They started to plummet down again.
‘Oh fuck,’ Paula grunted, and dipped ever closer to the smog band.
Her smartcore surprised the hell out of her when it announced Oscar was calling through a TD link.
‘Little busy,’ she sent.
‘Appreciate that. But we’re in trouble.’
‘Doesn’t it work?’
‘That almost doesn’t matter. This ship has no protection from the warrior Raiel. Can you ask Qatux to have a word, please.’
The missiles were quantumbusters. They activated a hundred kilometres ahead. A solid wall of energy hurtled towards the Alexis Denken, only partially slowed and absorbed by the enormous density of the lower atmosphere. Paula dived into the hydrocarbon soup.
‘Do what I can,’ she promised. Some remote part of her brain was chuckling over the irony.
The jolt of impact was enough to cause a momentary blackout. Her tormented flesh was already at its limit. When she recovered she was still barrelling forward, but her speed was sluggish even with the ingrav and regrav units operating at their maximum. The force field was heading towards overload and she was only five kilometres deep. Blood was pouring out of her nose. A small medical icon in her exovision reported she was also bleeding from her ears; there were internal lacerations, too. The Cat’s ship sliced cleanly through the hydrogen zone until she was directly above the Alexis Denken. Eight missiles curved elegantly down towards the smog, spreading out in an exemplary spider-leg dispersal pattern. They’d act like old-fashioned depth charges, Paula realized. If they didn’t force her up and out into the open, the pressure pulse would crush the fuselage. Perfect!
From somewhere deep inside the star, oblivion was surging up through the superdense matter. The planetary ftl device had triggered a terminal mass-energy explosion sequence far below the photosphere, whose gigantic shockpulse was now slowly flowing down towards the core, creating an unsustainable fusion surge as it went. Energy levels were building fast from the accelerated reactions. Not even the enormous gravity gradient and ultracompressed hydrogen of the star’s interior could contain it.
But as the runaway energy thrust its languid way upwards, other, stranger forces came into play as the device’s exotic matter functions began to blossom, fed by the star’s own amplified output. Like a parasite growing larger as it consumed more of its host, the device exerted an intolerable stress on an infinitesimal point of spacetime, which promptly ruptured. The throat of the wormhole opened. Behind it, the corona began to darken as more and more power was drained away through hyperspace to sustain the new exotic energy manifestation. The wormhole’s terminus began to strain for its designated emergence coordinate over twenty-eight thousand lightyears distant. Half of the rapidly expanding photosphere was now falling into darkness as the wormhole usurped more and more of its escalating output.
Troblum actually smiled at the sensor image as the Mellanie’s Redemption emerged into spacetime. The starship’s curving fins glowed a strong magenta as they threw off the heat that was still seeping through the force fields. Directly ahead, the surface of the violated star was being distorted by the imminent nova eruption. Yet the very pinnacle of the distortion was cascading into night as mass and energy vanished through a dimensional rift. In the middle of that emptiness a tiny indigo star was shining as Cherenkov radiation gleamed out from the exotic matter of the wormhole’s pseudofabric.
‘It’s stabilizing,’ he gasped.
‘How long will that hold for?’ Inigo asked gently.
Troblum shook himself. ‘Not long,’ he admitted. For a moment he regretted not using the original configuration, a wormhole wide enough to swallow a gas giant. This was only a kilometre across. But it did extend for twenty-eight thousand lightyears.
It works. I was right. I was right about everything. The Anomine, the Raiel. Everything.
‘I win,’ he said softly, then shouted it. ‘I fucking win! And the universe knows it.’
‘Take us through,’ Aaron said.
Troblum wiped his sleeve across his eyes, getting rid of the moisture. ‘Right,’ he acknowledged. The Mellanie’s Redemption slipped forward, accelerating hard as it passed into the worm-hole’s haze.
The Cat’s exovision showed her the eight quantumbusters activate fifty kilometres below the surface of the compressed hydrocarbon ocean. Their titanic pressure waves inflated, merging.
