This much Sylveste understood, or could at least deceive himself into thinking that he understood. But the next part - the core of it - was much harder to hold in his mind, like a self-contradictory koan. What he grasped was that, once within the event horizon, particles continued to fall along particular trajectories, particular orbits which swung them around the kernel of infinite density which was the singularity at the black hole’s heart. Falling along these lines, time and space began to blend into one another, until they were no longer properly separable. And - crucially - there was one set of trajectories in which they swapped places completely; where a trajectory in space became one in time. And one subset of this bunch of paths actually allowed matter to tunnel into the past, earlier into the black hole’s history.
‘I’m accessing texts from the twentieth century,’ Calvin murmured, seemingly able to follow his thoughts. ‘This effect was known - predicted - even then. It seemed to follow from the mathematics describing black holes. But no one knew how seriously to take it.’
‘Whoever engineered Hades had no such qualms.’
‘So it would seem.’
What happened was that light, energy, particle-flux, wormed along these special trajectories, burrowing ever deeper into the past with each orbit around the singularity. None of this was ‘evident’ to the outside universe since it was confined behind the impenetrable barrier of the event horizon, and so there was no overt violation of causality. According to the mathematics which Calvin had accessed, there could be none, since these trajectories could never pass back into the external universe. Yet they did. What the mathematics had overlooked was the special case of the tiny subset-of-a-subset-of-a-subset of trajectories which actually carried quanta back to the birth of the black hole, when it collapsed in the supernova detonation of its progenitor star.
At that instant, the minute outward pressure exerted by the particles arriving from the future served to delay the gravitational infall.
The delay was not even measurable; it was barely longer than the smallest theoretical subdivision of quantised time. But it existed. And, small though it was, it was sufficient to send ripples of causal shock propagating back into the future.
These ripples of causal shock met the incoming particles and established a grid of causal interference, a standing wave extending symmetrically into the past and the future.
Enmeshed in this grid, the collapsed object was no longer sure that it was meant to be a black hole. The initial conditions had always been borderline, and perhaps these entanglements could be avoided if it remained poised above its Schwarzschild radius; if it collapsed down to a stable configuration of strange quarks and degenerate neutrons instead.
It flickered indeterminately between the two states. The indeterminacy crystallised, and what remained behind was something unique in the universe - except that elsewhere, similar transformations were being wrought on other black holes, similar causal paradoxes coming into being.
The object settled on a stable configuration whereby its paradoxical nature was not immediately obvious to the outside universe. Externally, it resembled a neutron star - for the first few centimetres of its crust, at least. Below, the nuclear matter had been catalysed into intricate forms capable of lightning-swift computation, a self-organisation which had emerged spontaneously from the resolution of its two opposed states. The crust seethed and processed, containing information at the theoretical maximum density of storage of matter, anywhere in the universe.
And it thought.
Below, the crust blended seamlessly with a flickering storm of unresolved possibility, as the interior of the collapsed object danced to the music of acausality. While the crust ran endless simulations, endless computations, the core bridged the future and the past, allowing information to channel effortlessly between them. The crust, in effect, had become one element of a massive parallel-processor, except that the other elements in its array were the future and past versions of itself.
And it knew.
It knew that, even with this totality of processing power strewn across the aeons, it was only part of something much larger.
And it had a name.
Sylveste had to let his mind rest for a moment. The immensity of it was dwindling now, leaving only the ringing aftertones, like the last echoes of the final chord of the greatest symphony ever played. In a few moments, he doubted that he would remember much at all. There was simply insufficient room in his head for it all. And, strangely, he did not feel the slightest sorrow at its passing. For those few moments, it had been wonderful to taste that transhuman knowledge, but it was simply too much for one man to know. It was better to live; better to carry a memory of a memory, than suffer the vast burden of knowing.
He was not meant to think like a god.
After many minutes, he checked his suit clock, and was only mildly surprised to find that he had lost several hours, assuming his last check on the time had been correct. There was still time to get out, he thought; still time to make it to the surface before the bridgehead closed.
He looked at the jewel; no less enigmatic for all that he had now experienced. It had not ceased its constant fluxing, and he still felt its beguiling attraction. He felt that he knew more about it now; that his time in the porthole to the Hades matrix had taught him something - but for a moment the memories were too thickly integrated into the other experiences he had gained, and he could not quite bring them to conscious examination.
All he knew was that he felt a foreboding which had not been there before.
Still, he moved towards it.
The agonised red eye of Hades was noticeably larger now, but the neutron star at the heart of that burning point would never amount to more than a glint; it was only a few tens of kilometres across, and they would be dead long before they were close enough to resolve it properly, shredded by the intense differential force of gravity.
‘I feel I should tell you,’ Pascale Sylveste said, ‘I don’t think it will be fast, what’s going to happen to us. Not unless we’re very lucky.’
Khouri tried her best not to sound irritated at the woman’s tone of superior understanding, admitting to herself that Pascale was probably quite justified in adopting that manner.
