The Void Trilogy 3-Book Bundle

by Peter F. Hamilton

  Then one of the mob finally managed to shake off the daze of sensation Araminta and the Skylord were radiating out into the gaiafield. It was the one who’d punched Mareble. “You!” he spit. “This is all your fault.” A metal bar was raised. Araminta stared at him, feeling something flow from the Skylord into her mind, elevating her thoughts still higher. And she recalled Ranalee’s iniquitous ability. “No,” she told him quietly, and changed his mind for him, draining away the fear and hatred.

  His mouth parted in a silent gasp, and the metal bar clattered to the ground just as a squadron of capsules roared in overhead. Araminta grinned up at them as they descended, sharing the sight with everyone everywhere. She held a hand out and helped Mareble to her feet as armor-clad figures shoved their way through the sullen silent mob.

  “Thank you, gentlemen,” she said mildly as they came right up to her, guns drawn to cover the throng. “Please assist Danal.”

  The officer in front hesitated. She could sense the uncertainty in his mind, the desperate wish to be anywhere else. “You’re to come with me,” he announced.

  I AM THE DREAMER, Araminta proclaimed into the gaiafield, using the Skylord’s strength to bolster the claim. The officer swayed back from the force of the thought, almost falling as his knees weakened. Behind him, people were flinching, cowering at the power of her thoughts. “Did the Waterwalker travel by capsule?” she continued mildly. “I think not. I will walk to the wormhole. Those of you who wish to follow the dream may accompany me.” She gave the mob a calculated look. No one would meet her gaze now. “Those who would hurt my followers will be dealt with.” She glanced at the officer again. “Your name?”

  “Darraklan. Captain Darraklan.”

  “Very well, Captain Darraklan, your men will perform escort duty. There will be peace in this city. That is my wish.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Darraklan stammered.

  Araminta raised an eyebrow. The hint of censure peeked out from her mind.

  Darraklan bowed. “Yes, Dreamer,” he corrected himself.

  Araminta gave Mareble a gracious smile. “Come.” The crowd parted, and she started walking down the slope toward the river and the docks. Bewildered Ellezelin troopers quickly helped Danal to his feet.

  By the time she reached the bottom of Daryad Avenue, she’d picked up quite a retinue. Happy Living Dream followers had rushed out of every intersection to greet her, disbelief and joy surging out of their minds. Captain Darraklan’s troopers maintained a careful escort, not pressing in yet forming a secure perimeter. Capsules drifted high overhead, keeping pace. Araminta ignored them.

  There had been many protests outside the docks themselves. Several hundred hardy city residents had set up camp in front of the main entrance, only to be largely ignored by the capsules that flitted in and out over their heads. Now they formed a curious crowd, watching as Araminta led her procession toward them. Anxiety and uncertainty began to rattle along the front rank. It was one thing to taunt the unassailable, indifferent paramilitaries on the other side of the fence for the injustice they’d brought to Viotia and quite another to face down a living messiah with mysterious telepathic powers. Araminta was still a hundred meters short of them when they began to part, leaving a clear passage to the dock entrance. Tall gates were hurriedly peeled open to reveal another batch of paramilitaries. These were headed by Cleric Phelim himself, who didn’t offer anything by way of complicity or acceptance.

  Araminta knew this was the first real test of her claim to be the Dreamer. Phelim wouldn’t crumple like Darraklan, though she was certain that ultimately he wouldn’t be able to withstand Ranalee’s dominance technique. She sincerely hoped the Skylord would lend its assistance again if she asked, if she showed an obstacle to bringing the faithful to the Void as she had promised she would. In fact, it really shouldn’t need the intervention of a Skylord. To the whole of Living Dream she had assumed her rightful position as their leader, their savior. Clerics had become nothing more than administrators and bureaucrats, simple functionaries to facilitate her wishes. Judging from the expression on Phelim’s face and the few tightly controlled thoughts he did permit to be shared through the gaiafield, he was beginning to realize that, too.

