The Evolutionary Void Read online

  ‘The Accelerator Faction is hereby suspended,’ ANA:Gov-ernance announced to the assembly arena. The thought routines of every individual comprising the Accelerator Faction immediately terminated, held frozen within the edifice ready for an edit that would remove the illegal sections and impose limiters to restrain future behaviour.

  None of it affected the inversion core. ANA couldn’t find an entrance point. The Accelerators had fabricated it without the base law, a circumvention of its authority which was disturbing. Their knowledge of exotic quantum structures was extremely advanced. Presumably that had come from people like Troblum studying the Dark Fortress mechanism. Examination of the Faction’s now-exposed memories showed eighty-seven of their researchers had served with the Navy on missions to Dyson Alpha. Their findings were not available.

  ANA shut down the entire Accelerator compilation, in case there were some remaining connections it couldn’t perceive. The inversion core remained. It was self-sustaining, truly independent. ‘What is your purpose?’ ANA asked.

  ‘Total evolution,’ Ilanthe replied. ‘I have never hidden that from you.’

  ‘Your actions thus far have caused extreme danger, not just to the Commonwealth. I cannot let that pass with impunity.’

  ‘I reject you and your authority,’ Ilanthe replied.

  The inversion core exerted an exotic force against the collapsed edifice surrounding it. ANA felt its structure warp to an alarming degree. Far above Earth’s lunar orbit, spacetime twisted badly, distorting photons into a globular whirl, sucking light down like a small event horizon.

  ‘Desist from this action,’ ANA warned. Ten Capital-class warships on Sol assignment raced in towards the spacetime stress point, slipping smoothly out of hyperspace to target the anomaly. ANA also opened a link to Kazimir who was already within the External Worlds.

  ‘Do you have any idea what it is?’ Kazimir asked.

  ‘I can assume the inversion core contains some of my own functions if that is what they intend to fuse with the Void. They have been extremely clever in producing the system within me. No matter what any individual or faction fabricates for itself within me the base laws apply, for they are a simple extension of the quantum interstice that is my edifice. That is how my integrity is retained. However, in this case my base laws were evaded. This is not part of me.’

  ‘I will be there in another fifteen minutes.’

  ‘That is gratifying. However, I do not believe even Ilanthe will attempt to destroy me. If she did, she would find it extremely difficult. There are some levels which I have never employed.’

  The inversion core increased the level of the force it was exerting. ANA perceived the quantum fields within which it was embedded start to separate as their cohesion faltered. Space-time fractured.

  Senses available to the boundary of the inversion core registered starlight falling upon it. ‘You can no longer constrain me,’ Ilanthe said. The starlight grew stronger, twisting savagely as it poured through the severe rift opening all around the inversion core. Then it was free, emerging into spacetime as the rift collapsed. The Earth was a splendid silver-blue crescent half a million kilometres away, while the smooth plains of the moon’s farside glimmered to one side. Ten Capital-class ships accelerated smoothly towards it. Ilanthe sensed their weapons powering up and locking on. The inversion core went from a sedate cislunar orbital velocity to point nine nine lightspeed in less than half a second.

  ‘What do you want to do?’ Kazimir asked as he flashed past the Oort cometary belt that marked the boundary of the Sol system. He’d followed the chase with interest. The Capital-class ships had immediately dropped into hyperspace as the inversion core sped away at its incredible velocity. (And there was something disturbingly reminiscent of a Skylord in the way it did that.) They had some trouble matching speeds when they emerged, replicating its velocity as part of their exit vector. Then when they did get close, it simply stopped, shedding its relativistic speed in an instant. Which left the warships streaking away. The inversion core accelerated again along a slightly different trajectory, leaving the warships with no choice but to dive back into hyperspace. Any engagement was going to be extremely difficult. And they still had no idea of its true capabilities.

  ‘Ilanthe has left us with no options. Please intercept her, and nullify the object.’

