“But Paula, their ‘right’ to seek the solution of perfection in the Void will endanger the rest of the galaxy. That right cannot be permitted.”
“Quite. And yet, we don’t have conclusive proof that the Void will respond the way you claim.”
Qatux was silent, as if startled. “You doubt us, Paula?”
“Humans need to know things for themselves. It is our nature, Qatux.”
“I understand that. I am sorry for you.”
“We’re being too melancholy. I give you my word I’m working to try and sort out this mess.”
“As always you are honourable. I hope you succeed. I would not like to see our two species fall into conflict.”
“We won’t.”
***
The High Angel teleported Paula back into the cabin of the Alexis Denken. Like all modern starships the cabin could provide her with every physical necessity; like a hotel room with a particularly bad view. She ordered up a plain chair and took her guitar out of the storage locker. Music was something she’d come to late in life. As her genetically ordained compulsions were slowly erased, so she found her cultural horizons expanding. Art was a whole area she could never quite appreciate, she was always looking for rationalist explanation in every work. Literature was a lot more satisfactory, stories had a point, a resolution. Not that there were many books released into the Unisphere these days, current writers tended to produce outlines and scripts for sensory dramas.
But the classics were enjoyable enough; the only genre she tended to shy away from was crime and thrillers. Poetry she ignored as an absurd irrelevance. Music, though, had something for every mood, every place. She took a great deal of pleasure from it, listening to everything from orchestral arrangements to singer songwriters, jazz to gaianature tonality, choral to starsphere dance. The Alexis Denken would often streak between star systems reverberating to the sounds of Rachmaninoff or Pink Floyd or Deeley KTC.
Paula sat back and started to pluck a few chords at random, then gradually dropped into Johnny Cash’s ‘The Wanderer’. She didn’t try to sing; there were some limits in life you just had to accept. Instead the smartcore projected the Man in Black into the cabin, and he started to croon along to her melody.
The song helped her think.
She knew she should be heading straight for Orakum or even Hanko, but she was feeling a lot more troubled by Qatux’s last comment than she ought to have been. It seemed as though this whole Pilgrimage situation was designed to disrupt her judgement and objectivity.
That, or I’m just getting lonely and uncertain in my old age.
Paula finished strumming. The Man in Black gave her a forlorn look, and she waved her hand dismissively. The smartcore cancelled the projection.
Her u-shadow opened a link to Kazimir—someone who did have empathy for her position.
“What can I do for you?” he asked.
“I’m at the High Angel. Aaron gave Inigo’s memorycell to Qatux. Someone knew about our friend’s predilection.”
“Did Qatux review it?”
“Oh yes. Qatux told Aaron that Inigo was probably hiding out on Hanko.”
“Interesting. Presumably that’s where the Artful Dodger aka the Alini is heading?”
“Yes.”
“Another ultradrive ship arrived in system just before the Artful Dodger departed. The Navy commander at High Angel said it stood off in the cometary belt, and left in hot pursuit.”
“Does every faction have ultradrive ships?” she asked indignantly. “Justine caught the Delivery Man using a Hawking m-sink on Arevalo.”
“So she told me. I consider it significant that the Factions are openly using such technology. This whole Pilgrimage event could well be the trigger for an irreversible culture spilt within the human race.”
“Whose side will you take?”
“The Navy was created by ANA to protect humans from stronger, hostile aliens. That is what it will continue to do until I am removed from my position. If ANA chooses to leave the physical universe, I will stay behind and ensure that whatever sections of us remain continue to receive that protection. Is that a side, do you think?”
“No. But it’s certainly a plan.”
“Are you going after Aaron?”
“Not immediately. Can you provide some protection for Hanko and Inigo, if he’s there?”
“I will observe and advise you of developments; but you know the Navy cannot intervene directly in the internal affairs of Commonwealth citizens. Despite the scale of the problem, that’s what this is.”
