hydraulic leaks because tolerances are so fine. The umbilicals marry perfectly with each airframe.'

If only humans could do that, Logos thought. Marriage, the ultimate tragedy. He wondered what Sophia was plotting now.

'So why build a simulator,' Riddington asked, 'for an aircraft that's barely flown?'

The woman defensively flashed teeth. 'Have to ask Acquisition that, sir.'

'Because, if you're running an aerospace company,' Logos said, 'you milk government waste.'

'With honeyed hands,' Riddington grinned. 'I'm a creative accountant remember. We've elevated kickbacks to an art.'

Their guide frowned at her Mypo. 'Now we have to transfer you to the shuttle. The observation room's the other end of the base. And that's where we're viewing the fly-in.' As her shoes clicked on the concrete she chatted about shape-memory alloys.

Logos surveyed her neat flanks with lust but nothing stirred in his pants—a disconnection that brought to mind one of his employees, Dr Saks—that genius who had descended to the most lurid hell of invention.

What, he wondered, was more obscene? Unbridled brilliance or the abortions it produced?

Yes, he'd been wise to put Shapiro in charge of Saks and Everyoung. Because, if the unthinkable was ever exposed, Shapiro would take the fall.

4. THE LOGOS PROJECT

The publishing house of Brandt & Blaxford was in Boundary Row. It had a solid reputation in technical/medical subjects and reinforced its income with a popular imprint for sleaze.

West travelled there on the express tube—a luxury for him. It wasn't the magnetic suspension that made it worth the premium, but the relative safety of A-B demographic passengers.

Many of the people in the carriage had the spider-fabric 'S' logo on their sleeves. The ruinously costly armoured underwear, metabolised in cows, served as a mark of status as well as protection. How many were wearing it was debatable but the logo deterred the butcherazzi.

As for B-C demographic drudges—the post-literates on the Northern Line or the red-eye commuters on County Rail—most could only afford ceramics and polyethylene. The first was heavy. The second exposed you to backfire contusions.

His own spider suit, a gift from Vita, was now crumbling from built-in obsolescence. It might stop a glancing blow. But a slash with a machete would leave him bleeding in the gutter at best.

He sat cautiously, wary of everything while staring at nothing then, to pass the time, retrieved a Metro from the floor.

The venerable giveaway had evolved into a disposable reactive sheet with paper-interstrate microelectronics. He pressed the scroll button, scanning the headlines, ignoring body text and stop-frame clips.

It was all stale stuff. Because free newssheets were pegged to Access 3 and sent a single update per day.

SANTA MONICA DAY-CARE SLASHR. STAR'S CHLD EATN.

WASHINGTON EVACD AS NY 4LOUT SPREDS.

TREE GRD'S STRIKE: RICHMOND PARK CLEAR-FELLD

3RD WATER TANKR HIJACKD OFF TUNISIA

MOON GAS WRECKS ARISTARCHUS TOURIST COL

NEW OBESITY VAC CLEARED FOR INFANTS

LOCUST PLAGUE IN ALASKAN WHEATFIELDS

WORLD POP TOPS 12 BIL

He read the last item with the compulsion of a man pressing pus from a sore. It claimed that in the prior century, population had increased four times and, despite famine, disease and genocides, had quadrupled in the past eighty years. Despite the flight from cities, the tides of refugees washing around the world had changed the nature of every centre from Hobart to Helsinki. He knew that, since 2000, lifespan had drastically declined. But a cup of water couldn't douse a blaze.

He sighed, pressed the Oceania tab, and found an item from NSW:

STATE GOVT LAND-GRAB SPARKS RIOT

FIRES KILL 400. FIREBUG CHOPD APART

It was comforting to know that nothing had changed back home.

There were no slashers that day in Boundary Row. The worst he saw was a skinned cat—for a moment he thought it was a foetus—being cooked by three crones. To make the fire, they'd poured kero on a pile of old shoes.

Near them, a legless girl with an empty collection tin was finishing a chalk picture on the pavement. Her expression was so dejected she looked ready for the euth-booth.

He kept a small muesli bar in his briefcase—a handy bribe if accosted. He fished it out and dropped it in her tin.

The girl had it in her mouth before anyone could steal it—too hungry or fearful to remove the cellophane cover.

He left the chaos of the street with relief and was filtered through security choke points into the publisher's foyer. The late-model receptionist could have been mistaken for a human.