‘How do you know so much? You’re no astrophysicist.’
‘No, but I remember Dan telling me about how the tidal forces would limit the close approach of any of the probes he wanted to send here.’
‘You’re talking as if he’s dead already.’
‘I don’t think he is,’ Pascale said. ‘I think he might even survive. But we’re not going to. I’m sorry, but it amounts to the same thing.’
‘You still love that bastard, don’t you?’
‘He loved me too, believe it or not. I know from the way he acted - what he did - the way he seemed so driven, it must have been hard for outsiders to see. But he did care. More than anyone will ever know.’
‘Maybe people won’t be so hard on him when they find out the way he was manipulated.’
‘You think anyone’s going to find out? We’re the only ones who know, Khouri. As far as the rest of the universe is concerned, he was just a monomaniac. They don’t understand that he used people because he had no choice. Because something bigger than any of us was driving him forward.’
Khouri nodded. ‘I wanted to kill him once - but only because it was a way to get back to Fazil. There was never any hatred in it. Matter of fact, I can’t say I honestly disliked him. I admired anyone who could carry around that much arrogance, like it was his birthright, or something. Most people, they don’t carry it off. But he wore it like a king. It stopped being arrogance, then - became something else. Something you could admire.’
Pascale elected not to reply, but Khouri could tell that she was not in complete disagreement. Maybe she was just not quite ready to come out and say it aloud. That she had loved Sylveste because he was such a self-important bastard and made something noble of being a self-important bastard
, did it with such utter aplomb that it became a kind of virtue, like the wearing of sackcloth.
‘Listen,’ Khouri said, eventually. ‘I’ve got an idea. When those tides begin to bite, do you want to be fully conscious, or would you rather approach the matter with a little fortification?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Ilia always told me this place was built to show clients around the outside of the ship; the kind of clients you wanted to impress if you wanted to keep the contract. So I’m thinking, somewhere on board there has to be a drinks cabinet. Probably well-stocked, assuming it hasn’t been drunk dry over the last few centuries. And then again, it might even be self-replenishing. Are you with me?’
Pascale said nothing, during which time the gravitational sinkhole of Hades crept closer. Finally, just when Khouri assumed that the other woman had elected not to hear her proposition, Pascale released herself from her seat and headed rearwards, to the unexplored realms of plush and brass behind them.
THIRTY-NINE
Cerberus Interior, Final Chamber, 2567
The jewel shone with a noticeable bluish radiance now, as if his proximity had stilled its spectral transformations; forced it towards some temporary quiescence. Sylveste still felt that it was wrong to approach it, but now his own curiosity - and a sense of predestiny - was impelling him forwards. Maybe it was something springing from the basal parts of his mind; a need to confront the dangerous and thereby tame it. It was an instinct which must have driven the first touching of fire, the first flinch of pain and the wisdom that came with that pain.
The jewel unfolded before him, undergoing geometric transformations to which he did not dare devote too much attention, for fear that understanding them would cleave his mind open along similar fault lines.
‘Are you sure this is wise?’ Calvin asked, his utterances now more than ever forming part of the normal background of Sylveste’s inner dialogue.
‘It’s too late to return now,’ said a voice.
A voice which belonged neither to Calvin nor Sylveste, but which seemed deeply familiar, as if it had long been a part of him, merely silent.
‘Sun Stealer, isn’t it?’
‘He’s been with us all along,’ Calvin said. ‘Haven’t you?’
‘Longer than you imagine. Since you returned from Lascaille’s Shroud, Dan.’
‘Then everything Khouri said was right,’ he said, while already knowing the truth of it. If Sajaki’s empty suit had not confirmed it, then the revelations he had shared in the white light had ended his doubts, completely.
‘What do you want of me?’
‘Only that you enter the - jewel - as you call it.’ The creature’s voice, and its voice was the only thing that he heard, was sibilant; chillingly so. ‘You have nothing to fear. You will not be harmed by it, nor will you be prevented from leaving.’
‘You would say that, wouldn’t you?’
‘Except that it is the truth.’
‘What about the bridgehead?’
‘The device is still operational. It will remain so until you have left Cerberus.’
‘There’s no way of knowing,’ Calvin said. ‘Whatever he - it - says, could well be a lie. He’s deceived and manipulated us at every step; all to bring you here. Why should he suddenly start telling the truth now?’
‘Because it is of no consequence,’ Sun Stealer said. ‘Now that you have reached this far, your own desires play no further part in the matter.’
And Sylveste felt the suit surge forward, directly into the opened jewel, along a brilliantly faceted, ever-flickering corridor which extended into the structure.
‘What—’ Calvin began.
‘I’m not doing anything,’ Sylveste said. ‘The bastard must have control of my suit!’
‘Stands to reason. He could control Sajaki’s, after all. Must have preferred to sit back and let you do all the work until now. Lazy bastard.’
‘At this point,’ Sylveste said, ‘I don’t think insulting him’s going to make a great deal of difference.’
‘Do you have a better idea?’
