The Void Trilogy 3-Book Bundle

by Peter F. Hamilton

  Her skin was completely numb when she finally came staggering out on the other side. The shakes were so bad, she couldn’t even undo the bundle of clothes that were now her sole possessions in the universe. She spent a long time alternating between being hunched up, shivering violently, and trying to walk while flapping her arms around. Eventually her fingers finally began to work again. Her skin still had a horrible white pallor when she forced shaking limbs into her clothes once more.

  The walk didn’t warm her up noticeably, nor did she reach the high tree line on the other side of the valley before night fell. She curled up into a ball beside a small boulder and shivered her way to a fitful sleep. It rained twice in the night.

  Morning was when she realized she didn’t have anything to eat. Her tummy was grumbling when she bent over a tiny trickle of water running around the base of the boulder to lap up the icy liquid. She couldn’t remember ever being this miserable; not the day she left Laril, not even watching her apartments going up in flame. This was just wretched. Worse, she’d never felt so alone before. This wasn’t even a human world. If anything went wrong, anything as simple as a sprained ankle or gashed knee, there was no emergency service to call, no help within light-years. She’d just have to lie down here in the valley and starve to death.

  Her limbs started trembling with the thought of it, at the full realization of the risk she’d taken yesterday wading through the river. Delayed shock, she decided, from both the river and the terrible fight in Bodant Park.

  After that, she was a lot more careful walking up toward the tree line high above. There was still no sign of anything she could eat. Underfoot was just the yellowy grass with its speckle of tiny lavender flowers. As she plodded on gloomily, she tried to remember everything she’d ever heard about the Silfen paths. It wasn’t much; even the general encyclopedia in her storage lacuna contained more mythology than fact on the subject. They existed, there was no such thing as a map, and some medievalist humans set off down them in search of various personal or irrational goals—few of whom were ever heard of again. Except for Ozzie, of course. Now that she thought about it, she’d vaguely known he was a Silfen Friend. And so was Mellanie, whoever she used to be. Araminta could have kicked herself for not running even a simple search with her u-shadow. It was over a week since Cressida had told her about her odd ancestry, and she had never bothered to find out, had not asked a single question. Stupid.

  The thought of Cressida made her concentrate. Cressida would never give up or sink into a bout of self-pity. And I’m related to her, too.

  She began to sketch out a list of more positive aspects as she drew close to the woodland where she was sure the next path began. For a start, she could sense paths, which meant there would be an ending to this trek, a conclusion. Lack of food was a pig, but she had a strong Advancer heritage, and their ethos was to equip humans to survive the galaxy over. As she’d learned during her childhood on the farm, playing nibble dare with her brother and sisters, it was quite difficult for Advancer humans to poison themselves with alien vegetation. Her taste buds had a strong sampling ability to determine what was dangerous. Unless a plant was hugely toxic, her metabolism could probably withstand it.

  Even so, she didn’t like the look of the grass on the mountain.

  I’ll wait till the next planet before I resort to that.

  The air was noticeably colder by the time she reached the first of the moss-cloaked trees. Way down the valley, thick hammerhead clouds were sliding toward her. Rain at this temperature would wreck what little morale she’d recovered.

  Long honey-brown leaves fluttered on the branches overhead as she moved deeper into the woods. Little white whorls like tightly wound spider gossamer peeped up through the grass below her feet. The air became still between the trunks of the trees as she walked forward. Her confidence grew. Somehow in her mind she could sense the changes beginning. When she looked up, the slender glimpses of sky she was afforded through the tangle of branches showed a light turquoise, which was encouraging. It was certainly brighter and more inviting than the atmosphere above the mountains.

  Deep within the gaiafield or the reverie of the Silfen Motherholme—whatever realm it was her mind drifted through these days—she could follow the way space subtly transformed around her. The path was constantly in motion. It had no fixed beginning or end; it was a way that responded to the wishes of the traveler. At some incredible distance there was an awareness that seemed to be observing her. That was when she had a vague notion of just how many entities were on the paths. Uncountable millions, all wandering where they might, some with purpose, wishing to know a certain experience, others allowing the paths to take them at random across the galaxy to find and know whatever they would.

