But in slow increments, every time she needed to undergo rejuvenation, she modified a little bit more of her psychoneural profiling. At the end of the three-century process, she was still obsessive about a great many things, but now it was through choice rather than a physically ordained compulsion. One time long ago, when she’d tried to mentally overcome her need to apprehend a criminal in order to achieve a greater goal, the effort had put her body into a severe type of shock. By removing the Foundation’s physiological constraints her mind could now flourish in ways her long-departed designers never envisaged. She’d been born with the intention of tracking down individual criminals, the kind that might plague the society of Huxley’s Haven; but now she had the freedom to take an overview. Yet none of the liberations she selected for herself ever touched the core of her identity, she always retained her intuitive understanding of what was right and wrong. Her soul was untainted.
Iaioud tested her new, versatile self to the extreme. She accepted that the way in which the Halgarth collective had set up the constitution was intrinsically wrong, oppressing an entire population. In fact she would have probably acknowledged that before. But the whole nature of Iaioud’s rigid society was uncomfortably close to that of Huxley’s Haven. After a while she decided that the difference was simple enough. On Iaioud, people were being kept in line by a brutally authoritarian regime misusing Commonwealth medical technology. While on Huxley’s Haven, strictures and conformity came from within. Possibly there had been a crime, right back at the founding, when the Human Structure Foundation started birthing an entire population with DNA modified to their grand scheme. The old liberal groups might have been right – a thought which would have finally pleased the radicals who had stolen her as a baby. But however great the sin committed at its genesis, the constraints placed on the population of Huxley’s Haven were internal. Its people now couldn’t be changed without destroying what they were. By far the bigger crime.
So she convinced herself, anyway. These days she wrote it off as an argument between philosophies. Interesting, and completely disconnected from real life. The Commonwealth had enough real problems to keep her fully occupied. Though even she had to admit, the whole Pilgrimage issue was throwing up some unique complications.
For once she couldn’t decide if Living Dream had the right to set off on Pilgrimage, and be damned to possible consequences. The dilemma came from the total lack of empirical evidence that the Void would consume the rest of the galaxy. She had to admit that a lot of pro-Pilgrimage Factions and commentators were right to be sceptical. The assumption that Living Dream were courting annihilation was all based on information which came from the Raiel. The immense timescale since the last catastrophic macroexpansion phase would distort any information no matter how well stored; throw in aliens with their own agenda and she simply couldn’t accept the claim at face value.
ANA:Governance was also keen to acquire more information on the situation, which gave Paula a useful outlet for her energies, and thankfully little time to brood over the politics involved. Her assignment, as always, was to stop the Factions from engineering the physical citizens of the Commonwealth into actions they wouldn’t otherwise have performed.
She’d left St Mary’s Clinic and returned to her ship, the Alexis Denken, a sleek ultradrive vessel which ANA: Governance had supplied and armed to a degree which would alarm any Navy captain. She left the planet, then hung in transdimensional suspension twenty AUs out from the star. It was a position which allowed her to monitor the ftl traffic within the Anagaska system with astonishing accuracy. Unfortunately, the one thing her ship’s sensors couldn’t do was locate a cold trail. There was no trace of Aaron’s ship. Given the time between the raid on the clinic and her arrival, she suspected he had an ultradrive ship. Marius certainly had one. Her u-shadow monitored him arriving back at the city starport and getting into a private yacht. Alexis Denken’s sensors tracked it slipping into hyperspace. For those in the know, the signature was indicative of an ultradrive.
An hour later, the Delivery Man took off in his own ship, which had an equally suspicious drive signature. He flew away in almost exactly the opposite direction to Marius. Ten minutes later another starship dropped out of transdimensional suspension where it had been waiting in the system’s cometary halo, and began to fly along the same course as the Delivery Man.
‘Good luck,’ Paula sent to Justine.
‘Thanks.’
