'I have to consider the infinitely small probability you might escape. I can't have you knowing what I know, that would give you a mighty large tactical advantage my friend.'
'Oh dear Lady,' Corrie-Lyn groaned, and took a swig straight from the bottle. She ordered her u-shadow to resume the feed from the external sensors.
The new intense star that had been Hanko began to diminish within an hour of its inception. It was an insatiable consumer of mass, quick to devour the remnants of the planet that hadn't reached escape velocity during the implosion rupture. Solid splinters were quick to fall prey to its incredible gravity, flashing to ruin as they passed through the event horizon. Then its gravity reached out further, to the solidifying torrents of magma, pulling them back. After that there was only the thick streamers of gas and dust that were splayed out. Their tides began to turn, grasping at the loose irradiated particles and hauling them down the steepening gravity gradient to extinction.
A mere three hours after it shone brighter than its primary, Hanko was reduced to a tiny glowing ember surrounded by whirlpool veils of lavender fog that were slowly constricting.
'It consumes everything around it in order to burn,' Aaron said. 'Yet, in the end, entropy will always emerge victorious, snuffing out the very last glimmer of heat and light. After that there is only darkness. When that state is reached, even eternity will cease to exist, for one moment will be like every other, and nothingness will claim the universe.' He turned to Inigo. 'Sound familiar?'
'Nothingness is a long way off,' Inigo said. 'Not even the post-physicals will be around to witness that. It certainly doesn't worry me.'
'And yet it's your Void which will accelerate the process. Without the mass of this galaxy, the universe moves noticeably closer to the end of time and space.'
'Your employers want me to stop the Pilgrimage.'
Aaron gave a bemused shrug. 'I have no idea what they want. I'm just observing the symbology here.'
Corrie-Lyn stirred herself. After the St Lisamne rum, she'd polished off a couple of bottles of wine hoarded by another crewman. Then there was the JK raspberry vodka. It annoyed her there wasn't a working fridge, the JK should have been drunk chilled to arctic levels. 'You care though,' she slurred. 'That's a start. Your conditioning is beginning to unravel. Maybe we'll get to meet the real Aaron sooner than your boss would like.'
'You're already looking at him. Sorry.' Aaron sent an order to the smartcore, and the Lindau went ftl.
'So what have you decided?' Inigo asked.
'The Navy knows that I was hunting you, and if they don't know I survived Hanko they'll find out soon enough. We're both being hunted by whoever flew the ship that fired the Hawking m-sink. I was supposed to be in the Artful Dodger, which should have given me a big edge, but that's gone. However, there's the emergency replacement ship waiting for me on Pulap. The bad news is that if we turn up anywhere in the Lindau, everybody and their mother will know about it. I can't risk that, I can't expose you to the possibility of capture or termination.'
'You're stuffed then,' Corrie-Lyn sniggered. 'Shame about that.'
'Not quite. There is something that took a long time to emerge, a real last resort.'
'Which is?' Inigo asked.
'I'm taking you to the Spike.'
'The alien macro-habitat? That's seven thousand lightyears away. It'll take weeks. What in Honious is there?'
Aaron wrinkled up his brow as if listening to some distant voice. Even he seemed surprised by what it was saying: 'Ozzie. Ozzie lives in the Spike.'
* * * *
Paula watched the padded plyplastic fold protectively around her piano with a mild sense of regret. There was just no point in trying to play. Following the conference with Kazimir and ANA she just couldn't lose herself in music like she normally did. Kazimir's doubt about the Accelerator's motivation was troubling her. Logically, the outline she'd proposed was flawless. The Accelerators needed the deterrent fleet weapons to blast the Raiel out of the way.
As she'd thought earlier: what else could the whole Prime scheme be? And that nasty little phrase had begun to haunt her. What else? For the Accelerators to risk internal ANA suspension by manipulating the Ocisens and Primes was a phenomenal gamble. One that always had a good chance of exposure. To her mind it was too much of a gamble for anything astute as an ANA Faction. For all she rejected half of their ideologies, they weren't stupid. Which left her with the uncomfortable question of what else they could hope to gain by forcing deployment of the deterrent fleet.
