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  The Dreaming Void, The Temporal Void, and The Evolutionary Void are works of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  A Del Rey eBook Edition

  The Dreaming Void copyright © 2007 by Peter F. Hamilton

  The Temporal Void copyright © 2009 by Peter F. Hamilton

  The Evolutionary Void copyright © 2010 by Peter F. Hamilton

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of Random House, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

  Del Rey and the House colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

  The novels contained in this omnibus were each published separately by Del Rey, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York, in 2007, 2009, and 2010.

  eBook ISBN 9780804180665

  www.delreybooks.com

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Time Line

  The Dreaming Void

  The Temporal Void

  The Evolutionary Void

  The following time line gives an overview of

  events that take place in the 1,500 years between the

  Commonwealth Saga (Pandora’s Star and Judas

  Unchained) and the Void Trilogy.

  2384—First “lifeboat” (a Brant Dynasty starship) leaves to found human colony outside Commonwealth.

  2384—Firewall project concluded; no further outposts of Prime aliens detected.

  2385—Barsoomians advocate Advancer genetic concept, declare Far Away politically independent from Commonwealth.

  2403—Paula Myo wins final appeal in Senate Supreme Court to have Gene Yaohui serve a 1,100-year suspension sentence.

  2413—Last (twenty-third) original dynasty lifeboat departs on colony-founding flight.

  2518—End of post–Starflyer War economic recession as New47 worlds approach completion, resettlement taxes reduced.

  2520—CST forms starship exploration division to scout new H-congruous worlds.

  2520–2532—Second47 populations emerge onto their new worlds.

  2545–onward—Use of large starships to establish Commonwealth “External” worlds in phase 3-5 space, extending approximately 500 light-years out from Earth.

  2547—The Cat establishes her Knights Guardian movement on Far Away.

  2550—Commonwealth Navy Exploration fleet founded to explore the galaxy beyond Phase 5 space.

  2552–3450—Contact made with forty-seven sentient (physical-stage) species across the galaxy.

  2560—Commonwealth Navy ship Endeavor circumnavigates galaxy, captained by Wilson Kime; discovery of the Void.

  2603—Navy discovers seventh High Angel–type ship.

  2620—Raiel confirm its status as ancient galactic race that lost a war against the Void, builders of High Angel ships, which are transgalactic arks.

  2652—Paula Myo arrests the Cat; riots on Far Away.

  2653—The Cat sentenced to 5,000 years in suspension.

  2833—Completion of ANA first stage on Earth; Grand Family members begin memory download into ANA rather than to SI.

  2856—ANA begins to contact other postphysical entities in the galaxy.

  2867—Sheldon Dynasty gigalife project partially successful; first human body biononic supplements for regeneration and general iatrics.

  2872—Start of Higher humans, biononic supplements allowing a culture of slow-paced long life, rejection of commercial economics and old political ideologies.

  2880—Development of weapons biononics.

  2913—Earth begins absorption of “mature” humans into ANA; the inward migration begins.

  2934—Knights Guardian adopt Higher biononic technology.

  2955—Phase one worlds now predominantly Higher culture.

  2958—Contact with Hancher homeworld (Tochee species) 8,640 light-years away, on the other side of the Eagle nebula (7,000 light-years).

  2967—First Knights Guardian downloads memory into ANA.

  2973–3060—Commonwealth Navy helps defend Hancher homeworld against the Ocisen Empire expansion waves.

  2984—Formation of Radical Highers, who wish to convert the human race to Higher culture.

  2991—Establishment of the Protectorate, an anti-Higher movement, on External worlds.

  3001—Ozzie produces uniform neural entanglement effect known as the gaiafield.

  3040—Commonwealth Navy exploration fleet joins Centurion Station, the Void observation project supervised by Raiel, a joint enterprise among over thirty alien species.

  3084—Nonincursion treaty agreed to between Hancher homeworld and Ocisen Empire.

  3088—Military assistance agreement inaugurated between Hancher homeworld and Commonwealth Navy, enforcing nonincursion.

  3120—ANA officially becomes Earth’s government; planetary population fifty million (activated bodies) and falling.

  3150—Ellezelin settled, 420 light-years from Earth; procybernetic capitalist Advancer culture.

  3255—Radical angel arrives on Anagaska; Inigo’s conception.

  3290—Ellezelin opens wormhole to Tari, 15 light-years away; start of Ellezelin Free Market Zone.

  3320—Inigo goes to Centurion star system.

  3324—Inigo settles on Ellezelin, founds Living Dream movement, begins construction of Makkathran2.

  3338—Ellezelin opens wormhole to Idlib.

  3340—Ellezelin opens wormhole to Lirno.

  3378—Ellezelin opens wormhole to Quhood.

  3407—Ozzie departs Commonwealth for the Spike to build a “galactic dream.”

  3456—Living Dream movement has over five billion followers in the External worlds, very strong across Ellezelin Free Market Zone.

