The Evolutionary Void v-3

by Peter Hamilton

  “Do you still have the power to do that?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the rest of us? You would abandon every sentient in the galaxy to death?”

  “I lift Anomine. I cannot reach the rest of the galaxy.”

  “You can reach me.”

  “You are not Anomine.”

  “Are you unable to rise above your original constraints?”

  “I am what I am. I exist to lift Anomine to their next stage of life.”

  “Yeah. Got that.”

  The elevation mechanism’s thoughts retreated, shrinking its consciousness back to the somnolence where it spent the centuries that passed it by.

  “You were not given the answers you were hoping for,” Tyzak said. “I feel sorrow for you. But the machine’s story is an ancient one; it will not change now.”

  “Yeah, I know. See you in the morning.” Gore rose to his feet and headed back to the Last Throw.

  It took the Delivery Man by surprise. He got up and hurried after Gore, wishing in vain he didn’t feel like some pupil bobbing around his all-wise guru master. “So now what?”

  The city’s shifting opalescence produced strange reflections across Gore’s golden face. If his expression did possess any emotion, it wasn’t anything the Delivery Man could read. “We got a pretty good functionality schema, which thankfully included a route into the wormhole when it checked its main power supply.”

  “Ah. So you can hack it?”

  “I don’t know. It’s extremely complex, which is what I expected from a machine which has its own psychology. But at least we know how to attempt it. There are physical junctions which are critical to its routines; they can be breached.”

  “So are you going to start that now?”

  “Certainly not. The other systems on this planet share an awareness of each other. I doubt I’d have more than a few minutes’ primacy before they put a stop to my evil alien incursion.”

  “Oh, right. So we do need to reactivate the siphon first?”

  “Siphon and wormhole. How long until the modified force field generators are finished?”

  “A few days,” the Delivery Man said reluctantly.

  “Good. We need to be ready to launch this part of the plan as soon as everyone in the Void is in place.”

  “Everyone in the Void? You mean the Pilgrimage ships?”

  “No. I’m expecting an associate to arrive.”

  “An associate? In the Void?”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “Justine will let us know.”

  The Raiel warship was big. Aaron studied the return that was coming from the hysradar. Most of the image was fuzzed, denying him any details. Some small part of his mind wasn’t sure he wanted details. Which is hardly strong of me, he thought with a cool amusement. That part of the Knights Guardian has obviously been lost. Again, that wasn’t something that disturbed him. Even the name Lennox meant nothing, which he knew on an instinctive level was a good thing: He wanted to be free of what was. She dwelled there in the past, slithering though the banished memories, taunting, bleeding poison, leaving only shadow in her wake. It was the only place she could hurt him now.

  He recalled Cheriton’s last terrified thoughts. The pleading.

  Not relevant. A definitive conclusion that gave him a great deal of confidence in himself. I’m still here, still me.

  The warrior Raiel ship was matching course with Mellanie’s Redemption now. Ten light-years ahead was the fringe of the Wall stars, the closely packed multitude of globular clusters throwing out a screen of blazing light that blocked any glimpse of the Gulf beyond and the true dark core of the galaxy.

  “What now?” Troblum asked.

  His remaining passengers appeared uncertain. Oscar and his Knights Guardian team had gone into suspension, though Corrie-Lyn refused to leave Inigo, and as Aaron suspected, the Raiel might need proof from the original Dreamer. That left five of them still awake and moving around, which, even with the medical capsules all installed in the forward cargo hold, still made for cramped conditions. It didn’t bother Aaron, but he could see how the others were getting agitated. Troblum’s nonexistent personality didn’t help, and as for the amount the big man ate at every meal …

  “They haven’t blown us to shit yet,” Aaron said. “That’s got to be good. So we’ll ask them if they’ll let us go through the Wall and into the Void.”

  “What are you going to say to them?” Corrie-Lyn asked. The presence of the warrior Raiel was having quite an effect on her. The tentative relief she’d shown after they came through the wormhole had shrunk away as soon as the warship had rendezvoused with them.

  Aaron ignored her. “Inigo, Araminta, I think this one’s for you.”

