Peter Hamilton - The Temporal Void

She laughed. 'You mean the Conservative Faction is still eager to screw the Accelerators.

'Screw them into the ground and dance on the pieces, actually. Does that information help?

'It's not helpful for them, but it does confirm my assumption that Chatfield is an Accelerator representative. Her u-shadow reported that it couldn't track the origin of Gore's call. There were very few people who could manipulate the Unisphere to that extent. And why would he hide that anyway? Unless… No! Surely not .

'I have something else which may be of use for you, Gore said.

'What's that?

'Troblum.

'You know where he is?

'No, sorry, not that, but I do know what he's been up to.

'Oh really? Your Delivery Man shut down our one avenue of investigation. I'll get round to arresting him one day, you know. Using an m-sink on a Central world is not amusing.

'Consider this my olive branch. We were scared by what Troblum was doing.

'Which was?

'Building an ftl drive big enough to move a planet.

'Jesus! You're kidding.

'Wish I was. The good news is that he wasn't doing it for the Accelerators — at least not as far as we can determine. This seems to be some mad personal obsession.

'That fits. He has a semi-plausible theory on how the Anomine acquired Dark Fortress technology. One way is that they simply stole or borrowed them from the warrior Raiel.

'Yeah? Anyway… he succeeded in building one.

'Now you are kidding me.

'No. That's why the Delivery Man was authorized to cover it up. We were concerned when we thought it was part of the Accelerator plan, but now we don't believe it is.

'So why tell me this now?

'Troblum is a very strange man. And now he's loose in the universe with an ftl drive that might be able to move a planet. He's also trying to make contact with you to tell you something about the Accelerators. They don't like that.

'Ah, I get it: the wild card.

'Damn right.

'And that worries you?

'It should worry you, too. Events are becoming unstable enough as it is. We don't need people like Troblum fucking things up even more.

'And yet he might have the evidence ANA: Governance needs to suspend the Accelerators.

'Could be. Who knows?

'So what do you want me to do?

'Stick him up at the top of your priority list. He needs to be found.

'After what happened on Sholapur I expect he's halfway to Andromeda by now.

'We can't take the risk. You must not allow the Accelerators to find him again.

'Don't try to tell me my job, she told him curtly.

'Wouldn't dream of it. Just making information available like a good citizen.

'So what are you up to right now? I heard you didn't show up for the ExoProtectorate meeting.

'I thought now was a good time to take a sabbatical. But don't worry, I'm still sticking my hand in.

'Stick it in too deep and I'll break it off. You know you don't have half the special privileges you think you do, not as far as I'm concerned.

'Pleasure doing business with you, Paula. As always. The call ended.

Paula sat back on the couch. After a while she began to grin.

The Wurung Transport cab rattled along Colwyn City's ageing public rails all day long. Araminta sat on the wide front seat with the wrap-around bubble window switched to one-way, watching a city in torment. The Ellezelin capsules zoomed low over the buildings, an unending reminder of their presence and power. Desperation was sinking in now, replacing the previous sullen resentment which had claimed the city. The Senate delegation had been on the ground for six hours before Cleric Phelim even agreed to see them. Crowds around the docks were treated badly by the paramilitaries as they shouted their demands to be heard by the Senators. Flights by ambulance capsules were still forbidden; cabs and trike pods were kept busy carrying the injured to city hospitals. By mid-afternoon numbers were thinning out around the docks. Other disturbance areas were growing.

Laril had switched on the cab's Unisphere node as he promised. It responded to simple voice instructions, which was proving incredibly useful. Almost the first thing she saw was a Unisphere report on Justine's encounter with the Skylord. The dream had been released into the gaiafield a few hours ago, the show said, and they'd transferred the images over. A lot of smart commentators were busy providing their interpretation, as was a Living Dream Councillor called DeLouis who seemed repellently excited by the Skylord's refusal to take Justine to the nucleus. Araminta watched for a while until she realized that no one really knew anything, then switched to local news. The tiny portal projected scenes captured by reporters all across town.

One thing kept happening over and over again. It was random, and inexplicable to the news shows. Ellezelin capsules pounced out of the sky to snatch women by force. There was no discoverable connection between the women as far as anyone could make out, and some very sophisticated semi-sentient scrutineers were employed to that effect. The Ellezelin troopers who performed the seizures were extremely determined, and didn't care how much peripheral damage was committed to achieve their objective. The images helped stir a lot of the outrage people were feeling. Those minority of residents who had valiantly gone to work as normal were heading for home by mid-afternoon. Almost no one on late shifts turned up. A siege mentality was growing. Homes were double locked and alarmed.

Araminta only had to see the first three atrocious snatches to work out the link between the poor hapless women. They looked like her.

'Sweet Ozzie, she groaned as the third was dragged away in the middle of a street in Espensten district, her two young children screamed at the horror of Mummy being forcefully taken from them.

Condemnation from across the Commonwealth reached a crescendo with that one. It didn't affect the behaviour of the paramilitaries.

Her feeling of depression grew as she saw her homeworld suffer because of her; a feeling not helped by the way the Skylord had rejected Justine. Araminta was furious about that. After all she'd risked contacting the Skylord and getting Justine into the Void, the effort had come to nothing. Justine hadn't even got to the Heart. There would be no negotiation now, no explaining to whatever controlled the Void the damage it was causing.

There was nothing Araminta could do about that, or anything, actually — short of surrendering, which was one very swift answer to everything. Instead she did what Laril advised, and delved into the gaiafield, losing herself amid the emotional outpourings and whispered messages of enticement and spectacular memories divulged by the confluence nests. There were levels, or layers, or perhaps she was too rigid in applying such labels; there were certainly different aspects to the emotive universe which she could immerse herself in.

The dreams, of course, were the primary foundation of the gaiafield. Inigo's dreams and the countless billions of others given to the confluence nests by their creators; all identifiable by their unique emotional appellation. Any one of which would rise into her consciousness to the summons of a matching mood or image; exactly the way memories inside her own head worked — simple association. Although Inigo's dreams all seemed to have strong tags and were the easiest of all to acquire.

So, as the cab trundled onwards steered by Laril's dodgy software, Araminta bowed to the inevitable and lived through Inigo's first few dreams, only finally to shake herself free hours later, smiling exuberantly as young Edeard walked across Birmingham Pool to defeat Arminel. She felt like letting out a cheer inside the cab. Makkathran was such a delight, with its strange architecture and peculiar genistars, populated by rich and pompous lords and ladies out of some incredibly ancient text. She wondered if Edeard would wind up marrying Kanseen or Salrana; either would be a lovely romantic outcome. And she knew for sure it all had some kind of ridiculously happy ending, not that she'd ever want to live in such a backward culture.