The Temporal Void (ARC)

by Peter F. Hamilton

Edeard's mind lost all focus as his flesh obeyed her demands. He was lost between ecstasy and delirium.

  'You will give me our first daughter this night,' Ranalee decreed.

  Edeard laughed ecstatically. 'Let's just hope it is a daughter.' Tears of joy were running from his eyes.

  'It will be. They all will be. Every girl knows how.'

  'How?'

  'How to take care of an inconvenience like that. They must be girls.'

  'But the boys…'

  'There can be no boys. They have no value. The families practise primogeniture, apart for the odd embarrassment like the Culverits. So your daughters can marry directly into a family's main lineage.'

  'What?' His thoughts were swirling as panic contaminated his physical delight. 'What?'

  'The embryos are not people,' she crooned. 'Not at the stage where their gender becomes apparent. There isn't even any discomfort for me. Don't think of this any more.'

  'What? No!'

  'Relax, my beautiful strong Waterwalker. Do what you do best.'

  'No,' Edeard shouted. He felt smothered, fighting for breath against a torrent of horror. 'No no no.' He pushed. Pushed hard. Pushed with his third hand. Pushed himself away from such evil.

  Ranalee wailed in shock as she flew through the air. Edeard was panting hard, trying to shake the miasma from his thoughts. He felt as if he was shaking off a nightmare. His heart was yammering in his chest. He searched round frantically to see Ranalee sprawled across the rug at the foot of the bed. She looked dangerous, her hair wild, a snarl on her lips as she stood up and faced him.

  'What happened?' he gasped, still fearful. He could barely resist the urge to continue, to bend her over the bed and take her - and from that to rule Makkathran through his offspring.

  'I set you free,' she growled.

  Her voice seemed to clang around the inside of his head. He groaned at the intensity, jamming his hands over his ears.

  'I showed you your real desires. Follow them. Liberate yourself.'

  'Stop it,' he begged. He was curling up, struggling against his own treachery, the yearning to follow her path into the future.

  'Inhibitions aren't for people like us. You have strength in your blood, as do I. Think what we can achieve together. Believe in us—' That last she caterwauled at him.

  The force behind the command almost sent Edeard tumbling from the mattress. Her mind was bright and hot. It finally made him realize it wasn't her voice he was battling. Somehow she was speaking directly into his mind. Insidiously potent longtalk had corrupted his own thoughts, forcing him to bend to her will as if he were no more than a genistar being ordered to clear up manure. He clenched his teeth, and concentrated, willing his third hand to contract around him, becoming hard enough to deflect longtalk. Pleading to the Lady to make him strong enough.

  'Listen to me!' Ranalee demanded.

  Edeard could see her lips still moving, as her voice faded away. Every trick he'd learned in the city about shielding his emotions was woven together and reinforced by his telekinesis. He crouched on the mattress, hearing nothing, sensing nothing. Isolated.

  Ranalee glared at him. Once his nerves had steadied, he glared back. His hands were trembling from shock and fear.

  'You,' he gulped down a breath. 'You tried… You wanted me to… Oh sweet Lady.' The thought of what he'd only just managed to elude sent another shiver along his spine.

  Ranalee regarded him contemptuously. She said something.

  Edeard cautiously allowed her voice through the shield his third hand had created. But not her longtalk. Lady no! That he kept perfectly blocked. 'What?'

  'You stupid pitiful country peasant.'

  'Bitch,' he spat back.

  Her contempt matured into utter scorn. 'You think that isn't you? You believe you are noble and kind? Do you know how the dominance works? It plucks at the true strings of the heart. And I am a master of those passionate tunes; I play men for the simpletons they are. I recognize what lurks within, Waterwalker. You are all ruled by your ego and your lust, the real traits flowing in the blood. Everything I offered is a seed inside you. I simply give you the chance to let your true nature grow.'

  'I am not like that.'

