The Dreaming Void v-1

by Peter Hamilton

  'I'm sure you can. Even now Barkus was unsure.

  'I can also teach you and your families this, Edeard said. He wove his concealment around himself. Barkus gasped, leaning forward blinking. Edeard felt the caravan Master's farsight whipping back and forth across the cabin. He quietly got up and sat next to the startled Barkus, then withdrew his concealment. 'How could the bandits attack you if they can't see you?

  'Dear Lady! Barkus grunted. 'I never knew such a thing…

  'Akeem gifted this to me.

  Barkus regained his composure quickly. 'Did he now. Akeem was right about you, and so I think are half the tales. Very well my dear youngsters, I will accept you both as family tyros. You will come with us as far as Makkathran. And you will indeed work your passage. Let's see if you think such nobility is worthwhile when we reach the Ulfsen mountains. However, Edeard, this arrangement is conditional on you not teaching anyone your concealment trick, do you concur?

  'I do, sir. I don't understand why, though.

  'You haven't taught it to anyone in Thorpe-By-Water, have you?

  'No, sir.

  'That's a good political instinct you have there, my boy. Let's just keep it that way, shall we. There's enough trouble infecting our poor old world as it is without everyone sneaking around unseen. Though if you can find a way for farsight to uncover such trickery, I'd be grateful if you would inform me at once.

  'Yes, sir.

  'Good lad. We leave with the dawn light in three days' time. If you're not here that morning, we still leave. Though I don't suppose your Master will object to your exodus.

  'I don't believe he will, sir.

  'Makkathran! Edeard said as they hurried away from the wagon. Now Barkus had said he'd take them, all his earlier worries and doubts had dried up. He'd thought that he was running away, that he was being a coward for putting all the provinces between himself and the bandits, for allowing them to deal with the problem and endure their blood being spilt to safeguard the land while he lived a safe comfortable life in the city. But now they were going and that was that. 'Imagine it.

  'I can't believe it. Salrana's smile was wide and carefree. 'Do you think it will be as wonderful as the stories we've heard?

  'If it is only a tenth as fabulous as they say, it will be beyond anything I have dreamed.

  'And we'll be safe, she sighed.

  'Yes. He put his arm round her shoulder. In a brotherly fashion! 'We'll be safe. And what splendid lives we'll live in the capital of the world.

  FOUR

  The glitch had been surprisingly easy to find. But then Troblum supposed Emily Aim didn't have a lot of time to insert it, nor would she suspect he'd come looking, at least not right away. She'd made several modifications to the blueprint; in itself each one was relatively innocuous which made them even harder to spot, but the cumulative effect was enough to throw the binding effect out of kilter. It was less than an hour's work for him to remove them. Then he restarted the production process.

  With that underway, his u-shadow established a secure onetime link back to his apartment. Now he knew that Marius was trying to manipulate him, and would go to any lengths to achieve what he wanted, Troblum knew he needed an escape route. There was only one which would put him beyond even the representative's reach: the colonies. After the Starflyer War each of the old Dynasties had been left with a fleet of redundant lifeboats, starships capable of evacuating the entire senior strata of each 1)ynasty to the other side of the galaxy where they would have been safe had the Prime alien won. Given the phenomenal amount of money poured into their construction, the Dynasty leaders were never going to scrap them simply because the Commonwealth was victorious. Instead, the lifeboats set off to found new worlds and cultures completely independent of the Commonwealth. Over forty ships had launched, though even that figure was ambiguous; the Dynasty leaders were reluctant to admit how much money they'd poured into their own salvation at the expense of everyone else. In the following centuries, more colony ships had set forth. No longer exclusive to Dynasties, they had carried an even broader selection of beliefs, families and ideologies seeking to break free to a degree which even the External Worlds could never offer. The last major departure had been in AD 3000, when Nigel Sheldon himself led a fleet of ten starships, the largest craft ever built, to set up a 'new human experience' elsewhere. It was strongly rumoured at the time that the ships had a trans-galactic flight range.

