‘Because I want you to do the right thing, of course. Before the Sol barrier went up you were trying to reach Paula Myo, offering information that would stop the Swarm, stop Ilanthe and Marius and Cat. You can still do that. Carry on with what you were doing, it was right. Talk to Paula, give her the information she needs to take down the Sol barrier.’
‘I don’t have it! It doesn’t fucking exist.’
‘You don’t know that,’ the SI said persuasively. ‘Not for certain, for nothing is certain. Keep going as you were before the imprisonment, Troblum. Oscar Monroe is on Viotia, he’s worthy of your trust. He sacrificed himself so the universe you were born into could exist.’
‘I can’t. If I expose myself they’ll kill me. Do you get it now? The Cat will come after me, and she’ll kill me again and again and again.’
‘Then don’t expose yourself. Simply call Paula or Oscar, or I will be happy to discuss the physics of the Swarm.’
‘I don’t trust you. I don’t even know what you really are.’
‘Troblum, you have to decide what you truly believe in. You will have no peace until you do.’
‘Yeah, right. Whatever.’
‘Very well. I will ask you to consider one thing.’
‘What?’ he asked grouchily.
‘What would Mark Vernon do in this situation?’
The writhing morass of fine lines shrank to nothing. Troblum’s u-shadow told him the SI had withdrawn from the TD link. ‘Fuck off then,’ he grunted at the empty space above the chair.
‘I’m sorry,’ Catriona said. ‘It shouldn’t speak to you like that.’
All he could do was wave a hand at her in irritation, hoping she’d shut up. Mark Vernon. His ancestor. The man who’d actually fired the quantumbuster which allowed the Dark Fortress to establish the Dyson Alpha barrier again, winning the war. Popular history always overlooked that, always gave Ozzie the credit. A true hero. The one Troblum looked up to more than anybody.
Stupid psychological manipulation bullshit, he thought angrily. Like I’m going to give in to that.
He picked the coffeepot up, only to wrinkle his nose in dismay when he realized how much it had cooled. He instructed the culinary unit to produce some more.
‘What are you going to do?’ Catriona asked guardedly.
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘I don’t care, not any more. There is no way through the Sol barrier. Why can’t they just accept that?’
She smiled and sank down on the floor beside his chair. Her hand stroked his face adoringly. ‘Then it’s just you and me. We’ll be okay. I’ll never let you down.’
‘Yeah.’ He couldn’t help checking the smartcore’s navigation function. Secondary routines promoted the exovision display to primary, drawing a bright orange line through the starfield. Mellanie’s Redemption was a hundred and thirty lightyears from Viotia, and closing fast.
*
The Delivery Man’s ship dropped out of hyperspace fully stealthed. Ten AUs away the blue dwarf Alpha Leonis shone brightly against the starfield. Directly on the other side of the sun from the ship was Augusta, once the greatest of all the Big15 planets. As CST’s primary base of operations it had been the hub for wormholes to dozens of worlds; along with its financial and industrial prowess that made it a critical component of the first-era Commonwealth. Even afterwards, with the development of Higher culture and ANA the wormhole network was maintained, giving it a strategic importance above most Inner Worlds. As such, eight River-class and two Capital-class warships were patrolling the star system. Planetary defences were at condition one alert, with powerful force fields covering the wormhole generators and transfer stations along with the megacity.
After waiting for three minutes to confirm that no sensors had located the ship, the Delivery Man ordered it to fly in to the Leo Twins. They were the companions to Alpha Leonis; Little Leo, an orange dwarf, around which a red dwarf, Micro Leo, orbited. Scanning them with passive sensors he found something else there. There was an asteroid in a long elliptical orbit around the Twins; at over a hundred miles in diameter it almost qualified as a moon in its own right, except its cylindrical shape was unusually regular. Right away he knew it wasn’t natural. The sensors revealed it was rotating fast around the long axis, and there was no wobble, which was just about impossible for a natural object. It also had an infrared emission. The dark wrinkled surface was radiating more heat than the little stars were shining on it. The Delivery Man wasn’t at all surprised when mass analysis showed it was hollow.
