The Evolutionary Void (21 page)

“That was impressive,” she cooed huskily.

“Kit assembly is tedious,” he said. “And that’s all this was. It’s the
principle behind the drive which is impressive.”

“But you did it; you mastered the beast.”

He swallowed another doughnut and drank some coffee. There was a lot of
tease in her voice; he wondered if she was missing her usual companions.
Somehow he just couldn’t bring himself to reboot Trisha’s I-sentient
personality. Seeing the Sentient Intelligence subvert her image and routines
had spoiled the effect for him, making her less than a person.

“Are you going to reinstate a full gravity field now?” she asked. There
was a thread of concern in her voice.

“Soon. After I’ve had a rest.” He knew he was going to pay for keeping
the onboard gravity low, but it reduced the physical stress on his body.
I deserve that after everything I’ve been through
. He
popped another doughnut in.

“Don’t leave it too long,” she said. Her legs straightened, and she came
over to him. An elegant hand touched his knee. Her routines must have meshed
with his sensory enrichments; he could feel the delicate touch as if feathers
were stroking him through the worn toga-suit fabric. “There’s just us left
now,” she said, and her beautiful features sketched a tragic sadness. Dark hair
fell around her, almost brushing against him. “You’ll look after me, Troblum,
won’t you? You won’t let anything bad happen. Please. I couldn’t stand that, not
going the way the others went: left behind, ruined.”

He was staring at the hand, allowing the sensations to continue. He could
even feel the warmth of the fingers, exactly human body temperature. Perhaps he
didn’t need to replace Howard Liang to experience being with a woman. Perhaps
it would just be he and Catriona. After all, it was a long way to the Andromeda
galaxy.

The thought shook him out of his reverie, and he quickly brought the
coffee cup up again. Such concepts shouldn’t be rushed into; it would need
close examination, thinking about, implications considered. He looked around
the cabin, everywhere but her face. She would know what he’d thought if she saw
his eyes. Know him. That was wrong.

Catriona must have perceived his sudden shift. She gave him a small
sympathetic smile and backed off in a rustle of silky fabric.

There might have been just the faintest scent from her proximity. “I need
to check what’s happening,” he told her.

The smartcore opened a TD link to the unisphere. Almost immediately, Trisha’s
projector produced a knot of undulating tangerine and turquoise sine waves
above one of the cabin’s empty seats.

“Are you aware of events?” the SI asked.

“Why? What’s happened?” Troblum asked.

“The Accelerator faction has imprisoned Sol.”

Troblum felt a flash of wondrous satisfaction. “The Swarm worked?”

“That was your secret? The bargaining chip you wanted to use with Paula?”

Satisfaction gave way to a sudden flare of guilt. “Yes,” he said, then
hurriedly added: “I didn’t know what they were going to use it for.”

“Of course.”

“Did anything get out?”

“No, nothing,” the SI said. Its oscillations deepened to purple for a
moment. “The navy can’t break in. The President has asked
High
Angel
if it can get through.”

“What was the answer?”

“The Raiel said probably not. The Sol barrier seems to be based on Dark
Fortress technology. Is that right?”

“Yeah,” Troblum said reluctantly; he couldn’t actually see how admitting
that would make things any worse.

“You were there at the Dark Fortress. I know that, and so does Paula; she
interviewed your old captain, Chatworth. You were part of this project, a large
part.”

“I liked what the Accelerators were doing. It’s the faction I shall
join.”

“Only if the Sol barrier gets lifted,” the SI said. “There’s no way to
reach ANA now, and the deterrence fleet is trapped inside the barrier as well.
The Commonwealth is completely exposed to the rest of the galaxy, and there are
worse things out there than the Ocisen Empire, believe me.”

“Not after Fusion. Humans will become postphysical, and such things will
be an irrelevence.”

