As she’d thought earlier, what else could the whole Prime scheme be? And that nasty little phrase had begun to haunt her. What else? For the Accelerators to risk internal ANA suspension by manipulating the Ocisens and Primes was a phenomenal gamble, one that always stood a good chance of exposure. To her mind it was too much of a gamble for anything as astute as an ANA faction. For all that she rejected half of their ideologies, they weren’t stupid. That left her with the uncomfortable question of what else they could hope to gain by forcing deployment of the deterrent fleet.
In a classic diversion tactic, the fleet would rush off to intercept the Ocisens, leaving the rest of the Commonwealth exposed. She couldn’t think what the nature of that exposure could be.
It can’t be a physical attack. They need the Pilgrimage ships to be complete and launch. They also need ANA to carry on; after all, they’re part of it.
So what, then?
If it was nothing but a crude attempt to analyze the deterrence fleet weapons, they were going to fail, and failure now would mean the end of them and their goals. ANA: Governance had used the suspension sanction only once before, during the Evolutionary Secessionist rebellion five hundred years ago, when the Secessionists had tried to literally split ANA so they could assume control of a section and go postphysical.
There has to be something I’m missing.
The one big hole in her information was the nature of the deterrence fleet, which was the one thing ANA: Governance would never explain to her. For all that she was a valued agent, even she acknowledged that that information could never be allowed to leak out, which it might well do if she was ever captured. Small chance, but realistic if it was the Cat after her. And if not the Cat, there were others who would enjoy seeing her removed from physical existence. There probably always would be. All part of the job. After fourteen hundred years one just grew to live with the prospect, no matter what one’s psychology was.
The smartcore told her the Alexis Denken was fifteen minutes out from Kerensk, and Gore was making a call.
“Justine’s still all right, then,” Paula said. “That’s good news.”
“Yes. But that little shit Ethan must be laughing his fucking head off that the Skylord wouldn’t help her.”
“It won’t help her now. But let’s face it, if any of us is close to maturity, it’s Justine.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“I didn’t realize time was that fast inside the Void.”
“Nobody did. Although I suspect the flow rate might be localized. We don’t know enough about its fabric yet, but that would certainly explain the Skylord’s acceleration. It wasn’t physically fast; it operated on a different time flow.”
“What do you think happened on Querencia since the Waterwalker’s death? The Skylord said there’s nobody left now.”
“Who gives a shit? I have some information for you. Do you know who left Ganthia two hours after you did?”
“Yes, an Accelerator agent we’re interested in. He’s got an ultra-drive ship, but its stealth isn’t perfect, or at least ANA’s sensors are better. Don’t worry. Digby has him under surveillance.”
“Keeping it in the family, huh? Good for you. But I wasn’t talking about Chatfield.”
Paula sighed. There were times when she was very annoyed with ANA for the leeway it granted Gore Burnelli. “Who, then?”
“Marius.”
After fourteen hundred years, an unexpected turn in a case no longer surprised her, but she was very interested. “And how do you know that?”
“A friend of a friend saw him at the starport.”
She laughed. “You mean the Conservative Faction is still eager to screw the Accelerators.”
“Screw them into the ground and dance on the pieces, actually. Does that information help?”
“It’s not helpful for them, but it does confirm my assumption that Chatfield is an Accelerator representative.” Her u-shadow reported that it couldn’t track the origin of Gore’s call. There were very few people who could manipulate the unisphere to that extent. And why would he hide that, anyway? Unless … No! Surely not.
“I have something else which may be of use to you,” Gore said.
“What’s that?”
“Troblum.”
“You know where he is?”
“No, sorry, not that, but I do know what he’s been up to.”
“Oh, really? Your Delivery Man shut down our one avenue of investigation. I’ll get around to arresting him one day, you know. Using an m-sink on a Central world is not amusing.”
“Consider this my olive branch. We were scared by what Troblum was doing.”
“Which was?”
“Building an FTL drive big enough to move a planet.”
“Jesus! You’re kidding.”
“Wish I was. The good news is that he wasn’t doing it for the Accelerators, at least not as far as we can determine. This seems to be some mad personal obsession.”
“That fits. He has a semiplausible theory on how the Anomine acquired Dark Fortress technology. One way is that they simply stole or borrowed it from the warrior Raiel.”
“Yeah? Anyway … he succeeded in building one.”
“Now you are kidding me.”
“No. That’s why the Delivery Man was authorized to cover it up. We were concerned when we thought it was part of the Accelerator plan, but now we don’t believe it is.”
“So why tell me this now?”
“Troblum is a very strange man. And now he’s loose in the universe with an FTL drive that might be able to move a planet. He’s also trying to make contact with you to tell you something about the Accelerators. They don’t like that.”
“Ah, I get it: the wild card.”
“Damn right.”
“And that worries you?”
“It should worry you, too. Events are becoming unstable enough as it is. We don’t need people like Troblum fucking things up even more.”
“And yet he might have the evidence ANA: Governance needs to suspend the Accelerators.”
“Could be. Who knows?”
“So what do you want me to do?”