  I just have to keep going, she told herself in that little core of identity she didn’t share across the gaiafield, be an unstoppable force just like I promised Bradley. The true followers won’t stand for anyone interfering with me, not now that I can deliver the Pilgrimage. That’s what Living Dream stands for; it is everything to them.

  A phony respectful smile spread across Cleric Phelim’s face. “Second Dreamer,” he said, with a slight emphasis on “second.” “We are so glad you have chosen to come forth at last. Welcome.”

  Araminta didn’t even stop walking. She headed straight at the troopers lined up behind Phelim. They quickly shuffled aside. “Part of the reason I remained concealed was the suffering you unleashed on this world,” she said as she led her supporters through the troopers. Mareble, who had stayed close by the whole way down Daryad Avenue, glared at Phelim. It was a common sensation directed at the man. Up ahead was the wormhole; Araminta could see the violet-blue Cherenkov radiation leaking out from the edge. A different sunlight shone through the center.

  Phelim’s expression hardened as he struggled to restrain himself. “I assure you we did everything that we could to—”

  He was moving with her now, ambling in an awkward sideways gait. She’d won. “When I sit in the Orchard Palace, I will order a full and open inquiry into your part in this aggression,” she said dismissively.

  “Wha—” Phelim managed to blurt.

  “Violence was something the Waterwalker strove to eradicate. He devoted his lives to it. The cause almost broke him, but he succeeded. That is his true inspiration to us. And this monstrous invasion is the antithesis of everything Living Dream stands for. To believe you will go unpunished for such an atrocity is arrogant beyond belief.”

  Cheering broke out all across the docks as Phelim abruptly stood still, watching with an open jaw as Araminta carried on to the wormhole. A lot of the enthusiastic jeering voices were rising from the protesters just outside the entrance.

  Araminta smiled proudly, savoring the victory. The wormhole was directly ahead of her now, guarded by tall metal pillars studded with weapons and sensors. The Ellezelin forces parted before her. Helmets were discarded, showing grinning faces. The true believers were delighted she was here, was going to lead them onward just as the movement had always promised. She was cheered and applauded.

  “Thank you,” she told them. “Thank you so much.” It was hard not to laugh outright. She’d accessed politicians working the crowds enough times, always hating the smug cynical bastards putting on a human persona whenever elections were due. Now she understood how they did it; puppeting the crowds was apparently an inbuilt ability.

  Just as she reached the wormhole, she slowed and gripped Mareble’s hands. The woman looked at her with an alarming degree of adoration, eyes bright above the dried blood staining her face and dress. “You can go home now,” Araminta told the overwhelmed woman. “I will lead us on Pilgrimage shortly, once the ships are ready.”

  Mareble’s lower lip trembled as she began to cry.

  “It’s all right,” Araminta assured her. “Everything is all right now.” That was a lie on the grandest scale possible. She was rather pleased with herself for carrying it off with such panache.

  Araminta raised a hand to her newfound friends and walked into the mouth of the wormhole, where she was engulfed by Ellezelin’s warmer, yellower sunlight.

  “Holy crap!” Oscar muttered.

  “That’s not her,” Tomansio said.

  “She’s fucked us,” Beckia grunted. “Totally fucked us. She’s killed the whole galaxy.”

  On the other side of the starship’s cabin, Liatris shook his head, his mouth raised in a lopsided smile of admiration. “Smart lady. They kept pushing her and pushing her, backing her into a
n impossible corner. There were only ever two options. Cave in or come out fighting. They never expected her to do that.”

  “Because that’s not her,” Tomansio said confidently.

  “Looked like her,” Oscar said. His u-shadow was still accessing the unisphere news feeds, showing the mouth of the wormhole not half a kilometer from the Bootle & Leicester warehouse where the Elvin’s Payback was secreted. It had taken a great deal of willpower not to run out of the starship and take a look at events for himself. The unisphere feed showed him hundreds of joyous people following their newfound messiah through the wormhole to Ellezelin. Unisphere coverage ended there. The other end of the wormhole was in a security zone.

