A reluctant grin appeared on Ivarl's face. 'You're good, Waterwalker.
'Just doing my duty.
'But you have to be good the whole time. And good fortune is a fickle thing.
'Yes. I'm sure Tanamin will agree with that. It was two nights earlier when Edeard had listened to the sickening instructions Ivarl had issued to Harawold on the punishment to be given to Tanamin, who hadn't extorted enough money from his patch in Fiacre district.
Ivarl couldn't cover up the flash of surprise in his mind. When he did veil his emotions he was regarding Edeard with the kind of caution reserved for a cornered fastfox. 'Yes. Very good, I see that now. Are you sure you won't accept my hospitality? Together we can accomplish a great deal.
'There's not much to be accomplished from inside the Trampello mines.
'I see. That's a shame.
'Was there anything else?
'No. Not today.
TWO
By midday the Ellezelin paramilitary capsules streaking across Colwyn City had all taken to using their sirens, producing a constant doppler-mangled cacophony as they rushed between burgeoning trouble spots. Scarlet and azure laser fans would often sweep through the open balcony doors of Araminta's apartment as another one flew across the park outside, accompanying the discordant sound. Araminta scowled as the dazzling light flared across the kitchen area of the living room once more. She'd been making herself a cup of tea from a kettle, while the old culinary unit strove to fabricate the components of a simple chicken sandwich. She cursed, and kicked the base of the stupid unit as another set of thermal error symbols flashed up on its screen. Perhaps the laser light was disturbing its internal systems?
She sighed and shook her head, annoyed with herself for thinking something so silly. The worst thing was just sitting Around doing nothing. Actually no, it's not knowing what to do.
Another capsule screeched overhead. Araminta slammed down the kettle, and stomped over to the open balcony doorway. The capsule had vanished behind the apartment building by the lime she got there, presumably harassing the people in the park, which seemed to have developed into quite a centre for disobedience against the invaders. She would have liked to slam the doorway shut as well, but the glass wall sheet was formflow, so she had to settle for the glass slowly curtaining together. At least when it had become a single sheet again the sound of the sirens did reduce considerably — as it should with the expensive sound-deadening layer she'd added. The doorway had been open all day to give her some sense of connection to the city. It was kind of stupid, yet comforting at the same time. In fact, all she'd been doing was avoiding thinking about the real events. She'd certainly not done any work on the apartment.
Her u-shadow had pulled a steady stream of news out of the Unisphere, all relating to the Void expansion. There were very few hard facts, and far too much speculation and accusation. But her u-shadow was running an adequate filter, supplying her with the basics. Nothing much had changed. The observation team had evacuated Centurion Station. All the shows were playing the images of the base itself collapsing. Of more interest were the enigmatic DF spheres flying into orbit around the star. Commentators in the news studios were busy speculating on exactly what they were capable of; apparently they'd been copied by the Anomine who used them to imprison the Dyson Pair. Now everyone was hoping that they had more aggressive functions than simple force fields, no matter the gigantic scale.
Despite the loss of Centurion Station, a large number of sensor systems out amid the Wall stars were still operational and feeding their data back to the Commonwealth via the tenuous Navy relay. The Void boundary continued to expand, its surface rippling and distending to engulf the star clusters already falling in towards it. That voraciousness was cited by many as having purpose. Which came back squarely to the Second Dreamer and the Skylord.
After the balcony doors clicked shut she sank to her knees on the bare concrete floor. The tears she'd managed to contain all morning threatened to finally emerge. It's too much. No one person can expect to deal with all of this. I can't have put the entire galaxy in peril. I can't.
Her u-shadow reported a new file shotgunning into the Unisphere, passed between each node without restriction by the management routines and given unlimited access to everybody's interface address. It was a live feed to an address code she didn't recognize, but had Earth as its node host.
'Only ANA can achieve this level of coverage, the u-shadow told her.
'Access it, she ordered. If ANA wanted to talk to everybody it must have some words of comfort.