Hysradar scanned incessantly, trying to discern the Alexis Denken amid the turmoil. But hydrocarbon fluid at that density was strange stuff, and the massive energy deformation didn’t help. If Paula didn’t make a dash for freedom up to the hydrogen layer, she’d be dead. No starship could withstand the kind of force currently cascading through the hydrocarbon.
Still nothing.
The smog rippled apart as the hydrocarbon eruption began. It was like seeing a perfectly rounded volcano erupt. The cone kept rising – five, ten, twenty kilometres high. As it lifted up into the hydrogen zone where the pressure was far less, it began to boil violently, spewing out great columns of spray like rocket exhausts that just kept thundering upwards. Within seconds the hydrogen zone for hundreds of kilometres was clotted by the weird chemical fug. Optical-band imagery was reduced to zero as the greasy vapour surged round her starship. Regrav units strained to hold position as the gales rushed past.
‘So fuck you, then,’ the Cat told Paula’s cold, gigantic funeral pyre.
Sensors showed her the upsurge was still growing, which was surprising but hardly threatening. The crest reached a full hundred kilometres, drawing down a barrage of almighty lightning strikes from the belly of the cloud layer far above.
Mountainous waves began to gush ponderously down the eruption’s flanks to the ocean below. The Cat still couldn’t see anything, but the starship’s sensors provided her an excellent graphics-profile image. The hydrocarbon was draining away from something solid. Something vast that was still impossibly rising upwards.
‘What the—’ she spluttered. Then the profile began to resolve. Fourteen mushroom-shapes were shrugging off their cloak of glutinous liquid and filthy gas to expose the crystalline domes which roofed them. They were attached to the main bulk of the thing, which measured just over sixty kilometres long.
High Angel cleared the unstable cleft in the hydrocarbon ocean, shedding a tempest of seething smog.
A communication channel opened – without any authorization from the Cat’s u-shadow. ‘Hello Catherine Stewart,’ Qatux said.
‘Fuck.’ She sent her starship into a seventy-gee climb, not even able to scream against the abysmal force crushing her body. Bones snapped, flesh and membranes tore.
‘You don’t remember my wife, do you?’ Qatux asked.
‘Your wife? No!’
‘Nor will you ever.’
Exovision showed the Cat an energy pulse blasting straight up from the High Angel. It struck her starship.
The shot was powerful enough to warp spacetime in a very specific fashion, so although the starship was blown apart in milliseconds, time within the explosion stretched on and on and on . . . To the Cat the utterly excruciating instant of her death lasted for hour after long terrible hour. Though she never realized, it was exactly the same amount of time it had taken Tiger Pansy to die 1,199 years ago.
*
Nine thousand lightyears from the boundary of the Void, and five lightyears from the closest star, a wormhole terminus swirled open, spilling its gentle indigo light out into interstellar space. Thirty seconds later the streamlined shape of the Mellanie’s Redemption flew out.
‘FucktheLady,’ Corrie-Lyn exclaimed. ‘We made it.’ She smiled incredulously and kissed Troblum before he could stop her.
Behind them, the weak light faded away as the wormhole closed, leaving them as isolated and alone as any humans had ever been. Comprehension of their status quickly spread through the cabin, amplified and reinforced by the tiny self-generated gaiafield. It drained away any sense of elation.
Inigo
gave Corrie-Lyn a quick hug in the uncomfortable silence which followed.
‘What do you think happened?’ Araminta-two asked.
‘The important thing is, that deranged bitch didn’t follow us,’ Oscar said.
‘And Paula?’
Oscar had to grin at that. ‘Trust me, if anyone in this universe can take care of herself, it’s Paula Myo.’
‘So what do we do now?’ Inigo asked.
‘There is no question,’ Aaron said. ‘We go into the Void.’
‘I meant, what do we do about the warrior Raiel?’
‘Two options,’ Oscar said. ‘If Paula survived, we might already have a clear passage confirmed. If not, we really do try what Troblum suggested, and ask nicely.’
‘We got this far,’ Corrie-Lyn said.
‘That’s the kind of mad optimism I like,’ Oscar said. ‘Tro-blum, let’s go.’
