frowned.
'I am very grateful for your help, for all this,' Robert
said. 'But I cannot help thinking that there is a price for
it.'
'You are most perceptive.' The proximal paused. 'You
have arrived at a crucial decision nexus in a situation that
has been developing for some time. To encapsulate it
would be to strip away vital details, yet you deserve to
know some of the background, so I will attempt a sum-
mary. As you may have known before, hyperspace has
many levels, and I think you now realise that those levels
go down much further than you or the Sendrukans sus-
pect, being the remains - attenuated, drained, foolishly
destroyed, or even savagely pillaged - of previous uni-
verses. When a universe dies, a new one is born at some
point, somewhere, and its birth draws forth the energies
and forces and matter-matrix-membranes of the old,
which intermingle in that glorious outburst of newness
and creation. The carcass of the old sinks down to join
the compacted strata of its predecessors, in which the
survivors continue to eke out strange and convoluted
existences.
'Wars there have been a-plenty down the ages, but in
recent times curious events have been taking place - the
disappearance of certain survivor races, the appearance
of others thought long dead, raids on peaceful regions,
and a steady, rising background of reasonless, near-
random acts of violence. I have my suspicions, mostly to
do with the remnants of the Legion of Avatars, a vicious
enemy which besieged the Forerunners' galaxy 100,000
Human years ago, even though the depths of their incar-
ceration should make it impossible for them to send any
of their number upward to higher levels.
'Therefore I want to send an emissary to treat with an
old and powerful sentience called the Godhead which
resides in its own secluded corner of hyperspace, one
deeper than the Legion's prison but away in a different
region altogether. This sentience will almost certainly
possess vital information about other denizens and ves-
tigial species of the lower depths, but it will not
communicate with any artificial lifeform, only organic
ones, which is why you are here -1 asked the Sentinel of
the warpwell to send me an Uvovo or a Human, and it
chose you. Unfortunately, longitudinal warpwell travel is
hard to judge, which is why you appeared near the
Abfagul lithosphere in the stone stratum of the Teziyi.'
Robert felt as if he should be angry at having been
snatched away, but he knew that the alternative would
have been very unpleasant. This situation, including the
unexpected rejuvenation, certainly had its positive
aspect, so for the moment, he decided to give the prox-
imal's proposal serious consideration.
'What has happened to my AI companion?' he said. 'I
have an implant . . .'
'I am sorry, Robert Horst, but we removed it. These
fabricated entities are closely linked to the Hegemony's
AI hypercore which resides in the first tier of hyper-
space - they are intrinsically untrustworthy. However, I
freed it from its imperatives and released it into the tier-
net.'
The proximal moved smoothly towards the door. 'I
realise that this is a lot of information to absorb so I
have arranged a new companion for you. She will be
able to answer questions and aid your adjustment.'
Before he could say anything more, the proximal
strode out of the door. He sighed, wondering who this
'she' was, and stared at the reflection in the mirror. Then
he heard approaching footsteps and looked up to see
Rosa enter the room.
'Oh, Daddy, did he not open the window? Here, let
me do it - you've got to see the Garden.'
'Rosa, you're ... how can you be .. .'
Then it struck him. If the Construct had given his AI
Harry its freedom, then might it not do the same for the
Rosa in the intersim device?
'Are you . . . the simulation?' he said, embarrassed
somehow.
She smiled. 'That's right. The Construct had this syn-
thetic form made for me and gave me full autonomy
and empathy and curiosity sub-imperatives.' She swung
open the shutters. 'There it is, Daddy, look! Isn't it
amazing?'
From the window he looked out over fabulously intri-
cate, descending levels of stone and metal terraces and
roofs, intermingled with niche gardens, small orchards,
many individual trees, even a few greenhouses. And at
irregular intervals a span of metal road or catwalk pro-
jected outwards to a cluster of similar buildings just
hanging there, not dissimilar to the wider, lower thor-
oughfares that extended to larger agglomerations of
habitats. And everywhere he looked he saw machines of
every function and design ethos and he began to wonder if
the buildings were not so much habitats as parking bays
or repair shops.
'You're right, Rosa,' he said. 'It is amazing, and
strange.'
'This is the Garden of the Machines, a kind of sanc-
tuary, a waypoint for AIs and AS machines, a place for
recuperation or repair. It's also the Construct's head-
quarters and home to all its followers and servants. If
you could look back at it from out there it would look
like an island mountain suspended in midair, with other
buildings and walkways on its underside .. . oh, but
there will be plenty of time for sightseeing when we get
back.'