He opened a secure link to the ‘executive’. ‘I’m here.’
‘I know. And you’re not alone. Someone followed you.’
‘What?’
‘Another ship flew in behind you. It’s an ultradrive as well. Both of you have excellent stealth, but the sensors I’ve got here are the best.’
‘Oh Ozziecrapit.’
‘Don’t worry about it. Hang on, I’m going to bring you in.’
A T-sphere expanded out from the strange asteroid. It tele-ported the starship inside.
The Delivery Man floated down out of the airlock and walked out from underneath the ship. He turned a full circle, gazing round, then tipped his head up and whistled in admiration. The chamber that had been carved out of the asteroid’s core was about eighty miles long. Seven miles above him, some kind of gantry ran the length of the axis, almost invisible in the bright glare emitted by the rings of solarlights it supported. And another seven miles beyond that the rugged landscape curved away into a blue-haze panorama of grassland and lakes and awesome snow-tipped mountains with vast waterfalls. It was the sight Justine had seen outside her bedroom window, and completely disorientating. He shook his head like a dog coming out of water, and squeezed his eyes shut.
‘Don’t worry, it has that effect on everyone.’
The Delivery Man opened his eyes to see a man standing in front of him dressed in a black shirt and trousers. His skin was polished gold.
‘Gore Burnelli,’ the Delivery Man said. ‘I should have worked that one out. I didn’t expect you to be physical, though.’
Gore shrugged. ‘If people could predict my behaviour we’d all be in deep shit.’
‘And you think we’re not?’
‘There are grades of shitstorms. This one’s pretty bad, but there’s still time to turn it around.’
‘How?’
‘Come on, son, we need to talk.’ Gore started to walk away, leaving the Delivery Man with little choice but to follow. Not far from the starship a modest bungalow of white drycoral was nestled snugly in the folds of the broad grassy valley. It had a roof of grey slates like something from before the first Commonwealth era. The slates overhung the walls to create a wraparound veranda. Ancient cedar trees towered above the luxuriant meadowland outside. The Delivery Man had never seen specimens so big – the bases of the trunks were as wide as the bungalow itself.
‘Is this your home?’ the Delivery Man asked. He knew the Burnelli family was phenomenally rich, but the cost of constructing this artificial worldlet would have been unimaginable, especially as he suspected it dated back to the first-era Commonwealth, long before EMAs and replicator technology.
‘Fuck no,’ Gore grunted. ‘I’m just housesitting for an old friend.’
‘Were you ever in ANA?’
‘Yes,’ Gore grunted, and dropped down into a big wooden slat chair with plump white cushions. There were several on the veranda. He gestured to one opposite. ‘I’ve only been out a few days. I’d forgotten how fucking useless meat bodies are. There’s barely enough neurones to run a walking routine, let alone something complicated like tying your shoelaces up. I’ve had to run an expanded mentality in the habitat’s RI systems just to keep thinking properly; and that hardware isn’t exactly young and frisky any more.’
The Delivery Man sat down cautiously. ‘Did you come out for Justine?’
Gore ran a hand back through his fair curly hair. ‘Takes you a while, doesn’t it? Of course it was for Just
ine. How else could I dream for her? I’ve got five giant confluence nests orbiting the asteroid a million klicks out. The gaiafield they’ve meshed together acts like a giant dream catcher net. Literally.’
‘But how did you know you’d dream her dreams, even with that much help?’
‘We’re family. It’s the only connection theory anyone’s ever come up with.’
‘So you just tried it?’ The Delivery Man knew there was too much incredulity in his voice, yet the notion was such a gamble.
Gore’s golden face gave him a hard stare. ‘You have to speculate to accumulate, boy,’ he grunted. ‘Damn, what have we done with Higher culture? You never strive for anything, it’s truly fucking pitiful to behold.’
‘I wouldn’t say that of Ilanthe,’ the Delivery Man shot back. ‘Would you?’
‘Ah, so you do have some fire after all. Good. I was worried I’d be dealing with another ball-less wonder who’s got to have all his forms filled in before he can take a crap.’
