The Void Trilogy 3-Book Bundle

by Peter F. Hamilton

  He had intended the gaiafield to allow humans and aliens to understand each other better, eliminating conflict and confusion across the galaxy. The oldest liberal dream of all: If we just keep talking … And now the gaiafield could back up the talk with sincerity and understanding. Except, as always, the human race had found a way to fuck it up and turn it into the carrier wave of the latest and stupidest of all religions. So he came to the Spike with an idea of how to make something bigger than the gaiafield and commune with the Silfen Motherholme, a wonderful union of the mind that couldn’t be subverted by selective, edited thoughts like Inigo’s seditious dreams with their sole purpose of entrapping people.

  Mindspace was a good start, except it worked better with human thoughts than with anyone else’s, especially the ratty little Ilodi. But the Chikoya were coming around to accepting the state, even though the stupid monsters were hanging on it a whole load of religious connotations of the “all-perception realm,” which had sparked some old dumbass racial lore.

  A little bit of fine-tuning was all it would take. Something he’d been analyzing and rationalizing—well, sort of—for the last forty years. Then every sentient species in the galaxy would be aware of every other species, which would be truly wonderful. Unless there was something else like the Prime out there. And prescience/rationality species would probably think their gods were calling. Oh, and greedy little psychopaths like the Ocisen Empire would use it as a map of worlds to conquer.

  Yeah, fine-tuning. That’s all.

  Which he would have gotten around to. Eventually. Except now the Commonwealth and its incredible idiocies and factions and violence had followed him to the Spike. His basic instinct was to just cut and run again. But Inigo’s boneheaded stupidity was finally paying off, with the Void going apeshit and everyone desperate for a solution. To what Ozzie wasn’t sure. But sure as bears shit in the woods, they came searching him out for it, treating him like the ultimate guru.

  So once again, here he was doing the right thing, which would have appalled the him of centuries past. Today, he just figured that this was the quickest way to get them the fuck off the Spike.

  The capsule approached the water column, one of twelve massive support structures that stretched from the chamber’s landscape right up to the opaque roof forty kilometers above. They always reminded Ozzie of giant cocktail swizzle sticks, huge narrow cylinders with ridges that spiraled the entire length. It was part of the chamber’s irrigation system; water flowed constantly down them, racing around and around in a white-foam cascade. The top third of the twists had sharp angled kinks that sent thundering bursts of spume swirling off in long clouds that traced huge arcs as they fell downward and outward until they’d evolved into ordinary stratus scudding through the air before eventually drizzling on the ground far below.

  He flew directly underneath one of the churning ribbons of thick white mist and began a steep descent. A broad expanse of Octoron’s purple and green grass lay below, with a herd of sprightly tranalin racing away from the lake at the base of the water column. Ozzie expanded his biononic field scan function and probed the ground directly below. Three human figures were waiting for him, which was odd because he couldn’t perceive any incursion of thoughts within mindspace. He frowned and refined the scan. One was standing waiting, integral force field active; the other two were lying on the grass, unconscious.

  “Ah,” he grunted as realization dawned. “Clever.”

  The capsule touched down, and he emerged to face the standing man. No doubt he was the bodyguard type who’d unleashed hell back in the town. The man’s biological appearance was mid-thirties, which was slightly older than Highers usually maintained their physical looks. Ozzie was drawn to his eyes, which were gray with weird flecks of purple. His Commonwealth Navy tunic was simple gray-blue semiorganic, with several burn scars where energy weapons had fired out from subdermal enrichments. But it was the expression, or rather lack of it, that was most intriguing. He didn’t express a single flicker of emotion. Whatever thoughts were animating the body were extraordinarily simple, like those of a small animal. Ozzie had to get within ten meters before he could even sense them.

  “Yo, dude, you hurt a lot of people back there. Some are going to have to be re-lifed, and that hospital doesn’t have a whole lot of medical capsules.” He had to raise his voice above the crashing white water waves of the column as they poured into the lake behind him. Very humid air was surging out. His semiorganic shirt hardened slightly to become water resilient, but he could feel it starting to saturate his Afro hairstyle.