  With the ultra-secure link established to his apartment, Trob-lum used a similarly guarded connection for his u-shadow to trawl the Unisphere for the possible destinations of the colony ships within this galaxy. There were over a hundred departures listed, and subsequently thousands of articles presented on each of them. A lot of those articles speculated on why not one colony had got back in touch, even if it was only for a 'so there' message. Certainly there was no records of any Navy starships stumbling across a human world anywhere else in the galaxy, not that they'd ever explored a fraction of a per cent of the available Incongruous stars. Of course, it was the core of Living Dream dogma that most, if not all, such voyages had wound up inside the Void. However, a lot of genuine academic work had gone into estimating probable locations, despite the best efforts of the dwindling Dynasties to suppress such work. Even assuming the studies were correct, the areas that needed to be searched were vast, measuring hundreds of lightyears across. But Mellanie's Redemption was a fine ship, she should be able to make the trip out to the Drasix cluster, fifty thousand lightyears away, where the Brandt Dynasty ships were said to have flown.

  Troblum knew he wouldn't miss the Commonwealth, there was nobody he had any attachment to, and most of the colony worlds would have a decent level of civilization. If he did find the Brandt world, they would presumably be glad to accept his knowledge of biononics which had been developed long after their ships had departed. That just left the problem of what to do with his Starflyer War artefacts. He couldn't bear to be parted with them, yet if he transported them to the hangar, Marius might notice. He began instructing the apartment net on shipping arrangements, then made a painful call to Stubsy Florae.

  * * * * *

  The Neumann cybernetics took thirty-two hours to produce a planet-shifting ftl engine. Troblum stood underneath the sparkling cylinder as the terminal extruder finished, marvelling at its elegance. His field functions reported a dense knot of energies and hyperstressed matter all in perfect balance. So much exotic activity was present it almost qualified as a singularity in its own right.

  If the colony doesn't want biononics, they'll surely want this.

  He watched in perfect contentment as force fields manoeuvred the cylinder into Mellanie's Redemption. The modified forward cargo hold closed, and Troblum sent the device into standby mode. Nobody would be able to break the command authority encryption, not even ANA he suspected. The device was his and his alone.

  Once it was safe and shielded he went back into the office and restored Emily Aim's glitches to the blueprint, then began adding some of his own, at a much deeper function level. Now the engine really was unique.

  Marius called several hours later. 'Have you finished your analysis yet?

  'Just about. I think I'm going to have to initiate a complete re-design of the exotic stress channels.

  'That sounds bad and I don't even know what you're talking about.

  'It's not good, no.

  'I'm sure our funds will cover it. But for now I need a small favour.

  'Yes?

  'I want you to take a colleague to our station.

  'A passenger? Troblum asked in alarm. If there was someone else on board, he would never be able to fly free. With a growing sense of dismay he realized that was probably the whole idea. Had Marius detected something? He would have sworn nothing could get through his encryption, but then ultimately he was dealing with an ANA Faction.

  'Problem? Your ship can accommodate more than one person, and it's a relatively short flight. We're still inside the Commonwealth, after all.r />
  There was a definite implication in that. 'Not a problem. I'll need to flight prep.

  'That shouldn't take more than an hour. Bon voyage.

  There had been no polite enquiry as to whether he was ready, in fact it was more like an order. Annoyance warred with a slight curiosity. What do they need me for so urgently?

  'Troblum?

  'Wha—? Troblum twisted round as fast as his bulk would allow. There was a man standing in the office, a very tall man whose skeletal skull was frizzed by a stubble of ginger hair. He wore a simple grey suit that emphasized exceptionally long limbs. 'Who the fuck are you? Troblum's biononics had instantly cloaked him in a defensive force field, now his one weapons enrichment was active and targeting the intruder.

  'I'm Lucken. I believe you're expecting me?

  'You're…

  'Your passenger, yes. Is the ship ready?

  'How did you get in?

  Lucken's face remained completely impassive. 'Do you require assistance to prepare for flight?

  'Ah, no.

  'Then please begin.

  Troblum adjusted the front of his old toga suit in angry reaction to the arrogant imposition. 'The umbilicals are already attached. We'll leave as soon as the tanks are full. Do you want to go to your cabin?

