‘My Lord,’ Ethan called with profound respect. ‘We need your help.’
The Skylord’s descent halted. Those dreaming the Skylord felt the mass of the planet press against the magnificent creature’s perception. In that way they knew the winds that blew across the Iguru Plain. Experienced the waves rolling lazily over the Lyot Sea towards the coast. And there, right underneath them, so tantalizingly close, the physical form of Makkathran’s buildings brushed against their consciousness. Each one exactly as it was in Inigo’s dreams.
Adoration and gratitude swelled out into the gaiafield, buoying Ethan’s thoughts along. ‘We seek to reach you. Show us the way to you, my Lord. Receive us.’
The dream shattered into a glorious pinnacle of agony. The Skylord’s magisterial thoughts were wrenched away by a terrible power.
‘NO!’ the Second Dreamer commanded amid the ruined bliss. ‘I am me.’
An infinite black surface swelled with malignant anger, sealing the gulf between the gaiafield and the Skylord.
Blinding pain seared deep into Ethan’s mind as the blackness snapped at him. He screamed, every muscle contorting to fling him out of his chair and fall into merciful unconscious.
Araminta woke with a gasp, shooting upright on the bed; heart racing and breath coming in judders. She instinctively applied the program’s knowledge again; settling her racing mind and quelling her body’s distress. It worked a treat.
What the fuck is it with that dream?
It had been quite pleasant to start with, drifting gently above a strange planet; warm sun on her back, mysterious continents rolling by underneath. Then something happened, a smothering sensation that triggered an adrenaline rush, and she had to thrash about, trying to wake herself. Push herself clear from that oppressive constriction. It was as if someone was trying to steal her soul. She yelled defiance at the dark force, and finally managed to wake.
Kicking and writhing around as she shouted. Surely? Yet actually all she seemed to have done was shuffle round a bit and sit up.
She looked about her in confusion. Likan’s boudoir was still illuminated by the same warm light. Nobody else was awake. Clemance was curled up beside her, one arm draped over her legs. The girl was stirring, blinking in confusion as Araminta moved. Araminta stroked her tangled hair and cheek, soothing her as she would a troubled child. A drowsy Clemance smiled worshipfully then closed her eyes again.
Araminta blew out an exasperated breath, and slowly sank back down. Despite the supple mattress her body was stressed tight – which would no doubt annoy Nifran. As she lay there rigid, she could hear two of the harem whimpering softly in their sleep. So she wasn’t the only one suffering a bad dream. She wondered if she should creep across the room to wake them. But eventually they subsided into a deeper sleep. Yet she still couldn’t relax and drop off. There was something scrabbling about in her subconscious that was unsettling her, an elusive memory she was trying to connect. Not the dream, something before that.
Once again, the program came to her aid. She cleared her mind and concentrated on her memories of the orgy. Physically, it had been hugely satisfying – no denying that. And the harem had delighted in teaching her a whole range of sensual acts which they and Likan enjoyed. But it was that ritual thing again; true passion had been missing, and with it the heat which came from abandoning herself the way she did with Bovey. This had been a little too much like mechanics, with all of them busy doing as Likan instructed.
Araminta sat up on the bed again, her skin cooling with shock. The memory of Likan and Marakata was perfectly clear in her mind, all thanks to his own wonderful program. And how’s that for irony. She thought it through again, then reviewed some other suspicious recollections before finally dropping her head into her hands and groaning in dismay. ‘Oh shit.’
True to her word, Helenna didn’t judge. She made no comment as the house emptied the drawers and closets, the clothes slithering away through the interstices between the rooms to fill her cases in the butler’s lodge. Araminta almost wanted to ask how many others she’d seen leave abruptly after a night with Likan. But that would have been unfair on both of them.
Her bedroom wound through the ovoid house, and opened a door on to the path which ran round the outside of the building. Dawn light was shining a murky grey off the placid lake. Two of the household’s smartly suited staff were loading her cases back into her carry capsule.
