The Temporal Void

by Peter F. Hamilton

  ‘The capsules made three separate trips to the city spaceport, they were collected by different commercial ships registered in the External worlds. No record of their ultimate destination.’

  ‘It was to Florac.’ She knew it. That’s why Troblum was there, to pick it up. And it would have meant a great deal to him. That can only mean he was planning to leave the Commonwealth entirely. She opened a link to ANA. ‘Troblum was more scared than I realized.’

  ‘Marius does that to people.’

  ‘Yes. But there was something else. Remember what he told us when he first made contact. He had something that I would understand, and his mania is the Starflyer War. A time I am familiar with.’

  ‘That hardly narrows it down.’

  ‘Something else does,’ Paula said. All she could see was that figure ascending into its ship amid the ruins of Florac’s villa. A slight person. That wiggle of the hips, a taunt, a couldn’t-care-less contempt. None of today’s agents and representatives had that kind of attitude, not even the Knights Guardian. They all prided themselves on their steely professionalism. ‘I have a bad feeling about this.’

  ‘What feeling?’

  ‘I have one last trip to make. I’ll tell you after that.’

  ‘Can’t you tell me now?’

  ‘No. Believe it or not, I’d be embarrassed if I’m wrong. You’ll think I’m obsessive. I have to know for myself.’

  ‘How intriguing. As you wish.’

  ‘Are you making any progress on mining Troblum’s life for me?’

  ‘Yes. In many ways he is an odd person, especially for a Higher. I have a reasonably complete timeline for you. It has some suspicious gaps, and he even served on a scientific mission for the Navy.’

  ‘Really.’ Paula’s u-shadow received the file. She scanned the contents list in her exovision; one of the more recent items attracted her. ‘A presentation to the Navy about the Anomine and the Dyson Pair barrier generators? And Kazimir himself was there. I’d like a summary of that, please.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Thanks, I’ll review it on my way back to Earth.’

  ‘You’re coming here?’

  ‘Yes, this little problem of mine will only take a moment to confirm. I’ll be there in an hour.’

  *

  Major Honilar rounded up thirty-three people from the apartment block, and shipped them back to the security headquarters that were set up in Colwyn’s docks. The cordon around the building was maintained, even in the face of growing hostility from the crowd in the park. Five paramilitaries from the support squad made one final sensor sweep after the transport capsules carted off the unfortunate residents, but they found nothing. Once they’d finished they left, reassigned to other more urgent duties. The occupying forces were having a hard time of it as more and more of Viotia’s inhabitants joined the physical protests against their presence.

  An hour and a half after the last of the suited figures clomped out of apartment four on the fourth floor, the muffled sound of a power tool resonated round the bathroom. One after the other, three fixing bolts around the top of the hot water tank spun round then dropped on to the floor. The hemispherical top of the tank tipped up a fraction. Fingers appeared in the gap, and pushed against the thick thermal insulation foam, shoving the top aside. It too fell on to the floor with a loud clang.

  ‘Sweet Ozzie!’ Araminta groaned.

  She took a long time just to lever herself up to a standing position. The cylinder was only just big enough to hold her in a terrible crouch position. Every limb throbbed as she finally stretched them free. Cramp attacked her joint muscles, bringing tears to her eyes. She was close to sobbing when she eventually straightened her spine. It was another five minutes of simply standing and letting the pain subside before she attempted to climb out, using the false wall boxing as a ladder.

  The only noise was the crowd outside jeering and taunting the paramilitaries on the cordon. Araminta peered cautiously into the living room. Nobody about. Her macrocellular clusters couldn’t detect any individual data signals. She’d isolated herself from the unisphere, and knew she couldn’t reconnect without being detected. She crossed the living room, feeling unnervingly exposed. The main door was ajar, its expensive brass lock broken, which drew a scowl. As far as she could determine, the whole fourth floor was deserted. She shut the door, and jammed a crate of kitchen fittings behind it.

  ‘Okay then,’ she said, and sat down in the ancient armchair. Got up again and went over to the kettle. She was just about to switch it on when she wondered if some tricky little monitor program would notice the power usage. Five minutes later she’d extracted the power cell from a bot, and wired it up to the kettle.