“I don’t wish to become postphysical, nor does a huge proportion of your
own species. Troblum, this is wrong and you know it. There are many ways to
achieve postphysical status without forcing it upon those who don’t wish it.”

“It won’t be forced,” he said sulkily.

“Are you familiar with the Fusion concept and how it will be enacted?”

“Not really.”

“And you were trying to stop the Fusion, if I’m not mistaken?” The SI’s
tone became sympathic. “You and the Accelerators have parted company.”

“I don’t agree with them using the Cat. I still hold with postphysical
elevation.”

“Will you transcend, Troblum? Is that your plan?”

“I … don’t know. Maybe. Yes, ultimately.”

“I hope you achieve your goal. Why are you still on your ship? Why not
join the Pilgrimage and travel into the Void?”

“Because they’ll kill me if they find me.”

“That’s not very enlightened of them. Do you want creatures with that
kind of behavior profile to be the gatekeepers to human evolution?”

Troblum sank down into his chair, trying not to scowl at the fluctuating
lines. “What do you want?”

“We both know why they’ll kill you now, Troblum. Because you know how to
switch off the barrier, don’t you?”

“Actually, I don’t. Only a code can deactivate it, and I don’t know it. I
never have.”

“But you understand the fundamentals behind the Swarm technology. If
anyone can get through, it’ll be you.”

“No. I don’t know how. That force field is unbreakable.”

“Have you thought about that? Have you analyzed every aspect?” the SI
urged.

“Of course. We had to be sure its integrity was perfect.”

“Nothing is perfect, Troblum, not in this universe. You know that. There
will be a flaw.”

“No.”

The colorful projection of waving lines shifted to blue. “You have to let
ANA out, Troblum. You have to find a way.”

“It can’t be done.”

“Think about it. Look at the problem from fresh angles. Find the
solution, Troblum. You owe your species that much.”

“I owe you nothing,” he spit. “Look at the shitty way everyone treats
me.”

“Indeed, yes. You have—or had—your personal collection of war
memorabilia, the greatest there had ever been. You have the EMAs to indulge
yourself in any way you want. Higher society gave you all that. On a personal
level there are friends out there if you want them, lovers, wives.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Nobody wants me.”

The SI’s voice softened. “Have you ever reached out for people, Troblum?
They would be amenable if you did that, if you wanted to do that. You’ve
devoted decades to nurturing I-sentient personalities. Are they people?”

Troblum glanced at Catriona, who gave him an encouraging little smile.
“Really, what do you want?” he asked. “Why are you even fucking talking to me?”

“Because I want you to do the right thing, of course. Before the Sol
barrier went up, you were trying to reach Paula Myo, offering information that
would stop the Swarm, stop Ilanthe and Marius and the Cat. You can still do
that. Carry on with what you were doing; it was right. Talk to Paula; give her
the information she needs to take down the Sol barrier.”

“I don’t have it! It doesn’t fucking exist.”

“You don’t know that,” the SI said persuasively. “Not for certain, for
nothing is certain. Keep going as you were before the imprisonment, Troblum.
Oscar Monroe is on Viotia; he’s worthy of your trust. He sacrificed himself so
the universe you were born into could exist.”

“I can’t. If I expose myself, they’ll kill me. Do you get it now? The Cat
will come after me, and she’ll kill me again and again and again.”

“Then don’t expose yourself. Simply call Paula or Oscar, or I will be
happy to discuss the physics of the Swarm.”

“I don’t trust you. I don’t even know what you really are.”

“Troblum, you have to decide what you truly believe in. You will have no
peace until you do.”

“Yeah, right. Whatever.”

“Very well. I will ask you to consider one thing.”

“What?” he asked grouchily.

“What would Mark Vernon do in this situation?”

The writhing morass of fine lines shrank to nothing. Troblum’s u-shadow
told him the SI had withdrawn from the TD link. “Fuck off, then,” he grunted at
the empty space above the chair.

“I’m sorry,” Catriona said. “It shouldn’t speak to you like that.”

