Silverbird’s last hundred meters was a perfect landing profile, slowing to relative zero velocity ten meters above the wild vegetation. Then a half-meter-a-second descent until the landing legs touched. Spongy layers of leaves and moss and grass compressed, and only then, when the base of each leg registered and confirmed solid contact, did the regrav units shut off.
As if in sympathy, power dropouts bloomed all over the starship. Justine really didn’t care. This had been nothing like as traumatic or dramatic as her touchdown on the replica Mount Herculaneum.
“Houston,” she said solemnly to the silent cabin. “This is Golden Park base. The Silverbird has landed.”
Araminta had remained on the observation deck of the Lady’s Light right from the start of the Pilgrimage. The room was as big as the Malfit Hall back in the Orchard Palace and twice as high. Its floor was empty apart from a chair and a bed that had been brought in at her request. Araminta used the chair as little as possible, preferring to stand and stare ahead through the vast transparent section of fuselage. There was nothing to see; there hadn’t been since hyperspace had enfolded the massive ship. It was blank outside, with the occasional cascade of blue sparks slipping across the surrounding pseudofabric their ultradrive was creating. Imperfections within the quantum field interstice, Taranse had explained when she’d asked what they were. What caused such imperfections he didn’t say and probably didn’t know. She rather liked them; they provided the illusion that some material substance was outside, with the twinkling flaws registering their progress through it.
For five days she watched the nothingness flow past, gifting it to the billions of her followers back in the Greater Commonwealth. On the sixth day Araminta began to cry. Tears rolled down her cheeks as her shoulders quaked. The sorrow she radiated out into the gaiafield was so profound that the majority of beholders began to weep in sympathy. They were aghast, flooding the gaiafield with concern. “What’s wrong?” they asked in their bewildered billions, for nothing and nobody was in the observation deck with her. “We love you, Dreamer.” “Can we help?” “Let us help, please.”
Araminta gave them no response. She stood resolute in front of the disintegrating flecks of light, mute and distraught. Her personal staff members were dismissed with a curt gesture when they ventured out onto the sleek expanse of floor. Even the loyal Darraklan was sent away without a word.
Inevitably, as she knew he would, Ethan appeared and began the lonely walk toward her. Those sharing her dismay felt the anguish recede as she straightened herself. She made no attempt to wipe the tears from her eyes. Then her followers were standing on soft grassy land that fell away to a shoreline encased by high dunes. Sunlight shimmered off the idle waves that spanned the ocean’s clear waters. A Silfen stood before her, majestic and ominous with his dark leather wings extended, tail poised high. “You can do this,” he assured her.
“I know.”
The pendant around her neck flared with the joyous azure light of affirmation. And there was Ethan standing in front of her on the observation deck, his eyes narrowed against the cold light radiating from the pendant on its slim chain that now rested outside her white robe.
“Second Dreamer,” he said formally.
“Cleric Ethan.”
The absolute hatred directed by the followers of Living Dream at their ex-Conservator was staggering in its passion. He hesitated, then recovered with a sure smile that simply confirmed his dishonor before his audience.
“Perhaps you would like to tell your people what dismays you so,” he suggested smoothly.
“Are you aware?” she asked.
“Yes, Dreamer.”
“There is only one person in the universe who could have told you.”
“Indeed. However, the messenger is not important. What she told me is.”
“In this case the message and the messenger are one, nor is the method by which the message was procured insignificant. She is the cause.”
“Nonetheless, she has named you false.”
“Ilanthe lies. That is what she is now. The serpent among us all.”
“Is it true? Are you many?”
“I am.”
“Then I must question your intent.”
“Of course you must. Yet I will keep my word. I will lead this Pilgrimage into the Void as I promised.”
“You seek to thwart us,” he spit.
“I seek our true destiny. I seek to avoid the folly and fate of the Last Dream for the devout. I seek the Void’s own fulfillment.”
“By allowing those who would destroy it to enter. That cannot happen.”
