“I haven’t seen any decent clothes in weeks,” she protested. “I just lost track of time, that’s all. I didn’t mean to be late. Besides, I thought you got wounded before the scheduled rendezvous.”
He closed his eyes in despair. “Corrie-Lyn, if you’re on a combat mission, you don’t call a fucking time out to go shopping. Understand?”
“You never said combat. A quick raid sneaking into their vault, you said. ”
“For future reference, a covert mission in which all sides are armed is a combat situation.”
She pulled a face. “Nothing they have will be a match for my biononics?”
“I never said that.”
“Yes you did.”
“I…” He let out a breath and made an effort to stay calm. Yoga. She always made us do yoga. It was fucking stupid.
Corrie-Lyn was frowning at him. “You okay? You need to get back in the chamber?”
“I’m fine. Look, thank you for picking me up. I know this kind of thing is not what your life is about.”
“You’re welcome,” she said gruffly.
“Please tell me we still have the memorycell.”
Corrie-Lyn produced a minx smile and held up the little plastic kube. “We still have the memorycell.”
“Thank Ozzie for that.” His u-shadow told the smartcore to show him the ship’s log; he wanted to check how much effort had been made to try and track them. Since they’d left Anagaska in a hurry, several starships had run sophisticated hysradar scans out to several lightyears—but nobody could spot an ultradrive ship in transdimensional suspension. The log also recorded that Corrie-Lyn had managed to circumvent the lock-out he’d placed on the culinary unit to prevent it making alcoholic drinks. Now really wasn’t the time to make an issue of it.
“Okay,” he told her. “I don’t think anyone’s spotted us. Though there were some mighty interesting comings and goings just after our raid. Several ships with unusual quantum signatures popped out of hyperspace above Anagaska; the smartcore thinks they might be ultradrives in disguise.”
“Who would they be?”
“Don’t know. And don’t intend to hang around to ask. Let’s get going.”
“Finally.”
He held his hand out, carefully maintaining a neutral expression.
Corrie-Lyn gave the kube a sentimental look, and took a while to drop it into his palm. “I’m not sure I like the idea of you reading Inigo’s mind.”
“I’m not going to. Memory assimilation isn’t like accessing a sensory drama off the Unisphere, nor accepting experiences through the gaiafield. A genuine memory takes a long time to absorb. You can compress it down from real time, but still this kube contains nearly forty years of his life. That would take months to shunt into a human brain; it’s one of the governing factors in creating re-life clones. If we’re going to find him before the Pilgrimage, we don’t have that much time to spare.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“Take it to someone who can absorb it a lot quicker than I can, and ask nicely.”
“You just said human brains can’t absorb stored memories that quickly.”
“So I did. Which is why we’re setting course for the High Angel.”
Corrie-Lyn looked shocked. “The Raiel starship?”
“Yes.”
“Why would the Raiel help you?”
He smiled at the kube. “Let’s just say that we now have an excellent bargaining point.”
***
Corrie-Lyn didn’t have the kind of patience for extensive research. Aaron had to fill in the decades and centuries she skipped through when she started to access the files her u-shadow trawled up on the Raiel. Humans discovered the High Angel back in 2163, he explained, when a wormhole was opened in its star system to search for any H-congruous planets. CST’s exploratory division quickly confirmed there was no worlds that humans could live on, but the astronomers did notice a microwave signal coming from the orbit of the gas-giant Icalanise.
“What’s that got to do with angels?” she asked. “Were they all religious?”
“Not astronomers, no.”
When they focused their sensors on the microwave source they saw a moonlet sixty-three kilometres long with what looked like wings of hazy pearl light. The wings of an angel.
“Sounds like they were religious to me, if that’s the first thing they think of.”
Aaron groaned. With more sensors urgently brought on line, the true nature of the artefact was revealed. A core of rock sprouting twelve stems which supported vast domes, five of which had transparent cupola. Cities and parkland were visible inside.
