The Evolutionary Void (73 page)

“What kind of mutiny did I lead?” he asked curiously. It was a question
he shouldn’t have asked. It was irrelevant.

“Pantar Cathedral,” Troblum said in a strangely neutral tone. “It’s on
Narrogin. The Knights Guardian were brought in to help one of the local
political movements achieve dominance over their rivals. The Cat herself took
command in the field. There was a hostage situation. Demands were made with a
deadline. Then she started slaughtering them, anyway. Including their children.
You stopped her. You stood up to the Cat.”

“That’s when our whole movement changed,” Beckia said. “We finally
acknowledged the Cat’s flaws. After that, we rejected her leadership. But not
yours.”

“The majority of us rejected her,” Cheriton said slightly awkwardly.
“There was something of a schism; after all, she was our founder, bringing us
out of the wilderness following the Starflyer War and uniting us with the
Barsoomians. Though legend says that part was your idea.”

Aaron knew he had to get the mission back on track; he should find out
who the Natural human was, make everyone talk to Ozzie and Inigo.
Get Inigo into the Void
. That was the universe—all that
mattered. But for once the compulsion was weak. Her smile lurked behind his
thoughts now. Sometimes he could see it without having to close his eyes.

Bad news
.

She hadn’t been kidding, apparently.

“Did I save them?” he asked faintly.

“Who?”

“The children. You said she was killing children when I stopped her.”

Tomansio and Beckia shared an uncomfortable look, which was an eloquent
enough answer.

“Do you remember anything since then?” Cheriton asked.

Aaron shrugged. “I don’t even remember that. There’s … nothing,” he lied
as the vision of a vast crystalline ceiling shimmered like flame somewhere in
his mind.

“You were never caught,” Tomansio said. “Never stood trial. Nobody knew
what happened to you.”

“Including me, it appears,” Aaron said. It actually appealed to his sense
of irony.

“Somebody did this to you,” Beckia said tightly. A great deal of anger
was leaking out of her gaiamotes. “Somebody gave you the galaxy’s biggest
mindfuck.”

“Could it have been her?” Tomansio mused.

“No,” Aaron said, not knowing where certainty came from but knowing it
anyway. “It is my choice to be as I am. And I will retain this personality
despite what you believe me to be.”

“But you’re not working too good, are you?” Corrie-Lyn said. “Your
conditioning is breaking down.”

“I’ll survive,” he said grimly. “I have a mission to complete.”

“Which is?” Oscar asked.

Aaron pointed at Inigo. “The Dreamer must be taken to Makkathran inside
the Void. Or at least establish contact with the Heart.”

As one, Oscar and the three Knights Guardian looked at the Natural man.
He stepped forward and put his hand out to Inigo. “Dreamer,” he said. “I’m
Araminta-two.” His gaiamotes released a flood of thoughts and emotions,
including the gifting from the observation deck on the
Lady’s
Light
.

“Great Lady,” Inigo grunted.

“Oh, yeah.” Ozzie grinned. “That is so cool, man.”

“I’m here to help,” Araminta-two said. “The Pilgrimage has to be
stopped.”

“Now tell them who suggested you team up with Ozzie,” Oscar said smugly.

At least it got them all talking, Aaron admitted, even though it was
little more than “gosh” and “wow” as various stories unfolded. But they sat
around Ozzie’s kitchen table, testing snacks and drinks from the culinary unit.
All except Troblum, who stood at the head of the table, refusing to come out of
his armor suit.

“I met the Cat” was all he’d say on the subject. Everyone accepted that
that was a pretty good excuse for extreme paranoia.

The only other thing Troblum said was: “Ozzie, it’s a great honor to meet
you; I am a descendant of Mark Vernon.”

“Yeah? That’s nice, dude,” Ozzie said, and turned back to Araminta-two.
“We’ve been trying to figure out if the Void can bring people inside like some
kind of teleport effect,” he said. “Can you ask the Skylord that?”

“I can ask,” Araminta-two said.

Aaron kept watching Troblum. The big man had rocked back a fraction as
Ozzie had dismissed him. There was no hint of a gaiafield emission. In fact,
there was no way of telling exactly what was in that suit.

