The Evolutionary Void (57 page)

Sure enough, and despite her resolve, she could feel the physical
admiration of male Living Dream members seeping into the gaiafield as the water
ran across her skin—and no little amount of appreciation from females, either.
Worse still, a lot of her foes were registering their enjoyment of her flesh.

When this is over, I’m going to have to walk down the
Silfen paths to the other side of the galaxy and live like a hermit forevermore
.
Her gaze was drawn down to the pendant as it dangled between her glistening
breasts—
Oh, Ozziecrapit, look away!
It wasn’t warm,
and the light inside was dim, as if a wisp of phosphorescence had been caged
within the crystal, but it still made its presence known. On the other side of
it was the infinite comfort and wisdom of the Silfen Motherholme. That at least
gave her some reassurance she wasn’t entirely alone.

Three Mr. Boveys smiled in gentle sympathy as they
sat down to a late dinner at home
.

She ordered the shower off and stepped out of the pool. Then all she had
to do was rub herself down with a towel, which she did while looking at the
ceiling. A small growl came out of her throat as she grew cross with herself.
She hurriedly struggled into her vest top and briefs, then slithered her long
white robe on top. The belt had been modified by the palace security detail and
contained a force field generator. They’d insisted, and she wasn’t going to
argue. Dressed and chaste at last, she made her way through the long ornate
halls to the state dining room.

Underneath the glaring ceiling, the huge polished wooden table built for
a hundred fifty guests was set for one.
At least Edeard had
Hilitte for company
, she thought.
And how would he
have coped with body functions and sex and life in general if he’d ever known
of his audience?
She wasn’t sure if a table this size set for two was
more or less ridiculous that it was with just her lonely cutlery. But then,
Edeard often was joined by Dinlay for breakfast. All she had were five
superefficient staff members to serve her anything she wanted from the bolnut
veneer sideboard that was loaded with an authentic Edeard-style breakfast from
the Thirty-third Dream. She remembered the later dreams when he’d been properly
elected Mayor. He and Kristabel had never had breakfasts like that, but then,
he’d never taken up residence in the state rooms then, either. Perhaps the
palace staff members were being ironic; if so, the nuance was lost on her.

Just to be difficult, she ordered a hot chocolate to have with her
croissant. One of the girls in a maid’s uniform scurried off to the kitchens.
As she tore the pastry open, Araminta reflected on how it would be nice to have
someone there for company. She was a little sad that Cressida hadn’t been in
touch, but she could certainly understand why her cousin wanted nothing to do
with her.

Her chocolate arrived in a huge cup, the top covered in whipped cream
dotted with strawberry marshmallows. Darraklan walked in with the maid; he’d
taken to wearing the long burgundy waistcoat, white shirt, and yellow drosilk
cravat of the senior Orchard Palace personnel. He’d slipped very easily into
the job of chief of staff, helping her settle in. “Good morning, Dreamer;
Cleric Rincenso requests a moment of your time.”

Araminta noticed that Darraklan didn’t have any gaiafield emission
relating to the Cleric whatsoever. But then, in his own repellent ass-kissing
way, Rincenso was also striving hard for favored status. She could use that;
he’d want to score points by exposing any of his colleagues who doubted or
schemed against her.

“Show him in,” she said.

The Cleric came into the dining room as the corona of Querencia’s sun
erupted with flares all across the ceiling. The bright rippling light shining
off his robes and highlighting his eager smile had an almost aquatic property.
He bowed politely. “Dreamer.”

Araminta gazed at him as she sipped her chocolate. It was delicious.
Thank Ozzie, being a galaxy killer should have some perks, surely
.
“Did you find them for me?”

“Yes, Dreamer. The women were at the mansion on Viotia. He was actually
already here; our security services have been holding him.”

“Why?”

Rincenso’s smile became stretched. “It was thought he might be shielding
you from our Welcome Team.”

“Ah. He wasn’t. I eluded them by myself.” A pause for emphasis. “It wasn’t
that difficult.”

“Not for you, Dreamer.”

