Quantum Shadows

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Yet another variation on the Falls, those before the Fall that was the only one the hegemons of the Decalivre remembered … or cared to remember, as if no other Fall had occurred before the forced arrival of the Rapture.

  Too often, sleep was not the refuge of dark forgetfulness, but the Niflheim of memory.

  How long can you keep the past of the pasts from being prologue? How long before the demands of conflicting and absolute purity lead to another Fall?

  He no longer knew … but he knew, also, that each Fall postponed or averted was one less torment.

  Wings black from Heaven’s true unholy lies,

  Raven lights again the fires of the skies.

  43

  Corvyn wondered why, when he awoke, he slept better in his own bed because he’d slept in so many beds over the years.

  But more in your own dwelling and bed in recent years. And that was some small comfort, although he was unlikely to be sleeping in his bed for the next few days, and that was if matters went well. If they did not …

  He didn’t bother to shake his head at the thought, but concentrated on preparing himself for his departure. That included a long hot shower and dressing, beginning with the necessary nerve-support underwear that ran from ankles and wrists to his neck, designed to block some of the agony to come, and followed by a protective singlesuit. When he reached the breakfast room, Muninn had eggs béarnaise, with ham slices, on the table, along with hot bergamot tea. Corvyn seated himself carefully at the table. He did not rush, but neither did he dawdle, and in less than an hour he stood in the study, nerving himself for what needed to be done. His eyes glanced briefly at the trident, thinking that, even if all went well, he should let it remain.

  As yet another reminder? As if you needed more.

  “I wish you didn’t have to go,” offered Muninn. “We’ll have everything ready for your return.”

  One way or another Corvyn would return, but in one way, he would not be aware of it … He pushed that thought away.

  “Although it’s unlikely, Jaweau may already be on his way to the control center. If so, I don’t want him snooping around for too long.”

  “Are you sure he’s discovered it?”

  “He’s known it existed for as long as he’s been here. What he hadn’t known, until now, or recently, is exactly where it is.” Corvyn didn’t mention the obvious, that the control station for the Pearls of Heaven could not be concealed entirely, given its purpose, only made incredibly difficult to locate and access, effectively limiting its access to those with skills, excessive strength, technical expertise and infrastructure, and particular abilities.

  Jaweau had already hinted at finding information in the shadows, but there was one aspect of the station’s location that he might not know. If Jaweau did know, however, there would be evidence of that and, if so, that proof would allow Corvyn to act, affording him a slight advantage, one that would allow him to return as he was, at least in good enough condition to be returned to what he was, as he was.

  He pressed against his belt, felt the bulk of the special disruptor in its holster. Then he nodded to Muninn and Huginn and dropped into the shadows, heading southeast to Los Santos—to the cavernous spaces beneath the Mount of Faith—where he needed to find proof of what he suspected was certain.

  Even before he reached the domain of the White One, he sensed an immense amount of power being collected in the caverns beneath the Cathedral Los Santos—far, far more than had been used when he had visited Jaweau earlier.

  Then a particle beam of intense power flared skyward for but a few seconds, leaving a momentary gap in the quantum fields around and beyond the Pearls of Heaven, although that beam had not been aimed directly at the command station that held the intelligences directing the Pearls and their lances, not that the beam would have even strained the station’s defenses.

  That’s one way of doing it, Jaweau. Or at least of reducing the initial agony by disorganizing the shadow defenses surrounding the center.

  The White One’s momentary weakening of one of the obstacles to gaining the command station might have smoothed his entry to the station, but if Jaweau had worked that out, then he had to have made plans for his return—plans Corvyn needed to thwart immediately. He felt as though he had taken a deep breath, although that was an illusion while he was still within the shadows. He pressed onward.

  Moments later, he appeared in the central control room of the quantum intelligences located well beneath the Cathedral Los Santos, but no sooner had he left the shadows than an angel seemingly composed of brilliant violet light appeared.

  “You shall not pass, Shadow of Darkness.”

  “By whose command?” asked Corvyn as he stepped toward the coruscating spatial arrays of colored lights that constituted the manifestation of the masterlinks, from which he could trace what he sought.

  “By the Master of the Faith, the White One Omnipotent.”

  “I’m sorry, but the will of the Master of the Faith will have to defer to the dictates of the First.” As embodied in one Raven. With that, Corvyn twisted certain shadows and dispatched the violet angel to a position slightly below the surface of Lake Lethe, from where the angel could possibly emerge and recover, without memory, possibly under the care of the Brothers and Sisters of Mercy … if the angel was fortunate.

  Before there was another interruption—and there certainly would be—Corvyn immediately seized control of the masterlinks, searching for the rejuvenation cradles that doubtless existed within the lands of the White One, since Jaweau had to know the damage his mind and body would suffer from reaching and even staying for a short time aboard the control station.

  Corvyn tried not to dwell on the fact that he would face the same problem, that is, if he was successful in what he needed to do. If he was not successful, the pain would be less—for him—but the eventual carnage for Heaven would be far greater. Falls always decimated planets, if not systems, or even entire stellar clusters.

