The Evolutionary Void v-3

by Peter Hamilton

  The smartcore had done a reasonable job of mapping the planet’s basic geography during the approach phase, capturing about two-thirds of the continental outlines. Despite that, she couldn’t really correlate what she was seeing with any of Edeard’s landscapes. The shorelines, which should have given her the greatest clues, were unfamiliar from an orbital vantage point. It was five orbits before she started to fly over mountains that could well be the Ulfsen range, which Edeard had first traversed with the Barkus caravan on his journey to Makkathran. With Salrana, she thought sadly. Their tragic, doomed romance had never meant much to her before, but now that she was here where it had played out, she felt a surprising emotional resonance stirring her. Stupid meat body, she cursed, and concentrated on the projected image.

  No doubt about it, the Donsori Mountains were next. The Iguru plain swept into view, a vast lush green expanse with those strange little volcanic cones. Then there it was, straddling the coastline: Makkathran.

  She stared at the big urban circle, marveling at the familiar shapes of its districts as delineated by the dark curving canals. Sunlight glimmered off the crystal wall, revealing it as a thin line encircling the city, dipping down into the sparkling Lyot Sea at the Port district with its distinctive fishtail profile.

  Under her direction the smartcore ran a final check on all drive systems. With the exception of the ultradrive, they were all working at above eighty percent efficiency; glitches were minimal.

  “Take us down,” Justine told the smartcore. The starship began its final deceleration phase. That left her just one thing to decide, a decision she’d admittedly been putting off since arriving in orbit. Do I take a weapon? She was reasonably confident she could ward off any animal with her third hand, but what if a whole pack of dogs or fastfoxes rushed at her? So much time had passed that the dogs would have lost any trace of domesticity. And it wasn’t just animals. She had no idea who was going to arrive at Makkathran over the next few weeks, or years, or decades-however long she was going to have to spend there before Gore’s plan became apparent.

  Files of schematics flowed across her exovision. She chose one and shunted the blueprints into the replicator. Two minutes later out slid a semiautomatic pistol with a guaranteed jam-free mechanism. Next came five replacement magazines and five boxes of bullets, which really should be enough.

  Ingrav had killed the Silverbird’s orbital velocity, allowing it to drop vertically. The starship hit the upper atmosphere, whose thin molecules started a faint scream from the buffeting impact. A long wavering trail of lambent ions stretched out behind the craft as it fell deeper and deeper.

  Amber exovision alerts began to appear, warning Justine the force fields were edging close to overload. She shared her desperate desire that their generators would hold with the confluence nest, willing them to succeed. The amber alerts blinked off.

  Regrav took over at fifteen kilometers of altitude, slowing the descent. She began to study the city as the visual images built up. Deeper sensor scans were hazed as they began to probe the surrounding rock, denying her a clear picture of whatever lay beneath Makkathran, though she could just make out the faint threads of several travel tunnels radiating out through the ancient lava field that was the Iguru plain.

  So I still don’t know what it is, she thought in mild annoyance. But anything that could manipulate gravity, as it used to do to propel Edeard along the tunnels, had to be a high-technology intruder into this universe. The city’s thoughts had admitted as much to Edeard when it told him about the Void’s reset ability. The night Salrana betrayed him, she remembered, wishing the thwarted lovers didn’t bother her quite so much. Come on, girl, it was thousands of years ago. Their bodies are dust, and their souls are partying in the Heart.

  Again, not the most comforting of thoughts. If I die here, I’ll either wither away wandering through space or be absorbed by the Heart. Or Honious.

  Cross with herself for showing such weaknesses, she concentrated on the city that was expanding across the projections. A landing site was her priority now. There were so many places she wanted to see. And she would, but they were all in built-up areas. She could make out the larger buildings now, the domes of the Orchard Palace in Anemone, the odd twisting towers of Eyrie standing guard around the Lady’s church. Her eyes darted toward Sampalok, and sure enough, there in the central square was the six-sided building Edeard had created out of the ruins of Bise’s mansion.

