The Evolutionary Void (77 page)

Silverbird
’s last hundred meters was a perfect
landing profile, slowing to relative zero velocity ten meters above the wild
vegetation. Then a half-meter-a-second descent until the landing legs touched.
Spongy layers of leaves and moss and grass compressed, and only then, when the
base of each leg registered and confirmed solid contact, did the regrav units
shut off.

As if in sympathy, power dropouts bloomed all over the starship. Justine
really didn’t care. This had been nothing like as traumatic or dramatic as her
touchdown on the replica Mount Herculaneum.

“Houston,” she said solemnly to the silent cabin. “This is Golden Park
base. The
Silverbird
has landed.”

A
RAMINTA HAD REMAINED
on the observation deck of the
Lady’s Light
right from the start of the Pilgrimage. The
room was as big as the Malfit Hall back in the Orchard Palace and twice as
high. Its floor was empty apart from a chair and a bed that had been brought in
at her request. Araminta used the chair as little as possible, preferring to
stand and stare ahead through the vast transparent section of fuselage. There
was nothing to see; there hadn’t been since hyperspace had enfolded the massive
ship. It was blank outside, with the occasional cascade of blue sparks slipping
across the surrounding pseudofabric their ultradrive was creating.
Imperfections within the quantum field interstice, Taranse had explained when
she’d asked what they were. What caused such imperfections he didn’t say and
probably didn’t know. She rather liked them; they provided the illusion that
some material substance was outside, with the twinkling flaws registering their
progress through it.

For five days she watched the nothingness flow past, gifting it to the
billions of her followers back in the Greater Commonwealth. On the sixth day
Araminta began to cry. Tears rolled down her cheeks as her shoulders quaked.
The sorrow she radiated out into the gaiafield was so profound that the
majority of beholders began to weep in sympathy. They were aghast, flooding the
gaiafield with concern. “What’s wrong?” they asked in their bewildered
billions, for nothing and nobody was in the observation deck with her. “We love
you, Dreamer.” “Can we help?” “Let us help, please.”

Araminta gave them no response. She stood resolute in front of the
disintegrating flecks of light, mute and distraught. Her personal staff members
were dismissed with a curt gesture when they ventured out onto the sleek
expanse of floor. Even the loyal Darraklan was sent away without a word.

Inevitably, as she knew he would, Ethan appeared and began the lonely
walk toward her. Those sharing her dismay felt the anguish recede as she
straightened herself. She made no attempt to wipe the tears from her eyes. Then
her followers were standing on soft grassy land that fell away to a shoreline
encased by high dunes. Sunlight shimmered off the idle waves that spanned the
ocean’s clear waters. A Silfen stood before her, majestic and ominous with his
dark leather wings extended, tail poised high. “You can do this,” he assured
her.

“I know.”

The pendant around her neck flared with the joyous azure light of
affirmation. And there was Ethan standing in front of her on the observation
deck, his eyes narrowed against the cold light radiating from the pendant on its
slim chain that now rested outside her white robe.

“Second Dreamer,” he said formally.

“Cleric Ethan.”

The absolute hatred directed by the followers of Living Dream at their
ex-Conservator was staggering in its passion. He hesitated, then recovered with
a sure smile that simply confirmed his dishonor before his audience.

“Perhaps you would like to tell your people what dismays you so,” he
suggested smoothly.

“Are you aware?” she asked.

“Yes, Dreamer.”

“There is only one person in the universe who could have told you.”

“Indeed. However, the messenger is not important. What she told me is.”

“In this case the message and the messenger are one, nor is the method by
which the message was procured insignificant. She is the cause.”

“Nonetheless, she has named you false.”

“Ilanthe lies. That is what she is now. The serpent among us all.”

“Is it true? Are you many?”

“I am.”

“Then I must question your intent.”

“Of course you must. Yet I will keep my word. I will lead this Pilgrimage
into the Void as I promised.”

“You seek to thwart us,” he spit.

“I seek our true destiny. I seek to avoid the folly and fate of the Last
Dream for the devout. I seek the Void’s own fulfillment.”

“By allowing those who would destroy it to enter. That cannot happen.”

“I tell you now what I told Ilanthe and what I have also told Inigo. Our
fate will be decided within the Void. It will be decided by the Void. Not by
you or anyone else. I have been chosen as the instrument to open a path into
the Void; that is all. I am not a gatekeeper. All those who seek their
fulfillment, whatever its nature, are free to enter the Void. Simply because
their vision is different from yours and that of Living Dream does not entitle
me to deny them passage. I do not judge, Cleric. Unlike you, I do not consider
myself infallible.”

Ethan’s uncertainty couldn’t have been more apparent if he’d allowed it
to shine out through his gaiamotes. “You have spoken to Inigo?”

“We are both Dreamers. We are together even now. Didn’t your dearest
Ilanthe tell you that?”

“Ilanthe is no friend of mine.”

“And yet you defer to it, whatever it is, whatever it seeks. The Dreamer
Inigo released the Last Dream as a warning. Do you really think that dreary
destiny of bored supermen is one to which we should aspire for our children?”

“I believe we have the right to choose our future. I wish to live my life
on Querencia and achieve fulfillment and be guided to the Heart. You and Oscar
and Aaron are trying to prevent that.”

Araminta gave him an icy smile. “Sometimes to do what’s right you have to
do what’s wrong.”

Ethan glanced about the massive observation deck as if seeking allies.
“If you deny us the Void, it will go badly for you. That I promise. My
life
has been given to serving Living Dream. All I have
done, all I have sacrificed, has led to the launch of this Pilgrimage.
I will not
tolerate betrayal.”

