Peter Hamilton - The Evolutionary Void

“Which it will,” Beckia said.

“I still don’t buy it,” Oscar said. He remembered the expression of fear and determination he’d seen on Araminta’s face when they met oh so briefly in Bodant Park. Her magnificent run eluding not just his team but the entire complement of agents from every power player in the Commonwealth. Besides, she was descended from Mellanie, and that meant trouble on a level these modern Greater Commonwealth citizens couldn’t comprehend. His lips registered a slight smile. Something about the whole situation wasn’t quite right-Tomansio had the truth of that-but he had absolutely no idea what.

“Then what is she doing?” Beckia asked. “She might have come out fighting from the corner they’d backed her into, but she’s burned any options. She has to take Living Dream on Pilgrimage now. That’s what her whole tenuous authority is based on.”

“Suicide?” Liatris suggested. “She leads them into the Gulf, and the Pilgrimage ships get blasted apart by the warrior Raiel.”

“That’d work for me,” Beckia grunted.

Oscar grinned from the strength of his own conviction. “Have a little faith,” he told the Knights Guardian. “After all, she is a messiah now.”

Tomansio groaned. “You mean you want us to stay on?”

“You’ve seen what’s going on in the docks right now. Every Living Dream follower on the planet is going to come running to the wormhole, and Phelim will have to shut off the weather dome to let them in. If we left now, we’d definitely be seen; we’d blow our cover.”

“We don’t need cover if the operation is over.”

“Give her a few days. She is rather busy right now, after all. And she has my number.”

“Don’t we all,” Beckia muttered.

Araminta stood at the front of the big passenger capsule, looking through the transparent fuselage that wrapped around her. Five hundred meters below, Greater Makkathran was laid out across the ground, a phenomenal urban sprawl that stretched to the horizon in every direction. Sunlight glinted and flashed off the crystal towers rising from lush parks; lower buildings shone with implausible colors. It was, she acknowledged, a beautiful city. However, her vision of the capital was slightly obscured by the sheer number of capsules rising up out of the designated traffic streams to wait for her to pass. Then they curved around to join the festive armada already flying along behind her. There were so many packed together like a smoke cloud, she could actually see the hazy shadow they splashed over the ground.

Up ahead, the ocean appeared on the horizon where the city dipped down to a broad swath of green park. And there, gleaming in the late afternoon sunlight, Makkathran2 was perched on the shoreline.

“Do you want to go straight to the Orchard Palace, Dreamer?” Captain Darraklan asked. He’d stayed with her after they walked through the wormhole, seemingly appointing himself as her personal guard. She wasn’t about to argue. With his helmet off, he was actually quite handsome in a classic square-jawed way, his floppy chestnut hair reminding her of one of Mr. Bovey’s younger selves.

“No,” she said without taking her gaze from the hauntingly strange reproduction city. “Edeard first entered through the North Gate. Take me there; that will be fitting. I will walk to the Orchard Palace.” Which will give Ethan plenty of time to throw up the barricades, if he dares . She felt a grim amusement coming from Darraklan’s mind as the capsule began to lose altitude. He must have been thinking the same thing.

They touched down on the vast circle of parkland surrounding the crystal wall. As she alighted onto the grass, she glanced back at the armada that was now tussling for ground space. It really had turned the sky dark. She was sure none of them were obeying local traffic control orders anymore. That’s good. A little knot of anarchy which I influence. They don’t all obey Ethan’s laws unquestioningly .

So far everyone was waiting to see what would happen next, pushing her along with their enthusiasm and her apparent newfound relish for the role of Dreamer. All she had to do was supplant Ethan, and the only way to do that was to show her ability and determination were greater than his. Just like Bradley said .

Araminta walked through the great arch in the crystal wall, with people pouring out of their badly parked capsules to form a carnival procession behind her. She didn’t really get much of a look at Makkathran2 from ground level. High Moat, which the gate opened on to, was jammed with people; surely everyone who lived in their shrine city had turned out to welcome her. The cheer that arose at her arrival was deafening. A row of men in Makkathran constable uniforms exactly like those of the Waterwalker’s squad saluted. Darraklan and their sergeant shouted back and forth while Araminta waved at the crowd, all the while moving forward. Never hesitate, never slow .

After a moment the constables fell in around her, easing her passage toward the bridge over North Curve Canal and into Ysidro.

She was wrong about the whole population being on High Moat. Ysidro’s narrow twisting streets were packed solid with supporters, some crying openly. The eerily familiar Blue Fox tavern was there beside the ginger sandstone bridge that took her into Golden Park, where the sunlight was shimmering off the white pillars. Another sea of bodies thronged the vast open space, and the high domes of the Orchard Palace dominated the far skyline.

While she was walking along one of the park’s elegant paths, Darraklan leaned over to murmur in her ear. “The Cleric Council has convened at the entrance to the palace.”

“Wonderful,” she replied. There were a lot of children lining the path, all of them with shining adulation in their eyes. It was hard to keep pushing on knowing she would ultimately betray that trust and reverence. It is their parents who have misled them, not me. I will be the truth for them .

By the time she reached the wire and wood bridge that crossed Outer Circle Canal, her resolution had returned. The thousands of smiling faces that urged her on no longer even registered as she crossed the canal. Darraklan accompanied her while the constables tried to stop the crowd pressing forward into the canal itself. They were all so desperate to see what happened next, their combined thoughts urging the Clerics to acknowledge their new Dreamer.

As Darraklan had said, the Cleric Council was waiting for her just inside the Malfit Hall, resplendent in their scarlet and black robes. Ethan stood in front of them, his white robes shining far brighter than Araminta’s own. Reasonable enough, she admitted. After all, she’d sewn hers together from the lining of Mr. Bovey’s semiorganic curtains.

The Cleric Conservator bowed deeply. “Dreamer,” he said. “Welcome. We have waited so long for this moment.”

Araminta gave him a sly smile. For someone who’d just been politically outmaneuvered, he was in surprisingly good humor. “Be careful what you wish for.”

“Indeed. May I ask why you have finally come forward?”

“It was time,” she replied. “And I wished to end Viotia’s suffering.”

“That was most regrettable.”

“It is past,” she said lightly, knowing how angry her homeworld would be at that. “I am here to lead those who want a better life for themselves, those who chose to live as the Waterwalker did.” Again she appealed to the Skylord, who said: “We await you. We will guide you.”

The gasp of joy from the crowd outside was audible through the hall’s thick walls. She smiled significantly at Ethan: your call.