‘We need to start installing the medical chambers,’ Tomansio said.
Oscar grinned. ‘Another optimist.’
‘Just being practical.’ Tomansio patted one of the capsules stacked up against the bulkhead. He didn’t have to move his arm far.
‘So next question,’ Liatris said. ‘Who gets to sleep off the next part of the voyage?’
‘Me, happily,’ Oscar said. ‘So long as you bring me out when we go through the boundary. That I have to see.’
‘We’re going ftl,’ Troblum announced. ‘I’ll get the bots to prepare the forward hold.’
‘How long to the Wall stars?’ Aaron asked.
‘A hundred and sixty hours.’
Paula teleported into Qatux’s private chamber, for which she was grateful. She certainly couldn’t have walked. There was a fat warming sheath around her left leg. Twelve semi-organic nodules were stuck over various parts of her torso, their slender filaments weaving through her skin to combine with biononic systems deeper inside her body, helping to repair the damaged cells. She wore a loose robe over all the systems, and limped along as if she was an old woman – which was appropriate enough, she acknowledged grimly.
A human-shaped chair rose silently out of the light-blue floor, and she eased herself into it. Directly ahead the silver-grey wall continued its gentle liquid rippling. Tiger Pansy’s face smiled back gleefully at her through the odd twisting motions.
You can rest easy now, Paula thought. Wherever you are.
The wall parted and Qatux walked in. One of his medium-sized tentacles stretched out, and its paddle tip touched Paula on her cheek. There was a phantom sensation of warmth which lingered after the touch ended, perhaps a sensation of sympathy and concern, too.
‘Are you badly damaged?’ Qatux whispered.
‘Only my pride.’
‘Ahhh,’ the Raiel sighed. ‘The old ones are the best ones.’
‘Thank you for your help.’
‘And yet her real self lies dormant in Paris.’
‘Where it should be. Not resurrected to act as some human political movement’s agitator. Not that she ever did as she was told in whatever incarnation.’
A couple of tentacles waved about in what could have been agitation. ‘As you said, the universe needs to be rid of her.’
‘I was sure if anything could make her termination definite it would be High Angel. Navy ships have the firepower, but she’d detect them.’
‘Not quite what my race intended this arkship should be used for, but we live in extraordinary times.’
‘I hope I haven’t got you into trouble, Qatux.’
‘No. We Raiel do not lack for empathy. However, I believe some of the humans in residence are slightly shocked by events. Not to mention the Naozun.’
Paula couldn’t remember any race called the Naozun. ‘Good. It’s about time we stirred things up.’
‘We have grown, you and I, Paula.’
‘I should certainly hope so, we’ve had long enough.’
Air whistled softly out of Qatux’s mouth. ‘Indeed.’
‘Did the wormhole open as Troblum predicted?’
‘Yes.’
‘Finally! Something went right for us. Whatever the hell that something is. I just hope Aaron’s controller knows what they’re doing. On which note, I have yet another favour to ask.’
‘Yes.’
‘The Mellanie’s Redemption needs to get into the Void. Can you get the warrior Raiel to let it through the Gulf unharmed? I genuinely believe it might be our only chance to prevent a catastrophic expansion phase.’
‘I will explain why they should. I can do no more.’
‘Thank you.’ She rubbed at the sheath on her leg, knowing that was never going to get rid of the itch. ‘Where are we going now?’
‘Back to the Commonwealth.’
‘Not out of the galaxy, then?’ Paula was faintly relieved. The Raiel obviously still had hope.
‘No. That time is not yet here. As you said, there is little which prevents it.’
‘What about the DF spheres? Are they capable of stopping the Void?’
‘We don’t know. But understand this, Paula, the warrior Raiel will attempt to stop the Pilgrimage fleet. They do not indulge in sentiment about that many lives when the very galaxy is threatened by their actions.’
‘I understand, and I do not hold you to account. We have to be responsible for ourselves. If that many humans want to try to endanger all life in this galaxy, they must not be surprised if others attempt to prevent them.’
‘Yet your own kind did not.’
