Qiwi floated the empty bubble into his hands. Bonsai bubbles were a commonplace in the confines of a ramscoop under way. They existed in all levels of sophistication, from lumps of moss up to things almost as complex as this temp's park. And—"This is a little smaller than the problems we've been working on. I'm not sure your solutions would work here."
Appeals to pride had often worked on the old Ali, almost as often as appeals to love. Now you had to catch Papa at just the right instant. He squinted at the bubble, seemed to feel the dimensions with his hands. "No, no! I can do it. My new tricks are very powerful....Would you like a little lake, maybe lipid bound to lie flat?"
Qiwi nodded.
"And those garbage spiders, I can make them smaller and give them colored wings."
"Yes." Reynolt would let him spend more effort on the garbage bugs. They were important for more than just the central park. So much had been destroyed in the fighting. Ali's work would allow small-scale life-support modules all through the surviving structures. It was something that would normally take a Qeng Ho specialist team and deep searches of the fleet's databases—but Papa was both Focused and a genius. He could do such design work all by himself, and in just a few Msecs.
Papa just needed a push in the right conceptual direction, something that old prune, Anne Reynolt, could rarely provide. So—
Ali Lin was suddenly grinning from ear to ear. "I bet I can top the Namqem High Treasures. Look, the filtration webs will carry straight across. The shrubs will be standard, maybe a little modified to support your insect diffs."
"Yes, yes," said Qiwi. They had a real conversation, several hundred seconds, before her father lapsed into the fierce concentration that would make the "simple changes" actually doable. The hardest part would be at the bacterial and mitochondrial level, and that was totally beyond Qiwi. She smiled at her father, almost reached out to touch his shoulder. Mama would be proud of them. Papa's methods might even be new—they certainly weren't in any of the obvious places in the historical dbs. Qiwi had guessed that they might allow somevery nice microparks, but this was more than she had hoped for.
The High Treasure bonsais were no bigger than this, thirty centimeters across. Some of them had lived for two hundred years, complete animal/ plant ecosystems—even supporting fake evolution. The method was proprietary and not even the Qeng Ho had been able to purchase all of it. Creating such things with only mission resources would be a miracle. If Papa could do better than that...hmm.Most people, even Tomas, seemed to think that Qiwi had been brought up to be an armsman, following her mother's military career. They didn't understand. The Lisolets wereQengHo. Fighting came a far second. Sure, she had learned a little about combat. Sure, Mama intended she spend a decade or two learning what to do When All Else Fails. But Trading was what everything came back to. Trading and making a profit. So they had been taken over by the Emergents. But Tomas was a decent person—and he had the hardest job she could imagine. She was doing everything she could to support him, to make what was left of their expeditions survive. Tomas couldn't help that his culture was all screwed up.
And in the end it wouldn't matter that Tomas didn't understand. Qiwi smiled at the empty plastic sphere, imagining what it would be like filled with her father's creation. In civilized places, a top bonsai might sell for the price of an entire starship. Here? Well, Qiwi might make these on the side. After all, it was a frivolity, something that Tomas probably couldn't justify to himself. Tomas had banned hoarding and favor-trading.Uh-oh.Maybe I'll have to work around him for a while. It was much easier to get permission afterward. In the end, she figured the Qeng Ho would change Tomas's people far more than the reverse.
She was just starting a new diffs sequence when there was a ripping sound from below, the source hidden by the lower foliage. For a second, Qiwi didn't recognize the sound.The floor access hatch. That was for construction only. Opening it would tear the moss layer. Damn.
Qiwi swung out from their little nest, and moved quietly downward, careful not to crack branches or cast a shadow on the bottom moss. Breaking in while the park was officially closed was only an annoyance—heck, it was the sort of thing she would do if she felt like it. But that floor hatch was not supposed to be opened. It spoiled the park's illusion, and it damaged the turf. What sort of jackass would do something like that—especially considering how seriously Emergents took official rules and regulations?