Gore Burnelli was standing on some rocky cliffs, his back to the clear tropical sea beyond. He wore a simple white shirt, his lair hair tousled by the breeze. Grey eyes stared out of a handsome twenty-year-old face, with skin tanned to a dusky gold. He looked directly at Araminta, making her feel incredibly guilty for no reason she could define.
'I doubt anyone out there in the Greater Commonwealth will remember me, he said. 'But I used to be one of the wealthy people who helped form the original Commonwealth. If you check my record you'll see I had a brief moment of fame in the Starflyer War. I hope that what I've done in the past will qualify me for a moment of your time here now; however, this is not about me. I'm speaking to one person alone: the Second Dreamer. I understand that you didn't realize the Skylord would kick off a devourment phase when you spoke to it. I don't blame you. I don't condemn you. And unlike everyone else I'm certainly not hunting you down. On which front, please be warned it's not just Living Dream that's coming for you, a number of other agents are searching, who represent various political factions both here in ANA and other Greater Commonwealth groups.
'Oh great Ozzie, Araminta wailed. Now the tears really were flowing free.
'Everyone is making a lot of demands of you, Gore said. 'I expect you're frightened and uncertain. I also expect you want lo stay out of sight, certainly everything you've done so far Indicates this. I appreciate that. You're coming to terms with what you are, and nobody can help with that. You have a lot of decisions to make, and I don't envy you any of them. If you want to get in touch with me, I'll help in any way I can, that goes without saying. Again, that's not why I am making this appeal. There is one thing that does not require a decision: the Void devourment phase must be stopped. As far as we are aware you are the only one who can currently do this. I say that because someone else is trying to help. Gore took a breath and squared his shoulders, trying to be brave. 'My daughter, Justine, was at Centurion Station when the devourment kicked off. Unlike everyone else there, she didn't head back home. Against all my wishes, my pleas, my hopes, she's aimed her ship directly for the Void. It's one of the secret ultradrive ships you may have heard rumours of. Very fast. Which means that in another day or so she'll arrive at the boundary. Justine's not like me, she's sweet and kind, very much an optimist, all the things to be proud of in our species. She's been involved in diplomatic work for centuries. She's flying alone to the Void in the hope she can talk to the Skylord; she believes that reason will prevail. But first she has to get inside. Humans have done that once before. Inigo and the Waterwalker showed us that. I appeal to you, Second Dreamer, to contact the Skylord one last time, and ask it to let Justine in. That's all, just ask it that one thing, nothing else. You don't have to talk about the devourment phase, or the Pilgrimage. Just give my daughter a chance to try and negotiate with whatever passes for authority in there. Justine is going to fly into the boundary come what may, despite everything I've said to try and stop her, she believes in humanity, that our nature should be placed upon this alien altar and given a chance. She believes in us. I hope, I beg, you will do what you can to give her that chance. Don't let my girl die in vain, I beseech you. If there's anything you need or want, then contact me in complete safety at the code on this file. Please. One last time, help put a stop to what's happening out there. There's not much time left. Help her. Only you can.
Araminta put her hands over her head as the message finished, wanting
nothing more than to curl up in a ball and leave the universe altogether. 'Thanks for fucking nothing, she told the haunting memory of Gore. At the same time she felt a tiny lifting of doubt. Maybe this Justine woman can do something. Maybe it's not all down to me after all.
That just left getting in touch with the Skylord without Living Dream and all the others tracking her down. Yeah, that should be dead easy for someone who can't even get a culinary unit to make a sandwich.
* * * * *
In the middle of a desert of dry mud was a house, an igloo of baked sand. It had a wooden door that years ago had been painted dark green. Harsh sunlight and dusty winds had abraded it down to the bare wood, though some flecks of green still persevered in the cracks between the oak boards.
He knew that door. Knew it well. Knew what lay behind.
The sun hung at the apex of the world's sapphire sky, bleaching all colour out of the desert. It was always thus.
