The Temporal Void

by Peter F. Hamilton

  But she was down, and intact. That was something.

  The mind was still there; waiting with a hint of impatience. She was sensing its emotional state directly through farsight rather than via her gaiamotes. Presumably then, he could sense her thoughts.

  Justine took her time removing her armour suit. After all, she didn’t want to frighten him and it would look fearsome to anyone unfamiliar with Greater Commonwealth technology. She unwound an emergency rope ladder from the airlock, not trusting the gravity manipulation function to lower her down. When she started down she realized the beige one-piece she’d put on was remarkably similar to the leathery grey-blue flightsuit she’d worn in the hyperglider. Only the helmet was missing.

  ‘Didn’t get that right, did you?’ she mocked the Void.

  The rope ladder swung about alarmingly as she neared the bottom, Its pendulum motion sent her swaying over the grassy ground. She jumped the last two rungs.

  Gravity was low, just like Far Away. The scent of pine trees was strong in the humid air. Her farsight swept out, producing a mildly disorientating effect. Then she began to interpret the foggy shapes, correlating them to what her eyes could see. Besides, her biononic field scan function was working unimpaired, providing solid interpretations of the surrounding landscape.

  He was standing ten metres away, waiting courteously for her to notice him. Justine turned round very slowly, still half believing she’d open her eyes to see the Silverbird’s cabin around her as she rose from suspension. But no, it was real. He was real.

  Justine smiled, too numb for any emotion to triumph. ‘Hello, Kazimir,’ she said.

  His face was perfect, healthy dark skin and shining white teeth in lips that could smile so wide; rich black hair tied back with a red band. As were the clothes, a leather waistcoat open to show off a nicely muscled torso, and his McFoster clan’s emerald and copper check kilt. He even carried the correct small backpack.

  ‘You know me?’ he asked.

  The voice was right, too. But then it should be, he was her creation after all. Her smile shifted from welcome to sympathy. ‘I’m aware of who you think you are. That’s my fault.’

  He frowned. ‘Are you all right? Your craft came down fast . . .’

  Finally, she laughed. That concern was so Kazimir. ‘A little shaken up, that’s all. My name is Justine, by the way.’

  ‘I’m pleased to meet you, Justine. Is that really a spaceship?’

  ‘It really is.’

  Justine couldn’t be cruel, that was the hardest part. She couldn’t just tell him to go away, or ignore him. That would have been so much easier for her. But he was a seventeen-year-old human being with feelings; just like everyone else he had never asked to be born – no matter the strange nature of his birth. He deserved to be treated with consideration and respect.

  Curiously, he had no clear recollections of where he came from.

  They sat beside a stream that gurgled along the side of the clearing. Both weary of the other, yet he was powerfully attracted to her, and not just physically, she could sense that.

  ‘I am on my groundwalk,’ he told her when she asked where he’d come from.

  ‘To prove you can survive out here by yourself,’ she said, recalling this very same conversation from so long ago. ‘Once you return to your clan you can become a fully fledged warrior and fight the Starflyer.’

  ‘You know of the Starflyer?’

  ‘Kazimir, I know this must be hard to believe, but the Commonwealth defeated the Starflyer a very long time ago. You’re not who you think you are.’

  He grinned delightedly. ‘Then who am I?’

  ‘You are a dream I had. This place makes you real.’

  His face produced a thrilled expression while his mind registered a brisk amusement. ‘What are you saying, that I have died and this place is the Dreaming Heavens?’

  ‘Oh my God!’ Justine stared at him in complete astonishment. ‘I’d forgotten that part of the Guardians’ ideology.’ Well, consciously, anyway.

  ‘So are you my spirit guide? You are what I imagine an angel would look like.’

  ‘You called me that before,’ she said quietly.

  ‘I did what?’

  ‘You used to call me your angel.’

  ‘Back when we were alive?’ His mind was starting to show uncertainty – a joke wearing thin.

  Justine cursed her stupid old biological body for its crippling emotional weakness. ‘You are alive. Again. It’s complicated.’

  ‘You thought I was dead?’

  I watched you die. ‘Tell me where you were before you started your groundwalk? Who your friends are? What did you spend last year doing? In fact, what were you doing this time yesterday?’