Paula opened an ultra-secure link to ANA:Governance. ‘It appears your ultradrive technology is completely compromised,’ she reported.
‘To be expected,’ ANA:Governance replied. ‘It does not require my full capacity to derive the theory behind it. Most Factions would have the intellectual resources. Once the equations are available, any Higher replicator above level-five could produce the appropriate hardware.’
‘I still think you should exert a little more authority. After all, the Factions are all part of you.’
‘Factions are how I remain integral. I am plural.’
‘The way you say it makes it sound like you have the electronic version of bi-polar disorder.’
‘More like multi-billion-polar. But that is what I am. All individuals who join me do so by imprinting their personality routines upon me. I am the collective consciousness of all ANA inhabitants, that is the very basis of my authority. Once that essence is bequeathed they are free to become what they want. I do not take their memories, too, that would be an annexation of individuality.’
‘You have to pass through the eye of the needle to live in the playground of the gods.’
‘One of Inigo’s better quotes,’ ANA:Governance said with a cadence of amusement. ‘Shame about the rest of that sermon.’
‘You don’t help make my job any easier.’
‘Any and all of my resources are available to you.’
‘But there’s only one of me, and I feel like I’m battling the Hydra out here.’
‘This lack of self-confidence is unlike you. What is the matter?’
‘The Pilgrimage, of course. Should it be allowed?’
‘The humans of Living Dream believe it to be both their right and their destiny. They are billions in number. How can that much belief be wrong?’
‘Because they might be endangering trillions.’
‘True. This is not a question which has an answer. Not in the absolute terms you are demanding.’
‘What if they do trigger the Void’s final devourment phase, or at least a bad one?’
‘Ah, now that is the real question. It’s also one which I doubt we can have prior knowledge of. Neither I nor any of the post-physicals I have interacted with are aware of what happens inside the Void.’
‘Inigo showed you.’
‘Inigo showed us the fate of humans in the Void. Which incidentally isn’t too dissimilar to downloading yourself into me; though the Void has the advantage of quasi-mystical overtones to win over the technophobes among humanity. And you get to remain physical. What he did not show us is the nature of the Void itself.’
‘So you’re prepared to take the risk?’
‘At this moment I am prepared to let the players strut the stage.’
‘Yes. That’s about as un-definitive as it gets.’
‘If I were to forbid the Pilgrimage and enforce that decision, it would trigger a split within myself. Pro-Pilgrimage Factions such as the Advancers would likely attempt to create their own version of myself. And kindly remember I am not a virtual environment. I am fully established within the quantum field intersections around Earth.’
‘You’re scared of a rival?’
‘The human race has never been so unified as it is today. It has taken our entire history to reach this congruity. People, all people, lead a good life filled with as much diversity as they wish to undergo. They migrate inwards until they download into me. Within me they are free to transcend in any way imagination and ability can combine. One day, as a whole, I will become post-physical
. Humans who do not wish to travel along that path will begin afresh. That is the vision of evolution which awaits us. A “rival” focal point would distort that, possibly even damage or dilute the moment of singularity.’
‘There can only be one god, huh?’
‘There can be many. I simply wish to avoid engendering hostile ones. No one wants to see a war in heaven. Trust me, it would make a Void devourment seem trivial.’
‘I thought diversity was our virtue.’
‘It is one of them, and as such flourishes within me.’
‘But …’
‘It is also a danger that can lead to our destruction. Opposing forces have to be balanced. That is my function.’
‘And this is one instance where you’re going to fail if you’re not careful.’
‘Undoubtedly.’
‘So we have to find other options.’
‘As people have sought since civilization began on Earth. That, I think, is a greater virtue.’
‘Okay then.’ Paula took a moment to marshal her thoughts. ‘I’m uncertain who is behind the raid on the clinic. It is puzzling why the Advancers and Conservatives should both have their representatives there after the fact. Do you think a third Faction is involved?’