While she rang through, he glanced at the new releases. A History of Ankylosis was next to How to get Rug-burns on your Knees. Despite dirt-cheap flex-sheet readers, a few hardcopy books still sold. With digital deceptions ubiquitous, they conferred stability, reassurance even—though the hemp paper flaked with age.

It was five years since the firm had published his second effort, 3004. Your Future Now. It was a study of coming trends and a grab at the popular market. Like most such attempts, it failed to sell. His first book, a biography of Florey, had done well with academic libraries and netchives. But neither project had gone much over the advance. Still, they'd brought him assignments with science programs and lang-zines.

The editor, Roger Figgis, came through the inner scanning door, a youngish man who affected maxi-focals as if anxious to look old. 'Hi, Don. We've been spared to meet again.'

'Never thought we would. What's this thing about Logos?'

'Not out here. Come through.'

Masters, the publisher, waited in the conference room—a tall, vulturine man with hands that extended from his cuffs like shredded rags. He bared receding gums. 'Well met! Good to see you itfiop.' It was the trendy contraction for 'in the flesh and in one piece'.

As they settled into chairs he said, 'No doubt you're puzzled. Well, to put it in a nutshell, the Logos Corporation has approached us to do a book/vid/netset on their achievements. Which says a lot for our reputation. Quite the biggest thing to come our way.'

West still didn't understand it. Logos was The Great Innovator and his corporation the success of the century. 'But they've sued everyone who's tried to do a story on them. And now they want to spill their guts?'

'Apparently. We're rather chuffed at our good fortune.'

A bot-server hummed in with coffees. On the plastic casing between its rubber tracks the Logos logo gleamed as if waxed.

Masters watched it fondly. 'Yes it's obsolete and power intensive but we bought it to show solidarity.' He turned back to West. 'Yes, Logos is the new aristocracy. Billionaire genius. Popular icon. And such a huge phenomenon we're guaranteed sales worldwide. And because he wants this project, he's ready to open all doors. Well, some.'

'Hard to believe.'

'I know. I know. It's been a reclusive corporation—basically to preserve its R&D. So if it's prepared to open up, it'll generate enormous interest. And there are so many aspects. The jails, which somehow make money. The futuristic communities. The architectural wonders. The Advanced Research Labs, Everyoung miracles...'

'And you want me to write this? Why me?'

Figgis pressed the clean-lens feature on his specs. 'Because you're a scientist with journalistic expertise and two excellent books behind you. And you're familiar with trends in all technologies. You also have the Aussie's fresh perspective and forthright approach.'

West wondered if they'd checked his net access. After his punch-pulling article on petro-chems, which he thought would slip under the radar, he'd been pegged back to Level Four.

'And Logos,' Masters said, 'is all about bringing us the future. Saviour of governments. Solver of the insoluble. But now he's striking opposition. Small pressure groups. Malblogs. People picketing. Bluetube skits. ...'

West sipped his coffee, frowning. 'So he needs to massage the truth?'

Masters spread rake-like hands. 'Not quite the expression I'd choose.'

'Are they financing the book?'

'I prefer not go into details.' An evasive look. 'Let's just say it's a great opportunity.'

Pull the other one, he thought. Publishers still wouldn't admit they were PR hacks—a part of the sell-out that had neutered the news half a century ago. It had started when overworked journos had increasingly used the PR fed to them. Now brave souls who bucked the spin had their net access pegged or had 'accidents'. In an age of universal deceit, telling the truth became a suicidal act.

'Now the advance,' Figgis said, 'isn't huge—twice what you got before plus expenses. But this is the ultimate bankable project. A fortune in royalties guaranteed.'

'Do I get to interview the family?'

'You do indeed. That's the other fruity aspect. Lurid past, fascinating women...' Masters warmed to the subject. 'You've the beautiful twin daughters. Inez—the acclaimed composer and musician. And the mysterious Chloe—impassioned advocate for the intellectually impaired. Then Sophia—the impresario mother with a body, thanks to Everyoung age proofing, pickled against the ravages of time. Plus a tycoon who's Edison, Da Vinci, Cecil Rhodes and Ben Franklin combined. Juicy stuff.'

West made a few comments and they responded with soothing sounds that made it clear he was a pet colonial and that they didn't give a toss what he thought.

