The Dreaming Void (53 page)

The Mars Twins were an unusual turgid red as their upper-atmosphere hurricanes swirled and battled along thousand-kilometer fronts, obliterating the dark shadows that occasionally hinted at surface features. Their dour ambiance matched Cleric Conservator Ethan's mood as he strode through the Liliala Hall. Above him the storms rampaging across the visionary ceiling flashed purple lightning and pummeled away at each other like waves assaulting a beach. They swirled together, veiling the two small planets. The silent vivid battle made for an impressive entrance as he swept through the arching door into the Mayor's suite.

Rincenso and Falven, two of his staunchest supporters on the Council, were waiting for him in the first anteroom, their cautious expressions made more sinister by the amber lighting. All they allowed of themselves into the gaiafield was a polite radiance of expectation. Not even Ethan's easily sensed mood could make them waver.

He beckoned them to follow as he pushed through into the oval sanctum. Strong sunlight shone in through the high Rayonnant-style windows, illuminating the grand wooden desk identical to the one the Waterwalker had sat behind when he had been Mayor of Makkathran. Five simple chairs were arranged before it. Councillor Phelim stood at the side of one, waiting for Ethan to sit behind his desk. He wore the simple everyday blue and green robe of a Councillor. It was meant to testify to an open and approachable person who would take time to solve someone's problem. On Phelim it was off-putting, emphasizing his height and severe facial features.

“So the Skylord would seem to be on its way to Querencia,” Ethan said as he sat down.

Falven cleared his throat. “It is heading for some kind of planet. We have to assume it is Querencia. The prospect of another planet housing humans in the Void would open many complications for us.”

“Not so,” Rincenso said. “I don't care how many other H-congruous planets there are or who lives on them. We are concerned only with Querencia and the Waterwalker. It is his example we wish to follow.”

“Too many unknowns to pronounce on,” Falven said.

“Not that many, surely,” Ethan said. “We cannot doubt the Second Dreamer is dreaming a Skylord. This creature is aware of the souls and minds of living sentient entities. It and its flock are flying toward a solid planet to collect those souls and carry them to Odin's Sea. This flight fulfills every teaching of the Lady.”

“I wonder what life in Makkathran is like now,” Rincenso mused. “So much time has passed.”

“You'll find out soon enough,” Ethan said. “The hulls of our Pilgrimage ships are being fabricated. We will be ready to launch soon. Phelim?”

“We should have the hulls and internal systems finished by September,” Phelim said. “The cost is colossal, but the Free Market Zone has a considerable manufacturing capacity. Component construction is heavily cybernated; production is a simple process once the templates are loaded in. And of course, no matter how much criticism we face, External world companies are always eager for our money.”

“September,” Rincenso said. “Dear Ozzie, so close.”

Ethan did not look at Phelim. No one else had been told of the ultradrive engines Marius had promised to deliver. “The physical aspect goes well,” he said. “That just leaves us with our enigmatic Second Dreamer to deal with. We still don't know why he hasn't revealed himself, but it is significant that his dreams have become so much more substantial as the ships are built.”

“Why does he not come forward?” Falven said. The gaiafield revealed the flash of anger in his mind. “Curse him; are we never to find him?”

“He is on Viotia,” Phelim said.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. The gaiafield confluence nests on Viotia were the first to receive his last dream. They disseminated it across the Greater Commonwealth gaiafield.”

“Do you know where on Viotia he is?”

“Not yet. But now that we have confirmed the planet, our efforts will be concentrated on determining the exact geographical location. Of course, people move about. And if he is actively seeking anonymity, he will simply relocate after every dream.”

“Which must be prevented,” Ethan said simply.

“How?” Rincenso asked.

“This is why I have asked you two here today, my dearest friends and allies on the Council. The Second Dreamer is crucial to Pilgrimage. He is the one who must ask the Skylords for guidance through the barrier and onward to Querencia. In the absence of Inigo, he is the one who will light our way.”

“So what do you want us to do?” Falven asked.

“There are several routes available to us,” Ethan said quietly. “I believe the one we will end up traveling along is to bring Viotia into the Free Market Zone.”

The two Councillors gave each other a puzzled look.

“It
is
part of our Free Market Zone,” Falven said.

“By treaty, yes,” Ethan said. “It is not one of our core planets—yet. We must be prepared to complete the admission process, culminating with Ellezelin opening a wormhole between our two worlds. Following that, Viotia's government should adopt a more favorable stance toward Living Dream. Ultimately I would like to welcome them into our hagiocracy.”

Falven sat back, looking startled.

Rincenso merely smiled in appreciation. “There are a great many of our followers there already. Enough to tilt the demographic?”

“Possibly,” Phelim said.

“In which case I would be happy to raise the proposal in the Council.”

“I, too,” Falven said slowly.

“There is a degree of hostility and resentment currently being shown to our followers on Viotia,” Ethan said. “If a wormhole were to be opened, binding their economy to ours, that resentment will manifest itself in street violence. We would need to guarantee the security of all Living Dream adherents.”

“Do we have that ability?” Falven asked cautiously.

“There are enough national security forces spread across the core planets of the Free Market Zone to enforce the rule of law on Viotia,” Phelim said. “We have been recruiting additional personnel since Ethan's ascension to Conservator.”

“Enough for this?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. I see.”

“I regret any inconvenience this may cause to Viotia's citizens,” Ethan said. “But we cannot afford to lose the Second Dreamer.”

“If we just knew why he's refusing to reveal himself,” Rincenso said acrimoniously.

“Because he doesn't yet know,” Ethan said with a weary sadness.