  She sat back down in the armchair with a cup of wonderfully hot tea and some of the classy chocolate biscuits she always kept around.

  So now what?

  Inigo’s Ninth Dream

  Edeard hadn’t visited the House of Blue Petals for nearly a month. Now, with the court case winding down, he stood on the street facing it as the sea breeze gusted along Upper Tail Canal. Finally, the winter was ending, with the onset of spring conjuring some much-needed warmth across the Lyot Sea. A light drizzle swept through Edeard’s concealment to dampen his face. He continued to stare at the building with its long oval windows, frowning at the vague feeling of disquiet stirring in his mind. Men went in and out the same as they always did. The doormen stood like muscular statues on either side of its three tall doors. Even the piano music drifting out across the street was pleasingly familiar.

  When he pushed his farsight through the sturdy walls, he detected nothing out of the ordinary. The bar was full of eager clients, with the stewards mixing their drinks which the ge-monkeys delivered. The madam made her rounds. All around the gallery, the girls pouted and batted their eyes, radiating faux longing. Up on the third floor, Ivarl’s mind was its usual tight knot of suppressed thoughts. He was in his office as always, with several people in respectful attendance.

  It was all perfectly normal.

  So what’s wrong?

  One day he would really have to make sense of these sensations which occasionally haunted him. But this was hardly as bad as the night Ashwell was attacked. He would just have to be alert, that was all.

  The two sailors walking up the steps never knew they were shadowed, putting any nerves down to the questing gaze of the uniformed doormen. They were waved through. Edeard followed them across the threshold.

  The décor had changed slightly. Ivarl had bought some large coloured-glass globes over two feet in diameter, their swirling patterns of amber and aquamarine clashing in gentle curlicues. Ten of them stood on ornate wooden pedestals around the walls of the bar. Edeard gave them a mildly disapproving glance, and slipped further into the room.

  A dog barked loudly.

  Edeard froze. He hadn’t realized the animal was there, its mind was similar to the ge-monkeys. It was a beagle, chained up to one of the big iron door hinges. Even as he reached for its mind to quieten it down, the doormen were slamming the doors shut. Huge metal bolts, three inches thick were rammed home, locking the doors tight.

  He whispered: ‘Oh crap,’ as people started shouting. Several clients were in a panic, scurrying round to find some route out. He had to flatten himself back against the bar as one militia officer ran past demanding to know what was going on. A group of the uniformed doormen had clustered together around the bottom of the stairs. They were brandishing revolvers.

  ‘Gentlemen, your attention please,’ Ivarl shouted. ‘Quiet!’

  Edeard looked up as the room fell silent. Ivarl was standing on the gallery, both hands on the rail, looking down, his irregular lips open in a brutish smile. Edeard almost let out a cry of dismay. Tannarl was standing beside him, surveying the upturned faces with that superior leer of his. Edeard had met Ranalee’s father only once before, at a fabulous ball the Gilmorn family had thrown in their mansion. As they’d shaken hands he’d seen where Ranalee got h
er hauteur from.

  Lady, but I’m an idiot.

  ‘I’d like to welcome my newest guest to this House,’ Ivarl announced loudly and smugly, he held up a pair of socks Edeard recognized – they’d been left behind in that lodge on the Iguru, that was what the beagle must have scented. ‘And I extend the full use of the bar to you . . . Waterwalker.’

  The clients gasped in consternation, looking round to spot Edeard.

  ‘Everyone else is now entitled to a free night with my girls. Please make your way up the stairs. Quickly gentlemen, thank you.’

  As the doubtful clients did as they were told, Tannarl produced a large pistol which he checked casually. Several of Ivarl’s lieutenants had also appeared on the gallery, equally well armed. There was no way Edeard could get up the stairs unnoticed, the group of doormen at the bottom were pressed close together, and using their third hands to form a barrier. Every client was scrupulously checked over before they were allowed up.