  New trees began to appear amid the moss-clad trunks, their smooth boles a whitish-green. Lush green leaves overhead reminded her of a deciduous forest in spring. Then ivies and vines swarmed up the trunks, producing cascades of gray flowers. On she walked. The path wound along small hills and into narrow valleys. Streams bubbled along beside her. Once she could hear the pounding thunder of some great waterfall, but it wasn’t on the path, so she didn’t try to follow the sound. Red leaves laced through the light brown canopy. Her boots were treading on small crisp leaves amid the grass. The air grew warm and dry. Hours after she’d left the rainy valley behind, she heard a quiet madrigal being sung in an alien tongue. It didn’t matter that she didn’t know the words; the harmony was exquisite. It even made her stop for a while, allowing herself to listen. It was the Silfen, she knew, some big party of them trotting merrily on their way to a new world offering fresh sights and excitements. For a moment she wanted to run and join them, see what they saw, feel for things the way they did. But then that image of Cressida, smart, self-reliant, focused, trickled up into her mind, and she knew sheepishly that traipsing off with a bunch of alien elves wasn’t the answer. Reluctantly, she set off again. Somewhere far ahead was a Commonwealth world. She was sure of that, although the path was little used nowadays. The Silfen didn’t care for planets where other civilizations arose, at least not above a certain technological level.

  Araminta let out a sigh of relief as the trees finally thinned out. It was white and bright up ahead and getting warmer with every footstep forward. The trees with the red leaves became the majority. Their light gray branches were slim, widely separated. When she glanced at them, she could see how fat and waxy the leaves were. She grinned in delight; there was something utterly awesome about having paths between worlds.

  The path led her to the edge of the waving trees. She stared out at the vista ahead, blinking against the harsh light. “Oh, Great Ozzie,” she muttered in dismay. As far as she could see, the land was a flat expanse of white sand. The world’s hot sun burned high overhead, unencumbered by any cloud. “It’s a desert!”

  When she turned a full circle, she found she’d emerged amid a few paltry clumps of trees that clung to the edge of a long muddy pool. And somewhere in those trees the path was dwindling away to nothing. “No,” she told it. “No, wait. This isn’t right. I don’t want to be here.” But then it was gone. “Oh, bollocks.”

  Araminta might have been generally ignorant about alien planets, but one thing she knew for certain was that you didn’t start walking across a desert in the middle of the day, certainly not without any preparation. She took a slow saunter around the pool, trying to spot any sign that other people were around. Apart from some very odd imprints in the dry mud, there was no evidence that anybody used the oasis on any kind of regular basis. With the sun rising higher, she sat with her back to one of the gray tree trunks, making the most of the measly shade cast by its chunky leaves.

  All the doubt and self-pity she’d managed to throw off on the path threatened to come swarming back. Maybe the Silfen were more involved with galactic events than anyone suspected. They could have dumped her here deliberately so that she could never lead a human Pilgrimage. Just thinking it through brought up a
n image of Cressida, her cousin’s eyebrow lifting in that incredibly scornful way of hers. Araminta cringed just at the memory of it.

  Come on, pull yourself together.

  She looked down at the tool belt. There weren’t a lot of tools, and the power charge on some was well down. But they could be useful. For what? How do I use them to cross a desert? She looked around the silent oasis again, trying to be smart and analytical the way Cressida would be. Okay, so I’ve got water. How do I carry it? Then she realized that there were several stumps sticking out of the ground but no fallen trees. She hurried over to one and saw the wood had been cut clean and level. Someone had sawed it off. She gave the stump a modest grin; it was a great clue. So now start thinking how you can use wood.