  “Oh, holy crap,” she muttered. “It is real.”

  Fright or determination, she didn’t know which, made her concentrate properly now. The thick band of meadowland between the crystal wall and the outer ring of canals that made up High Moat, Low Moat, Tycho, and Andromeda was a likely candidate, though it was terribly overgrown. She could see clumps of trees down there that certainly hadn’t been growing in Edeard’s time. According to the radar sweep and mass scans, what looked like grass from altitude was mostly bushes and vines.

  Golden Park, then. The old flat fields within the pristine white pillars were as shaggy as the meadows outside and the original avenues of huge martoz trees had multiplied and grown wild, but radar showed there were plenty of relatively level patches.

  Silverbird continued its descent, twisting slightly to align itself over the westernmost part of the park, between the curves of Upper Grove Canal and Champ Canal.

  Two warning icons appeared, telling her the regrav units were having to draw extra power to maintain a steady rate of descent. It was as if gravity was increasing, pulling the starship down.

  And how do you wish gravity was less?

  More warnings began to appear, reporting glitches in secondary systems. She felt a faint vibration starting to build up and ordered her chair to grip her tightly. It responded sluggishly.

  “Oh, crap, here we go,” she groaned.

  The starship was only a kilometer above the city as its started to pick up speed. Nothing fatal, she told herself. Not yet. The landing legs bulged out of the fuselage. So something wants me to land okay. Velocity was increasing more than she was comfortable with. She sent a series of instructions into the smartcore, composing her own procedures for a Void-style landing.

  Five hundred meters and the Silverbird was ass down as it should be, with the nose tracing a slight arc in the sky as it wobbled. The exact landing spot she’d picked received a final radar sweep, confirming it was solid and stable.

  Her thoughts slammed into the confluence nest, demanding normality. Power from the reserve D-sinks was channeled into the regrav units, pushing them up to their safety margins. She saw the towers of Eyrie come level with the starship, and beyond them, over in Tosella, the tip of the Blue Tower was now higher than she was.

  Silverbird’s last hundred meters was a perfect landing profile, slowing to relative zero velocity ten meters above the wild vegetation. Then a half-meter-a-second descent until the landing legs touched. Spongy layers of leaves and moss and grass compressed, and only then, when the base of each leg registered and confirmed solid contact, did the regrav units shut off.

  As if in sympathy, power dropouts bloomed all over the starship. Justine really didn’t care. This had been nothing like as traumatic or dramatic as her touchdown on the replica Mount Herculaneum.

  “Houston,” she said solemnly to the silent cabin. “This is Golden Park base. The Silverbird has landed.”

  TEN

  ARAMINTA HAD REMAINED on the observation deck of the Lady’s Light right from the start of the Pilgrimage. The room was as big as the Malfit Hall back in the Orchard Palace and twice as high. Its floor was empty apart from a chair and a bed that had been brought in at her request. Araminta used the chair as little as possible, preferring to stand and stare ahead through the vast transparent section of fuselage. There was nothing to see; there hadn’t been since hyperspace had enfolded the massive ship. It was blank outside, with the occasional cascade of blue sparks slipping across the surrounding pseudofabric their ultradrive was creating. Imperfections wi
thin the quantum field interstice, Taranse had explained when she’d asked what they were. What caused such imperfections he didn’t say and probably didn’t know. She rather liked them; they provided the illusion that some material substance was outside, with the twinkling flaws registering their progress through it.

  For five days she watched the nothingness flow past, gifting it to the billions of her followers back in the Greater Commonwealth. On the sixth day Araminta began to cry. Tears rolled down her cheeks as her shoulders quaked. The sorrow she radiated out into the gaiafield was so profound that the majority of beholders began to weep in sympathy. They were aghast, flooding the gaiafield with concern. “What’s wrong?” they asked in their bewildered billions, for nothing and nobody was in the observation deck with her. “We love you, Dreamer.” “Can we help?” “Let us help, please.”