  ‘Very well.’ Kazimir ordered the Capital-class ships to disengage. He manifested several functions into spacetime, his energy signature matching the inversion core’s velocity perfectly. When he attempted to analyse it, all he could perceive was an incredibly complex knot of exotic forces. He didn’t have the sensor functions necessary to interpret its intersection within the quantum fields. That left him in the very surprising position of not knowing what aggressive function to deploy against it.

  The inversion core halted again, twenty million kilometres out from Mars. Kazimir’s energy signature matched locations flawlessly. Visually, the inversion core resembled a ball of black glass whose interior was beset by purple scintillations. Thermally, it didn’t even register, while the exotic energy sensors revealed a boundary layer of negative matter somehow entwined with quantum fluctuations of enormous power.

  ‘The deterrence fleet, I presume?’ Ilanthe said equably.

  ‘Yes,’ Kazimir said.

  ‘I am most impressed.’

  ‘I am reluctant to use weapons functions against you. We are still within the Sol system. There might be damage.’

  ‘Not to me. But that isn’t your immediate concern.’

  ‘I assure you it is. However, if it becomes necessary I will use force. Your rebellion is now over. Please accept that.’

  ‘You believed we engineered your deployment so I would be safe to emerge.’

  ‘That is obvious.’

  ‘But wrong. Please scan near-Sol space.’

  Look behind you, the oldest ploy in the book, but nearly always spoken from a position of superiority. Kazimir kept his energy signature where it was, but manifested several long-range sensor functions. He searched for signs of stealthed hyperdrives. Eight thousand and one were holding steady in transdimensional suspension, englobing the Sol system at forty AUs out.

  ‘What are they?’ he asked.

  ‘We call them the Swarm,’ Ilanthe said. ‘They are here to put an end to ANA’s interference.’

  ‘I have to access them,’ Kazimir told ANA. ‘I really don’t like that formation.’ His sensor functions observed one of the hyper-drives arrowing in towards the inversion core at very high speed even for an ultradrive. The other eight thousand dropped out of hyperspace where they were, materializing into spacetime as large spherical force fields, their orbits neatly surrounding the Sol system.

  Every Navy warship assigned to the Sol protection fleet flashed in towards Earth, knitting together in a defensive formation that extended out beyond lunar orbit. Weapons platforms that had spent decades stealthed in high orbit emerged to join the incredible array of firepower lining up on the Swarm. All over the planet, force fields powered up, shielding the remaining cities. Anyone outside an urban area was immediately teleported in to safety. The T-sphere itself was integrated into the defence organization, ready to ward off energy assaults against the planet by rearranging spacetime in a sharp curve.

  Lizzie was in the kitchen when the alert came through. Unfamiliar icons popped up in her exovision as she was taking a big pan of boiling chicken stock off the grand iron range. Secondary routines identified them, pushing their meanings into her consciousness. She was suddenly all too aware of what was happening out on the fringes of the Sol system. ‘Ozzie, crappit,’ she grunted as she put the hot pan back down on the range. The whole event was so extraordinary she had no idea how to react, then her basic parental instincts took over.

  Little Rosa was chortling away happily to herself in the family room, where she was playing with some reactive spheres, clashing them against each other in a burst of music, then clapping as they rolled away across the an
tique rug. She grinned delightedly as her mother rushed in.

  The paediatric housebot floating to one side of the toddler glided smoothly to one side as Lizzie scooped her up. ‘Come on,’ she said, and started to designate her coordinates within the T-sphere. That was when the defence agency announced the T-sphere would be unavailable for civilian use in one minute’s time.

  Lizzie teleported into the school. Rosa whooped with delight at the abrupt jump. ‘Good, good,’ she enthused.

  The classroom she’d emerged into was a broad circle, with a shallow dome roof and long overhang windows looking across the green playing fields of Dulwich Park. It was raining outside. Twenty children were inside, split into three groups. Their teachers were already looking startled. Lizzie looked round as a timer started to count away her minute. Elsie was part of a reading group. She glanced up and smiled at her mother.

  Two more parents jumped into the classroom, both looking as perturbed as Lizzie imagined she was. She beckoned frantically to Elsie, who started over. By now another five parents had arrived. The large classroom was starting to feel crowded.

