“Which is the main problem,” Oscar said. “What’s the point? Our gloriously idiotic Dreamer is going to launch the Pilgrimage fleet in seven hours. You’re not going to get an election if there’s nothing left of the galaxy to hold an election in.”
“So remind me why we’re still here,” Tomansio said.
Oscar was going to launch into his usual impassioned plea for hope and faith based on that five seconds of raw face-to-face impression he’d gained of Araminta back in Bodant Park. He had been so utterly certain that she was playing Living Dream somehow. But the team had heard it all so many times from him, and now here he was examining ways to flee from the galaxy in one of the finest starships ANA had ever constructed. “I don’t know,” he said, surprised by how hard the admission was. It meant that the mission was over, that they could do nothing, that there was no future.
He wondered what Dushiku and Anja and dear mercurial Jesaral would say when he landed outside their house in a stealthed ultradrive starship and told them they’d have to flee the galaxy. It had been so long since he’d spoken to them, they were actually starting to drift away from his consideration. That wasn’t good. He really could survive without them. Especially now that I’m living life properly again.
A dismayed groan escaped his lips. Oh, you treacherous, treacherous man. Beckia is right; I have no dignity.
Cheriton, Tomansio, and Beckia exchanged mildly confused glances as the rush of conflicting emotions spilled out of Oscar’s gaiamotes.
“What will you do when the expansion starts?” he asked them.
“The Knights Guardian will survive,” Tomansio said. “I expect we will relocate to a new world in a fresh galaxy.”
“You’d need to find such a world,” Oscar said cautiously. “For that you’ll need a good scoutship. An ultradrive would be perfect.”
“It would. And we would be honored for you to join us.”
“This is difficult,” Oscar said miserably. “To acknowledge we have failed so completely, not just the five of us but our entire species.”
“Justine is still inside the Void,” Beckia said. “Gore may yet triumph. He clearly intends something.”
“Clutching at straws,” Oscar told her. “That’s not strong.”
“No, but part of what I believe in is having the strength to admit when you’ve been defeated. We didn’t secure Araminta, and she’s made her own choice, despicable bitch that she is. Our part in this is over.”
“Yeah,” he acknowledged. He still wasn’t sure how his life partners would react to all this. Not that he was so shallow that he’d fly off without making the offer to take them. But they all had family, which made an exodus complicated. Whereas he was truly alone. Probably the closest connection he had to anyone alive today was with Paula Myo, a notion that made him smile.
Every one of Oscar’s exovision displays was abruptly blanked out by a priority protocol as his u-shadow reported that someone was activating a link from an ultrasecure onetime contact code.
“Bloody hell!” he blurted.
“Hello, Oscar,” Araminta said. “I believe you told me to call.”
Even with a combination of smartcores and modern cybernetics and replicator factories and a legion of bots and effectively bottomless government resources, not to mention the loving devotion of every single project worker, building the twelve giant Pilgrimage ships was a phenomenal achievement by any standards. But for all that, the prodigious amount of processing power and human thought that had been utilized to manage the project was focused primarily on planning and facilitating the fabrication itself. It was unfortunate, therefore, that a proportional amount of consideration hadn’t been given to working out the embarkation procedure for the lucky twenty-four million.
Mareble had been reduced to tears when she and Danal had received confirmation that they’d been allocated a place on board the Macsen’s Dream. She actually sank to her knees in the hotel room and sent the strongest prayer of thanks into the gaiafield, wishing it toward the Dreamer Araminta for the kindness she’d shown toward them yet again. For days afterward she’d gone through life in a daze of happiness. Her brain was stuck in the most amazing fantasies of what she would do when she walked the streets of Makkathran itself that it was a miracle she even remembered to eat. Then her wonder and excitement were channeled into preparation; she was one of the chosen ones, an opportunity she must never waste. She and Danal spent hours reviewing the kinds of supplies they wanted to take. Allocation was strictly limited to one cubic meter per person, with the strong advice not to bring any advanced technological items.