  Araminta gave them no response. She stood resolute in front of the disintegrating flecks of light, mute and distraught. Her personal staff members were dismissed with a curt gesture when they ventured out onto the sleek expanse of floor. Even the loyal Darraklan was sent away without a word.

  Inevitably, as she knew he would, Ethan appeared and began the lonely walk toward her. Those sharing her dismay felt the anguish recede as she straightened herself. She made no attempt to wipe the tears from her eyes. Then her followers were standing on soft grassy land that fell away to a shoreline encased by high dunes. Sunlight shimmered off the idle waves that spanned the ocean’s clear waters. A Silfen stood before her, majestic and ominous with his dark leather wings extended, tail poised high. “You can do this,” he assured her.

  “I know.”

  The pendant around her neck flared with the joyous azure light of affirmation. And there was Ethan standing in front of her on the observation deck, his eyes narrowed against the cold light radiating from the pendant on its slim chain that now rested outside her white robe.

  “Second Dreamer,” he said formally.

  “Cleric Ethan.”

  The absolute hatred directed by the followers of Living Dream at their ex-Conservator was staggering in its passion. He hesitated, then recovered with a sure smile that simply confirmed his dishonor before his audience.

  “Perhaps you would like to tell your people what dismays you so,” he suggested smoothly.

  “Are you aware?” she asked.

  “Yes, Dreamer.”

  “There is only one person in the universe who could have told you.”

  “Indeed. However, the messenger is not important. What she told me is.”

  “In this case the message and the messenger are one, nor is the method by which the message was procured insignificant. She is the cause.”

  “Nonetheless, she has named you false.”

  “Ilanthe lies. That is what she is now. The serpent among us all.”

  “Is it true? Are you many?”

  “I am.”

  “Then I must question your intent.”

  “Of course you must. Yet I will keep my word. I will lead this Pilgrimage into the Void as I promised.”

  “You seek to thwart us,” he spit.

  “I seek our true destiny. I seek to avoid the folly and fate of the Last Dream for the devout. I seek the Void’s own fulfillment.”

  “By allowing those who would destroy it to enter. That cannot happen.”

  “I tell you now what I told Ilanthe and what I have also told Inigo. Our fate will be decided within the Void. It will be decided by the Void. Not by you or anyone else. I have been chosen as the instrument to open a path into the Void; that is all. I am not a gatekeeper. All those who seek their fulfillment, whatever its nature, are free to enter the Void. Simply because their vision is different from yours and that of Living Dream does not entitle me to deny them passage. I do not judge, Cleric. Unlike you, I do not consider myself infallible.”

  Ethan’s uncertainty couldn’t have been more apparent if he’d allowed it to shine out through his gaiamotes. “You have spoken to Inigo?”

  “We are both Dreamers. We are together even now. Didn’t your dearest Ilanthe tell you that?”

  “Ilanthe is no friend of mine.”

  “And yet you defer to it, whatever it is, whatever it seeks. The Dreamer Inigo released the Last Dream as a warning. Do you really think that dreary destiny of bored supermen is one to which we should aspire for our children?”

  “I believe we have the right to choose our future. I wish to live my life on Querencia and achieve fulfillment and be guided to the Heart. You and Oscar and Aaron are trying to prevent that.”

  Araminta gave him an icy smile. “Sometimes to do what’s right you have to do what’s wrong.”

  Ethan glanced about the massive observation deck as if seeking allies. “If you deny us the Void, it will go badly for you. That I promise. My life has been given to serving Living Dream. All I have done, all I have sacrificed, has led to the launch of this Pilgrimage. I will not tolerate betrayal.”

  “You will enter the Void, Cleric. You will yet walk upon Querencia. You have my word on it. Now, why don’t you go and ask Ilanthe what future she desires for all of us. Or perhaps she doesn’t trust you enough to answer.”

  He nodded impersonally. “As you say, the Void will ultimately triumph. I don’t worry about Ilanthe’s intent. What any of us do, our petty schemes and conspiracies, is an irrelevance in the face of the Void’s majesty.”

  “I’m glad we are as one in that view. Now, don’t bother me again.” She turned away from him and waited. Finally, she heard him walk away.