“I tell you now what I told Ilanthe and what I have also told Inigo. Our fate will be decided within the Void. It will be decided by the Void. Not by you or anyone else. I have been chosen as the instrument to open a path into the Void; that is all. I am not a gatekeeper. All those who seek their fulfillment, whatever its nature, are free to enter the Void. Simply because their vision is different from yours and that of Living Dream does not entitle me to deny them passage. I do not judge, Cleric. Unlike you, I do not consider myself infallible.”
Ethan’s uncertainty couldn’t have been more apparent if he’d allowed it to shine out through his gaiamotes. “You have spoken to Inigo?”
“We are both Dreamers. We are together even now. Didn’t your dearest Ilanthe tell you that?”
“Ilanthe is no friend of mine.”
“And yet you defer to it, whatever it is, whatever it seeks. The Dreamer Inigo released the Last Dream as a warning. Do you really think that dreary destiny of bored supermen is one to which we should aspire for our children?”
“I believe we have the right to choose our future. I wish to live my life on Querencia and achieve fulfillment and be guided to the Heart. You and Oscar and Aaron are trying to prevent that.”
Araminta gave him an icy smile. “Sometimes to do what’s right you have to do what’s wrong.”
Ethan glanced about the massive observation deck as if seeking allies. “If you deny us the Void, it will go badly for you. That I promise. My life has been given to serving Living Dream. All I have done, all I have sacrificed, has led to the launch of this Pilgrimage. I will not tolerate betrayal.”
“You will enter the Void, Cleric. You will yet walk upon Querencia. You have my word on it. Now, why don’t you go and ask Ilanthe what future she desires for all of us. Or perhaps she doesn’t trust you enough to answer.”
He nodded impersonally. “As you say, the Void will ultimately triumph. I don’t worry about Ilanthe’s intent. What any of us do, our petty schemes and conspiracies, is an irrelevance in the face of the Void’s majesty.”
“I’m glad we are as one in that view. Now, don’t bother me again.” She turned away from him and waited. Finally, she heard him walk away.
The gaiafield was awash with confusion and dismay. Her followers needed her to explain what was happening, what the Dreamer Inigo was doing.
“You’ll see,” she assured them. “In the Void there will be truth.”
It was a yellow star whose meager family of planets consisted of a couple of airless solid worlds and a single gas giant that boasted over twenty moons. None of them had ever had a chance to evolve life; wrong orbits and lack of volatile organic chemicals had seen to that. Now they were just circling endlessly, waiting for the star to run through its main sequence and inflate into a red giant, devouring them all.
Mellanie’s Redemption emerged from hyperspace eighty million kilometers from the star and immediately activated its stealth systems. Inside the overcrowded cabin the mood was bleak. Oscar wasn’t sure he could take many more emotional swings on this kind of scale. Abandoning poor Cheriton to the Cat had been tough on them all, though strangely, Araminta-two had been the most affected. Tears had streamed down his face as the starship fled from the Spike. No amount of comforting from Inigo and Corrie-Lyn had helped.
Then both Dreamers had abruptly joined in surprise as Justine’s dream of land
ing at Makkathran came rushing through whatever tenuous contact they had with the Void.
“She made it,” Beckia exclaimed in surprise as the Silverbird touched down gently in Golden Park and the dream faded.
“Never expected her to do anything less,” Oscar said. “I remember her from my first life. The Burnellis were a formidable lot.”
“Is she part of your plan?” Tomansio asked Aaron.
“Not as far as I know. Her voyage certainly doesn’t trigger any alternatives or imperatives. We proceed as agreed.”
“Okay. Troblum, how long does this thing take?”
Oscar was interested to see that Catriona had gone away during the short flight. Once he was on his own, Troblum hadn’t said ten words to them, and there certainly hadn’t been anything given away from his gaiamotes. In fact, Oscar wasn’t certain Troblum had gaiamotes.
“I’ll bring the device up to active status now,” Troblum said.
“Great. So how long?”
“The wormhole parameter will have to be reformatted. I was working on that during the flight. Loading it in shouldn’t take more than a quarter of an hour. After that, we simply have to launch it into the star.”
“How long, then?”