It was her deepest wish that she could somehow become an Eggshaper like the Waterwalker himself. For years she’d studied the techniques he’d employed in those first dreams; she was sure she could emulate the ability if she could just get into proximity with a pregnant default genistar. Once the basic clothes and utensils and tools were packed, she set about filling the precious remaining space with the kinds of tough coats and jeans and boots that were essential to any branch of animal husbandry, with practical veterinary instruments occupying the last remaining cubic centimeters. Danal filled his container with some luxury food packets and a range of seeds, but mostly his allowance was taken up by old-fashioned books printed on superstrong paper by a small specialist replicator unit he bought for the occasion. He wanted to be a teacher, he told her, which was why he also took pencils and pens and all the paraphernalia necessary to make ink.
Embarkation began three days after the drives and force fields arrived. Before she’d met the Dreamer Araminta, the unsavory origin of the technology would have troubled Mareble. But now that she’d witnessed Dreamer Araminta confront the disquieting Ilanthe-thing, she had confidence that their Pilgrimage wasn’t being perverted for a faction’s sinister agenda. Araminta was quite right: The Void would prevail over any wickedness. When their capsule arrived at the construction yard, she was carefree and dizzy with the prospect of the flight itself. Everything her life had been devoted to was about to be consummated.
The capsule had to wait outside the yard’s force field dome for seven hours, stacked three hundred meters above the ground in a matrix resembling a metallic locust swarm, all of them awaiting landing clearance. When they finally did get down outside one of the materiel egress facilities, bots loaded their containers on a trolley that quickly slipped away through the air. Mareble and Danal had to walk through the facility past an array of scanners and sensor fields before they were finally out under the domes that cloaked the evening sky in a pale purple nimbus. Long braids of trolleys buzzed high through the air, forking and flowing like a dark river tributary network as they glided to their designated ship to off-load. Staring up at the appallingly complex, fast-moving streams, Mareble glumly resigned herself to never seeing her personal container again.
Below the trolleys, a stratum of solido signs hovered above the wide avenues between the starships, carrying directions and stabbing out flashing arrows. To complement that, her u-shadow received a series of guidance instructions that would take her to entrance ramp 13 of the Macsen’s Dream. She and two million others. What those instructions amounted to was: Join the three-hundred-meter-wide queue filling the avenue and shuffle along for five hours.
With darkness falling, the hulls of the giant ships curving away above her created an unavoidable impression of being trapped in a metallic canyon with no end. The regrav fields supporting the ships pulsed oddly, creating unpleasant effects in her stomach. There were no toilets, nothing to eat or drink, nowhere to rest. The noise of everyone talking and complaining together along with crying distressed children was unnerving and depressing. Only the gaiafield with its shared sensation of anticipation kept her spirits up.
Five hours pressed up next to a band of boisterous women who boasted about their genetic reprofiling to amazonian twenty-year-olds. They wore T-shirts with embroidered slogans: “Dinlay’s Lurve Squad.” “Badder Than Hilitte.” “I’m Gonna Get DinLAYd.”
Mareble and Danal exchanged a sardonic look and closed their ears to the bawdy talk and dirty laughter. It was amazing how some people interpreted the fulfillment the Pilgrimage was bringing them to.
Eventually, after far too long in a Honious-like limbo, they arrived at the base of ramp 13. After the chaos she’d endured, she let out a quiet sob of relief.
“It’s real,” she whispered to Danal as they began the slow walk up the slope. The Dinlay girls followed them up, but the crowd here wasn’t so bad. Thousands more were still trudging slowly along the avenue behind and below her. She was rising above them now in every sense.
He gripped her hand and squeezed tight as his mind let out a surge of gratitude. “Thank you,” he told her. “I would never have made it without you.”
For one brief instant she thought of Cheriton and the short, hot comforting time she’d spent with him after Danal’s arrest, how in turn he’d given her the fortitude to get through that period of misery and disorientation. Somehow she didn’t let the pang of guilt out. After all, even the Waterwalker had lapsed when he tried to bind the world to his faulty notion of unity. From that he had emerged triumphant.