  'How many family girls have you already bedded? You gave in to yourself on that quickly enough, didn't you? How many months have you and your pitiful squadmates spent in a lowlife tavern plotting and scheming to overthrow the gangs and make you Chief Constable? That is exactly what I offer you. Not in the way your childish daydreams imagine, I can give you all that for real, Grow up, Waterwalker. Your supposed virtue cannot bring you to power by itself, for that power is ultimately what you crave. The power to shape the city in your vision. That's right, is it not?'

  'Yes,' he murmured. 'An honest city. One where people are not bred for advantage and profit.'

  'Sometimes you have to do what's wrong in order to do what's right.'

  He stared at her, stunned.

  'Oh. A phrase even you've heard, then? Do you know who said it? Rah himself, as he forced his way through Makkathran's walls. He knew that only inside would his people have sanctuary from the chaos spilling out from the ships which brought us here. So he gave us the city. He took the city, and by doing so gave us order and stability that has stood for two thousand years.'

  'No,' Edeard shook his head. 'I'm not… children shouldn't be born for that. They should be loved for themselves.'

  'They would be. And ours would be destined for greatness, too.'

  'It's not right'

  'Really? And what if you only marry one girl, a nice sweet little thing who loves you dearly the way it is out in your backward villages? What do you think awaits those children of the Waterwalker? Me. That's what. Me, and all the others like me. The fewer children you have, the more valuable they become. The boys will be seduced by family daughters, the girls will be taken as trophy wives by our first sons. It will make most excellent sport. We will have the strength of your blood, one way or the other.'

  'Not like that you won't.'

  She tossed her head, regarding him with true aristocratic derision. 'You can achieve so much, Waterwalker. If Makkathran is to be remade as you would wish it, then it must change almost beyond recognition. I have no quarrel with that, for I would be atop that change. But radical change must come from within. You know how that has to happen now, your blood must spread wide, carrying with it your will.'

  'I can change things from where I am.'

  'No,' she said harshly. 'Change imposed by an outsider is an external threat, the one thing that would pull all of Makkathran together. The families, the common man, even the gangs; they would unite to defeat you.'

  'Those groups, they want me to win, to get rid of the gangs and the corruption that allows them to thrive.'

  'They want you to get rid of the gangs, that's all. You can't do that, not without help from the established order, they're woven too tightly into our streets and canals for you to root out. The Councils and the Guilds won't help you unless you're committed wholeheartedly to supporting them. You don't have a choice. Your subconscious knows that. I saw your every feeble thought tonight.'

  'So you're the easy way?'

  Ranalee ran her gaze lecherously along his naked body. 'Lust for power wasn't the only craving you exposed. All men are the same in the end. I enjoyed that part as much as you did.'

  'I refuse to play this game with you.'

  'Idiot,' she sighed in disgust, and held out an arm. Her third hand fished a long robe from the closet, which glided through the air to her. 'But then our children were never going to inherit their intelligence from you, were they?'

  Edeard clambered off the bed, feeling intolerably weary. He was also disgusted with himself, because he knew that part of the night had been true. Her insidious power had unleashed what lay within him.

  'It might already be too late for you,' she taunted.

  He recovered his underwear. 'What do you mean?'

  She patted her
stomach. 'I'm at the right time in my cycle, and you certainly delivered adequately. I'll be such a good mother. I'll even keep it if it's a boy. He can start breeding in a little over a decade. A rival to you.' She smiled to deliver maximum hurt.

  Edeard's heart fluttered. There was a phial of vinak juice in his luggage. He'd been so desperate to get her into the bedroom he'd never taken it. She hadn't given him time. All deliberate, he knew now.

  Fool! She's right, you really are nothing but a backward peasant!

  Ranalee caught his distress and laughed.

  Edeard's third hand gripped her and shoved her up into the canopy above the bed. Her eyes bulged with shock as she found she couldn't breathe. Below her; Edeard pulled on his shirt, taking his time, not looking up. 'I lack your skill in killing unborns,' he said calmly. 'So I'd have to eliminate you to make sure he was never born into the life you envisage for him, or her.' He eased off a fraction, and Ranalee sucked down precious air. 'You're too weak,' she hissed furiously.

  'Sometimes you have to do what's wrong in order to do what's right.' He let go of her.