  The gaiafield was awash with confusion and dismay. Her followers needed her to explain what was happening, what the Dreamer Inigo was doing.

  “You’ll see,” she assured them. “In the Void there will be truth.”

  It was a yellow star whose meager family of planets consisted of a couple of airless solid worlds and a single gas giant that boasted over twenty moons. None of them had ever had a chance to evolve life; wrong orbits and lack of volatile organic chemicals had seen to that. Now they were just circling endlessly, waiting for the star to run through its main sequence and inflate into a red giant, devouring them all.

  Mellanie’s Redemption emerged from hyperspace eighty million kilometers from the star and immediately activated its stealth systems. Inside the overcrowded cabin the mood was bleak. Oscar wasn’t sure he could take many more emotional swings on this kind of scale. Abandoning poor Cheriton to the Cat had been tough on them all, though strangely, Araminta-two had been the most affected. Tears had streamed down his face as the starship fled from the Spike. No amount of comforting from Inigo and Corrie-Lyn had helped.

  Then both Dreamers had abruptly joined in surprise as Justine’s dream of landing at Makkathran came rushing through whatever tenuous contact they had with the Void.

  “She made it,” Beckia exclaimed in surprise as the Silverbird touched down gently in Golden Park and the dream faded.

  “Never expected her to do anything less,” Oscar said. “I remember her from my first life. The Burnellis were a formidable lot.”

  “Is she part of your plan?” Tomansio asked Aaron.

  “Not as far as I know. Her voyage certainly doesn’t trigger any alternatives or imperatives. We proceed as agreed.”

  “Okay. Troblum, how long does this thing take?”

  Oscar was interested to see that Catriona had gone away during the short flight. Once he was on his own, Troblum hadn’t said ten words to them, and there certainly hadn’t been anything given away from his gaiamotes. In fact, Oscar wasn’t certain Troblum had gaiamotes.

  “I’ll bring the device up to active status now,” Troblum said.

  “Great. So how long?”

  “The wormhole parameter will have to be reformatted. I was working on that during the flight. Loading it in shouldn’t take more than a quarter of an hour. After that, we simply have to launch it into the star.”

  “How long, then?”

  “That depends on the distance we
launch from. The smartcore is reviewing the corona’s radiant output for a definitive safe distance, but I’d say it’ll be about a million kilometers. The device itself will activate when it reaches the upper corona. It only needs a reasonably dense plasma layer to initiate a chain-reaction propagation within the quantum instability. I based that part of it on our standard novabomb.”

  “Troblum. How long until the wormhole forms? From right now?”

  Oscar was seriously impressed by Tomansio’s restraint.

  “Oh. About twenty-five minutes.”

  “Good work,” Aaron said, obviously amused by Tomansio’s suppressed frustration. “And how far will the new wormhole reach?”

  “I think, now I’ve got the new profile, twenty-eight thousand light-years.”

  “That’ll put us twelve to fifteen thousand light-years ahead of the Pilgrimage fleet,” Araminta-two said. “Will that give you enough time?” she asked Aaron.

  “All I know is we have to get to Makkathran.”

  Oscar gave him a considered look. “Gore was adamant that Justine go to Makkathran.”

  “It’s the one place we know for sure is H-congruous inside the Void.”

  “Gore told her that after she landed on the replica Far Away.”

  “His actual words were ‘that’s where humans are centered in the Void,’” Beckia said. “Which is logical. It is where everyone is going.”

  “I bet Ilanthe isn’t,” Corrie-Lyn grunted.

  “We don’t know if the replica Far Away is still there,” Tomansio said. “Justine reset the Void to before she dreamed of it.”

  “I think you’re all overreacting,” Inigo said. “Or at least reading too much into this. Makkathran as a destination isn’t coincidence, exactly, but there wasn’t a whole lot of choice involved in either case.”

  “Do you ever remember meeting Gore?” Liatris asked Aaron.

  “I don’t remember anything.”

  Liatris showed a modicum of unease. “He did kill your father.”