“Stick him up at the top of your priority list. He needs to be found.”
“After what happened on Sholapur, I expect he’s halfway to Andromeda by now.”
“We can’t take the risk. You must not allow the Accelerators to find him again.”
“Don’t try to tell me my job,” she told him curtly.
“Wouldn’t dream of it. Just making information available like a good citizen.”
“So what are you up to right now? I heard you didn’t show up for the ExoProtectorate meeting.”
“I thought now was a good time to take a sabbatical. But don’t worry; I’m still sticking my hand in.”
“Stick it in too deep and I’ll break it off. You know you don’t have half the special privileges you think you do, not as far as I’m concerned.”
“Pleasure doing business with you, Paula. As always.” The call ended.
Paula sat back on the couch. After a while she began to grin.
The Wurung Transport cab rattled along Colwyn City’s aging public rails all day long. Araminta sat on the wide front seat with the wraparound bubble window switched to one-way, watching a city in torment. The Ellezelin capsules zoomed low over the buildings, an unending reminder of their presence and power. Desperation was sinking in now, replacing the previous sullen resentment that had claimed the city. The Senate delegation had been on the ground for six hours before Cleric Phelim even agreed to see them. Crowds around the docks were treated badly by the paramilitaries as they shouted their demands to be heard by the Senators. Flights by ambulance capsules were still forbidden; cabs and trike pods were kept busy carrying the injured to city hospitals. By midafternoon numbers were thinning out around the docks. Other disturbance areas were growing.
Laril had switched on the cab’s unisphere node as he had promised. It responded to simple voice ins
tructions, and that was proving incredibly useful. Almost the first thing she saw was a unisphere report on Justine’s encounter with the Skylord. The dream had been released into the gaiafield a few hours ago, the show said, and they’d transferred the images over. A lot of smart commentators were busy providing their interpretations, as was a Living Dream Councillor called DeLouis who seemed repellently excited by the Skylord’s refusal to take Justine to the nucleus. Araminta watched for a while until she realized that no one really knew anything, then switched to local news. The tiny portal projected scenes captured by reporters all across town.
One thing kept happening over and over again, inexplicable to the news shows. Ellezelin capsules were pouncing out of the sky to snatch random women by force. There was no discoverable connection between the women as far as anyone could make out, even though some very sophisticated semisentient scrutineers were employed to that effect. The Ellezelin troopers who performed the seizures were extremely determined and didn’t care how much peripheral damage was committed to achieve their objective. The images stirred much of the outrage people were feeling. The minority of residents who had valiantly gone to work were heading for home by midafternoon. Almost no one on late shifts turned up. A siege mentality was growing. Homes were double locked and alarmed.
Araminta only had to see the first three atrocious snatches to work out the link between the hapless women. They looked like her.
“Sweet Ozzie,” she groaned as the third was dragged away in the middle of a street in the Espensten district, her two young children screaming at the horror of Mommy being forcefully taken from them.
Condemnation from across the Commonwealth reached a crescendo with that one. It didn’t affect the behavior of the paramilitaries.
Her feeling of depression grew as she saw her homeworld suffer because of her—a feeling not helped by the way the Skylord had rejected Justine. Araminta was furious about that. After all she’d risked by contacting the Skylord and getting Justine into the Void, the effort had come to nothing. Justine hadn’t even gotten to the Heart. There would be no negotiation now, no explaining to whatever controlled the Void the damage it was causing.
There was nothing Araminta could do about that or about anything, actually—short of surrendering, which was one very swift answer to everything. Instead she did what Laril advised and delved into the gaiafield, losing herself amid the emotional outpourings and whispered messages of enticement and spectacular memories divulged by the confluence nests. There were levels, or layers, or perhaps she was too rigid in applying such labels; there were certainly different aspects to the emotive universe in which she could immerse herself.
The dreams, of course, were the primary foundation of the gaia field: not just Inigo’s dreams but countless billions of others given to the confluence nests by their creators, each identifiable by its unique emotional appellation. Any dream might rise into her consciousness— the summons of a matching mood or image, exactly the way memories inside her own head worked: by simple association. Inigo’s dreams, though, all had strong tags and were the easiest of all to acquire.
As the cab trundled onward, steered by Laril’s dodgy software, Araminta bowed to the inevitable and lived through Inigo’s first few dreams, only to shake herself free hours later, smiling exuberantly as young Edeard walked across Birmingham Pool to defeat Arminel. She felt like letting out a cheer inside the cab. Makkathran was such a delight, with its strange architecture and peculiar genistars, populated by rich and pompous lords and ladies out of some incredibly ancient text. She wondered if Edeard would wind up marrying Kanseen or Salrana; either would be a lovely romantic outcome. And she knew for sure it all had some kind of ridiculously happy ending, not that she’d ever want to live in such a backward culture.
Outside Inigo’s dreams of Edeard were the voices carried on winds of pure emotion: the everyday emissions of her fellow Colwyn City residents. The gaiafield was in a bleak state indeed beyond the cab, worry and fear from the majority almost drowning out the fervent hopes of the Living Dream adherents that their Second Dreamer was truly close at hand.