  Ranalee crashed down on to the big bed, bouncing hard on the mattress. She scrambled round, and found Edeard leaning over her. She shrank back in trepidation from the expression on his face and the timbre of his thoughts.

  'You should never talk so casually about death and killing,' he told her. 'Not to those of us who have killed, and will kill again.'

  'You'll die alone with your dreams broken,' she cried defiantly.

  'If you are pregnant you will inform me, and I will bring the child up myself.' He pulled his boots on, and went out into tin-night, leaving his luggage (including socks) behind.

  It had been a long miserable walk back to Makkathran. With only himself for company he was forced to face aspects of his psyche that he didn't much admire. Again and again he considered Ranalee's proposal. He suspected she might be right about how impossible it would be to rip the gangs out of Makkathran. Dear Lady, was this the proposal Finitan spoke of? li can't be. It can't.

  How he longed for Akeem's wisdom. Just one last question for his old Master. When he pictured Akeem's kindly ancient face, his old Master was shaking his head in that amused dismay of his which had greeted so many apprentice follies, as if to say: you already know the answer.

  When dawn did eventually break and Edeard begged a lift off a farmer driving his cart to market, he was resolved. He would take on Ivarl and the gangs on his own terms. That way he gave himself a victory over the darker nature resting in his soul.

  Now, looking along the brightly lit tunnel that seemed to go on for ever beneath the city, Edeard knew he had another long, lonely trek home.

  'I really am going to have to get help to deal with these bastards,' he decided wearily. Neither the tunnel nor the city answered him. He shrugged and got to his feet again. It wasn't quite so painful as last time. He looked one way, then the other. There was absolutely no difference between them. Both ways saw the tunnel extend out to vanishing point. And the silence was starting to get to him. It was as profound as the time he'd used his third hand to defend himself against Ranalee's voice.

  Talents, she'd said, useful little talents. Plural. Edeard had never heard of anything like the liquid light which Ivarl and Tannarl could manifest. And to think; when he'd hauled Arminel back to justice across the surface of Birmingham Pool he'd considered himself invincible. It made him wonder how many other nasty little surprises the aristocratic families kept among themselves.

  He probed round with his farsight, trying to find exactly where he was. The tunnel was very deep. He examined the structure above him, searching for a clue of his fall, the direction he'd come from. Makkathran had altered itself again to let him though, but he couldn't detect any difference in the solid bulk overhead. When he focused, he thought he glimpsed something. His farsight swept back, and there he was. It was like an image of himself embedded in the city's substance. Falling, with his arms waving madly, his coat trailing smoke. As he studied the image, it moved slowly. If he focused on the substance above, it sinned to rise back, following, his own point of concentration.

  When he changed direction, so did the image. Memory, he realized in delight. The city remembers me.

  Edeard tracked the image of himself to the place where it dropped out of the tunnel roof. It was kind of funny to see himself landing splat on the floor, but it still didn't tell him which way to walk, just where the House of Blue Petals stood above. He reached out for the city's peaceful thoughts, and projected an image of Transal Street in Jeavons where he always used a disused cellar to go down into the canal tunnels. Do you have a memory of how to get there? he queried.

  There were no images, which he'd only half expected anyway. Then he began to scrabble round for his footing because the tunnel was somehow tilting. The floor shifted down alarmingly fast, and Edeard slipped on to his back. He started sliding along the smooth surface, picking up speed as the angle kept increasing. It was already way past forty-five degrees, and building. The infinite line of red lights was flashing past. He instinctively knew what was going to happen next, even though it was utterly impossible. How can a tunnel possibly tilt?

  There was never any answer. The only sound in the tunnel was Edeard's scream as he began to fall down the now vertical shaft.

  When he stopped to draw breath he didn't bother screaming again, after all this was how he dropped down into the canal tunnels. It was just that he never had such an impression of speed before. Maybe if he shut his eyes…

  He opened them hurriedly. That was too much, he had to match up what he was seeing with what his body felt. The red lights were now a solid smear he was going so fast. This was the freedom of the ge-eagles! A side tunnel flashed past, and In-gasped in shock. Before he could wonder where it led, another had come and gone. He managed a tentative laugh. No one had ever travelled like this. It was stupendous! This night crowned him king of the city, and Honious take Ranalee, Ivarl and all their kind. For they were the real ignorant ones.