All he could do was wave a hand at her in irritation, hoping she’d shut
up.
Mark Vernon
. His ancestor. The man who’d
actually fired the quantumbuster that allowed the Dark Fortress to establish
the Dyson Alpha barrier again, winning the war. Popular history always
overlooked that, always gave Ozzie the credit. A true hero. The one Troblum
looked up to more than anybody.

Stupid psychological manipulation bullshit
, he
thought angrily.
Like I’m going to give in to that
.

He picked the coffeepot up, only to wrinkle his nose in dismay when he
realized how much it had cooled. He instructed the culinary unit to produce
some more.

“What are you going to do?” Catriona asked guardedly.

“Nothing,” he said. “I don’t care, not anymore. There is no way through
the Sol barrier. Why can’t they just accept that?”

She smiled and sank down on the floor beside his chair. Her hand stroked
his face adoringly. “Then it’s just you and me. We’ll be okay. I’ll never let
you down.”

“Yeah.” He couldn’t help checking the smartcore’s navigation function.
Secondary routines promoted the exovision display to primary, drawing a bright
orange line through the starfield.
Mellanie’s Redemption
was a hundred thirty lighty-years from Viotia and closing fast.

The Delivery Man’s ship dropped out of hyperspace fully stealthed. Ten
AUs away the blue dwarf Alpha Leonis shone brightly against the starfield.
Directly on the other side of the sun from the ship was Augusta, once the
greatest of all the Big15 planets. As Compression Space Transport’s (CST)
primary base of operations it had been the hub for wormholes to dozens of
worlds; along with its financial and industrial prowess, that made it a
critical component of the first-era Commonwealth. Even after the development of
Higher culture and ANA, the wormhole network was maintained, giving it a
strategic importance above most Inner worlds. As such, eight River-class and two
Capital-class warships were patrolling the star system. Planetary defenses were
at condition-one alert, with powerful force fields covering the wormhole
generators and transfer stations along with the megacity.

After waiting for three minutes to confirm that no sensors had located
the ship, the Delivery Man ordered it to fly in to the Leo Twins. They were the
companions to Alpha Leonis: Little Leo, an orange dwarf, around which a red
dwarf, Micro Leo, orbited. Scanning them with passive sensors, he found something
else there. There was an asteroid in a long elliptical orbit around the Twins;
at over a hundred miles in diameter it almost qualified as a moon in its own
right. Its cylindrical shape was unusually regular. Right away he knew it
wasn’t natural. The sensors revealed it was rotating fast around the long axis,
and there was no wobble, which was just about impossible for a natural object.
It also had an infrared emission; the dark wrinkled surface was radiating more
heat than the little stars were shining on it. The Delivery Man wasn’t at all
surprised when mass analysis showed it was hollow.

He opened a secure link to the “executive.” “I’m here.”

“I know. And you’re not alone. Someone followed you.”

“What?”

“Another ship flew in behind you. It’s an ultradrive as well. Both of you
have excellent stealth, but the sensors I’ve got here are the best.”

“Oh, Ozziecrapit.”

“Don’t worry about it. Hang on. I’m going to bring you in.”

A T-sphere expanded out from the strange asteroid. It teleported the
starship inside.

The Delivery Man floated down out of the airlock and walked out from
underneath the ship. He turned a full circle, gazing around, then tipped his
head up and whistled in admiration. The chamber that had been carved out of the
asteroid’s core was about eighty miles long. Seven miles above him, some kind
of gantry ran the length of the axis, almost invisible in the bright glare
emitted by the rings of solar lights it supported. Another seven miles beyond
that, the rugged landscape curved away into a blue-haze panorama of grassland
and lakes and awesome snow-tipped mountains with vast waterfalls. It was the
sight Justine had seen outside her bedroom window, and it was completely
disorienting. He shook his head like a dog coming out of water and squeezed his
eyes shut.