The Evolutionary Void

TEN

ARAMINTA HAD REMAINED on the observation deck of the Lady’s Light right from the start of the Pilgrimage. The room was as big as the Malfit Hall back in the Orchard Palace and twice as high. Its floor was empty apart from a chair and a bed that had been brought in at her request. Araminta used the chair as little as possible, preferring to stand and stare ahead through the vast transparent section of fuselage. There was nothing to see; there hadn’t been since hyperspace had enfolded the massive ship. It was blank outside, with the occasional cascade of blue sparks slipping across the surrounding pseudofabric their ultradrive was creating. Imperfections within the quantum field interstice, Taranse had explained when she’d asked what they were. What caused such imperfections he didn’t say and probably didn’t know. She rather liked them; they provided the illusion that some material substance was outside, with the twinkling flaws registering their progress through it.

For five days she watched the nothingness flow past, gifting it to the billions of her followers back in the Greater Commonwealth. On the sixth day Araminta began to cry. Tears rolled down her cheeks as her shoulders quaked. The sorrow she radiated out into the gaiafield was so profound that the majority of beholders began to weep in sympathy. They were aghast, flooding the gaiafield with concern. “What’s wrong?” they asked in their bewildered billions, for nothing and nobody was in the observation deck with her. “We love you, Dreamer.” “Can we help?” “Let us help, please.”

Araminta gave them no response. She stood resolute in front of the disintegrating flecks of light, mute and distraught. Her personal staff members were dismissed with a curt gesture when they ventured out onto the sleek expanse of floor. Even the loyal Darraklan was sent away without a word.

Inevitably, as she knew he would, Ethan appeared and began the lonely walk toward her. Those sharing her dismay felt the anguish recede as she straightened herself. She made no attempt to wipe the tears from her eyes. Then her followers were standing on soft grassy land that fell away to a shoreline encased by high dunes. Sunlight shimmered off the idle waves that spanned the ocean’s clear waters. A Silfen stood before her, majestic and ominous with his dark leather wings extended, tail poised high. “You can do this,” he assured her.

“I know.”

The pendant around her neck flared with the joyous azure light of affirmation. And there was Ethan standing in front of her on the observation deck, his eyes narrowed against the cold light radiating from the pendant on its slim chain that now rested outside her white robe.

“Second Dreamer,” he said formally.

“Cleric Ethan.”

The absolute hatred directed by the followers of Living Dream at their ex-Conservator was staggering in its passion. He hesitated, then recovered with a sure smile that simply confirmed his dishonor before his audience.

“Perhaps you would like to tell your people what dismays you so,” he suggested smoothly.

“Are you aware?” she asked.

“Yes, Dreamer.”

“There is only one person in the universe who could have told you.”

“Indeed. However, the messenger is not important. What she told me is.”

“In this case the message and the messenger are one, nor is the method by which the message was procured insignificant. She is the cause.”

“Nonetheless, she has named you false.”

“Ilanthe lies. That is what she is now. The serpent among us all.”

“Is it true? Are you many?”

“I am.”

“Then I must question your intent.”

“Of course you must. Yet I will keep my word. I will lead this Pilgrimage into the Void as I promised.”

“You seek to thwart us,” he spit.

“I seek our true destiny. I seek to avoid the folly and fate of the Last Dream for the devout. I seek the Void’s own fulfillment.”

“By allowing those who would destroy it to enter. That cannot happen.”

“I tell you now what I told Ilanthe and what I have also told Inigo. Our fate will be decided within the Void. It will be decided by the Void. Not by you or anyone else. I have been chosen as the instrument to open a path into the Void; that is all. I am not a gatekeeper. All those who seek their fulfillment, whatever its nature, are free to enter the Void. Simply because their vision is different from yours and that of Living Dream does not entitle me to deny them passage. I do not judge, Cleric. Unlike you, I do not consider myself infallible.”

Ethan’s uncertainty couldn’t have been more apparent if he’d allowed it to shine out through his gaiamotes. “You have spoken to Inigo?”

“We are both Dreamers. We are together even now. Didn’t your dearest Ilanthe tell you that?”

“Ilanthe is no friend of mine.”

“And yet you defer to it, whatever it is, whatever it seeks. The Dreamer Inigo released the Last Dream as a warning. Do you really think that dreary destiny of bored supermen is one to which we should aspire for our children?”

“I believe we have the right to choose our future. I wish to live my life on Querencia and achieve fulfillment and be guided to the Heart. You and Oscar and Aaron are trying to prevent that.”

Araminta gave him an icy smile. “Sometimes to do what’s right you have to do what’s wrong.”

Ethan glanced about the massive observation deck as if seeking allies. “If you deny us the Void, it will go badly for you. That I promise. My life has been given to serving Living Dream. All I have done, all I have sacrificed, has led to the launch of this Pilgrimage. I will not tolerate betrayal.”

“You will enter the Void, Cleric. You will yet walk upon Querencia. You have my word on it. Now, why don’t you go and ask Ilanthe what future she desires for all of us. Or perhaps she doesn’t trust you enough to answer.”

He nodded impersonally. “As you say, the Void will ultimately triumph. I don’t worry about Ilanthe’s intent. What any of us do, our petty schemes and conspiracies, is an irrelevance in the face of the Void’s majesty.”

“I’m glad we are as one in that view. Now, don’t bother me again.” She turned away from him and waited. Finally, she heard him walk away.

The gaiafield was awash with confusion and dismay. Her followers needed her to explain what was happening, what the Dreamer Inigo was doing.

“You’ll see,” she assured them. “In the Void there will be truth.”

It was a yellow star whose meager family of planets consisted of a couple of airless solid worlds and a single gas giant that boasted over twenty moons. None of them had ever had a chance to evolve life; wrong orbits and lack of volatile organic chemicals had seen to that. Now they were just circling endlessly, waiting for the star to run through its main sequence and inflate into a red giant, devouring them all.

Mellanie’s Redemption emerged from hyperspace eighty million kilometers from the star and immediately activated its stealth systems. Inside the overcrowded cabin the mood was bleak. Oscar wasn’t sure he could take many more emotional swings on this kind of scale. Abandoning poor Cheriton to the Cat had been tough on them all, though strangely, Araminta-two had been the most affected. Tears had streamed down his face as the starship fled from the Spike. No amount of comforting from Inigo and Corrie-Lyn had helped.

Then both Dreamers had abruptly joined in surprise as Justine’s dream of landing at Makkathran came rushing through whatever tenuous contact they had with the Void.

“She made it,” Beckia exclaimed in surprise as the Silverbird touched down gently in Golden Park and the dream faded.

“Never expected her to do anything less,” Oscar said. “I remember her from my first life. The Burnellis were a formidable lot.”

“Is she part of your plan?” Tomansio asked Aaron.

“Not as far as I know. Her voyage certainly doesn’t trigger any alternatives or imperatives. We proceed as agreed.”

“Okay. Troblum, how long does this thing take?”

Oscar was interested to see that Catriona had gone away during the short flight. Once he was on his own, Troblum hadn’t said ten words to them, and there certainly hadn’t been anything given away from his gaiamotes. In fact, Oscar wasn’t certain Troblum had gaiamotes.

