Inveigled into a survey of botanical art on Versimmon, Bernice is disappointed to get bogged down in an unseasonal cold spell - and to discover that Ruth has some radical ideas about how the living archive should be managed.
Why is a hailstorm bringing back memories of a war two generations gone? Where are Versimmon's first animals appearing from? And who can Bernice trust on a planet full of budding artists?
As the forest world is bombarded by ice and the collection's guards start disappearing, the archaeologists find themselves getting back to their roots and branching out into local politics. All the time, the weather on Versimmon is changing, and its inhabitants will find that revolutionary times demand revolutionary works of art...
Klappentext
When Bernice Summerfield awoke from stasis, she found a message waiting: an instruction from a very old acquaintance, telling her to make her away to a planet called Legion... and to her son, Peter.As she begins her intergalactic road trip through the cosmos, Bernice quickly learns that her journey won't be easy. Family feuds, noxious nuns and lethal leisure worlds are set to hound her every step of the way, whilst old friends are ready and waiting for her arrival...Old lives are abandoned. New lives lie in store...with many others hanging in the balance.* * *Bernice - or Benny to her friends - is on the ultimate road trip, scouring the universe in search of her missing son, Peter. Along the way, she stops off on the planet Versimmon, where she is soon drawn into an expedition investigating the legendary Caldera Archive. The Archive is a series of tapestries and artworks grown into the ground, cultivated from the giant trees in the Versimmon Forests... and seemingly influenced by the planet's weather conditions.The trouble is that the artworks aren't just tree roots: they are part and parcel of the entire ecosystem of the planet. The trees and everything around them are alive, for now... but unscrupulous politicians are looking for ways to butcher the forests and exploit their DNA, all so that they might recreate the artworks again and again, selling them on to the highest bidder. And all at the expense of every single life-form on Versimmon.Now Benny and her friends have to find a way to save the Versimmon ecosystem and preserve one of the galaxy's hidden treasures... but a storm's already brewing in the Versimmon sky.