The Evolutionary Void

EIGHT

OSCAR MUNCHED AWAY absentmindedly on his chocolate twister as he reviewed the astrogration charts his u-shadow was extracting from various files. On the other side of the exovision displays Liatris McPeierl was running through an energetic exercise routine, stripped to the waist to show off perfectly proportioned chest muscles that were gleaming rather nicely with sweat. A sight that was not a little distracting; Oscar found it hard to concentrate on transgalactic navigation with all that joyous hunk flesh flexing lithely just a couple of meters away.

Liatris finished his routine and reached languidly for a towel. “I’m for a shower,” he announced, and twitched his bum in Oscar’s direction as teasingly bogus thoughts of lust burst out into the gaiafield.

Oscar bit firmly down into a big chunk of his pastry, inhaling a lot of the dusty icing sugar it was coated with, which made him cough, which made him look really stupid. He took a drink of tea to clear his throat. When he’d finished, Liatris was gone and Beckia was giving him a pitying smile from the other side of the starship’s main cabin.

“What?” he grumbled.

“Liatris is spoken for back home,” she said.

“Back home is a long way away.”

“You’re a wicked old Punk Skunk.”

“And proud of it. Wanna take a look at my scorecard?”

“You just have no dignity at all, do you?”

He flashed her a lecherous grin and ordered his u-shadow to pull files from the unisphere on all previous known and rumored transgalactic flights. “Part of what makes me lovable.”

“Part of you is lovable?”

Tomansio and Cheriton rose up through the airlock chamber into the center of the cabin. Both of them were wearing toga suits with quite flamboyant iridescent surface shimmers and gaiamote emissions toned down to zero. They were letting everyone know they were staunch Viotia citizens and had nothing to do with Living Dream in any respect.

“It’s not getting any better out there,” Cheriton complained.

For a couple of weeks now the team had been accessing and experiencing the attempts of Viotia’s government as it tried to reestablish normal services and deal with the damage caused by the invasion, an operation not helped by the lynching of their prime minister two days after the Ellezelin troops had withdrawn from the capital, Ludor. It had been a messy affair with a mob storming into the National Parliament Building while the guards had been content to stand back and let natural justice take its place. The rest of the cabinet, fearful for their own bodyloss, had been reluctant to stand up and issue instructions. Relief was being coordinated mainly by local authorities while tempers were given time to cool.

Given that Colwyn City had sustained by far the worst damage, its infrastructure was still limping along as repairs and replacement operations were implemented. Bots and civil engineering crews were hard at work, aided by equipment delivered by starships flying in from across the Commonwealth. But commerce was sluggish, and a surprising number of businesses still hadn’t reopened despite the urging of the city council.

“I think they’ve done well, considering the general apathy,” Tomansio said. “It’s going to take a couple of years before everything gets back to preinvasion levels. It doesn’t help that Likan’s company is currently shut down; it was a huge part of the planetary economy. The treasury will have to step in and refloat its finances. And the cabinet isn’t strong enough to orchestrate that right now. There’ll have to be an election to restore public confidence in government.”

“Which is the main problem,” Oscar said. “What’s the point? Our gloriously idiotic Dreamer is going to launch the Pilgrimage fleet in seven hours. You’re not going to get an election if there’s nothing left of the galaxy to hold an election in.”

“So remind me why we’re still here,” Tomansio said.

Oscar was going to launch into his usual impassioned plea for hope and faith based on that five seconds of raw face-to-face impression he’d gained of Araminta back in Bodant Park. He had been so utterly certain that she was playing Living Dream somehow. But the team had heard it all so many times from him, and now here he was examining ways to flee from the galaxy in one of the finest starships ANA had ever constructed. “I don’t know,” he said, surprised by how hard the admission was. It meant that the mission was over, that they could do nothing, that there was no future.

He wondered what Dushiku and Anja and dear mercurial Jesaral would say when he landed outside their house in a stealthed ultradrive starship and told them they’d have to flee the galaxy. It had been so long since he’d spoken to them, they were actually starting to drift away from his consideration. That wasn’t good. He really could survive without them. Especially now that I’m living life properly again.

A dismayed groan escaped his lips. Oh, you treacherous, treacherous man. Beckia is right; I have no dignity.

Cheriton, Tomansio, and Beckia exchanged mildly confused glances as the rush of conflicting emotions spilled out of Oscar’s gaiamotes.

“What will you do when the expansion starts?” he asked them.

“The Knights Guardian will survive,” Tomansio said. “I expect we will relocate to a new world in a fresh galaxy.”

“You’d need to find such a world,” Oscar said cautiously. “For that you’ll need a good scoutship. An ultradrive would be perfect.”

“It would. And we would be honored for you to join us.”

“This is difficult,” Oscar said miserably. “To acknowledge we have failed so completely, not just the five of us but our entire species.”

“Justine is still inside the Void,” Beckia said. “Gore may yet triumph. He clearly intends something.”

“Clutching at straws,” Oscar told her. “That’s not strong.”

“No, but part of what I believe in is having the strength to admit when you’ve been defeated. We didn’t secure Araminta, and she’s made her own choice, despicable bitch that she is. Our part in this is over.”

“Yeah,” he acknowledged. He still wasn’t sure how his life partners would react to all this. Not that he was so shallow that he’d fly off without making the offer to take them. But they all had family, which made an exodus complicated. Whereas he was truly alone. Probably the closest connection he had to anyone alive today was with Paula Myo, a notion that made him smile.

Every one of Oscar’s exovision displays was abruptly blanked out by a priority protocol as his u-shadow reported that someone was activating a link from an ultrasecure onetime contact code.

“Bloody hell!” he blurted.

“Hello, Oscar,” Araminta said. “I believe you told me to call.”

Even with a combination of smartcores and modern cybernetics and replicator factories and a legion of bots and effectively bottomless government resources, not to mention the loving devotion of every single project worker, building the twelve giant Pilgrimage ships was a phenomenal achievement by any standards. But for all that, the prodigious amount of processing power and human thought that had been utilized to manage the project was focused primarily on planning and facilitating the fabrication itself. It was unfortunate, therefore, that a proportional amount of consideration hadn’t been given to working out the embarkation procedure for the lucky twenty-four million.

Mareble had been reduced to tears when she and Danal had received confirmation that they’d been allocated a place on board the Macsen’s Dream. She actually sank to her knees in the hotel room and sent the strongest prayer of thanks into the gaiafield, wishing it toward the Dreamer Araminta for the kindness she’d shown toward them yet again. For days afterward she’d gone through life in a daze of happiness. Her brain was stuck in the most amazing fantasies of what she would do when she walked the streets of Makkathran itself that it was a miracle she even remembered to eat. Then her wonder and excitement were channeled into preparation; she was one of the chosen ones, an opportunity she must never waste. She and Danal spent hours reviewing the kinds of supplies they wanted to take. Allocation was strictly limited to one cubic meter per person, with the strong advice not to bring any advanced technological items.

It was her deepest wish that she could somehow become an Eggshaper like the Waterwalker himself. For years she’d studied the techniques he’d employed in those first dreams; she was sure she could emulate the ability if she could just get into proximity with a pregnant default genistar. Once the basic clothes and utensils and tools were packed, she set about filling the precious remaining space with the kinds of tough coats and jeans and boots that were essential to any branch of animal husbandry, with practical veterinary instruments occupying the last remaining cubic centimeters. Danal filled his container with some luxury food packets and a range of seeds, but mostly his allowance was taken up by old-fashioned books printed on superstrong paper by a small specialist replicator unit he bought for the occasion. He wanted to be a teacher, he told her, which was why he also took pencils and pens and all the paraphernalia necessary to make ink.

Embarkation began three days after the drives and force fields arrived. Before she’d met the Dreamer Araminta, the unsavory origin of the technology would have troubled Mareble. But now that she’d witnessed Dreamer Araminta confront the disquieting Ilanthe-thing, she had confidence that their Pilgrimage wasn’t being perverted for a faction’s sinister agenda. Araminta was quite right: The Void would prevail over any wickedness. When their capsule arrived at the construction yard, she was carefree and dizzy with the prospect of the flight itself. Everything her life had been devoted to was about to be consummated.