‘As a matter of fact—’
The corridor surrounded him completely now, a glowing tracheal tunnel which twisted and turned until it seemed impossible that he could still be inside the jewel. But then, he told himself, he had never come to a clear conclusion as to its true size - it might have been anywhere between a few hundred metres across or tens of kilometres. Its fluctuating shape made it impossible to know, and perhaps meant that there was no meaningful answer; in the same way that one could not specify the volume of a fractal solid.
‘Uh, you were saying?’
‘I was saying . . .’ Sylveste trailed off. ‘Sun Stealer, are you listening to me?’
‘As always.’
‘I don’t understand why I had to come here. If you managed to animate Sajaki’s suit - and you had conscious control of mine all this time - why did I have to come along in the first place? If there’s something you want inside this thing, something you want to bring out, you could do it without me being here at all.’
‘The device will only respond to organic life. An empty suit would be interpreted as machine sentience.’
‘This - thing - is a device? Is that what you’re saying?’
‘It is an Inhibitor device.’
For a moment the words seemed meaningless, but only for a moment. Then - fuzzily - the words attached to some of the memories he retained from his time in the white light; the portal to the Hades matrix. Those memories attached to others; an endless braid of association.
And he came to a kind of understanding.
More than ever, he knew that he should not continue; that if he reached the inner realm of the jewel - of the Inhibitor device, as he now knew it to be - things would be very, very bad. In fact, it would be difficult to imagine how things could be worse.
‘We can’t go on,’ Calvin said. ‘I understand now what this is.’
‘Me too, belatedly.’
The device had been left here by the Inhibitors. They had placed it in orbit around Hades, next to the glimmering white portal; something older even than the Inhibitors. It did not bother them that they did not properly understand its function, or have any real inkling of who had placed it there, next to the neutron star which - according to some puzzling indications they had allowed to linger unexplored - was not quite as it should be. But, the enigma of its origin aside, it entirely suited their plans. Their own devices were constructed to lure the sentient, and by placing one of them next to an entity even more perplexing, they were guaranteed visitors. It was a strategy they followed across the galaxy, in fact: leaving Inhibitor devices in close proximity to objects of astrophysical interest, or near the ruins of extinct cultures. Anywhere where they were likely to draw attention.
And the Amarantin had come, and tinkered, and made themselves known to the device. It had studied them, and learned their weaknesses.
And it had wiped them out - all except for a handful of descendants of the Banished, who found two means to escape the ruthless predation of the Inhibitors. Some had used the portal itself, mapping themselves into the crustal matrix, where they continued to run as simulations, preserved in the impervious amber of nuclear matter enslaved for computational purposes.
It was hardly living, Sylveste thought, but at least something of them had been preserved.
And then there were the others: the others who had found the other way to escape the Inhibitors. Their mode of escape had been no less drastic, no less irreversible . . .
‘They became the Shrouders, didn’t they?’ Calvin was speaking now - or was it Sylveste, voicing his own thoughts, the way he sometimes did, in the heat of concentration? He could barely tell, much less care. ‘This was in the last days; when Resurgam was already gone, and most of the spaceborn had already been tracked down and annihilated. One faction went into the Hades matrix. Another learned what they could about manipulating spacetime, probably from the transforma
tions near the portal. And they found a solution; a way to barricade themselves against the Inhibitor weapons. They found a way to wrap spacetime around themselves; a way to curdle and solidify it, until it formed an impervious shell. And they retreated behind those shells and sealed them for eternity.
‘But at least it was better than dying.’
Everything, for an instant, was clear in his head. How those behind the Shrouds had waited, and waited, barely cognisant of the outside universe; barely able to communicate with it, so secure were the walls they had wrapped around themselves.
And they had waited.
They had known, even at the time of enclosure, that the systems left behind by the Inhibitors were slowly failing; slowly losing their ability to suppress intelligence. Not soon enough, for them - but after a million years of waiting, trapped in their bubble of spacetime, they began to wonder if the threat had now diminished . . .
They could not simply dismantle the Shrouds and look around - far too hazardous; especially as the Inhibitor machines were nothing if not patient. Their apparent silence might only be part of the trap, a waiting game designed to entice the Amarantin - who were now the Shrouders - out of their shells, into the open arena of naked space, where they could be destroyed with ease, terminating the million-year purge against their kind.
Yet, in time, others came.
Perhaps there was something about this region of space which favoured the evolution of vertebrate life, or perhaps it was only coincidence, but in the newly starfaring humans, the Shrouders saw echoes of what they had once been. Something of the same psychosis, almost: the simultaneous craving for solitude and companionship; the need for the comfort of society and the open steppes of space; a schism which drove them onwards, outwards.
Philip Lascaille had been the first to meet them, around the Shroud which now bore his name.
The tortured spacetime around the Shroud had ripped his mind open, twisted it and reassembled it, into a drooling travesty of what it had once been. But it was a travesty shot with brilliance. They had put something in him; the knowledge that was needed for someone else to get much closer . . . and the lie that would make him do it.
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