  ‘I . . .’ His thoughts churned desperately. ‘It is difficult. I don’t remember much. No wait, Bruce! Bruce is my friend.’

  ‘Kazimir, I’m sorry. Bruce was the one who killed you.’

  He recoiled. ‘This is the Dreaming Heavens!’

  ‘I suppose in a manner of speaking, yes it is.’

  ‘Bruce would never kill me.’

  ‘He was captured by the Starflyer, who turned him against the Guardians of Selfhood. He became their agent.’

  ‘Not Bruce.’

  ‘Not the Bruce who was your friend, the Starflyer destroyed that part of him. Kazimir, you don’t have any memories of your past because I don’t know it, not as fully as I should do, not the details. We didn’t spend enough time together to talk of such things in depth. The time we did have was too precious. I always regretted that, I’m so sorry.’ She looked away, trying to get her emotions under control. This is so painful. I don’t have to put myself through this. I should just walk away. Then she glanced at him, seeing the hurt and confusion on his face, and she knew she couldn’t do that to him, not her Kazimir, not even a shadow of him.

  He reached out tentatively, fingers touching her shoulder, as if he was the one who should be offering comfort. ‘We were . . . together?’

  ‘Yes, Kazimir. We were lovers.’

  A wide smile split his youthful face, and the universe wasn’t so bad after all.

  ‘I’m doing this really badly,’ she confessed. ‘I wish I could be gentler to you.’

  ‘So I am what you dream of?’

  ‘Yes.’

  His smile was triumphant now. ‘I am glad you dream of me. I am glad I am here for you.’

  Oh no. We’re not going down that road. It’s not . . . right. ‘I’m glad you’re here, too; but I have a duty to perform.’

  Kazimir nodded seriously. ‘What duty?’

  She pulled a face. ‘Save the galaxy.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Don’t know, actually. Where we are, this place, it’s wrong. I have to get to . . . whoever’s in charge, try and convince them to stop their expansion. I’m sorry if that doesn’t make much sense.’

  Kazimir’s gaze turned to the Silverbird; there was a flash of longing in his mind. ‘Will we fly there in your spaceship?’

  The first drops of rain began to fall out of the darkening sky as the stormhead found its way round the volcano. ‘I’d like to, but I need to figure out how to make it fly again. And I don’t know where the nucleus is or how to get there.’

  ‘Oh.’ His disappointment was tangible, shining through a weakly shielded mind.

  Justine grinned. ‘Would you like to look inside?’

  ‘Yes please!’

  He shot up the rope ladder with ease. But then, Justine recalled, Kazimir had always been very agile. That would account for why her own heart was racing as she clambered up after him. The airlock was small with the two of them in it. She told the smartcore to open the inner door, and led the way up the narrow companionway into the cabin.

  Kazimir tried to be polite as he stared round the circular compartment, but he clearly wasn’t adept at shielding his thoughts. Fortunately, she recalled several techniques Edeard had employed in Inigo’s dreams.

  ‘You travel in
this?’ he asked cautiously.

  Justine clicked her fingers as she told the smartcore to extrude a couple of chairs.

  ‘Ah!’ Kazimir watched them rise up, happy again. She switched on a holographic projection, displaying status graphics in the air in front of him.

  Seventeen is such an easy age, she thought with a pang of resentment at his fascination. ‘I’d like to run some scans on you,’ she said. ‘It might help me understand more about this place.’

  ‘Of course.’

  She used her biononic field function to examine him in detail, shunting the results into the smartcore. He was human, every organ where it should be. When she touched a sampler module to his skin he smiled at her again, emitting a strong sense of longing, of willingness.

  Out of those two days an awful lot of the time had been spent in bed making love.

  She raised an eyebrow in surprise as the sequencing results rose up into the holographic display. ‘Your DNA is . . .’ Real? Proper? Fully human? ‘Okay,’ she concluded. And how did the Void pull that stunt?

  ‘I’m glad,’ he said simply.

  The smartcore ran a comparison against a medical file she carried: her son’s DNA. This Kazimir didn’t share any genetic markers with the man whose child she’d borne twelve hundred years ago. She didn’t know if she was disappointed by that or not. So it’s not omnipotent, then.