  'Are you embarking now?

  'No. I have important work here to complete.

  'I will wait. I will accompany you on board.

  'As you wish. Troblum settled back in his chair, and reactivated the solido projectors. Just to show how indifferent he was. Lucken didn't move. His eyes never left Troblum. It was going to be a long flight.

  * * * * *

  The station was a real flight into nostalgia. It had been fifty years since Troblum saw it last, and he never thought he'd be back — in fact he was rather surprised it was still intact. Mellanie's Redemption took three days to fly from Arevalo to the unnamed red dwarf star. There were no planets, solid or gas, orbiting the weak speck of ruddy light, just a large disc of mushy hydrocarbon asteroids. There were less now than there had been when he first came to work here. He smiled when he remembered that test sequence. It was the last time he'd been genuinely drunk, and hadn't cared what a fool he was making of himself.

  Mellanie's Redemption dropped out of hyperspace ten AUs away from the star and eight thousand kilometres directly above iheir destination. Troblum accelerated in at seven gees, heading straight for the centre of the dark torroid that measured five kilometres in diameter. A squadron of defence cruisers shed their stealth effect and soared around the starship in fast tight turns. They were over a hundred metres long, like quicksilver droplets frozen in mid-distortion to produce bodies of warped ripples sprouting odd pseudopod crowns. Their flight was so elegant and smooth they resembled a shoal of aquatic creatures cavorting with a newcomer. However, there was nothing playful about the quantum level probes directed at the Mellanie's Redemption. Troblum held his breath as he waited to see if the sophisticated shielding around the forward hold would deflect the scan. It did, but then he'd helped design the cruisers — seventy years ago now. I le found it interesting that nothing new had been produced in the intervening decades. Human technology was edging ever closer to its plateau. Emily Aim was probably right about her time in the Navy; given their knowledge base there was nothing new in the universe, just innovative variants on that which already existed.

  The cruisers escorted them in to the station. Mellanie's Redemption fell below the rim of the torroid, and slid along the broad internal tube, which was almost as long as its diameter. Observing the structure through the starship's modest sensor net Troblum could see that vast sections had been reactivated. The titanium-black fuselage was covered in long slender spikes as if a sharp frost had settled across the whole station. The majority of spikes were translucent blue-white; though in among them, seemingly at random, several of the smaller ones were glowing with a low crimson light, as if they'd caged a few of the photons from the nearby sun.

  Troblum piloted Mellanie's Redemption to the base of a red spike which measured nearly seven hundred metres long. A hangar door was open and waiting for them. When it closed, he couldn't help but think of the door to an antique jail cell slamming shut.

  'Thank you for flying Troblum Lines, and have a pleasant day, he said cheerily.

  Lucken opened the airlock and went outside. The man hadn't spoken a single word since they'd embarked. Hadn't slept, either, just sat in the central cabin the whole time. He'd vanished by the time Troblum activated a small case and pulled his emerald cloak on. Mellanie's Redemption looked small and inadequate inside the giant shiny-white cavity. White tubes had wormed out of the floor to plug into her umbilical sockets. There was no sign of the external door or indeed a way into the station. As Troblum walked along the curving floor, gravity shifted to accommodate him so he was always standing vertical. The whole effect was quite disorientating on a visual level.

  A woman was waiting for him under the starship's nose. She was his height, completely hairless, with large perfectly round eyes that dominated her flat face. Her neck was long, over twenty centimetres, but invisible behind a sheath of slim gold rings, as if it was some kind of segmented metallic limb. All of her skin had the surface shimmer of a toga suit tuned to steel-grey. Troblum assumed her skin had actually been biononically modified, the effect was so tight around her. A lot of Highers close to download chose to experiment with physiological modifications.

  'Greetings, she said in a pleasant, almost girlish voice. 'I've heard a lot about you.

  'Sadly I can't return the compliment, he said, reading off the protocol behaviour program showing in his exovision.

  'I'm Neskia, I run the station. My predecessor was most favourable in his assessment of your abilities. Our Faction would like to thank you for returning.