He was so smooth, he almost spoiled the taste of the chocolate for her.
“Is he here now?”

“Yes.”

“Bring him in.”

Rincenso hesitated. “Dreamer, he was
interrogated
very thoroughly.”

“Thoroughly? You mean …” She didn’t like to dwell on that too much.
I make a truly rotten despot
.

“He was given a memory read, yes.”

“Honious! Bring him in.”

The man led through the dining room doors, who needed to be supported by
a burly security guard in a constable’s uniform, had the body of Likan, but the
spirit was definitely withered. Any lingering anger she felt toward him was
immediately banished. She got up and pulled out the chair next to her. The
security guard helped him into it. There was no evidence of any physical damage,
but his limbs were shaking badly, and he hunched up as if he were cowering from
some omnipresent tormentor.

“I’m sorry,” Araminta said. “I didn’t know.”

“You,” he said with a bitter snarl. “There was always something about
you.”

“You were quite the personality yourself.”

“That’s not what you told me when we parted.” He glared around the big
room. “That’s on record now. You know I’m telling the truth.”

“They will give all the copies back to you. I wish it to be so,” she said
with simple authority. Rincenso nodded discreetly. “You can destroy them if
you’d like.”

“Ha. And what use will that be when the boundary comes reaching out of
the stars to obliterate all of us?”

“A question I’m sure you asked yourself when you facilitated Viotia’s
compliance with Conservator Ethan’s scheme. That whole monstrous invasion was
dedicated to one purpose: to find me. What did you think the Second Dreamer was
going to do once I ascended to the Orchard Palace?”

He forced his head to shake despite the jerkiness of his muscles.

“Like all nonbelievers, you considered us to be foolish and deluded,” she
continued. “You put your own greed before anything.”

“I do not let greed drive me. I have strategy. I have logic and
planning.”

“Likan … I’m not interested. Whatever there was between us is long gone.
You’re here today to correct an injustice.”

“I fuck your apology all the way to hell. I hope the warrior Raiel blows
your Pilgrimage fleet to shit. The rest of us will have the greatest party
history has ever known to celebrate your death.”

“I’m not apologizing for your interrogation; you brought that upon
yourself.”

“Yeah? Well, I’m going to plead with the Raiel to turn you over to the
Prime. And we all know what they do to humans, don’t we?”

She could feel billions urging him on, hoping his desire succeeded. “I’m
prepared to let you go free,” she said.

“What?”

“Free to go back to Viotia, perhaps? Our wormhole will be closing today
or tomorrow now that all my followers have returned home. Free for the Viotia
authorities to question you about your part in the government’s corrupt
submission to Cleric Phelim and the invasion—oh, Phelim’s coming back to
Ellezelin and joining the Pilgrimage fleet. Who will that leave to face trial,
do you think? And I will look favorably on any request to turn over your read
memories to them for examination. What evidence of treason will that turn up?”

His whole body juddered. “You said …”

“I said I’d like to release you. But there is an injustice to right
first, one that only you can do.”

“Bitch!”

“Phelim took your harem into custody. They’re already here. I’ve got the
best genetic team on Ellezelin ready to treat them. The problem is, we didn’t
read your memories from that long ago.”

Likan glared at her fearfully.

“Which three, Likan? Once I know, you’ll be released; you have my word as
the Dreamer on that. A starship will take you wherever you wish to go. We can
even reprofile you first if you’d like.”

“What’s the point?” he wailed, close to tears.

“The point is success. Do you think that ultimately I will succeed? Or
will you and your way of life? I know which choice Nigel Sheldon would make. Do
you?”

His head dropped. When he brought it up again, the shakes and tics were
overridden by a ferocious snarl. The old Likan was glowering out at her. “Oh,
yes, Madam Dreamer. I’ll take your deal; I will comply. But remember, it will
leave me free to hunt you down when you fail, because a miserable fuck-up like
you couldn’t pull off something this grand in a million years, not a chance.”

“We’ll see,” she growled back.

“Marakata, Krisana, and Tammary,” Likan said.

“Thank you.”