“I’ll bring the device up to active status now,” Troblum said.

“Great. So how long?”

“The wormhole parameter will have to be reformatted. I was working on that during the flight. Loading it in shouldn’t take more than a quarter of an hour. After that, we simply have to launch it into the star.”

“How long, then?”

“That depends on the distance we launch from. The smartcore is reviewing the corona’s radiant output for a definitive safe distance, but I’d say it’ll be about a million kilometers. The device itself will activate when it reaches the upper corona. It only needs a reasonably dense plasma layer to initiate a chain-reaction propagation within the quantum instability. I based that part of it on our standard novabomb.”

“Troblum. How long until the wormhole forms? From right now?”

Oscar was seriously impressed by Tomansio’s restraint.

“Oh. About twenty-five minutes.”

“Good work,” Aaron said, obviously amused by Tomansio’s suppressed frustration. “And how far will the new wormhole reach?”

“I think, now I’ve got the new profile, twenty-eight thousand light-years.”

“That’ll put us twelve to fifteen thousand light-years ahead of the Pilgrimage fleet,” Araminta-two said. “Will that give you enough time?” she asked Aaron.

“All I know is we have to get to Makkathran.”

Oscar gave him a considered look. “Gore was adamant that Justine go to Makkathran.”

“It’s the one place we know for sure is H-congruous inside the Void.”

“Gore told her that after she landed on the replica Far Away.”

“His actual words were ‘that’s where humans are centered in the Void,’” Beckia said. “Which is logical. It is where everyone is going.”

“I bet Ilanthe isn’t,” Corrie-Lyn grunted.

“We don’t know if the replica Far Away is still there,” Tomansio said. “Justine reset the Void to before she dreamed of it.”

“I think you’re all overreacting,” Inigo said. “Or at least reading too much into this. Makkathran as a destination isn’t coincidence, exactly, but there wasn’t a whole lot of choice involved in either case.”

“Do you ever remember meeting Gore?” Liatris asked Aaron.

“I don’t remember anything.”

Liatris showed a modicum of unease. “He did kill your father.”

“Irrelevant.”

“Bruce McFoster was a Starflyer agent when Gore eliminated him,” Tomansio said. “The actual Bruce was killed years before when he was taken captive by the Starflyer.”

“But you have to admit the coincidences are starting to-”

“Uh oh,” Araminta-two said.

Everyone was still as he gifted them the scene in the observation deck of the Lady’s Light, where a determined Ethan was walking toward her. As the confrontation unfolded, Inigo put his arm around Araminta-two’s shoulder. “I am here,” he whispered, pushing his support through the gaiafield union. “Show him no weakness. You are the Dreamer now. You are right in your belief. It is the Void which will decide this for all of us.”

Oscar drew a sharp breath as the winged Silfen shimmered within his thoughts. Bradley, he knew, and smiled. Way to go, man. You look great.

A thwarted Ethan walked away. Everyone in the Mellanie’s Redemption’s cabin burst into spontaneous applause. After a moment, even Troblum joined in.

So he does have gaiamotes, Oscar thought.

Araminta-two smiled around sheepishly. “Thank you,” he told Inigo. Corrie-Lyn gave him a swift kiss.

“Troblum,” Tomansio said. “Let’s get going.”

“The device is almost at active status. Another five minutes.”

Aaron smiled encouragement.

Troblum’s tentative humor faded away. His big round face paled. “Oh, no,” he gasped.

Oscar’s u-shadow was pulling sensor imagery from the starship’s smartcore. Troblum had permitted everyone a general-level access.

A sleek-looking ultradrive ship not too dissimilar to the Elvin’s Payback had emerged ten kilometers away. It opened a communication link. Oscar’s shoulders slumped. He knew.

“Hello, my dears,” said the Cat.

A pulse of pure misery swept through the cabin.

“What kind of defenses have we got?” Aaron asked.

Troblum shook his head. He was close to tears.

“Weapons?”

Troblum started trembling. His legs gave way, and he sank to his knees. “I can’t let her capture me. I can’t.”

“What do you want?” Oscar asked the Cat. If it was dead, they would’ve been that already.

“That’s a whole load of talent you’ve got on board there with you, Oscar, my dear. It’s not often I’m impressed, but just this once I’m going to admit it. You did good.”

“What have you done to Cheriton?” Corrie-Lyn demanded.

“Don’t interrupt the grown-ups,” the Cat said. “You’ll get a smack where it hurts most for that.”

Oscar made a frantic cutting hand signal at Corrie-Lyn. She gave him a disgusted glare.

“You told Ilanthe about us,” Oscar said.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Did that spoil things? I thought you dealt with that little shit Ethan quite beautifully, Araminta.”

“What do you want?”

“You know that, Oscar. Same thing I always do: some fun.”

“We’ll invite you to the victory party.”

“Don’t push your luck. The Void is where this is all going to finish. I need to be a part of that, and you’re going to take me there.”

“What is Ilanthe doing?” Oscar asked.

“She’s set her little metal heart on something called Fusion.”

“No,” Araminta-two said. “It’s not that. She has become something other.”

“Then you’ll be able to ask her yourself soon enough, won’t you?”

“Can the Cat affect us once we’re inside the Void?” Aaron asked Inigo.

“You mean apart from blowing us all to shit?”

“Surely your mind is stronger.”

Inigo gave Araminta-two a worried look; he looked equally alarmed.

“I just don’t know.”

“Oscar, my dear, it’s rude to keep a lady waiting.”

Oscar didn’t know what the hell to do apart from using the obvious smart-ass answer, which in this case might just prove terminal. And nobody was offering any suggestions. Suddenly he was flinching, cowering halfway to the decking. Space outside was ablaze with hard radiation as a range of enormously powerful weapons were fired. His u-shadow reran events, analyzing it in millisecond increments. He saw another ultradrive starship materialize directly between the Cat’s ship and Mellanie’s Redemption. It opened fire instantaneously at the same time its force field expanded, deflecting the Cat’s return salvo away from Mellanie’s Redemption.

A communication channel opened.

“Oscar, get the hell out of there,” Paula said. “Leave the Cat to me.”

“Go,” Oscar screamed at Troblum.

For the second time in an hour, the Mellanie’s Redemption fled into hyperspace.

“You’re going to deal with me?” the Cat asked. There was a mocking tone in the voice.

Paula was frantically reviewing the Alexis Denken’s defense status. The force fields were struggling under the energy impact of their first weapons exchange. Whatever the Cat’s ship was equipped with, it was stronger than she had expected. The beam weapons were somehow transferring some of their energy through hyperspace, circumventing the force fields. Local gravity was doing strange things, its twists exerting unnatural stresses throughout the Alexis Denken that the onboard compensators weren’t designed to cope with.

“Always do,” Paula sent back. On her instruction, the smartcore fired a couple of quantumbusters. They shot away, accelerating at two hundred gees. “And this is the last time.” The quantumbusters went active. Eighty kilometers away, the small chunk of astroidal rubble they targeted was less than thirty meters in diameter. The entire mass was converted directly into energy in the form of ultrahard radiation. For a microsecond its output rivaled that of the nearby star.