  The power saw she carried was small, designed to cut small shaped holes, not to fell a tree, however spindly. But she cut around a trunk and managed to topple the tree onto open ground. The black wood under the bark was incredibly hard. She cut a couple of sections off, producing cylinders half a meter long, which she rolled into the shade, sitting down beside them. Her drill bored a hole down the middle. Once she had that, she switched the drill bit to its expansion mode and started to drill again. It took hours, but eventually she’d hollowed out each of the cylinders, leaving a shell of wood a couple of centimeters thick. They made excellent flagons. When she carried them into the pool to fill them with the clear water in the middle, she felt something give under her feet. The dark-blue sphere she fished out had a slippery jellylike shell. An egg! Araminta glanced around nervously, wondering what had laid it, land animal or marine? Perhaps it was a seed.

  The flagons were full, and she lugged them out quickly but kept hold of the flaccid egg. It was the size of her fist, the wet surface giving like slippery rubber beneath her fingers. Just looking at it made her stomach growl with hunger. She realized she hadn’t eaten anything since that last breakfast with Tandra and her family, and that was a long time ago now.

  With the egg wedged between some stones, she turned her laser to low-power wide beam and swept the ruby-red fan forward and backward across the bendy shell. The color began to darken down to a grubby brown, minute cracks appearing as it slowly hardened. After a few minutes she took a guess that it was done and used her screwdriver to tap a hole through it. The smell wasn’t good, but she cracked a wide hole open and hooked out some of the steaming greenish gloop inside.

  Wrinkling her face in dismay, she touched some of the gloop to the tip of her tongue. It didn’t taste of much at all, maybe slightly minty jelly. Secondary routines in her macrocellular clusters interpreted the results firing down the nerve channels from her taste buds. They couldn’t discern anything lethal in the hot organic mush; it certainly wouldn’t kill her outright. Closing her eyes, she swallowed. Her stomach groaned in relief, and she scooped out a larger portion.

  After she finished the first egg (she was still half-convinced it was some kind of aquatic seed), she went trawling for some more, recovering nine in total. She cooked another four with the laser, washing down the uninspiring contents with the water from the flagons. The wood wasn’t leaking, which she counted as a minor victory. With her stomach finally quiet, she set about splitting more wood and building a small fire. The flames baked the remaining eggs, saving power in her laser. She was firmly proud of the innovation, though she should have thought of it earlier.

  As the flames crackled away, she set about stripping the bark of the tree she’d felled. When it was cut into thin strips, she began to weave a hat. Three attempts later she had a flattish cone that finally stayed in place on her head. She began weaving a basket to carry the eggs.

  One more fishing expedition in the late afternoon netted a further five eggs, and then she settled down for a rest before night fell. She’d been working for hours, and the sun was only just starting to sink down toward the horizon. The days here were long ones. Logically, then, the nights would be as well, so she ought to be able to make a decent distance before the sun rose once more.

  She dozed before sunset, dreaming of some tall blonde girl who was also alone. The dream was a vague one, and the girl was on a mountainside rather than in a desert. A handsome lad appeared, which set the girl’s heart aflutter, then she was confronting a man with a gold face.

  Araminta woke with a start. The man was Gore Burnelli, which made her suspect the dream had emerged out of the gaiafield. It was weak here, but she could still perceive it. Gore had been very angry about something. For a moment Araminta was tempted to delve back into the gaiafield to see if she could recapture the dream but decided against it. The last thing she wanted now was to risk reexposure to Living Dream, though how they would find her here was a moot point. Besides, she had more immediate problems.

  With the small bright sun finally sliding below the horizon, she gathered up her makeshift desert survival kit. The flagons were filled to the brim and stoppered with cuts of wood. She hoisted them onto her back with a harness made from woven bark strips, grimacing at the weight. The baked eggs went into her basket, which was slung over a shoulder. More strips of bark were hung around her neck; she couldn’t imagine what she’d need them for, but they were all she had and were the fruits of her own labor. Thus equipped, she set off.

  The twilight lingered for a long time, which cheered her; total darkness would have been depressing and not a little bit scary. Stars slowly started to twinkle overhead. None of the constellations were recognizable, certainly not to her encyclopedia files. I’m nowhere near the Greater Commonwealth, then. Despite that, she was confident she wasn’t far away from a path that would take her there. She hadn’t even hesitated when she left the oasis. She knew the direction she should take.

