Peter Hamilton - The Temporal Void

Babuyan Atoll was undergoing an approximation of night. The dome's internal illumination was off, but the crystal remained perfectly transparent. Icalanise's jaundiced crescent was rising above the lip of the parkland to shine a jaded light across the forests and towers. Admiral Kazimir saw it through his office window as he made some niggling final adjustments to his dress uniform. Over on Aldaho, the Senate Executive Security Commission was convening for an emergency session, where he was due to present the really bad news about the Ocisen Empire's new allies. It was looking like the deterrent fleet would have to be used, a prospect which both thrilled and horrified him in equal amounts. For nearly seven hundred years the mere threat of its existence had been enough to deter the more belligerent species in the galaxy from any aggression against the Common wealth. Now the bluff was going to be called, and those who thought it was a bluff were about to get a very nasty surprise.

The silver collar on his tunic was lopsided. Kazimir grimaced at it in the mirror, and tried to fiddle the awkward fabric back into shape. In seven hundred years, he'd never used semi-organic fabrics for his uniform, and wasn't about to start now.

His u-shadow told him Paula Myo was calling from Ganthia. 'Good news? he asked.

'Not even close, she said. 'I've uncovered evidence that suggest the Navy has been manipulated.

Kazimir listened with growing anger as she explained her suspicions about Chatfield and his secondary persona, Evanston. When she'd finished he called ANA: Governance.

'This cannot stand, he said 'The Accelerators have committed treason.

'Circumstantial evidence, ANA: Governance replied. 'We don't know for sure.

'They have worked up this whole Pilgrimage situation right from the start.

'Pilgrimage was inevitable from the moment Inigo dreamed his first dream, Paula said. 'If they are behind the Prime Ocisen alliance then it is an arrangement that goes back decades. Evanston was assigned to the Elan system thirty years ago.

'And whatever Troblum worked on was twenty years before that, Kazimir acknowledged.

'I'd suggest this idea of Fusion was concocted when Inigo abandoned Living Dream, Paula said. 'They saw a method of fast forwarding to post-physical status and immediately set about enacting it.

'Very likely, Kazimir said. 'They don't call themselves Accelerators for nothing. The question is, what do we do about it? Can't you simply suspend them?

'Any intervention would have to be universal, ANA: Governance said. 'At present I do not have sufficient grounds.

'But you know .

'I very strongly suspect. To act on suspicion alone is persecution. I believe the human race is past such barbarism now, isn't it?

'Let's try this tack, Paula said. 'What can they possibly hope to achieve by the Prime Ossian alliance?

'It's a distraction, Kazimir said.

'No, Paula said. 'It has to be more than that. They know it will divert a degree of attention to the invasion fleet, but they also know that ANA and people like myself will continue to monitor the Pilgrimage preparations and investigate Troblum and Marius. No matter how many distractions, how many crises and alien invasions we face, we will not drop the ball when it comes to the Accelerator manifesto. Therefore, it has to be connected.

'How? Kazimir asked. 'For all the alliance is shocking, in military terms it is trivial. It doesn't physically threaten the Commonwealth, nor will it prevent Ethan's Pilgrimage from launching.

'Are you so sure Chatfield is an Accelerator? ANA: Governance asked. 'Your conclusion was drawn from a single answer. It would be more credible if he was a Custodian or even an Isolationist.

'He's an Accelerator, Paula said. 'It fits. So why would they want to engineer a threat to the Commonwealth, one that would be triggered by the Pilgrimage? One that isn't a simple diversion tactic?

'The deterrence fleet, Kazimir said bitterly. 'Without the Primes as part of the Empire's fleet, a squadron of capital-class ships would be enough to take them out. But with the Primes we have to send the deterrence fleet.

'They want to know what it is, ANA: Governance said.

'Why? Paula asked. 'What does knowing that get them? Is it a bluff?

'No, Kazimir said. 'It is not a bluff.

'In all my time I have never met a Navy officer who served in the deterrence fleet, Paula said. 'I've met hundreds serving on every other class of ship, but never that. And given the levels of government I interact with, I find that extremely odd.

'You have met someone from the deterrence fleet, Kazimir told her calmly. 'Me.

'I was birthed to provide protection to the physical segment of the human race, ANA: Governance said. 'I assure you the deterrence fleet is real, and is quite capable of achieving that level of physical defence. I should know. I built it.

'In which case, the Accelerators must want to know what it's armed with, Paula said. 'I assume it's something pretty potent.

'Yes. Very.

'All right, so they're expecting to analyse it, and use it — after all you wouldn't go to this much trouble if you don't have a need for it. But the timescale's not good here. Even if they did analyse it perfectly, they still have to build it. That will take time, and the Pilgrimage fleet is due to launch in a couple of months. Can they duplicate it in that time?

'Extremely unlikely, ANA: Governance said. 'It required my full abilities several years to fabricate. Admittedly my faculties have increased dramatically since then, but still it is not something which can be accomplished quickly.

'Let's examine the extremes, Paula said. 'Can the deterrence fleet weapons knock out the Void?

'No.

'But you're confident it can ward off just about everything else in the galaxy?

'Yes.

'In which case my guess would be that they intend to use it against the Raiel ships guarding the Void boundary. Justine barely managed to get through, and she had a head start on them, plus some help from the Void itself. As it stands, Ethan's ships wouldn't even make it to the Wall, let alone through the Gulf.

'Damn, Kazimir grunted. 'That has to be it. The idiots. Not enough to try and wreck the galaxy, they've got to start a war with the most powerful race in existence.

'There is one factor which might work to our advantage, Paula said.

'What?

'The Primes.

Centuries of experience had taught Kazimir never to be surprised at Paula's ideas. 'Go on.

'They're not stupid. At least not the ones still living in the Commonwealth, which is the group the Accelerators have manipulated. A standard Prime immotile knows that if there is any possibility of them threatening us again, we will simply exterminate them.

'Yes. Actually, given the new nature and developing psychology of the five surviving Prime civilizations, the Navy has downgraded their threat potential twice in the last thousand years.

'So they're not going to risk triggering human retaliation. They are extremely unlikely to agree to cooperate with the Accelerator plan. However, we know that human personalities can operate within a Prime neural structure. I once met the Bose-motile. The integration was flawless, he functioned without any problem. That gives us our potential evidence.

'What does? Kazimir asked.

'They might be Prime bodies inside those warships, but I'll give you very good odds that they're animated by human thought routines. It would be a simple matter to snatch some motiles that have just come out of the birthing pond. At that stage their brains are completely empty, it's their immotiles which instil them with baseline thoughts and memories. So if you did snatch one at that stage, it would be a simple procedure to load in a human mind and memories instead, it's our basic re-life procedure but with an alien body. And there you have it, the core of a completely independent Prime hierarchy. The Ocisen Empire thinks they've found a genuine enemy of humanity to give their cause some particularly sharp teeth, while in fact they're being manipulated by the Accelerators just like everyone else.