  3466—Ellezelin opens wormhole to Agra (last planet to be joined to the Core of the Free Market Zone).

  3478—Living Dream becomes majority party in Ellezelin Parliament (72 percent); converts planet to hierocracy; Makkathran2 becomes the planetary capital.

  3520—Inigo “rests” from public life; Cleric Council assumes guidance of Living Dream.

  3587—Fragments of Second Dream appear in the gaianet.

  3589—Ethan elected as Cleric Conservator; announces Pilgrimage.

  The Dreaming Void is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2007 by Peter F. Hamilton

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Del Rey Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  DEL REY is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

  Originally published in Great Britain by Macmillan, an imprint of Pan Macmillan Ltd., London, in 2007.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Hamilton, Peter F.

  The dreaming void / Peter F. Hamilton.

  p. cm.

  I. Title.

  PR6058.A5536D74 2008

  823'.914—dc22 2007029244

  www.delreybooks.com

  eISBN: 978-0-345-50467-8

  v3.0_r2

  CONTENTS

  Master - Table of Contents

  The Dreaming Void

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Inigo’s F
irst Dream

  Chapter Two

  Inigo’s Second Dream

  Chapter Three

  Inigo’s Third Dream

  Chapter Four

  Inigo’s Fourth Dream

  Chapter Five

  Inigo’s Fifth Dream

  Chapter Six

  Inigo’s Sixth Dream

  Chapter Seven

  Inigo’s Seventh Dream

  The starship CNE Caragana slipped down out of a night sky, its gray and scarlet hull illuminated by the pale iridescence of the massive ion storms that beset space for light-years in every direction. Beneath the deep-space vessel, Centurion Station formed a twinkling crescent of light on the dusty rock surface of its never-named planet. Crew and passengers viewed the enclave of habitation with a shared sensation of relief. Even with the hyperdrive powering them along at fifteen light-years an hour, it had taken eighty-three days to reach Centurion Station from the Greater Commonwealth. This was about as far as any human traveled in the mid-thirty-fourth century, certainly on a regular basis.

  From his couch in the main lounge, Inigo studied the approaching alien landscape with detached interest. What he was seeing was exactly what the briefing files had projected months earlier: a monotonous plain of ancient lava rippled with shallow gullies that led nowhere. The thin argon atmosphere stirred the sand in short-lived flurries, chasing wispy swirls from one dune to another. It was the station that claimed his real attention.

  Now they were only twenty kilometers from the ground, and the lights began to resolve into distinct shapes. Inigo easily could pick out the big garden dome at the center of the human section on the northernmost segment of the inhabited crescent: a lambent emerald circle playing hub to a dozen black transport tubes that ran out to large accommodation blocks that could have been transplanted from any exotic environment resort in the Commonwealth. From there, the tubes carried on across the lava to the cubelike observatory facilities and engineering support modules.

  The pocked land to the south belonged to the alien habitats: shapes and structures of various geometries and sizes, most of them illuminated. Next to the humans were the silver bubbles of the hominoid Golant, followed by the enclosed grazing grounds where the Ticoth roamed amid their food herds; then came the mammoth interconnecting tanks of the Suline, an aquatic species. The featureless Ethox tower rose up ten kilometers past the end of the Sulines’ metal-encased lakes, dark in the visible spectrum but with a surface temperature of one hundred eighty degrees Centigrade. They were one of the species that did not interact with their fellow observers on any level except for formal exchanges of data concerning the probes that orbited the Void. Equally taciturn were the Forleene, who occupied five big domes of murky crystal that glowed with a mild gentian light. They were positively social compared to the Kandra, who lived in a simple metal cube thirty meters to a side. No Kandra ship had landed there since the humans had joined the observation two hundred eighty years earlier; not even the exceptionally long-lived Jadradesh had seen one of the aliens. The Raiel had invited the boulderlike swamp dwellers to join the project seven thousand years earlier.

  A small smile flickered on Inigo’s face as he took in the diverse zones. It was impressive to see so many aliens gathered in one place, a collection that served to underline the importance of their mission. However, as his view strayed to the shadows thrown by the station, he had to admit that the living were overshadowed completely by those who had passed before them. Centurion Station’s growth and age could be measured loosely in the same way as any humble terrestrial tree. It had developed in rings that had been added to over the centuries as new species joined the project. The broad circle of land along the concave side of the crescent was studded with ruins, crumbling skeletons of habitats abandoned millennia before as their sponsoring civilizations fell, moved on, or evolved away from mere astrophysical concerns. At the very center the ancient structures had decayed to simple mounds of compacted metal and crystal flakes that were beyond the ability of an archaeologist to decipher. Dating expeditions had established that this ancient heart of the station had been constructed over four hundred thousand years earlier. Of course, as far as the time scale of the Raiel observation was concerned, that was not long ago.

