Peter Hamilton - The Evolutionary Void

“Great Lady! Do you have her safe?”

“No, that’s where the problem begins. She’s not on Viotia anymore.”

“Damn. Where is she, then?”

“Chobamba.”

“Where?” Even as he asked, Ethan’s u-shadow was pulling data out of the central registry. “That can’t be right,” he said, putting the bottle down.

“My response exactly. But the routines are good. The Dream Masters running them swear that’s an accurate reading. She started sharing the Eighth Dream twenty minutes ago.”

“The Eighth?”

“Yes.”

Ethan knew it couldn’t be particularly relevant, but his curiosity about the enigmatic Araminta was overwhelming. “So why did she skip over to the Eleventh?”

“She didn’t,” Phelim said. “She’s on a linear run-through.”

“Four dreams in twenty minutes?” Ethan said it out loud, his surprise echoing around the empty sanctum. At best, he would take a couple of hours to dwell in one of Inigo’s dreams, and that was because he was so familiar with them. Some of the more devout Living Dream followers had been known to spend days in a dream, supporting themselves with intravenous feeds.

“Absolutely. That’s what convinced me this isn’t a false reading. Her mind is … different.”

“How in the Lady’s name did she get to Chobamba? It was definitely her at Bodant Park; you confirmed that.”

“Someone must have flown her there. And it must have been an ultradrive starship; there’s nothing else fast enough.”

“So one of the factions got her and lifted her offplanet. Lady damn them.”

“That’s the obvious conclusion. But it’s a strange way to hide. If she wanted to be completely secure, she should have gone to a Central world where we have no control over the confluence nests. The faction must know that. Perhaps this is a message. Though its nature eludes me.”

Ethan sat back in the chair, staring at the slim curving bands of light in the ceiling. The flowers they sketched had never been seen on Querencia or anywhere in the Greater Commonwealth. That is if they even were flowers. Edeard had always hoped to find them, but not even the grand voyages of his twenty-eighth and forty-second dreams had taken him to a land where they grew. And now Araminta was providing an even greater mystery.

“We have to have her,” Ethan declared. “It’s that simple. Whatever the cost. Without her, the only contact humanity has to the Void is”-he shuddered-“Gore Burnelli. And I think we know where he stands.”

“Justine can do nothing,” Phelim countered smoothly.

“Don’t be too sure. They are a remarkable family. I’ve been accessing what I can of their history. And I suspect there’s a great deal that was never put into any records. Gore was one of ANA’s founders, you know. There are rumors of a special dispensation.”

“So what do you want to do?”

“How long before you have her exact location?”

“She’s in a town called Miledeep Water, which presents us with a slight problem. It is somewhat isolated, and we don’t actually have anyone reliable there. The Dream Masters are going to have to visit its confluence nest to get an exact coordinate for her. It’ll be an hour before we know exactly where she is, probably longer. I’m just hoping she shares Inigo’s dreams for long enough.”

“Do we also have the kind of people on Chobamba who are capable of bringing her to us?”

“There are some very loyal followers in the movement there, people I can trust. I’d like to suggest we hire some weapons-enriched troops to back them up. It’s pretty clear she’s got faction representatives guarding her.”

“As you wish. And Phelim, I don’t want another Bodant Park.”

“Nobody does. But that is probably out of our hands.”

“Yes. I expect you’re right. Please keep me informed of progress.”

The link to Phelim closed, and Ethan looked at the rapidly cooling food on his plate. He pushed it away.

“You seem troubled, Conservator.”

Ethan started, twisting around in his chair to see where the voice had come from. His u-shadow was already calling for help from Cabinet Security.

The woman-thing walking calmly out of the shadows on the other side of the desk disturbed his sensibilities. “I believe you’re expecting me,” she said. She was naked, which only intensified Ethan’s censure; her body possessed no sexual characteristics. Her skin was some kind of artificial covering that produced a gray layer whose exact boundary was indeterminable. Far worse than that was her figure. It was as though her internal organs were too small for her frame, leaving the skin to curve in between the ribs. And her eyes didn’t help, little patches of pink moonlight that never revealed exactly what she was looking at. There was a gold circle just below her neck from which sprouted two long streamers of dark scarlet cloth. The fabric was draped across her shoulders to float horizontally through the air for several meters behind her. It rippled with the sluggish fluidity of an embryo sac.

Five armored guards burst in through the main doors, their fat weapons raised. The Higher woman cocked her head to one side while the gaiafield revealed a steely politeness in her mind.

Ethan held up a finger. “Hold,” he instructed the guards. “Did Marius send you?”

A narrow mouth opened to reveal shiny metal teeth. “Marius has been moved to other duties. I am Valean, his replacement. I am here to help sort out our mutual problem with the ANA starship orbiting above you.”

Ethan waved the guards out, suspecting they wouldn’t have lasted long against her. “What do you want?”

She walked toward him, the scarlet streamers wavering sinuously behind her. Ethan saw that her heels ended in long tapering cones, as if her feet had grown their own stilettos. “I require access to the Agra wormhole generator. Please inform the operations staff I am to be given full cooperation.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Prevent the ANA agent from retrieving any more fragments.”

“I can’t afford any kind of conflict with ANA. Some in the Senate are eager for the flimsiest legal grounds to authorize navy intervention.”

“We are expecting that any such concerns will soon be irrelevant. Rest assured, Cleric Conservator, there will be no physical clash here.”

“Very well. I will see that you have full clearance.”

“Thank you.” She inclined her head and turned for the main doors.

“Please tell your faction leaders I would prefer to deal with Marius,” he said.

Valean didn’t even turn around. “I will certainly tell them.” There was no trace of irony in her thoughts; the facade of politeness remained intact.

The doors shut behind her. Ethan let out a long breath of apprehension; he felt as if he’d finally been shown what awaited the lost souls who fell to Honious.

Preliminary sensor analysis of the debris cloud indicated there were one thousand three hundred twelve critical fragments, defined as anything over five centimeters across. When Chatfield’s starship exploded, over a third of them had been thrown down toward Ellezelin on trajectories that would see them burning up in the atmosphere within half an hour. The rest were whirling rapidly along wildly different orbital tracks. Recovery would be a bitch.

Digby was quietly pleased at the way the Columbia505 ’s smartcore was handling the collection operation. Modified ingrav drive emissions were pulling fragments out of their terminal trajectories; sensors had identified several particles that had exotic matter constituents and were tracking them constantly. The sleek ultradrive ship was darting about, drawing the first chunks into the midhold, where they were embedded in a stabilizer field. ANA:Governance had assured him a forensic team would be arriving within ten hours. Digby hoped so. Stabilizer fields weren’t designed to preserve exotic matter; a lot of it was decaying right in front of him, and there was nothing he could do about it.