The Evolutionary Void (58 page)

“Oh, Lady,” she muttered as the starship manufacturing field came into
view. She recalled that the last time she’d seen it was on a unisphere news
report a while back, when the ground was being prepared by big civil
construction machinery. Regrav units had propelled streams of raw earth and
crushed rock through the air as massive bots crawled across the bare soil,
driving in thick support stanchions and spraying down acres of enzyme-bonded
concrete.

She’d expected to see huge hangars spring up where thousands of bots
would crawl along scaffolding gantries, bringing together a million components
that formed the starships. Instead, the starships were assembled out in the
open, floating in the middle of regrav fields. The bots were there, though,
tens of thousands of busy little black modules buzzing about like wasps around
their hive entrance.

“That is something else,” she admitted. For once she didn’t bother
restraining the emotion that swarmed out of her into the gaiafield. “Did you
organize all this?” she asked Ethan.

“I wish I could take credit,” he said ruefully. “But the plans for the
Pilgrimage were begun back in Dreamer Inigo’s time. Indeed, the main driving
factor behind Ellezelin’s economic dynamism was to provide us with the
resources to build the fleet when the time was right. These ships have been in
the design stage for over fifty years, constantly being improved as new
techniques were developed. The National Industrial Ministry also had to match
production systems to the requirements, making sure we had sufficient capacity.
Nearby Commonwealth planets complained that we were unfairly subsidizing our
manufacturing corporations, while in actuality we were preparing for this
moment. Every section and component can be fabricated either locally or on a
Free Market Zone world.”

“Incredible” was all she could say.

The entire fifteen square miles of the construction yard was cloaked by
five layers of force fields capable of protecting it from just about every
known weapon system. Unlike the weather dome Colwyn City could throw up, this
one went right down to the ground, then carried on binding soil and rock
molecules together to guard against any possible subterranean threat.

Twelve of the mile-long cylinders hung gracefully above the vast expanse
of concrete, each one the center of its own airborne cybernetic swarm. The
hulls were all complete, leaving the thick streams of regrav-propelled machines
to wind in and out of huge ports and access hatches. Thousands of tons of
equipment was being delivered to each ship every hour. The majority of it now
was made up of the identical dark sarcophagi of suspension chambers:
twenty-four million of them. They were being produced all over Ellezelin and
the Free Market Worlds, Ethan said, churned out by replicator systems that were
close to level-three Neumann cybernetics. “All we have to do is provide the
chambers with power and basic nutrient fluid. Essentially, that’s all the ships
are, warehouses full of suspension chambers with an engine room at the back.”

The capsule slipped down toward one of the five materiel egress facilities
spaced equidistantly around the rim of the force field. Their capsule with its
escort flew through a series of sophisticated scans before landing outside the
entrance of a thirty-story office tower, one of fifty ringing the yard. They
were greeted by quite a crowd of senior project personnel headed by Cleric
Taranse, the overall director. For once the gaiafield wasn’t just filled with
excitement and admiration for her. Everyone working in the construction yard
was devoted to the project, delivering a strong and very pleasing sense of
achievement. That didn’t stop thousands of them from taking a break and
pressing up against the windows to watch her. Araminta slipped back into full
politician mode, thanking the group with the director for their extraordinary
effort.

As they walked alongside the first massive cylinder, she was struck by
how arid the air was inside, almost as bad as the desert around Miledeep Water.
An errant thought made her wonder how Ranto was doing right now. Searching the
desert in vain for his beloved bike, or had he bought a flashy new one that
would boost his status among his peers by an order of magnitude?

The dryness was nothing compared to the noise. With so many machines
operating inside the dome, the humming and buzzing was constant, all-pervasive,
and loud. Araminta heard the ponderous motions of larger systems through her
rib cage. The sheer quantity of metal flying around on regrav units stirred up
small fast gusts that whirled along each avenue between hulls like microclimate
winds in perpetual conflict. Her hair and robe fluttered about with every step.
The giant regrav fields supporting the ships induced disconcerting effects in
her inner ears as she moved. Walking in the yard was akin to keeping one’s
balance in an earthquake zone; a mere couple of paces through the invisible
conflicting fields could bring on unexpected queasiness that secondary routines
in her macrocellular clusters had difficulty suppressing.