Exovision warnings leaped up as the force fields strained to deflect the appalling radiation torrent. Paula sent the starship back into hyperspace and flashed toward the gas giant. The Cat came after her. Neither was making any attempt at stealth.

Fifty thousand kilometers above the seething pink and gray cloudscape, Paula stopped, and the Alexis Denken hung in transdimensional suspension while the force field generators began to stabilize.

One of the gas giant’s large outer moons exploded. A quantumbuster had converted a couple of its more substantial craters directly into energy, a detonation big enough to fracture the moon down to its core. The entire globe ruptured, with vast segments moving ponderously apart while a billion rock fragments came tumbling out of the expanding fissures into the outburst of raw energy. The physical damage was an irrelevancy. The quantumbuster had a diverted energy function, shunting a high percentage of the explosion’s power into hyperspace.

Paula went flying painfully across the cabin as the colossal exotic energy wave smashed into the starship. Alexis Denken fell back into spacetime as its overstressed ultradrive failed. Outside, the remnants of the moon were creating a giant translucent shock sphere twenty thousand kilometers across that glowed an ominous spectral blue as it inflated at half lightspeed. The Cat’s ship came streaking out of the garish aurora, force fields glimmering a malevolent crimson as it headed straight for the Alexis Denken. Dark missiles punched forward at a hundred gees.

The smartcore identified them as Hawking M-sinks. Force fields wouldn’t protect Paula from them.

Another moon exploded. Sequential ripples of exotic energy swept outward, blocking any return to hyperspace. Paula powered the Alexis Denken straight down toward the gas giant, accelerating at fifty gees. Internal gravity compensators could shield her from only about thirty of them. Biononics had to support her body physically as the punishing force tried to crush her into a puddle of flesh across the decking. Even with that enrichment it was tremendously difficult to breathe. She’d gotten her left leg at a slight angle; it made a bad sound as it flattened out.

One of the small inner moons was below her, a cratered rock two hundred kilometers in diameter, three thousand kilometers farther along its orbital track from her vertical vector and moving sedately away. She fired a quantumbuster at it, modifying the effect field format. When the weapon activated, it converted a quarter of a cubic kilometer of rock right at the moon’s core. The moon shattered instantly. Millions of rocky shrapnel fangs detonated outward from the micronova in a lethal supervelocity cloud. The particles vaporized as they went, blowing off expanding flares of indigo and topaz ions like primeval comets. Space was filled with a dense clutter of energized mass. The Hawking M-sinks flew into it and began to absorb the deluge of lively atoms. Vapor or rock shards, it made no difference; the event horizons sucked everything down. In doing so, their courses wobbled slightly. As the drives attempted to compensate, their efficiency fell off due to the nearly exponential increase in mass they were now propelling.

The Alexis Denken raced away from the underside of the hellish fireball, hurtling straight for the agitated stormscape below.

Mellanie’s Redemption flicked back into space one and a quarter million kilometers above the yellow star. She hung there for a couple of seconds while the forward cargo bay opened and the fuselage force field started to fizz with violet stress patterns. The planetary FTL device shot out, and Troblum took the starship straight back into transdimensional suspension.

“How long?” Aaron demanded.

“Ten minutes to initiation,” Troblum said. Catriona was back at his side, her beautiful face tragic with concern. “Establishment will take longer. And no, I don’t have a fucking clue how long. Nothing more I can do. We just sit and wait now.”

Oscar was keeping track of the hysradar return. He winced when one of the gas giant moons broke apart within a bloom of exotic energy. That was one hell of a fight, as bad as Justine and the warrior Raiel. Oh, crap! “Hey!”

Everyone looked at him. In the packed cabin that was quite intimidating.

“You didn’t think this ship could survive anything the Cat threw at it,” he said to Troblum. “Why?”

“Because it couldn’t,” Troblum replied. Catriona was directing an aggressive stare Oscar’s way, which he ignored.

“But you have the Sol barrier technology. That can withstand any Commonwealth weapon.”

“Mellanie’s Redemption doesn’t have that kind of protection,” Troblum said.

“But … your armor does.” So I assumed the ship would as well. Shit!

“Yes. I just built my armor. But before now I couldn’t ever use the design the Accelerators developed from the Dark Fortress; that would have revealed what we’d got.”

Oscar wanted to grab the front of Troblum’s toga suit and give the huge man a shake. “But if we haven’t got that kind of force field, how the hell do you think we’ll get past the warrior Raiel?”

“They’ll let us past. Won’t they?” Troblum said in a puzzled tone that verged on hurt. “When we explain that we’re on a mission to shut down the Void.”

“Shit,” Tomansio grunted.

For once even Aaron was startled.

“Troblum,” Oscar said very firmly. “Give me full access to your TD linkage. Now.”

“What are you doing?” Inigo asked.

“Calling the one person who might be able to help.” He grimaced as another one of the gas giant’s moons was blasted into a tsunami of exotic energy. “If she’s still alive.”

The Alexis Denken hit the upper atmosphere at fifty kilometers a second. Paula ordered an immediate deceleration as they plunged toward the first truculent cloud layer. It didn’t seem to make much difference. Disintegrating gases gouged a five-hundred-kilometer tail of incandescence in their wake, a giant pointer for the Cat’s sensors. The juddering was phenomenal; as an indicator of how much punishment the starship was encountering, it was badly worrying. Acceleration forces were still crushing her down onto the decking.

Far above, the first flaming debris from the small rock moon was following her down, dazzling points of light churning through the atmosphere, jetting out vast plumes of black smoke. The terrible buffeting broke them apart into hundreds of smaller chunks, which then shattered again and again. A vast plain of electrical fire sank down toward the clouds. The basic energy the impact was spinning off created enormous lightning discharges that flared for thousands of kilometers through the higher atmospheric bands.

It made sensor coverage difficult. But just before she sank into the second cloud layer, hysradar located the Cat’s ship chasing her down.

Paula hurriedly changed her direction, angling the regrav units’ propulsive effect sharply to try to flatten out her trajectory but still heading down.

“I see you,” the Cat called through an interference-saturated link.

“If you stop now and rendezvous with your force fields down, I will simply place you in suspension with your original self,” Paula replied. “Any other course of action will result in your termination.”

“Darling Paula, this is what I love about you. That psychoneural profiling is actually the installation of blind stupidity. Come to me. I can remove it for you.”

The Alexis Denken’s sensors detected another M-sink being fired. Now the entire gas giant was doomed, though its final destruction would be weeks away. Paula suspected the Cat had done that to make sure there would never be any hiding place beneath the gas giant’s furious storms. Paula fired a quantumbuster, then angled the Alexis Denken down through the fourth and final cloud layer. Below that was a zone of perfectly clear hydrogen extending for several hundred kilometers. Huge vertical pillars of lightning snapped on and off within the gap. At their base, a smog of hydrocarbons eddied uneasily atop the pressure boundary where the atmospheric compounds were finally compressed into a liquid. The sight vanished in a blaze of white light as the quantumbuster activated.

“Naughty, darling,” the Cat taunted. “My turn.”

The hysradar showed Paula two missiles curving up from the Cat’s ship, arching up through the clouds, where the density was reduced. Of course they could accelerate far faster than the poor Alexis Denken, which was tunneling through the compacted hydrogen.