“How can he not know?”

“It took several weeks for Inigo to realize what was happening. At first he believed his dreams to be some kind of overspill from a full-sense drama that was leaking into the Centurion Station gaiafield. I believe that confusion is repeating again. To begin with, all we had were small fragments, glimpses of the Skylord which we edited together. Now that contact has been established, the length and strength of the dreams are increasing. As they did with Inigo. Soon they will reach a crescendo, and the Second Dreamer will realize what he has been chosen to do.”

Falven gave the others in the oval sanctum an uncomfortable look. “Then why do we need to incorporate Viotia?”

“What if the Second Dreamer isn't an adherent of Living Dream?” Ethan asked mildly.

“But—”

“There's a much worse scenario than that,” Phelim said. “If one of our opponents were to reach him first and use him to sabotage the Pilgrimage.”

“They'll be looking,” Rincenso said.

“Of course they'll be looking,” Ethan said. “But we have a huge advantage with our command of the gaiafield. Not even ANA's despicable factions can intrude upon that. We must reach him first.”

“And if he refuses to help?” Falven inquired.

“Change his mind,” Phelim told them. “In a very literal sense.”

“I suppose that's necessary,” Rincenso said uneasily.

“I would hope not,” Ethan said. “But we must be prepared for all eventualities.”

“Yes. I understand.”

“What I would like to do first is make a simple appeal to both the Second Dreamer and the Skylord,” Ethan said.

Falven's thoughts rippled with surprise, which he made no effort to hide. “A unisphere declaration?”

“No. A direct intervention into the next dream.”

“How?”

“The Second Dreamer is issuing his dream into the confluence nests in real time,” Phelim said. “Right at the end of the last dream, as it fades away, there is an anomaly, a tiny one. It is extremely hard to spot; we believe it has escaped attention among the majority of our followers. But our dream masters have been reviewing those last moments. There is a human emotion intruding into the Skylord's stream of consciousness: a weak sense of pleasure but one with considerable sexual connotations. In all probability we are witnessing postcoital satisfaction.”

“The Second Dreamer receives the Skylord's dream when he's having sex?” Rincenso asked incredulously.

“The human brain is most receptive when relaxed,” Ethan said. “The period immediately after sex certainly generates that state.”

“Did this happen to Inigo?” Falven was almost indignant.

Ethan's lips twitched in amusement. “Not that I'm aware of. Inigo never issued his dreams in real time, so I don't suppose we'll ever know. But this anomaly is the strongest indicator we have that this is real-time dreaming, in which case we should be able to intervene, to converse with both the Second Dreamer and the Skylord. If we can successfully perform the latter intervention, we may be able to establish a direct connection without the Second Dreamer, in which case our problems will be solved. Viotia becomes an irrelevance, as does our elusive Second Dreamer. And we will be one step closer to the Void.”

“That would be … wonderful,” Falven said.

“Our dream masters are now monitoring Viotia's confluence nests for the time the Second Dreamer starts to dream. When it happens, we will make the attempt.”

“And if that fails?”

“Then you will bring your proposal to the Council.”

Fourteen hundred years was a long time alive by anyone's standards. However, there were Commonwealth citizens who had remained in their bodies for longer; Paula had even met a few of them. She did not enjoy their company. Mostly they were dynasty members who could not let go of the old times when their family empires used to run the Commonwealth. After biononics and ANA and Higher culture had changed the Central worlds forever, they had grabbed what they could of their ancient wealth and reestablished themselves on External worlds, where they had set about re-creating their personal golden age.

They had the money and influence to be bold and build new experimental societies: something different, something exciting. But for all their extraordinarily long life, they'd never experienced another way to live. And the longer they managed to maintain their own little empires around them, the more resistant to change they became. Nothing new was attempted; instead, they mined history for stability. On one planet in particular their social engineering had reached its nadir. A ruling Halgarth collective on Iaioud had founded and maintained a society that was even less susceptible to change than Huxley's Haven by the simple expedient of prohibiting conception. At the end of a fifty-year life, all the citizens were rejuvenated and their memories wiped, except that the state knew who they were and what job they did best. On emerging fresh from their clinic treatment, they would be appointed to the same profession again and spend the next fifty years working as they had for the last fifty, hundred, three hundred years. It was the ultimate feudalism.

Three hundred years before, Paula had led an undercover team of agents there, infiltrating the clinics that performed the rejuvenation treatment and slowly corrupting them. Over the next few years memory wipes became incomplete, allowing people to remember what had gone before. Thousands of women discovered that their revitalized bodies had a functional uterus again. Underground networks were established, first to help the criminal outcasts who had given birth to children and then assuming a greater role in offering political resistance to the Halgarth regime.

Forty years after Paula and her team had finished their mission to sow dissent on Iaioud, a revolution overturned the Halgarth collective, using minimal force. It took a further hundred fifty years for the twisted world to regain its equilibrium and claw its way back up the socioeconomic index to something approaching the average for an External world.

At the time, Paula had worried that she still was not ready for that kind of mission. Change was a long time coming within herself. It was one thing to realize intellectually that she had to adapt mentally to keep up with the ever-shifting cultures of the Greater Commonwealth. But unlike everyone else, she had to make a conscious decision to alter herself physically in order for that evolution to manifest itself. Her carefully designed DNA hardwired her neurons into specific personality traits. In order to survive any kind of phrenic progression, she first had to destroy what existed, an action that came perilously close to individuality suicide. And in her, as in every human, vanity was not something bound to DNA; she considered her existing personality to be more than adequate—in short, she liked being herself.