Peter Hamilton - The Evolutionary Void

“What?” Dinlay asked.

“There was no burial,” Edeard explained. “We just left. It was too … enormous to deal with.”

“The Lady will understand. And the souls of your friends certainly will.”

“Maybe.” He looked around the desolation and shuddered again.

“Edeard? Do any linger?”

Edeard let out a long reluctant sigh. “I don’t know.” Once again he reached out, pushing his farsight to the limit of resolution, striving to catch any sign of spectral figures. “No,” he said eventually. “There’s nobody here.”

“That’s good, then.”

“Yes.” Edeard led the way toward the carcass of the Eggshaper Guild’s hall.

“This is where you grew up?” Dinlay asked with interest as he scanned around the nine sides of the broken courtyard.

“Yes.” Somehow Edeard had expected to find some trace of Akeem. But now, actually standing beside the listing stables and unsafe hall, he knew he never would. There were bones aplenty, even whole skeletons, but it would take days of careful examination to try to identify any of them. And ultimately, for what purpose? Who am I trying to appease and satisfy here? Would the souls of the dead villagers care that he was here? Would Akeem want him grubbing through the dirt to find some pieces of his long-dead body? I bury all of them or I bury none .

Of course, there was one other thing Edeard could do. His recollection of that night was perfect: himself and the other apprentices meeting up in the cave for an evening of fun and kestric. Even as he thought it, he looked up at the cliff; seeing the small dark cleft that they had wriggled through to find the cavern that offered privacy from their masters.

That simple recollection triggered a whole wave of memory. He could see the village as it had been that last fine summer. People striding along the streets, talking and laughing. Market stalls being set up, farmers bringing their produce in on big wagons. Apprentices hurrying about their duties. Village elders in their finer clothes. Children scampering about, chasing one another with shrieks of laughter.

I can do it. I can go back to that moment. I can defeat the bandits that night. I can give them all a life again .

He shook his head as if to clear it. Tears began to roll down his cheeks. This was far worse than any temptation Ranalee had ever offered.

I would have to go to Makkathran, this time with Akeem’s letter of sponsorship. I would be an apprentice at the Blue Tower. But Owain would still be there, and Buate and Tannarl and Mistress Florrel and Bise. I would have to dispose of them once more .

“I can’t,” he whispered. “I can’t do that again.”

“Edeard?” Dinlay asked gently. His hand squeezed Edeard’s shoulder.

Edeard wiped the tears away, banishing forever the sight of the village as it had been. Standing in the cracked doorway arch to the Eggshaper Guild hall, Akeem regarded Edeard with sad eyes.

Edeard knew that look so well, a rebuke that had been directed at him a thousand times as an apprentice. Don’t let me down .

“I won’t,” he promised.

Dinlay frowned. “Won’t what?”

Edeard breathed in deeply, calming his rampaging emotions. He stared at the broken doorway. Akeem wasn’t there. A smile touched his lips. “Fail them,” he told Dinlay. “I won’t fail the people who died so I might ultimately wind up where I am today, where we all are. It doesn’t always apply, you know.”

“What doesn’t?”

“Sometimes to do what’s right you have to do what’s wrong.”

“I always thought that was stupid. I bet Rah never actually said it.”

Edeard laughed out loud and took a last look around the old nine-sided courtyard. He put his arm around his friend’s shoulders. “You’re probably right. Come on, let’s go home. Home to Makkathran.”

“About time. I know you had to come here, but I’m not sure it’s healthy. We all regard the past too highly. We should cut ourselves free of it. You can only ever look forward to the future.”

Edeard pulled him closer. “You’re really quite a philosopher, aren’t you?”

“Why do you say that with so much surprise?”

“That was not surprise; that was respect.”

“Hmm.”

“Anyhow,” Edeard teased, “Saria will be waiting for you. Waiting eagerly.”

“Oh, dear Lady. I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, but what in Honious did Boyd ever see in her?”

“What? No! She’s a lovely girl.”

“She is a nightmare.”

“Kristabel thinks highly of her.”

“Yes. But Kristabel thinks highly of you, too.”

“Ouch! That hurt. Okay, then, perhaps Kanseen could steer someone more to your liking-”

“No! And certainly not Kanseen. Do you know what her definition of ‘nice girls’ is, let alone ‘suitable’ ones? This is what you’ve all been doing since the four of you got married. It’s embarrassing. Besides, I like being single.”

“Married life is wonderful.”

“Lady! Just stop it, will you.”

Edeard walked out of his former guild courtyard grinning contentedly.

THE PANCEPHEI LINE starship had already dropped out of hyperspace when the emergency began. External sensors were showing the passengers an image of the H-congruous world two thousand kilometers below. White clouds tumbled high above dark blue oceans, sending out long streamers in forays across the surprisingly brown land. Flight information was available to access, designating their vector as a purple line down through the atmosphere to Garamond’s capital, the smooth resolution to another flawless everyday flight across three hundred light-years.

None of that registered with the increasingly frantic Delivery Man. The Conservative Faction’s intelligence division had automatically sent out a secure classified warning to all operatives as soon as the inversion core broke free of ANA’s edifice. He’d observed it with growing dismay as it eluded the navy ships. Then the deterrence fleet arrived (though its nature wasn’t revealed on any navy scans of the Sol system), and right after that the Swarm materialized. Earth’s defense agency declared a grade-one alert.

The Delivery Man called his wife, and to hell with protocol. For whatever reason, her u-shadow didn’t accept his first request for a link. When he analyzed the basic data, he realized she was in the Dulwich Park school. His hand thumped the nicely cushioned armrest of his seat in the first-class cubicle in frustration.

Lizzie teleported back home, and her u-shadow accepted the link. He managed a few words of reassurance before his exovision symbols told him the unisphere was changing the routing on the link, which was weird. His secure priority connection with the Conservative Faction intelligence division dropped out. What the fuck? “Then I’ll be with you the instant I reach an Earth station,” he told her, trying to appear positive.

“Something’s wrong,” Lizzie said.

It was impossible, but he could feel her distress as though they were using the gaiafield. “Lizzie, just hang on! I will be there, I promise you. Tell the girls Daddy is going to be home any minute.”

His u-shadow reported the link with Lizzie had failed, as had the one to the Conservative Faction. “No,” he gasped out loud. His exovision showed that every route to Earth had been severed. No data were getting in or out of the Sol system; it was completely cut off from the unisphere. “What the hell is happening?” he asked his u-shadow.