They started to plummet again.

“Oh, fuck,” Paula grunted, and dipped ever closer to the smog band.

Her smartcore surprised the hell out of her when it announced that Oscar was calling through a TD link.

“Little busy,” she sent.

“Appreciate that. But we’re in trouble.”

“Doesn’t it work?”

“That almost doesn’t matter. This ship has no protection from the warrior Raiel. Can you ask Qatux to have a word, please.”

The missiles were quantumbusters. They activated a hundred kilometers ahead. A solid wall of energy hurtled toward the Alexis Denken, only partially slowed and absorbed by the enormous density of the lower atmosphere. Paula dived into the hydrocarbon soup.

“Do what I can,” she promised. Some remote part of her brain was chuckling over the irony.

The jolt of impact was enough to cause a momentary blackout. Her tormented flesh was already at its limit. When she recovered, she was still barreling forward, but her speed was sluggish even with the ingrav and regrav units operating at their maximum. The force field was heading toward overload, and she was only five kilometers deep. Blood was pouring out of her nose. A small medical icon in her exovision reported she was also bleeding from her ears; there were internal lacerations, too.

The Cat’s ship sliced cleanly through the hydrogen zone until she was directly above the Alexis Denken. Eight missiles curved elegantly down toward the smog, spreading out in an exemplary spider-leg dispersal pattern. They’d act like old-fashioned depth charges, Paula realized. If they didn’t force her up and out into the open, the pressure pulse would crush the fuselage. Perfect!

From somewhere deep inside the star, oblivion was surging up through the superdense matter. The planetary FTL device had triggered a terminal mass energy explosion sequence far below the photosphere whose gigantic shock pulse was now slowly flowing down toward the core, creating an unsustainable fusion surge as it went. Energy levels were building fast from the accelerated reactions. Not even the enormous gravity gradient and ultracompressed hydrogen of the star’s interior could contain it.

But as the runaway energy thrust its languid way upward, other, stranger forces came into play as the device’s exotic matter functions began to blossom, fed by the star’s own amplified output. Like a parasite growing larger as it consumed more of its host, the device exerted an intolerable stress on an infinitesimal point of spacetime, which promptly ruptured. The throat of the wormhole opened. Behind it, the corona began to darken as more and more power was drained away through hyperspace to sustain the new exotic energy manifestation. The wormhole’s terminus began to strain for its designated emergence coordinate over twenty-eight thousand light-years distant. Half of the rapidly expanding photosphere was now falling into darkness as the wormhole usurped more and more of its escalating output.

Troblum actually smiled at the sensor image as the Mellanie’s Redemption emerged into spacetime. The starship’s curving fins glowed a strong magenta as they threw off the heat that was still seeping through the force fields. Directly ahead, the surface of the violated star was being distorted by the imminent nova eruption. Yet the very pinnacle of the distortion was cascading into night as mass and energy vanished through a dimensional rift. In the middle of that emptiness a tiny indigo star was shining as Cherenkov radiation gleamed out from the exotic matter of the wormhole’s pseudofabric.

“It’s stabilizing,” he gasped.

“How long will that hold for?” Inigo asked gently.

Troblum shook himself. “Not long,” he admitted. For a moment he regretted not using the original configuration, a wormhole wide enough to swallow a gas giant. This was only a kilometer across. But it did extend for twenty-eight thousand light-years.

It works. I was right. I was right about everything. The Anomine, the Raiel. Everything.

“I win,” he said softly, then shouted it. “I fucking win! And the universe knows it.”

“Take us through,” Aaron said.

Troblum wiped his sleeve across his eyes, getting rid of the moisture. “Right,” he acknowledged. The Mellanie’s Redemption slipped forward, accelerating hard as it passed into the wormhole’s haze.

– -

The Cat’s exovision showed her the eight quantumbusters activating fifty kilometers below the surface of the compressed-hydrocarbon ocean. Their titanic pressure waves inflated, merging.

Hysradar scanned incessantly, trying to discern the Alexis Denken amid the turmoil. But hydrocarbon fluid at that density was strange stuff, and the massive energy deformation didn’t help. If Paula didn’t make a dash for freedom up to the hydrogen layer, she’d be dead. No starship could withstand the kind of force currently cascading through the hydrocarbon.

Still nothing.

The smog rippled apart as the hydrocarbon eruption began. It was like seeing a perfectly round volcano erupt. The cone kept rising-five, ten, twenty kilometers high. As it lifted up into the hydrogen zone where the pressure was far lower, it began to boil violently, spewing out great columns of spray like rocket exhausts that just kept thundering upward. Within seconds the hydrogen zone for hundreds of kilometers was clotted by the weird chemical fug. Optical band imagery was reduced to zero as the greasy vapor surged around her starship. Regrav units strained to hold position as the gales rushed past.

“So fuck you, then,” the Cat told Paula’s cold, gigantic funeral pyre.

Sensors showed her that the upsurge was still growing, which was surprising but hardly threatening. The crest reached a full hundred kilometers, drawing down a barrage of almighty lightning strikes from the belly of the cloud layer far above.

Mountainous waves began to gush ponderously down the eruption’s flanks to the ocean below. The Cat still couldn’t see anything, but the starship’s sensors provided her an excellent graphics-profile image. The hydrocarbon was draining away from something solid, something vast that was still impossibly rising upward.

“What the-” she sputtered. Then the profile began to resolve. Fourteen mushroom shapes were shrugging off their cloak of glutinous liquid and filthy gas to expose the crystalline domes that roofed them. They were attached to the main bulk of the thing, which measured just over sixty kilometers long.

High Angel cleared the unstable cleft in the hydrocarbon ocean, shedding a tempest of seething smog.

A communication channel opened without any authorization from the Cat’s u-shadow. “Hello, Catherine Stewart,” Qatux said.

“Fuck.” She sent her starship into a seventy-gee climb, not even able to scream against the abysmal force crushing her body. Bones snapped; flesh and membranes tore.

“You don’t remember my wife, do you?” Qatux asked.

“Your wife? No!”

“Nor will you ever.”

Exovision showed the Cat an energy pulse blasting straight up from the High Angel. It struck her starship-

The shot was powerful enough to warp spacetime in a very specific fashion, so that although the starship was blown apart in milliseconds, time within the explosion stretched on and on and on … To the Cat the utterly excruciating instant of her death lasted for hour after long terrible hour. Though she never realized it, it was exactly the same amount of time it had taken Tiger Pansy to die one thousand one hundred ninety-nine years ago.

Nine thousand light-years from the boundary of the Void and five light-years from the closest star, a wormhole terminus swirled open, spilling its gentle indigo light out into interstellar space. Thirty seconds later the streamlined shape of the Mellanie’s Redemption flew out.

“FucktheLady,” Corrie-Lyn exclaimed. “We made it.” She smiled incredulously and kissed Troblum before he could stop her.

Behind them, the weak light faded away as the wormhole closed, leaving them as isolated and alone as any humans had ever been. Comprehension of their status quickly spread through the cabin, amplified and reinforced by the tiny self-generated gaiafield. It drained away any sense of elation.