Perhaps it was because her Silfen heritage, rather than gaiamotes like everyone else, delivered her into the gaiafield, but this whole strange universe of memory and raw emotions seemed remarkably clear to her. She was able to rise above the emotional clamor to study the composition of this strange cosmos in a calm and objective fashion. By doing so rather than simply plunging in, she became aware of what her mind interpreted as little neutral zones, slivers of nothingness anchored throughout the babble. Strangest of all was the way they appealed to her; their outer layers reverberated to an emotional state that was almost identical to her own. That mental siren song alone made her cautious. Holding them aloft in her mind, she could feel the subliminal tethers to the confluence nests of the city.
Ozzie! Living Dream really is desperate to find me.
She carefully separated herself from the treacherous traps. Beyond that brash bright constellation of human thoughts was the ever-present serenity of the Silfen Motherholme.
“Do you know me?” she asked in trepidation.
The answer wasn’t specific, not speech in human terms, more a warm feeling of acknowledgment and welcome.
“Can you help me?”
Sadness, not cold; it was regret rather than a rejection.
“I might make a real hash of things.”
The comforting warmth of a mother’s embrace.
“I wish I had that much confidence in me. Do you have any idea what’s at stake here?”
A glowing gold light was bathing every cell of her body, as if an angel’s smile had broken through Colwyn City’s fug of misery.
“Oh, for Ozzie’s sake; all right, I’ll ask it again.” And she reached beyond the Silfen Motherholme for the entity that lurked right on the edge of her perception. Carefully this time, avoiding the vigilant watchers, she spoke softly within herself, a call that found her bathed in a luminescence similar to the Void’s nebulae, relishing the smooth flow of the universe around her.
“Hello,” she said to the Skylord.
“I wait for you.”
“Was that you with my friend? The one who is inside your universe.”
“I have not guided one of your species for a long time.”
“Doesn’t mean much,” Araminta muttered sourly. “If I came to your universe, would you guide me to the nucleus?”
“I will.”
“Immediately?”
“Once you have reached fulfillment.”
“Ah. You just won’t do it, will you? None of you will.”
“I am gladdened by your desire to reach the nucleus. I will guide you.”
“When our species first arrived in your universe, where did you guide them?”
“My kindred showed them where they might live and reach maturity.”
“So you will take people to planets, just not the nucleus? Interesting.”
“I will guide those who have reached fulfil—”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it.”
“Do you come?”
“Many of my species will try to reach you.”
“I await with joy.”
“By reaching you, they will slaughter billions of other people; trillions of lives will be lost as your universe destroys the galaxy. How do you feel about that?” She knew she was risking triggering another devourment phase, but she’d managed to calm it the last time.
“Not all reach fulfillment. Your species grows strong. Few of your kind will be left to ascend into the fabric alone.”
“Do you even understand that there is a universe outside yours?”
“There is only here, the universe and the nucleus. You will emerge here somewhen.”
“Déjà vu,” she grunted. “Okay, then,” she told the Skylord. “Maybe I will.”
“I wait for you,” it said as she withdrew her consciousness. She hurriedly checked around outside the cab. Night was falling, the low sunlight d
iffused to a smear by the city’s force field weather dome. She peered upward urgently but couldn’t see any of the Ellezelin capsules swooping down on her, so presumably they hadn’t overheard her conversation with the Skylord.
“Big deal,” she snorted to the inside of the cab. “I can’t stop the Void from taking us in. The bastards have just about won.”
That left her with some decisions to make. She told the cab to swing past Bodant Park, using the rail on the marina side. She wanted one last look at what she’d considered her first real home since, well, leaving Langham. It was becoming clear to her that she would have to get out somehow. The only way to stop Living Dream from using her was to get beyond their reach. That cut her options considerably. Cressida’s offer of a starship ticket was clearly impossible. Events of the last few days had made it obvious that even a diplomatic starship wasn’t going to lift her away from Colwyn City. Thinking of that made her remember Cressida’s claim of a Silfen path in Francola Wood. Now, that was a definite possibility. But she was more confident that Laril might negotiate for her. He was part Higher now; he must know a reliable faction, one that was opposed to the Pilgrimage. Everyone knew the factions had agents with all sorts of enrichments, and Gore had said they were looking for her. If anyone could get her out of Colwyn City and away from Viotia, it would be they.
That came hooked to the sheepish thought that if a faction took care of her, she wouldn’t have to make the big decision herself.
Forget that. You just need to get out of here.
It was dark by the time the Wurung Transport cab slid along Aeana Street, parallel to the Cairns. Strong white light shone through one side of the cab’s bubble window, coming off the big Deco marina buildings. She could hear the crowd now, that unnerving buzz of so many people sharing their anger.
The cab pulled into a marina slot, and Araminta got out. She was surprised by how many people were in the park; it was in the thousands now. On this side they were milling around in loose groups; over near her apartment block they’d concentrated into a dense knot, shouting abuse and clashing with the barrier set up along the road.
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