  When Edeard used his farsight to probe down, he couldn’t find any tunnel directly underneath the House of Blue Petals. It would be easy enough for him to ghost through one of the walls, but he’d have to reach it first. He was very isolated here by the bar, and he wasn’t sure about his hold on the beagle’s mind.

  Edeard looked at the pistols lining up around the gallery. Again, he could protect himself, but at the cost of concealment. He couldn’t decide if he’d be safer standing under the gallery, or moving round when they started shooting.

  The last of the clients scuttled up the stairs.

  ‘I know you’re here,’ Ivarl called down. Tannarl aimed his pistol down into the bar, and fired. The noise was thunderous. Edeard flinched as the bullet smacked into a high-backed chair, blowing a big chunk of wood out of the back. He’d never seen a bullet that powerful before.

  Ivarl laughed, and pointed his own pistol down. Edeard scuttled to the side of the bar and crouched down. The barrage of shots which followed sent splinters and clumps of cushioning feathers flying through the air. Some of the lieutenants had a grand time shooting abandoned glasses on the tables.

  Ivarl held his hand up and the firing stopped. ‘Ready to say hello yet, my young friend?’

  Edeard looked across the floor. It was covered in debris now, and cushioning feathers were still fluttering through the air. He would never be able to walk across it without disturbing something. They’d see him instantly.

  Ivarl began to reload his pistol, slotting unusually long bullets into the cylinder. ‘They say you come from the country somewhere back west,’ he said casually. ‘That probably means you’re unfamiliar with parts of our city and how it works. Everyday stuff the rest of us take completely for granted. For instance, did you know that if there’s a fire the walls simply repair themselves? In a month, you’d never even know anything happened.’

  Edeard eyed the back of the bar. He might be able to make it to the rear storeroom without making too much commotion.

  One of the wooden pedestals began to tilt as a third hand pushed it. Then it fell over, sending the colourful globe crashing down. The glass smashed. Liquid splashed out. Edeard gave it an alarmed look, he hadn’t known the globes contained anything. That was when he realized the liquid was actually Jamolar oil, used in lanterns everywhere on Querencia except Makkathran, where there was no need. The remainder of the globes were shoved over, smashing to flood oil out across the floor. He watched it spreading towards him with growing alarm. This was getting serious, he wasn’t sure his shield could cope with fire and these bullets. The oil was getting very close to the nearest stove.

  Ivarl finished loading his pistol, and snapped the chamber back. ‘Come out, come out, wherever you are.’

  Edeard looked above the gang lord. The ceiling which vaulted across the whole bar was inset with broad lighting rosettes whose tips extended down to the walls in a scribble of slender volutes. Their pale-orange radiance was at its strongest. He ordered them off, and to remain off. The bar was plunged into darkness, with the flickering coal flames behind the stove grilles shedding tenuous fans of light. He leapt up and started sprinting for the door.

  A pale silver light flared above and behind him, revealing his splashing footprints.

  ‘Huh?’ Edeard twisted round to see both Ivarl and Tannarl encased in a glowing nimbus.

  ‘You’re not so special, Waterwalker,’ Ivarl jeered. ‘You can’t even walk on fire.’ He thrust his hand out. The glow brightened all along his arm, then tiny sparks were cascading from his fingertips, falling down from the gallery like a phosphorescent spray.

  Edeard dropped his concealment. The oil ignited.

  Flames soared up from the slick floor. A vicious blast of air knocked Edeard into the piano. The shield he’d flung round his body just managed to survive the impact, mitigating the blow. He didn’t dare breathe as the flames surged round him, reaching far above his head.

  Up on the gallery the girls were screaming as the fire licked up round the wooden railings. Thick smoke churned through the air.

  ‘I see you!’ Ivarl shouted victoriously. He started shooting.

  Edeard dived for the floor, ploughing up a thin wave of flaming oil which sizzled across his shield, barely an inch from his clothes and face. He was managing to ward off the worst of the heat, but his skin felt as if he was immersed in acid. His leather coat was smouldering. Still he didn’t dare draw a breath. Bullets punched into the floor beside him, scattering razor-sharp splinters. Up on the gallery, the squealing girls were fleeing down corridors. Terrified clients shoved them aside in their own haste to reach safety. Ivarl and his lieutenants remained steadfast, their shields protecting them from the worst of the flames. They fired away manically with their pistols.

