The Evolutionary Void

by Peter F. Hamilton

  Unless . . .

  ‘Shit. Go for it,’ he ordered the Delivery Man. ‘Initialize the wormhole. Shove some fucking power my way. Do it. Do it now.’

  He ordered the packages to activate, to grab control.

  Too late. Out of the city’s subdued background murmurings Gore perceived that cool consciousness rising once again. It observed its environment with a host of strange senses.

  ‘This is an act of hostility,’ the elevation mechanism said. ‘You are trying to steal my fundamental nature. It is not for you and your kind, and with good reason.’

  ‘Yeah. So you said. And as I told you, the Void is about to expand and wipe this star system from existence.’ The dream showed him the big Firstlife in Sampalok, shaking its thick beefy body furiously as it tried to orientate itself. Then Ilanthe appeared overhead. ‘Oh Godfuck, no!’ Gore entreated. ‘No, not her, not now.’ The defeat was as strong as any physical blow, striking him to his knees in the middle of the plaza. All around him the glistening black strands of the infiltration web began to smoulder, filling the air with a thin acrid smoke. ‘You’re killing us,’ he screamed into the night. ‘All I needed to do was show the Heart, that’s all, just show the fucker there’s an alternative, prove it can evolve.’

  Tyzak was approaching him cautiously, stepping gingerly over the spluttering web.

  ‘Got it,’ the Delivery Man called. ‘Siphon’s activated. Worm-hole established. We did it!’

  ‘Leave,’ Gore told him flatly. ‘Fly to a fresh galaxy, one that isn’t cursed like this one. Don’t let the universe forget us.’

  *

  The third borderguard imploded amid a searing flare of violet Cherenkov radiation. Broken strands from the concentric shells twirled away, venting thick sparkling gases at high velocity. Marius detected another five materializing out of their distinctive hyperspatial rents. He brought the ship about in a fast curve, chasing the debris that was expanding out of the last implosion. The trouble with combat this close to the star was the lack of mass for quantumbusters to work with.

  Sensors tracked the three largest chunks of the shells, and he launched missiles at each of them. Diverted energy function quantumbusters activated, converting the tumbling mass to energy. Exotic distortions slammed into two of the borderguards as they were still exiting hyperspace, wrenching at the exotic pseudofabric. Unbearable contortions crushed the borderguards down to neutronium density. The wreckage immediately detonated out of its impossible compression state, saturating local spacetime with an inordinately hard neutron storm.

  Seven energy beams burned across the force fields protecting Marius’s starship. His exovision brought up severe overload warnings. He fired another nine Hawking M-sinks, which the surviving bodyguards had no defence against. So far. He watched in fury as the attackers opened up small wormholes, which swallowed five of the M-sinks. Another barrage of energy beams found his starship. Missiles were heading in towards him at ninety gees. And he still hadn’t managed to knock out the Delivery Man’s ship.

  Sensors reported a zero-width wormhole establishing itself between the star and the Anomine homeworld. The smartcore dismissed it as a weapon. Marius ordered an urgent review. The wormhole was originating from the mysterious object which the Delivery Man’s ship had rendezvoused with.

  It had to be some kind of power system. But what needed that level of power? The elevation mechanism! Marius knew it with absolute certainty. Gore had found some way to switch it on. He was going post-physical. It was the only thing left which could threaten Fusion.

  Marius activated the ship’s ultradrive and flashed in towards the star. He emerged just above the swirling streamers of the photosphere where energized atoms from a multitude of spots and flares simmered away into solar wind. Every force-field warning turned critical as the starship received the full blast of the star’s radiation and heat. Marius fired two novabombs straight down, then jumped back into hyperspace.

  Behind him the borderguards were massing above the photosphere. Eighteen of the giant machines had rushed out of hyperspace, firing enough weapons down after the novabombs to break open a moon. None of it was any use. The nova-bombs were designed to function amid the outer fringes of a star, whereas the borderguards’ weapons were just uselessly pumping more energy into the rampant solar furnace.

