Into Everywhere (55 page)

While waiting in the ice on the far side of this little world, Unlikely Worlds had enjoyed a very useful conversation with the bridle of
Abalunam’s Pride
. The Ghajar eidolon had changed her in several interesting ways, and she hadn’t finished changing yet. And then there were the Ghajar ships in their sargassos – especially the so-called mad ships, which had been trembling on the brink of a similar change when they had been quarantined. Perhaps that precocious little AI would be the catalyst for their transfiguration.

It was possible that something in the trove of knowledge Lisa Dawes had passed to Tony Okoye would set humans on that path. It had happened before. It would no doubt happen again. But mostly those who believed that they were the clients of the Jackaroo flowered all too briefly before failing. Ghajar, Ghostkeepers, Boxbuilders, Spirebuilders, Constant Gardeners and several hundred others: all were gone. Some had failed in interesting ways. Some had burned quickly and brightly. Some had lingered long before finally fading. The descendants of a few lived on, unburdened by complex consciousness. Hive rats on First Foot, wind skimmers on Yanos . . . So while it was possible that humans might bootstrap themselves into transcendence, it was more likely that it would be the descendants of the union between bridles and ships who would discover how to access the dark-matter gates that orbited the supermassive black hole, and go through to wherever they led. Into other galaxies. Into polders where unimaginable intelligences dwelled. Into the calm depths of the far future, beyond the brief epoch of light and matter. Into the deep past, where they could flake off new universes from the infinite possibilities that nested in primordial creation. Into everywhere. Their evolution would take a long time – a thousand years, ten thousand – to reach fruition, but it had begun. Now there was a story . . .

But Unlikely Worlds was done with all that. He could have hitched a ride with the winners of the petty squabble climaxing overhead, but he didn’t need to. He went up, heading straight for the wormhole, flying faster and faster and faster.

Time to go home.

Time to woo and win and wed.

That much, at least, he’d told true.

My thanks to my agent and first reader Simon Kavanagh, my editor Marcus Gipps, Nick Austin for his scrupulous copy-editing, Sophie Calder for putting out flags, and all at Gollancz and Orion Publishing who helped to turn this into a book and aim it at the world. Life support was, as always, unstintingly provided by Georgina Hawtrey-Woore. Thanks also to Stephen Baxter, Pat Cadigan, John and Judith Clute, Barry Forshaw, Chris Fowler, Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Maura McHugh, Alastair Reynolds, and Russell Schechter.

Willie’s kōan is based on Alasdair Gray’s short story ‘Humanity’, collected in
Lean Tales
by James Kelman, Agnes Owens and Alasdair Gray (Jonathan Cape, 1985).

400 Billion Stars

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Something Coming Through

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A Gollancz eBook

Copyright © Paul McAuley 2016
All rights reserved.

The right of Paul McAuley to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Gollancz
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London, EC4Y 0DZ
An Hachette UK Company

This eBook first published in 2016 by Gollancz.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 473 20400 3

All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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