The capsule had to wait outside the yard’s force field dome for seven hours, stacked three hundred meters above the ground in a matrix resembling a metallic locust swarm, all of them awaiting landing clearance. When they finally did get down outside one of the materiel egress facilities, bots loaded their containers on a trolley that quickly slipped away through the air. Mareble and Danal had to walk through the facility past an array of scanners and sensor fields before they were finally out under the domes that cloaked the evening sky in a pale purple nimbus. Long braids of trolleys buzzed high through the air, forking and flowing like a dark river tributary network as they glided to their designated ship to off-load. Staring up at the appallingly complex, fast-moving streams, Mareble glumly resigned herself to never seeing her personal container again.

Below the trolleys, a stratum of solido signs hovered above the wide avenues between the starships, carrying directions and stabbing out flashing arrows. To complement that, her u-shadow received a series of guidance instructions that would take her to entrance ramp 13 of the Macsen’s Dream. She and two million others. What those instructions amounted to was: Join the three-hundred-meter-wide queue filling the avenue and shuffle along for five hours.

With darkness falling, the hulls of the giant ships curving away above her created an unavoidable impression of being trapped in a metallic canyon with no end. The regrav fields supporting the ships pulsed oddly, creating unpleasant effects in her stomach. There were no toilets, nothing to eat or drink, nowhere to rest. The noise of everyone talking and complaining together along with crying distressed children was unnerving and depressing. Only the gaiafield with its shared sensation of anticipation kept her spirits up.

Five hours pressed up next to a band of boisterous women who boasted about their genetic reprofiling to amazonian twenty-year-olds. They wore T-shirts with embroidered slogans: “Dinlay’s Lurve Squad.” “Badder Than Hilitte.” “I’m Gonna Get DinLAYd.”

Mareble and Danal exchanged a sardonic look and closed their ears to the bawdy talk and dirty laughter. It was amazing how some people interpreted the fulfillment the Pilgrimage was bringing them to.

Eventually, after far too long in a Honious-like limbo, they arrived at the base of ramp 13. After the chaos she’d endured, she let out a quiet sob of relief.

“It’s real,” she whispered to Danal as they began the slow walk up the slope. The Dinlay girls followed them up, but the crowd here wasn’t so bad. Thousands more were still trudging slowly along the avenue behind and below her. She was rising above them now in every sense.

He gripped her hand and squeezed tight as his mind let out a surge of gratitude. “Thank you,” he told her. “I would never have made it without you.”

For one brief instant she thought of Cheriton and the short, hot comforting time she’d spent with him after Danal’s arrest, how in turn he’d given her the fortitude to get through that period of misery and disorientation. Somehow she didn’t let the pang of guilt out. After all, even the Waterwalker had lapsed when he tried to bind the world to his faulty notion of unity. From that he had emerged triumphant.

“We made it, though,” she said. “I love you. And we’re going to wake up in Makkathran itself.”

“Och, that’s very sweet,” a loud amused voice said.

Mareble fixed on a blank smile and turned around. The man behind her on the ramp wasn’t quite what she was expecting. Not that she had any preconceptions, but …

He was taller than Danal, dressed in a kilt and very bright scarlet waistcoat with gold buttons. Not something she ever remembered anyone on Querencia wearing. She was about to say something when a flicker of silver and gold light shone through his thick flop of brown hair, distracting her.

“They call me the Lionwalker,” he said. “But I got that label a long time before our very own Waterwalker came along, so that’s okay, then. Pleased to meet you.”

“Likewise,” Danal said stiffly as he introduced himself.

“So are you two lovebirds going to get hitched in the Lady’s church?” Lionwalker asked.

“Mareble is my wife,” Danal said with such pride that she ignored how rude the stranger was being and smiled up adoringly at her husband as his arm tightened around her.

“Aye, well, yes, but a marriage blessed in that church would be a blessing indeed, now, wouldn’t it? And take it from a man who’s seen more than his fair share of every kind of bride and groom there is, a marriage needs every bit of help it can get.” Lionwalker pushed his hand up in salute, showing off an antique silver hip flask. “Cheers and bon voyage to the pair of you.” He took a long nip. “Aaah, that’ll keep the cold off my toes on the voyage.”

“We don’t need extra help,” Mareble sputtered.

“If you say so. Mind, it’s a particular person who needs no advice in life.”

“I’ll thank you to keep your homilies to yourself,” Danal told him. “Our guidance comes from the Waterwalker himself.”

They’d reached the top of the ramp, which frankly Mareble had wanted to achieve in slightly more dignified circumstances. The Lionwalker took another nip, winked lecherously at her, and sauntered into the Macsen’s Dream as if he owned the starship.

“Well!” Danal grunted indignantly. “Some of us clearly have a lot longer to go before reaching fulfillment than others.”

The chamber behind the airlock was a junction of seven corridors. Small, neat solidos flowed smoothly along the walls, indicating the zone where their assigned medical capsules were located.

“Come on,” Danal said, gripping her hand.

Mareble narrowed her eyes, staring along the corridor down which the Lionwalker had vanished. “I know him,” she said uncertainly. The memory was elusive. But then the squad of Dinlay girls was shrieking wildly and running down their corridor like a football team going onto the pitch, which made her chuckle. She let Danal lead her into the labyrinthine interior of the starship. Instinctively she reached for the Dreamer Araminta’s gift, finding her standing on the observation deck of the Lady’s Light, alone and resolute, staring out through a huge curving transparent section of the forward fuselage.

Reassured her idol was watching out for all of Living Dream, Mareble strode on with renewed confidence.

The SI’s icon appeared in Troblum’s exovision, requesting a connection. At least it was asking, he thought, rather than intruding.

Mellanie’s Redemption was still secreted away in transdimensional suspension above Viotia. Troblum couldn’t quite help that. He had been completely taken by surprise at Araminta’s defection to Living Dream. Given how long she had spent trying to elude them, suddenly turning up and claiming their leadership lacked any kind of logic, at least the kind he understood. He did assume it was some kind of ruse-again, not one he could fathom.

So he waited for her endgame to become clear. After all, if he took flight to another galaxy and, however unlikely it was, she resolved the whole Pilgrimage problem, he’d never know.

“Even if they don’t Pilgrimage, there’s still the Accelerators and Ilanthe and the Cat,” Catriona had pointed out.

“A solution to the Pilgrimage will by definition have to include and neutralize them,” he explained patiently.

“I thought you were keen to find out what happened to the transgalactic expeditions.”

“I am. But the time scale is so short now before we know if Araminta succeeds in getting the Pilgrimage fleet through the barrier, I can afford to wait and see if the expansion begins as predicted. If it does, we can outrun it now that we have ultradrive.”

“What about Oscar? The SI said it knows where his ship is.”

“Irrelevant now. All that’s left is Gore and Ilanthe, the two real players. This is their war.”

“Are you scared to meet Oscar?”

“No. There’s simply no point.”

“You might be able to open the Sol barrier.”

“No!” That was the truth. He’d spent day after day analyzing the files in his storage lacuna, working through the theories and equipment they’d developed during his time on the Accelerator station building the Swarm. There was no way around it that he could see, no way to overwhelm the barrier. And he didn’t have enough data on the individual components of the Swarm to see if there was a backdoor. In any case, most of it had been constructed after he’d left; all he’d done was help set up the manufacturing systems. They would have made a lot of changes and improvements over the decades; he wasn’t current.

The Mellanie’s Redemption stayed above Viotia because it was as good a place as any to wait. After his futile attempt to analyze the Sol barrier, he even managed to catch up on some sleep. Time was spent on reviewing the starship’s basic systems, getting up to date on maintenance procedures, fabricating some replacement components in the small high-level onboard replicator. There were also a great many files his u-shadow acquired for him from the unisphere, information and entertainment that would make a life of exile in another galaxy more bearable.

When the SI’s icon appeared, Troblum didn’t authorize the link at once. First of all, he was busy. And then … the last couple of weeks had eased him into a state of acceptance. He knew he was leaving; it was simply a question of timing now, and he didn’t really even have to make that decision. The Void’s final expansion phase would begin, and he would leave. It was that simple.

The SI, though, would bring complications back into his life.

“I know you,” Catriona Saleeb said. “Not knowing what it wanted to tell you will eat you up. And it’s being polite. It could have forced its way into the ship’s link with the unisphere.”