  Tilly was in the music group, her violin resting comfortably under her chin as the children practised a cheerful-sounding song for the school’s Christmas nativity play. ‘Come here,’ Lizzie called as Elsie reached her side. There were twenty seconds left. Out of the corner of her eye, Lizzie saw a mother jump away as she clutched her son.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Tilly asked.

  ‘Here!’ Lizzie implored. Another two adults materialized in front of her, and started to hunt round desperately for their children. The youngsters were starting to get upset as more and more parents with worried faces appeared.

  Tilly scampered over, still hanging on to her violin. Lizzie’s u-shadow registered a call from her husband. ‘Not now,’ she grunted, and designated the house as their teleport coordinate. Tilly ran into her, and there were nine seconds left. Just for an instant, the emptiness of the translation continuum flashed around them as Lizzie and the kids jumped out.

  She let out a little shocked sob as they all materialized in the familiar hallway.

  ‘What is it?’ a subdued Elsie demanded. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘Mummy?’ Elsie appealed, tugging at Lizzie’s skirt.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Lizzie said, even as she was trying to make sense of the defence agency displays. The defence agency didn’t have any details on the devices that had surrounded the solar system. Then the T-sphere was diverted from standard use, stranding everyone on the planet in their immediate location. She told her u-shadow to accept her husband’s call.

  ‘Thank Ozzie,’ he exclaimed. ‘Where are the girls?’

  ‘Got them,’ she promised, feeling slightly superior that she’d reacted so swiftly and correctly. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘On a starship. Eight minutes out from Gralmond spaceport.’

  ‘Do you understand what’s happening?’

  ‘Not really. It’s the ANA Factions, their fights have turned physical.’

  ‘They can’t hurt Earth? Can they?’ She didn’t want to let go of the children. Outside, the rain had drained out of the grey London sky as the force-field dome covered the city.

  ‘That’s not what it’s about. Look I’ll be with you as soon—’

  The connection ended. Strange symbols flipped up into her exovision, showing routing problems with his link.

  In the unisphere? That’s not possible!

  ‘—after I’ve landed. Then I’ll—’

  ‘Something’s wrong,’ she gasped.

  ‘—hang on! I will be there, I prom—’

  ‘The link has failed,’ her u-shadow reported.

  ‘How can it fail?’ she cried.

  ‘The wormhole connections with the Commonwealth Worlds are collapsing,’ her u-shadow said.

  ‘Oh great Ozzie!’ Lizzie hurried into the conservatory, pulling the girls with her. She tried to make sense of the emergency icons invading her exovision as she looked up into the dour sky, hunting for signs of the world coming to an end.

  Kazimir’s energy signature halted ten kilometres from one of the Swarm components. He manifested a vast array of sensor functions, yet not one of them was able to penetrate the five-hundred-metre-diameter force field floating serenely in space. ‘Damnit, they’ve acquired Dark Fortress technology,’ he told ANA. Far behind him, the Accelerator’s ship dropped out of hyperdrive next to the inversion core. It was large for an ultradrive, long-range scans revealed a multitude of weapons on board. A hold door opened in the rear section, and the inversion core slipped gracefully inside. Then a force field came on around it, every bit as impervious as the one he was confronting.

  Kazimir was desperate to intercept the Accelerator faction starship, but with Earth and ANA facing an unknown threat his duty was clear. He manifested several high-level weapon functions, and fired at the force field directly ahead of him. Everything he used was simply deflected away. The force field was completely impermeable to any assault he could bring in spacetime and hyperspace.

  ‘The wormholes to the Big15 worlds are collapsing,’ ANA reported. ‘Something is cutting them off.’

  Kazimir examined the exotic matter intrusions stretching out from Earth away to the stars, seeing them subjected to enormous interference that was causing them to constrict. Even though he knew the incursion must originate within the Swarm, his manifested sensor functions couldn’t track down its nature.