  Thirty seconds before they detonated, Marius was already outside the Anomine system. The nova would eliminate the power station, then go on to wipe out the Anomine homeworld minutes later. Gore would never reach post-physical status now. The Accelerator objective was safe.

  *

  Edeard didn’t know who to give his attention to, nor even that it would do any good if he could decide. The astounding Firstlife was straightening itself, turning several small black membranes at the top of its trunk towards the humans as well as directing a formidable farsight at them.

  Above the dome the Ilanthe thing was also observing them. It scared him how non-human it was. His farsight couldn’t begin to uncover its secrets, but the power it contained was evident. Whatever the Heart was, it seemed to be bending around Ilanthe’s glossy surface.

  But it was Gore who now concerned him the most. The golden man was stumbling, dropping to his knees. The anguished keening his mind emitted was dreadful, as if his soul itself was being violated.

  ‘Dad,’ Justine was yelling frantically. ‘Dad, what is it? What’s happening?’

  ‘It caught me,’ Gore told her weakly. ‘The motherfucker found the infiltrator packages.’

  ‘I could have told you the Anomine mechanism was obdurate,’ Ilanthe said complacently.

  The Firstlife took a step towards the humans, three of its feet slamming down on the surface of the square with a slap that Edeard could feel in his leg bones. ‘What is this place?’ the Firstlife’s longtalk demanded. ‘What are you? You are not us.’

  Inigo squared up to the imposing creature. ‘This is your future. You were recreated from the Void’s memory.’

  The Firstlife’s farsight probed round again, its extraordinary reach allowing it to scan the city, and delve down into a fair percentage of the warship’s main body. It also attempted to examine Ilanthe, who deflected it effortlessly.

  ‘You are the omega?’ it asked in surprise.

  ‘No,’ Inigo said. ‘We originated outside the Void.’

  ‘How can that be? There is nothing outside, only dead matter.’

  ‘Are you the creators? Did your species build this?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We and many others have been pulled inside so you could exploit our rationality.’

  ‘That is not so. You cannot exist unless the omega formed you.’

  ‘We do exist, and the Void did not make us. The Void is killing us.’

  ‘You do not understand your purpose. This is why I was brought back.’ The Firstlife was uncertain.

  ‘No. You can communicate with the Heart, the mind that envelops us. This is why—’

  ‘Wait,’ Troblum said. He ignored the looks everyone gave him. ‘In your time, were there any other sentient species in the galaxy?’

  ‘There is only us. We are first and when we achieve omega we will be last.’

  ‘First life,’ Oscar said in wonder. ‘The first race to evolve in the galaxy. How old is this thing?’

  ‘Ancient,’ Justine muttered. ‘More ancient than we ever thought possible.’

  ‘Since your time, countless species have evolved right across the galaxy,’ Inigo said. ‘You were first, but you are no longer alone.’

  The Firstlife’s thoughts reeled in astonishment. ‘You are not us? You are original?’

  ‘We are.’

  The black membranes flapped about in agitation. Glistening honey-like droplets appeared on their tips. ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘This thing you built, this Void, now threatens the entire galaxy,’ Gore said, climbing to his feet again. ‘I understand why you built it, to evolve into something new, something exquisite. You haven
’t. Instead it has absorbed thousands of other types of minds which have pulled it in every direction. It cannot evolve, not in this state.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Ilanthe said. ‘Ask these creatures what they would have you do. They want you to stop, they want all you have achieved on the way to your omega to wither away and die. They have nothing else to offer you. I do.’

  ‘Is this why you brought me back?’ the Firstlife asked. ‘To end our evolution?’

  ‘It cannot continue in its current form,’ Inigo said. ‘It is consuming the mass of the galaxy in order to power its existence. Every star will ultimately be devoured, and the species they have birthed will die with them.’

  ‘Unless you act now,’ Ilanthe said. ‘Communicate with the amalgamated mind, tell it to adopt my inversion.’

  ‘What is your inversion?’

  ‘I will take the composition of the Void and implant it within the quantum fields which structure the universe outside. This core will ignite the chain reaction which will disseminate change across the entirety of spacetime. Entropy will be eliminated. Mind will become paramount. Every sentient entity will be given the opportunity to reach its own omega as you anticipated for yourselves. Your legacy will be the birth of a new reality.’

