The Dreaming Void v-1

by Peter Hamilton

  The Delivery Man and Lizzie were a notable exception in having three kids. But then they'd registered a marriage as well, and had a ceremony in an old church with their friends witnessing the event — a Christian priest had been brought in from an External World that still had a working religion. It was what Lizzie had wanted, she adored the old traditions and rituals. Not enough to actually get pregnant, of course, the girls had all been gestated in a womb vat.

  'You be careful on Oronsay, she told him as he examined his face in the bathroom mirror. It was, he acknowledged, rather flat with a broad jaw, and eyes that crinkled whenever he smiled or frowned no matter how many anti-ageing techniques were applied to the surrounding skin areas, Advancer or Higher. His Advancer genes had given his wiry muddy-red hair a luxuriant growth-rate which Elsie had inherited. He'd modified his facial follicles with biononics so that he no longer had to apply shaving gel twice a day; but the process wasn't perfect, every week he had to check his chin and dab gel on recalcitrant patches of five o'clock shadow. More like five o'clock puddles, Lizzie claimed.

  'I always am, he assured her. He pulled on a new toga suit and waited until it had wrapped around him. Its surface haze emerged, a dark emerald shot though with silver sparkles. Rather stylish, he felt.

  Lizzie, who never wore any clothes designed later than the twenty-second century, produced a mildly disapproving look. 'If it's that far from the Central Worlds it's going to be deliberate.

  'I know. I will watch out, I promise. He kissed Lizzie in reassurance, trying to ignore the guilt that was staining his thoughts like some slow poison. She studied his face, apparently satisfied with his sincerity, which only made the lie even worse. He hated these times when he couldn't tell her what he actually did.

  'Missed a bit, she announced spryly, and tapped her forefinger on the left side of his jaw.

  He peered into the mirror and grunted in dismay. She was right, as always.

  * * * * *

  When he was ready, the Delivery Man stood in the lounge facing Lizzie who held a squirming Rosa in her arms. He held a hand up to wave as he activated his field interface function. It immediately meshed with Earth's T-sphere, and he designated his exit coordinate. His integral force field sprang up to shield his skin. The awesome, intimidating emptiness of the translation continuum engulfed him, nullifying every sense. It was this infinite microsecond he despised. All his biononic enrichments told him he was surrounded by nothing, not even the residual quantum signature of his own universe. With his mind starved of any sensory input, time expanded excruciatingly.

  Eagles Harbour flickered into reality around him. The giant station hung seventy kilometres above southern England; one of a hundred and fifty identical stations which between them generated the planetary T-sphere. ANA: Governance had fabricated them in the shape of mythological flying saucers three kilometres in diameter, a whimsy it wasn't usually associated with.

  He'd emerged into a cavernous reception centre on the station's outer rim. There were only a couple of other people using it, and they paid him no attention. In front of him, a vast transparent hull section rose from the floor to curve away above, allowing him to look down on the entire southern half of the country. London was almost directly underneath, clad in slow-moving pockets of fog that oozed around rolling high ground like a white slick. The last time he and Lizzie had brought the kids up here was a clear sunny day, when they'd all pressed up against the hull while Lizzie pointed out historical areas, and narrated the events that made them important. She'd explained that the ancient city was now back down to the same physical size it'd been in the mid-eighteenth century. With the planet's population shrinking, ANA: Governance had ruled there were simply too many buildings left to maintain. Just because they were old didn't necessarily make them relevant. The ancient public buildings in London's centre were preserved, along with others deemed architecturally or culturally significant. But as for the sprawl of suburb housing… there were hundreds of thousands of examples of every kind from every era. Most of them were donated or sold off to various individuals and institutions across the Greater Commonwealth, while those that were left were simply erased.

  The Delivery Man took a last wistful look down at the mist-draped city, feeling guilt swell to a near-painful level. But he could never tell Lizzie what he actually did; she wanted stability for their gorgeous little family. Rightly so.

  Not that there was any risk involved, he told himself as each assignment began. Really. At least: not much. And if anything ever did go wrong his Faction could probably re-life him in a new body and return him home before she grew suspicious.

  He turned away from London and made his way across the reception centre's deserted floor to one of the transit tubes opposite. It sucked him in like an old vacuum hose, propelling him towards the centre of Eagles Haven where the interstellar wormhole terminus was located. The scarcity of travellers surprised him, there were no more passengers than normal using the station. He'd expected to find more Highers on their inward migration to ANA. Living Dream was certainly stirring things up politically among the External Worlds. The Central Worlds regarded the whole Pilgrimage affair with their usual disdain. Even so, their political councils were worried, as demonstrated by the number of people joining them to offer their opinion.

  It was a fact that with Ethan's ascension to Cleric Conservator, the ANA Factions were going to be manoeuvring frantically for advantage, trying to shape the Greater Commonwealth to their own vision. He couldn't work out which of them was going to benefit most from the recent election; there were so many, and their internal allegiances were all so fluid anyway, not too mention deceitful. It was an old saying that there were as many Factions as there were ex-physical humans inside ANA; and he'd never encountered any convincing evidence to the contrary. It resulted in groupings that ranged from those who wanted to isolate and ignore the physical humans (some anti-animal extremists wanted them exterminated altogether) to those who sought to elevate every human, ANA or physical, to a transcendent state.