“Yes.” Troblum sighed. He canceled the blueprints in his exovision display and looked down at the micromanipulator he was using. Underneath its transparent dome, the clean-environment unit contained a scattering of newly replicated components that he was slowly assembling into a solido projector. He’d obtained enough base programs to construct a reasonable I-sentient personality. It would be himself, he’d decided, a younger, physically fitter version that would be able to share Catriona’s bed. He’d redesigned the sensory correlations with his own biononics so that they were a lot higher than a standard version, allowing him to enjoy the experience to the full. Incorporating those customizations took time. By itself, it was an intriguing problem to solve, one that had absorbed his intellect for several days. It was almost like becoming multiple. Catriona had said she was looking forward to it as well.

His u-shadow opened the link.

“I have an interesting development to report,” the SI said.

“What?”

“Oscar Monroe has just received a secure call from someone at Bovey’s Bathing and Culinaryware. That’s a macrostore in the Groby touchdown mall in Colwyn City.”

“So?”

“The originator claims to be Araminta. The link was established through a one time code which Oscar issued. Nobody else knew about it except him and the person it was given to.”

“And you. So any decent e-head could find it.”

“I only know about it because I’m monitoring all the links going in and out of Oscar’s hidden starship. Once I’d intercepted it, cracking the code was tough even for me. It would be beyond most e-heads in the Commonwealth.”

Troblum frowned at the tiny electronic components inside the micromanipulator case glittering like so many diamonds. “But it can’t be from Araminta.” His u-shadow had put the Pilgrimage departure into a peripheral exovision image; he could see the Pilgrimage fleet on Ellezelin. They had finally finished their chaotic embarkation. Several live feeds were showing Araminta standing on the observation deck of the Lady’s Light. “She’s in the flagship. They’re about to launch.”

“Exactly. So why is a onetime code given to her personally by Oscar being activated from Colwyn City?”

“I don’t understand.” It did make the puzzle of why she’d defected to Living Dream more absorbing. Troblum liked puzzles. Not that it changed anything. “What did they say?”

“Nothing much. She asked Oscar to meet her in a restaurant on Daryad Avenue in fifteen minutes.”

“But …” Troblum pulled the news feeds to center. The protective force fields over the construction yard were powering down, leaving the skies wide open for the colossal ships to launch. “She’s on board the Lady’s Light. I’m accessing the feed right now.”

“Yes. So either she’s bringing the entire Pilgrimage fleet to Viotia for a quick visit, or there’s something else going on.”

“What?”

“Are you taking an interest, Troblum? Are you considering contacting Oscar now?”

“I’m not talking to him. For all I know, this is some trick of yours.”

“If it is, it’s a little late in the day.”

“What do you want from me?”

“I’m infiltrating nodes inside the restaurant. Oscar’s team is running checks to provide cover for their man. They’re good, but I can elude them. Would you like to observe the meeting?”

Troblum closed his eyes. Images from the starship’s sensors showed him Viotia as a vast intrusion within spacetime’s gravity field. The planet was only a hundred thousand kilometers away, although the SI didn’t know that. Or perhaps it does.

The fear and worry that had ebbed away slowly over the last week suddenly resurged, elevating his heart rate. Tiny beads of sweat oozed out of his pores, chilling his skin. Biononics smoothly countered the physiological aspects, but they couldn’t quell his anxious thoughts. He couldn’t begin to guess what was going on. I don’t understand people, fuck it. Why is Araminta doing this? Why is she trying to kill the galaxy? Why is she calling Oscar? And he must know she won’t be meeting him.

“You said Oscar’s people are checking out the restaurant?”

“Yes. Two of them are physically deploying to cover the building. He’s already on his way.”

“But he knows where Araminta is; he knows she won’t be there. It must be a trap, yet he’s going into it.”

“A trap set by who? And why? And why now? No weapon in the galaxy can stop the Pilgrimage ships; we know that. Your Commonwealth Navy can’t break through the force fields Ilanthe has provided, nor can the warrior Raiel.”

“Are you saying it isn’t a trap?”

“I’m telling you what’s happening and offering to share.”

“Why? Why do you want to involve me?”

“To finally achieve what I’ve so often wrongly been accused of doing: influencing the outcome of human affairs. We must have more options ranged against Living Dream and Ilanthe. And the Cat, of course. You may yet be able to play a true part, Troblum. Do you want that?”

He looked across the cabin at Catriona, who was bestowing him with that worshipful look again. He put his head in his hands. She’s not real. Nothing I have is real. With biononics amplifying his strength, he suddenly thumped his fist down on top of the micromanipulator unit. It made a dull thudding sound, and some of the tiny components jittered around inside. His fist rose again. This time his biononics added a weapons pattern to the impact. The dome shattered, and the delicate little mechanisms inside were crushed beyond salvation. Electronic components scattered across the decking, ruined by both the violence and the air that contaminated their flimsy molecular structure.

“Show me,” he told the SI. “And who is Bovey?”

“Come alone.” Araminta had been insistent about that.

Oscar appreciated the sentiment, but … Some things were just too big to leave to goodwill and pleasantries. He took a table in the middle of Andrew Rice’s restaurant at the bottom of Daryad Avenue, an ancient (by Viotia standards) wood-and-carbon-paneled building barely a mile from the docks where Elvin’s Payback still sat in the warehouse, overlooked and unnoticed by the managers trying to restore order to the docks. There weren’t many people; the windows had just been replaced after having been smashed. Oscar was sure it should have had more tables, too; the remaining ones were certainly spaced unusually far apart. Perhaps some had been looted. Who loots a table?

A human waiter came over to take his order, and he asked for a salad. He rather liked the look of the enormous steak and kidney pies a couple of blokes were eating at a corner table, but he’d only just finished his tea and twister. It had taken less than ten minutes to walk to Rice’s from the Elvin’s Payback, which was cause for mild suspicion. Did Araminta know their location? It was hard to see how.

Beckia was out in Daryad Avenue, keeping watch as she browsed through a recently reopened store opposite the restaurant. Cheriton had taken up position in a lane at the back, also scanning around for any sign of other agents or some kind of trap or just something out of the ordinary. Oscar still couldn’t figure out what was going on. The gaiafield quite clearly revealed Araminta standing in the observation deck of the Lady’s Light, where she had remained for the last couple of days. Ethan and Taranse walked across the empty chamber to her and bowed in unison.

“Embarkation is complete, Dreamer,” Taranse said. He looked exhausted but supremely content, a man who’d achieved his goal in life.

“Thank you,” she said. “You have done a remarkable job.” She turned to Ethan. “Are we ready to launch?”

“Yes,” he said with open delight. “The ultradrives appear to be functional.”

“Very well. Please ask the captains to lift and set a course for the Void.”

“It will be done.”

“Is there any sign of Ilanthe?”

“No, Dreamer.”

“No matter. I’m sure she will make herself known before we reach the boundary.” She turned back to the tall strip of transparent fuselage in time to see the construction yard’s last layer of force fields deactivate. It was dawn outside. A bright yellow-gold radiance illuminated the colossal Pilgrimage ships, and she smiled at the sight of it. Then the decking trembled and the Lady’s Light slowly lifted out of its regrav suspension, rising into Ellezelin’s clear sky.

“Holy crap,” Oscar grunted. He truly had no idea what he was doing here now. In fact, he started to worry that Tomansio was right and Living Dream had broken into her mind so they could clear up any possible remaining problems. That was bollocks, he knew. Why wait until now?

His salad arrived. He gave it a dispirited look.

“Ah, life just got interesting again,” Beckia said. “Here we go.” Her link showed him a Mr. Bovey climbing out of a cab on Daryad Avenue just outside the restaurant. It was the middle-aged black-skinned one Oscar had talked to before.

“Yes! Your money is mine,” Cheriton declared. “Pay up.”

The team had been running a pool on who would actually show up at the restaurant. Oscar had put his money on the elusive cousin, Cressida.

“Anything suspicious?” Oscar asked the rest of the team. Liatris, who was flying coverage over Colwyn City in a modified capsule, said no, the area was clear of any covert activity. Back in Elvin’s Payback, Tomansio also reported a clean sweep.

The Mr. Bovey walked straight into the restaurant and sat down next to Oscar. He was wearing a conservative gray toga suit that barely shimmered, which made him look quite dignified.