In a classic diversion tactic, the fleet would rush off to intercept the Ocisens, leaving the rest of the Commonwealth exposed. She couldn't think what the nature of that exposure could be.
It can't be a physical attack. They need the Pilgrimage ships to be complete and launch, they also need ANA to carry on, after all they're part of it.
So, what, then?
If it was nothing other than a crude attempt to analyse the deterrence fleet weapons they were going to fail. And failure now would mean the end of them and their goals. ANA:Governance had only ever used the suspension sanction once before, during the Evolutionary Secessionist rebellion five hundred years ago, which had seen the Secessionists trying to literally split ANA so they might assume control of a section and go post-physical.
There has to be something I'm missing.
The one big hole in her information was the nature of the deterrence fleet. Which was the one thing ANA:Governance would never explain to her. For all she was a valued agent, even she acknowledged that information could never be allowed to leak out, which it might well do if she was ever captured. Small chance, but if it was the Cat after her, a realistic chance. And if not the Cat, there were others who would enjoy seeing her removed from physical existence. There probably always would be. All part of the job. After fourteen hundred years you just grew to live with the prospect no matter what your psychology was.
The smartcore told her the Alexis Denken was fifteen minutes out from Kerensk. And Gore was making a call.
'Justine's still all right then,' Paula said. 'That's good news.'
'Yes. But that little shit Ethan must be laughing his fucking head off that the Skylord wouldn't help her.'
'It won't help her now. But let's face it, if any of us are close to maturity it's going to be Justine.'
'Yeah, maybe.'
'I didn't realize time was that fast inside the Void.'
'Nobody did. Although I suspect the flow rate might be localized. We don't know enough about its fabric yet, but that would certainly explain the Skylord's acceleration. It wasn't physically fast, it operated a different time-flow.'
'What do you think happened on Querencia since the Water-walker's death? The Skylord said there's nobody left now.'
'Who gives a shit? I have some information for you. Do you know who left Ganthia two hours after you did?'
'Yes, an Accelerator agent we're interested in. He's got an ultradrive ship, but its stealth isn't perfect, or at least ANA's sensors are better. Don't worry, Digby has him under surveillance.'
'Keeping it in the family, huh? Good for you. But I wasn't taking about Chatfield.'
Paula sighed. There were times when she was very annoyed with ANA for the leeway it granted Gore Burnelli. 'Who then?'
'Marius.'
After fourteen hundred years, an unexpected turn in a case no longer surprised her, but she was very interested. 'And how do you know that?'
'A friend of a friend saw him at the starport.'
She laughed. 'You mean the Conservative Faction is still eager to screw the Accelerators.'
'Screw them into the ground and dance on the pieces, actually. Does that information help?'
'It's not helpful for them, but it does confirm my assumption that Chatfield is an Accelerator representative.' Her u-shadow reported that it couldn't track the origin of Gore's call. There were very few people who could manipulate the Unisphere to that extent. And why would he hide that anyway? Unless�
� No! Surely not.
'I have something else which may be of use for you,' Gore said.
'What's that?'
'Troblum.'
'You know where he is?'
'No, sorry, not that, but I do know what he's been up to.'
'Oh really? Your Delivery Man shut down our one avenue of investigation. I'll get round to arresting him one day, you know. Using an m-sink on a Central world is not amusing.'
'Consider this my olive branch. We were scared by what Troblum was doing.'
'Which was?'
'Building an ftl drive big enough to move a planet.'
'Jesus! You're kidding.'
'Wish I was. The good news is that he wasn't doing it for the Accelerators - at least not as far as we can determine. This seems to be some mad personal obsession.'
'That fits. He has a semi-plausible theory on how the Anomine acquired Dark Fortress technology. One way is that they simply stole or borrowed them from the warrior Raiel.'