Inigo gave Corrie-Lyn a quick hug in the uncomfortable silence that followed.

“What do you think happened?” Araminta-two asked.

“The important thing is that deranged bitch didn’t follow us,” Oscar said.

“And Paula?”

Oscar had to grin at that. “Trust me, if anyone in this universe can take care of herself, it’s Paula Myo.”

“So what do we do now?” Inigo asked.

“There is no question,” Aaron said. “We go into the Void.”

“I meant, what do we do about the warrior Raiel?”

“Two options,” Oscar said. “If Paula survived, we might already have a clear passage confirmed. If not, we really do try what Troblum suggested and ask nicely.”

“We got this far,” Corrie-Lyn said.

“That’s the kind of mad optimism I like,” Oscar said. “Troblum, let’s go.”

“We need to start installing the medical chambers,” Tomansio said.

Oscar grinned. “Another optimist.”

“Just being practical.” Tomansio patted one of the capsules stacked up against the bulkhead. He didn’t have to move his arm far.

“So next question,” Liatris said. “Who gets to sleep off the next part of the voyage?”

“Me, happily,” Oscar said. “So long as you bring me out when we go through the boundary. That I have to see.”

“We’re going FTL,” Troblum announced. “I’ll get the bots to prepare the forward hold.”

“How long to the Wall stars?” Aaron asked.

“A hundred and sixty hours.”

Paula teleported into Qatux’s private chamber, for which she was grateful. She certainly couldn’t have walked. There was a fat warming sheath around her left leg. Twelve semiorganic nodules were stuck over various parts of her torso, their slender filaments weaving through her skin to combine with biononic systems deeper inside her body, helping to repair the damaged cells. She wore a loose robe over all the systems and limped along as if she were an old woman, which was appropriate enough, she acknowledged grimly.

A human-shaped chair rose silently out of the light blue floor, and she eased herself into it. Directly ahead the silver-gray wall continued its gentle liquid rippling. Tiger Pansy’s face smiled back gleefully at her through the odd twisting motions.

You can rest easy now, Paula thought. Wherever you are.

The wall parted, and Qatux walked in. One of his medium-size tentacles stretched out, and its paddle tip touched Paula on the cheek. There was a phantom sensation of warmth that lingered after the touch ended, perhaps a sensation of sympathy and concern, too.

“Are you badly damaged?” Qatux whispered.

“Only my pride.”

“Ahhh,” the Raiel sighed. “The old ones are the best ones.”

“Thank you for your help.”

“And yet her real self lies dormant in Paris.”

“Where it should be. Not resurrected to act as some human political movement’s agitator. Not that she ever did as she was told in whatever incarnation.”

A couple of tentacles waved about in what could have been agitation. “As you said, the universe needs to be rid of her.”

“I was sure if anything could make her termination definite, it would be High Angel. Navy ships have the firepower, but she’d detect them.”

“Not quite what my race intended this arkship should be used for, but we live in extraordinary times.”

“I hope I haven’t gotten you into trouble, Qatux.”

“No. We Raiel do not lack for empathy. However, I believe some of the humans in residence are slightly shocked by events. Not to mention the Naozun.”

Paula couldn’t remember any race called the Naozun. “Good. It’s about time we stirred things up.”

“We have grown, you and I, Paula.”

“I should certainly hope so. We’ve had long enough.”

Air whistled softly out of Qatux’s mouth. “Indeed.”

“Did the wormhole open as Troblum predicted?”

“Yes.”

“Finally! Something went right for us. Whatever the hell that something is. I just hope Aaron’s controller knows what they’re doing. On which note, I have yet another favor to ask.”

“Yes.”

“The Mellanie’s Redemption needs to get into the Void. Can you get the warrior Raiel to let it through the Gulf unharmed? I genuinely believe it might be our only chance to prevent a catastrophic expansion phase.”

“I will explain why they should. I can do no more.”

“Thank you.” She rubbed at the sheath on her leg, knowing that was never going to get rid of the itch. “Where are we going now?”

“Back to the Commonwealth.”

“Not out of the galaxy, then?” Paula was faintly relieved: The Raiel obviously still had hope.

“No. That time is not yet here. As you said, there is little which prevents it.”

“What about the Dark Fortress spheres? Are they capable of stopping the Void?”

“We don’t know. But understand this, Paula: The warrior Raiel will attempt to stop the Pilgrimage fleet. They do not indulge in sentiment about that many lives when the very galaxy is threatened by their actions.”

“I understand, and I do not hold you to account. We have to be responsible for ourselves. If that many humans want to try to endanger all life in this galaxy, they must not be surprised if others attempt to prevent them.”

“Yet your own kind did not.”

Paula hung her head, mainly in shame, but there was frustration there, too. “I know. Those of us who were free to do so did what we could. The level of the conspiracy took us by surprise. In that, we failed so many.”

The Raiel touched her cheek again. “I do not hold you to account, Paula.”

“Thank you,” she managed to say.

“I do have some privileges as captain of an arkship. We are in communication with the warrior Raiel. Would you like to see the galactic core defenses in action? I imagine the last stand of our species will make quite a spectacle.”

The Delivery Man waited patiently while the trolley glided across the plaza and rose up to the Last Throw’s midsection hatchway. The chunk of equipment it was carrying only just fit through the opening, but it managed to get inside. The assemblybots that the replicator had produced a couple of days earlier started to ease the equipment off the trolley. Once they began the integration process, he’d go up and inspect.

He was useful again, which lifted his spirits considerably. His physics and engineering knowledge was hardly up there at Ozzie and Nigel levels, but his recent cover job analyzing technology levels made him competent enough to oversee the integration. The systems the replicator was producing were all geared toward giving the Last Throw additional strength. Strong enough to ward off a star’s energy from zero range. It was a very special kind of crazy who contemplated such a procedure. The design in the smartcore memory had been developed by the Greater Commonwealth Astronomical Agency for its Stardiver program. None of the probes they’d dispatched had ever carried human passengers.

The Delivery Man glanced across the plaza to where Gore was talking to Tyzak. It was like observing a devoted priest and a confirmed atheist locking horns. Their conversation, or argument, or discussion-whatever-had been going on for days now. There’d even been pictures for emphasis. Gore had brought a holographic portal down from the Last Throw, showing Tyzak various images of the Void, the Gulf, the Wall stars, DF spheres, even views of Makkathran, Skylords, and the Void nebulae taken from Inigo’s dreams.

Not once in all that time had he let up in his efforts to persuade the Anomine to talk to the elevation mechanism. Then they received Justine’s dream of landing at Makkathran, and Gore’s determination went off the chart. The Delivery Man found it hard to believe that the Gore he knew had so much patience. But then, even he’d punched the air when the Silverbird touched down in Golden Park. It was quite a moment.

Tyzak was interested; some parts of the story he found fascinating. But none of it inclined him to help ward off the end of everything. The old Anomine insisted that the future, specifically his race’s future, could be determined only by the planet itself. That prohibited the use of relics from the past.

“But it’s not your future that will be affected in any way,” Gore was saying. “All I need is a little help from a machine which you don’t even use anymore. Do your beliefs prohibit charity?”

“I understand your problem, but you are asking me to abandon my entire philosophy, my reason for existence, and delve back into the past we have completely rejected.”