  The Delivery Man took his assignments from a broad alliance that was fundamentally conservative, following a philosophy that was keen to see things keep running along as they were — although opinions on how that should be achieved were subject to a constant and vigorous internal debate. He did it because it was a view he shared. When he eventually downloaded, in another couple of centuries or so, that would be the Faction he would associate himself with. In the meantime he was one of their unofficial representatives to the physical Commonwealth.

  The station terminus was a simple spherical chamber containing a globe fifty metres in diameter whose surface glowed with the lambent violet of Cherenkov radiation, emanating from the exotic matter used to maintain the wormhole's stability. He slipped through the bland sheet of photons, and was immediately emerging from the exterior of a corresponding globe on St Lincoln. The old industrial planet was still a major manufacturing base for the Central Worlds, and had maintained its status as a hub for the local wormhole network. He took a transit tube to the wormhole for Lytham, which was one of the furthest Central Worlds from Earth; its wormhole terminus was secured at the main starport. Only the Central Worlds were linked together by a long-established wormhole network. The External Worlds valued their cultural and economic independence too much to be connected to the Central Worlds in such a direct fashion. With just a few exceptions travel between them was by star ship.

  A two-seater capsule ferried the Delivery Man out to the craft he'd been assigned. He glided between two long rows of pads where starships were parked. They ranged in size from sleek needle-like pleasure cruisers, up to hundred-metre passenger liners capable of flying commercial routes up to a hundred lightyears. The majority were fitted with hyperdrives; though some of the larger mercantile vessels used continuous wormhole generators, which were slower but more economic for short-range flights to neighbouring stars. There were no cargo ships anywhere on the field; Lytham was a Higher planet, it didn't m
anufacture or import consumer items.

  The Artful Dodger was parked towards the end of the row. A surprisingly squat chrome-purple ovoid, twenty-five metres high, standing on five tumour-like bulbs which held its wide base three metres off the concrete. The fuselage surface was smooth and featureless, with no hint of what lay underneath. It looked like a typical private hyperdrive ship, belonging to some wealthy External World individual or company; or a Higher council with diplomatic prerogative. An ungainly metal umbilical tower stood at the rear of the pad, with two slim hoses plugged into the ship's utility port, filling the synthesis tanks with baseline chemicals.

  The Delivery Man sent the capsule back to the rank in the reception building and walked underneath the starship. His u-shadow called the ship's smartcore, and confirmed his identity, a complex process of code and DNA verification before the smart-core finally acknowledged he had the authority to take command. An airlock opened at the centre of the ship's base, a dint that distended upwards into a tunnel of darkness. Gravity eased off around him, then slowly inverted, pulling him up inside. He emerged into the single midsection cabin. Inert, it was a low hemisphere of dark fabric which felt spongy to the touch. Slim ribs on the upper surface glowed a dull blue, allowing him to see round. The airlock sealed up below his feet. He smiled round at the blank cabin, sensing the power contained behind the bulkheads. The starship plugged into him at some animal level, circumventing all the wisdom and cool of Higher behaviour. He relished the power that was available, the freedom to fly across the galaxy. This was liberation in the extreme.

  How the girls would love to ride in this.

  'Give me something to sit on, he told the smartcore, 'turn the lights up, and activate flight control functions.

  An acceleration couch bloomed up out of the floor as the ribs brightened, revealing a complex pattern of black lines etched on the cabin walls. The Delivery Man sat down. Exoimages flipped up, showing him the ship's status. His u-shadow cleared him for flight with the spaceport governor, and he designated a flight path to Ellezelin, two hundred and fifteen lightyears away. The umbilical cables withdrew back into their tower.

  'Let's go, he told the smartcore.

  Compensator generators maintained a level gravity inside the cabin as the Artful Dodger rose on regrav. At fifty kilometres altitude, the limit of regrav, the smartcore switched to ingrav, and the starship continued to accelerate away from the planet. The Delivery Man began to experiment with the internal layout, expanding walls and furniture out of the cabin bulkheads. The dark lines flowed and bloomed into a great variety of combinations, allowing up to six passengers to have tiny independent sleeping quarters which included a bathroom formation; but for all its malleability, the cabin was basically variations on a lounge. If you were travelling with anyone, he decided, let along five others, you'd need to be very good friends.

  A thousand kilometres above the spaceport, the Artful Dodger went ftl, vanishing inside a quantum field interstice with a photonic implosion that pulled in all the stray electromagnetic radiation within a kilometre of its fuselage. There were no differences perceptible to ordinary human senses, he might have been in an underground chamber for all he knew, and the gravity remained perfectly stable. Sensors provided him with a simplified image of their course as it related to large masses back in spacetime, plotting stars and planets by the way their quantum signature affected the intersecting fields through which they were flying. Their initial speed was a smooth fifteen lightyears per hour, near the limit for a hyperdrive, which the sophisticated Lytham planetary spacewatch network could track out to a couple of lightyears.