  The man put his hand out. Ozzie raised an eyebrow.

  “I need to confirm your DNA,” the man said.

  “Ho, brother.” Ozzie touched his palm to the one offered, allowing the biononic filaments to sample his dermal layer cells.

  “You are Ozzie,” the man declared.

  “Really? I thought I was just fooling myself.” In itself the confirmation was interesting; that particular datum was extremely hard to get hold of in the Commonwealth. Ozzie had made sure of that before he left, and ANA enforced the proscription on access. You’d need to be quite the player to get hold of it.

  “No, you are not. Please turn off the telepathy effect.”

  “Say what?”

  “Turn off the telepathy effect. It allows the Chikoya to track Inigo.”

  “Ah, I get it. Smart. No.”

  “I have brought Inigo to you. You cannot function effectively together if we are constantly interrupted by hostile elements.”

  “Man, I don’t want to function effectively or any other way with that little turd.”

  “You have to.”

  “No, dude, I don’t.”

  “I will exterminate the woman if you do not switch it off.”

  “Jesus fuck! Why? Who is she?”

  “Corrie-Lyn. A past member of the Living Dream Cleric Council and Inigo’s lover.”

  “So why kill her?” Ozzie was getting a bad feeling about the way the man’s thoughts functioned. In fact, he was beginning to wonder just what kind of biology was nestling inside the human skull. And who it belonged to.

  “She is my leverage. If you do not comply, I will find others to kill until you do.”

  “Okay. I’ll accept that threat is real for the moment. What does Inigo want with me?”

  “He doesn’t know yet. I am following orders from another source to bring you both together.”

  “Shit. Who wants that to happen?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Come on! Seriously, dude?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wow. So what do you expect us to do when we’re up and talking?”

  “I do not know. Those operational instructions will not activate until that stage of the mission has reached active status.”

  “You’re not human.”

  “I was.”

  Yep, very bad feeling. “I know of this kind of conditioning. The last time it was used on humans was by the Starflyer. And I’m pretty sure we got rid of that bastard.” Ozzie grinned evilly. “But you never know, do you?”

  “I do not know who I work for.”

  “So I have to take a chance, huh?”

  “Yes. And spare Corrie-Lyn’s life.”

  “Hmm. I guess the only reason your boss would get me and the dickhead messiah here together is if he or she or it thinks we can do something about the Void. And for that reason, and that alone, I’ll switch it off. I’m curious to see what you think I can do.” He directed his u-shadow to deactivate the device. “This will take a while.”

  “How long?”

  “I have no idea. Maybe half an hour. It’s never been switched off before.”

  “I will wait.”

  Ozzie watched him. The man wasn’t kidding. What followed was no vaguely awkward interval where they occasionally made eye contact and hurriedly looked away, nor was there any attempt to talk. He just stood there, his field scan sweeping around; otherwise he had no interest in
anything. That wasn’t human. His thought routines, such as they were, resembled machine code in their simplicity. In one respect that was a relief; Starflyer conditioning was different.

  After a while Ozzie felt mindspace withdrawing, collapsing in on itself. It was akin to closing down his gaiamotes. The minds glimmering all around him faded away, most of them expressing sorrow and alarm as they felt mindspace fading. The loss was more profound than he was expecting, even though he knew it was temporary. But he’d lived with and embraced mindspace for so long now that it was a part of his existence.

  “It’s done,” he said grimly, and pushed his hair back off his forehead. It had absorbed so much of the vapor thrown out by the water column, it had begun to sag and tangle in unpleasant rattails.

  A tic started on the man’s left cheek. Expression slowly emerged on his face, like color filling a penciled-in outline. He let out a long sigh, the kind a witness to something awful would make. “Okay, then, that’s good.”