  There was only one truly frightening moment, when his body was twisted by whatever guided him and kept him clear of the tunnel walls, and he abruptly flipped out of the main tunnel into one of the junctions. He drew a sharp breath, but his worry soon faded. If the city wanted him dead he would have joined Akeem in Odin's Sea long time ago.

  Eventually, his wayward flight ended as the tunnel shifted back to horizontal. Edeard wound up sliding for a long way on his arse until the tunnel floor was completely horizontal again. He looked up, and sent his farsight flowing through the bulk above. The top of the tunnel changed in that eerie and now thoroughly familiar way, and he fell up. Darkness engulfed him, and a minute later he popped up into the chill air and weak orange light of the Marble Canal tunnel.

  The sight of it was immediately disheartening. Knowing he was going back up to the city streets brought his defeat into sharp focus. He couldn't tell anyone, couldn't turn to anyone. Worse, he didn't really know what to do next.

  Maybe I should just leave. Ride away to Ufford, and Salrana and I will live happily out in the country where we belong.

  It was so tempting. But if he didn't take a stand against the gangs, and the likes of Ranalee and her family, nothing would ever change. And ultimately the city's decay would bring the countryside down with it. The problem would belong to his children, and by then it would be even greater.

  Edeard sighed, and started his trek home.

  * * * *

  He spent the next day in his maisonette, longtalking Dinlay at the station, claiming he had a cold. Lian's trial was in its eighth day, but he'd already appeared in the witness stand. The prosecution didn't need him again. Dinlay wished him well.

  One of his ge-monkeys was dispatched to the nearest doctor's house to fetch a soothing ointment, which he dabbed on his scorched skin. Then he apologized to Jessile and asked her not to come round for the evening, claiming he didn't want to pass on his cold. She commiserated, and got her family's coo
k to send round a hamper loaded with chicken soup and other treats.

  What he wanted was to spend a couple of days resting up, thinking about his next move; certainly he needed to talk to Grand Master Finitan. Then at lunchtime on the second day Kanseen longtalked him.

  * * * *

  The Cobara district had always delighted Edeard. It didn't have streets like the rest of the city. Instead, over a hundred great pillar towers rose out of the ground, all a uniform four storeys high, wide enough for each level to provide enough room for a family to live in. But it was above the towers where the architecture excelled. Each tower was the support column for a broad bridge spanning the gap to the next tower. Most towers provided the base for at least three such bridges, and many had more than that, webbing the district with an array of suspended polygon structures. That was where the district's true accommodation began, extending up to six storeys high from the low curve of each bridge platform. They formed triangles, squares, pentagons, hexagons and, right in the centre of the district, the bridges made up the famous Rafael's Fountain dodecagon which housed the Artist, Botany, and Cartography Guilds. The fountain itself roared up from a big pool in the middle of the dodecagon, its foaming white tip rising higher than the arching crystal roofs.

  Edeard walked past the fierce jet of water, his third hand sweeping away the stingingly cold spray that splattered round the edges of the pool. He was well wrapped up in his fur-lined cloak, with a black ear-flap hat pulled down over his hair, and a maroon scarf covering his mouth. Nobody recognized him through his seclusion haze, though he was very conscious of the ge-eagle slipping through the dull grey sky that was keeping pace with him.

  After the fountain he took a left, heading towards the Millagal tower, with its red and blue striped walls, covered by a leafless network of gurkvine branches. Teams of ge-monkeys were out in force, clearing the last of the slush on the plaza which extended across the whole district beneath the thick shadows of the elevated buildings. Winter gave Cobara a strangely subterranean aspect, with only sallow slivers of sunlight reaching down through the elaborate structures above. In summer, the plaza was full of people and small markets and street artists and kids playing games. Today, they were all huddled next to their stoves in the rooms overhead, complaining about springs late appearance.