Peter Hamilton - The Evolutionary Void

“So now what?” the Delivery Man asked.

“Find a haystack, then start searching for its needle.”

The Delivery Man deliberately didn’t glare at the gold-faced man sitting in the shell chair opposite him. There was no point. “This planet is bigger than Earth,” he read from his exovision displays. “Surface area nearly eighty million square miles. That’s a lot of land to search with any degree of thoroughness.”

“What makes you think it’s on land?”

“Okay, what makes you think it’s even here? Was that in the summary? The Anomine had settled in eight other star systems that we know of.”

“And they’re all deserted. That’s a goddamn fact. They came back here, every type of them. Another dumbass pilgrimage. This is where they elevated from.”

“Oh, Great Ozzie,” the Delivery Man moaned. “You don’t know, do you? You’ve no bloody idea. You’re hoping. That’s all. Hoping there’s an answer here.”

“I’m applying logic.”

The Delivery Man wanted to beat his fists on the chair. But it wouldn’t be any use, not even as emotional therapy. He’d been committed from the moment he left Gore’s asteroid. “All right. But you must have some idea how to find the damn thing, right?”

“Again, we’re going to apply logic. First we perform a complete low-orbit mapping flight and scan every inch of the place for exotic activity or gravity fluctuations, power generation, quantum anomalies-anything out of the ordinary.”

“But that’ll take …”

“Several days, yes.”

“And if we don’t find anything?”

“Go down and talk to the natives, see what they can tell us.”

“But they’re an agrarian civilization, human equivalent to the mid-nineteenth century. They’re not going to know about machines that can turn you into an angel.”

“They have legends; we know that. They’re proud of their history. The navy cultural anthropology team did some good work. We can even talk to them direct. And they’re more advanced than our nineteenth century-that I do remember from the files. Not that the comparison is entirely valid.”

“Okay. Whatever.”

Gore gave the briefest of nods and issued orders to the smartcore.

“Why did you bring me?” the Delivery Man asked. “You and the ship can handle this.”

“Backup,” Gore said flatly. “I might need help at some point. Who knows?”

“Great.”

“Get yourself some rest, son. You’ve been wired tight for days now.”

The Delivery Man admitted he was too tired and edgy to argue. He went over to his private cubicle and rolled onto the small but luxurious cot that expanded out of the bulkhead. He didn’t expect to sleep. He was still wound up tight about Lizzie and the children. The ship’s TD link to the unisphere remained connected, so he could access all the news from back home.

High Angel had arrived at the Sol system. After six hours Qatux had diplomatically announced to the President that there was nothing the huge arkship could do. The force field the Accelerators’ Swarm had deployed was too strong to break with any weapon they had.

After switching through several ill-informed news shows, the Delivery Man fell into a troubled sleep.

Corrie-Lyn woke up with a start, disoriented and unsure what had hauled her up out of such a deep sleep. She glanced around the small darkened cabin, listening intently, but there was nothing. Sometimes the Lindau ’s poor battered systems would produce odd sounds. Pipes gurgled and bubbled, and the servicebots hammered away as they worked through their repair schedule; then there was that one time when she swore she’d heard the hull itself creak. But tonight it was silent aside from the constant hum of power, which was vaguely reassuring even though it shouldn’t be that loud. At least they still had power.

Inigo stirred briefly beside her, and she smiled down gently at him. It was so good to have him back, physically as well as emotionally. Even though he wasn’t quite the messiah of yore, he was still her Inigo, concerned about different things now but still as determined and focused as before. She felt so much happier now that he was here to help, despite still being unable to escape Aaron.

The name acted like some kind of recognition key. He was why she’d woken. Her mind was abruptly aware of the turmoil bubbling out from the agent’s gaiamotes. There were images her own brain instinctively tried to shut out, repulsive sensations of pain-not direct impulses but memories of suffering that verged on nauseous, but worst of all were the emotions of guilt and fear that bridged the gap between them, plunging her into his nightmare of darkness and torment. She was suffocating in some giant cathedral where men and women were being sacrificed on a crude pagan altar. She was standing behind the high priest as the curved dagger was raised again. Screams blasted out from those awaiting an identical fate as the blade flashed down, then rose again, dripping with blood. The figure in the white robe turned, and it wasn’t a male priest. She smiled gleefully, the front of her robe soaked in scarlet blood, making the fabric cling obscenely to her body, emphasizing breasts and hips.

“You don’t leave me,” she explained as the smile widened. Lips parted to reveal fangs that grew and grew as the cathedral faded away. There was only darkness and her. The robe was gone now; blood glistened across her skin. The mouth opened wider, then wider still; there was no face anymore, only teeth and blood. “Come back where you belong.”

He wanted to scream, joining the clamor kicked up by the others lost somewhere out there in the impenetrable blackness. But when he opened his mouth, blood poured in, filling his lungs, drowning him. Every muscle shook in the terrible struggle to be free, to be free of her, of what she’d made him do.

“It’s all right, son,” a new, soothing voice chimed in. “Let me help you.”

A soft irresistible force closed around his body, solidifying, immobilizing him. He stopped gagging for breath as bright red laser fans swept across the darkness, quickly arranging themselves into a spiral web with his head in the center. They contracted sharply, sending light pouring into his brain. Pain soared to unbelievable heights-

“Yech!” Corrie-Lyn shook her head violently, closing off her gaiamotes. The sickening sensations vanished. Now she heard a sound, a muffled yell from the captain’s cabin on the opposite side of the narrow companionway. “Sweet Lady,” she grunted. No mind could survive that kind of psychological torment for long, not and remain sane and functional. She stared at the cabin door, fearful he would come bursting through, his weapon enrichments activated. But he didn’t. There were another couple of defiant cries and then some whimpering like an animal being soothed before silence claimed the starship again.

Corrie-Lyn let out a long breath, seriously alarmed by how great the threat of him going completely insane had become. Her skin was coated in cold sweat. She pulled the tangle of quilts off herself and wriggled over to the ablution alcove. Taking care to be quiet so she didn’t wake Inigo, she slowly sponged herself down with a mild-scented soap. It cooled her skin, leaving her feeling a little better. Nothing she could do about the sensations crawling along the inside of her skin-the residual shock of the dream.

If that’s what it is .

It was all a little too coherent for comfort. Not a brain naturally discharging its accumulated experiences orchestrated by the peaks of lingering emotion, the way humans were designed to cope with everyday experiences. These were like broken memories pushing up from whatever dark zone of the psyche they’d been imprisoned in. “What in Honious did they do to you?” she murmured into the gloomy cabin.