  A thoroughly fascinated Ozzie gave him a very curious look. “What’s happening?” He had a strong urge to switch mindspace back on and feel the man’s thoughts again. But it would take days for the device to reestablish that state.

  “My normal thought routines are back.” The man gave Corrie-Lyn’s unconscious form a quizzical glance. “That ought to go down well in some parts.”

  “So what was firing away in your brain before?”

  “It’s a kind of minimal function mode, in case of neural injury.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “In my profession there’s a big chance my neural structure will suffer physical damage during a mission. This allows me to remain functional in adverse circumstances.”

  “Cool reboot. Uh, what adverse circumstances hit you here?”

  “The telepathy effect was affecting me in an unfortunate way.”

  “Right,” Ozzie drawled. “So who the hell are you, dude?”

  “Aaron.”

  “Okay. Top of the list, huh?”

  Aaron grinned. “Yes. And thank you for agreeing to meet with me. My minimal version doesn’t have a lot of tact.”

  “Man, that’s the biggest understatement I’ve heard in a century. But you said you’ve no idea why you’re here.”

  “Partially true. When Inigo wakes up, I’ll know what I have to ask the pair of you to do. I’m expecting it’ll be to stop the Void’s devourment phase.”

  “Oh, sure. I’ve got time before lunch. Shall I tell my superwarship crew to get ready to fly? Or are we going to sneak in through the back gate and steal the bad guys’ unguarded power supply?”

  Aaron smiled like a particularly tolerant parent. “Is that the back gate on the Dark Fortress?”

  “Man, I don’t like you.”

  “I appreciate that this isn’t easy.”

  “You have no idea.”

  Some mornings after she’d woken, Araminta would walk out onto the balcony overlooking the vast expanse of Golden Park to watch the sunrise, enjoying the first rays as they touched the tips of the white pillars along Upper Grove Canal. Over a thousand people were usually there to greet her with waves and cheers and thoughts of thanks directed through the gaiafield. They camped there overnight, much to the annoyance of the city authorities. But Araminta had told the Clerics to grant them permission to stay, knowing that the more people who were watching her, the less anyone could do anything about her. She still gifted everything she saw and heard and felt to the gaiafield, which had led to a storm of embarrassment the first few days as she used the toilet; she soon learned to stop gifting anything but sight at those times and was careful where she looked. She really didn’t want to think about what it was going to be like when it was her time of the month. Mercifully, it was a kind of mutual embarrassment, and no one who came into contact with her was crass enough to mention it.

  She was thankful for the control she could exert on her own mind (sometimes resorting to the mélange program for support); without that discipline, she would have been completely exposed to the impact of thoughts within the gaiafield. The thoughts of her devout followers she held back from, content simply to know their existence through the outpouring of gratitude. For everyone else, the deluge of emotion from the billions upon billions of humans who didn’t admire her, she kept herself as remote as possible. Even with that detachment it was impossible not to be aware of their hatred and vilification. Hour after unceasing hour she was subject to the superlative abuse and loathing of the majority of her entire species. The intensity was awesome in the extreme. They despised her as pure evil that had taken on human form. That was justified, she acknowledged weakly; after all, she was going to trigger the event that most likely was going to kill every single one of them.

  She gave the Golden Park crowd a swift wave of appreciation and went back inside. The pool in the bathroom was almost big enough to swim in, and of course no one from the Dreamer down to the Cleric Conservator had ever entertained the notion of installing a decent modern spore shower in an unobtrusive corner. If the residents of the state rooms wanted to get clean, they jolly well had to do it the old-fashioned way. Araminta walked down into the body-temperature water and started slathering on the liquid soap. All that ever did was make her think of Edeard and the string of floozies he’d enjoyed during the dark time that had befallen him in Dreams Thirty to Thirty-three. She ordered the shower on and sluiced the bubbles off, mildly worried about how similar the whole episode was to starring in a porn show.