Oscar’s biononics threw a small privacy cloak around the table. “Mr. Bovey,” he began in censure, which he was about to follow up with something along the lines of what’s she up to? when the man simply grinned and shook his head. “No,” he said emphatically. “That’s Mr. Bovey over there keeping an eye on you.”

Oscar twisted around. The two men eating steak and kidney pies waved solemnly. “I don’t get …”

“I’m Araminta. Araminta-two, I suppose. I borrowed one of my fiance’s bodies. This one, to be precise. I always liked this one.”

“Ungh?” Oscar grunted.

“I’m starting to go multiple. It’s an interesting lifestyle, don’t you think?” He gave Oscar a lopsided smile.

“Fuck me.”

“Quite. You said you could help?”

“Oh, shit, yes!” Oscar’s skin was actually tingling from astonishment. He couldn’t help it; he started laughing in delight. Maybe there is hope. “If you’d like to come with me …” Biononics and secondary thought routines had to regulate his neural responses, filtering down his adrenaline rush so he could concentrate properly on the mission. He had to stay focused.

Araminta-two gave him a modest shrug and stood up.

“Cover us,” Oscar told Beckia and Cheriton. “Liatris, get us out of here.”

“Way ahead of you,” Liatris said.

Oscar couldn’t remember being both elated and terrified to such an extent. If they were going to be intercepted, it would be now, after this version of Araminta was identified for what s/he was. As they walked to the door, he wanted to shove his integral force field up to full strength, activate all weapons enrichments. Keep cool. Keep calm. It’s a brilliant maneuver. No one could anticipate she’d do this.

Liatris brought the ingrav capsule flashing down directly onto the pavement outside the restaurant, earning several angry glances from pedestrians who had to dodge out of the way. The door opened, and Oscar virtually shoved Araminta-two inside. Then they were rising fast, already curving toward the docks.

Araminta-two nodded cheerfully at a thunderstruck Liatris, then looked around briefly. “You know, some people think ingrav shouldn’t be allowed in this city.”

“Right,” Oscar said.

“There’s a chance it screws up the deep geology. There could be earthquakes.”

“Uh huh.” This was so the opposite of anything Oscar was prepared for, it had shifted over to vaguely surreal.

Their capsule dipped down to hover in front of the Bootle amp; Leicester warehouse. The doors curtained apart, and they nudged forward. Oscar just knew that was going to draw attention from the dock staff. It didn’t matter anymore. They had Araminta, so nothing else mattered. Actually, one Araminta, not the whole person. Maybe that’s why she-he-whatever-is a bit … flaky.

Tomansio was in the middle of the starship’s cabin as the three of them rose up through the airlock. The floor solidified underneath them. Oscar couldn’t help the vast grin on his face. He jabbed a finger at Tomansio. “I told you so!”

“Yes,” Tomansio said softly.

That was when Oscar’s biononics told him Tomansio was executing an extremely thorough field scan of Araminta-two. He almost protested, then realized he should have done it back in the restaurant.

“Clear,” Tomansio declared. “In fact, very clear. You don’t have biononics; even your macrocellular clusters are basic.”

“Mr. Bovey is multiple,” Araminta-two said. “He doesn’t depend on the technocentric systems other Commonwealth cultures revolve around.”

Tomansio dipped his head. “Of course. But you do understand what you’re saying is difficult to accept without proof.”

“I know. Watch through me.”

The Dreamer’s gifting to the gaiafield revealed her view through the front of the Lady’s Light. From her position she could see the curvature of the planet starting to fall away below as the starship rose ponderously out of the atmosphere. The dawn terminator line was etched by a gold corona that skittered off ocean and clouds alike. The Dreamer’s mouth opened. “Trust me, Tomansio, I am very real,” she said.

Across the gaiafield, those billions of Living Dream members watching in envy as the Pilgrimage began reaffirmed their devotion to her. Tens of millions wondered who Tomansio was.

Araminta-two lifted an eyebrow at Tomansio. “So?”

“Okay, that was pretty convincing. A multiple of two. Who’d have guessed?”

“Not you,” Araminta-two said.

“Let’s hope I’m not alone.”

Oscar grinned again. “I was right. She didn’t betray us.”

“Oscar, I love you dearly,” Tomansio said. “But if you don’t shut up about that, I will shove you headfirst into-”

Oscar chuckled. “Yeah, yeah.” The smartcore showed him two capsules arriving in the warehouse. Beckia and Cheriton came sprinting out. It took the edge off his humor slightly. He ordered the smartcore to launch as soon as the other two were in the airlock.

Tomansio gave him a startled look as the Elvin’s Payback punched clean through the warehouse roof and accelerated vertically at twenty gees. The internal gravity countered some of the force, but they all had to sit down quickly on the couches extruded by the cabin floor.

“A little drastic,” Tomansio mused.

“Tactically smart. Up here we can run if we have to.”

“You’re the boss.”

Beckia and Cheriton emerged from the airlock and gave Araminta-two incredulous looks as they lumbered over to their acceleration couches.

Oscar’s initial jubilation was draining away. Viotia spaceflight control was directing a lot of queries and warnings at them, but nothing appeared to be in pursuit. Space above the planet was relatively clear; none of the starships the sensors could detect were threatening. “All right,” he said to Araminta-two. “What the fuck is going on?”

“I was running out of options,” Araminta-two replied. “Becoming the Dreamer is a diversion.” His confidence faltered for a moment. “I hope. That’s where you come in.”

“I wasn’t lying,” Oscar said. “We’re here to help in any way we can.”

“Why? I know who you are. I checked. But I’d like to know who’s backing you.”

“Fair enough; it was ANA, but now we’re just hanging on by ourselves. Hoping for something to turn up. And … you did.”

“What do you need?” Tomansio asked. “Are you going to crash the Pilgrimage fleet into the boundary or something?”

Araminta-two’s dignified face produced a sad smile, making him look even older. “There are twenty-four million people on those starships. Idiots, yes, but still people. There is no way I will slaughter them as an example to the rest of the galaxy not to go in. No, if they arrive at the Void boundary before we can stop them, then I’ll have to get the Skylord to open the way for them. So you see, I really need help.”

“Name it,” Oscar said.

“Bradley suggested I find Ozzie. He said Ozzie is a real genius, and if anyone can come up with a solution, it will be us in combination.”

Oscar’s skin chilled right down. “Bradley?” he asked lightly. The others gave him a curious look; it must have been because of what his emotions revealed.

“Bradley Johansson,” Araminta-two said. “I met him on the Silfen paths.”

“Bradley Johansson is alive?”

“Bradley is a Silfen now.”

“Holy crap.”

“Do you speak the truth of this?” Tomansio demanded almost in anger.

Araminta-two faced him down. “I speak the truth.” He turned back to Oscar. “Bradley told me you and he fought together in the Starflyer War. He said I could trust you, Oscar. And you did help me back at Bodant Park.”

“Bradley a Silfen,” Oscar said in wonder. “How about that. We both survived the Planet’s Revenge in our own ways.”

“He lives,” an incredulous Beckia murmured. “The greatest of us all, our founder, humanity’s liberator. He lives! Do you realize what-” She broke off, too overwhelmed to speak.

“I don’t wish to disappoint,” Araminta-two said. “But he’s not coming to help. I’m afraid the best he could do was send me.”

“And he wanted you and Ozzie to team up?” Oscar queried.

“Yes. Um, he was also worried about the Ilanthe-thing and what it is now. Even the Silfen are concerned about that, as much as they are about anything.”

“Nobody knows much about Ilanthe,” Oscar said. “So let’s concentrate on what we can achieve.” He opened a secure link to Paula.

“Take her to Ozzie,” Paula said as soon as he’d finished explaining.

“Really?”

“Bradley is right. The Dreamer and Ozzie together would make a formidable combination.”

“All right, then.”

“And … Araminta really met Bradley?”

“Yeah, so she says. Something, huh?”

“Indeed.”

“So where’s Ozzie these days?”

“The Spike.”

“No shit, Paula. That’s seven thousand light-years away.”

“I know. But face it, what else have we got? We’re that desperate now.”

“Okay.” The Elvin’s Payback had finished its initial acceleration. It was curving into a wide elliptical orbit above Viotia. Oscar grinned at Araminta-two. “Ozzie’s in the Spike. It’ll take five days to get there.”

“Then let’s go.”

“Great.” He gave a relieved smile.