  A ring of green light was flashing on the lava field that served as a spaceport for the human section, calling down the CNE Caragana. Several starships were sitting on the drab rock beside the active landing zone: two hefty deep-space vessels of the same class as the Caragana and some smaller starships used for placing and servicing the remote probes that constantly monitored the Void.

  There was a slight judder as the starship settled, and then the internal gravity field switched off. Inigo felt himself rise slightly on the couch’s cushioning as the planet’s seventy percent gravity took over. It was silent in the lounge as the passengers took stock; then a happy murmur of conversation broke out to celebrate their arrival. The chief steward asked them all to make their way down to the main airlock, where they would suit up and walk over to the station. Inigo waited until his more eager colleagues had left before climbing cautiously to his feet and making his way out of the lounge. Strictly speaking, he did not need a spacesuit; his Higher biononics could cocoon his body in perfect safety, protecting it from the thin malignant atmosphere and even from the cosmic radiation that sleeted in from the massive stars of the Wall five hundred light-years away. But he’d traveled all this way in part to escape his unwanted heritage; this was not the time to show it off. He started suiting up along with the rest.

  The handover party was a long tradition at Centurion Station. Every time a navy ship arrived bringing new observers, there was a short overlap before the previous group departed. It was celebrated in the garden dome as a sunset gala with the best buffet the culinary unit programs could produce. Tables were laid out under ancient oaks that glittered with hundreds of magic lanterns, and the dome overhead wore a halo of gold twilight. A solido projection of a string quartet played classical mood music on a little stage surrounded by a brook.

  Inigo arrived quite early, still adjusting the sleeves of his ultrablack formal evening suit. He did not really like the jacket’s long square-cut tails—they were a bit voguish for his taste—but had to admit the tailor back on Anagaska had done a superb job. Even today if one wanted quality clothes, one needed a human in the style-and-fitting loop. He knew he looked good in it, in fact, good enough that he didn’t feel even remotely self-conscious.

  The station’s director was greeting all the arrivals personally. Inigo joined the end of the short line and waited his turn. He could see several aliens milling around the tables: the Golant, looking odd in clothes that approximated the ones worn by humans. With their gray-blue skin and tall narrow heads, their polite attempt to blend in only made them appear more out of place. There were a couple of Ticoth curled up together on the grass, both the size of ponies, though there any resemblance ended. These were very obviously predator carnivores, with dark green hide stretched tight over powerful muscle bands. Alarmingly big and sharp teeth appeared every time they growled at one another and the group of humans with whom they were conversing. Inigo instinctively checked his integral force field function, then felt ashamed for having done so. Several Suline were also present, floating about in big hemispherical glass tanks like giant champagne saucers that were held up by small regrav units. Their translators babbled away while they looked out at the humans, their bulbous bodies distorted and magnified by the curving glass.

  “Inigo, I presume,” the director’s overloud voice proclaimed.

  “Glad to meet you, and you’re bright and early for the party; most commendable, laddy.”

  Inigo smiled with professional deference as he shook the tall man’s hand. “Director Eyre,” he acknowledged. The briefing file’s curriculum vitae had told him very little about the director other than claiming his age was over a thousand years. Inigo suspected corrupted data, although the director’s clothing was certainly hist
orical enough: a short jacket and matching kilt with a very loud amethyst and black tartan.

  “Oh, please, call me Walker.”

  “Walker?” Inigo queried.

  “Short for LionWalker. Long story. Not to worry, laddy. Won’t bore you with it tonight.”

  “Ah. Right.” Inigo held his gaze level. The director had a thick stock of brown hair, but something glittered underneath it, as if his scalp were crawling with gold flecks. For the second time in five minutes Inigo held off using biononics. A field scan would have revealed what kind of technology the director was enriched with; it certainly wasn’t one he recognized. He had to admit that the hair made LionWalker Eyre look youthful, just like the majority of the human race these days, no matter what branch. Higher, Advancer, or Natural, vanity was pretty much uniform. But the thin gray goatee lent him an air of distinction, and that was very deliberate.

  LionWalker waved his whiskey tumbler across the darkened parkland, ice cubes chittering at the movement. “So what brings you to our celebrated outpost, then, young Inigo? Thinking of the glory? The riches? Lots of sex? After all, there’s not much else to do here.”

  Inigo’s smile tightened slightly as he realized how drunk the director was. “I just wanted to help. I think it’s important.”

  “Why?” the question snapped out, accompanied by narrowed eyes.

  “Okay. The Void is a mystery that is beyond even ANA to unravel. If we can ever figure it out, we will have advanced our understanding of the universe by a significant factor.”

  “Huh. Do yourself a favor, laddy: Forget ANA. Bunch of decadent aristos who’ve been mentally taxidermied. Like they care what happens to physical humans. It’s the Raiel we’re helping, a people who are worth a bit of investment. And even those galumphing masterminds are stumped. You know what the navy engineers found when they were excavating the foundations for this very garden dome?”