“You will enter the Void, Cleric. You will yet walk upon Querencia. You
have my word on it. Now, why don’t you go and ask Ilanthe what future she
desires for all of us. Or perhaps she doesn’t trust you enough to answer.”

He nodded impersonally. “As you say, the Void will ultimately triumph. I
don’t worry about Ilanthe’s intent. What any of us do, our petty schemes and
conspiracies, is an irrelevance in the face of the Void’s majesty.”

“I’m glad we are as one in that view. Now, don’t bother me again.” She
turned away from him and waited. Finally, she heard him walk away.

The gaiafield was awash with confusion and dismay. Her followers needed
her to explain what was happening, what the Dreamer Inigo was doing.

“You’ll see,” she assured them. “In the Void there will be truth.”

It was a yellow star whose meager family of planets consisted of a couple
of airless solid worlds and a single gas giant that boasted over twenty moons.
None of them had ever had a chance to evolve life; wrong orbits and lack of
volatile organic chemicals had seen to that. Now they were just circling
endlessly, waiting for the star to run through its main sequence and inflate
into a red giant, devouring them all.

Mellanie’s Redemption
emerged from hyperspace
eighty million kilometers from the star and immediately activated its stealth
systems. Inside the overcrowded cabin the mood was bleak. Oscar wasn’t sure he
could take many more emotional swings on this kind of scale. Abandoning poor
Cheriton to the Cat had been tough on them all, though strangely, Araminta-two
had been the most affected. Tears had streamed down his face as the starship
fled from the Spike. No amount of comforting from Inigo and Corrie-Lyn had
helped.

Then both Dreamers had abruptly joined in surprise as Justine’s dream of
landing at Makkathran came rushing through whatever tenuous contact they had
with the Void.

“She made it,” Beckia exclaimed in surprise as the
Silverbird
touched down gently in Golden Park and the dream faded.

“Never expected her to do anything less,” Oscar said. “I remember her
from my first life. The Burnellis were a formidable lot.”

“Is she part of your plan?” Tomansio asked Aaron.

“Not as far as I know. Her voyage certainly doesn’t trigger any
alternatives or imperatives. We proceed as agreed.”

“Okay. Troblum, how long does this thing take?”

Oscar was interested to see that Catriona had gone away during the short
flight. Once he was on his own, Troblum hadn’t said ten words to them, and
there certainly hadn’t been anything given away from his gaiamotes. In fact,
Oscar wasn’t certain Troblum had gaiamotes.

“I’ll bring the device up to active status now,” Troblum said.

“Great. So how long?”

“The wormhole parameter will have to be reformatted. I was working on
that during the flight. Loading it in shouldn’t take more than a quarter of an
hour. After that, we simply have to launch it into the star.”

“How long, then?”

“That depends on the distance we launch from. The smartcore is reviewing
the corona’s radiant output for a definitive safe distance, but I’d say it’ll
be about a million kilometers. The device itself will activate when it reaches
the upper corona. It only needs a reasonably dense plasma layer to initiate a
chain-reaction propagation within the quantum instability. I based that part of
it on our standard novabomb.”

“Troblum. How long until the wormhole forms? From right now?”

Oscar was seriously impressed by Tomansio’s restraint.

“Oh. About twenty-five minutes.”

“Good work,” Aaron said, obviously amused by Tomansio’s suppressed
frustration. “And how far will the new wormhole reach?”

“I think, now I’ve got the new profile, twenty-eight thousand
light-years.”

“That’ll put us twelve to fifteen thousand light-years ahead of the
Pilgrimage fleet,” Araminta-two said. “Will that give you enough time?” she
asked Aaron.

“All I know is we have to get to Makkathran.”

Oscar gave him a considered look. “Gore was adamant that Justine go to
Makkathran.”

“It’s the one place we know for sure is H-congruous inside the Void.”

“Gore told her that after she landed on the replica Far Away.”

“His actual words were ‘that’s where humans are centered in the Void,’”
Beckia said. “Which is logical. It is where everyone is going.”

“I bet Ilanthe isn’t,” Corrie-Lyn grunted.

“We don’t know if the replica Far Away is still there,” Tomansio said.
“Justine reset the Void to before she dreamed of it.”

“I think you’re all overreacting,” Inigo said. “Or at least reading too
much into this. Makkathran as a destination isn’t coincidence, exactly, but
there wasn’t a whole lot of choice involved in either case.”

“Do you ever remember meeting Gore?” Liatris asked Aaron.

“I don’t remember anything.”

Liatris showed a modicum of unease. “He did kill your father.”

“Irrelevant.”

“Bruce McFoster was a Starflyer agent when Gore eliminated him,” Tomansio
said. “The actual Bruce was killed years before when he was taken captive by
the Starflyer.”

“But you have to admit the coincidences are starting to—”

“Uh oh,” Araminta-two said.

Everyone was still as he gifted them the scene in the observation deck of
the
Lady’s Light
, where a determined Ethan was
walking toward her. As the confrontation unfolded, Inigo put his arm around
Araminta-two’s shoulder. “I am here,” he whispered, pushing his support through
the gaiafield union. “Show him no weakness. You are the Dreamer now. You are
right in your belief. It is the Void which will decide this for all of us.”

Oscar drew a sharp breath as the winged Silfen shimmered within his
thoughts.
Bradley
, he knew, and smiled.
Way to go, man. You look great
.

A thwarted Ethan walked away. Everyone in the
Mellanie’s
Redemption
’s cabin burst into spontaneous applause. After a moment, even
Troblum joined in.

So he does have gaiamotes
, Oscar thought.

Araminta-two smiled around sheepishly. “Thank you,” he told Inigo.
Corrie-Lyn gave him a swift kiss.