The Evolutionary Void Read online

  ‘I never believed she was. What’s your next move?’

  ‘We’re going to visit a Mr Bovey. Liatris has uncovered some kind of connection between him and Araminta.’

  ‘Okay, keep me informed.’

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Don’t worry; I’m on my way to Viotia.’

  ‘I thought I was doing this so you could keep a low profile.’

  ‘That time is now officially over.’

  *

  As he approached the Ocisen fleet, Kazimir maintained a single hyperspace communication link back to ANA. He knew the ExoProtectorate Council was expecting him to provide them a real-time progress review of the engagement, but that would have given Ilanthe too much information. The Prime ships travelling with the Ocisen Starslayers would have been warned of his approach. Not, he admitted, that it would have done them any good against his abilities. But then, they were never the true threat. Something else would be out there watching, sending precious information on the nature of the deterrence fleet back to the Accelerators. He was sure of it.

  Kazimir matched velocity with the vast alien armada, and began to examine the ships. With his sensor functions, detection was easy; over two thousand eight hundred Ocisen ships raced through interstellar space at four and a half lightyears an hour, including nine hundred Starslayers. His perception infiltrated the hulls, exposing the weapons they carried – enough quantumbuster-types to wipe out most of the Greater Commonwealth Worlds should they ever reach their destination. But nothing more, no post-physical systems they’d chanced upon and retro-engineered, which was a relief. He switched his attention to the thirty-seven Prime ships accompanying them; they used a sophisticated hyperdrive configured to keep their distortion to an absolute minimum. Their weapons were considerably more advanced than anything the Ocisens possessed, effectively equal to a Commonwealth Navy Capital-class ship. But that was it. They didn’t pose a danger to him. And there were no other ships, no clandestine ultradrive-powered observers keeping watch, no unaccounted hyperspace links within a lightyear of the Ocisen fleet. Although each of the Prime ships had a hyperspace link opened to some location back around Commonwealth space; he could sense them, slender threads stretched across the quantum fields, pulsing with information.

  The Prime ships were the observers, he decided. Presumably they wouldn’t expect him to be able to eliminate all thirty-seven of them simultaneously. Well that was their first mistake.

  Kazimir manifested extra sensor functions into five of the Prime starships. In spacetime they were barely the size of a neutron, but they could receive all the inter-Prime communications with the hulls. Every Prime ship had a controlling immotile that took the job of a smartcore in human ships, governing the technology directly; it also instructed the immotiles. The ships represented a microcosm of Prime society. Pre-technology, the Primes had communicated by touching their upper-body stalks, allowing nerve impulses to flow between them. That had been superseded by simple electronic carriers, allowing immotiles to extend their immediate control over vast distances.

  Kazimir began to read the digitized impulses. The Commonwealth had a lot of experience with inter-Prime communication. Not least the Navy, which had developed a whole range of disruption routines and electronic warfare techniques. If the Primes ever escaped the barriers at the Dyson pair and posed a threat again, they would find their thoughts literally snuffed out.

  The first thing that was apparent was the Primes in the starships were simple biological hosts to human thoughts. So Paula was right, Kazimir thought grimly.

  ‘Do you concur with my assessment?’ he asked ANA:Gov-ernance.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Very well.’ Within the deluge of the neural directives he was aware of a datastream being encrypted and sent down the ultrasecure hyperspace link to the Commonwealth. There was a lot of sensor data, but again nothing beyond Capital-class level. ‘The Accelerators will know I’ve intercepted the fleet when the signal is severed,’ he said. ‘But I can ensure they don’t know the nature of the interception.’

  ‘Proceed.’

  Kazimir manifested a series of aggressive function inside each Prime starship, and used them to attack the hyperspace communication systems. As the secure links failed, he switched to breaking the hyperdrives themselves. The ships fell back into real spacetime within fifty milliseconds of each other. With their flight ability neutralized, he set about eliminating the on-board weapon systems. It took a second and a half for his aggressor functions to break down the hardware. Then he turned his attention to the Ocisens.