  As if I had a choice. 'All very well, but why exactly am I here? Is the swarm malfunctioning?

  'Not at all. She gestured gracefully, her neck curving in a fluidly serpentine motion to keep her face aligned on him as she started walking. Troblum followed her along the curve, his case hovering just behind his head. Up above them, a circular door irised open. The station's internal nature had certainly changed in seventy years.

  'Oh.

  'You sound disappointed, she said and hesitated by the door.

  Troblum wasn't sure if the circle had flipped out of the curve to stand upright or if the local gravity manipulation was even weirder than his ordinary senses told him. He refused to verify with a field scan. Disorientation attempts were really very childish. 'Not disappointed. I assume I'm here to inspect and validate the swarm, just in case the worst case Pilgrimage scenario proves true. There have been a few recent advances which could be used to upgrade.

  'The swarm has dispersed to its deployment point. It has been constantly upgraded. We don't anticipate the Void's expansion to pose any problem.

  'Really? So that's why you kept this station going.

  'Among other things. She stepped through the door and into a corridor that had the old simple grey-blue layout which Troblum recognized. They hadn't changed everything.

  'I've assigned you a suite in sector 7-B-5, Neskia said. 'You can have it modified to your own tastes, just tell the station smartcore what you want.

  'Thank you. And the reason I'm here?

  'We are building twelve ultradrive engines to power the Pilgrimage fleet. Your experience in the assembly techniques we are using is unmatched.

  Troblum stopped abruptly, his case almost banging into the back of his head. 'Ultradrive?

  'Yes.

  You mean it's real? I always assumed it was just a rumour.

  'It isn't. You'll be working with a small team, fifty or so experts have been recruited. The Neumann cybernetics that built the swarm will handle the actual fabrication.

  'Fascinating. His bleak mood at being blackmailed and bullied actually began to lift. 'I'll need to see the theory behind the drive.

  'Of course. Her huge e
yes blinked once. 'We'll brief you as soon as you've settled in.

  'I'm settled right now.

  * * * * *

  Araminta waited in the flat until Shelly arrived to take full legal possession. She didn't have to do it, Cressida's firm was tackling the sale registration — which meant nothing had gone wrong. But supervising the handover in person added that little professional touch; and in business, reputation was a commodity which couldn't be bought.

  She watched from the balcony as Shelly's capsule landed on the designated pad outside, followed by a larger cargo capsule which used the public pad. The flat seemed strangely unattractive now Araminta had moved the dressing furniture out, all carefully chosen pieces that emphasized how spacious and contemporary the property was.

  'Is everything all right? Shelly asked as Araminta opened the door.

  'Yes. I just wanted to check you were happy.

  'Oh yes. I can't wait to get in. Shelly was already walking past her, smiling contentedly at the empty rooms. She was a tall, pretty girl who had her own salon business in the district. Araminta was slightly jealous about that, mainly because Shelly was a year younger than her and obviously successful. But then, she's never made the Laril mistake.

  Shelly caught sight of the big bouquet of flowers resting on the kitchen worktop. 'Oh thank you, that's so sweet.

  'My pleasure. Araminta's u-shadow transferred the flat's activation codes over to Shelly. 'Now if there are any problems, please call me. She had to flatten herself against the wall as she made her way downstairs. A regrav lifter was hauling a big scarlet and black sofa up to the flat. It wasn't quite what Araminta would have chosen, but… She shrugged and left the house.

  Her old carry capsule flew her across Colwyn city to the Bodant district where it settled on a public parking pad. The morning was a dull one, with grubby-ginger clouds darkening towards rain as the wind blew in from the sea. Araminta climbed out and smiled up at the six-storey apartment block. It was a fairly standard layout, ribbed by white balconies that dripped with colourful vines and flowering creepers. The corners were black glass columns alive with purple and blue refraction stipples that swarmed up and down like rodent climbers. At night the effect was sharp and conspicuous, but under a dank daylight sky it lacked any kind of verve. There was a gold crystal dome on the roof, sheltering a communal pool and spa gym. A wide swathe of elegantly maintained gardens along the front were sitting on top of the private underground garage.