Peter Hamilton - The Evolutionary Void

Edeard said nothing. He was too shocked by the revelation of his dreadful act being uncovered.

“Is that it?” Tathal asked. “Is that your secret? Your timesense?” A frown creased his handsome young face. “But no. If you could see the future, you would know what I am, what I am to become.”

“You are to become nothing.”

“What are you?”

Edeard screamed as the question seared its way into his brain, falling like acid on every nerve fiber. He had to confess. Every member of the nest had joined his or her mind to Tathal’s, offering strength to the compulsion. Third hands closed around him, crushing his body, suffocating him. Their thoughts began to seep into his mind, corroding his free will.

He didn’t have time to be neat and clever, nor did he have the time to summon up the focus to go far. He thought of when he was free-they allowed him that-the moments before he broke down the door to the Apricot Cottage. And reached for that-

Edeard gasped for breath as he slid up through the pavement of Boldar Avenue. Everyone was turning to stare at him, their heads filled with identical placid thoughts. Above him, the nest awaited.

He didn’t even wait to sense if there was a glimmer of suspicion rising amid their unified mind. His memory conjured up that evening … no, just before then, a few hours earlier, the astronomer’s parlor-

Edeard stood outside the House of Blue Petals, waiting patiently. It was late afternoon, and away at the other end of the city, the Grand Council was called to session. In the Tosella district, Finitan railed against his infirmity and pain.

Eventually, a young Tathal walked confidently across the street to the House of Blue Petals. He stopped abruptly and turned to stare at Edeard.

“You’ve been watching me,” Edeard said.

Tathal’s adolescent face screwed up into a suspicious grimace. “So?”

“You’re afraid I can stop you.”

“Ladyfuckit,” Tathal spit. His third hand began to extend as his mind was veiled behind an inordinately powerful shield.

“You have an extraordinary talent,” Edeard said calmly. “Why don’t you join me? The people of this world need help. There’s so much good you can do.”

“Join you? Not even you can dominate me, Waterwalker. I’m nobody’s genistar.”

“I have no intention of attempting that trick.” His gaze flicked to the House of Blue Petals. “She tried it on me once, you know.”

“Yeah? Must be pretty stupid not to learn from that mistake. But I made her teach me a lot.” He sneered. “I like that. She still thinks she’s in control, but she bends over when I tell her to.”

“Honious! You’ve already started to bind the nest to you, haven’t you?”

Tathal narrowed his eyes. Misgivings leaked out from his shield. “What do you want?”

“Not you. You’re too late.” Edeard remembered a day from a couple of years previously. Reached for it-

Edeard tried. He even impressed himself with his tenacity, seeking that one moment when Tathal had an ounce of humanity in his soul. If it existed, he never found it. In the end he doubted its existence.

But he tried, waiting outside the city gates when a fifteen-year-old Tathal arrived with a caravan. That, too, was long after his personality had established itself. He’d already dominated the entire caravan, lording it over them in the master’s wagon. It wasn’t as subtle as the nest; men and women served him while their daughters became his stable of whores. The old and the recalcitrant had been discarded along the route.

Before that … Edeard found that Tathal came from Ustaven province. He missed Taralee’s seventeenth birthday to travel to the capital, Growan, nine months before Tathal left it with the caravan. Just in time to sense the fourteen-year-old finally kill Matrar, his abusive father with a display of telekinesis that was shocking to witness. Minutes later he threw his broken alcoholic mother out of their house.

Farther back … Five years previously, Edeard spent a month in Growan, drinking in Matrar’s tavern, trying to reason with the miserable man, to steer him away from using violence against his family. To no avail.

Two years beforehand, and Edeard bribed the owner of the carpentry lodge where Matrar worked, promoting him so his life might be a little easier. There would be more money, and Matrar might see a brighter future opening up if he strove to better himself. But the new money was spent on longer binges, and his obvious failings bred resentment among the men he was supposed to supervise.

Eventually Edeard found himself outside the tavern Matrar favored for the last time. It had taken some admirable detective work among the badly maintained civic records of Growan’s Guild of Clerks, but eventually he’d tracked down Tathal’s birth certificate. Not that he entirely trusted it. That was why he was outside the tavern ten days before the probable night. He was dressed in simple field worker clothes and a heavy coat, with his face disguised by a shallow concealment mirage. Not even Kristabel would recognize him.

As a waitress squirmed between battered old wooden tables, he surreptitiously tipped a phial of vinac juice into Matrar’s ale. It was an act he performed every night for a fortnight.

Tathal was never conceived. Never existed, so could never be remembered or even mourned.

Edeard arrived back in Makkathran in time for Taralee’s second birthday. Just as he recalled, she developed chicken pox two days later. Then in autumn that year a ridiculously happy Mirnatha announced her surprise engagement. Finitan was at the height of his powers and supporting the special Grand Council committee on organized crime, which was producing good results.

He recalled it all. The events. The conversations. Even the weather. There was little he wanted to change. At first. Then he grew weary of the sameness. Knowing became a burden as he became exasperated with people repeating the same mistakes once more.

The only thing that differed now was his dreams: still bizarre, impossible, but fresh, new.

CHERITON MCONNA WAS TIRED, irritable, and unwashed to a degree where his clothes were starting to smell. What he needed was coffee, proper sunlight, and a decent blast of fresh air. The conditioning unit in the confluence nest supervisor’s office was struggling under constant use by too many people. But Dream Master Yenrol was insistent that they keep a full watch for any sign of the Second Dreamer. That meant a special module grafted onto the nest itself, one with a direct connection to the team. It boosted perception and sensitivity to an exceptionally high level. Cheriton didn’t like that at all; opening his mind to the gaiafield at such an intensity was equivalent to staring into the sun. Fortunately, he had some filter routines, which he quietly slipped in to protect himself. The other members of Yenrol’s team weren’t so well off. Slavishly obedient and devout, they scoured the emotional resonance routines for the slightest hint of their absconded messiah.

Around him, he could see their faces grimace from the strength of impressions pulsing down that singular linkage, yet still they loyally persevered. If they weren’t careful, they were going to suffer some pretty severe brainburns. Yenrol was adamant, though, convinced that whatever had happened over in Francola Wood had been caused by the Second Dreamer. It was Phelim’s strong belief, complacently acceded to by the Dream Masters, that she was trying to return from Chobamba.

The brief ultrasecure message Cheriton had received from Oscar was clear that she hadn’t emerged from the Silfen path. No one had the remotest idea what had actually set off all the agents into yet another deranged fracas. The path had registered somehow within the gaiafield as it changed, but no one had walked out. Now it had inevitably shrunk away again in the way Silfen paths always did when scrutinized by curious humans. Cheriton knew that meant the Second Dreamer wouldn’t be using it now-she was still out there walking between worlds-but try telling Yenrol that. The Dream Master was obsessed to the point of recklessness; he truly believed he was this close .