It was a starship; a living creature, or a machine which had evolved into sentience. Origin unknown, and it wasn’t telling. Several species lived in the domes. Only the Raiel consented to talk to humanity, and they didn’t say very much.
Several of the biggest astroengineering companies negotiated a lease on three of the domes, and the High Angel became a dormitory town for an archipelago of microgravity factory stations producing some of the Commonwealth’s most advanced, and profitable, technology. The workforce and their families soon grew large enough to declare autonomy (with High Angel’s approval) qualifying for a seat in the Senate.
With the outbreak of the Starflyer war, High Angel became the Commonwealth’s premier Navy base while the astroengineering companies turned their industrial stations over to warship production. More domes were grown, or extruded, or magically manifested into existence to accommodate the Navy personnel. Still nobody understood the High Angel’s technology.
“Do we know more about it now?” she asked.
“Not really. ANA might; the Central worlds can duplicate some functions with biononics; but the External worlds haven’t managed to produce anything like it.”
Humans, he told her, had to wait for two hundred years after the War before the massive alien starship’s history became a little clearer. Wilson Kime’s epic voyage in the Endeavour to circumnavigate the galaxy revealed the existence of the Void to the Commonwealth, complete with Centurion Station and the Raiel defence systems maintaining the Wall stars. Other Navy exploration ships discovered more High Angel class ships; the one species common to each of them was the Raiel. At which point the Raiel.
Confronted with that evidence, the Raiel finally explained that they created the High Angel-class of ships over a million years ago while their species was at its apex. It was a golden age, when the Raiel civilization spread across thousands of planets; they mixed with hundreds of other sentients, guided and observed as dozens of species transcended to a post-physical state. They even knew the Silfen before their Motherholme dreamed its paths into existence.
Then the Void underwent one of its periodic expansion phases. Nothing the Raiel could do stopped the barrier from engulfing entire star clusters. Gravity shifted around the galactic core as stars were torn down into the event horizon. The effect on civilizations just outside the Wall stars was catastrophic. Stars shifted position as the core gravity field fluctuated; their planets changed orbits. Thousands of unique biospheres were lost before evolution had any real chance to flourish. Whole societies had to be evacuated before stormfronts of ultra-hard radiation that measured thousands of lightyears across came streaming out into the base of the galaxy’s spiral arms.
After it was all over. After rescue and salvage operations that went on for millennia, the Raiel declared that the Void could no longer be tolerated. The Firstlife who had created it while the galaxy was still in its infancy clearly didn’t recognize the horrendous consequences it would have on those who lived after their era. The Raiel created an armada of ships that could function in any quantum state which theoretically might exist within the Void. And they invaded. A hundred thousand ships surrounded the terrible barrier and flew inside, ready for anything.
None returned.
The Void remained unbroken.
What was left of the once colossal Raiel civilization launched a rear
guard action. A defence system to reinforce the Wall stars was built in the small hope it might contain the next macro-expansion. More ships were created to act as arks for emergent species, carrying them away from the doomed galaxy across the greater gulf outside where they could re-establish themselves on new worlds in peaceful star clusters. It was the last act of beneficence from a race that had failed its ultimate challenge. If they couldn’t save the galaxy, the Raiel swore they would endure to the bitter end, shepherding entities less capable than themselves to safety.
“That’s not a version of history I can believe in,” Corrie-Lyn said softly as the file images shrank to the centre of the cabin and vanished. “It’s very hard for me to accept the Void as something hostile when I know the beauty which lies within.” She took a sip of her hot chocolate and brandy, curling up tighter on the couch.
“That version?” Aaron queried from the other side of the cabin.
“Well it’s not as if we can ever verify it, is it?”
“Unless I’ve got a false memory, you’ve got nearly six hundred years of human observations from Centurion Station to confirm the very unnatural way in which the barrier consumes star systems. And who was it now that took some of them? Oh yes, that’s right: Inigo himself.”
