Bloom (novel)

Did You Know?

• Ansharton is a large city on Ganymede where Lottick's office is located.
• Philusburg is a smaller city on Ganymede where Strasheim and his mother live.
• Galileo is the city, base, and port on Ganymede where the Louis Pasteur is docked.

Plot summary

In 2106, self-replicating nanomachines called Mycora have consumed Earth and the inner planets, forcing humanity into the asteroids and Galilean moons. Two groups exist: the Immunity, using ladderdown technology and augmented reality on Jupiter's moons, and the Gladholders, using intelligence amplification and AI in the asteroid belt. The story opens on Ganymede with journalist John Strasheim writing about a Mycora bloom. Lottick plans a mission to drop technogenic life detectors on the polar ice caps of Mars, Earth, and the Moon, and asks Strasheim to accompany as a reporter. A starship is being built for colonization beyond the Solar System. Strasheim joins the crew of the Louis Pasteur, but a terrorist attack releases a Mycora bloom in the hangar, killing one crew member and forcing an early launch with insufficient supplies. The Pasteur docks at the asteroid Saint Helier for supplies, where the crew discovers that telescopes have detected human life on Earth and Venus coexisting with the Mycora. The ship is pursued by the Temples of Transcendent Evolution, a group that considers the Mycora divine.

Characters

John Strasheim, a cobbler and amateur journalist on Ganymede, is the main character. Vaclav Lottick, head of research for the Immunity and the most powerful man in the Solar System, recruits Strasheim. Darren Wallich, captain of the Louis Pasteur, has a tickle capacitor implant that makes his personality more likable. Tosca Lehne, a crew member, co-invented the t-balance coating for the ship. Jenna Davenroy, a nuclear engineer in her 40s, serves as ladderdown expert and chief propulsion monitor. Tug Jinacio, a Response lieutenant killed in the hangar bloom, handled emergencies. Renata Baucum, a bioanalyst, is a traitor killed when Strasheim blows her out an airlock after she ruptures hidden Mycora. Sudhir Rapisardi, the biophysicist, coordinated the TGL detectors. Chris Dibrin, sent to guide the crew on Saint Helier, has an implanted artificial intelligence for faster thinking.

The Louis Pasteur Spaceship

Named after the French microbiologist and chemist, the Louis Pasteur is very small with an unusual external coating called the t-balance, invented by Tosca Lehne. Strasheim describes it as like a bathroom with seven shower stalls and a streetcar cockpit wedged at one end, with a utility closet at the other, cramped for a crew of seven on a two-year voyage. The t-balance, a gleaming rainbow gray coating of minuscule dots that appear to move, provides tactile camouflage to convince the Mycora the ship is part of it. Although theoretically functional, the t-balance has never been tested, as testing requires surrounding the ship with Mycora.

Terms/Organizations

The Immunity is a defensive system protecting people on Ganymede and other outer planets from Mycora spores, and also refers to those under its protection. Ladderdown is a system converting elements into lower-numbered ones, leaving the Immunity with abundant high-numbered elements such as gold, used for shoe weights and paving streets. Mycora, a technogenic life form created by humans, escaped control and consumed everything; it resembles grey goo but has evolved to survive with nothing left to consume. Conway's Game of Life is used as an imperfect analogy for Mycora's operation. The Temples of Transcendent Evolution, formed on Callisto, invest heavily in Mycora research and view the Mycora as a divine presence greater than themselves.