  Sure enough, and despite her resolve, she could feel the physical admiration of male Living Dream members seeping into the gaiafield as the water ran across her skin—and no little amount of appreciation from females, either. Worse still, a lot of her foes were registering their enjoyment of her flesh.

  When this is over, I’m going to have to walk down the Silfen paths to the other side of the galaxy and live like a hermit forevermore. Her gaze was drawn down to the pendant as it dangled between her glistening breasts—Oh, Ozziecrapit, look away! It wasn’t warm, and the light inside was dim, as if a wisp of phosphorescence had been caged within the crystal, but it still made its presence known. On the other side of it was the infinite comfort and wisdom of the Silfen Motherholme. That at least gave her some reassurance she wasn’t entirely alone.

  Three Mr. Boveys smiled in gentle sympathy as they sat down to a late dinner at home.

  She ordered the shower off and stepped out of the pool. Then all she had to do was rub herself down with a towel, which she did while looking at the ceiling. A small growl came out of her throat as she grew cross with herself. She hurriedly struggled into her vest top and briefs, then slithered her long white robe on top. The belt had been modified by the palace security detail and contained a force field generator. They’d insisted, and she wasn’t going to argue. Dressed and chaste at last, she made her way through the long ornate halls to the state dining room.

  Underneath the glaring ceiling, the huge polished wooden table built for a hundred fifty guests was set for one. At least Edeard had Hilitte for company, she thought. And how would he have coped with body functions and sex and life in general if he’d ever known of his audience? She wasn’t sure if a table this size set for two was more or less ridiculous that it was with just her lonely cutlery. But then, Edeard often was joined by Dinlay for breakfast. All she had were five superefficient staff members to serve her anything she wanted from the bolnut veneer sideboard that was loaded with an authentic Edeard-style breakfast from the Thirty-third Dream. She remembered the later dreams when he’d been properly elected Mayor. He and Kristabel had never had breakfasts like that, but then, he’d never taken up residence in the state rooms then, either. Perhaps the palace staff members were being ironic; if so, the nuance was lost on her.

  Just to be difficult, she ordered a hot chocolate to have with her croissant. One of the girls in a maid’s uniform scurried off to the kitchens. As she tore the pastry open, Araminta reflected on how it would be nice to have someone the
re for company. She was a little sad that Cressida hadn’t been in touch, but she could certainly understand why her cousin wanted nothing to do with her.

  Her chocolate arrived in a huge cup, the top covered in whipped cream dotted with strawberry marshmallows. Darraklan walked in with the maid; he’d taken to wearing the long burgundy waistcoat, white shirt, and yellow drosilk cravat of the senior Orchard Palace personnel. He’d slipped very easily into the job of chief of staff, helping her settle in. “Good morning, Dreamer; Cleric Rincenso requests a moment of your time.”

  Araminta noticed that Darraklan didn’t have any gaiafield emission relating to the Cleric whatsoever. But then, in his own repellent ass-kissing way, Rincenso was also striving hard for favored status. She could use that; he’d want to score points by exposing any of his colleagues who doubted or schemed against her.

  “Show him in,” she said.

  The Cleric came into the dining room as the corona of Querencia’s sun erupted with flares all across the ceiling. The bright rippling light shining off his robes and highlighting his eager smile had an almost aquatic property. He bowed politely. “Dreamer.”

  Araminta gazed at him as she sipped her chocolate. It was delicious. Thank Ozzie, being a galaxy killer should have some perks, surely. “Did you find them for me?”

  “Yes, Dreamer. The women were at the mansion on Viotia. He was actually already here; our security services have been holding him.”

  “Why?”

  Rincenso’s smile became stretched. “It was thought he might be shielding you from our Welcome Team.”

  “Ah. He wasn’t. I eluded them by myself.” A pause for emphasis. “It wasn’t that difficult.”

  “Not for you, Dreamer.”

  He was so smooth, he almost spoiled the taste of the chocolate for her. “Is he here now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Bring him in.”

  Rincenso hesitated. “Dreamer, he was interrogated very thoroughly.”