“We made it, though,” she said. “I love you. And we’re going to wake up in Makkathran itself.”
“Och, that’s very sweet,” a loud amused voice said.
Mareble fixed on a blank smile and turned around. The man behind her on the ramp wasn’t quite what she was expecting. Not that she had any preconceptions, but …
He was taller than Danal, dressed in a kilt and very bright scarlet waistcoat with gold buttons. Not something she ever remembered anyone on Querencia wearing. She was about to say something when a flicker of silver and gold light shone through his thick flop of brown hair, distracting her.
“They call me the Lionwalker,” he said. “But I got that label a long time before our very own Waterwalker came along, so that’s okay, then. Pleased to meet you.”
“Likewise,” Danal said stiffly as he introduced himself.
“So are you two lovebirds going to get hitched in the Lady’s church?” Lionwalker asked.
“Mareble is my wife,” Danal said with such pride that she ignored how rude the stranger was being and smiled up adoringly at her husband as his arm tightened around her.
“Aye, well, yes, but a marriage blessed in that church would be a blessing indeed, now, wouldn’t it? And take it from a man who’s seen more than his fair share of every kind of bride and groom there is, a marriage needs every bit of help it can get.” Lionwalker pushed his hand up in salute, showing off an antique silver hip flask. “Cheers and bon voyage to the pair of you.” He took a long nip. “Aaah, that’ll keep the cold off my toes on the voyage.”
“We don’t need extra help,” Mareble sputtered.
“If you say so. Mind, it’s a particular person who needs no advice in life.”
“I’ll thank you to keep your homilies to yourself,” Danal told him. “Our guidance comes from the Waterwalker himself.”
They’d reached the top of the ramp, which frankly Mareble had wanted to achieve in slightly more dignified circumstances. The Lionwalker took another nip, winked lecherously at her, and sauntered into the Macsen’s Dream as if he owned the starship.
“Well!” Danal grunted indignantly. “Some of us clearly have a lot longer to go before reaching fulfillment than others.”
The chamber behind the airlock was a junction of seven corridors. Small, neat solidos flowed smoothly along the walls, indicating the zone where their assigned medical capsules were located.
“Come on,” Danal said, gripping her hand.
Mareble narrowed her eyes, staring along the corridor down which the Lionwalker had vanished. “I know him,” she said uncertainly. The memory was elusive. But then the squad of Dinlay girls was shrieking wildly and running down their corridor like a football team going onto the pitch, which made her chuckle. She let Danal lead her into the labyrinthine interior of the starship. Instinctively she reached for the Dreamer Araminta’s gift, finding her standing on the observation deck of the Lady’s Light, alone and resolute, staring out through a huge curving transparent section of the forward fuselage.
Reassured her idol was watching out for all of Living Dream, Mareble strode on with renewed confidence.
The SI’s icon appeared in Troblum’s exovision, requesting a connection. At least it was asking, he thought, rather than intruding.
Mellanie’s Redemption was still secreted away in transdimensional suspension above Viotia. Troblum couldn’t quite help that. He had been completely taken by surprise at Araminta’s defection to Living Dream. Given how long she had spent trying to elude them, suddenly turning up and claiming their leadership lacked any kind of logic, at least the kind he understood. He did assume it was some kind of ruse—again, not one he could fathom.
So he waited for her endgame to become clear. After all, if he took flight to another galaxy and, however unlikely it was, she resolved the whole Pilgrimage problem, he’d never know.
“Even if they don’t Pilgrimage, there’s still the Accelerators and Ilanthe and the Cat,” Catriona had pointed out.
“A solution to the Pilgrimage will by definition have to include and neutralize them,” he explained patiently.
“I thought you were keen to find out what happened to the transgalactic expeditions.”