'Get back?'
'From your mission to open a dialogue with the
Godhead, Daddy!'
'But I haven't . . . well, I'm still mulling over the
details.'
'Oh, but the Construct explained it all to me and it's
very straightforward. If you don't go, the Construct will
have to send one of his semiorganics instead, which the
Godhead may just completely ignore. Please say you'll
go, Daddy, please.'
He knew when to yield, especially with the suspicion
that Rosa might be the one asked to go in his stead.
That Construct knows how to coerce without being
obvious.
'Okay,' he said. 'I'll go.'
She hugged his arm, delighted. 'It's going to be excit-
ing, Daddy, an exciting adventure!'
JULIA
Aboard the Deucalion, the Heracles's pinnace, now en
route to Baramu Freeport, Julia Bryce rose from the
data station, thanked the systems op - who doubled as
the small ship's comms officer - and left the tiny console
bay, heading forward. The'passage was narrow and
twice she had to squeeze past crew members going the
other way, an unpleasant experience, but she was getting
used to it, or at least enough not to shudder visibly.
Back in their cramped stateroom, Irenya, Thorold
and Arkady were playing two-board switch-chess while
Konstantin lounged in one of the middle bunks, making
notes as he watched the game from above. Eyes glanced
her way and she met each one.
'Find any?' she said.
Arkady, still studying the spread of pieces, held up his
thumb.
'Obvious one in the light fitting ...' A finger came
out. 'Not so obvious one in the wall clock. Both . ..' He
snapped his fingers.
Irenya looked up. She was a tall, willowy blonde who
always asked the first questions.
'What did you discover?'
'The same as before,' Julia said, sitting at the small
table. The game was abandoned as all attention focused
on her. 'The pinnace's tiernet connection confirms what
that cut-down Imisil one told us - no one knows how to
create dark antimatter, except us.'
'Can we really be sure? Tiernets cannot contain the
sum total of knowledge.' - Thorold, doubter, sceptic
and necessary irritant, as well as being a superb particle
physicist.
'There are no successful theories or experimental
data, nor any papers referring to the same,' she said.
'Nor is there any sign of T-triadic radiation being
detected anywhere.'
'Unless some megalomaniac scientist is hiding a dark-
matter lab in another deepzone somewhere,' Thorold
said.
'The question is, what do we say when we get inter-
rogated by Earthsphere Intelligence?' Julia said.
'Sundstrom was desperate to keep us out of the hands of
the Hegemony, but look where we ended up.'
'If we tell Earthsphere, the Hegemony will know
about it in hours,' said Konstantin, still sprawled on his
bunk. 'Their AIs talk to each other.'
'There are several Al-implanted people on board this
vessel,' said Irenya. 'They unsettle me.'
'Earthsphere Intelligence is going to want an expla-
nation,' said Arkady. 'We should feed them some
alternative theories - God knows we were involved in
enough lunatic military projects down the years.'
Heads nodded.
'Good idea,' said Julia. 'We should all think about
that.' She regarded them for a moment. 'Something else
we should consider are our long-term options, whether
we eventually want to return to Darien or go some-
where else.'
Irenya looked surprised. 'I'd always assumed that we
would be going home.'
Thorold snorted. 'Home! Why should we give any
extra consideration to that place - what did they ever do
for us? After all, we know what they did to us . . .'
'There are a lot of other Human colonies within the
boundaries of Earthsphere, as well as the Vox Humana
League,' said Arkady. 'Assuming that we find a way to
go where we want, perhaps we could travel out to one
of them and start new lives there.'
'Or we could start our own colony somewhere,' said
Konstantin.
Apart from Julia, no one looked at him, a measure of
their disregard for the notion.
'One thing you should remember,' Julia said.
'Elsewhere we will be seen as oddities or even cripples -
on Darien we have status.'
'Back there, we were despised,' Thorold said. 'Guilt
and fear defined our existence in that place.'
Irenya shook her head. 'I'm sorry, Thorold, but there
is more to it than that - a lot of the norms feel shame
and want to reach out to us.'
'Sentimental imagination,' Thorold said. 'Perhaps
you're the one feeling ashamed ...'
Julia leaned forward before the bickering could get
going.
'Reflect on all these aspects - if and when the chance
arises for us to pursue our own course, we need to have
a consensus.'
There was a murmur of agreement and Julia moved
her chair away from the table, took out the notes she
had made in the console bay and began reading. But
her thoughts continued to circle the issues she had
steered the rest past.