  Her flagons were ridiculously heavy, yet she knew she had to carry as much water as was physically possible. Her stomach wasn’t exactly feeling a hundred percent, and hunger was now a constant nag. She thought that perhaps the egg-things weren’t terribly nutritious for humans, after all. Still, at least she hadn’t thrown up. That was a plus.

  Araminta grinned at that. Strange how perceptions shifted so much depending on circumstances. A week ago she’d been fretting about buyers for the apartments producing their deposits on time and getting angry with late suppliers. Now, not being sick as she tramped across an unknown desert halfway across the galaxy counted as a reasonable achievement.

  After three hours she made herself take a rest. The desert was illuminated by starlight alone now. This world didn’t seem to have a moon. Some of the stars were quite bright. She wished she knew enough astronomy to tell if they were planets. Not that it mattered. She was committed now. It felt good having a physical goal, something she could measure success with.

  She drank some water, careful not to spill any. The eggs she left alone. Save them for real hunger pangs.

  After half an hour she could feel the air becoming a lot cooler as the day’s heat drained away into the sky. She zipped the fleece back up and set off again. Her feet were sore. The boots were not designed for this kind of walking. At least the terrain was level.

  As she trudged on, she allowed herself to wonder what she was going to do when she did reach the Commonwealth again. She knew she’d have only one chance, one choice. Too many people were looking for her. Giving in to Living Dream was something she instinctively shied away from. But Laril, for all he was loyal and trying to help, was in way over his head. Who isn’t? Though perhaps he could negotiate with some faction. But which one? The more she thought about it, the more she was convinced she should contact Oscar Monroe. If anyone could offer her sanctuary, it would be ANA itself. And if it was going to use her, there really was no hope.

  Araminta kept plodding forward. Hunger and lack of true sleep were getting to her. She felt exhausted but knew she couldn’t stop. She had to cover as much ground as possible during the night, for she wouldn’t be going anywhere during the day. Her limbs ached, especially her legs, as she just kept walking. Every time she stopped to drink, it was more p
ainful to haul the flagons onto her back again. Her spine was really beginning to feel the weight. It was all she could do to ignore the throbbing in her feet as her boots rubbed already raw skin. Occasionally she’d shiver from the now-icy night air, a great spasm running the length of her body. Whenever that happened, she’d pause for a minute, then shake her head like a dog coming out of water and take that step again. I cannot quit.

  There were so many things she needed to do, so many things she had to try to accomplish to stop the whole Living Dream madness. Her mind began to drift. She saw her parents again, not the ones she argued with constantly in her late teens but as they were when she was growing up, indulging her, playing with her, comforting her, buying her a pony for Christmas when she was eight. Even after the divorce she hadn’t bothered to call them. Too stubborn, or more like stupid. And I can just hear exactly what they’d say if I told them I’d met Mr. Bovey and was going multiple. Then there was that time just after Laril went offplanet, clubbing with Cressida most nights, going on dates. Being free, having fun discovering what it was like to be young and single in the Commonwealth. Having independence and a little degree of pride with it.

  She wondered if any of that life would ever come back. All she wanted now was for this dangerous madness to be over, for Living Dream to be defeated, and for herself to become Mrs. Bovey. Was it possible to fade back into blissful obscurity? Other people had done it; countless thousands had had their moment of fame or infamy. Mellanie must have achieved it.

  The timer in Araminta’s exovision flashed purple, along with an insistent bleeping that wound down auditory nerves, drawing her attention back out of the comfortable reverie. She let out a groan of relief and shrugged out of the harness. At least it wasn’t so cold now. As she held up the flagon to drink, she saw lights crawling across the starfield. She’d lived in Colwyn City long enough to recognize starships when she saw them. “What the hell?” That was when she realized the Silfen path was now behind her. “Ozzie!” Her mind felt a host of quiet emissions within the gaiafield, originating somewhere nearby. She hurriedly guarded her own thoughts, making sure nothing leaked out to warn anyone of her presence.