Peter Hamilton - The Evolutionary Void

It was dark when she woke, leaving her slightly disoriented. Something somewhere wasn’t quite right, and her subconscious was worrying away at it. She didn’t think it was another dream connection to the Skylord; at least she couldn’t remember having one during the last sleep. But on the plus side, she didn’t feel remotely hungry anymore. Time to think about me .

The bath had spar nozzles that didn’t work. Even so, she let it fill to the brim and poured in the scented soaps she’d bought. While it was running, she went back to the cybersphere node and laboriously typed in a request for information on Oscar Monroe. The antiquated search software pulled a list of references out of the unisphere; there were eight and a half million of them. The search hadn’t gone into deep cache databases.

“Great Ozzie,” she muttered, acknowledging just how much she missed her u-shadow, which would have sorted the information down to something useful in half a second. Another minute typing in new parameters and she’d filtered the list down to biographical details verified to the Commonwealth general academic standard-always a good starting point. That took it down to one point two million.

By then the bath was full. She got in and wallowed in the bubbles as the dirt slowly soaked off. Reading up on Oscar would have to wait a while, but at least she knew he had to be important. He hadn’t been lying about that. When she got out, she felt a whole lot better.

Araminta tipped the remaining contents of the bags onto the bed and started examining the clothes. Most of them had come from a camping store, which had provided her with practical hiking boots that came halfway up her shins. When she tried them on, they were impressively comfortable. The dark brown jeans were tough and waterproof, which raised some interesting questions given that she was on a desert continent. She shrugged into a simple black singlet, then put a loose burgundy T-shirt on top of that. A navy-blue fleece was similar to the one she’d brought with her, except this one was waterproof and the semiorganic fibers were temperature-regulated. She needed that function; even after sunset Miledeep Water’s climate was still baking from the desert air gusting over the ridge. All the other accessories-the knapsack, the water bottle (complete with manual filter pump), solar-store cooker, multipurpose blade, micro tent, gloves, thermal-regulated body stocking, hygiene pack, first-aid kit-meant she could now walk wherever and whenever she wanted. The notion made her smile grimly at the collection. Buying the gear had been instinctive. She knew Miledeep Water was only ever going to be a way station, though Chobamba itself might turn out to be a possibility.

She ran a hand back through her still-drying hair, suddenly unsure once more. Sitting worrying in a motel room wasn’t exactly choosing her own destiny. She sealed the fleece and went out to see what Miledeep Water had to offer by way of nightlife.

After half an hour walking along the nearly deserted streets she had her answer: not much. A few bars were open, along with some restaurants as well as several all-day autostores that were handy for people on a strict budget. Despite its location and the charming buildings, Miledeep Water was too much like Langham for her to be at ease. Small town with a matching attitude.

The emotions emerging from the gaiafield of a bar down by the waterfront attracted her. The people in there were rejoicing over something. As she drew close, she could hear some bad singing coming from the open door. The gaiafield emissions were stronger and more defined as she walked up to sparkly holographic light shining through the windows. Araminta allowed the images and sensations to wash through her mind, experiencing Justine waking up back in the Silverbird . The essence of her conversation with the Skylord reverberated through Araminta’s skull, enhanced by the rapture of those in the bar.

Justine is on her way to Makkathran .

Realization of exactly who was in the bar made the tentative smile fade from Araminta’s face: Living Dream followers, celebrating the latest development in their favor. Making very sure none of her bitter disappointment leaked out into the gaiafield to alert them, Araminta turned around and slunk away. That there were followers in Miledeep Water didn’t surprise her; they were on every External world in the Greater Commonwealth, and even the Central worlds weren’t immune. She wondered briefly what those in the bar would have done if she’d walked in, held her prisoner or fallen at her feet?

Maybe Justine will manage to do something . Araminta couldn’t quite recall the last dream she’d had, the one with Gore and Justine in some room. I must see the rest of Inigo’s dreams, find out what happened to Edeard, why he inspires everyone so. I have to understand exactly what I’m up against . Then she stopped dead in the middle of the street as her subconscious finally triggered the memory that had been bugging her: the time display on the unisphere node. Araminta hurried back to the SideStar Motel, not caring if anyone noticed her half jogging along the deserted pavements and ignoring the traffic solidos to race across intersections.

As soon as she was in the room, she locked the door and switched the unisphere node on. The central time display winking in the top corner of the screen always ran on Earth’s GMT, with a secondary display showing local time. Araminta immediately switched it to Viotia time and then Colwyn City. It took a moment while she did the mental arithmetic, aided by her macrocellular clusters, and then she ran the figures again. If she’d done it right, and the secondary routines in the macrocellular clusters were practically infallible, it was barely fifteen hours since she’d walked into Francola Wood. But that was impossible. She’d spent a whole day and night just trudging over that first wet, cold, miserable valley, then there had been the day by the oasis. The walk across the desert outside Miledeep Water, followed by sleeping the rest of the day away. That was when she worked it out-walking across the desert outside Miledeep Water and sleeping in the hotel accounted for a good twelve of those fifteen hours.

The Silfen paths took practically no time at all. How could that be? I wasn’t even on the paths the whole time. Sweet Ozzie, do they manipulate time on the planets as well? But then, who knows exactly where the planets are, what universe or dimension? Come to that, were they even real?

When she looked down at her feet encased in the cushioning artificial skin, she knew she’d walked somewhere and spent hours doing it. What had happened, or rather where and when she’d been along the Silfen paths, was of no consequence. She knew then that the Silfen wouldn’t let her use their paths and worlds as a refuge. It was instinctive knowledge, coming right from the heart of the Silfen Motherholme.

I really do have to face this myself .

“Oh, crap!” She picked up the bar of orange chocolate that had been part of the delivery and took a big bite before flopping back on the bed. There actually was no escape. So where do I start? Learning about Edeard was the obvious beginning, and to be honest, she was rather looking forward to immersing herself in his life again. But she felt it was more important to find out about Justine. She let her thoughts slow, mildly satisfied that she no longer needed Likan’s melange program to achieve the calm alert state required for any serious interaction with the gaiafield-not that the Skylord’s thoughts occupied that particular realm. It was to be found in some parallel domain, its thoughts serene and content.

“Hello,” she said.

“You are always welcome.”