  The two Dreamers exchanged a what-the-hell look.

  Araminta-two sighed. “I’ll do it.”

  Aaron opened his gaiamotes to sense the Second Dreamer reaching for the giant warship. Riding passively in conjunction with Araminta’s thoughts was making him aware of whole aspects of the gaiafield he’d never known before. There was certainly some kind of consciousness registering out there, and it was not a human one. It was too composed for that. He also felt the first direct touch with the Skylord, which sent a chill firing along his nerves. So close now.

  “We are the human Dreamers,” Araminta-two told the Raiel.

  “Yes. You are two Dreamers. The third of your kind is a long way from here. And part of you is elsewhere.”

  “That’s correct,” Araminta said, mildly surprised by the summary. “We seek to travel into the Void. We believe we may be able to prevent the final devourment phase.”

  “We know this. Qatux has spoken with us. You may pass through.”

  “I thank you.”

  “You understand that the ships which you also lead will be intercepted.”

  “Yes. I understand this.”

  “If we succeed, then millions of your kind will be destroyed. Why do you not cease to appease them?”

  “It is not that simple. However, I believe in what we are doing. I believe this will resolve the threat which the Void holds over this galaxy without any loss of life.”

  “As you wish.”

  “I would ask one other thing. There is an entity called Ilanthe traveling with the Pilgrimage fleet whose nature is uncertain. If there is any way it can be prevented from reaching the Void, I would urge you to implement it.”

  “We are aware of Ilanthe. We remain vigilant for it.”

  “Thank you.”

  The warrior Raiel ship slid away.

  “It’s fast,” Troblum said admiringly. “Faster than we are. I wonder what kind of drive theory they have.”

  Inigo put his hand on the big man’s shoulder. “When this is over, I’m sure they’ll be delighted to give you a full tour.”

  Troblum’s face produced a grimaced smile. He clearly wanted to wrench himself away from the hand.

  An awkward Inigo quickly snatched it back. His thoughts were apologetic even though he said nothing.

  Corrie-Lyn gave Aaron a shrewd look. “So now do you know what happens in the Void?”

  He grinned back as annoyingly as he could. “We’re not there yet.”

  “We will be soon,” Araminta-two said. “And the Skylord knows that.”

  Oscar and the Knights Guardian were brought out of suspension for the passage itself. The cabin once again was crammed with too many people, but this time it wasn’t so bad. This time everyone was jokey and excited, eager to see what lay outside the fuselage, eager to be inside the obdurate, mysterious boundary.

  The Mellanie’s Redemption was slowing as it approached the black wall. It dropped out of hyperspace fifteen light-years away, the same distance the Silverbird had been when the distended cone opened for it.

  Radiation alerts sprang up in everyone’s exovision. Far behind them the loop burned a dangerous burgundy as high-energy photons smashed relentlessly through the clouds of dark mass swirling th
rough the plane of the Gulf. All around the starship streaks of irradiated matter swarmed in toward the boundary like a particulate ocean with a solitary eternal tide.

  Araminta-two actually looked nervous even though he was in constant contact with the Skylord. Still entwined with the Second Dreamer’s thoughts, Aaron could sense the great creature’s interest and expectation growing.

  “Remember to ask it to pull us through somewhere close to Querencia,” Tomansio said. “We don’t want a forty-year voyage like Justine.” He didn’t actually give the cabin a pointed look, but everyone knew his opinion of the starship’s reliability. Perhaps it was the proximity of the Void, but they were now sharing quite intimately.

  Araminta-two gave him a tight nod, then spoke to the Skylord. “We are here. Please call to the nucleus; please urge it to bring us into your universe so we may achieve fulfillment.”

  “I have waited so long for this moment,” the Skylord said.

  “When we come, we need to be near the solid world where humans lived.”

  “There were several such worlds,” the Skylord replied.

  Inigo gave Araminta-two a shocked look as her concentration faltered briefly.

  “Shit,” Tomansio muttered.

  “I thought there was only one,” Oscar said out loud.