Paula was thrown by the answer. She was expecting Kazimir to be a lot more helpful. “A thousand years ago I stuck to the rules, too. No good comes of it. You need to bend a little, Kazimir.”
“You and other representatives exist so I don’t have to. You handle the grey areas, while I deal in black and white.”
“There’s no such thing.”
“Nonetheless, I operate within a set of rules that I will not break.”
“I understand. Just do what you can, please.”
“Of course.”
***
The Artful Dodger dropped out of hyperspace five thousand kilometres above Hanko’s equator. Sensors examined the surrounding environment, bringing up several amber warning symbols, and even a couple of red ones. The local star had an abnormally large number of sunspots chasing across its surface, producing a dangerously thick solar wind. Below the starship’s metallic purple hull, a global cloud blanket reflected the star’s sharp white glow back into space, its uniform glare broken only by the vast aural streamers that lashed across the stratosphere. Above the atmosphere monstrous arches of violet fluorescence soared out far beyond geosynchronous orbit, engorged Van Allen radiation belts that choked the planet with a hurricane of high-energy particles. The Artful Dodger s hull sparked with a corposant discharge as it slid across into a high inclination orbit.
“Welcome to hell,” Aaron muttered as he monitored the images from outside. The ship began to probe through the clouds with high-resolution hysradar sweeps, standard radar, magnoscan, quantum signature receptors, and electromagnetic sensors; revealing the lay of the frozen land underneath. Several com-beacon signals appeared on the emerging cartography, the only indication of activity on this bygone world. They broadcast the official channels of the Restoration team, asking all arriving ships to make contact.
Corrie-Lyn watched the images in the portal with a mournful face as the starship flew round and round the planet, building up a detailed survey of the surface. Twelve hundred years after the Prime attack, glaciers were still advancing out of the polar regions. “I can’t believe Inigo was ever attracted to this place,” she said.
“You heard Qatux; he enjoyed the idea of an ancestral homeworld.”
“Even if he came here, he’d take one look and leave. There’s nothing here.”
“There are Restoration teams down there, even today,” Aaron said, waving at the little scarlet lights dotted across the map. The beacons acted as crude relays across continents, the only communication net on the planet.
“That’s got to be the biggest lost cause in the galaxy,” she said.
“You’re probably right. Seventeen of the Second47 worlds have officially closed their Restoration projects, and the remainder are winding down. Budgets get reduced every year. Nobody kicks up a fuss about it any more, not like the first couple of centuries after the War.”
After ten orbits, the smartcore had mapped all the exposed land lurking below the eternal cloud. Sensors had located twenty-three centres of dense electromagnetic activity. The largest was a force field dome in the centre of Kajaani, the old capital city. All the others were little more than clumps of machinery and buildings scattered across the dead tundra of three continents. No thermal sensor could begin to penetrate the cloud, so he had no way of telling if any of the outposts were occupied. There didn’t seem to be any capsules in flight. Electrical activity in the air was strong, interfering with
several sensor fields.
“No way of telling if he’s down there,” Aaron said. “Not from up here. I can’t even see what ships are parked under the force field.”
“What were you expecting?”
“Nothing more than this. I’m just scouting the territory before we go in to make sure there are no surprises.”
Corrie-Lyn rubbed her arms, as if the cold from the planet was seeping into the cabin. “So what’s our cover story this time?”
“No point in one. It’s not like the teams are heavily armed.”
“So you just shoot them one at a time until they give him up to us?”
He gave her an annoyed stare. “We’ll tell them that you’re searching for a former lover. He changed his name and profile to forget you, but you’ve tracked him down here. All very romantic.”
“That makes me look like a complete loser.”
“Oh dear,” he sneered, and told the smartcore to call the beacon at Kajaani.
It took several minutes to get a reply from the shielded base. Eventually a very startled Restoration project director called Ansan Purillar came on line to give them landing authority.