To counter the nausea, she tried picking a point in the distance and
focusing on it; that led her to look up. The metallic-gray fuselage curved away
above her, presenting an impression of size and weight almost as great as the
one given by the length of the damn thing stretching on ahead. Holes the size
of skyscrapers were open all the way along the side, with fleets of bots and
freight sleds zipping in and out. Now that she could see them up close, she
noticed that most of the sleds were carrying identical consignments.
Twenty-four million medical suspension chambers;
she
couldn’t quite get her head around that number. It was more than the population
of Greater Makkathran. But not of Ellezelin, and as for the billions of
followers across the Greater Commonwealth …

“I’ve heard this referred to as the first wave,” she said.

“Yes, Dreamer,” Cleric Taranse said cheerfully. He had the appearance of
a man in his biological fifties, even down to thinning hair and wrinkled skin;
the deliberate elder image, she suspected, was an attempt to give him an aura
of experience and confidence. But then, a lot of Living Dream followers allowed
themselves to appear to age because in the real Makkathran, everyone grew old.
“Now that the production systems have been established, they can continue at
remarkably little cost. Ellezelin can certainly afford to keep on producing
them.”

“But won’t Ellezelin’s population be the first to leave? When they’ve
traveled into the Void, who will keep the economy going?”

“We are ultimately hoping that some kind of bridge can be established
between Void and Commonwealth,” Ethan said smoothly. “Such a thing can hardly
be beyond the ability of the Heart.”

Araminta remembered the way the boundary had distended out to swallow
Justine’s little ship. “Most likely.” She glanced up again as she moved through
another clash of regrav waves. The sight of the starship was drawing the
Skylord’s attention, building anticipation. One question she was never going to
ask it was:
Can you reach us here?

“I will need to be awake during the voyage,” she said.

Both Ethan and Taranse smiled an indulgent smile, not quite belittling
her but close.

“The life-support section is in the center of the ship, Dreamer,” Taranse
said. “Each will have a crew complement of three thousand. There are a lot of
systems to maintain even with smartcore and bot support.”

“Of course. That’s very reassuring.”

“The cabins will be fully equipped with every luxury; your voyage will be
spent in complete comfort and security. You have nothing to worry about.”

He wasn’t joking, she realized. “How do we stay in contact with Ellezelin
during the flight?”

“The ships will be dropping relay stations at frequent intervals, just
like the navy link with Centurion Station. As well as TD channels, ours will
have confluence nests.”

Araminta felt very reassured by that; she’d been worried about what might
happen if she passed out of range of the bulk of her followers. The ships
would, no doubt, be crewed by Ethan’s loyalists. “So now we just need the
ultradrives and force fields,” she said as she checked the timer in her
exovision. There was only a couple of minutes left.

“I have every confidence,” Ethan said easily.

“Oh, I’m sure it wants us to get there, all right,” Araminta said.

He stopped and gave her a look of reluctant admiration. “You were correct
in what you said to Ilanthe. The Void will always triumph. I was … gladdened by
your faith in it.”

“Do you have any idea what that thing wants to achieve inside?”

“No. But it will be some soulless technocrat scheme to ‘improve’ life for
everyone else. It is the kind of delusion of which her kind dream constantly.
That is why I never really concerned myself about it.”

“Yes, I thought as much.” For several nights after her arrival in the
Orchard Palace, Araminta had tried to feel for Ilanthe’s thoughts to gain a
sense of what her intentions were. Bradley and Clouddancer had said the Silfen
Motherholme had sensed whatever it was emerging from the Sol system, but either
Ilanthe had somehow slipped from the Motherholme’s perception or the Silfen in
their wisdom weren’t sharing. She thought the latter unlikely.

