The Evolutionary Void (28 page)

Then the Skylord’s thoughts became apparent, a great wash of lofty
interest bathing every human. Calming and compassionate, a reflection of its
size and magnanimity. Even those who’d feared its presence the most were put at
ease. Its benevolence was beyond question, a benevolence almost humbling in its
honesty. It was curious and hopeful that the new residents of Makkathran once
again had reached fulfillment so that they might receive its guidance to the
Heart.

“Look!” Marilee screamed above the howling atmosphere.

Edeard turned to where she was pointing. Every fissure in the tower’s
wrinkled skin was alive with scarlet light, as if some kind of fire were
sweeping through it, racing upward. Then he saw that the kinked spires on top
were glowing violet-white, becoming brighter and brighter.

“Edeard,” Finitan’s longtalk called, firm and strong. “Oh, Edeard, it
hears me, the Skylord hears me. It will take me! Edeard, I’m going to the
Heart. Me!”

The top of the tower vanished inside an explosion of light. Icy flames of
radiance flashed upward toward the Skylord. Edeard’s farsight saw Finitan’s
body turn to ash and blow apart in the gale. But his soul stood fast. Edeard
didn’t need any special farsight to perceive him now; his spectral form was
there for everyone to see.

The old Eggshaper Guild Master laughed delightedly and raised his
ethereal arms in farewell to the city and people he loved. Then he was soaring
upward within the tower’s flames to be claimed by the dancing chaos of
illumination surging through the Skylord.

“I thank you,” Edeard told the Skylord.

“Your kind are becoming fulfilled again,” the Skylord replied. “I am
gladdened. We have waited so long for this time.”

“We will wait for you to come again.” Edeard smiled up at the stupendous
iridescent creature swooping so nonchalantly above them all.

He wasn’t alone in calling to the Skylord.

“Take me!” they began to cry, hundreds upon hundreds of the elderly and
the sick, raising their longtalk to plead.

“Take me.”

“Guide me to the Heart.”

“I am fulfilled.”

“I have lived a good life.”

“Take me.”

“My kindred will return to guide you to the Heart,” the Skylord promised
them. “Be ready.”

When it was clear of the city, the Skylord began to climb back into the
sky, rising higher and higher above the Iguru plain until it was ascending
vertically above the Donsori Mountains. Edeard gathered his family around him
so they could watch it go. He was sure it gathered speed as it gained altitude.
Soon it was hard to follow, it was traveling so fast, growing smaller by the
second.

“Oh, Daddy,” the twins cooed as they hugged him.

Edeard kissed both of them. He couldn’t remember being so relieved and
excited before. “We’re saved,” he said. “Our souls will enter the Heart.”
I won. I really did
.

Far above, the Skylord raced onward to the nebulae, dwindling until it
was a bright daytime star. Eventually, even that faded from view.

Edeard waved it farewell. “The world will know our joy when we meet
again,” he whispered to Finitan. He let out a long breath and looked around
him. So many people were still gazing up into the perfect azure sky, wistful
and content. It was going to be a long time before Makkathran resumed its
normal business.

“You were right,” Macsen said. “Waterwalker.”

Kristabel gave him a sharp look. “Why did you jump? That’s so dangerous.”

“Yrance won’t know what to do now,” Dinlay said with an edge of cruel
satisfaction. “We can capitalize on that right away.”

Edeard started laughing.

T
HE DAWN LIGHT
crept around the sharp crystal skyscrapers
at the heart of Darklake City, illuminating a clear sky with a mild wind
blowing in from the west. On the fifty-second floor of the Bayview Tower, Laril
blinked against the glare that shone directly through the curving
floor-to-ceiling window of the lounge. He was sprawled in the couch he’d spent
the night on, dressed in a loose striped bed shirt. His u-shadow turned up the
shading on the window as he moved his shoulder blades slowly, trying to work the
tired knots out of his muscles. Newly active biononics didn’t seem to have much
effect on the stiffness; that or he wasn’t as adept at their programming as he
liked to think he was.

A maidbot brought over a mug of hot, bitter coffee, and he sipped it carefully.
There was a croissant, as well, that started to flake and crumble as soon as he
picked it up. The culinary units on the Inner worlds were unbeatable when it
came to synthesizing the basics. A five-star gastronomic experience still
required a skilled chef to put together, but for a simple pickup meal, fully
artificial was the way to go.

He walked over to the darkened glass and looked down across the city
grid. Capsules already were streaming above the old road arteries, ovals of
colored chrome zipping along at their regulation hundred-meter altitude. Out on
the lake from which the city drew its name, big day cruisers were stirring,
edging into the quaysides. The quaint old ferryboats were already plowing off
to the first ports on their timetables, churning up a bright green wake. As
yet, few pedestrians were abroad. It was too early for that, and people were
still in shock over the Sol barrier. Most of the urban population had done as
Laril had and spent the night receiving unisphere reports on the barrier and
what the President and the navy were going to do about it. The short answer was
“Very little.” Oaktier’s Planetary Political Congress had issued a public
statement of condemnation to the Accelerator Faction, calling for the barrier
to be lifted.