  He had discovered the location of the two cradles in the Mount when a second angel appeared, this one of brilliant blue light.

  “Depart, Shadow of Darkness!”

  Corvyn sensed the disruptor carried by the angel and shunted the energy back onto the aetherial being, then dispatched that angel also to Lake Lethe, immediately returning his attention to the masterlinks and gathering in two other locations in and around Los Santos.

  Sensing the shifting of the shadows, he immediately twisted those same shadows around the third angel, this one of brilliant yellow light, and sent that angel to the selfsame lake as the previous two. By now he was sweating and breathing harder than he would like, but he knew that Jaweau was thorough and patient, and that there had to be other cradles, at least a few, elsewhere within the lands of the White One.

  He teased out the last three locations just as the angel in red appeared.

  Rather than exert any more energy, he employed the shadows to move to the first rejuvenation cradle in the Mount, appearing in a small chamber deep beneath the interplay of quantum intelligences and energies, and so concealed by them that without the information from the masterlinks, he doubtless would have been unable to find it nearly so quickly, that delay being another form of defense being mustered by Jaweau.

  He immediately drew the disruptor and fired, targeting the control system. Then he dropped into the shadows and sought out the second cradle, which met the same fate as the first.

  He sensed the red angel following him as he wound his way through the shadows under the city toward the nearest remaining cradle in the city, which he discovered, in a certain irony, rested well beneath Lucifer’s Basement. Again, he used the disruptor, but before he could return to the shadows, the red angel manifested itself.

  To dispatch the red angel took more time … and effort … before Corvyn could proceed to the next cradle in the city, located deep beneath the river port coordination center. A quick blast from the disruptor rendered that cradle useless.

&n
bsp; Then Corvyn shadow-traveled from Los Santos to the outlying locations that contained cradles.

  The first dispersed cradle was located under a white obelisk in a forest to the northwest of the road between Plymouth and Los Santos, followed by another located near nothing that Corvyn could discern, except trees, other vegetation, and a concealed, wide-spread array of solar collectors. Last was the cradle under the white obelisk in the woods east of the Redstone Inn.

  From there, Corvyn returned to the control center under the Mount of Faith, where, before another angel could appear, he twisted certain quantum shadows and immediately withdrew before waves of fire and destruction began to reduce most of the complex to melted materials and ashes. He regretted the handful of deaths, but those deaths were far fewer than those who died aboard the Blue Dolphin and far, far fewer than the millions who would die in the years to come if Jaweau had his way and gained control of the Lances of Heaven—and that would be just the beginning.

  Corvyn returned to a vacant room in the Domus Aurea, just to spend a few moments recovering. No angel followed him, not this time.

  He washed his face and drank some water, then walked to the window and looked toward the Mount of Faith, surrounded by an aura of smoke, and likely the acrid odors of electric and quantum malfunctions. After several long moments of observation, he turned from the window … and thought.

  Jaweau had definitely believed in redundancy … but old as the White One was, Corvyn was far older and had seen and experienced all too many stratagems of would-be purveyors of the One True Faith. He had also survived the agonies of semi-rebirth enough times that he dreaded what he must again do … an option that he had foreclosed for Jaweau, and one that Jaweau might foreclose on him, were he not successful in his next actions.

  In a way …

  He shook his head. He was bound by duty … and the knowledge of all too many Falls across too much of a galaxy that had far too few worlds suited to the biochemistry and narrow temperature range of human beings.

  And if he could have acted sooner …

  … but he had always been bound by proof … unlike deities who could act on faith without proof.

  So … after a few moments, he would have to depart for the control station where Jaweau awaited him.

  In a few brief moments.

  No single truth convinces Raven’s brood,

  for solipsistic gods are far too crude.

  44

  Using the shadows to shift skyward was like climbing a staircase. The first level was uncomfortable, the second irritating. By the third level the pain burned through Corvyn’s body, although there were in actuality no levels at all, just an ever-increasing bombardment of radiation, staggered quantum fluctuations, and intermittent and increasing gravitonic pressure. When he reached the command station controlling the Pearls of Heaven, his nerves began to scream from the combined effects that would, within hours if not sooner, limit his ability to function or even to stay alive. Those cellular effects were largely irreversible.

  Even before Corvyn reached the shadows surrounding the station, he sensed another organic presence—and that presence had to be Jaweau or, even less likely, Shiva. Rather than emerge from the shadows in the receiving bay, where he had sensed the presence of a hegemon and where he would have received certain treatments to extend his ability to function without pain while he was present in the command center, Corvyn decided to bypass that and go to the control center directly. He located the small chamber off the main control room, the space that had been the admiral’s quarters when the Pearls of Heaven were being formulated and strung, wincing as he emerged into the space, noting it remained seemingly the same as it always had been. That, of course, was an illusion, but then reality was also an illusion, if of a different sort.