“That depends on the distance we launch from. The smartcore is reviewing the corona’s radiant output for a definitive safe distance, but I’d say it’ll be about a million kilometers. The device itself will activate when it reaches the upper corona. It only needs a reasonably dense plasma layer to initiate a chain-reaction propagation within the quantum instability. I based that part of it on our standard novabomb.”
“Troblum. How long until the wormhole forms? From right now?”
Oscar was seriously impressed by Tomansio’s restraint.
“Oh. About twenty-five minutes.”
“Good work,” Aaron said, obviously amused by Tomansio’s suppressed frustration. “And how far will the new wormhole reach?”
“I think, now I’ve got the new profile, twenty-eight thousand light-years.”
“That’ll put us twelve to fifteen thousand light-years ahead of the Pilgrimage fleet,” Araminta-two said. “Will that give you enough time?” she asked Aaron.
“All I know is we have to get to Makkathran.”
Oscar gave him a considered look. “Gore was adamant that Justine go to Makkathran.”
“It’s the one place we know for sure is H-congruous inside the Void.”
“Gore told her that after she landed on the replica Far Away.”
“His actual words were ‘that’s where humans are centered in the Void,’ ” Beckia said. “Which is logical. It is where everyone is going.”
“I bet Ilanthe isn’t,” Corrie-Lyn grunted.
“We don’t know if the replica Far Away is still there,” Tomansio said. “Justine reset the Void to before she dreamed of it.”
“I think you’re all overreacting,” Inigo said. “Or at least reading too much into this. Makkathran as a destination isn’t coincidence, exactly, but there wasn’t a whole lot of choice involved in either case.”
“Do you ever remember meeting Gore?” Liatris asked Aaron.
“I don’t remember anything.”
Liatris showed a modicum of unease. “He did kill your father.”
“Irrelevant.”
“Bruce McFoster was a Starflyer agent when Gore eliminated him,” Tomansio said. “The actual Bruce was killed years before when he was taken captive by the Starflyer.”
“But you have to admit the coincidences are starting to—”
“Uh oh,” Araminta-two said.
Everyone was still as he gifted them the scene in the observation deck of the Lady’s Light, where a determined Ethan was walking toward her. As the confrontation unfolded, Inigo put his arm around Araminta-two’s shoulder. “I am here,” he whispered, pushing his support through the gaiafield union. “Show him no weakness. You are the Dreamer now. You are right in your belief. It is the Void which will decide this for all of us.”
Oscar drew a sharp breath as the winged Silfen shimmered within his thoughts. Bradley, he knew, and smiled. Way to go, man. You look great.
A thwarted Ethan walked away. Everyone in the Mellanie’s Redemption’s cabin burst into spontaneous applause. After a moment, even Troblum joined in.
So he does have gaiamotes, Oscar thought.
Araminta-two smiled around sheepishly. “Thank you,” he told Inigo. Corrie-Lyn gave him a swift kiss.
“Troblum,” Tomansio said. “Let’s get going.”
“The device is almost at active status. Another five minutes.”
Aaron smiled encouragement.
Troblum’s tentative humor faded away. His big round face paled. “Oh, no,” he gasped.
Oscar’s u-shadow was pulling sensor imagery from the starship’s smartcore. Troblum had permitted everyone a general-level access.
A sleek-looking ultradrive ship not too dissimilar to the Elvin’s Payback had emerged ten kilometers away. It opened a communication link. Oscar’s shoulders slumped. He knew.
“Hello, my dears,” said the Cat.
A pulse of pure misery swept through the cabin.
“What kind of defenses have we got?” Aaron asked.
Troblum shook his head. He was close to tears.
“Weapons?”
Troblum started trembling. His legs gave way, and he sank to his knees. “I can’t let her capture me. I can’t.”
“What do you want?” Oscar asked the Cat. If it was dead, they would’ve been that already.
“That’s a whole load of talent you’ve got on board there with you, Oscar, my dear. It’s not often I’m impressed, but just this once I’m going to admit it. You did good.”
“What have you done to Cheriton?” Corrie-Lyn demanded.
“Don’t interrupt the grown-ups,” the Cat said. “You’ll get a smack where it hurts most for that.”