“A word of caution,” Paula said, which brought Oscar back down fast.

“Yeah?”

“I believe someone called Aaron has possibly taken Inigo to the Spike for exactly the same reason you’re going, to link up with Ozzie.”

“Oh, crap.” He glanced around to see the team members all giving him a vaguely accusatory stare. “Inigo? They found Inigo?”

“Yes. Which I’m hoping is good. If you can bring together the First and Second Dreamers along with Ozzie, that may really give us the kind of edge we’re going to need to-”

“Take out the Void? Blow up the Pilgrimage fleet? Eliminate Ilanthe?”

“I’d settle for any one of those right now.”

“So who is this Aaron character, and who is he working for?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know. But logically he belongs to a faction inimical to Pilgrimage. And be careful. He can be very trigger-happy, and he’s known to be somewhat aggressive with it. Your team should be able to protect Araminta from him if he turns hostile.”

“Okay. What about you, Paula? What are you doing?”

“Working on a couple of leads, as always.”

Feeling slightly let down by her reply, Oscar ordered the smartcore to go FTL and take them to the Spike. Then he and the others started questioning Araminta-two in earnest.

“What will you do now?” the SI asked Troblum as the Mellanie’s Redemption tracked Oscar’s starship going FTL. It suddenly vanished from his exovision. None of the sensors could track it when it was stealthed.

“I don’t know,” he said unsteadily. The conversation between Oscar and Paula that the SI had intercepted had left him badly shaken. Both Dreamers and Ozzie coming together to solve the problem was cause for some tentative hope. “I can’t make a difference.”

“You know more about the Sol barrier than any other individual. They might need that.”

“I don’t know.” It was too big, too much, and getting horribly personal again. But it was a huge unexpected relief to solve the Araminta puzzle. She hadn’t betrayed anyone; she was doing what she could. And … Araminta, Inigo, Oscar, and Ozzie together. That’s going to be history.

Catriona came over and sat on his lap. She was wearing a thin lacy top and tight jeans. The feel of her resting there, human scent and musky perfume, her perfect form centimeters from his eyes. It was comforting somehow.

“We should go,” she told him softly.

“Yes.” Even that made him feel good.

Sensors showed Paula the Elvin’s Payback flashing into hyperspace and activating its stealth. She could track it of course, though few other ships in the galaxy could.

After a minute, the ship hanging in suspension a hundred thousand kilometers above Viotia also pushed back fully into hyperspace and followed Oscar at ultradrive speed. Its stealth wasn’t as good as that of the ANA ship, but its drive seemed more than capable, and the real giveaway was the mass, which was identical to that of the Mellanie’s Redemption, which Paula had last seen departing Sholapur at their hyperdrive speed.

“And then there was one,” Paula muttered.

The remaining stealthed ship started to move. Its drive signature was one the Alexis Denken was also familiar with from Sholapur, as was the much superior stealth effect. Paula ordered the smartcore to follow the other three starships to the Spike, then opened a secure link to the High Angel.

“Hello, Paula,” Qatux said.

“So you can’t break through the Sol barrier?”

“No. Our trip here was largely symbolic, a statement of Raiel support for the rest of the Commonwealth.”

“I don’t expect empty political gestures from you.”

“If there is any way we can influence the Living Dream from their Pilgrimage, we are obliged to enact it.”

“They’ve just launched.”

“I know. Paula, if you would like to come with us when this galaxy falls, I will be happy to take you.”

“I know the purpose of the High Angel is supposed to be to save life from this galaxy, but something is happening, Qatux, something my instinct tells me is crucial. So I’m going to need a favor. A very big favor.”

The lake measured over ten kilometers across, its shoreline made up of attractive sweeping coves. Two-thirds of the surrounding land was smothered by a thick wild forest, with vegetation scrambling down over the stones that lined the rippling water. The remaining third was an alien city whose globes and spikes dominated the skyline. Deserted for millennia, its iron structures were a similar construction to those of Octoron’s little human township. But this metropolis was put together on a much grander scale, perhaps a little too imposing. Humans living in the chamber had never attempted to settle there.

Ozzie’s old capsule skimmed above the thin towers and dropped down toward the huge semicircular harbor bay on the other side. There were several small islands dotted across the water. They were heading for the largest, which had a wide sandy beach guarded by rocky prominences on either side. Behind the beach itself the land was a cluster of long dunes before the ground started to slope up into the island’s central mountain. A simple whitewashed stone house stood alone, poised between the dunes and the forested slope. It was surrounded on three sides by a veranda that had a leafy canopy of thick vines draped over an ancient, sagging wooden frame. Tall sash windows had wooden shutters on the outside, giving the place the appearance of a farmhouse in rural Provence.

The capsule touched down in front of the solitary building. Aaron scanned it briefly. Another human was lurking behind the wide slatted doors that opened from the lounge to the veranda decking. She had biononics, but they weren’t weapons-configured. There were some additional enrichments that he didn’t recognize, but their low power usage argued against their posing any kind of threat. The house itself had a few technological items: a culinary unit, a medical capsule, two very sophisticated replicators, a fleet of old-fashioned maidbots, and five smartcores larger than he’d encountered before. In short, the perfect retreat for someone like Ozzie.

“Okay, we can go out,” Aaron said.

Ozzie gave him a long look. “You sure?”

“Yes.”

“Well, okay, but be careful of the mutant squids in the lake.”

“I appreciate that this intrusion is unwelcome; we’ll be gone as soon as we can.” Though Aaron couldn’t be sure of that. Ideas were starting to form in the back of his mind in anticipation of Inigo regaining consciousness. He gave the sleeping messiah a quick look. It wouldn’t be long before he was awake.

“And remember never to leave the house at night,” Ozzie said with an innocent tone that nonetheless mocked.

“Why?”

“Vampires.”

Aaron bit back on his response. He wasn’t quite sure how much of Ozzie’s attitude was driven by irritation at having his hermit life violated. If it was genuine, things might get unpleasant. Aaron hoped not.

Ozzie walked out of the capsule, leaving Aaron to deal with the two unconscious people sprawled on the curving leather couch at the back of the passenger section. “Greatly done,” he muttered, and picked Inigo up, fumbling him into a traditional fireman’s lift. For a long moment he was tempted to shoot another sedative (or ten) into Corrie-Lyn, but Inigo wouldn’t be happy about that. Having two bolshie living legends with overblown egos pissed with him would be a definite disadvantage.

Aaron carried Inigo over the dunes and up the gray wooden steps to the veranda. He dumped the inert body onto a sunlounger and went back for Corrie-Lyn.

Ozzie was nowhere to be seen by the time he got back to the veranda. A quick low-level field scan showed him upstairs in the house’s biggest bedroom with the woman. Aaron abruptly canceled the scan, trying to quash his feeling of dismay at Ozzie’s attitude and behavior. He hadn’t expected quite this much irrational stubbornness.

Inigo groaned and stirred. His biononics assisted a quick rise to full awareness. He sat up and looked around the shaded veranda, then took a moment to stare at the vista of the ancient alien city facing him across the bay.

“We made it, then?”

“We made it.”

Inigo gazed over at Corrie-Lyn on the next sunlounger. “How is she?”

“Stable. She should wake up in half an hour or so. Your biononics give you an advantage.”

Inigo nodded slowly. “You kept your word. Thank you.”

“I know she hates me, but truly, I’m not one of the bad guys. I just have a job to do.”

“Indeed.” Inigo started flexing his limbs, grimacing at the chemical-induced stiffness. “What do you do for fun?”

“I don’t.”

Inigo gave the city another look. “That looks deserted.”

“It is. Ozzie has fully embraced his whole living recluse legend.”

“Great Lady, you actually found him?”

“Yes.”

Inigo peered around, unable to contain his excitement. “So where is he?”

Aaron held up a finger for silence. On cue a woman’s rhythmic groans could be heard from the open bedroom window.

“Ah,” Inigo muttered. “What’s he like?”

“Not pleased to see me and especially not you.”

“Yeah. We never did hit it off.” He stood up cautiously and went over to Corrie-Lyn. His field scan ran a fast check. “So what’s the plan?”

“I’ll tell you when Ozzie comes down.”

“Whatever.” Inigo wandered into the house and found the kitchen. After a burst of enthusiastic compliments at discovering the culinary unit sitting amid all the historic cooking appliances, he started issuing it a complicated list. Several maidbots followed him back out to the veranda, carrying contemporary dishes: meal for two.