  Every movement hurt. That pain would increase in time, since the station was suspended in what might have been described, nonmathematically and therefore somewhat inaccurately, as a fixed point in a macro-quantum space-time geode, and thus out of phase, slightly, with normal space-time, making it inimical to the long-term survival of carbon-based organic life. It was, however, ideal for the qubit-based AI systems that governed Heaven, operated the Pearls of Heaven, and used the Eyes of Heaven and, when necessary, the Lances of Heaven.

  Corvyn gestured, and the door to the control center opened. He took two steps forward into a space filled with intertwined matrices of energies and information flows. For the sake of convenience Corvyn visualized himself on the bridge of a long-annihilated vessel, then connected to the systems … and waited.

  Although Jaweau likely discerned Corvyn’s presence, he would not wait long, patient as he might be, since he was under the same physiological time constraints as Corvyn, as well as the fact that he had no familiarity with the systems, and system access was not possible except through the control center.

  In a short while, perhaps only moments or possibly longer, the energy matrix that was Jaweau entered the control center and resolved itself, at least in Corvyn’s perceptions, into the ageless blond and blue-eyed figure of the White One and offered words that were not spoken but conveyed, nonetheless. “Raven of shadows, of course. The dark one standing in the way of the triumph of faith.”

  Corvyn ignored Jaweau’s jab. “Why did you plan the explosion of the Blue Dolphin to look like a strike from the Lances of Heaven? To see if I’d lead you here? To persuade Shiva that you had partial control of the Pearls of Heaven?”

  “Both. Also, to see whether you are as indestructible as you seem.”

  “I’m scarcely that.” The pain coursing through Corvyn reminded him that he was anything but indestructible.

  “But you are endlessly replaceable. In theory, anyway.”

  “With present biotechnology, so is everyone, including you,” replied Corvyn, adding, “In theory.” But each individual’s unique stream of consciousness is not. That was why Corvyn needed to resolve the situation between the two quickly if Corvyn wished to continue as the unique stream of consciousness that he had been for longer than he could accurately recall.

  “Ingenious, the way the First did it,” added Jaweau conversationally. “Using shifting fractal quantum fields to keep any of us from using the shadows to reach this installation. Or rather, to keep us from returning after reaching it. You don’t seem surprised, Raven. How many times have you died? You know if you die here, it’s the real death for you? The clone of you left behind may have your memories, but you will be dead.”

  “I’ve always known that. Now … why are you here?” Corvyn was well aware of the concealed disruptor that Jaweau carried and what he intended.

  “To ensure the triumph of faith and to allow everyone to escape the prison the First created for us. The irony of naming it Heaven…” Jaweau shook his head.

  “A prison? No more than any other planet. Everyone is free to believe as they wish, to work or not work, to pursue other interests so long as they do not injure others…”

  “But they can’t leave!”

  “What would be the purpose of that?” replied Corvyn. “To destroy other worlds, other planetary systems in the endless conflict over which faith, which belief system, should rule the others?”

  “The Pearls of Heaven are no more than a collar on aspiration. Men need to be free to pursue their own destiny.”

  Men? What about everyone else? Women? Those individuals who are either both or neither or some gender in between or even elsewhere? Those who don’t share your faith? Corvyn knew there was little point in even bringing up those points, at least not to Jaweau. “And when they had the freedom of the stars … what did they do? Squabbled and fought over everything, killing billions of people and destroying planet after planet. You know, really good planets are scarce … and they’re hard to get to, but that didn’t seem to stop them, even with Fall after Fall. All in the name of faith … and freedom.”

  “The Almighty is truth and light. You’re the dark side, Raven, representing the lack of faith, an
d especially the lack of aspiration.” Jaweau smiled. “But one way or another, with you here, at last the white will triumph in Heaven below.”

  “How so?” returned Corvyn, fearing and knowing that the struggle would play out once more to the same conclusion.

  “You know. You know all too well. You cannot return. No field or being can transit the screens in both directions, not and long survive. With you here…” Following the words was the sense of a triumphant smile.

  “And how will you triumph if we both perish here?”

  “You’d like to know that, wouldn’t you, Raven? There’s so much you don’t know, and so much you think you know that isn’t so.”

  Corvyn could say the same of Jaweau, but there was little point in saying it. He continued to listen.

  “You’re not the true Odin, but you’re no different. Not you. You’re just a construct…”

  Not just … thought Corvyn. Not for longer than you can imagine.

  “… You think that in the end, all is nothing. For you, all that matters is the struggle. You and this station, this tin god, have denied the hope of perfection, the glorious whiteness of that perfection, out of life. You’ve denied the opportunity for any faith to triumph, especially the most worthy.”

  “Every House of the Decalivre, every village of belief, has a different view of what perfection is,” Corvyn pointed out.

  “You have never understood. There is only one true perfection, one True Belief, and with you removed from Heaven, there is nothing to stand in the way of that perfection.”

  Corvyn had heard variations on those words all too many times. He could have sighed. He did not. Instead, he said, “You continue to define me as evil. Tell me. What is good? Besides being opposed to what you declare that you stand for?”

  Jaweau frowned. “Faith. Freedom.”