“Yes, but this whole crusading armada claim? Come on. A hundred thousand ships with weapons that can crunch up entire stars. Where are they? None of Inigo’s Dreams showed the smallest relic.”
“Dead. Vaporized into component atoms and consumed like every other particle of matter that passes through the barrier.” He paused, slightly troubled. “Except for the human ship which got through and landed on Querencia.”
“Pretty crappy tactics for a species of self-proclaimed masterminds. Didn’t they think of sending a scout or two in first?”
“Maybe they did. You can ask when we get to the High Angel.”
She gave him a pitying look. “If they even let us dock.”
“Oh ye of little faith.”
***
The Artful Dodger fell back into spacetime ten thousand kilometres from the High Angel. Icalanise was waxing behind the alien starship, a horned crescent of warring topaz and platinum storm-bands. Four small black circles were strung out along the equator, the tip of the umbra cones projected by a conjunction cluster of its thirty-eight moons.
Several sensor sweeps flashed across the starship. High Angel still hosted a large Commonwealth Navy presence. The base Admiral took security seriously. A fresh identity complete with official certification was already loaded into the smartcore for examination. Aaron’s u-shadow requested docking permission with the New Glasgow dome for the Alini. They received almost immediate approach authority.
The archipelago of industrial stations glided lazily along a thousand-kilometre orbit, forming a dense loop of silver specks round the High Angel. Service shuttles zipped between them and the human-inhabited domes, collecting advanced technology and materials for forward shipment to the External Worlds where such systems were still prized. “How about that,” Aaron muttered appreciatively as he accessed the ship’s sensor imagery. “An angel with a halo.”
“You can take religious analogies too far,” Corrie-Lyn chided.
There were seventeen domes rising out of the core’s rocky surface now. The six occupied by humans all had crystal cupolas, allowing them to see the cities and parkland inside. Four of the remainder were also transparent to a degree; the spectra of alien suns shone out of them, following their own diurnal cycles. Strange city silhouettes could be seen parked on the landscapes within. At night they would shine with enticing colourful light points. One of those belonged to the Raiel. The remaining domes were closed to external observation, and neither High Angel or the Raiel would discuss their residents.
Following Aaron’s instruction, the starship’s smartcore aimed a communication maser at the Raiel dome. “I would like permission to dock at the Raiel dome, please,” Aaron said. “There is a resident I wish to speak to.”
“That is an unusual request for a private individual,” the High Angel replied with the voice of a human male. “I can speak on behalf of the Raiel.”
“Not good enough. You’re aware of the nature of this ship?”
“I do recognize it. Very few of ANA’s ultradrive vessels have ever come into my proximity; the technology is extremely sophisticated. You must be one of its representatives.”
“Something like that, and I need to speak with a specific Raiel.”
“Very well. I am sending you a new flight path, please follow it.”
“Thank you. The Raiel I’d like to meet is Qatux.”
“Of course.”
The Artful Dodger changed course slightly, curving round the massive dark rock of the High Angel’s core towards the stem of the Raiel dome. Large dark ovals were positioned at the base, just before the point where the pewter-coloured shaft fused with the rock crust. One of the ovals dematerialized, revealing a featureless white chamber beyond. The Artful Dodger nosed inside, and the outer wall rematerialized behind it.
“Please stand by for teleport,” the High Angel said.
Corrie-Lyn looked very startled.
“Once again,” Aaron said. “And yet still without any hope of you paying the slightest attention: let me do the talking.”
Her mouth opened to answer.
The cabin vanished, immediately replaced by a broad circular space with a floor that glowed a pale emerald. If there was a ceiling it was invisible somewhere in the gloom far above. An adult Raiel was standing right in front of them. Corrie-Lyn gasped and almost stumbled. Aaron hurriedly reached out and caught her arm. He didn’t have any memory of being on Earth and using the planetary T-sphere, but the abrupt translation was about what he’d expected.
