Peter Hamilton - The Evolutionary Void

“Wait,” Troblum said. He ignored the looks everyone gave him. “In your time, were there any other sentient species in the galaxy?”

“There is only us. We are first, and when we achieve omega, we will be last.”

“First life,” Oscar said in wonder. “The first race to evolve in the galaxy. How old is this thing?”

“Ancient,” Justine muttered. “More ancient than we ever thought possible.”

“Since your time, countless species have evolved right across the galaxy,” Inigo said. “You were first, but you are no longer alone.”

The Firstlife’s thoughts reeled in astonishment. “You are not us? You are original?”

“We are.”

The black membranes flapped about in agitation. Glistening honey-like droplets appeared on their tips. “Why are you here?”

“This thing you built, this Void, now threatens the entire galaxy,” Gore said, climbing to his feet again. “I understand why you built it, to evolve into something new, something exquisite. You haven’t. Instead it has absorbed thousands of other types of minds which have pulled it in every direction. It cannot evolve, not in this state.”

“Exactly,” Ilanthe said. “Ask these creatures what they would have you do. They want you to stop; they want all you have achieved on the way to your omega to wither away and die. They have nothing else to offer you. I do.”

“Is this why you brought me back?” the Firstlife asked. “To end our evolution?”

“It cannot continue in its current form,” Inigo said. “It is consuming the mass of the galaxy in order to power its existence. Every star will ultimately be devoured, and the species they have birthed will die with them.”

“Unless you act now,” Ilanthe said. “Communicate with the amalgamated mind; tell it to adopt my inversion.”

“What is your inversion?”

“I will take the composition of the Void and implant it within the quantum fields which structure the universe outside. This core will ignite the chain reaction which will disseminate change across the entirety of spacetime. Entropy will be eliminated. Mind will become paramount. Every sentient entity will be given the opportunity to reach its own omega as you anticipated for yourselves. Your legacy will be the birth of a new reality.”

“You have got to be fucking joking,” Gore gasped. “Any quantum field transform wave will simply reverse once it expands past its initial energy input zone. All you’ll be left with is a collapsing microverse that seals itself off from reality as soon as the implosion is complete.”

“Not if entropy is eliminated.”

“You can’t eliminate entropy across infinity. That’s the fucking point of infinity. It’s forever and always.”

“Ask the amalgamated mind to give me the Void’s governing parameters,” Ilanthe said to the Firstlife.

“Do not!” Gore shouted, thrusting his arm out at the Firstlife. “Do not even think it. You will destroy this entire supercluster with her insanity.”

“And what do you offer?” Ilanthe mocked. “The end of their journey to omega?”

“Since you built the Void, hundreds of species have evolved to postphysical status, what you call omega,” Gore said. “It can be done, but not like this. I’m sorry, but you have made a mistake by building the Void. You have to get the Heart to stop the boundary’s mass devourment, suspend the Void’s functions, become stable. We’ll show you how to achieve true evolution in a different way.”

“You can’t,” Ilanthe said. “Every species has to find its own way.”

The Firstlife didn’t reply. A whistling sound was coming from the thin fronds around its mouth as air gusted in and out past the teeth. Edeard was aware of its thoughts pulsing out to be absorbed by the Heart. It wasn’t anything he could copy; he knew he could never communicate with the Heart directly.

“Darkness eclipses us,” it said eventually. “Something is growing outside our frontier, a shroud which would deny us the universe.”

“The warrior Raiel,” Ilanthe said. “Sworn to destroy you. Ask this wretched remnant of their invasion if you require confirmation. They seek to cut you off from your source of energy, to starve you to death. They will be rendered irrelevant by the change I can instigate. In time, in the new universe, they will learn to celebrate your liberation.”

“Do you seek to destroy us?” the Firstlife asked.

“We require you to end your absorption of this galaxy and the threat of extinction it brings to all life,” Makkathran said. “If you will not undertake this freely, we have the right to stop you.”

“You don’t have to stop,” Ilanthe said. “Inversion circumvents everything. All of us will achieve the promise of our evolution. Give me your governing parameters.”

“Wait!” Gore demanded. “I think my alternative just became available.” He lifted his golden head and gave Ilanthe a sweetly evil grin. “And guess who made that happen.” And he dreamed of his life back outside the Void.

The Delivery Man watched in horror as the twin quantum signatures expanded at hyperluminal velocity. Marius had fired novabombs into the star. He couldn’t believe it. This was genocide.

Diverted energy functions absorbed the energy liberated from the first activation pulse, modifying it to expand the annihilation effect. A volume of the star’s interior the size of a super-Jovian gas giant converted directly into energy. The convection zone bulged around the periphery. It was the first act in a sequence that would see the star’s core squeezed beyond stability.

Monstrous shock waves raced toward the Last Throw at close to lightspeed. “Ozziefuckit!”

By the time he’d said it, his accelerated thoughts had ordered the smartcore to trigger the ultradrive. It was never designed to operate within a stellar gravity field, but he was dead, anyway.

The universe clearly hated such an aberration, sending a vengeful force to tear savagely at the perpetrator. Finally the cabin was alive with noise and shaking and alarms just as he’d thought he wanted. Bulkheads split, hundreds of tiny cracks ripping open. Sparks and sprays of gooey fluid shot through the air, churned by a cyclone of gravity waves that pulled the Delivery Man violently in every direction. He screamed in terror-

Two seconds. The time it took the ultradrive to claw the Last Throw out of the star’s stupendous gravity gradient. The time in which an astonishing amount of pain went surging along the Delivery Man’s nervous system. The time the ship’s overstressed components had to hold together. Most of them did.

The Delivery Man’s world steadied. Gravity stopped its wild fluctuations. The vibrations beating the starship’s fuselage faded away. His screaming dribbled off to a whimper.

And far away in a dream Ilanthe was entreating the Firstlife to give her the key to the Void’s nature.

“Gore!” he called.

“What’s happening?” the golden man asked. “There’s a power surge from the siphon.”

“Hell, you mean it’s survived that?”

“Survived what?”

“Marius! Sweet Ozzie, he used novabombs. Gore, the star is going nova. It’s already begun. That fucking deranged maniac has killed everything in the system. Tyzak! Warn Tyzak. I’m coming to get you.” Already the Last Throw was approaching the Anomine homeworld. The Delivery Man was designating a vector to take him around to the city where he’d left Gore.

“They know,” Gore said.

The Third Dreamer had abandoned Makkathran to dream of the Anomine city. The fantastical lights within the empty buildings were blazing with solar glory now. In its last minutes the city was waking defiantly to face its doom. Gore turned to Tyzak, who was staring straight up at the few quiet stars still visible directly above the plaza. The small remaining patch of dark sky was fading away as the light of the buildings grew ever stronger. Finally the old alien’s thoughts were slipping through whatever variant of the gaiafield was establishing itself around the planet. Every system and device the ancient Anomine had left behind was coming alive. Thousands of borderguards were materializing into orbit.