‘It’s a shame, sweetie,’ Helenna said. ‘I had you down as one who’d fit in easily here.’
‘Me too,’ Araminta said. Gave the maid a quick hug. ‘Thanks for everything.’
‘Hey, it was nice meeting you.’
Araminta turned and walked out of the bedroom. The door unrolled behind her.
‘Wait!’ Clemance called out. ‘You can’t leave!’ She was hurrying out of another door, ten metres away, trying to pull on a translucent wrap.
Likan walked behind her, considerably more composed in a thick dark-purple robe. ‘Not even going to say goodbye?’ he asked. There was a nasty frown on his puggish face.
‘The house’s net is active. You knew I was leaving. If you wanted to say anything before I left, you could,’ Araminta told him. ‘And here you are.’
‘Yes, here I am. I would like to know why you’re running out. I think I’m entitled after the offer I made you. I know you enjoyed yourself last night. So what is this?’
Araminta glanced at the distraught girl who was hovering between them, uncertain who to go to. ‘Are you sure?’
Likan took a step forward and put his arm around Clemance’s shoulder, helping to pull her wrap on. ‘I don’t keep anything from my wives.’
‘Even that they’re psychoneural profiled?’
His face remained impassive. ‘It was helpful to begin with.’
‘Helpful?’ she cried. ‘You had them bred to be your slaves. Profiling like that is illegal, it always has been. It’s a vile, inhuman thing to do. They don’t have a choice. They don’t have free will. It’s obscene! Why, for Ozzie’s sake? You don’t need to force people into your bed. I would have probably joined you. And I know there are thousands of others who’d love the chance. Why did you do it?’
Likan glanced down at Clemance with an almost paternal expression. ‘They were the first,’ he said simply.
‘First?’
‘Of my harem. I had to start it somewhere. It was the bootstrap principle.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘To start with, when you have nothing, you begin by pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. I needed to be him, to be Nigel Sheldon. He had a harem, therefore I had one. You don’t understand what that man was. He ruled hundreds of worlds, billions of people. I wasn’t joking when I called him an emperor. He was the greatest human who ever lived. I need to know how to think like he did.’ He almost ground the words out.
‘So you created slaves to achieve that?’
‘They’re not slaves. All of us are predisposed to various personality traits. The way they combine: that’s what makes us individuals. I just amplified a few of the behavioural attributes in the girls.’
‘Yeah: submissiveness! I watched them last night, Likan. They obeyed you like they were bots.’
‘The relationship is a lot more complex than that.’
‘That’s what it boils down to. Why didn’t you profile yourself to think like Sheldon? If you have to wreck somebody, why not yourself ?’
‘I have incorporated his known neural characteristics into my DNA. But a neural structure is only a vessel for personality. You need the environment as well. As complete as you can make it.’
‘Oh, for Ozzie’s sake! You have deliberately, maliciously bred slaves. And you think that’s an acceptable way to achieve what you are. That makes me sick. I don’t want any part of you or your perverted family. You won’t even let them go! Why don’t you remove their profiling when they go for rejuvenation treatment?’
‘I created them because of my b
elief, wrongly in your opinion; now you think they should be altered because of your belief. Does that strike you as slightly ironic? There’s an old saying that two wrongs don’t make a right. I take responsibility for my wives, especially the profiled ones – just as Sheldon would have done.’
Araminta glowered at him, then she switched her attention to Clemance, softening her expression to plead. ‘Come with me. Come away from here. It’s reversible. I can show you what it’s like to be free, to be truly human. I know you don’t believe me, but just please try. Try, Clemance.’
‘You’re such a fool,’ the girl said. She pressed harder into Likan. ‘I’m not profiled. I like this. I like being in the harem. I like the money. I like the life. I like that my children will rule whole planets. Without Likan, what will yours ever be?’
‘Themselves,’ Araminta said weakly.
Clemance gave her a genuinely pitying look. ‘That’s not good enough for me.’
Araminta raised an uncertain hand. ‘Is she … ?’
‘There were only ever three,’ Likan said. ‘Clemance is not one of them. Would you like to guess again?’