  The problem he had was eliminating the military threat which the aliens posed, without causing catastrophic loss of life. He couldn’t simply destroy the drives of so many ships, because the Empire didn’t have the ability to rescue so many of its own kind from such a distance. Instead he manifested specific aggressor functions inside each of the starships, and ruined the weapons beyond repair or recovery. Between them, they weren’t left with enough components to make a single laser, let along the more advanced devices.

  Total elapsed time to nullify all two thousand eight hundred starships was eleven seconds. Enough for them to realize something was starting to go wrong, but denying them any response time. Not that they could have done anything against him even if they had known.

  Kazimir let them go. His energy signature flashed back to the area of space where the big Prime ships were floating helplessly. This time he manifested a communication function into one of the ships, its ability identical to the inter-Prime system. Like all human minds, the one occupying the Prime bodies utilized association as its main memory routine.

  Kazimir injected: Origin.

  Identity.

  Purpose.

  Each one triggered a deluge of thoughts. Kazimir identified the animating personality was derived from Chatfield’s mind, his human persona stripped of most emotional traits. His sense of purpose was resolute, as was his devotion to the Accelerators. The Prime ships were to escort the Ocisens and protect them from the Commonwealth Navy’s attempts to intercept, but their most important mission was to report on the appearance of the deterrence fleet, its nature and capability. After that there was no requirement left.

  A sensation of puzzlement flashed between the immotile and its motiles as the burst of thoughts Kazimir had elicited faded from its main consciousness. Realization followed. It sent a specific code to the scuttle bomb. Kazimir wasn’t quite quick enough to prevent it. Now he knew what to look for, he quickly manifested a function into the remaining ships which disabled the scuttle in all of them.

  ‘Do you have sufficient evidence now?’ he asked ANA:Gov-ernance.

  ‘I do. The Accelerators have acted recklessly. In supporting the Ocisens and manipulating Living Dream they have violated the principles under which I was established. I will convene a suspension conclave.’

  ‘They will know the deterrence fleet has intercepted the Ocisen fleet, even though they remain unaware of my nature. They must assume the worst, that I have uncovered their exploitation of the Primes.’

  ‘That would be logical. However, there is little their agents can do. Once suspension is enacted their operations will be exposed to full scrutiny and neutralized.’

  Kazimir reviewed the starships as they drifted passively. ‘Nonetheless, I still don’t see what the Accelerators hoped to achieve, outside crude political manipulation. Ilanthe is smarter than that. I would feel more comfortable being on hand during the hearing. I will return immediately.’

  ‘What about the Ocisen fleet? I thought you were going to monitor them.’

  ‘They are incapable of causing any harm. When the commander realizes that, they will have no option but to return home. Our Capital-class ships can assume observation duties.’

  ‘The defeat to the commander’s pride is considerable. It may not want to return to the Empire.’

  ‘That will be something for the Capital ships to determine. I am coming back to Sol.’ />
  ‘As you wish.’

  Kazimir manifested a communication function, and broadcast a simple message to the ships. ‘Attention the Chatfield personalities, this is the Commonwealth Navy deterrence fleet. We know what you are and what you intended. Do not attempt any further suicide bids. Capital-class ships will rendezvous with you shortly. You will be taken into Navy custody.’

  With that, Kazimir withdrew his manifested functions and headed back towards the Sol system.

  Justine: Year Three Reset

  Exoimage medical icons leapt out of the darkness to surround Justine Burnelli’s consciousness. She’d seen that exact same set of read-outs once before.

  ‘Oh man,’ she grunted in shock and delight. ‘It worked.’ She tried to laugh, but her body was resolutely refusing to cooperate, insisting it had just spent three years in suspension rather than . . . Well, actually she wasn’t sure how long it had taken to reset the Void back to this moment in time.

  The medical chamber lid peeled back, and she looked round the Silverbird’s cabin again. Really, again. She sat up and wiped the tears from her cheeks. ‘Status?’ she asked the smartcore. A new batch of exoimage icons and displays sprang up. They confirmed the Silverbird had been under way for three years, and was now decelerating hard. Something was approaching.