A Mypo began to skitter on the leather inlay of the table. 'Oh, dear!' Masters said, 'Tempus fugit.' He picked it up. 'Must dash. So do consider it and let us know.' He rose to his great height and left like a man on stilts.

West looked at Figgis. 'I'm stunned. Fantastic you recommended me. Appreciate that. But you're after the standard whitewash, right?'

Figgis developed a fascination with the light-scattering cornice. You were walking on eggshells, West thought, over here. Bloody Poms and their good form.

'You're putting me on the spot, Don.'

'Sorry, but I need to be clear. It's Roll Over Red Rover, right?'

The editor tapped his fingers. 'As we're all well aware, freedom of expression prompts repression. And serious money carries serious risks. And,' he cleared his throat, 'walls have ears. Why don't we meet for a pint of bitter somewhere?'

They made a date at the Black Bull.

Figgis ushered him back to the foyer, brow creased by thought, then ventured one more comment. 'Honestly, Don, I'm not sure what's best here. The phrase reap the whirlwind comes to mind. This'll set you up for life if you're a good and obedient lad. But the slightest attack of ethics could be rotten for your health.'

Don West, journeyman journo, rode the express tube home in a daze. His life, a series of careful retreats, was becoming increasingly hand to mouth. Now. Riches? Glory? The main chance? Plus his arse on the line?

Well at least it was different!

He wondered what Vita would say.

5. SPUD IN

The landing strip ran like a scar across the tan-coloured Mojave Desert. The observation room's sloping window overlooked its tyre-blackened threshold.

Logos stood with the other notables near the buffetbot, waiting for the prototype to fly in from Palmdale.

'Bored?' Riddington asked him through a mouthful of sticky cake.

'Not at all.' He sipped his one coffee for the day. 'I enjoy being carted around and fed—switch to teddy bear mode.'

'You mean you function on automatic?'

'On the outside. The study lights stay on.'

The bog-thick General, still escorting them, called for their attention. '...and now we'll briefly show you how a magneto hydro works.'

While the gathering watched, the General punched up a 3D vid—a Logos product with stacked screens that circumscribed the convergence point limitation.

Logos perched beside the admirable Bowman. The presentation told him nothing he didn't know. Positive field in front of wing. Negative at trailing edge...

Bowman said from the side of his mouth, 'Of course, the magnetic field's a health risk.'

'Isn't everything?' Logos said. 'Shielding?'

'Not practical because of weight.'

'So how do they protect the crew?'

'They don't.'

A buzzer sounded and the General killed the doco. 'Our bird's approaching now. First, you'll see the laser demo over our flight test range. Then a subsonic flyover and touchdown. All watching?'

Logos yawned. This junket was wasting his time. He'd only attended because the British government wanted him informed. One of the drawbacks of his success was that the politics connected with his ventures were more Byzantine than the projects themselves.

'We're flying prototype five,' the airman said, 'our offensive avionics and weapons-test vehicle. It'll intercept a Petronius missile that flies close to Mach 4. If you look at this monitor you can just see it top of frame.'

Logos glanced at the main monitor's shaky telescopic view.

The man pointed at another screen. 'This is the high-res tracking radar. And here's the prototype, which is flying for demonstration purposes at Mach 3. And here you see the Petronius approaching.'

In the big screen, a white streak came from the smudge of the aircraft. Anyone who blinked would have missed it.

On the radar display, the missile disappeared.

The General turned back to them, preening. 'May not look like much but...'

In the big screen, something was wrong.

The faint shape of the aircraft tumbled.

A murmur rolled around the room.

The General gaped like a frozen cod.

The arrow-shape, still tumbling, plunged vertically down.

Bowman leaned toward Logos. 'They've lost control, nicht wahr?'

Officials yelled into their headsets.

Outside, a siren moaned.

The delegates rose from their chairs.

The room erupted with talk.

Three minutes later, across the desert's shimmering pan, they saw the prototype hit and become a fireball that spewed out secondary flames.

'Death in the afternoon,' Bowman sighed. 'Another coffee?'

Logos shook his head. 'It's instant muck. More free radicals than Bosnia.'

6. POLITBURO

Zhang Qui, Party General Secretary and President of the People's Republic, tried to concentrate on what the delegate was saying.

Of the seven in the PRC's supreme governing body, this man was the most radical. 'Contaminated water, no rice, corruption at all levels. Many small hurts spread infection. And while we force people