He dismounted from the huge Charlemagne just short of the igloo, his plain white robes flowing around him. The deep hood protected his face from the sun's penetrating rays. Somehow, those few steps to the door took for ever. His limbs were fighting an unknown force that resisted every movement. He kept asking himself if he wanted to do this because he eventually realized that the force fighting him was fear. Fear of what waited for him on the other side of the door. He carried on anyway, because in this, as always, he had no choice, no will, no independence. The effort left him trembling from exertion, but eventually the door was in front of him. He raised his hand, placing it palm down on the warm wood, feeling the familiar sand-smoothed grain. Pushed.
The door opened, and darkness spilled out, contaminating the sunlight. It built round him like a fog, and his dread spiked upwards. But the door was open. There was nothing now between him and the person living in the house. Something moved in the shadows, a presence that was reaching out.
'You and your father both had the courage to make the right choice in the end, a voice told him. 'Not that my opinion counts for anything. But I'm glad. I figure I owe you this second chance.
'My father? He lurched forwards—
— the ground crawler lurched again as the front tracks cleared another ice ridge, and the wedge nose tipped down sharply. Aaron shook himself as the real world claimed him back from bedlam, gripping the chair arms, staring out of the slit windscreen. It was profoundly dark outside, midnight beneath clouds that towered five kilometres into the screaming hurricane sky. Headlight beams were clotted by driving snow. The small glimpse of the ground they did allow revealed ice boulders half the size of the ground crawler. Regular bursts of lightning showed the wicked, sharp-edged boulders scattered across the frozen land in all directions without end. Narrow gaps between them were becoming fewer, and had been for the last hour. It was a nightmare geography out there. Their progress was pitiful, and getting worse.
He checked the vehicle's inertial navigation system. In the last two hours they'd travelled a grand total of seven and a quarter kilometres, and very little of that was in a nice straight line forwards. Eleven hours now since the unknown starship fired a Hawking m-sink into Hanko. He was beginning to wish he had the math to work out an accurate timetable for how long it would take the weapon to digest the planet from within. But knowing the exact moment when the continents would implode wasn't going to make the ground crawler go any faster. His early rough estimate of three days was realistic enough.
The crawler's net slowed the tracks, which Aaron perceived first as a change in the constant vibration afflicting the cabin. When he asked it why he was shown a radar sweep. There was a rift in the ground ahead, a vertical drop of over ten metres.
'Lady! Inigo exclaimed as he studied the radar profile; his face was gently shaded by the weak violet light emitted by the two polyphoto strips on the cabin roof. 'It's going to take half an hour to cut our way down that.
'You're the expert, Aaron muttered sourly.
Inigo gave him a tight smile. 'I certainly am. He gripped the manual control stick, and backed up, then activated the forward power blades. They extended out of the nose and began rotating. The ground crawler edged forwards again, and the spinning blades touched the ice. A wide plume of dirty ice granules shot up into the snowstorm. The screech from the blades resonated round the cabin, and the whole vehicle began to shake as they started to dig themselves a track. Inigo steered them carefully, curving round to run parallel to the rift, always descending. The plume reduced visibility to zero. He was relying on the vehicle's sensors and his own field effect scan. The lost messiah must have had some sophisticated filter programs, Aaron decided; his own scan revealed little beyond the crawler's bodywork. The ice they were traversing showed up as a thick unified substance laced with rock and soil, like a haze of interference; yet Inigo was able to discern the structure, knowing when to back off and when to apply pressure.
The noise of the power blades set Aaron's teeth on edge. Its lone was constantly changing as they hit soil, then back into ice. Then the blades hit some kind of rock, and the rasping was so bad he wanted to hit something. When he glanced back at Corrie-Lyn she was pressing her hands over her ears, her teeth bared in a wild grimace of dismay. Inigo adjusted the stick fractionally, curving them away from the dense strata. Rock and lie gravel spewed out sideways, falling in a long arc down the side of the rift. Inigo drove them into the ice again, gouging a wider cut.