The Artful Dodger sank deftly through the three kilometres of the upper cloud layer. Two hundred kph winds buffeted the hull with near-solid clumps of grey mist while lightning clawed furiously at the force field. Eventually they cleared the base of the layer into a strata of super-clear air and the outside temperature plummeted. A gloomy panorama opened up beneath them. Black ice-locked land smeared with long dunes of snow. Denuded of vegetation, every geographical feature was shaded in stark monochrome. Long braids of grubby cloud chased across the dead features.
“It must have been terrifying,” Corrie-Lyn said sadly.
“The Primes dropped two flare bombs into the star,” Aaron told her. “The only way the Navy could knock them out was by using quantumbusters on the corona. Between them, they produced enough radiation to slaughter every living cell a million times over. Hanko’s atmosphere absorbed the energy until it reached saturation point, which triggered a superstorm, which in turn threw up enough cloud to cover the planet and kick off an ice age. And the star still hasn’t stabilized. Even if it did, it wouldn’t matter; the radiation has completely destroyed the biosphere. According to the files, there’s some marine life that’s still alive in the deepest parts of the oceans, but that’s all. The land is as sterile as a surgical chamber. Check out those radiation levels—and we’re still five kilometres high.”
“I didn’t appreciate what a scale this War was fought on.”
“They were going to genocide us.” The words were almost painful to speak. It had been a fearful time. Aaron shuddered. How do I know what the War was like? A deeper instinct assured him he wasn’t that old.
The Artful Dodger continued its descent through the rampaging lower clouds, blazing with solar brilliance as it sloughed off whip-like tendrils of electrical energy. At this altitude the wind speeds had dropped to a hundred and fifty kilometres per hour, but the air density meant the ship’s ingrav units were straining to hold them stable against the pressure.
Corrie-Lyn tried not to look alarmed as the starship began to shake. High velocity ice crystals shattered against the force field as an amok cloud braid hurtled around them. The crunch of disintegrating ice could be heard inside the cabin.
“Okay then, this is why there aren’t any capsules flying down here,” Aaron muttered. His exovision was showing him the force field dome below altering its permeability index to allow them through. The wind speed was now less than a hundred kilometres.
Outside the dome, there was very little evidence of the city remaining. In its time, Kajaani had been home to three million people. Its force field had warded off the storms in the days following the Prime attack, protecting the wormhole station so that the planet’s population could be evacuated to Anagaska. The process had taken over a month, with government vehicles transporting refugees from outlying counties on every continent as the storms grew worse and worse and vegetation withered and died. Seven weeks and three days after the planet’s Premier Speaker led the way, CST closed the Hanko wormhole. If there was anybody left on the planet, they were beyond contact. Every effort had been made, every known habitation and isolated farmstead searched.
With the people gone, the force fields protecting cities and towns failed one by one, allowing the winds to pound against the buildings and floodwater to scour the ground around them. Not even modern superstrong materials could resist such pummelling for ever. The structures began to crumple and collapse. Eventually, with the climate spiralling down into its ice age the rains chilled to become snow, then ice. Mushy scree piled up against the frozen ruins, obliterating yet more evidence that this had once been an inhabited world.
The Artful Dodger passed through the force field and into the calm bubble of warm air that was the Restoration team’s main base. It was centred on one of Kajaani’s old parks. Under the protective auspice of the force field, the ground had been decontaminated and replanted. Grass grew once again, as did a short avenue of trees. Clusters of airborne polyphoto spheres shone an imitation sunlight on to the lush greenery; irrigation pipes provided clean water; there were even native birds and insects humming about, oblivious to the dark sky with its sub-zero winds outside.
They landed on a small patch of concrete on the edge of the park which held just one other starship, a thirty-year-old commercial combi-freighter with a continuous wormhole drive, that could carry a mix of cargo and passengers. The difference between the two ships was patent, with the Artful Dodger’s smooth chrome-purple hull seeming almost organic compared to the Restoration team’s workhorse with its carbon-bonded titanium fuselage and fading paintwork.