“Dear Ozzie,” Corrie-Lyn grunted.
“I hope you are not too shocked,” the Raiel said in its mellow whisper.
Aaron bowed formally. The Raiel was as big as all the adults of its species, larger than a terrestrial elephant, with a grey-brown skin that bristled with thick hairs. Not that Aaron was an expert, but this one looked like an exceptionally healthy specimen. From the front its bulbous head was surrounded by a collar of tentacle limbs; with a thick pair at the bottom, four metres long and tipped with segmented paddles which were intended for heavy work. The remaining limbs were progressively smaller up to a clump of slender manipulators resembling particularly sinuous serpents. Each side of its head had a cluster of five small hemispherical eyes that swivelled in unison. Below them on the underside of the head, the skin creased up into a number of loose folds to form the mouth zone. When it spoke, Aaron could just glimpse deep wet crevices and even a row of sharp brown fangs.
“No, that’s fine,” Corrie-Lyn stammered. She remembered her manners and dipped her head awkwardly.
“I have not met humans in the flesh for some time,” said Qatux in its sad-sounding whisper. “I was curious. I didn’t realize my name was still known to you.”
“I’m afraid I only know your name, nothing more,” said Aaron. “But I thank you for agreeing to see us.”
“My part in your history was brief. I took part in a human expedition during the Starflyer War. I had friends. Human friends, which is unusual for a Raiel, then as now. Tell me, do you know of Paula Myo?”
Aaron was surprised when his heart did a little jump at the name. Must be the medical treatment. “I’ve heard of her.”
“I liked Paula Myo,” Qatux said.
“She is an ANA:Governance representative these days.”
“And you are not?”
“Not at her level.” Aaron prayed Corrie-Lyn wouldn’t start mouthing off.
“Why are you here?” Qatux asked.
“I have a request.” He held up the kube. “This is the memorycell of a human. I would like you to receive the memories. There are questions about his personality I need answering.”
Qatux did not respond. Its eyes swivelled from Aaron to Corrie-Lyn, then back a
gain.
“Can you do that?” Aaron asked. He was aware that something was wrong, but didn’t know what. His mind kept telling him that Qatux was the Raiel who was most likely to help in this fashion. So far on this mission all that intuitive knowledge loaded into his subconscious had been correct.
“I used to do that,” Qatux whispered. “At one time I was captivated by human emotional states. I married a human.”
“Married?” Corrie-Lyn blurted.
“A most nice lady by the name of Tiger Pansy. I had never known someone so emotionally reactive. We spent many happy years together on the planet you named Far Away. I shared her every thought, every feeling.”
“What happened?” Aaron asked, knowing this wasn’t going to be good.
“She died.”
“I’m sorry.”
“She died most horribly. A woman called the Cat prolonged her death for many days. Deliberately. I shared that time with my wife. I experienced human death.”
“Shit,” Aaron mumbled.
“I have not known human thought or emotion since. At the end, my wife cured me of this strange weakness. It was her last gift, however unwillingly given. I am Raiel again. I now hold high rank among my own kind.”
“We shouldn’t have asked you to do this,” Corrie-Lyn said humbly. “We didn’t know. I’m so sorry.”
Aaron wanted to use a stunshot on her. “It’s Inigo,” he said, holding the kube up again. “The human who dreams the lives of humans inside the Void.”
Once again Qatux was perfectly still. This time its eyes remained focused on Aaron alone.
“Aaron!” Corrie-Lyn hissed through clenched teeth.
He could feel the anger powering out of her through the gaiafield, and completely ignored it. “I’m looking for him,” he told the huge silent alien, staring straight into its multiple eyes. “He needs to be found before his Living Dream believers spark off another devourment phase with their Pilgrimage. Will you help.”
“Inigo?” Qatux asked, the whisper had softened to near inaudibility.
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