  ‘Ho yeah,’ she murmured in satisfaction as the starship’s sensors swept across the visitor. It was the Skylord, vacuum wings fully extended.

  As it drew close she examined the weird ovoid core one more, still unable to decide if the fantastic folds of crystalline fabric were actually moving, or if she was seeing surface refraction patterns. The Silverbird’s sensors couldn’t get an accurate lock on the substance.

  As before, she settled back down in the lounge’s longest couch and reached for the Skylord with her longtalk.

  ‘Hello,’ she said.

  ‘You are most welcome,’ the Skylord replied.

  So far, so the same. Let’s see: ‘I have come to this universe to achieve fulfilment.’

  ‘All who come here strive for that moment.’

  ‘Will you help me?’

  ‘Your fulfilment can only be achieved by yourself.’

  ‘I know this. But humans such as myself reach fulfilment by participating in our own society. Please take me to Querencia, the solid world where my kind live.’

  ‘My kindred are not aware of any thoughts akin to your species anywhere in the universe. None are left.’

  ‘This I also know. However, I am simply the first of a new generation of my species to reach this place. Soon millions of us will be here. We wish to live and reach fulfilment on the same world as humans matured on before. Do you know where it is? There was a great city there, which was not of this place. Do you remember guiding human souls from that world to the Heart?’ Justine tensed up in the couch. This was the critical question.

  ‘I remember that world,’ the Skylord said. ‘I guided many from that place to the Heart.’

  ‘Please take me there. Please let me reach fulfilment.’

  ‘I will do so.’

  Justine was acutely aware of the gravity in the cabin changing somehow. The smartcore reported an alarming outbreak of glitches right across the starship. She didn’t pay attention – she was feeling horribly dizzy. Her mouth was watering as a prelude to being sick; she couldn’t focus on the curving bulkhead wall, it was moving so fast. She hurriedly jammed her eyelids shut, which only made the effect worse, so she forced her eyes open again, and concentrated hard on the medical chamber directly ahead of her. Secondary routines in her macrocellular clusters began to edit the erratic impulses her inner ears were slamming into her brain, countering the appalling vertigo. The sensation began to abate a little. She checked the sensor images. ‘Holy crap.’

  The Silverbird was rolling as its trajectory curved round; it was caught in the wake of the Skylord like some piece of flotsam. The curving patterns contained within the Skylord’s crystalline sheets were undulating wildly as its vacuum wings swirled like an iridescent mist across the gentle glow of the Void’s nebulas. All she could think of was a bird flapping frantically. Then the course alteration was over. The Silverbird’s sensors reported a noticeable Doppler shift in the light from the stars. They were accelerating at hundreds of gees, just as the Skylord had done on their first encounter.

  This first encounter, she corrected herself. Or should that be . . . In the end she decided human grammar hadn’t quite caught up with the Void’s abilities.

  Whatever strange temporal adjustment the Skylord had made to facilitate their acceleration ended soon after. Ahead of them, the few stars shining amid the nebulas had acquired a blue tinge to their spectrum; those behind stretched down into the red. The Silverbird’s smartcore determined they were now travelling at about point nine three lightspeed. On-board glitches were reducing to acceptable levels, and her vertigo faded away.

  She let out a huge sigh of relief, then grinned ruefully. ‘Thanks, Dad,’ she said out loud. Trust him to figure out what to do. Her good humour faded away as she acknowledged that others would be coming into the Void; that damned Pilgrimage would also go a hunting for Querencia. So has the Second Dreamer agreed to lead them? And how the hell are they ever going to get past the Raiel in the Gulf?

  Gore had told her to concentrate on getting to Makkathran, so she’d just have to trust that he knew what he was doing, which didn’t exactly inspire her with confidence. He’d have a plan of some kind, but it probably wouldn’t be one she approved of.

  No, forget probably: it just won’t be.