  The Delivery Man waited until they were three lightyears beyond the network, and told the smartcore to accelerate again. The Artful Dodgers ultradrive pushed them up to a phenomenal fifty-five lightyears per hour. It was enough to make the Delivery man flinch. He had only been on an ultradrive ship twice before; there weren't many of them; ANA had never released the technology to the Central Worlds. Exactly how the Conservative Faction had got hold of it was something he studiously avoided asking.

  * * * * *

  Two hours later he reduced speed back down to fifteen lightyears an hour, and allowed the Ellezelin traffic network to pick up their hyperspacial approach. He used a TD channel to the planetary datasphere and requested landing permission for Riasi spaceport.

  Ellezelin's original capital was situated on the northern coast of Sinkang, with the Camoa River running through it. He looked down on the city as the Artful Dodger sank down towards the main spaceport. It had been laid out in a spiderweb grid, with the planetary Parliament at the heart. The building was still there, a grandiose structure of towers and buttresses made from an attractive mixture of ancient and modern materials. But the planet's government was now centred in Makkathran2. The senior bureaucrats and their departments had moved with it, leading a migration of commerce and industry. Only the transport sector remained strong in Riasi now. The wormholes which linked the planets of the Ellezelin Free Trade Zone together were all located here, incorporated into the spaceport, making it the most important commercial hub in the sector.

  The Artful Dodger landed on a pad little different to the one it had departed barely three hours before. The Delivery Man paid a parking fee for a month in advance with an untraceable credit coin, and declined an umbilical connection. His u-shadow called a taxi capsule to the pad. While he was waiting for it, the Conservative Faction called him.

  'Marius has been seen on Ellezelin.

  It was the second time that day the Delivery Man flinched. 'I suppose that was inevitable. Do you know why he's here?

  'To support the Cleric Conservator. But as to the exact nature of that support, we remain uncertain.

  'I see. Is he here in the spaceport? he asked reluctantly. He wasn't a front line agent, but his biononics had very advanced field functions in case he ever stumbled into an aggressive situation. They ought to be a match for anything Marius could produce. Although any aggression would be most unusual. Faction agents simply didn't settle their scores physically. It wasn't done.

  'We don't believe so. He visited the Cleric Conservator within an hour of the election. After that he dropped out of sight. We are telling you simply so that you can be careful. It would not do for the Accelerators to know our business any more than they want us to know theirs. Leave as quickly as possible.

  'Understood.

  The taxi capsule took him over to the spaceport's massive passenger terminal. He checked in for the next United Commonwealth Starlines flight back to Akimiski, the closest Central World. All the time he waited in the departure lounge overlooking the huge central concourse he kept his scan functions running, checking to see if Marius was in the terminal. When the passengers boarded forty minutes later, there has been no sign of him, nor any other Higher agent.

  The Delivery Man settled into his first class compartment on the passenger ship with a considerable sense of relief. It was a hyperdrive ship, which would take fifteen hours to get to Akimiski. From there he'd make a quick trip to Oronsay to maintain his cover. With any luck he'd be back on Earth in less than two days. It would be the weekend, and they'd be able to take the girls to the southern sanctuary park in New Zealand. They'd enjoy that.

  * * * * *

  The Rakas bar occupied the whole third floor of a round tower in Makkathran2's Abad district. Inevitably, the same building back in Makkathran also had a bar on the third floor. From what he'd seen in Inigo's dreams, Aaron suspected the furniture here was better, as was the lighting, not to mention the lack of general dirt which seemed so pervasive within the original city. It was used by a lot of visiting faithful who were perhaps a little disappointed by how small the nucleus of their movement actually was in comparison to the prodigious metropolises of the Greater Commonwealth. There was also a much better selection of drinks than the archetype boasted.

  Aaron presumed that was the reason why ex-Councillor the Honourable Corrie-Lyn kept returning here. This was
the third night he'd sat at a small corner table and watched her up at the counter knocking back an impressive amount of alcohol. She wasn't a large woman, though at first glance her slender figure made her seem taller than she was. Ivory skin was stippled by a mass of freckles whose highest density was in a broad swathe across her eyes. Her hair was the darkest red he'd ever seen. Depending on how the light caught her, it varied from shiny ebony to gold-flecked maroon. It was cut short which, given how thick it was, made it curl heavily; the way it framed her dainty features made her appear like a particularly diabolic teenager. In reality she was three hundred and seventy. He knew she wasn't Higher, so she must have a superb Advancer metabolism; which presumably was how she could drink any badboy under the table.

  For the fourth time that evening, one of the faithful but not terribly devout went over to try his luck. After all, the good citizens of Makkathran had very healthy active sex lives. Inigo showed that. The group of blokes he was with, sitting at the big window seat, watched with sly grins and minimal sniggering as their friend claimed the empty stool beside her. Corrie-Lyn wasn't wearing her Cleric robes, otherwise he would never have dared to go within ten metres. A simple dark purple dress, slit under each arm to reveal alluring amounts of skin wound up the lad's courage. She listened without comment to his opening lines, nodded reasonably when he offered to buy a drink, and beckoned the barkeeper over.