'Yeah? Anyway… he succeeded in building one.'
'Now you are kidding me.'
'No. That's why the Delivery Man was authorized to cover it up. We were concerned when we thought it was part of the Accelerator plan, but now we don't believe it is.'
'So why tell me this now?'
'Troblum is a very strange man. And now he's loose in the universe with an ftl drive that might be able to move a planet. He's also trying to make contact with you to tell you something about the Accelerators. They don't like that.'
'Ah, I get it: the wild card.'
'Damn right.'
'And that worries you?'
'It should worry you, too. Events are becoming unstable enough as it is. We don't need people like Troblum fucking things up even more.'
'And yet he might have the evidence ANA:Governance needs to suspend the Accelerators.'
'Could be. Who knows?'
'So what do you want me to do?'
'Stick him up at the top of your priority list. He needs to be found.'
'After what happened on Sholapur I expect he's halfway to Andromeda by now.'
'We can't take the risk. You must not allow the Accelerators to find him again.'
'Don't try to tell me my job,' she told him curtly.
'Wouldn't dream of it. Just making information available like a good citizen.'
'So what are you up to right now? I heard you didn't show up for the ExoProtectorate meeting.'
'I thought now was a good time to take a sabbatical. But don't worry, I'm still sticking my hand in.'
'Stick it in too deep and I'll break it off. You know you don't have half the special privileges you think you do, not as far as I'm concerned.'
'Pleasure doing business with you, Paula. As always.' The call ended.
Paula sat back on the couch. After a while she began to grin.
* * * *
The Wurung Transport cab rattled along Colwyn City's ageing public rails all day long. Araminta sat on the wide front seat with the wrap-around bubble window switched to one-way, watching a city in torment. The Ellezelin capsules zoomed low over the buildings, an unending reminder of their presence and power. Desperation was sinking in now, replacing the previous sullen resentment which had claimed the city. The Senate delegation had been on the ground for six hours before Cleric Phelim even agreed to see them. Crowds around the docks were treated badly by the paramilitaries as they shouted their demands to be heard by the Senators. Flights by ambulance capsules were still forbidden; cabs and trike pods were kept busy carrying the injured to city hospitals. By mid-afternoon numbers were thinning out around the docks. Other disturbance areas were growing.
Laril had switched on the cab's Unisphere node as he promised. It responded to simple voice instructions, which was proving incredibly useful. Almost the first thing she saw was a Unisphere report on Justine's encounter with the Skylord. The dream had been released into the gaiafield a few hours ago, the show said, and they'd transferred the images over. A lot of smart commentators were busy providing their interpretation, as was a Living Dream Councillor called DeLouis who seemed repellently excited by the Skylord's refusal to take Justine to the nucleus. Araminta watched for a while until she realized that no one really knew anything, then switched to local news. The tiny portal projected scenes captured by reporters all across town.
One thing kept happening over and over again. It was random, and inexplicable to the news shows. Ellezelin capsules pounced out of the sky to snatch women by force. There was no discoverable connection between the women as far as anyone could make out, and some very sophisticated semi-sentient scrutineers were employed to that effect. The Ellezelin troopers who performed the seizures were extremely determined, and didn't care how much peripheral damage was committed to achieve their objective. The images helped stir a lot of the outrage people were feeling. Those minority of residents who had valiantly gone to work as normal were heading for home by mid-afternoon. Almost no one on late shifts turned up. A siege mentality was growing. Homes were double locked and alarmed.
Araminta only had to see the first three atrocious snatches to work out the link between the poor hapless women. They looked like her.
'Sweet Ozzie,' she groaned as the third was dragged away in the middle of a street in Espensten district, her two young children screamed at the horror of Mummy being forcefully taken from them.
Condemnation from across the Commonwealth reached a crescendo with that one. It didn't affect the behaviour of the paramilitaries.
