Peter Hamilton - The Evolutionary Void

Outside the dome, light exploded out of the emptiness. Stars began to streak past like rigid lightning bolts. Glaring nebula clouds formed hurricane curlicues, spiraling around and around as they streamed away in a resplendent blaze of color.

“I think that was a yes,” an awestruck Oscar mumbled as multicolored ripples of light flowed across his upturned face.

“So are we going fast or is the Void slowing down?” Corrie-Lyn asked tentatively.

“That’s not strictly relevant in here,” Inigo said. “All that matters is the end result.”

In parallel to his conversation with the Delivery Man, Gore was monitoring the data the infiltration software was surreptitiously accumulating. The elevation mechanism had started running internal scans as the filaments continued their invasion into its structure. He released the first batch of packages, a low-level torrent that swiftly insinuated itself into the scan interpretation routines, falsifying the results so the elevation mechanism would find nothing wrong with itself at a molecular level.

Dream-Makkathran went FTL amid a spectacular light storm.

Visual observation-Tyzak was bouncing its way over the plaza, taking care not to step on the glistening black webbing that was humming gently.

That’s all I need , a higher secondary segment of Gore’s mind thought. The Anomine translation routine in a storage lacuna went active.

“Others have come,” Tyzak said.

“From your village?” Gore warbled and whistled back.

“No. Others. Star travelers who are similar to you but very different. I do not know of their story.”

“Show me, please.”

Tyzak traced his way back across the plaza. One of his limbs extended, pointing down a broad street.

There were eight of them standing across the road a hundred meters short of the plaza. Pastel light from the buildings on either side glittered across their extravagant jeweled longcoats. One of them raised a long white spear and bowed slightly.

“Silfen,” Gore sighed, resisting the urge to give them the finger in return. Instead he inclined his head. “Just ignore them. They’re the galaxy’s greatest voyeurs.”

“Why should they come here?”

“To observe me.”

The infiltration packages flashed up a problem with the analysis routines they were trying to modify. There must have been hidden sentinels, because the analysis routines were resisting any attempt to subvert them. They had begun reformatting themselves with alarming frequency. It meant the packages couldn’t establish themselves; there was no stable configuration to match. And the sentinels were routing more advanced routines to the scans, examining why the resistance algorithms were being triggered. That might well alert the elevation mechanism’s principal consciousness.

Gore pressed his golden lips together. “Oh, shit; here we go.”

Hanging in transdimensional suspension two million kilometers above the Anomine star, Marius had directed his starship’s sensor readings to a constellation of semiautonomous secondary routines. Although the Delivery Man’s ship had performed a truly astounding feat by flying into the star’s convection layer, it wasn’t his main concern. He simply didn’t understand Justine’s dream.

That Gore had somehow maneuvered Inigo and Araminta-two into the Void was seriously impressive. But then the notion faltered. To rationalize with the Heart, as Gore claimed was their ultimate purpose, must be a misdirection. He was sure of it.

Then the Waterwalker was resurrected. “Remarkable,” Marius admitted. That was nothing compared with Makkathran awakening and lifting itself out of the gargantuan lava-filled impact crater it had created when it crashed there in the aftermath of the armada’s invasion.

And Gore announced they had to beat Ilanthe to the Heart. Makkathran performed the impossible and went FTL inside the Void.

“No,” Marius said in alarm. Whatever scheme Gore had for when they were inside the Heart, he could not permit it. The risk was infinitesimal, but nonetheless it existed.

His mind moved the dream to secondary routines for monitoring and brought the sensor readings back to his full attention. The Delivery Man’s starship hadn’t moved. It was still attached to the shielded circular object inside the convection zone. Whatever connection Gore envisaged between that and Makkathran was beyond understanding, but there was purpose to it. No one expended that much effort without a reason.

His quandary was that he didn’t know if Gore was on board the starship or back on the planet. Therefore, the process of elimination would have to be both literal and simple. Ship first. If the dream continued, Gore was on the Anomine homeworld.

Marius ordered the smartcore to drop them out of stealth. Active sensors came on line and performed a more detailed scan of the ship inside the convection zone. For all that it incorporated Stardiver shielding to deal with the heat, its layered force fields had received only about twenty percent strengthening. They remained vulnerable to combat strikes. The only real problem Marius had was choosing a weapon that would be able to reach it within such a radical environment. He started to activate the possibles.

They waited for the moment on the Sampalok square, just outside the mansion’s entrance. Inigo and Corrie-Lyn were holding hands and sharing thoughts privately. Araminta-two was never far from Oscar, the two of them providing each other with a strange variety of support and comfort. The three Knights Guardian were in a tight group, keen and nervy. Justine and Gore stood side by side, proud and defiant, their determination shining as bright as any of the weird stars flashing past outside. That, oddly enough, left Edeard gravitating toward Troblum, who was waiting with a sulky, nearly childlike pout.

The cascade of opalescent light drained away as quickly as it had arrived. Edeard gazed up at the dome, thunderstruck by the sight beyond the crystal. Makkathran was gliding through space above the center of Odin’s Sea. Directly above the apex of the dome a ruffled lake of aquamarine dust glimmered with a steady lambency, alive with deep currents and the flaring nimbi of protostars. Around its shores the scarlet reefs extended out for light-years, slender twined braids of fluorescence that swelled at their tips to form silken veils around the stars they incarcerated.

“Sweet Lady, I never thought to see such a sight,” Edeard moaned incredulously. Finally his mind heard the siren call; it wasn’t a song but the sense of uncountable minds blending in peace and friendship, secure in their totality. Together they were whole and had combined with the Void’s fabric at some ultimate level of existence. The promise of belonging to such an affiliation filled him with joy; the weariness and strife of a physical life would end, and he would be a part of the greater existence that reached for perfection. The urge to join them, to contribute his nature, was so strong that if his third hand could have elevated him up from the square and through the crystal, he would have flown into the Heart there and then for the final consummation. It was nothing like the foolishly imagined nearly physical heaven he had expected, where souls clung to their old form and lived in splendor in a city of golden towers. That kind of life was actually achievable back on Querencia if you tried hard enough and often enough, revisiting your own past until you finally eliminated all your failures and disappointments. No, the Heart looked to the future and a fate that was fresh and different from anything that had gone before. He would be a part of creating that.