Corrie-Lyn finally shook off the sedative amid a flurry of cursing and groans. After a moment hugging a relieved Inigo, she shot Aaron a vicious glare. “Bastard.”

“We’re alive. The Chikoya can’t locate us. And I’ve found Ozzie.”

“So where is he?”

“I’m sure he’ll join us soon.”

“He’s not happy about this,” Inigo explained.

“Tell him to get in line.” But she relented when Inigo led her over to the table where the maidbots had laid out the meal. “Oh, wow, real food.” She hesitated.

“It’s genuine,” Inigo reassured her.

She grinned her gratitude and started wolfing down the keanfish starter, dipping the tassels into a plum and rador sauce. Aaron went into the kitchen and ordered his own meal from the culinary unit, eating it alone on the scrubbed pine table.

An hour later Ozzie still hadn’t come down. It was pushing the screw-you point a little far, Aaron decided. Inigo and Corrie-Lyn were chatting happily on the veranda, holding hands at the table like a couple on a first date as they finished their second bottle of wine. All the scene lacked was candles and twilight. The chamber’s light hadn’t varied since they’d arrived.

Aaron went upstairs and knocked politely on the bedroom door. There was no answer. Ozzie was being deliberately difficult, which was understandable but unacceptable. He went into the room. It was dark inside, with the big wooden shutters closed and the slats down. Ozzie and the woman were cuddled up on the bed. The woman was sleeping. Colorful patterns on her space-black body glowed in phosphorescent hues, shifting slowly in time with her breathing. Aaron hesitated at that. They reminded him of OCtattoos, a technology from so long ago that he didn’t even understand where the memory had come from.

Ozzie raised his head and peered at Aaron. “What, dude?”

“Quicker we start, the quicker it’s over.”

“This is the middle of the night, you moron.”

Aaron gestured at the light spilling in through the open door.

“Yeah? So? The light never goes out in Octoron. You make your own days here, man. And this is my night. Now take a hike.”

“No. You come downstairs now and greet Inigo.”

“Or what?”

“I start getting unpleasant.”

“Fucking fascist.” Ozzie slithered off the bed, muttering. “Drown in your own shit.” He found a silk robe and tugged the belt tight emphatically. “Used to some goddamn respect in my own home.” He combed his fingers through his mass of wavering wayward hair.

“I know. Turn your back for a moment and the whole Ozziedamned universe falls to barbarism.”

Ozzie glared at him for a long moment. It actually made Aaron nervous. Secondary routines were poised to activate his biononic defenses.

“Don’t push it, creepy boy,” Ozzie growled.

“Sorry, but you’re not making my life easy.”

Ozzie stomped past him out onto the first-floor landing. “That’s not what I was born to do.”

“So what with all this daylight, I guess I don’t have to worry myself too much over those vampires,” Aaron said to the legend’s back.

Inigo and Corrie-Lyn glanced around as Ozzie walked out onto the veranda, looking for all the world like guilty schoolkids. Inigo started to get up. “This wasn’t my idea, but I’m genuinely pleased we can finally-” He began.

“No shit, asshole.” Ozzie dropped down hard in one of the chairs around the table. He gave the remains of the meal a suspicious look and picked up a tantrene sausage. “Get on with it.”

“Okay, then. So what’s the plan?” Inigo asked Aaron.

Aaron sat at the table, trying to project the impression of a reasonable moderator. “My original goal was to take you into the Void,” he told Inigo. “The intention was to establish a link with the Heart or nucleus or whatever it is that has sentient control of high-level functions in there. With that communication channel open, it was hoped to initiate negotiations.”

Ozzie shrugged. “Makes sense in a lame-ass sort of way. We know we can’t shoot the thing down or blow it up. Who would negotiate?”

“I’m not aware what form the negotiations were to take. My job was to secure the link. After that … I’d know.”

“How in the Lady’s name was I supposed to start talking to the Heart?” Inigo asked incredulously. “Haven’t you people shared any of my dreams? You only reach the Heart after you have achieved fulfillment.”

“There is a methodology, I know,” Aaron said. “That is, I’m certain I have procedures to follow once we get inside.”

Inigo threw up his hands and slumped back in his chair for a sulk.

“Told you so,” Corrie-Lyn said smugly. “This whole mission is a complete waste of time. You murdered hundreds of people for nothing.”

“So why come here, man?” Ozzie asked. “Why me? Everyone who knows me in the Commonwealth knows I don’t do this kind of shit anymore. And your boss knows me, too much.”

“There are several ways I would expect you to help. One would be an ultradrive ship we can use to fly to the Void.”

“Dude, you need to stay current. Okay, first off, I don’t have an ultradrive. If I need that kind of shit … well, let’s just say I’ve got an arrangement with ANA. It’ll send me one if I ask. But we can’t ask anymore, can we? Second, your replacement”-he stabbed a forefinger at Inigo-“has just launched.”

“The Pilgrimage?” Corrie-Lyn asked. There was awe in her voice.

“Oh, yeah, babe. They’re truly that dumb.”

“How do you know?” Aaron asked.

“Myraian grooves all that cruddy gossip from the Commonwealth.”

“Myraian? The lady upstairs?”

“Yeah. The lady upstairs. Who, I’ll tell you for free, is mighty peed off with all of you right now, not least over mindspace crashing, so watch your mouth. I got a private TD link from the Spike to the Commonwealth. So even if you’re out of my gaiafield’s range, you can still get to dig what Araminta’s been doing.”

Inigo ignored the jibe about the gaiafield. “It will take them months to reach the Void, so-”

Ozzie’s harsh laughter cut him off. “Seriously, man, you need to get current. I’m going to open my house net for you to access. Catch up, and we’ll talk again in the morning. You know, before you leave in a cloud of gloom and defeat.”

He left them on the veranda and went back upstairs. At the last he opened his gaiamotes a fraction.

Inigo didn’t like the arrogance he exuded one little bit; it verged on smugness. Standard communication icons were slipping up into his exovision as the house’s nodes acknowledged his u-shadow. “We’d better see what’s been going on,” he said.

“Yeah,” Aaron agreed. His gaiamotes gave nothing away, but he sounded troubled.

Ozzie’s temper had improved slightly when he came down for breakfast the next morning. That was deliberately quite a while after he’d woken the first time. He and Myraian had gone at it the way they had the night before, and after that he’d dozed contentedly for an hour. Then there was a shower-none of that modern itchy spore crap that clogged up his hair but a proper hot water and scented gel affair. Myraian hadn’t joined him, which was a shame, but you couldn’t have everything in life. Well, actually you could if you’d lived as long as he had, but then you learned not to be too demanding of people. They were transient enough without the stresses and strains everyone unwittingly put on a relationship. It had taken a long time for him to learn why it was women never stayed with him beyond a couple of decades, so now he knew how to treat them right. Or at least fake treating them right.

Myraian was dressed and ready when he finally came out of the bathroom in his shorts and T-shirt. She’d resequenced herself back to her mid-twenties, then tweaked various chromosomes to produce a great figure, which, in combination with a mind that was away mushrooming with fairies most of the time, made her utterly irresistible to him. No accounting for some things, but she’s perfect for me at this time of life. He took an enjoyable look at the thin ankle-length skirt of sky-blue cotton and the black mesh shirt that with her skin color made it look like she was wearing nothing at all. Her skinlight patterns shone through the thin weave, creating weird diffusion ripples.

“Cool combo,” he told her. “Kinda earth mother meets dominatrix.”

“Thank you.” She shook her hair, allowing the long blond, auburn, and pink tresses to sway around her head in an underwater slow motion as the fluff fronds elevated it.

And no way was he ever putting them in no matter how much she nagged. “Let’s go catch them crying into their teacups.”

She pouted. “You should stay up here. I’ll teach them not to bully my baby Ozzie.”

“They’re not nice people,” he told her again, hoping it registered this time. “Don’t let them bug you. And really, man, don’t get cross with them. I don’t want any of that.”

“I’ll eat them up, scrummy yummy,” she promised.

“Yeah.” Okay, maybe it’s not so much the mind that’s the attraction.

