Peter Hamilton - The Evolutionary Void

Edeard gaped in delight at the celestial panorama that the ceiling had so unexpectedly delivered in such wondrous detail. He took his time, familiarizing himself with each of the Gicon worldlets. It had been a long time since he’d bothered to look through a telescope-decades, back before he ever set foot in Makkathran. As he went around the sedate quintet formation, he realized that something new had appeared amid them. A patch of pale iridescent light was shimmering beside Alakkad. “What is that?” he murmured in puzzlement. It couldn’t be a nebula; it was too small, too steady. Besides, the ceiling was showing him the entire bracelet, which meant the patch was close to Querencia. There was no tail, so it wasn’t a comet. Which meant …

Edeard dropped to his knees as if in prayer, staring up in awe at the little glowing patch. “Oh, dear Lady!” He’d never seen one, never imagined what one would look like. But even so he knew exactly what he was looking at.

Edeard put his eye to the end of the telescope again, making sure the alignment was right. Why the lens stuck out vertically halfway along the big brass tube was a mystery to him. The astronomer he’d bought it from had launched into some long explanation about focal length. It made no sense to Edeard; that the contraption worked was all he required. He’d spent most of the afternoon setting it up on the hortus outside the study where Kristabel kept her desk and all the paperwork she used to manage the estate. By now the ziggurat all the way down to the third floor knew of the Waterwalker’s new interest, not to mention every astronomer in Makkathran, gossipy clique that they were. It wouldn’t take long before the entire city was aware. Then life might get interesting again.

And that’s my real problem with this world. Too damn neat and tidy .

He stood up, arching his back to get the kinks out. His farsight swept out across the gloaming-cloaked city. Someone was observing him. Not the secretive newcomer; his knew this mental signature only too well. His farsight stretched all the way down to Myco and that four-story building fronting Upper Tail Canal, the one with a faint violet glow escaping from its upper windows.

“Hello, Edeard,” Ranalee longtalked. She was standing in the office that had belonged to Bute and Ivarl before her. When he employed the city’s own senses to look into the room, he saw she was dressed in a long silk evening gown with flared arms. Large jewels sparkled in her hair and around her neck. Two girls were in attendance. They looked like junior daughters from some Grand Family, the kind she usually ensnared in her various dynastic breeding schemes; their robes were certainly more expensive than those of the courtesans on the lower floors, and their admiration for Ranalee was painfully obvious. A lad was also in there with them, a dark-haired youth in his late teens, wearing nothing but a pair of shorts. Edeard guessed he was of the aristocracy; his self-confidence incriminated him. For him to be there was somewhat unusual for Ranalee but hardly unique.

Edeard sighed at finding the trio, but then, charging into the House of Blue Petals with a squad of constables to rescue innocents from her clutches didn’t work. He’d made that mistake before. Once it had been so bad, he’d gone back in time to make sure it never happened.

There was only one way to rid Makkathran of Ranalee, and he wouldn’t do it. As she so often said, that would make him one of her own. So he endured and did what he could to thwart her legitimately.

To add to the ignominy, she’d aged extremely well, presumably thanks to some deal made in Honious, he told himself sullenly. Her skin remained firm and wrinkle-free, and she managed to maintain an impressive figure even after four children. You had to get right up next to her and look into those hypnotic eyes to know the true age and calculating ingenuity that the body contained, a position he tried to avoid as much as possible.

“Good evening,” he replied equitably.

“Interesting new toy you’ve got there.”

“As always, I’m flattered by your attention.”

“Why do you want a telescope?”

“To watch the end of your world approaching.”

“How coy. I’ll find out, of course.”

“You certainly will. I’ll be announcing it very loudly in a few days.”

“How intriguing. That’s why I always liked you, Edeard. You make life exciting.”

“Who are your new friends?”

Ranalee smiled as she looked around the office at the youngsters. “Come and join us; find out for yourself.” She signaled the girls, who immediately went over to the lad and started kissing him.

“No thank you.”

“Still holding out against your true self? How sad.”

“You’re really not going to enjoy my announcement. I’m about to turn even those with the weakest of wills away from your kind of existence.”

“You’re very bitter tonight. Were those livestock certificates so desperately important to you?”

Every time. She could do it Every Single Time. Edeard pressed his teeth together as he tried to quash his anger.

“At least the animal markets is one enterprise you haven’t contaminated yet,” he told her. It was petty, but …

“Poor Edeard, still jealous after all these years. You never expected me to be so successful, did you?”

He refused to rise to the bait. But Ranalee’s business ability had surprised him. She’d invested wisely, unlike the previous owners of the House of Blue Petals, who had simply squandered the money on their own lifestyle. Today, Ranalee owned over two dozen perfectly legitimate businesses and had a considerable political presence on the general merchants council and in the Makkathran Chamber of Commerce. Nowadays, she was completely independent of the old faltering Gilmorn family. He knew of course that she’d used her vile ability for dominance to sway unsuspecting rivals at opportune moments and to build unseemly financial alliances, yet he could never prove anything. And of course, her children had been married off selectively, gathering more wealthy families into her dominion.

“That’s Makkathran for you,” he replied. “Equal opportunity for everyone.”

Ranalee shook her head, seemingly tired of the argument. “No, Edeard. It’s not. Nor-before you start-are all of us born equal. You got where you are because of your strength, just as I foresaw. And I am where I am because of my strength, and you resent that.”

“Are you saying you used illicit methods to gather your new wealth?”

“Did you achieve your position legitimately? Where is my father, Edeard? Where is Owain? Why has there never been an inquiry into their disappearance?”

“Is an inquiry needed into their activities?”

“Would it ever be an impartial one?” She reached up and began removing the jeweled pins from her hair so it could fall free.

“You don’t want that.”

“No,” she said simply. “The past is the past. It’s done. Over. I look to the future. I always have.” She regarded the youngsters dispassionately. The ardent girls had taken the lad’s shorts off. They giggled as they pushed him down on a big couch.

Edeard couldn’t watch the lad’s enraptured, worshipful face as Ranalee moved over to the side of the couch and stared down at him. Too many memories . “Why do you do this?” he asked. “You’ve achieved so much.”

A victorious smile twitched across Ranalee’s lips. “Not as much as you.”

“Oh, for the Lady’s sake!”

“Would you like to linger tonight, Edeard? Would you like to remember how it was? How much you lost?”

“Good night,” he said in disgust.

“Wait.” She turned from the couch.

“Ranalee …”