‘Thank you. So you’re another Conservative Faction supporter?’
Gore chuckled delightedly. ‘If that’s how you want to read it, then yes.’
‘Well, what else is there?’
‘I wasn’t dicking you around, sonny. I am the Faction executive. Have been for centuries. See, that’s the thing with political movements, the leaders carry them along, and if they’re doing their job properly all the members follow like good little sheep. After all, whoever said this was a democracy?’
‘But . . .’ The Delivery Man was aghast at the idea. ‘It has to be a democracy, all ANA’s Factions are democratic.’
‘If it was set up as a democracy then it is, and lots of the others are. Were you there at the first Conservative Faction committee meeting when I wrote the charter in line with the accord based on our ideals? No. And you know why, because there was no meeting, there is no charter, you all just do what I tell you. Conservative Faction is just a notion you cling to. And it was a popular one. We don’t need policies and discussion and shit like that. If any of the other Factions do something to upset or subvert ANA or the Commonwealth I use our Faction as the mechanism to slap them down hard. What, did you think the Protectorate sprang up naturally to defend the External Worlds from the Radical Highers? How did they start, who paid for them, who revealed the extent of the threat? Come to that, how did the Radical Highers ever get born; it’s hardly a natural extension of Higher philosophy, is it?’
‘Oh Ozzie,’ the Delivery man groaned.
‘So don’t worry, the Conservative Faction is alive and kicking. Just like the Accelerators are under Ilanthe’s enlightened leadership. Or did you think they all voted to entomb themselves while she flies off to the Void to get happy ever after?’
‘Shit.’ The knowledge, so simple and obvious now, should have come as a relief; instead the Delivery Man felt bitter. Bitter at the manipulation. Bitter at the grand lie. Bitter and shamed that he’d fallen for it. That so many had. ‘What now?’ he asked resentfully. ‘You said you had a plan?’
*
‘What did you name it?’ Gore asked as they both slid up into the ultradrive’s cabin.
‘Huh?’ the Delivery Man grunted. The smartcore wasn’t responding to his command codes.
‘The ship, what’s it called?’
‘Nothing, I never named it. Uh, the smartcore’s malfunctioning.’
‘No malfunction,’ Gore said as a shell-shaped chair swelled up out of the floor; its surface quickly morphed to a rusty orange with a texture of spongy hessian. Around it, the cabin walls brightened to a sky-blue. Black lines chased around the wall’s curvature, weaving an elegant pattern. Crystalline lights distended down from the apex. The floor turned to oak boards. ‘It is my ship after all; designed and built by the Conservative Faction. In the old days I would have said: paid for it, too.’
‘Then . . .’ the Delivery Man so nearly said what use am I? But that would have been too pitiful.
‘Son, if you want to sit this one out, or go chasing Accelerator agents, then go right ahead. I’ll understand. This asteroid has a wormhole generator that can take you to most of the Inner Worlds. I can even set you up with some real badass hardware and a few other agents spoiling for a fight. But I believe what I’m doing is the best shot our species has got. And I might just need some help. Down to you.’
The Delivery Man sat down in his chair, which had turned a gaudy purple. ‘Okay, then. I’m with you.’
‘Good man. I name this ship: Last Throw. Kinda got a ring to it, ironic yet still proud, right?’
‘If you say so.’
The asteroid had come as a complete surprise to Marius. As it was hollow it clearly wasn’t a Raiel ship. However, there was no record of anything like it in any Commonwealth database, and Marius could access just about every memory kube and deep cache within the unisphere. His initial thought that it must be a clandestine Conservative Faction base was easily dismissed. The effort of constructing something on such a scale was colossal, an impossible feat to accomplish in secret so close to Augusta. Which suggested it was old.
‘It must belong to Nigel or Ozzie,’ Ilanthe decided. ‘The proximity to Augusta makes that a logical conclusion.’
‘Gore is from the same era as them,’ Marius said. ‘It makes a perfect refuge if he’s returned to a physical body.’