Aaron and Corrie-Lyn floated gently down out of the airlock to touch down between the five bulbous landing legs. Ten people had turned out to greet them, quite a crowd by the base’s standards; and all curious to see the unscheduled arrivals. Ansan Purillar stood at the head of the delegation, a slightly rotund man with fair hair cut short, dressed in a simple dark-blue tunic with a Restoration logo on the arm.
“Greetings to both of you,” he said. “I’d like to know why you’re here. We’re pleased to see you, of course, don’t get me wrong. But we never have visitors. Ever.” His attitude was pleasant, but there was an underlying determination.
Aaron’s biononics performed a fast low-level field scan. Director Purillar was an ordinary Advancer human; as were his coworkers, none were Higher. “It’s rather awkward,” he said with a twisted smile. “Er, Corrie…”
“I’m looking for someone,” she said.
It was a low voice, hauntingly mournful. Aaron was quite impressed; she’d backed it up with a soft ache in the base’s tiny gaiafield. The team were suddenly all attention and sympathy.
“A man. Yigo. We were in love. Then it went bad. My fault. I was so stupid. I shouldn’t have… I don’t want to say…”
Aaron put his arm comfortingly round her shoulder as she sniffed convincingly, head bowed. “There there,” he assured her. “They don’t want details.”
Corrie-Lyn nodded bravely and continued. “He left. It took me a long time before I realized what a mistake I’d made. But I’d hurt him, really badly. I’ve been looking for him for three years. He changed his name and his profile, but his sister let slip he’d come here.”
“Who is it?” Director Purillar asked.
“I don’t know. All I know is what his sister said, that he’d joined the Restoration project. I just had to come. If there is any chance…”
“Um, yes, sure.” Purillar glanced round at his colleagues, who were busy checking each other out to see if any of them was going to own up to being The One. He waved an arm about. “Anyone look familiar?”
Corrie-Lyn shook her head despondently. “No. I probably won’t recognize him.” She faced her little audience. “Yigo, please, if it’s you, please just tell me. I just want to talk, that’s all. Please.?
??
Now nobody was meeting her gaze.
“You don’t have to do it in front of your friends,” she said. “Come to me later. I really really miss you.” That last was accompanied by a burst of sincere desperation into the gaiafield.
“All right then,” a now thoroughly embarrassed Purillar said to his team, “I’ll get this organized. We can meet up again at dinner.”
People broke off, heading back towards the main expanse of grass, keeping their smiles under tight control. As soon as they were a few paces away, couples went into deep intense conversations, heads pressed close together.
Aaron watched them go, keeping his own face impassive. The base would be talking about this for the next twenty years.
Ansan Purillar was left standing in front of his two uninvited guests, one hand scratching at his fuzz of hair in some perplexity. His gaiamotes were leaking an equal amount of disquiet. “You’re welcome to use the accommodation here. There are plenty of rooms spare, a legacy of when the project was conducted on a grander scale. But, quite frankly, I suspect your own ship would be more comfortable.” He eyed the Artful Dodger jealously. “Our living quarters haven’t been updated in a century.”
“That’s very kind of you, and of course we’ll use the ship,” Aaron said. “We have no intention of imposing.”
“Quite the contrary,” Purillar said sheepishly. “You are going to be excellent for morale. The only entertainment we get here is sensory dramas, and they tend to pale after a while. Whereas a quest like this… One of us dull old souls with a romantic past. Well!”
“How long have you been here?” Aaron asked.
“Myself? I will have notched up twenty-five years in the last hundred and thirty.”
Aaron whistled. “That’s devotion. Do you mind telling me why?”
Purillar beckoned to them, and set off across the grass. “I’m nearly three hundred years old, so in fact it’s a small portion of my life. I don’t mind donating the time because I can extend my life as long as I want to make up for it.”
“That sounds almost like Higher philosophy.”