‘Very likely. I do not know which one. Many alliances are being formed and broken. However, you may soon be able to establish the identity. Admiral Kazimir is currently receiving a report from the base Admiral at the High Angel. He will probably ask you to tackle it.’
‘Ah.’
‘If you need anything.’
‘I’ll let you know.’
The link ended. Paula sat back on the deep curving chair which the starship’s cabin had moulded for her. Given her own uncertainty about the mission, she was feeling vaguely troubled by the lack of reassurance ANA:Governance could offer. She supposed she should be grateful it was so honest with her.
Kazimir called less than a minute later. ‘How did the Anagaska enquiry go?’ he asked.
‘Positive result. It was definitely someone with advanced biononics and possibly an ultradrive ship. The target was Inigo’s old memorycell.’
‘Interesting. And I’ve just had a report that the Alini, a private starship, docked at High Angel.’
‘How is that relevant?’
‘It docked at the Raiel dome. The Navy sensors detected a drive signature which could indicate an ultradrive.’
Paula was suddenly very interested. ‘Did it now? There are very few humans the Raiel will allow into their dome. Who does the Alini belong to?’
‘Unknown. It’s registered to a company on Sholapur.’
‘I’m on my way.’
*
The Delivery Man landed at Daroca’s main starport, parking his ultradrive ship, the Jomo, on a pad connected to the third terminal building, which dealt with private yachts. Then he started walking across the field to the nearby hangar zone. Even knowing all about the diversion bug infiltrated into the ground navigation section of the star-port’s smartcore didn’t help him. All the hangars were identical, the rows regimented. It was mildly confusing. Not that he would lose his way, not with all his enrichments and an instinctive sense of direction. But just to be on the safe side … His u-shadow snatched real-time images from a sensor satellite and guided him directly.
Eventually, he was standing at the base of a glossy black wall where the small side door was protected by an excellent security shield. Not even his full field function scan could determine what lay inside. He smiled. This was more like it.
His biononics began to modify their field function, pushing a variety of energy patterns against the security shield, introducing small instabilities which quickly began to amplify. His u-shadow reached through the fluctuating gaps and launched a flurry of smart trojans into the hangar net.
The door irised open.
Ninety-seven seconds. Not bad.
Inside, his field function scanned round looking for possible guard armaments, while his u-shadow rifled through the hangar’s electronic systems. Troblum had set up a fairly standard defence network, with concentric shielding around the main section of the hangar. The physicist was clearly more interested in maintaining privacy than physical protection.
His scan didn’t reveal any human presence in the hangar. The first office was clearly just a reception area, cover for anyone who did make it past the diversion system. Beyond that was a second office with one of the biggest smartcores the Delivery Man had ever seen. It wasn’t connected to the hangar network, or the unisphere. His u-shadow established a link to its peripheral systems and began to probe the available files.
The Delivery Man went on into the main hangar. He whistled softly at the vast array of Neumann cybernetic modules occupying half of the space inside. The machine was powered down, but he was familiar enough with the technology to guess its sophistication probably put it beyond a level-six replicator. That was not something an individual Higher citizen normally possessed. No wonder Troblum needed such a large smartcore, nothing else could operate such a rig.
‘Can you access the main memory?’ he asked his u-shadow.
‘Not possible for me. I will need high-order assistance.’
The Delivery Man cursed, and opened an ultra-secure link to the Conservative Faction. There was a small risk it could be intercepted by another Faction or more likely ANA:Governance itself, but in light of what he’d stumbled across he considered it necessary. ‘I need help to gain access to Troblum’s smartcore. It should tell us what he’s been building with this machine.’