“They’ll kill you, your new friends, even if I don’t get there first.
Once you’ve given them what they want, they’ll kill you. This is too big for
you. You were small-time when I picked you up and screwed you, and you’re still
small-time now.”

“Win-win for you, then,” she said coolly. At the back of her mind the
Skylord was showing an interest in why she was becoming so agitated. “Get rid
of him,” she told the security guard.

Likan was hauled roughly to his feet. There was a starship waiting for
him at Greater Makkathran’s spaceport. She’d organized it all last night, using
her u-shadow to send messages to Phelim and Rincenso and Ethan in private,
editing it all out of what she released into the gaiafield. Phelim had few
troops left on Viotia, but he was desperate to redeem himself, so he expended
every effort. She knew poor little Clemance and the others would have been
terrified as the remnants of the Welcome Team snatched them: bundled into a capsule
when the rest of the planet was rejoicing the lifting of tyranny, not knowing
where they were being taken or why, then being forced through the wormhole to
Ellezelin itself. If the Dreamer Araminta was now regarded as the devil, this
planet was surely her realm.

But in a couple of hours they’d be reunited with Likan—those who wanted
to be. The starship would fly them to an Inner world of his choice. She’d
supplied untraceable funds, she’d supplied new identities. There was nothing
more she could do.

The three he’d violated would spend a couple of months in a womb-tank
here in Greater Makkathran having their psychoneural profiling reversed. When
they came out, they could make their own choices again.
That’s
if there’s a galaxy left to come back out into
. It didn’t matter; she’d
done the right thing.

She looked over at Darraklan. “Is Ethan ready?”

“Yes, Dreamer.”

“Right, then.” She got to her feet, starting to resent Inigo’s stupid
proscription that no capsules should be allowed to fly above Makkathran2. It
meant such long walks or gondola rides (which she actually quite liked) or
riding on horseback, and no way was she going to do that; her one time on a
pony when she was seven hadn’t ended well.

A squad of bodyguards in constable uniforms fell in around her as she
left the back of the Orchard Palace. They went down the sweeping perron and
into Rah’s Garden with its sweet roses and immaculately shaped flameyews.
Clerks peered out of their offices as she carried on through Parliament
Building on the other side. Then she was out in the open and walking over the
Brotherhood Canal bridge into Ogden. That at least was a short straight path to
City Gate. People were running frantically across the meadowland to greet her.
She didn’t need Likan’s old mélange program to help her slip into her mildly
aloof public persona: greeting a privileged few overawed followers with a
handshake or a murmured word of thanks for their support, smiling graciously at
the rest while allowing her squad to keep her moving past them.

The crowd at City Gate was a lot larger, but more guards were there, in
ordinary clothes. She suspected that the shimmering semiorganic fabric covered
up some muscle enrichments; they certainly seemed extraordinarily strong as
they pushed people aside. Three capsules were parked just outside the crystal
wall, waiting for her, with another five defense force capsules drifting
overhead. Ethan stood beside the door of the largest capsule. He bowed
graciously as Araminta approached.

“Your morning has gone well, then?”

“It certainly did, thank you,” Araminta said. “I appreciate your help in
preparing the medical treatments.”

“My pleasure, Dreamer.”

They stepped up into the capsule and sat at the front while the
bodyguards took the rear seats. It flew swiftly along the coastline, keeping
Greater Makkathran on one side, heading for the broad estuary to the north of
the city. With the security forces flying escort, no civilian capsules tried to
approach. It left Araminta with a clear view of the landscape through the transparent
fuselage. Once again she marveled at the vast metropolis sprawling across the
land beyond Makkathran2.

Living Dream built all of this out of nothing
,
she thought.
If they can do that, if they are so creative,
why do they want to go to the Void? The reset ability isn’t that different from
our own regeneration. Humans have been able to start again from scratch for
over a thousand years
.

It had to involve not a small amount of avarice lurking in everyone’s
heart, she realized sadly. Effectively it was a universe where only you could
regenerate, giving you a vast advantage in terms of knowledge and experience
over everyone else. That and the whole telepathy and telekinesis thing—that was
raw power.