  The Accelerator Faction ship carrying the inversion core went ftl, streaking across the solar system directly away from Kazimir at seventy-eight lightyears an hour. His energy signature flashed after them. Enormously powerful exotic energy manipulation functions manifested, but he still couldn’t reach through its force field to disable the drive. He began to manifest some functions which would disrupt the quantum fields around the ship, and would force it out of hyperspace. The ship passed through the Swarm’s orbit. Kazimir was less than two seconds behind. It was too late. The force fields surrounding the Swarm components expanded at hyperluminal speed.

  Kazimir’s energy signature struck an impermeable barrier that cut clean across spacetime and hyperspace. He couldn’t get through.

  The ship dropped out of hyperspace a lightminute beyond the force field. To the hyperspace sensors, a vast blank shield had sprung up behind them. Its curvature revealed a radius of forty AUs. There was no hint of stress or distortion anywhere on its surface. Whatever Kazimir was armed with was unable to cut through. Neskia brought the ship’s visual sensor data into her exovision, watching the image keenly as a timer counted down. After one minute, the high-magnitude star that was the Sun vanished, along with the stars across that half of space.

  ‘No sign of it breaking through,’ Neskia said. ‘I think we’re safe.’

  ‘Very clever that deterrence fleet,’ Ilanthe said. ‘An interstitial energy signature that can extrude into spacetime. The ship wouldn’t have stood a chance in a straight firefight. ANA was more advanced than we’d realized.’

  ‘Even more reason for us to leave it behind,’ Neskia said dismissively. ‘It had so much potential, and wasted it.’

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Ellezelin. I trust our agents are close to recovering Araminta?’

  ‘They are.’

  The ship slipped back into hyperspace, heading away at a modest fifty-five lightyears an hour. Behind it, the sombre sphere imprisoning the Sol system refracted the gentle starlight impinging on its boundary with a cold shimmer reminiscent of a deep forest lake, guarding its contents in perfect isolated darkness.

  Inigo’s Sixteenth Dream

  It was the fifth time Edeard had watched the militia forces close in on the hidden valley. There had been a lot of mistakes previously; ge-eagles had been spotted, fastfoxes mauled the first militiamen over the lip, the bandit forces had fought back with a secret cache of weapons, hothead officers didn’t quite follow orders, allowing the G
ilmorn to rally his people. Each time there had been too many deaths. Each time Edeard reset the universe to the night before, and attempted to mitigate the problem.

  Last time he was sure he’d got it right, then the bandit gang had produced rapid-fire guns from a cache that he hadn’t found the first three times. Even with third hands joined together to add extra strength to their shielding, the troopers had been cut to shreds before Edeard himself could reach them. So . . .

  This time he had slipped unseen and unsensed through the valley for two hours just after midnight. He’d destroyed the second lot of rapid-fire guns the bandits had hidden, and snatched away the ones belonging to guards after rendering them unconscious. It was politically important that the militias thought they alone had overcome the bandits; while Edeard and Finitan wanted the rapid-fire guns to vanish into legend. Now he stood on a small rise half a mile from the valley as the pre-dawn light slowly overwhelmed the nebulas. Bulku was the first to vanish, its undulating stream of pale indigo fading away just above the eastern horizon, as if the land had somehow opened to swallow it. Edeard could well believe that. The valley which the bandits had chosen as their last redoubt was a narrow crack in the undulating grasslands that made up the southernmost part of Rulan province, lapping against the low mountains of Gratham province which rose in the distance. Not hard to imagine it as a fissure slicing through the whole world.

  As the scarlet-spiked glory of Odin’s Sea began to diminish far above, he farsighted the troopers of the Pholas and Zelda regiment break cover from the spinneys beyond the valley where they’d gathered during the night. They were supported by provincial militiamen from Plax and Tives. The men moved silently, like a black stream winding round the soft knolls and hummocks of the grasslands, out of farsight from the sentries within the valley. Edeard concentrated on subverting the ge-eagles gliding high above, insinuating his own orders into their sharp, suspicious little minds. That just left the fastfoxes. He was too far away to help with them. Brawny ge-wolves and fast ge-hounds slunk forwards, accompanying the marauder groups of sheriffs and Wellsop rangers whose control over their genistars was second to none.