  ‘Shall we see if the culinary unit is working?’ she asked.

  She didn’t really have to ask what he wanted. Cheeseburger with bacon, fries, sticky toffee pudding with vanilla ice cream. Chocolates and champagne. All part of the decadent life she’d corrupted him with first time round.

  The culinary unit managed to produce them, though she thought some of the tastes were a bit strange.

  It was all strange and good to Kazimir’s palate, he wolfed the lot down.

  ‘Have you seen anyone else here?’ she asked as she sipped her own champagne.

  ‘I thought you said I didn’t exist before today,’ he said, only half teasing.

  ‘I don’t know how long you’ve been here, actually. It took the Void four years to create this world. I think.’

  He sat back in the chair and thought hard. ‘I have memories, or notions of my life before today. That life I had back with my clan isn’t real, I see that now, nothing about that time is substantial. It is a notion of what should have been. And yet I remember setting out on my groundwalk a couple of weeks ago. I’m sure the last few days were real. Today is. Today has you in it. I remember waking and enjoying the clear sky.’

  ‘So you didn’t see anyone on your groundwalk?’

  ‘No. But the idea of the groundwalk is to be on your own.’

  ‘Of course.’

  He shivered, looking round the cabin again. Apprehension was creeping into his thoughts. ‘I am nothing. I am a toy some alien has built to amuse you. What kind of being has such power?’

  ‘Hey,’ she said soothingly. ‘You’re certainly not nothing. You’re you. It doesn’t matter why you are, only that you’re here now. Life is to be lived, I told you that the first time we met.’

  Kazimir sniffed suspiciously. ‘Did I believe you?’

  ‘You took some convincing. You were just as stubborn then.’

  That seemed to satisfy him.

  ‘What are you going to do now?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m not sure. I came here to try and talk to the nucleus. That’s looking quite difficult now. It thinks I want to be here with you instead.’ She reviewed the Silverbird’s status again. None of the drives were operational, and the smartcore didn’t know why. The generator was producing some power, enough to maintain basic life support. A majority of cabin functions were running, though she wasn’t sure she’d want to use the medical cabinet. What vexed her most was the reason for the failures and glitches. There wasn’t one.

  Willpower, she thought, that’s the governing factor in this universe. The power of mind over matter. Thoughts can affect reality. So the Void doesn’t want the Silverbird to fly. It’s as simple as that.

  ‘And you don’t want to be here with me?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s enjoyable,’ she told him. ‘But it’s not why I’m here.’ His face was so crestfallen she immediately felt guilty. ‘Kazimir, I apologize, but there is an awful lot at stake. More than I expect you to believe. I have to do whatever I can to help.’

  ‘I understand,’ he said gravely. ‘It is an honourable thing that you do. My mind may be false, but I believe in honour. It is a universal truth.’

  ‘You’re very sweet,’ she said. ‘I remembered that part of you perfectly.’ She yawned. ‘I’m going to try to get some rest, it’s been a long stressful flight and that champagne has gone straight to my head.’

  ‘I will keep watch outside,’ he announced gravely. ‘If this is a whole real planet there might be something hostile out there.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Damn, my memory’s a dangerous thing. The cabin extended a large bed as Justine stripped off the one-piece suit; then the replicator produced a thin duvet. It had peculiar hard lumps in it, but she shrugged and pulled it up anyway. She fell asleep straight away.

  And dreamed. Dreamed of her own bed in her own home, where she was warm and safe and life was comfortable.

  Someone pulled the drapes back, and sunlight streamed in through the tall windows. Justine yawned and stretched. It was cosy under the duvet.

  ‘Hello, darling.’

  ‘Dad,’ she said drowsily, and smiled at the gold face looming above her. ‘Is it time to get up?’

  ‘It’s time you and I had a talk.’

  Full awareness hit her like a plunge into ice water. Justine yelped and sat up straight. It was her room in the Tulip mansion, the one she’d spent her adolescence in, therefore ridiculously purple and black as she merrily ploughed her way through her retro-Goth phase mainly to annoy her parents. Her T-shirt and baggy flannel pyjama trousers were black cotton. Toe- and fingernails were black, with embossed blood gems. She looked at them, mortified by the fashion. Fingers heavy with silver skull rings hurriedly pulled a string of hair in front of her face to check: yes, black.