Araminta shook her head. She didn’t trust herself to speak. Marakata. Marakata is one, I know. Perhaps if I just .
‘Goodbye,’ Likan said.
Araminta climbed into the carry capsule, and told it to take her home.
*
Oscar had never thought he’d return to the very place where he died. Of course, he hadn’t expected to see Paula Myo again, either.
Just to make matters worse, enterprising Far Away natives had turned his last desperate hyperglide flight into a tourist attraction. Worse still, it was a failing attraction.
Still, at least Oscar had got to name the brand-new starship which ANA had delivered to Orakum for him, and without much thought went and called it the Elvin’s Payback. There was a large briefing file sitting in its smartcore, which he zipped through and sent a few queries to Paula, who by then was back in her own starship and en route to somewhere. She wouldn’t say where.
After he’d finished the file, one thing became very clear to him. Paula had severely overestimated his abilities. There were a lot of very powerful, very determined groups searching for the Second Dreamer. Now that might not have fazed Paula, but … ‘I’m only a pilot,’ he repeated to her when she called him on a secure TD channel and asked him why he was flying to Far Away. She hadn’t said she could track the Elvin’s Payback, but somehow he wasn’t surprised.
‘I’m going to need help. And as you trust me, so I trust someone else.’ He got an evil little buzz out of not telling her who. Though he suspected she would know – it was hardly hyperspace science.
He landed at Armstrong City starport, which was a huge field to the north-east of the city itself with four big terminal buildings handling passenger flights and a grid of warehouses where the freighters came and went. He picked out a parking pad out near the fence, away from any real activity. As the starship descended he swept its visual sensors across the ancient city that spread back from the shore of the North Sea. Inevitably, there was a dense congregation of tall towers and pyramids above the coast; while broad estates of big houses swamped the land behind. It was all a lot more chaotic than the layout of most Commonwealth cities, which he rather enjoyed. He was looking for a glimpse of Highway One, the historic road where his friends had chased the Starflyer to its doom. All that remained now was a long, fat urban strip following the old route as it struck out for miles across the Great Iril Steppes, as if city buildings were seeking to escape from their historical anchor at the centre. Like every Commonwealth world, Far Away’s ground traffic was now a shrinking minority. The sky above the city swarmed with regrav capsules.
Oscar floated down out of the airlock underneath the Elvin’s Payback, and stood once more on the ground of Far Away. For some ridiculous reason he was trembling. He took a long moment, breathing in the air, then moved away from the starship. His feet pushed gently on the short grass, sending his body gliding in a short arc in the low gravity. He’d forgotten how enjoyable that part of this world was, those soar-lope steps were a freedom like having teenage hormones again.
Once he’d cleared the starship he stopped and turned a full circle. There was the city skyline on one side, some distant mountains. Nothing he recognized. Apart from the glorious sapphire sky. Thankfully, that had remained the same, as the planet’s biosphere slowly regenerated with the new plants and creatures which humans had brought to this world.
Warm sea air gusted constantly from the passage of starships using the terminals, ruffling his hair. It was all very different to Orakum’s main starport which he flew from, and had barely fifty flights a day. But then Far Away was the self-proclaimed capital of the External Worlds; the planet which had refused political and economic integration with the Greater Commonwealth. Even today, it was technically only an affiliate member. Its staunch independence had inspired a whole generation of newly settled worlds after the Starflyer War. The political will, coupled with the end of CST’s transport monopoly which the starships brought, allowed the first cultural division to open within Commonwealth society as a whole. As the Sheldon Dynasty made biononics available, starting Higher culture, so Far Away’s Barsoomians introduced genetic improvements which took the human body far beyond its natural meridian, developing into the Advancer movement. After that, Far Away with its fierce libertarianist tradition declared itself the ideological counterweight to Earth and ANA. The Commonwealth’s Senators might regard the notion with their ancient wise distain, but Far Away’s citizens believed their own destiny.