So they descended in a series of howling bumps and jolts, treating their own ramp. In the end it took over forty-five minutes to reach the base of the rift. The power blades retracted. Aaron gazed out in dismay at the field of ice boulders which the lightning flares revealed. They were larger than the ones at the lop of the rift, and closer together.
'Crap, he grunted. 'We're never going to get through this.
How far does it extend? If they didn't clear the boulder field in the next couple of hours, they would never make it to the ship before the implosion.
'I don't know, Inigo replied unperturbed. 'We don't exactly have survey maps. He steered the crawler along the base of the rift, looking for an opening.
'You must do!
'Not recent ones. They're all a thousand years out of date; and the surface ice does shift. Slowly, admittedly, but the movement throws up a fresh topography every century or so.
'Shit! Aaron finally did hit something, his fist thudding into the cabin wall. 'We have got to make better time than this.
'I know.
Corrie-Lyn came forward from her seat and slipped her arms around Inigo's neck. The low cabin lighting made her beautiful features deeply sensual. 'You're doing your best, ignore him.
Aaron growled in frustration, and hit the wall again. Back at the Olhava camp, Inigo had finally admitted he did have a private starship hidden away, for emergencies. Aaron's elation at the escape route had quickly cooled as the ground crawler got underway. According to Inigo his ship was safe in a tunnelled out cavern seven hundred kilometres south east of the camp. Aaron had assumed they would make it with almost a couple of days to spare. Then they drove straight into the ice boulder field.
'We always trailblaze through this kind of thing, Inigo told him as Corrie-Lyn rubbed her cheek adoringly against his. 'That's how I got to be so good with the power blades.
'Get better or we die, Aaron said bluntly.
Inigo flashed him a grin, then turned the ground crawler into a small gap. Razor-sharp shards of ice creaked and snapped against the bodywork as they scraped their way through. Aaron winced, convinced they'd wedge themselves in again. They'd done that once before a few hours back. He and Inigo had to go outside and use their biononic field effect to cut the vehicle free. It had felt good using his weapon functions, even on a minimum setting. He was accomplishing something.
The only benefit of the journey was that Corrie-Lyn hadn't touched a drop of alcohol since they started.
'So have you any idea who was in that starship? Inigo asked.
'No. I didn't even reali
ze we were being followed, which is disturbing enough. To track the Artful Dodger you'd need something as good if not better. That kind of hardware is mighty difficult to come by, so it was either ANA or a Faction. But ANA wouldn't use an m-sink like that, and I'm kind of surprised a Faction did.
'No honour among thieves, eh?
'None, Aaron agreed. 'Using an m-sink has the sure taste of desperation to it.
'Hold a mirror up, Corrie-Lyn said. 'It was a ruthless despicable act, slaughtering all those people without warning or reason. The pilot must have been just like you.
'There are people in this universe a lot worse than me.
'That I don't believe.
But it's true. He smiled privately.
'So where were you going to coerce me into going? Inigo asked.
'I'll know when we're safe on the ship.
'Really? That's… interesting.
'It's depraved, Corrie-Lyn said.
'Actually, it's a simple and safe security measure, Aaron told them. 'If I don't know, I can't be forced to reveal it.
'But you do know, she said. 'It's buried somewhere in your subconscious.
'Yes, but I can't get to it unless the circumstances are coming up straight aces.
'You've damaged your own psyche with so much meddling.
'I've told you often before, and I'll enjoy telling you many limes again: I like what I am.
'Oh Lady, now what! Inigo exclaimed as the crawler's net hulled them again. He glanced at the radar screen with its concentric orange bands swirling round like a accelerated orrery. 'That's weird. His grey eyes narrrowed as he squinted through the windscreen. The headlights revealed a white blur of snow, but no boulders. Lightning flashes turned the black night to a leaden smog. There were no discernible shapes ahead of them.
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