“You would be knocking on the door. I would be the one passing through.”

“You are attempting to differentiate the entire act into degrees. That is not applicable. Any act of renunciation is ultimate.”

“How can helping others be renunciation of yourself?”

“It is the method, as you very well know, friend Gore.”

“How do you think your ancestors would respond to this request? Their generosity helped other species before, when you isolated the Prime aliens.”

“I cannot know, but I suspect they would reanimate the machine for you.”

“Exactly.”

“But they are gone. And they were an aberration in our true line of evolution.”

“Your inaction means you’d be killing trillions of living things. Doesn’t that bother you in the slightest?”

“It is a cause for concern.”

The Delivery Man stiffened. That was the first time the slightest concession had been made to reasonableness on Tyzak’s part. Reasonableness on human terms, anyway.

“The space fortresses that guard your solar system, the cities that never decay, this machine beneath our feet which slumbers, all these things were left behind by the ancestors you dismiss. They wanted you to have options; that is why they bequeathed them to you. So much of what they had is now dust.” Gore’s hand waved loosely up at the lustrous band of debris orbiting the planet. “But these specific artifacts remain because they knew that one day you might need them. Without the fortresses many species would be here plundering the riches your ancestors left behind. A large part of evolution is interaction. Isolation is not evolution; it is stagnation.”

“We are not isolated,” Tyzak answered. “We live within the planet’s will; our every second is determined by the planet. It will deliver us to our destiny.”

“But I’ve shown you what will happen to your planet if the Void’s final expansion phase begins. It will be destroyed, and you with it. That is not natural; that is an external event of pure malice, the cessation of evolution not just here but on every star system in the galaxy. Such a thing cannot be factored into your belief of planetary-guided evolution, for it is not inborn. If you truly wish to continue your evolution on this world, you have to protect it. Your ancestors left you the ability to do that, to ward off the unnatural. You don’t have to do anything other than ask the machine to awake. It and I will do everything else.”

The Delivery Man held his breath.

“Very well,” Tyzak said. “I will ask.”

Gore tipped his head back to look the old Anomine directly in the eye and sighed. “I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

The Delivery Man hurried over to the two of them. Dusk had fallen now, its fading light bathing the plaza in a cool gray illumination. All around them the imposing city buildings were responding to oncoming night with their own internal radiance. Pale colorful streaks shimmered over an igloo-style shelter they’d expanded close to the parked starship where the replicator had been set up. The second, smaller shelter housed the intrusion apparatus Gore had created in case the elevation mechanism proved reluctant.

Last Throw’s smartcore reported that it was initiating a deep field function scan of the elevation mechanism, mapping out functions and control pathways. The Delivery Man couldn’t help the ridiculous burst of optimism lightening his heart as he drew close to the two figures profiled by the harlequin glow of a deep city canyon on the other side of the plaza. It was almost symbolic of the moment, he thought, the two wildly different species finally coming together in the face of adversity. If only I wasn’t such a cynic.

Just as he reached them, he saw something move down the glimmering canyon beyond. Retinal inserts provided a clearer resolution. “No bloody way,” he grunted. It was a Silfen, riding some huge quadruped animal with thick scarlet fur. The Silfen himself was clad in a long, magnificently gaudy honey-colored coat decorated with thousands of jewels that sparkled energetically in the city’s luminosity.

“Gore!”

Gore turned around. “What?”

But it was too late. The Silfen had ridden off down an intersection. “Doesn’t matter.”

Tyzak had become very still. When the Delivery Man concentrated on his own diminutive awareness of the city’s thoughts, he could just make out another stream of consciousness out there somewhere. Like the city’s, these were precise and cool. Not quite aloof, though, for there was definite interest in why they had been roused.

“I feel you,” the elevation mechanism said. “You are Tyzak.”

“I am.”

“Do you wish to attain transcendence from your physical existence?”

“No.”

“I exist for that purpose.”

“I wish to transcend,” Gore told the mechanism.

“You are alien. I cannot help you.”

“Why not?”

“You are alien. I exist to lift Anomine to their next stage of life.”

“Our biochemistry is essentially the same. I am sentient. It would not be difficult for you.”

“No. Only Anomine may lift themselves through me.”

“Are you sentient?”

“I am aware.”

“There is a possibility that an event at the heart of the galaxy may destroy this planet and with it all the surviving Anomine. If I am elevated to the next stage of life, I will be able to prevent this from happening.”

“Should such an event occur, the remaining Anomine will be assisted to transcend if that is what they wish to become.”

“Do you still have the power to do that?”

“Yes.”

“And the rest of us? You would abandon every sentient in the galaxy to death?”

“I lift Anomine. I cannot reach the rest of the galaxy.”

“You can reach me.”

“You are not Anomine.”

“Are you unable to rise above your original constraints?”

“I am what I am. I exist to lift Anomine to their next stage of life.”

“Yeah. Got that.”

The elevation mechanism’s thoughts retreated, shrinking its consciousness back to the somnolence where it spent the centuries that passed it by.

“You were not given the answers you were hoping for,” Tyzak said. “I feel sorrow for you. But the machine’s story is an ancient one; it will not change now.”

“Yeah, I know. See you in the morning.” Gore rose to his feet and headed back to the Last Throw.

It took the Delivery Man by surprise. He got up and hurried after Gore, wishing in vain he didn’t feel like some pupil bobbing around his all-wise guru master. “So now what?”

The city’s shifting opalescence produced strange reflections across Gore’s golden face. If his expression did possess any emotion, it wasn’t anything the Delivery Man could read. “We got a pretty good functionality schema, which thankfully included a route into the wormhole when it checked its main power supply.”

“Ah. So you can hack it?”

“I don’t know. It’s extremely complex, which is what I expected from a machine which has its own psychology. But at least we know how to attempt it. There are physical junctions which are critical to its routines; they can be breached.”

“So are you going to start that now?”

“Certainly not. The other systems on this planet share an awareness of each other. I doubt I’d have more than a few minutes’ primacy before they put a stop to my evil alien incursion.”

“Oh, right. So we do need to reactivate the siphon first?”

“Siphon and wormhole. How long until the modified force field generators are finished?”

“A few days,” the Delivery Man said reluctantly.

“Good. We need to be ready to launch this part of the plan as soon as everyone in the Void is in place.”

“Everyone in the Void? You mean the Pilgrimage ships?”

“No. I’m expecting an associate to arrive.”

“An associate? In the Void?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Justine will let us know.”

The Raiel warship was big. Aaron studied the return that was coming from the hysradar. Most of the image was fuzzed, denying him any details. Some small part of his mind wasn’t sure he wanted details. Which is hardly strong of me, he thought with a cool amusement. That part of the Knights Guardian has obviously been lost. Again, that wasn’t something that disturbed him. Even the name Lennox meant nothing, which he knew on an instinctive level was a good thing: He wanted to be free of what was. She dwelled there in the past, slithering though the banished memories, taunting, bleeding poison, leaving only shadow in her wake. It was the only place she could hurt him now.

He recalled Cheriton’s last terrified thoughts. The pleading.

Not relevant. A definitive conclusion that gave him a great deal of confidence in himself. I’m still here, still me.