He found Aaron, Inigo, and Corrie-Lyn in the lounge, slouched across the couches and looking slightly dazed like a bunch of students from his time at Caltech pulling an all-nighter. The only thing missing was the pizza boxes. They did stare a little at Myraian but didn’t say anything. Ozzie wasn’t really surprised when it was Corrie-Lyn who rounded on him first. She reminded him of not a few ex-wives.

“You knew! You knew you were going to die in the expansion, and you won’t do anything to help us?” she barked.

“I normally have orange juice, coffee, and toast for breakfast. Man, the old habits are the hardest to break, don’t you find?” His u-shadow gave the culinary unit its instructions.

She just growled at him.

“You don’t get it,” Ozzie told her. “You don’t get me. Dude, I’m over one and a half thousand years old. I’ve seen it all, and I do mean all! I can live with dying.”

“But what about the rest of the galaxy? All the people who don’t get a chance to live as you have? The children?”

“Wow! Dude, big shift there from one of the most truly devout Living Dream disciples ever.”

“Cleric Councillor,” Myraian said distantly as her hair fronds swam about lazily. “The Dreamer’s lover. Chief prosecutor in the Edgemon heresy tribunal.”

“That was not-” Corrie-Lyn ground to a halt, furious.

“If you’re so worried about what you’ve unleashed on the rest of us, why don’t you rush into your precious Void and be safe?” Ozzie challenged.

“Enjoy your victory,” Inigo said softly. “The Void is not our salvation. I was wrong to hold it out as a symbol of attainable Nirvana, of a life that can be perfect. It is none of those things. I. Was. Wrong.”

“Crap,” Ozzie muttered. It wasn’t often he was rendered speechless, but a messiah renouncing his life’s work, well, that would just do it every time. “I’ll make that a big pot of coffee. You’d better all join me for breakfast.”

“We all understand the Void threat well enough,” Aaron said as the maidbots slid around the table in the kitchen, delivering plates and cups. “I’m interested in your take on whatever Ilanthe has become. That could be a big factor in the expansion.”

“She was the leader of the Accelerator Faction,” Ozzie said as he accepted his glass of chilled orange juice from the maidbot. “The original idea was that they elevate themselves up to postphysical status courtesy of the Void. Thing is”-he scratched at his hair-“the Accelerator Faction is trapped behind the Sol barrier along with the rest of ANA, so they can’t pull off their whole Fusion concept. And the Silfen Motherholme is worried about her, which is new to me. Nothing gets that placid goddess riled. Nothing. Till now. Draw yourself a map.”

“The Silfen Motherholme?” Corrie-Lyn asked cautiously.

“Sure, babe. I’m a Silfen Friend.” He tried not to sound too smug, settling for merely superior. “I know what’s going down across the galaxy.”

“Ozzie is the father of our species’ mind,” Myraian announced; her skinlight glowed a proud mauve.

There was a polite silence for a moment.

“Of everything that’s happened, I find her involvement the most disturbing,” Inigo said. “It was inevitable Living Dream would be corrupted and manipulated after I turned it over to the Cleric Council-that was the point of me abandoning it as I did. But I never envisaged anything like this. Ultradrives, unbreakable force fields … this was not meant to be.”

Aaron turned to Ozzie. “Do you know anything about these technologies?”

“Not really my field,” Ozzie said quietly. He waited.

“It used to be,” an omnidirectional voice spoke up. Ozzie let out an exasperated breath. It was his own voice. “Just shut the fuck up,” he told it.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Nobody can run from their past. Not forever, dooode.”

“What is this?” Aaron asked.

“I told you, dude,” Ozzie said with an edge. “I’m ancient. Human bodies aren’t designed with this kind of life span in mind. Grab the ‘in mind’ bit there? Back in the first-era Commonwealth when all we had was rejuve, we used to edit memories and store the ones that weren’t important. Then there was memorycells and neural augmentation chips. Biononics added a whole load of new memory capacity. And there’s always an expanded mentality network.” He raised his head and glared at a random point on the ceiling. “That’s if you want to carry all that junk around, contaminating your body. I didn’t. Not anymore.”

“So he dumped me,” the voice said. “Literally. I’m Ozzie. The real Ozzie.”

“You’re a goddamn me-brain-in-a-jar, and don’t you forget it,” Ozzie told it crossly.

“Seriously,” the voice said. “I’m one and a half thousand years of memories, while you’re what? Twenty years’ worth? Who’s the most real of them all?”

“Only one of us got to keep the personality, man,” Ozzie shouted back. “I’m the biochemical, hormonal, awkward, sonofabitch soul of a human. You’re the hardwired copy that’s frozen in the past.”

“You can mouth off all you like, but I’m the one with the knowledge and talent that these fine and sincerely desperate people need. You got rid of all the serious physics and math and shit clogging up your little meat brain. Admit it, tell them. Be a man. As much as you can be with so much missing.”

“Ozzie lacks nothing,” Myraian said calmly. “He has purged himself at a spiritual level to make himself complete again. You are the contamination that was holding him back, preventing the angel within from spreading his wings. He’s been clean for decades now and has grown because of it.” She smiled widely.

Ozzie caught the narrowing of Aaron’s eyes as he noticed the tiny fangs that that otherwise blissful smile revealed.

Aaron blinked and put his hands down on the table. “Okay. Please tell me you can access and assimilate whatever knowledge you need from … you?”

“From the me-brain-in-a-jar? Sure. I retained autonomous integration for the smartcores I stuffed it into-me into.”

Inigo gave Ozzie a bemused grin; there was respect in there, too. “I’m sure you can. But let’s face it: There’s you, me, and him.” He jabbed a thumb at Aaron. “A smart-ass smartcore and a reasonably good replicator. Doesn’t matter how good we all are in combination, we’re not going to bootstrap ourselves a superweapon to smash open the Sol barrier or an even faster ultradrive that’ll get us to the Void before Araminta charges in. And that’s not even talking about the Ilanthe-thing.”

“Yeah,” Ozzie admitted. “But man, on the plus side, I can get us out of here safely. Qatux owes me. The High Angel will stop by and collect us on its way to Andromeda or wherever the hell it’s going.”

“No,” Aaron said. “You’re not abandoning hope after half an hour. And I don’t believe I even have to threaten anyone or anything to make that come about, now, do I?”

“No,” Inigo sighed.

“Our goal is to connect you somehow to the Void Heart,” Aaron said. “Now, I’m not the greatest self-thinker anymore, but you’re the smartest guys I know with the weirdest of blessings. You’ll come up with something.”

“Fair enough,” Inigo said. “What about your telepathy effect, Ozzie? Can we talk to the Void that way?”

Ozzie shoved the empty glass away and reached for the plate of toast. “Okay, this is how it works. The gaiafield is a broadcast medium. You transmit your thoughts out through the motes, and they zip across space to connect with everyone else’s motes. Confluence nests are just powerful amplifiers and relay stations; they’re what turn it into a ‘field.’ Admittedly, it’s a big field, but step outside the Commonwealth and you’re on your own. Now, there are other, similar fields out there, with the Silfen communion the biggest of them all. It’s truly galaxy-spanning, dude. I know, I’m tuned in. But it’s not so dense as the gaiafield. That’s because of species psychology; the superelves don’t have the same urge to carry every piece of boring stream-of-consciousness drivel that humans crave.”

“So?” Aaron asked.

“We can’t use the gaiafield. It can’t extend to the center of the galaxy.”

“Not quite right,” Corrie-Lyn said. “The Pilgrimage fleet will be dropping a series of confluence nests en route. That was always the plan, and Ethan won’t change that aspect. They’ll do for the gaiafield the same as the navy TD relays did for Centurion Station. The idea is to open a permanent dream channel to the Void so the faithful who weren’t in the fleet can witness everyone reaching fulfillment and rush to follow them.”

“And the instant we try using that, Ethan will shut it down,” Inigo said.

“Last resort,” Corrie-Lyn said. “The hack might last long enough, especially as it’s you, the true original Dreamer. You still have more clout than anyone else in the movement.”

“I doubt that now that Araminta has appeared,” Inigo said.