Big help
, Laril thought. That was the one
aspect of converting to Higher that he still couldn’t quite help feeling
scornful over: the incredible number of official committees. There was one for
everything, at both a local and a planetary level, all integrated in a weird
hierarchy to form the world’s representational government. But that was the
Higher way of involving all its citizenry in due process, of giving everyone
the authority to act in an official capacity, the logical conclusion of Higher
“I am government” philosophy. As he was only just qualifying as a Higher
citizen, Laril could stand for election only into the lowest grade of
committee, and there were at least seventeen levels beneath the executive
grade. Oaktier didn’t have a President, or Chair, or Prime Minister; it had a
plenum cabinet (self-deprecatingly referred to as the Politburo by locals) of
collective responsibility. When the constitutional structure was explained in
his citizenship classes, Laril somehow hadn’t been surprised. Even with all the
daily legal datawork handled by super-smartcores, you still basically needed a
permit to take a crap, Oaktier was that bureaucratic. But at that, it was one
of the more liberal Higher planets.

In an excellent reflection of both its excessive democracy and its
forbearance, Laril realized the planetary gaiafield was almost devoid of
emotional texture this morning. Everyone was withholding his or her
consciousness stream, a universal condemnatory reaction to Living Dream’s
Pilgrimage, which was the root cause of the crisis.

Again, big help;
although it was difficult to
be so cynical about that. It showed a unity and resolve that even he found
impressive.

Laril just hoped he could find the same level of resolve within himself.
As soon as Araminta’s call had broken up, his u-shadow had relayed the shotgun
that had been loaded into Chobamba’s unisphere. He prayed she’d take the
warning seriously and get the hell off Chobamba. She certainly hadn’t called
him again, which meant she’d been caught or was running. All he could do was
assume the latter and prepare for it. She would call him for advice and help
again, which was the antithesis of Oaktier’s stupid bureaucracy. This was one
person making a difference, a big difference. It was what Laril had always
imagined he would be doing, influencing events across the Commonwealth with his
smart thinking and innate ability to dodge trouble. Now he finally had that
chance. He was determined to deliver exactly what Araminta wanted.

First off, he didn’t quite trust the code she’d given him for Oscar. Even
if Oscar whoever-he-was had helped her at Bodant Park, there was no way of
knowing if he worked for ANA as he claimed. To keep her away from the
Accelerators, it needed to be the navy or an opposing faction. Laril didn’t
want to go running to the navy; trusting authority like that wasn’t right for
him. Besides, that would effectively be handing Araminta over to the President,
who would have to make some kind of political compromise. Far better she team
up with a faction, which would take a more direct line of action, which would
have a plan and get things done.

So he spent the night using his u-shadow to make delicate inquiries among
people he used to associate with a long time ago. Every precaution was taken:
one time codes, shielded nodes, remote cutoff routing. All the old tricks he’d
learned back in the day. And the magic was still there. A friend on Jacobal had
a colleague on Cashel whose great-great-uncle had once been involved with the
Protectorate on Tolmin and so had channels to a supporter who had a contact
with the Custodian Faction. That contact supplied a code for someone called
Ondra, who was an “active” custodian.

After each call Laril rebuilt his electronic defenses within the
unisphere, making very sure no one was aware of his interest in the factions.
It must have worked; by the time he got Ondra’s code, none of his safeguards
had detected scruitineers or access interrogators backtracking his ingenious
routing.

He made the final call. Ondra was certainly very interested when he
explained who he was. And yes, there were custodians on Oaktier who might be
able to offer “advice” to a friend of the Second Dreamer. That was when Laril
laid out his conditions for contact. He was pleased with what he’d come up
with. Over an hour had been spent remote surveying the Jachal Coliseum, seven
kilometers from the Bayview Tower. He’d reviewed the local nodes and loaded a
whole menu of monitor software. Then he’d gone through a virtual map,
familiarizing himself with the layout on every level, working out escape
routes. Finally, he’d hired three capsule cabs at random and parked them ready
around the coliseum on public pads. It was a superb setup, in place before he
even spoke to Ondra. The meeting was agreed for nine-thirty that morning.
Someone called Asom would be there, alone.

Laril finished his coffee and turned from the big window. Janine was
coming out of the bedroom. They’d been together for six months now. She was
only sixty, rejuvenated down to a sweet-looking twenty. That she was migrating
inward at her age spoke for how insecure she was. It made her easy for his
particular brand of charm; he understood exactly how the promise of sympathy
and support would appeal to her. That kind of predatory behavior presumably
would be discarded along with other inappropriate character qualities before
he’d achieved true Higher citizenship. In the meantime, she was a pleasant
enough companion. The Sol barrier, though, had brought back all her anxieties
in the same way it had seen a resurgence of his more covetous traits.