The warrior Raiel ship was matching course with Mellanie’s Redemption now. Ten light-years ahead was the fringe of the Wall stars, the closely packed multitude of globular clusters throwing out a screen of blazing light that blocked any glimpse of the Gulf beyond and the true dark core of the galaxy.

“What now?” Troblum asked.

His remaining passengers appeared uncertain. Oscar and his Knights Guardian team had gone into suspension, though Corrie-Lyn refused to leave Inigo, and as Aaron suspected, the Raiel might need proof from the original Dreamer. That left five of them still awake and moving around, which, even with the medical capsules all installed in the forward cargo hold, still made for cramped conditions. It didn’t bother Aaron, but he could see how the others were getting agitated. Troblum’s nonexistent personality didn’t help, and as for the amount the big man ate at every meal …

“They haven’t blown us to shit yet,” Aaron said. “That’s got to be good. So we’ll ask them if they’ll let us go through the Wall and into the Void.”

“What are you going to say to them?” Corrie-Lyn asked. The presence of the warrior Raiel was having quite an effect on her. The tentative relief she’d shown after they came through the wormhole had shrunk away as soon as the warship had rendezvoused with them.

Aaron ignored her. “Inigo, Araminta, I think this one’s for you.”

The two Dreamers exchanged a what-the-hell look.

Araminta-two sighed. “I’ll do it.”

Aaron opened his gaiamotes to sense the Second Dreamer reaching for the giant warship. Riding passively in conjunction with Araminta’s thoughts was making him aware of whole aspects of the gaiafield he’d never known before. There was certainly some kind of consciousness registering out there, and it was not a human one. It was too composed for that. He also felt the first direct touch with the Skylord, which sent a chill firing along his nerves. So close now.

“We are the human Dreamers,” Araminta-two told the Raiel.

“Yes. You are two Dreamers. The third of your kind is a long way from here. And part of you is elsewhere.”

“That’s correct,” Araminta said, mildly surprised by the summary. “We seek to travel into the Void. We believe we may be able to prevent the final devourment phase.”

“We know this. Qatux has spoken with us. You may pass through.”

“I thank you.”

“You understand that the ships which you also lead will be intercepted.”

“Yes. I understand this.”

“If we succeed, then millions of your kind will be destroyed. Why do you not cease to appease them?”

“It is not that simple. However, I believe in what we are doing. I believe this will resolve the threat which the Void holds over this galaxy without any loss of life.”

“As you wish.”

“I would ask one other thing. There is an entity called Ilanthe traveling with the Pilgrimage fleet whose nature is uncertain. If there is any way it can be prevented from reaching the Void, I would urge you to implement it.”

“We are aware of Ilanthe. We remain vigilant for it.”

“Thank you.”

The warrior Raiel ship slid away.

“It’s fast,” Troblum said admiringly. “Faster than we are. I wonder what kind of drive theory they have.”

Inigo put his hand on the big man’s shoulder. “When this is over, I’m sure they’ll be delighted to give you a full tour.”

Troblum’s face produced a grimaced smile. He clearly wanted to wrench himself away from the hand.

An awkward Inigo quickly snatched it back. His thoughts were apologetic even though he said nothing.

Corrie-Lyn gave Aaron a shrewd look. “So now do you know what happens in the Void?”

He grinned back as annoyingly as he could. “We’re not there yet.”

“We will be soon,” Araminta-two said. “And the Skylord knows that.”

Oscar and the Knights Guardian were brought out of suspension for the passage itself. The cabin once again was crammed with too many people, but this time it wasn’t so bad. This time everyone was jokey and excited, eager to see what lay outside the fuselage, eager to be inside the obdurate, mysterious boundary.

The Mellanie’s Redemption was slowing as it approached the black wall. It dropped out of hyperspace fifteen light-years away, the same distance the Silverbird had been when the distended cone opened for it.

Radiation alerts sprang up in everyone’s exovision. Far behind them the loop burned a dangerous burgundy as high-energy photons smashed relentlessly through the clouds of dark mass swirling through the plane of the Gulf. All around the starship streaks of irradiated matter swarmed in toward the boundary like a particulate ocean with a solitary eternal tide.

Araminta-two actually looked nervous even though he was in constant contact with the Skylord. Still entwined with the Second Dreamer’s thoughts, Aaron could sense the great creature’s interest and expectation growing.

“Remember to ask it to pull us through somewhere close to Querencia,” Tomansio said. “We don’t want a forty-year voyage like Justine.” He didn’t actually give the cabin a pointed look, but everyone knew his opinion of the starship’s reliability. Perhaps it was the proximity of the Void, but they were now sharing quite intimately.

Araminta-two gave him a tight nod, then spoke to the Skylord. “We are here. Please call to the nucleus; please urge it to bring us into your universe so we may achieve fulfillment.”

“I have waited so long for this moment,” the Skylord said.

“When we come, we need to be near the solid world where humans lived.”

“There were several such worlds,” the Skylord replied.

Inigo gave Araminta-two a shocked look as her concentration faltered briefly.

“Shit,” Tomansio muttered.

“I thought there was only one,” Oscar said out loud.

“There’s more than one?” an incredulous Corrie-Lyn said. “How many were there?”

“It took Justine to Querencia,” Aaron said urgently. “Be specific.”

“What did she ask-” Araminta-two shook his head irritably and concentrated again. “The world we seek is the one where a member of our species is already waiting for us. She arrived recently. It has a city there, a city that did not arise within the Void.”

“I know the world you seek,” the Skylord replied.

“I hope it does,” Troblum said. “Because it’s starting.”

“Will you be there?” Araminta-two asked. “I need you there to guide me. Without your help I will never reach fulfillment.”

“I come,” the Skylord promised.

Hysradar showed them the surface of the boundary expanding at hyperluminal speed, a great protrusion heading up directly for the starship. Just like the planetary FTL wormhole but on an unimaginably vast scale. They watched in silence as the smooth crown opened. Once again the glorious undulating nebula light shone out into the wretched desolation of the Gulf, casting a single beam of elegant luminosity across the Mellanie’s Redemption.

The starship accelerated forward eagerly, passing through the small aperture. Behind it, the boundary closed again, shutting off the pale light. The pinnacle sank down again, merging back into the featureless surface of infinite darkness.

“So where are we?” Aaron demanded. The starship’s visual sensors were working perfectly, showing stars and nebulae all around. There was no sign of the boundary.

“Working on that,” Troblum said. He was sweating profusely.

“Well, whadda you know,” Tomansio said. A cup of tea was floating in midair, ten centimeters from his outstretched fingers. It lifted a little, then wiggled from side to side. He grinned wildly. His mind was radiating smugness and satisfaction for all of them to perceive.

“Oh, crap,” Corrie-Lyn exclaimed. Her mind shimmered rapidly in everyone’s farsight, its surface luster dimming as she ponderously fought down the exuberant emotions, shielding them from psychic perception like a mother folding her arms protectively around a crying babe. Images and memories persisted in flashing out: Edeard scrambling to shield his own thoughts, the techniques he employed. After a short while the surface of her mind hardened to an impermeable screen from which nothing leaked, not a single emotion or memory or sensation.