Oscar smiled at the busy city as he experienced the emotional tide of the local gaiafield. Even that had a stridency which celebrated the stubbornness of the inhabitants. His u-shadow opened a channel to the planetary cybersphere, and called a one-time address code he’d been given eighty-six years earlier, on the day he emerged from the re-life clinic. To his surprise, it was answered immediately.
‘Yes?’
‘I need to see you,’ Oscar said. ‘I have a problem and I need help sorting it out.’
‘Who the fuck are you, and how did you steal this code?’
‘I am Oscar Monroe, and this code was given to me. Some time ago.’
There was a long pause, though the channel remained open.
‘If you are an impostor, you have one chance to walk away, and that chance is now.’
‘I know who I am,’ Oscar said.
‘We’ll know if you are.’
‘Good.’
‘Very well. Be at the Kime Sanctuary on top of Mount Herculaneum in one hour. One of us will meet you.’
The channel went dead. Oscar grinned. He shouldn’t be all fired up by this, he really shouldn’t.
His u-shadow contacted a local hire company, and he rented a high-performance ingrav capsule. Given who he was going to meet, he didn’t want to risk technology leakage by arriving in an ultradrive ship.
The capsule bounced him over to Mount Herculaneum in a semi-ballistic lob that took twenty-eight minutes. The last time he’d seen the colossal volcano was the day he died by crashing into its lower slopes. Today, his arrival was all a lot more comfortable. The capsule shot out of the upper atmosphere, and followed the planet’s curvature southwest. He watched through the sensors as the Grand Triad rose up out of the horizon. They were still the biggest mountains to be found on an H-congruous world. On a planet with a standard gravity, they would have collapsed under their own weight, but here they had kept on growing as the magma pushed further and further upwards. Mount Herculaneum, the biggest, stood thirty-two kilometres high, its plateau summit rising high above Far Away’s troposphere. Northwards, Mount Zeus topped out at seventeen kilometres. While south of Herculaneum, Mount Titan reached twenty-three kilometres high; it was the only one of the Triad to remain active.
Oscar’s capsule rode a tight curve above the sea-like grasslands of the Aldrin Plains before it began to sink back down again.
The view was magnificent, with the vast cone of Herculaneum spread out below him. Its plateau of grubby brown regolith was broken by twin calderas. Around that, naked rock dropped down to the glacier ring far below, before the lower slopes were finally smothered in pine forests and low meadowland. Luckily for him, Titan was semi-active today. He looked down almost vertically into its glowing red crater, watching the slow-motion ripples spreading out across the huge lake of lava. Radiant white boulders spat upwards out of the inferno to traverse lazy arcs through the vacuum, spitting off orange sparks. Some of them were flung far enough to clear the crater wall and begin their long fall to oblivion.
His sight was inevitably drawn to the long funnel canyon between Zeus and Titan which led to the base of Hercula-neum. Stakeout canyon, where the storm winds coming off the Hondu Ocean were funnelled into a rampaging blast of air, which the insane thrill seekers of the early Commonwealth used to fly their hypergliders along, allowing them to sail on winds so strong they’d push them out of the atmosphere and over Herculaneum. He’d never got to attempt that last part, because he crashed his hyperglider into Anna, so Wilson might stand a chance to reach the summit.
Even though he’d braced himself for some emotional shockwave at seeing the site of his death, he felt nothing more than a mild curiosity. That must mean I’m perfectly adjusted to this new life. Right?
As he looked along the long rocky cleft in the ground, his exovision pulled up meteorological data and a file telling him that the winds now were never as strong as they had been a thousand years ago. Terraforming had successfully calmed Far Away’s atmosphere. Hypergliding was just a legend now.
The capsule took him down to a big dome situated right on the eastern edge of Mount Herculaneum’s plateau, where the cliffs of Aphrodite’s Seat began their sheer eight-kilometre fall. There was a pressure field over the entrance to the dome’s landing chamber, a big metal cave with enough room for twenty passenger capsules. It only had two resting inside, with another five ordinary capsules parked nearby.
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