“They’re here,” Cleric Taranse announced happily.

Icons from Ellezelin’s civil spaceflight directorate were popping up in
Araminta’s exovision. She’d never realized just how much information even a
nominal head of state such as herself was supposed to absorb on a daily basis.
How actual heads of state coped, she had no idea; expanded and augmented
mentalities, presumably.

Thirty-seven large commercial freighters had just dropped out of
hyperspace two thousand kilometers above the planet. A secure link to the
Ellezelin defense force fleet headquarters informed her that five squadrons of
Ellezelin warships were emerging around the freighters in a protective
formation. This was the critical stage, the one window of vulnerability left to
those who opposed the Pilgrimage. Until the freighters got under the
construction yard’s force fields, they were dangerously exposed.

The freighters were given clearance to descend. Sure enough, eight craft
lurking in orbit dropped their stealth effect and opened fire. Weird mauve and
green light flooded across the ground at Araminta’s feet at the same instant
the exovision displays reported what was happening. She tipped her head back
reflexively to see what was going on, but the dome had opaqued above her. All
she saw was rapidly expanding colored blotches in the grayed sky, like borealis
storms as bright as sunlight.

More icons appeared, assuring her that the Greater Makkathran2 force
fields were also up and protecting citizens from the terrible torrent of hard
radiation slicing through the atmosphere. She even felt a start of anxiety
leaking out of Ethan’s gaiamotes and smiled in sympathy. The pilgrimage fleet
probably could make it with standard hyperdrives, but without the force fields
the Raiel would reduce the ships to radioactive fog.

Though the Void might just be able to stop them
,
she thought.
The Raiel could never beat it
.

Her u-shadow told her the head of planetary defense, Admiral Colris, was
opening a secure channel. “Dreamer, we’ve eliminated the enemy ships.”

“Are our ships all right?”

“Three badly damaged; eight took temporary overload hits, but they’re
still flightworthy.”

“How badly damaged?”

“We’ll recover the crews. Don’t worry; it’s what we train for, Dreamer.”

“Thank you. Was there any damage to the freighters?”

“No. Lady be praised. It looks like those new force fields are as tough
as advertised.”

The whole Greater Commonwealth that was gaiafield-attuned blinked at the
burst of Araminta’s surprise. “The freighters are protected by Sol barrier
force fields?”

“Yes, Dreamer.”

“I see. Please pass my thanks to your crews.”

“Of course. They’ll appreciate your concern, Dreamer.”

Ethan and Darraklan were both watching the force field overhead gradually
clear. The sky beyond was reverting to its usual pristine blue. A few violet
scintillations burned through the ionosphere as disintegrating wreckage hurtled
downward. Ethan’s delight and relief were open. “Those would be the best ships
our opponents could deploy,” the Cleric said.

“Yes,” Araminta replied, not quite knowing if she should be celebrating.

“We can begin installation at once,” Taranse said.

“How long until we’re ready?” she asked.

“If the systems function in accordance with the details they supplied,
we’ll be looking at a week.”

“Excellent,” she said.
Then I can finally try and
stop this madness. I just hope there’s enough time left
.

They waited in the construction yard as the freighters dropped down
through the atmosphere. Taranse left them to organize the unloading. Araminta
and Ethan watched the operation begin from the front of the big office tower
where their capsule was parked. She was a little disappointed at how dull it
all was. The units were all encased in smooth metal shells, providing no hint
as to their function. For all she knew, they were just water tanks.

“Your moment draws near, Dreamer,” Ethan said.

She wasn’t surprised by the way he was studying her so intently. She’d
felt his curious thoughts wiggling through the gaiafield, trying to gain a hint
of her true feelings. She suspected that when they arrived in the Void, he
would prove a formidable telepath.

“It does indeed,” she said levelly. “Where do you suppose all this came
from?”

“It is irrelevant now. That it is here is what matters.”

“And because of that we can reach the Void. Yes. That just leaves me and
the Skylord now.”