According to Oscar, Troblum had helped build the Swarm—again something
both Ozzie and Inigo seemed completely disinterested in. Aaron was interested
but only in that such information might break Earth out of its prison. But
right now that was a long way down any list of possible actions to take to get
Inigo into the Void. Besides, given that the Raiel couldn’t break through the
Sol barrier, he suspected that it might take even longer than accomplishing his
primary mission.

“Is there any way you or the Heart can reach out and bring me into your
universe?” Araminta-two asked the Skylord.

Aaron glimpsed an amazing golden web of nebula dust fluorescing from
dozens of dim glimmer points within as stars contracted to their ignition
points. Skylords shone against the drifting eddies, their vacuum wings fully
extended.

“You approach,” the Skylord said. “I feel you growing. Soon you will be
here. Soon you will reach fulfillment.”

“I will be with you sooner if you could reach for me.”

“The Heart reaches for all. The Heart welcomes all.”

“I am still outside your universe. I fear I cannot reach you. Can you
reach out for me as you once did for others of my race?”

“Those of your kind grew here upon the solid worlds. My kindred will take
you there.”

“But first we have to get to you. Can you make that happen?”

“I feel you growing. It will not be long now.”

“How did those of the first of my kind arrive in your universe?”

“They emerged, as do all.”

“Did the Heart help them emerge?”

“The Heart welcomes all who emerge here.”

“I can no longer reach you. My voyage to your universe is over unless the
Heart helps me. Ask it to reach for me, please. I wish to visit the world where
my kind dwelled before.”

“You will come.”

Araminta-two’s thoughts hardened. “I will not.”

“You continue to grow closer. Your voyage is unbroken. We will welcome
you. We will guide you.”

Araminta-two growled and shook his head as the Skylord’s presence
dwindled to a background murmur at the very brink of perception. “Ozziedamnit.”

“I will if you want me to, man, but I doubt it’ll do much good,” Ozzie
said.

Araminta-two gave him an abashed look. “Sorry. Force of habit.”

“It hardly matters,” said Inigo. “Ever since you started talking to the
Skylords, it’s been obvious they simply don’t comprehend the concept of
‘outside.’ Their thoughts aren’t configured for that.”

“But the Heart or nucleus or whatever’s running the place does,” said
Oscar. “It listened to you when you asked it to take Justine inside. That was
quite a night.”

“It was still relayed through the Skylord,” Ozzie said. “And that request
was a lot easier to comprehend.”

“So we have to work out how to make the message simpler,” Inigo said.
“All we have to do is establish some kind of conduit to the Heart. It will
understand exactly what we want.”

“Dude, you can’t get a message more simple,” Ozzie protested. “It’s
convincing the Skylord to talk for us, which is difficult.”

“Suspiciously so,” Inigo said. “I find it hard to believe something that
can manipulate the Void fabric as the Skylords can do is genuinely unable to
grasp new concepts.”

“The control processes seem instinctive,” Inigo countered. “Direct willpower
is the driving force for any modification within the Void itself.”

“Yes, but—”

Aaron felt a sigh building in his chest as they started to argue again.
Her
smile became mocking.

“I can get you there in time,” Troblum said.

Everyone turned to the giant dull gray figure looming over them. Myraian
let out the faintest giggle.

Ozzie pushed a big frond of floppy hair back from his forehead. “Dude,
how are you going to do that?”

“I have the Anomine planetary FTL engine in my starship.”

Silence again.

“The what?” Oscar asked.

“The Anomine didn’t build the Dyson Pair force field generators; they
acquired them from the Raiel. To get them into position, they used an FTL
system big enough to move a planet. I have it. Or a copy of it. Actually, it’s
a copy of what I believe they built.”

Aaron didn’t care how uncertain the others were. “Is it faster than an
ultradrive?” he asked.

“Yes. It’s effectively instantaneous. It’s a wormhole.”

“A wormhole big enough to shove a planet through?” Ozzie’s voice had
risen a notch with incredulity.

“Yes.”

“Not possible.”

“Actually, it’s perfectly possible,” the house smartcores announced.

Ozzie growled and shot the ceiling a furious look.

“Wormhole structure is dependent on the power source,” the smartcores
said. “The greater the available power, the bigger the size you can
achieve—theoretically.”

“That’s right,” Troblum said.

“Okay,” Ozzie said. “So what do you use to power the mother of all
wormholes?”

“A nova. Nothing else approaches the required output peak.”