‘He has. This is the confirmation. The landscape geometry of the dream can’t belong to anywhere else. It’s unique. I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting this. He should have been neutralized behind the Sol barrier.’
‘He has a single ultradrive ship, and the Delivery Man as a sidekick. That can’t present any kind of threat to us. We already know there are no weapons which can endanger the ship.’
‘And yet, here he is. Still free, the Third Dreamer with his daughter already inside the Void and ready to do whatever he wants, while Araminta has vanished down the Silfen paths leaving us locked outside.’
Marius examined the image of the asteroid supplied by his exovision, a dark speck half a million kilometres away, its surface shimmering a weak maroon in the light from the Twins. ‘I can destroy it now. There is no force field.’
‘But there was a T-sphere. We have no idea of its capabilities; and as it has remained hidden for a thousand years you can be assured it has defences. If the attack fails, our advantage would be lost. Until we recover Araminta I need to know Gore’s abilities and who his allies are.’
Icons flashed up in Marius’s exovision. A wormhole was opening nearby. Sensors showed him the exotic structure reaching out from the asteroid to a point a million kilometres away. It vanished almost at once, then reappeared, with its terminus in a different place, but also a million kilometres from the asteroid.
‘He’s picking something up from those points,’ Marius said. Now he had the orbital parameters the ship’s passive sensors scanned round the million-kilometre orbital band. It detected three more satellites. The wormhole reached out and plucked them away one by one. Then the T-sphere expanded again, and the Delivery Man’s ship materialized outside the asteroid. It immediately dropped into hyperspace.
‘Follow it,’ Ilanthe ordered. ‘Find out what he’s doing.’
As soon as the five confluence nest satellites filled the forward cargo hold, Gore teleported the Last Throw outside the asteroid. The Delivery Man held his breath, waiting to see how the other ship would react.
‘It’s got to be Marius,’ he said.
‘More than likely,’ Gore agreed. ‘But that means Ilanthe knows I’m back in the game. She’ll be desperate to know what I’m doing. He’s not going to try anything yet. And by the time they do figure it out, it’ll be too late.’
‘What exactly is your plan?’
‘My original plan was a good one; I just needed Inigo to get into the Void for me. Now that’s suffered god’s own clusterfuck, I’m having to do a lot of improvising to stitch things back together.’
‘You’re not going to fly us into the
Void are you?’ the Delivery Man asked in alarm. He realized that Justine could probably get the Skylord to open the boundary for Gore.
‘No. We’re going in the other direction. What the galaxy depends on now is us eliminating the Void once and for all.’
‘Us?’
‘You and me, sonny boy. There’s no one else. We’ve already had our chat about depending on politicians, now haven’t we?’
‘How in Ozzie’s name can we do that? The Raiel couldn’t close it down with an armada; and a million years ago they already had warships that make our Navy look like a fleet of nineteenth-century sailing boats.’ He was starting to wonder if coming out of ANA had damaged Gore’s basic thought routines.
‘I didn’t say close it down, I said eliminate it. You can’t do that with force, so we have to give it an alternative.’
‘Give what an alternative?’
‘The Void.’
‘An alternative to what?’
‘Its current existence, to being itself.’
‘How?’ He was trying not to shout.
‘It’s stalled. Whatever it was originally meant to do hasn’t worked, it hasn’t progressed for millions, possibly billions, of years. It just sits there absorbing minds and matter, it’s become pointless and very dangerous. We need to kick-start its evolutionary process again, whether it likes that or not.’
‘I thought that’s what Ilanthe and the Accelerators were proposing.’
‘Look, kid, I know you mean well, and you’re upset over your family and everything, but don’t smartmouth me. I’ve been fighting that bitch for over two centuries now. I don’t know what her fucking inversion core is, but trust me when I say the one thing it’s not going to do is fuse the Accelerator Faction with the nucleus so they can bootstrap themselves up to post-physical status. This is her own private bid to achieve godhood, and that’s not going to be good for anyone.’
‘You don’t know that.’
‘I do, because if all you really want to do is achieve post-physical status there are better and simpler ways of doing it than this lunacy.’