  The gaiafield, however, was still gifting Araminta’s sight and emotions as she walked across the nearly empty staging field. Capsules rushed through the air toward her. People were breaking off from their tasks on the acres of machinery scattered about to cheer her arrival in Greater Makkathran. And how is dear old Cleric Conservator Ethan going to react to this? he wondered.

  “So that’s it,” Beckia said. She was still cranky at having to wear the medical sleeve on her arm, which was busy knitting the deep-tissue repairs she’d undergone after the fight in Francola Wood. Three other enriched agents had swarmed her, and her integral force field had temporarily overloaded down her left side. Oscar had pulled her out of the fray just before the capsules landed. He considered her lucky. Tomansio had managed to extract them, and the medical capsule that had repaired her had performed a minor miracle.

  “Maybe,” Oscar said. “She must have a plan.”

  “That’s a dangerous assumption,” Tomansio said. “Liatris got it right; she’s been forced into this act simply to survive.”

  “I thought you said it wasn’t her,” Oscar countered.

  Tomansio’s handsome face shone with a bright smile. “Touché.”

  “It’s her,” Oscar said.

  “Still not convinced,” Tomansio said. “This … empress isn’t the same girl we’ve been chasing after. Facing down Living Dream simply isn’t in her psychology.”

  “What, then?” Beckia demanded.

  “Double bluff,” Tomansio said. “They got to her; they broke into her mind and installed their own operating routines. This is a puppet of Living Dream, one that’s been pushed out center stage to focus everyone’s attention. Big bonus that she’ll do what every follower wants and lead them to Pilgrimage. It makes perfect sense for Ethan to do this; he gets everything he ever wanted.”

  “Except lead Living Dream,” Oscar said. “That’s her next step. It has to be; she can’t do anything else but claim the throne now.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Tomansio said. “He still gets what he wants, which is a ticket into the Void, and at the same time he doesn’t get any of the blame if it all goes belly-up.”

  “Which it will,” Beckia said.

  “I still don’t buy it,” Oscar said. He remembered the expression of fear and determination he’d seen on Araminta’s face when they met oh so briefly in Bodant Park. Her magnificent run eluding not just his team but the entire complement of agents from every power player in the Commonwealth. Besides, she was descended from Mellanie, and that meant trouble on a level these modern Greater Commonwealth citizens couldn’t comprehend. His lips registered a slight smile. Something about the whole situation wasn’t quite right—Tomansio had the truth of that—but he had absolutely no idea what.

  “Then what is she doing?” Beckia asked. “She might have come out fighting from the corner they’d backed her into, but she’s burned any options. She has to take Living Dream on Pilgrimage now. That’s what her whole tenuous authority is based on.”

  “Suicide?” Liatris suggested. “She leads them into the Gulf, and the Pilgrimage ships get blasted apart by the warrior Raiel.”

  “That’d work for me,” Beckia grunted.

  Oscar grinned from the strength of his own conviction. “Have a little faith,” he told the Knights Guardian. “After all, she is a messiah now.”

  Tomansio groaned. “You mean you want us to stay on?”

  “You’ve seen what’s going on in the docks right now. Every Living Dream follower on the planet is going to come running to the wormhole, and Phelim will have to shut off the weather dome to let them in. If we left now, we’d definitely be seen; we’d blow our cover.”

  “We don’t need cover if the operation is over.”

  “Give her a few days. She is rather busy right now, after all. And she has my number.”

  “Don’t we all,” Beckia muttered.

  Araminta stood at the front of the big passenger capsule, looking through the transparent fuselage that wrapped around her. Five hundred meters below, Greater Makkathran was laid out across the ground, a phenomenal urban sprawl that stretched to the horizon in every direction. Sunlight glinted and flashed off the crystal towers rising from lush parks; lower buildings shone with implausible colors. It was, she acknowledged, a beautiful city. However, her vision of the capital was slightly obscured by the sheer number of capsules rising up out of the designated traffic streams to wait for her to pass. Then they curved around to join the festive armada already flying along behind her. There were so many packed together like a smoke cloud, she could actually see the hazy shadow they splashed over the ground.