  ‘Jesus,’ she muttered.

  ‘You always looked cute no matter how bad the fashion,’ Gore said. He was standing at the foot of the bed, arms folded as he leaned against the post. (Four-poster with black gauze drapes – of course.) His handsome gold face grinned down.

  ‘What? I . . . Am . . . Is this the Void?’

  ‘You’re still in the Void,’ Gore said. ‘I’m back in the Commonwealth thinking up cosy environments to amplify our rapport. And there’s nothing cosier than a childhood room.’

  ‘Rapport?’

  ‘I’m hugely embarrassed to say I’ve become the Third Dreamer. And guess whose life in the Void I’m dreaming.’

  ‘Oh shit.’

  Gore produced an evil grin. ‘Could be worse, you could have slept with him. And I’d be the one relaying it into the gaiafield.’

  ‘Shit!’

  ‘That nobility of yours will get you into real trouble one day.’

  Justine stood up carefully. ‘What’s been happening out there? Did the Pilgrimage make it through?’

  ‘You mean in the four days you’ve been inside?’

  ‘Four days?’ she asked incredulously.

  ‘Coming up on five.’

  ‘But it’s been . . .’

  ‘Four years. Including the interlude with the Skylord.’

  ‘You got that part?’

  ‘Oh yes. That little shit Ethan is making a lot of capital out of its refusal to take you to the nucleus. A real big boost to the cause. The Clerics from his jumped-up Council have been all over the unisphere ever since, ranting about destiny. It’s almost enough to counter the fuck-up they’ve made on Viotia.’

  ‘Viotia?’ she asked in a daze.

  ‘They’re turning the planet upside down looking for the Second Dreamer. Don’t worry about it. We’ve got to concentrate on your problem.’


  ‘Kazimir?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking. Damn, I never realized you were still so fixated. You really ballsed that one up, didn’t you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘So far all Living Dream has been promising is the chance to put your life straight, just like their precious Waterwalker did every time he made his many mistakes. Screwed up again? Never mind. Bang, he thinks back to the moment he went wrong and rearranges the whole Void to that instant. That’s what sold it to them, all the sheep bleating to be taken on the Pilgrimage fleet.’

  ‘I know, time travel is everyone’s wish fulfilment made true. Going back to correct your life’s blunders is the ultimate fantasy.’

  ‘Time travel is pure bullshit, impossible; nobody can defeat causality or entropy. All the Void does is press the reset button. That’s what that goddamn memory layer is, a template of every instant inside there. And how does it fucking power that?’

  ‘Dad.’

  ‘Every planet, every person, every Skylord, every star has to have its entropy reversed to the point in time Edeard fancied going back to. Every star! Every single atom in every star in the Void has to have its energy level pumped back up so he can begin again. Dear God, what arrogance. And where does it get the energy from to do that? From us. From eating our galaxy. That’s what feeds the reset. Mass to energy, good old E equals MC squared.’

  ‘Dad, calm down, you’re ranting to the converted.’

  ‘Oh am I? If they were converted, the stupid dumb shits wouldn’t be going on their Pilgrimage, would they? Sometimes I think the Ocisens are quite right, they should just wipe us out because any species thick enough to produce Living Dream doesn’t deserve to live.’

  ‘Dad!’ she said, shocked.

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’ He grinned round savagely. ‘You like this dream, Ethan? You like what’s coming at you from the Void now? Or is this too much truth for you? Because it’s not just going to be your dumbass Waterwalker skipping back through his life any more, is it? I could just about live with him being the saviour of a bunch of shipwrecked medieval cretins. But that was never enough for you, was it? You are so fucking stupid you want to take everyone in there. Millions of you resetting your lives every time you get a drop of shampoo in your fucking eye. Are you so fucking pitifully weak you can’t face living your life properly? Learn from your mistake and move on. That’s what makes you human. Not condemning the rest of us to extinction because of your personal goddamn failure of an existence. Grow some balls, for fuck’s sake.’