“I am. But the time scale is so short now before we know if Araminta succeeds in getting the Pilgrimage fleet through the barrier, I can afford to wait and see if the expansion begins as predicted. If it does, we can outrun it now that we have ultradrive.”
“What about Oscar? The SI said it knows where his ship is.”
“Irrelevant now. All that’s left is Gore and Ilanthe, the two real players. This is their war.”
“Are you scared to meet Oscar?”
“No. There’s simply no point.”
“You might be able to open the Sol barrier.”
“No!” That was the truth. He’d spent day after day analyzing the files in his storage lacuna, working through the theories and equipment they’d developed during his time on the Accelerator station building the Swarm. There was no way around it that he could see, no way to overwhelm the barrier. And he didn’t have enough data on the individual components of the Swarm to see if there was a backdoor. In any case, most of it had been constructed after he’d left; all he’d done was help set up the manufacturing systems. They would have made a lot of changes and improvements over the decades; he wasn’t current.
The Mellanie’s Redemption stayed above Viotia because it was as good a place as any to wait. After his futile attempt to analyze the Sol barrier, he even managed to catch up on some sleep. Time was spent on reviewing the starship’s basic systems, getting up to date on maintenance procedures, fabricating some replacement components in the small high-level onboard replicator. There were also a great many files his u-shadow acquired for him from the unisphere, information and entertainment that would make a life of exile in another galaxy more bearable.
When the SI’s icon appeared, Troblum didn’t authorize the link at once. First of all, he was busy. And then … the last couple of weeks had eased him into a state of acceptance. He knew he was leaving; it was simply a question of timing now, and he didn’t really even have to make that decision. The Void’s final expansion phase would begin, and he would leave. It was that simple.
The SI, though, would bring complications back into his life.
“I know you,” Catriona Saleeb said. “Not knowing what it wanted to tell you will eat you up. And it’s being polite. It could have forced its way into the ship’s link with the unisphere.”
“Yes.” Troblum sighed. He canceled the blueprints in his exovision display and looked down at the micromanipulator he was using. Underneath its transparent dome, the clean-environment unit contained a scattering of newly replicated components that he was slowly assembling into a solido projector. He’d obtained enough
base programs to construct a reasonable I-sentient personality. It would be himself, he’d decided, a younger, physically fitter version that would be able to share Catriona’s bed. He’d redesigned the sensory correlations with his own biononics so that they were a lot higher than a standard version, allowing him to enjoy the experience to the full. Incorporating those customizations took time. By itself, it was an intriguing problem to solve, one that had absorbed his intellect for several days. It was almost like becoming multiple. Catriona had said she was looking forward to it as well.
His u-shadow opened the link.
“I have an interesting development to report,” the SI said.
“What?”
“Oscar Monroe has just received a secure call from someone at Bovey’s Bathing and Culinaryware. That’s a macrostore in the Groby touchdown mall in Colwyn City.”
“So?”
“The originator claims to be Araminta. The link was established through a one time code which Oscar issued. Nobody else knew about it except him and the person it was given to.”
“And you. So any decent e-head could find it.”
“I only know about it because I’m monitoring all the links going in and out of Oscar’s hidden starship. Once I’d intercepted it, cracking the code was tough even for me. It would be beyond most e-heads in the Commonwealth.”
Troblum frowned at the tiny electronic components inside the micromanipulator case glittering like so many diamonds. “But it can’t be from Araminta.” His u-shadow had put the Pilgrimage departure into a peripheral exovision image; he could see the Pilgrimage fleet on Ellezelin. They had finally finished their chaotic embarkation. Several live feeds were showing Araminta standing on the observation deck of the Lady’s Light. “She’s in the flagship. They’re about to launch.”
“Exactly. So why is a onetime code given to her personally by Oscar being activated from Colwyn City?”
“I don’t understand.” It did make the puzzle of why she’d defected to Living Dream more absorbing. Troblum liked puzzles. Not that it changed anything. “What did they say?”
The Void Trilogy 3-Book Bundle Page 195