Oscar made a frantic cutting hand signal at Corrie-Lyn. She gave him a disgusted glare.
“You told Ilanthe about us,” Oscar said.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Did that spoil things? I thought you dealt with that little shit Ethan quite beautifully, Araminta.”
“What do you want?”
“You know that, Oscar. Same thing I always do: some fun.”
“We’ll invite you to the victory party.”
“Don’t push your luck. The Void is where this is all going to finish. I need to be a part of that, and you’re going to take me there.”
“What is Ilanthe doing?” Oscar asked.
“She’s set her little metal heart on something called Fusion.”
“No,” Araminta-two said. “It’s not that. She has become something other.”
“Then you’ll be able to ask her yourself soon enough, won’t you?”
“Can the Cat affect us once we’re inside the Void?” Aaron asked Inigo.
“You mean apart from blowing us all to shit?”
“Surely your mind is stronger.”
Inigo gave Araminta-two a worried look; he looked equally alarmed.
“I just don’t know.”
“Oscar, my dear, it’s rude to keep a lady waiting.”
Oscar didn’t know what the hell to do apart from using the obvious smart-ass answer, which in this case might just prove terminal. And nobody was offering any suggestions. Suddenly he was flinching, cowering halfway to the decking. Space outside was ablaze with hard radiation as a range of enormously powerful weapons were fired. His u-shadow reran events, analyzing it in millisecond increments. He saw another ultradrive starship materialize directly between the Cat’s ship and Mellanie’s Redemption. It opened fire instantaneously at the same time its force field expanded, deflecting the Cat’s return salvo away from Mellanie’s Redemption.
A communication channel opened.
“Oscar, get the hell out of there,” Paula said. “Leave the Cat to me.”
“Go,” Oscar screamed at Troblum.
For th
e second time in an hour, the Mellanie’s Redemption fled into hyperspace.
“You’re going to deal with me?” the Cat asked. There was a mocking tone in the voice.
Paula was frantically reviewing the Alexis Denken’s defense status. The force fields were struggling under the energy impact of their first weapons exchange. Whatever the Cat’s ship was equipped with, it was stronger than she had expected. The beam weapons were somehow transferring some of their energy through hyperspace, circumventing the force fields. Local gravity was doing strange things, its twists exerting unnatural stresses throughout the Alexis Denken that the onboard compensators weren’t designed to cope with.
“Always do,” Paula sent back. On her instruction, the smartcore fired a couple of quantumbusters. They shot away, accelerating at two hundred gees. “And this is the last time.” The quantumbusters went active. Eighty kilometers away, the small chunk of astroidal rubble they targeted was less than thirty meters in diameter. The entire mass was converted directly into energy in the form of ultrahard radiation. For a microsecond its output rivaled that of the nearby star.
Exovision warnings leaped up as the force fields strained to deflect the appalling radiation torrent. Paula sent the starship back into hyperspace and flashed toward the gas giant. The Cat came after her. Neither was making any attempt at stealth.
Fifty thousand kilometers above the seething pink and gray cloudscape, Paula stopped, and the Alexis Denken hung in transdimensional suspension while the force field generators began to stabilize.
One of the gas giant’s large outer moons exploded. A quantumbuster had converted a couple of its more substantial craters directly into energy, a detonation big enough to fracture the moon down to its core. The entire globe ruptured, with vast segments moving ponderously apart while a billion rock fragments came tumbling out of the expanding fissures into the outburst of raw energy. The physical damage was an irrelevancy. The quantumbuster had a diverted energy function, shunting a high percentage of the explosion’s power into hyperspace.
Paula went flying painfully across the cabin as the colossal exotic energy wave smashed into the starship. Alexis Denken fell back into spacetime as its overstressed ultradrive failed. Outside, the remnants of the moon were creating a giant translucent shock sphere twenty thousand kilometers across that glowed an ominous spectral blue as it inflated at half lightspeed. The Cat’s ship came streaking out of the garish aurora, force fields glimmering a malevolent crimson as it headed straight for the Alexis Denken. Dark missiles punched forward at a hundred gees.
The Void Trilogy 3-Book Bundle Page 208