Her eyes were red-rimmed even though there hadn’t yet been tears. The
thick mass of her curly chestnut hair hung limply, curtaining her heart-shaped
face. She gave him such a needy look, he almost swayed away. Unlike everyone
else, her emotions were pouring out into the gaiafield, revealing a psyche
desperately seeking comfort.

“They can’t get through the barrier,” she said in a cracked voice. “The
navy’s been trying for hours. There are science ships there now, trying to
analyze its composition.”

“They’ll work something out, I’m sure.”

“What, though? Without ANA we’re lost.”

“Hardly. The Accelerators can’t get into the Void without the Second
Dreamer.”

“They’ll get her,” Janine wailed. “Look at what they’ve done already.”

Laril didn’t comment, though it was tempting. He ran a hand over his
chin, finding a lot of stubble there.
Araminta always used
to complain about that. I need a shower and clean clothes
. “I’m going
out.”

“What? Why?”

“I have to meet someone, an old friend.”

“You are kidding,” she squawked as outrage fought with fright. “Today?
Don’t you understand? They’ve imprisoned ANA.”

“The biggest victory they can have is to change our lives. I am going to
carry on exactly as before. Anything else is allowing them to win.”

She gave him a confused look, her thoughts in turmoil. More than anything
she wanted to believe in him, to know he was right. “I didn’t think of that,”
she said meekly.

“That’s all right.” Laril put his hand on the back of her head and kissed
her. She responded halfheartedly. “See?” he said gently. “Normality. It’s the
best way forward.” The prospect of making contact with a faction agent, of
becoming a galactic power player, was making him inordinately randy.

“Yes.” She nodded, her arms going around him. “Yes, that’s what I want. I
want a normal life.”

Laril checked the clock function in his exovison display. There was just
enough time.

The taxi capsule slid out of the vaulting entrance to the hanger that
made up the seventy-fifth floor of Bayview Tower. Laril sat back on the curving
cushioning, feeling on top of the world.
It doesn’t get any
better than this, not ever
.

Direct flight time between Bayview Tower and the Jachal Coliseum was a
couple of minutes at best. Laril had no intention of flying direct. Until he
was absolutely sure of the custodian representative’s authenticity, he wasn’t
taking any chances. So they flew to a marina first, then a touchdown mall, the
Metropolitan Opera House, the civic museum, a crafts collective house. Twelve
locations after leaving the tower, the taxi was finally descending vertically
toward the coliseum. From his vantage point it looked like he was sinking down
to a small volcano. The outside slope of the elongated cone had been turned to
steep parkland, with trees and fields and meandering paths. There were even a
couple of streams gurgling down between a series of ponds. Inside the caldera
walls were tiers of extensive seating, enough to contain seventy thousand
people in perfect comfort. The arena field at the bottom was capable of holding
just about any event from concerts to races to display matches and Baroque
festivals. Ringing the apex of the coliseum was a broad lip of flat ground that
hosted a fence of two-hundred-year-old redka trees, huge trunks with wide
boughs smothered in wire-sponge leaves the color of mature claret.

Laril’s taxi capsule dropped onto a public landing pad in the shade of the
trees. He immediately examined the area with his biononic field scan function.
It was one of the functions he was adept at, and he’d refined the parameters
during the taxi flight. When he stepped out, the biononics were already
providing him with a low-level force field. He wore a blue-black toga suit with
a strong surface shimmer, so there was no visual sign of his protection. The
scan function was linked directly to the force field control, so if he detected
any kind of threat or unknown activity, the force field would instantaneously
switch to its strongest level. It was a smart procedure that, along with his
other preparations, provided him with a lot of confidence.

He walked across the lip to the top seating tier. His u-shadow was
maintaining secure links to the emergency taxis and the coliseum’s civic sensor
net, assuring him that everything was running smoothly. As agreed with Asom, he
was the first to arrive. There were no nasty surprises waiting for him.

A steep glidepath took him down the inner slope to the arena field. He
kept looking around the huge concrete crater for any sign of movement. Apart
from a few bots working their way slowly along the seating rows, there was
nothing.

Once he reached the bottom, he expanded his field scan function again. No
anomalies and no unusual chunks of technology within five hundred meters. It
looked like Asom was obeying his ground rules. Laril smiled in satisfaction;
things were going to be just fine.

A slightly odd motion on the opposite side of the field caught his eye.
Someone was walking out of the cavernous performers’ tunnel. She was naked, not
that such a state was in any way erotic, not for her. Her body was like a
skeleton clad in a toga-suit haze. She walked purposefully over the grass
toward him; two long ribbons of scarlet fabric wove sinuously in her wake.