“Well, that’s handy, dude. We’ll just hang around and see if one
happens.”

“You don’t need to,” the smartcores said in the same voice, but with a
gloating edge.

“Ah.” Aaron smiled. “Novabomb.”

“Yes,” Troblum said. “With a diverted energy function.”

“Clever,” Inigo said.

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” Ozzie yelled.

“I think it will work,” Troblum said.

“You mean you haven’t tried it?” Tomansio asked.

Myraian started giggling again, louder this time.

“No. Not yet.”

“And it can get us to the galactic core ahead of the Pilgrimage fleet?”
Aaron persisted.

“It should. I envisaged transporting a Saturn-sized planet five hundred
light-years as a test. But there are variables. If we make the wormhole
diameter smaller—”

“You can increase the reach,” Inigo finished. “So for something the size
of a starship …”

“I estimate we can extend the wormhole approximately twenty-five to
thirty thousand light-years. If we trigger it today, it will put us ahead of
the Pilgrimage fleet.”

Ozzie stood up. “Okay, then. My work is done. Good luck to all of you.”

“You’re not coming?” Inigo asked.

“Hey, dude, I’m an aging irrelevancy with only half a brain, remember.
And then there’s—” He frowned expressively, clicking his fingers. “What was it?
Oh, yeah: I want to stay alive!”

“Ozzie, you’d be a valuable member of any team working to prevent the
expansion phase,” Corrie-Lyn said.

“No, he wouldn’t,” Myraian said. She smiled sweetly at Corrie-Lyn. “Ozzie
stays here, where I can cuddle him safe.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Ozzie said triumphantly.

Aaron was beginning to question exactly what Myraian was. He’d assumed
she was just some worshipful groupie with a dipsy habit. But now that he’d been
here a few days, he was realizing she actually had quite a say in the
relationship. No doubt it was a strange relationship, but then, that was Ozzie
for you. Even with his reduced memories, Aaron knew Ozzie could be extremely
quirky, and those memories were a couple of centuries out of date. “All right,
then. Ozzie isn’t essential. Inigo is, and Araminta-two. I have to go. So how
many more can your starship hold, Troblum?”

“Hey!” Corrie-Lyn snapped.

“I’m dealing in practicalities,” Aaron explained patiently. “There are
minimum requirements for mission success. The Dreamer and Second Dreamer are
the absolute priority for this flight.”

“Who the fuck put you in charge?” Tomansio asked.

“Do you have a viable plan for shutting down the Void? I’m sure we’d all
like to hear it if you do.”

“By all accounts, you haven’t got much of one yourself. You know more
about who you are than what you’re doing.”

“But I do have a plan. And I’m the Mutineer, remember? The one Knight
Guardian you can rely on above all the others. Even yourself.”

“You might have been the Mutineer, but I’m damned if I know what you are
now. And you certainly don’t.”

They all turned to look at Ozzie, who was laughing boisterously.

“What?” Tomansio asked.

“Seriously? Have you dudes even been listening to yourselves? The
Dreamer. The Martyr. The Second Dreamer. The Mutineer. Jesus H, all you need is
masks and some spandex capes and we’d have us a regular superhero convention
going. At least Troblum’s got himself a costume already. Good one, too, big
man, by the way.”

“Are you saying we shouldn’t go?” Tomansio asked.

“By all the rules of probability and statistics you shouldn’t even have
made it this far, not any of you, because you are seriously fucking clueless.
But you have gotten here, and someone knows what they’re doing loading whatever
plan they have into the Mutineer’s brain. So grab this. As far as I can make
out, you guys are the last chance we’ve got to stop Ilanthe and the Void
itself. I don’t know what Aaron’s boss has got in mind for when you get to
Makkathran, but … Tomansio, he’s right; unless you’ve got an idea, then this is
the one you bust your balls to make sure it works. Tell the kids how it is,
Oscar. You and I have gone face-to-face against odds like this once before. You
know when something is real.”

“Yeah,” Oscar said grudgingly. “Ozzie’s right. This is looking like our
one shot. Both Dreamers together? If anyone can stop this, it’s going to be
them. Somehow.”

Tomansio shrugged. “Okay. I’m just saying we don’t know which side the
Mutineer is on.”

“Logically, it’s a faction opposing the Accelerators,” Inigo said. “I’ve
been through all this. I actually do trust him.”