  “There’s more than one?” an incredulous Corrie-Lyn said. “How many were there?”

  “It took Justine to Querencia,” Aaron said urgently. “Be specific.”

  “What did she ask-” Araminta-two shook his head irritably and concentrated again. “The world we seek is the one where a member of our species is already waiting for us. She arrived recently. It has a city there, a city that did not arise within the Void.”

  “I know the world you seek,” the Skylord replied.

  “I hope it does,” Troblum said. “Because it’s starting.”

  “Will you be there?” Araminta-two asked. “I need you there to guide me. Without your help I will never reach fulfillment.”

  “I come,” the Skylord promised.

  Hysradar showed them the surface of the boundary expanding at hyperluminal speed, a great protrusion heading up directly for the starship. Just like the planetary FTL wormhole but on an unimaginably vast scale. They watched in silence as the smooth crown opened. Once again the glorious undulating nebula light shone out into the wretched desolation of the Gulf, casting a single beam of elegant luminosity across the Mellanie’s Redemption.

  The starship accelerated forward eagerly, passing through the small aperture. Behind it, the boundary closed again, shutting off the pale light. The pinnacle sank down again, merging back into the featureless surface of infinite darkness.

  “So where are we?” Aaron demanded. The starship’s visual sensors were working perfectly, showing stars and nebulae all around. There was no sign of the boundary.

  “Working on that,” Troblum said. He was sweating profusely.

  “Well, whadda you know,” Tomansio said. A cup of tea was floating in midair, ten centimeters from his outstretched fingers. It lifted a little, then wiggled from side to side. He grinned wildly. His mind was radiating smugness and satisfaction for all of them to perceive.

  “Oh, crap,” Corrie-Lyn exclaimed. Her mind shimmered rapidly in everyone’s farsight, its surface luster dimming as she ponderously fought down the exuberant emotions, shielding them from psychic perception like a mother folding her arms protectively around a crying babe. Images and memories persisted in flashing out: Edeard scrambling to shield his own thoughts, the techniques he employed. After a short while the surface of her mind hardened to an impermeable screen from which nothing leaked, not a single emotion or memory or sensation.

  There was a long minute while everyone struggled with the same technique with varying degrees of success. No one was surprised when the two Dreamers shielded themselves perfectly. But no matter how hard he tried, Oscar simply couldn’t contain his ebullient thoughts; the best he could achieve was to tone them down a bit. “This group’s Edeard,” he said ruefully. “He could never protect himself fully. Personally, I see it as a sign of superiority to the lot of you.”

  Everyone allowed a glimmer of amusement to trickle out. Except Troblum. His shield was darker than most, and the thoughts below were convoluted. His emotions didn’t match anything familiar.

  Aaron was satisfied with his own protection, though the others were giving him curious looks. Their emotions were hurriedly wrapped away from perception. “What?” he asked. His longtalk matched his voice in intensity.

  “It’s like you’re at war,” Corrie-Lyn said. “Your thoughts are shining out, yet they make no sense because they have so many contrary facets. You are anger and conflict.”

  He gave her his old concessionary grin. “But I still function.”

  “So?” Tomansio asked, his inexorable curiosity infecting them all. “We’re in the Void. What next?”

  “Makkathran,” Aaron said solemnly.

  Tomansio let out a growl of frustration.

  Araminta-two looked at something far beyond the cabin’s bulkheads. “It’s here,” he said in wonder.

  Aaron’s farsight felt the Skylord approach, a benevolent concentration of thoughts that intimidated through sheer size. Somehow it seemed to negate worry, sharing satisfaction on a level that was impossible to refute.

  “You are here,” it told Araminta-two.

  “Part of me. The rest will follow as I bring those who seek fulfillment.”

  “My kindred welcome you. They welcome those who are to join us here in the Void.”

  “Makkathran,” Aaron whispered.

  “Will you guide us to the world we spoke of before?”

  “Yes.”