‘Very well,’ the Conservative Faction replied. With his u-shadow providing a link, the Delivery Man could almost feel the Faction’s presence shift into the hangar. It began to infiltrate the smartcore. While it was doing that, he began to look through the mundane files in the hangar’s net to try and find delivery schedules. The individual components of the machine had to come from somewhere, and the EMA to obtain them went far beyond an individual’s resources. There was no court the Conservatives could use to confront the Accelerators with, even if he established a datatrail back to their representatives; but if he could find the proxy supplying Troblum with additional EMA there was a chance he could find other illicit EMA transfers from the same source. A whole level of Accelerator operations would be uncovered.
‘There is only one design stored in the smartcore,’ the Conservative Faction announced. ‘It would appear to be an ftl engine capable of transporting a planet.’
The Delivery Man swung round to stare at the dark machine looming above him, his gaze drawn to the circular extrusion mechanism in the centre. ‘A whole planet?’
‘Yes.’
‘Would it work?’
‘The design is an ingenious reworking of exotic matter theory. It could work if applied correctly.’
‘And this built it?’ he said, still staring at the machine.
‘There have been two attempts at producing the engine. The first was aborted. The second appears to have been successful.’
‘Why do they want to fly a planet round at ftl speeds? And which planet?’
‘We don’t know. Please destroy the machine and the smartcore.’
The Delivery Man put his hands on his hips to give the machine an appalled look. ‘What technology level can I go up to here?’
‘Unlimited. Nobody must know it ever existed, least of all Highers.’
‘Okay. Your call.’
The Conservative Faction ended the link, leaving the Delivery Man feeling unusually alone. Now he knew the purpose of the machine the silent hangar had the feel of some ancient murder scene. It wasn’t a pleasant place to be, putting him on edge.
He called the Jomo’s smartcore, and told it to fly over. The hangar’s main doors were open when it arrived, and it nosed through the security screen to settle on the cradles inside. Its nose almost touched the wall of Neumann cybernetics.
The Delivery Man made sure the hangar security screen was at its highest rating bef
ore he stood underneath the Jomo’s open airlock to be drawn up by an inverted gravity effect. Once inside he used a tri-certificate authorization to activate the Hawking m-sink stored in one of the forward holds. The little device was contained inside a high-powered regrav sled, which slipped out to hover in front of the Neumann cybernetics. With that in place, the Delivery Man aimed a narrow disrupter effect at the machine, just above the Hawking m-sink. A half-metre section of equipment vaporized, producing a horizontal fountain of hot ionized gas. It bent slightly in mid-air to pour into the Hawking m-sink, which absorbed every molecule. The Delivery Man tracked the disruptor effect along the front of the machine, with the Hawking m-sink following.
It took forty minutes to vaporize the entire machine. When it was over, the quantum black hole at the centre of the Hawking m-sink had absorbed three hundred and twenty-seven tonnes of matter, putting the regrav sled close to its weight lift limit as it edged back into the starship’s hold. The Delivery Man requested flight clearance from the starport, and the Jomo lifted into Arevalo’s warm summer skies.
Justine watched it go from the safety of her own ship, parked on a pad eight hangars down the row.
*
Twilight was bathing Hawksbill Bay with a rich gold hue, mild enough so that strange constellations could twinkle merrily across the cloudless sky. The only sound around the pavilion’s swimming pool came from the waves breaking around the rocks of the headland below.
‘An ftl engine that shifts planets,’ Nelson said. ‘Got to admire them. They don’t think small.’
‘They don’t think: period,’ Gore grunted. ‘ANA is embedded in the local quantum fields. You can’t just rip it out and fling it across the galaxy on a blind date with the Void.’
‘They obviously believe it. Troblum’s EMA came through one of their front committees. He built the engine for the Accelerators.’
‘Don’t believe it,’ Gore said, shaking his head. ‘He even made a presentation to the Navy about the Anomine using something like this to haul the Dyson barrier generators into place. Asked Kazimir to fund a fucking search for them for Christ’s sake. Why would Ilanthe allow him to go public with the idea? They’d atomize him before he even put in a call for a meeting with the Navy. No, we haven’t got enough information yet.’