  ‘You have got to be fucking joking,’ Gore gasped. ‘Any quantum-field transform wave will simply reverse once it expands past its initial energy input zone. All you’ll be left with is a collapsing microverse that seals itself off from reality as soon as the implosion is complete.’

  ‘Not if entropy is eliminated.’

  ‘You can’t eliminate entropy across infinity. That’s the fucking point of infinity. It’s forever and always.’

  ‘Ask the amalgamated mind to give me the Void’s governing parameters,’ Ilanthe said to the Firstlife.

  ‘Do not!’ Gore shouted, thrusting his arm out at the Firstlife. ‘Do not even think it. You will destroy this entire supercluster with her insanity.’

  ‘And what do you offer?’ Ilanthe mocked. ‘The end of their journey to omega?’

  ‘Since you built the Void, hundreds of species have evolved to post-physical status, what you call omega,’ Gore said. ‘It can be done, but not like this. I’m sorry. You have made a mistake by building the Void. You have to get the Heart to stop the boundary’s mass devourment, suspend the Void’s functions, become stable. We’ll show you how to achieve true evolution in a different way.’

  ‘You can’t,’ Ilanthe said. ‘Every species has to find its own way.’

  The Firstlife didn’t reply. A whistling sound was coming from the thin fronds around its mouth as air gusted in and out past the teeth. Edeard was aware of its thoughts pulsing out to be absorbed by the Heart. It wasn’t anything he could copy, he knew he could never communicate with the Heart directly.

  ‘Darkness eclipses us,’ it said eventually. ‘Something is growing outside our frontier, a shroud which would deny us the universe.’

  ‘The warrior Raiel,’ Ilanthe said. ‘Sworn to destroy you. Ask this wretched remnant of their invasion if you require confirmation. They seek to cut you off from your source of energy, to starve you to death. They will be rendered irrelevant by the change I can instigate. In time, in the new universe, they will learn to celebrate your liberation.’

  ‘Do you seek to destroy us?’ the Firstlife asked.

  ‘We require you to end your absorption of this galaxy, and the threat of extinction it brings to all life,’ Makkathran said. ‘If you will not undertake this freely, we have the right to stop you.’

  ‘You don’t have to stop,’ Ilanthe said. ‘Inversion circumvents everything. All of us will achieve the promise of our evolution. Give me your governing parameters.’

  ‘Wait!’ Gore demanded. ‘I think my alternative just became available.’ He lifted his golden head and gave Ilanthe a sweetly evil grin. ‘And guess who made that happen.’ And he dreamed of his life back outside the Void.

  *

  The Delivery Man watched in horror as the twin quantum signatures expanded at hyperluminal velocity. Marius had fired novabombs into the star. He couldn’t believe it. This was genocide.

  Diverted energy functions absorbed the energy liberated from the first activation pulse, modifying it to expand the annihilation effect. A volume of the star’s interior the size of a superJovian gas giant converted directly into energy. The convection zone bulged around the periphery, the first act in a sequence that would see the star’s core squeezed beyond stability.

  Monstrous shockwaves raced towards the Last Throw at close to lightspeed. ‘Ozziefuckit!’

  By the time he’d said it, his accelerated thoughts had already ordered the smartcore to trigger the ultradrive. It was never designed to operate within a stellar gravity field, but he was dead anyway.

  The universe clearly hated such an aberration, sending a vengeful force to tear savagely at the perpetrator. And finally the cabin was alive with noise and shaking and alarms just like he’d thought he wanted. Bulkheads split, hundreds of tiny cracks ripping open. Sparks and sprays of gooey fluid shot through the air, churned by a cyclone of gravity waves that pulled the Delivery Man violently in every direction. He screamed in terror.

  Two seconds. The time it took the ultradrive to claw the Last Throw out of the star’s stupendous gravity gradient. The time that an astonishing amount of pain went surging along the Delivery Man’s nervous system. The time the ship’s overstressed components had to hold together. Most of them did.