Paula hung her head, mainly in shame, but there was frustration there, too. ‘I know. Those of us who were free to do so did what we could. The level of the conspiracy took us by surprise. In that, we failed so many.’
The Raiel touched her cheek again. ‘I do not hold you to account, Paula.’
‘Thank you,’ she managed to say.
‘I do have some privilege as captain of an arkship. We are in communication with the warrior Raiel. Would you like to see the galactic core defences in action? I imagine the last stand of our species will make quite a spectacle.’
*
The Delivery Man waited patiently while the trolley glided across the plaza, and rose up to the Last Throw’s midsection hatchway. The chunk of equipment it was carrying only just fitted through the opening, but it managed to get inside. The assembly-bots, which the replicator had produced a couple of days earlier, started to ease the equipment off the trolley. Once they began the integration process he’d go up and inspect.
He was useful again, which had lifted his spirits considerably. His physics and engineering knowledge was hardly up there at Ozzie and Nigel levels, but his recent cover job analysing technology levels made him competent enough to oversee the integration. The systems the replicator was producing were all geared towards giving the Last Throw additional strength. Strong enough to ward off a star’s energy from zero-range. It was a very special kind of crazy who contemplated such a procedure. The design in the smartcore memory had been developed by the Greater Commonwealth Astronomical Agency for its Stardiver programme. None of the probes they’d dispatched had ever carried human passengers.
The Delivery Man glanced across the plaza to where Gore was talking to Tyzak. It was like observing a devoted priest and a confirmed atheist locking horns. Their conversation, or argument, or discussion – whatever – had been going on for days now. There’d even been pictures for emphasis. Gore had brought a holographic portal down from the Last Throw, showing Tyzak various images of the Void, the Gulf, the Wall stars, DF spheres, even views of Makkathran, Skylords, and the Void nebulas taken from Inigo’s dreams.
Not once in all that time had he let up in his efforts to convince the Anomine to talk to the elevation mechanism. Then they received Justine’s dream of landing at Makkathran, and Gore’s determination went off the chart. The Delivery Man found it hard to credit the Gore he knew had so much patience. But then even he’d punched the air when the Silverbird touched down in Golden Park. It was quite a moment.
&nb
sp; Tyzak was interested, some parts of the story he found fascinating. But none of it inclined him to help ward off the end of everything. The old Anomine insisted that the future, specifically his race’s future, could only be determined by the planet itself. That prohibited using relics from the past.
‘But it’s not your future that will be affected in any way,’ Gore was saying. ‘All I need is a little help from a machine which you don’t even use any more. Do your beliefs prohibit charity?’
‘I understand your problem, but you are asking me to abandon my entire philosophy, my reason for existence, and delve back into the past we have completely rejected.’
‘You would be knocking on the door. I would be the one passing through.’
‘You are attempting to differentiate the entire act into degrees. That is not applicable. Any act of renunciation is ultimate.’
‘How can helping others be renunciation of yourself?’
‘It is the method, as you very well know, friend Gore.’
‘How do you think your ancestors would respond to this request? Their generosity helped other species before, when you isolated the Prime aliens.’
‘I cannot know, but I suspect they would reanimate the machine for you.’
‘Exactly.’
‘But they are gone. And they were an aberration in our true line of evolution.’
‘Your inaction means you’d be killing trillions of living things. Doesn’t that bother you in the slightest?’
‘It is a cause for concern.’
The Delivery Man stiffened. That was the first time the slightest concession had been made to reasonableness on Tyzak’s part. Reasonableness on human terms, anyway.
‘The space fortresses that guard your solar system, the cities that never decay, this machine beneath our feet which slumbers, all these things were left behind by the ancestors you dismiss. They wanted you to have options. That is why they bequeathed them to you. So much of what they had is now dust.’ Gore’s hand waved loosely up at the lustrous band of debris orbiting the planet. ‘But these specific artefacts remain because they knew that one day you might need them. Without the fortresses many species would be here plundering the riches your ancestors left behind. A large part of evolution is interaction. Isolation is not evolution, it is stagnation.’