  Up ahead, the ocean appeared on the horizon where the city dipped down to a broad swath of green park. And there, gleaming in the late afternoon sunlight, Makkathran2 was perched on the shoreline.

  “Do you want to go straight to the Orchard Palace, Dreamer?” Captain Darraklan asked. He’d stayed with her after they walked through the wormhole, seemingly appointing himself as her personal guard. She wasn’t about to argue. With his helmet off, he was actually quite handsome in a classic square-jawed way, his floppy chestnut hair reminding her of one of Mr. Bovey’s younger selves.

  “No,” she said without taking her gaze from the hauntingly strange reproduction city. “Edeard first entered through the North Gate. Take me there; that will be fitting. I will walk to the Orchard Palace.” Which will give Ethan plenty of time to throw up the barricades, if he dares. She felt a grim amusement coming from Darraklan’s mind as the capsule began to lose altitude. He must have been thinking the same thing.

  They touched down on the vast circle of parkland surrounding the crystal wall. As she alighted onto the grass, she glanced back at the armada that was now tussling for ground space. It really had turned the sky dark. She was sure none of them were obeying local traffic control orders anymore. That’s good. A little knot of anarchy which I influence. They don’t all obey Ethan’s laws unquestioningly.

  So far everyone was waiting to see what would happen next, pushing her along with their enthusiasm and her apparent newfound relish for the role of Dreamer. All she had to do was supplant Ethan, and the only way to do that was to show her ability and determination were greater than his. Just like Bradley said.

  Araminta walked through the great arch in the crystal wall, with people pouring out of their badly parked capsules to form a carnival procession behind her. She didn’t really get much of a look at Makkathran2 from ground level. High Moat, which the gate opened on to, was jammed with people; surely everyone who lived in their shrine city had turned out to welcome her. The cheer that arose at her arrival was deafening. A row of men in Makkathran constable uniforms exactly like those of the Waterwalker’s squad saluted. Darraklan and their sergeant shouted back and forth while Araminta waved at the crowd, all the while moving forward. Never hesitate, never slow.

  After a moment the constables fell in around her, easing her passage toward the bridge over North Curve Canal and into Ysidro.

  She was wrong about the whole population being on High Moat. Ysidro’s narrow twisting streets were packed solid with supporters, some crying openly. The eerily familiar Blue Fox tavern was there beside the ginger sandstone bridge that took her into Golden Park, where the sunlight was shimmering off the white pi
llars. Another sea of bodies thronged the vast open space, and the high domes of the Orchard Palace dominated the far skyline.

  While she was walking along one of the park’s elegant paths, Darraklan leaned over to murmur in her ear. “The Cleric Council has convened at the entrance to the palace.”

  “Wonderful,” she replied. There were a lot of children lining the path, all of them with shining adulation in their eyes. It was hard to keep pushing on knowing she would ultimately betray that trust and reverence. It is their parents who have misled them, not me. I will be the truth for them.

  By the time she reached the wire and wood bridge that crossed Outer Circle Canal, her resolution had returned. The thousands of smiling faces that urged her on no longer even registered as she crossed the canal. Darraklan accompanied her while the constables tried to stop the crowd pressing forward into the canal itself. They were all so desperate to see what happened next, their combined thoughts urging the Clerics to acknowledge their new Dreamer.

  As Darraklan had said, the Cleric Council was waiting for her just inside the Malfit Hall, resplendent in their scarlet and black robes. Ethan stood in front of them, his white robes shining far brighter than Araminta’s own. Reasonable enough, she admitted. After all, she’d sewn hers together from the lining of Mr. Bovey’s semiorganic curtains.

  The Cleric Conservator bowed deeply. “Dreamer,” he said. “Welcome. We have waited so long for this moment.”

  Araminta gave him a sly smile. For someone who’d just been politically outmaneuvered, he was in surprisingly good humor. “Be careful what you wish for.”

  “Indeed. May I ask why you have finally come forward?”