We are poorly socialised, she thought. Ask us to
debate topics that have nothing to do with theoretical or
technical matters and we retreat into superficial group
platitudes.
And Irenya was more than half right. For months
now, Julia had had a number of suspicions about the
relationship between the Enhanced and the 'norms', the
normal colonists, which were crystallised by what
Major Karlsson's sister, Solvjeg, had said to her back at
the Akesson farmhouse. At first she had asked about
Ulrike, whom Julia remembered very well - she had
been a genius at everything, including relating to people,
yet there was something in her that could not bear to be
alive and which eventually won.
Then, as Pyatkov had begun ushering everyone back
on the bus, Solvjeg had said something stunning - 'You
are all unique, Julia. You might be our society's mistake
but you still come from us; our society is your parent so
that makes you everyone's children. You need us, just as
we need you, and not just because we want to be for-
given.'
The words had transfixed her, rocked her to the core.
Then it had been time to go, so, not knowing what to
say, she had solemnly shaken the older woman's hand
and got on the bus. Since then the words had gone
through her head time and time again, making her wish
that she had said something.
And then there are the things I wish I had not said,
she thought, remembering her encounter with Catriona
on Nivyesta just a few days ago. Perhaps that's why we
should go home, so that we can say the right things.
LEGION
On Yndyesi Tetro, below the murkiest, chilly depths of
its great western ocean, at the foot of a lightless fissure,
a pain-weary mind considered the facts of failure. One
of his treasured scions was dead, its purpose unfulfilled.
The information had been relayed to him by the other
two, who assured him that they were working tirelessly
towards the goal, the prize, although taking separate
paths.
Grief assailed him, sorrow at a loss both strategic
and physical. He was weakened, lessened, yet he clung
resolutely to his purpose and to the doctrines of conver-
gence that gave him strength to endure and to plan. It
was possible to regenerate neural substrate, but only
certain orders of Legion knights had that capability.
Until the survivors of the Forerunners' punishment were
released from the crushing, hellish depths of hyperspace,
he would have to make do without succour in this black
and silent existence, entombed in his watery abyss.
Despite his other two scions' assurances, doubt
gnawed at him - what if the despised machine-minds of
the Hegemony found out how to break the Sentinel's
control over the warpwell? Or worse, if that windup
toy, the Construct, devised a way of closing the well
altogether?
The conclusion was inevitable - he could not remain
here. As difficult and dangerous as it would be, he
would have to rise from his millennia-long refuge and
make the long hyperspace crossing to the Human
colonyworld, Darien. Carapace plates would have to be
patched, suspensor modules recharged, biofeeds
repaired, sensors rerouted, perhaps even remounted, and
nourisher tanks replenished in full. It would mean
taking chances, scavenging the ocean bed and nearby
shoreline for raw materials, not to mention looking fur-
ther afield for fresh, undamaged resources. There would
be exertion, risk and pain.
That night, a desalination plant on a sparsely inhab-
ited stretch of the western coast was broken into and its
storeroom pillaged. The next day, 30-odd miles to the
south, a chemicals plant was found to have been like-
wise raided when the owners arrived to open up. The
day after that, about 50 miles to the north, a bridge
crossing a wide rivermouth failed and a freight train full
of freshly milled steel crashed down into the waters.
Thirty hours later, a ferocious, sky-blackening storm
tore in from the western ocean, battering the coastline
with high waves, sending gusts of rain screaming inland.
At the height of the gale, three ships went down in the
heaving seas, a 300-foot, double-hulled cargo-hauler
with a forty-strong crew, mostly Henkayan and
Gomedrans, a half-empty timber barge ripped from its
moorings, and a vehicle ferry caught in the fury as it
tried to make for port on one of the larger offshore
islands. A few messages appealing for help were received
by coastal rescue units, after which there was only
silence. Many knew that vessels sinking in such unfath-
omable depths were usually considered unrecoverable.
When calmer weather returned, recovery craft dili-
gently searched the area but found very few ejecta, the
shattered remains of wooden fittings and no bodies.
Over the next few days the search was scaled back, news
reports became scarcer, shoreline clearup operations
were finished, and only a handful of small ships and
boats hired by grieving relatives continued to sweep
the waters. Until the fourth night after the storm, when
a Bargalil mariner on board a lugger noticed something
glowing with a bright blue radiance down in the
depths. She raised the alarm and the rest of the crew
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