  Bullets started to strike Edeard as his attackers drilled through the fire with their farsight. They were like hammer blows on his back, sending pulses of agony along his spine to explode in his brain. He couldn’t sustain his shield much longer. He desperately needed air.

  His thoughts pushed down hard into the floor, willing escape, pleading Help me! and the floor miraculously changed. He started to fall. There was nothing below him. A bullet hit the shield at the back of his head. He screamed, and blacked out.

  Edeard woke to a uniform pain that throbbed horribly. Even before he was fully conscious, he threw up. After that, he simply lay where he was in the hope the pain would fade. His hands and cheeks were sore where the heat from the flames had penetrated his shield. He could feel bruises all over his back. Bright light made him blink sticky tears from his eyes.

  Slowly he began to shuffle round and sit up, wincing at every move. It was very quiet. He managed to focus. What he saw made little sense.

  He was lying on the floor of a great tunnel. Not as wide as those which mirrored Makkathran’s canals, but perfectly circular. Nor was there any water trickling along the bottom. The walls were as smooth as glass, which is what they could well have been made from. He couldn’t be sure, for they glowed with a painful intensity. A proper white light, too, not Makkathran’s usual orange. In fact this whiteness had a shade of purple blended in, which was why his eyes wouldn’t stop watering. Up the curve of the wall was a line of scarlet points which shone with equal intensity. They stretched out on either side of him as far as he could see. And that was the problem, he couldn’t see any kind of end to the tunnel, not in either direction.

  Edeard clambered to his feet, wincing as he gingerly probed his back with his fingertips. His coat was ruined, the leather was hard and cracked, with some strips flaking off as if a knife had been slashing at him. His boots were also in a bad way, the drosilk resin soles had blackened and turned soft. Where he’d lain on the tunnel it was smeared with patches of oil. He eased himself out of his coat, and patted the drosilk waistcoat underneath. The weave had several loose dints. It had probably saved his life, he admitted. When he touched the back of his head he gasped at the pain from the lump.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said out loud to the city,
and slowly sank back down again. He knew he was going to have to rest up for a while. His farsight couldn’t reach further than a few inches through the tunnel wall. By now he’d decided he was in one of the very deep tunnels which lay a long way underneath the usual canal tunnels he used. If so, then he was really alone in a way he’d never been before. Nobody had been down here since the city was built, and he still didn’t know what kind of creatures those might have been. Whoever they were, they’d certainly built very well, though why they would want to build a lighted tunnel like this was beyond his comprehension. But then, that was true of the whole city.

  He tried to relax, though it was difficult. Without the city’s usual background babble of longtalk, which he always ignored, the isolation was quite crushing. He was also angry at himself for what happened in the House of Blue Petals. Of course Ivarl would figure things out eventually. Concealment was not a secret in this city, not among the Masters, and quite a few others. And that ability Ivarl had, the glow that surrounded both him and Tannarl, the sparks, that was something Edeard had never heard of before. Now though, he wasn’t entirely surprised, not since that final night he’d spent with Ranalee.

  Like all the Grand Family daughters, Ranalee was a lovely-looking girl. She had raven hair which she (well, her maids, anyway) brushed straight every morning so that it would fall halfway down her back. Her face was also long, with narrow eyes, and a cute little nose. Again, all nice features, except in combination they gave the impression of coldness. That seemed to be another eternal feature of Makkathran’s aristocracy, the richer or more powerful the family, the less laughter was to be found in their lives. However, she was fiendishly enjoyable in bed. And, truth be told, he was rather excited at the way she spent a couple of weeks manoeuvring Kristiana out of the picture. That single-minded possessiveness when focused on him alone made her even hotter.

  He certainly didn’t object when she announced they would be spending the weekend at a family-owned lodge out on the Iguru. Macsen and Boyd enviously wished him luck. He’d often wondered afterwards if they were being prophetic.