The Bonfire Heart of DB Winters

The Angel of Death has come to a leafy town in Northern England to take the soul of an old soldier. It appears to be a routine extraction. However, DB Winters is no ordinary old man. Neither was he an ordinary soldier. A tale of love, sacrifice, bloodshed, Tehran and how man can sometimes even make the Angel of Death ponder on the astonishing capacity man has to forge bonds with others.Janus Howard has inherited his recently deceased Uncle’s business empire. His estate is in orbit around Sun-Earth Lagrange 2. Janus’ primary goal is to further his Uncle’s ambition to promote the political and economic influence of space-going people. His direct competition with OraCom has come to a head as each company vies for a world contract for managing interstellar communication. OraCom is Earth based and desires all communication to process through its terrestrial communication center. Howard Industries believes the communications network should be multithreaded and openly shared throughout space, not focused in any particular area.Janus also manages orbital research in materials science and digital electronics. The discovery of a unique fish may lead to profound development in unforeseen areas. Researching this creature occupies Janus as he grows to understand his Uncle’s history and explores his own personal aspirations in love and business.Polly Bergen has completed the Cognitive Mapping Project. Her studies, paid for by OraCom, have established a map of the brain just as the genome project mapped human DNA. Her results have been applied to the creation and optimization of an intelligent horse. This creature represents a preliminary test of intelligence boosting techniques that might someday be used to enhance human intelligence beyond any conception. Polly is excited to be part of such an incredible project but finds her personal qualms being pushed further than even she is comfortable with.Malcolm Koch (owner of OraCom), despises computer intelligence or Ai. His fervent belief is that humankind is God’s greatest and perfect creation, that computer minds are superfluous and dangerous. If he could, he would have them all destroyed or fundamentally limited in capacity to allow human mastery for eternity. He therefore believes that interstellar communication should rightfully be managed from Earth. Only in this way can humans hope to properly manage the actions of all space going people.Janus hopes to find his Uncle’s killer and to win the contract for building an interstellar network of communication nodes, (using entangled particles). His attention is distracted both by an intelligent woman and by the unique properties discovered in a recent acquisition, the Aquagorgon. The Gorgon can kill by destroying the brain cells of its attackers, and then consumes them for food. Discovering the mechanism of this psychic ability may lead to a profound improvement in faster-than-light travel. Should Janus keep the essentials of the experiments secret? Or should he reveal the science to all mankind? The experiments put the Gorgon in harms way. Janus finds his personal relationships interfering with his business and finds it strangely stimulating.Meanwhile Malcolm’s experiment is flourishing as a huge green horse learns to speak and think as a human. His intelligence and potential are grossly underestimated, as are the intelligence and shrewdness of another experiment kept hidden from Polly. The early success with Saxon, the horse, has been expanded in the application of similar techniques with a primate. Singe, the Bonobo has learned to keep his incredible potential secret from the researchers. His mental abilities are beyond measure. He may represent the very intelligence Malcolm wants reserved for man alone. Singe knows that if Malcolm knew his potential he would have him destroyed, so he plots to escape with Saxon. At the end, a well known woman scientist is tasked with making the first ‘contact’ with a new intelligent life form in a meeting place arranged in space.