  The Delivery Man’s world steadied. Gravity stopped its wild fluctuations. The vibrations beating the starship’s fuselage faded away. His screaming dribbled off to a whimper.

  And far away in a dream Ilanthe was entreating the Firstlife to give her the key to the Void’s nature.

  ‘Gore!’ he called.

  ‘What’s happening?’ the golden man asked. ‘There’s a power surge from the siphon.’

  ‘Hell, you mean it’s survived that?’

  ‘Survived what?’

  ‘Marius! Sweet Ozzie, he used novabombs. Gore, the star is going nova. It’s already begun. That fucking deranged maniac has killed everything in the system. Tyzak! Warn Tyzak. I’m coming to get you.’ Already the Last Throw was approaching the Anomine homeworld. The Delivery Man was designating a vector to take him round to the city where he’d left Gore.

  ‘They know,’ Gore said.

  The Third Dreamer had abandoned Makkathran to dream of the Anomine city. The fantastical lights within the empty buildings were blazing with solar glory now. In its last minutes the city was waking defiantly to face its doom. Gore turned to Tyzak, who was staring straight up at the few quiet stars still visible directly above the plaza. The small remaining patch of dark sky was fading away as the light of the buildings grew ever stronger. Finally the old alien’s thoughts were slipping through whatever variant of the gaiafield was establishing itself around the planet. Every system and device the ancient Anomine had left behind was coming alive. Thousands of borderguards were materializing into orbit.

  The Delivery Man knew it was all useless. Nothing could save the planet now.

  ‘It was us,’ Gore told Tyzak. ‘Humans. We did this. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘You did not,’ Tyzak replied. ‘Your song remains pure.’

  ‘I have failed so many times today.’

  ‘I believe you are to have your greatest success. They seem to think so.’

  Gore saw the plaza was now lined with hundreds of Silfen, all of them keeping back from the rim of the elevation mechanism.

  ‘This is the fate our planet has brought us to,’ Tyzak said. ‘I did not expect this, but what is, is. And perhaps the planet knew all along what it would be called upon to do. I will depart believing this one thing.’

  Anomine began teleporting in, appearing all across the plaza. Hundreds, then thousands. Youngsters were agitated, squeaking loudly. It was happening in every city on the planet.

  ‘Gore?’ the Delivery Man asked. ‘What’s happ
ening?’

  Gore smiled at Tyzak even as he was being jostled by Anomine who were crowding in. ‘Go home,’ he told the Delivery Man. ‘You deserve it.’

  ‘Gore?’

  Gore shut down the TD link. He folded all his secondary routines back into his mind. There was only one consciousness now, making him as close to human as he’d been for many a century. His dream showed him Justine with an expression of alarm spreading over her beautiful face. She knew.

  Tyzak called for the elevation mechanism.

  ‘I feel you,’ the elevation mechanism said. ‘You are Tyzak.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Do you wish to attain transcendence from your physical existence?’

  ‘Yes.’

  *

  ‘Dad?’ Justine asked.

  Gore’s thoughts had calmed. He brought his arms out, and glided gently across the square to the waiting Firstlife. ‘This is evolution,’ he told the giant alien. ‘The omega you have sought for so long.’

  ‘No, Dad, you can’t, you’re not Anomine.’ Justine started to run. Edeard’s third hand caught her.

  ‘Today I am,’ Gore said benignly.

  ‘No!’ she sobbed. ‘Dad, please.’

  Far outside the Void’s boundary the elevation mechanisms on the Anomine homeworld absorbed the power thundering out of the escalating nova. They adapted it, and offered it up to the remainder of their species, and one other who waited with them.

  Gore felt his mind began to change, to rise. His perspective of the universe grew elegant.

  ‘This is how it is done,’ he told the Firstlife as they grew apart, gathering up everything the elevation mechanism was performing, the method and the outcome he now rushed towards. The union was so tenuous now, infused with the poignancy of Justine’s grief as she stretched herself between the two. ‘This is what you can become. This is destiny. Leave your past behind and reclaim the dream you started with. Like so . . .’ He gifted the whole experience of his elevation to the Firstlife, who in turn shared it with the Heart. And after a while he was gone.