Her feeling of depression grew as she saw her homeworld suffer because of her; a feeling not helped by the way the Skylord had rejected Justine. Araminta was furious about that. After all she'd risked contacting the Skylord and getting Justine into the Void, the effort had come to nothing. Justine hadn't even got to the Heart. There would be no negotiation now, no explaining to whatever controlled the Void the damage it was causing.
There was nothing Araminta could do about that, or anything, actually - short of surrendering, which was one very swift answer to everything. Instead she did what Laril advised, and delved into the gaiafield, losing herself amid the emotional outpourings and whispered messages of enticement and spectacular memories divulged by the confluence nests. There were levels, or layers, or perhaps she was too rigid in applying such labels; there were certainly different aspects to the emotive universe which she could immerse herself in.
The dreams, of course, were the primary foundation of the gaiafield. Inigo's dreams and the countless billions of others given to the confluence nests by their creators; all identifiable by their unique emotional appellation. Any one of which would rise into her consciousness to the summons of a matching mood or image; exactly the way memories inside her own head worked -simple association. Although Inigo's dreams all seemed to have strong tags and were the easiest of all to acquire.
So, as the cab trundled onwards steered by Laril's dodgy software, Araminta bowed to the inevitable and lived through Inigo's first few dreams, only finally to shake herself free hours later, smiling exuberantly as young Edeard walked across Birmingham Pool to defeat Arminel. She felt like letting out a cheer inside the cab. Makkathran was such a delight, with its strange architecture and peculiar genistars, populated by rich and pompous lords and ladies out of some incredibly ancient text. She wondered if Edeard would wind up marrying Kanseen or Salrana; either would be a lovely romantic outcome. And she knew for sure it all had some kind of ridiculously happy ending, not that she'd ever want to live in such a backward culture.
Outside Inigo's dreams of Edeard were the voices carried on winds of pure emotion: the everyday emissions of her fellow Colwyn City residents. The gaiafield was a bleak state indeed beyond the cab, worry and fear from the majority almost drowning out the fervent hopes of the Living Dream adherents that their Second Dreamer was truly close at hand.
Perhaps it was because her Silfen heritage delivered her into the gaiafield rather than gaiamotes like everyone else, but this whole strang
e universe of memory and raw emotions seemed remarkably clear to her. She was able to rise above the emotional clamour to study the composition of this strange cosmos in a calm and objective fashion. By doing that rather than simply plunging in regardless, she was aware of what her mind interpreted as little neutral zones. Slivers of nothingness anchored throughout the babble. Strangest of all was the way they really did appeal to her; their outer layers reverberated to an emotional state that was almost identical to her own. That mental siren song alone made her cautious. Holding them aloft in her mind she could feel the subliminal tethers to the confluence nests of the city.
Ozzie! Living Dream really is desperate to find me.
She carefully separated herself from the treacherous traps. Beyond that brash bright constellation of human thoughts was the ever-present serenity of the Silfen Motherholm.
'Do you know me?' she asked in trepidation.
The answer wasn't specific, not speech in human terms, more a warm feeling of acknowledgement and welcome.
'Can you help me?'
Sadness, not cold, it was regret rather than a rejection.
'I might make a real hash of things.'
The comforting warmth of a mother's embrace.
'I wish I had that much confidence in me. Do you have any idea what's at stake here?'
A glowing gold light bathing every cell of her body, as if an angel's smile had broken through Colwyn City's fug of misery.
'Oh for Ozzie's sake; all right, I'll ask it again.' And she reached beyond the Silfen Motherholm for the entity that lurked right on the edge of her perception. Carefully this time, avoiding the vigilant watchers, speaking softly within herself rather than the cry across thirty-thousand lightyears. A call which found her bathed in a luminescence similar to the Void's nebulas, relishing the smooth flow of the universe around her.
'Hello,' she said to the Skylord.
'I wait for you.'
'Was that you with my friend? The one who is inside your universe.'
'I have not guided one of your species for a long time.'
'Doesn't mean much,' Araminta muttered sourly. 'If I come to your universe, would you guide me to the nucleus?'
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