  Not that she had a lot of alternatives.

  Once they were under way, the Silverbird’s smartcore plotted their course vector. Justine examined the projection, which extended a sharp green line past a purple and scarlet nebula shaped like a slipper orchid. The nebula was eleven lightyears distant, and wherever they were heading for beyond that was invisible, blocked by nebula-light and pyres of black interstellar dust.

  After breakfast and a bout of exercise on the ship’s gym, Justine sat back on the couch and longtalked the Skylord.

  ‘How long will it take for us to reach the solid world we’re travelling to?’

  ‘Until we reach it.’

  She almost smiled. It really was like talking to a five-year-old savant. ‘The world orbits its star at a constant rate. How many times will it have gone round by the time we arrive?’ Then all she had to worry about was if the Skylord even had a concept of numbers – after all why would a spaceborne creature need to develop maths?

  ‘The world you seek will have gone round its star thirty-seven times by the time we arrive there.’

  Crap! And a Querencia year is a lot longer than an Earth year. Didn’t their months last for something like forty days? ‘I understand. Thank you.’

  ‘Will others of your kind come into the universe soon?’

  ‘The one your kindred spoke to, the one who asked you to let me in; she will lead them here. Listen for her.’

  ‘All of my kindred do.’

  Which sent a slight chill down Justine’s spine. ‘I would like to sleep for the rest of the flight.’

  ‘As you wish.’

  ‘If anything happens, I will waken.’

  ‘What will happen?’

  ‘I don’t know. But if anything changes, I will be awake to talk to you about it.’

  ‘Change in this universe is finding fulfilment. If you are asleep you will not reach fulfilment.’

  ‘I see. Thank you.’

  She spent a further half a day getting ready, checking various systems, loading in a whole series of instructions about what constituted a reason for the smartcore to bring her back out of suspension. In the end she acknowledged she was just killing time. The last thing she did as she got undressed was shut down the confluence nest, ensuring that there would be no more of her amplified dreams leaking out to warp reality with such unexpected consequences. That brought back the one thought she’d been trying to avo
id. Her mind lingered on the Kazimir she’d abandoned on the slopes of the ersatz Mount Herculaneum. All that was left of him now was a pattern in the Void’s memory layer. It wasn’t fair, to have lived for such a short time only to be unmade.

  I will make you real again, Justine promised her poignant recollection of him. She lay down in the medical cabinet, and activated the suspension function.

  2

  Hunger and a nagging pain woke Araminta. At first she was woefully drowsy as she lay on the motel bed. Bright daylight was shining round the window blinds, warming the still air. Her stiff muscles protested as she tried to shuffle herself to a sitting position. Every part of her ached. Her feet throbbed. When she pulled the duvet aside to look at them she actually winced at the sight.

  ‘Oh, Ozzie.’

  Well! It was no good just lying about feeling sorry for herself, first thing was to get her feet cleaned up a bit. She eased her legs over the side of the bed and slowly stripped off her filthy clothes. Without doubt, they were ruined; she’d have to get rid of them.

  The room had a cybersphere node beside the bed, so old it was probably the one installed as soon as the drycoral had finished growing into shape. Araminta started tapping away on its small keyboard, using the new account she’d opened at the Spanish Crepes office. Miledeep Water didn’t have a touchdown mall, but Stoneline Street at its centre had a plethora of small stores that sold everything she needed. One by one she accessed their semisentient management programs and placed her orders, adding the items to the delivery service she’d hired.

  She ran the bathwater at just below body temperature, then sat on the side and gingerly eased her feet in. The water soaked away the worst of the dirt and dried blood, leaving them looking slightly improved. She was letting them dry when there was a knock on the door. Thankfully, the motel supplied towelling robes. She’d assumed the delivery service would be a courier case floating along on regrav, all nice and impersonal. Instead, once she’d hobbled over to the door, a young teenage girl called Janice was waiting outside wearing a cap with the delivery company’s logo and carrying a couple of large shoulder bags.