“Yeah, useful to know,” Ozzie agreed. “Okay, mindspace. Now, that’s something different. I rearranged spacetime’s quantum structure so that it becomes a conductor for thought, same as air conducts sound. Admittedly, it works best for human thoughts; that’s what I worked with to synchronize it with at the beginning. Aliens are aware of it, but for them it’s like the Silfen communion is for humans: vague. Unless you’re the goddamned Chikoya, then you think it’s a doorway into the thoughts of your ancestors. What is it about avian culture that makes them worship their ancestors like that? It’s got to be a hundred thousand years since their wings were big enough to actually carry them, yet every space habitat they ever built is zero-gee so they can flap about with all the grace of a chicken falling off a wall. Even here they’re in a lograv compartment.”

“They will find enlightenment in the end,” Myraian said. “You are worthy of that. Your galactic dream will lead all of us out of the darkness.”

“Thanks, babe,” he said. “The point of it was to have something which allows people to share their thoughts in a more open way. Confluence nests contaminate the purity of thoughts; they allow distortions, partial thoughts with the emphasis where the originator desires, perverting the whole truth.”

“Do we have to do this now?” Corrie-Lyn asked with deceptive lightness.

“Just telling you the why of it so you’ll understand. That’s the reason I set up mindspace. But both notions have the same problem: reach. Bluntly, they need power to stretch that far.”

“What powers the mindspace?” Inigo asked.

Ozzie winced. “Ah, well, see, I kinda adjusted the Spike’s anchor mechanism to propagate the change to spacetime which makes mindspace work. There’s a device, sort of a parasite, really. But its emissions aren’t directional; you can’t squirt it around like a laser. The whole concept of mindspace was to embrace all sentient entities in the galaxy.”

“But it doesn’t,” Aaron said curtly. “Aliens have trouble utilizing it.”

“Yeah, well, this is the marque one, dude. I just need to do some fine-tuning is all. The theory works.”

“He’s had decades,” the voice from the house’s smartcores said. “All he’s done around here since we built the anchor modifier is bum around finding his inner geek. Progress zero.”

“Hey, screw you,” Ozzie snarled. “Experimenting on alien brains might be your bang, but it ain’t mine, not anymore.”

“You don’t have to experiment on anything. You were just frightened, that’s all. Frightened different minds and exotic thoughts would find a way of corrupting mindspace the way the gaiafield went.”

“I’m observing the psychosocial implications of mindspace’s impact on alien cultures, and you goddamn well know that. A genuine galactic dream isn’t something you rush into. I made that mistake before.”

“And the kind of freaks who come to the Spike for refuge are such good representatives of their societies.”

“Damn, I used to be a bigot.”

“You used to be honest with yourself. You know goddamn well you’re struggling with the right of imposing it on species who have no understanding of what they are relative to the universe. It is cultural imperialism in its worst possible form. Our way of thinking is better than yours, so come join us.”

“Universal understanding might have prevented the Pilgrimage.”

“Is there any way you can increase the power from the anchor?” Inigo asked. “Maybe just on a temporary basis?”

“No way, man. And I don’t need my brain-in-a-jar thoughts to confirm that. We’re at the limit of the anchor’s capacity now. Hell, mindspace reached over two hundred and fifty light-years; that’s pretty goddamn phenomenal. In any case, there’s no knowing if the Heart would mesh with mindspace.” He took a drink of the coffee before it cooled down any further. “So that leaves us with you.”

“Me?” Inigo queried.

“You dreamed the Void from thirty thousand light-years away. No booster circuitry involved. You have an inbuilt connection. How did you do that?”

“I don’t know. I never did understand. The best anyone came up with was that Edeard and I were related somehow. Could be, but we’ll never know. I connected to a human. There aren’t any left in the Void now. The Skylord was quite clear about that when Justine asked.”

“You mean a Skylord like the one Araminta is talking to? She can do it. Have you even tried?”

“Whatever curse she has, it’s different from mine.”

“Have you tried?” Ozzie asked more forcefully.

“No.”

“No, of course not.” He turned to Aaron. “And you, you’re desperate for this link. Did you ever consider hunting Gore down? The Third Dreamer, Lord help us. He’s got a working connection to Justine, who is right where you need her.”

“That’s outside … I don’t have, that is, I’m not aware of contingencies to contact Gore.”

“Because it’s a new development,” Corrie-Lyn said scathingly. “You can’t think for yourself. And the Lady knows, nobody else is allowed a say in your universe.”

“So big thanks there for all the drama yesterday,” Ozzie said. “But actually, you already have two proven methods of getting your voice heard inside the Void.”

“Can you reach a Skylord?” Aaron asked Inigo.

“Dreaming is not a function I can simply activate by touching its ‘go’ icon. I have to admit, Araminta seems to have a lot more control over the ability than I ever had.”

“A Skylord would never go to the Heart, not even for the Dreamer,” Corrie-Lyn said. “This we know above all else. They only take those who are fulfilled.”

“I doubt it would even understand the concept of talking to the Heart for us,” Inigo said.

“So your safest bet is to scram back to the Commonwealth and ask Gore to help,” Ozzie observed. “He was acting like he knew what he was doing.”

“This mission is based on getting Inigo physically into the Void,” Aaron said. “In a last-ditch emergency, mental contact is permissible providing it allows the next stage to progress. I will not deviate from that.”

“What next stage?” Ozzie asked in fascination.

Aaron thought for a moment, his face drawn up to reflect inner discomfort of some nature. “When we make contact, I will know what to do.”

“Dude, if I’m going to help, I need to know more. Look, I’ve got a really advanced medical module down in the basement. What say we drop you in and allow some neural unblocking?”

“No.”

Ozzie grunted disapproval. He wasn’t surprised, but Aaron’s crazy mental programming was starting to bug him.

“What part of the Void are you supposed to take me to?” Inigo asked.

“Makkathran,” Aaron replied without hesitation.

“Interesting. Not a Starflyer. Does that destination still apply now we know Querencia is no longer inhabited by humans?”

“I think so, yes.”

“I never bothered with your dreams,” Ozzie said. “What’s in Makkathran that can put us in touch with the Heart?”

“Nothing,” a puzzled Inigo admitted.

“If we don’t have an ultradrive ship available and mindspace cannot reach the Void from here, is it possible to move the Spike until we’re within range?” Aaron asked.

Myraian let out a wild giggling laugh.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Ozzie barked.

“So the anchor mechanism isn’t an FTL drive?”

“No.”

“It is unlikely, but we don’t know for sure,” the house’s smartcores said.

Aaron gave Ozzie a quizzical glance.

“Oh, yeah,” Ozzie snapped. “We can examine its unmapped functions, work them out, and get it to fly across the galaxy all in a week. Dude, you’ve got to break through that brainlock and start thinking for yourself. The Spike’s anchor mechanism is bigger than this whole chamber, and that’s just the chunk that’s in spacetime.”

“I need to be sure you are considering all options,” Aaron said.

“Grab this straight: I am not going to start messing with the anchor mechanism. No way, no how.”

“If that is the method by which we can connect with the Heart, then that is what will have to be done.”

“There’s a universe of choice out there, dude. Go exploring one day.”

“So will you help us find a way of connecting to the Heart?” Inigo asked.

Ozzie studied the ex-messiah for a long moment, trying to work him out and failing miserably. Eventually he gave up. “Okay, I just don’t get it. I’ve had my share of doubts, and I’ve screwed up plenty of times in my life, so I can be big enough to admit them from time to time. But this? What the fuck happened, man? You had a gospel powerful enough to attract billions to your cause. What could there possibly be to make you turn your back on them? Edeard was a bit of a dick, for sure, but he came good in the end. That’s the moral message all religions pump out; it’s a standard hook. Humans triumph over adversity. Throw in a bit of suffering along the way and people dig that big-time. And your guy won.”

“No, he didn’t,” Inigo said sadly.

“All right, I lied before. I took the occasional peek at your dreams. That last one: Man, he went to the Heart knowing the world he left behind was the best it was possible to build. Then on top of that he gave everyone the chance to perfect their individual lives like he’d done. How’s that for total selflessness? If he’d been around out here three thousand years ago, he’d be a genuine saint, or worse.”

“Perfection,” Inigo said, “is what we strive for; it is never what we should achieve. There is no such thing as utopia. Life by its nature is a struggle. Take that away and you take away any reason to exist.”

“What happened?” Corrie-Lyn entreated. “Please, Inigo, what did you dream after Edeard accepted guidance to the Heart? Just tell us. Tell me. I trust you with this. I always will. But I think I deserve to know.”

“I dreamed of perfection.”