  Aaron instinctively reached out to grab hold of something and steady himself. Mellanie’s Redemption was twisting around, gravity shifting in strange swelling motions. Exoimage relays from the fuselage cameras showed him the huge crystalline folds of the Skylord’s body rotating spryly against the flexing ribbon of violet phosphorescence that was the Buluku nebula. Then the stars ahead were brightening as the Skylord executed its temporal acceleration function, and the starship was flashing toward the hot blue light points at close to lightspeed. Behind them, the Void shifted down to a dull carmine.

  Araminta-two inhaled sharply, his hand pressing flat on his chest.

  “What’s wrong?” Oscar asked him.

  “It’s very weird, like I’m being torn in two. You seem fast, yet I’m not slow, or part of me is. The Pilgrimage fleet is hardly moving until I concentrate on it. Arrrgh. Ozziedamn, this is so strange.”

  “Temporal rate difference,” Troblum said. “You are conscious on both sides of the Void boundary, which means you’re living at two different speeds. It will be hard to reconcile.”

  “You’d better go into suspension,” Tomansio said.

  “No!”

  The spike of alarm from Araminta-two’s mind was enough to still them all.

  “Sorry, but no,” he said. “I-this body-has to live through this. If this me goes into suspension, that means it’ll be just her left; I’ll be out there all alone. If they come for me with those brain infiltrator things, I won’t have any refuge.”

  Tomansio nodded in understanding. “How far are we from Querencia?” he asked Troblum.

  “We’re heading for a star system about three light-months away,” Troblum said. “I guess it’s Querencia.”

  “Three months. Well, I suppose it’s better than three years.”

  “Or thirty,” Oscar said. He was leaking sympathy and concern.

  Araminta-two fumbled for his hand. “Thank you, Oscar.”

  Now embarrassment was added to the emotional blend he was betraying. “I think I’d better head straight back into suspension,” Oscar said. “Who else?”

  “Us as well,” Tomansio said.

  Inigo and Corrie-Lyn consulted on some unknown level. “We’ll sleep it out,” Inigo said. “There’s nothing for me to do until
we reach Makkathran. Is there?”

  “No,” Aaron confirmed. “How about you?” he asked Troblum.

  “Me what?”

  “Okay, then. That’s myself, Araminta-two, and Troblum staying up for the rest of the flight.”

  “I’m sure you’ll all be very happy together,” Corrie-Lyn said. Her mental shield allowed no feeling to show through.

  It didn’t matter, Aaron knew how much she was laughing inside.

  Everyone in the Commonwealth was desperate to know what the hell that confrontation between Araminta and Ethan had been about. She was many? Like a multiple? But she wasn’t. So was she referring to the other Dreamers? She claimed to be with Inigo. And why had he chosen now to release the Last Dream? Had Araminta asked him to?

  Nobody knew. And for all her apparent devotion to Living Dream, Araminta resolutely refused to enlighten her desperate followers back in the Commonwealth or her equally vociferous opponents. Strangely, Ethan gave nothing away, either.

  So the Pilgrimage fleet flew on at fifty-six light-years an hour toward the Void for day after day with no change. It was apparent now that nothing could stop it apart from the warrior Raiel.

  Or perhaps Justine and the Third Dreamer, some suggested. Gore certainly had some kind of idea. He, too, proved elusive.

  They were odd days, those which marked the flight of the Pilgrimage fleet. The whole Commonwealth knew that if it was successful, that was the end of everything, that if they were lucky, the Heart would become aware of them and bring their stars and planets unharmed through the Void’s boundary as it swept out to engulf the galaxy. Devoid of ANA’s guidance, Higher worlds were turning their replicator systems to producing armadas of starships in preparation to flee the galaxy. On the Outer worlds, anyone lucky enough to own a starship was busy modifying it to make an intergalactic trip. The Greater Commonwealth government contingency was to have everyone update his or her secure memory store, which would then be carried by navy ships to whatever cluster of stars was selected to establish the New Commonwealth, a plan of action invoking the spirit of the New47 worlds of a millennium ago. Knowing your new self would be resurrected in an alien galaxy at some unknown time in the future wasn’t quite as reassuring as it should have been, not when that meant you’d have to watch your immediate doom smashing down out of the sky.