There was a long minute while everyone struggled with the same technique with varying degrees of success. No one was surprised when the two Dreamers shielded themselves perfectly. But no matter how hard he tried, Oscar simply couldn’t contain his ebullient thoughts; the best he could achieve was to tone them down a bit. “This group’s Edeard,” he said ruefully. “He could never protect himself fully. Personally, I see it as a sign of superiority to the lot of you.”

Everyone allowed a glimmer of amusement to trickle out. Except Troblum. His shield was darker than most, and the thoughts below were convoluted. His emotions didn’t match anything familiar.

Aaron was satisfied with his own protection, though the others were giving him curious looks. Their emotions were hurriedly wrapped away from perception. “What?” he asked. His longtalk matched his voice in intensity.

“It’s like you’re at war,” Corrie-Lyn said. “Your thoughts are shining out, yet they make no sense because they have so many contrary facets. You are anger and conflict.”

He gave her his old concessionary grin. “But I still function.”

“So?” Tomansio asked, his inexorable curiosity infecting them all. “We’re in the Void. What next?”

“Makkathran,” Aaron said solemnly.

Tomansio let out a growl of frustration.

Araminta-two looked at something far beyond the cabin’s bulkheads. “It’s here,” he said in wonder.

Aaron’s farsight felt the Skylord approach, a benevolent concentration of thoughts that intimidated through sheer size. Somehow it seemed to negate worry, sharing satisfaction on a level that was impossible to refute.

“You are here,” it told Araminta-two.

“Part of me. The rest will follow as I bring those who seek fulfillment.”

“My kindred welcome you. They welcome those who are to join us here in the Void.”

“Makkathran,” Aaron whispered.

“Will you guide us to the world we spoke of before?”

“Yes.”

Aaron instinctively reached out to grab hold of something and steady himself. Mellanie’s Redemption was twisting around, gravity shifting in strange swelling motions. Exoimage relays from the fuselage cameras showed him the huge crystalline folds of the Skylord’s body rotating spryly against the flexing ribbon of violet phosphorescence that was the Buluku nebula. Then the stars ahead were brightening as the Skylord executed its temporal acceleration function, and the starship was flashing toward the hot blue light points at close to lightspeed. Behind them, the Void shifted down to a dull carmine.

Araminta-two inhaled sharply, his hand pressing flat on his chest.

“What’s wrong?” Oscar asked him.

“It’s very weird, like I’m being torn in two. You seem fast, yet I’m not slow, or part of me is. The Pilgrimage fleet is hardly moving until I concentrate on it. Arrrgh. Ozziedamn, this is so strange.”

“Temporal rate difference,” Troblum said. “You are conscious on both sides of the Void boundary, which means you’re living at two different speeds. It will be hard to reconcile.”

“You’d better go into suspension,” Tomansio said.

“No!”

The spike of alarm from Araminta-two’s mind was enough to still them all.

“Sorry, but no,” he said. “I-this body-has to live through this. If this me goes into suspension, that means it’ll be just her left; I’ll be out there all alone. If they come for me with those brain infiltrator things, I won’t have any refuge.”

Tomansio nodded in understanding. “How far are we from Querencia?” he asked Troblum.

“We’re heading for a star system about three light-months away,” Troblum said. “I guess it’s Querencia.”

“Three months. Well, I suppose it’s better than three years.”

“Or thirty,” Oscar said. He was leaking sympathy and concern.

Araminta-two fumbled for his hand. “Thank you, Oscar.”

Now embarrassment was added to the emotional blend he was betraying. “I think I’d better head straight back into suspension,” Oscar said. “Who else?”

“Us as well,” Tomansio said.

Inigo and Corrie-Lyn consulted on some unknown level. “We’ll sleep it out,” Inigo said. “There’s nothing for me to do until we reach Makkathran. Is there?”

“No,” Aaron confirmed. “How about you?” he asked Troblum.

“Me what?”

“Okay, then. That’s myself, Araminta-two, and Troblum staying up for the rest of the flight.”

“I’m sure you’ll all be very happy together,” Corrie-Lyn said. Her mental shield allowed no feeling to show through.

It didn’t matter, Aaron knew how much she was laughing inside.

Everyone in the Commonwealth was desperate to know what the hell that confrontation between Araminta and Ethan had been about. She was many? Like a multiple? But she wasn’t. So was she referring to the other Dreamers? She claimed to be with Inigo. And why had he chosen now to release the Last Dream? Had Araminta asked him to?

Nobody knew. And for all her apparent devotion to Living Dream, Araminta resolutely refused to enlighten her desperate followers back in the Commonwealth or her equally vociferous opponents. Strangely, Ethan gave nothing away, either.

So the Pilgrimage fleet flew on at fifty-six light-years an hour toward the Void for day after day with no change. It was apparent now that nothing could stop it apart from the warrior Raiel.

Or perhaps Justine and the Third Dreamer, some suggested. Gore certainly had some kind of idea. He, too, proved elusive.

They were odd days, those which marked the flight of the Pilgrimage fleet. The whole Commonwealth knew that if it was successful, that was the end of everything, that if they were lucky, the Heart would become aware of them and bring their stars and planets unharmed through the Void’s boundary as it swept out to engulf the galaxy. Devoid of ANA’s guidance, Higher worlds were turning their replicator systems to producing armadas of starships in preparation to flee the galaxy. On the Outer worlds, anyone lucky enough to own a starship was busy modifying it to make an intergalactic trip. The Greater Commonwealth government contingency was to have everyone update his or her secure memory store, which would then be carried by navy ships to whatever cluster of stars was selected to establish the New Commonwealth, a plan of action invoking the spirit of the New47 worlds of a millennium ago. Knowing your new self would be resurrected in an alien galaxy at some unknown time in the future wasn’t quite as reassuring as it should have been, not when that meant you’d have to watch your immediate doom smashing down out of the sky.

Odd days. And that was without the declaration of absolute war by the Ocisen Empire. Further threats of hostile action from eight of the sentient species the Commonwealth had contact with. Appeals for technological help and starships from another three races, including the Hancher.

Odd days confused even more when the High Angel reappeared back in Icalanise orbit and its human inhabitants started broadcasting their sojourn into a gas giant’s atmosphere, complete with the brief conflict they’d witnessed through the smog, a conflict High Angel refused to comment on.

Odd days in which those who had instigated the crisis in the first place started to falter. The followers of Living Dream left behind began to question their commitment in the light of the Last Dream to such an extent that the preparation for the second Pilgrimage fleet was openly challenged. A great many argued that the new ships would be better used for fleeing the expanding boundary rather than seeking refuge within, where their ultimate future was now less than certain.

Days that made not the slightest difference to those on the Pilgrimage fleet. Hour after hour they continued to drop relay stations as they went, providing a straight electronic channel back to Ellezelin and the unisphere as well as stretching the gaiafield contact across the galaxy.

Araminta saw only the scattering of turquoise glimmer points flowing past on the other side of the observation deck. Hysradar revealed the crowded band of globular clusters that constituted the Wall growing closer and closer. Then came the definitive quantum signature of FTL ships approaching from the center of the galaxy. Over fifty of them. Even that didn’t stir the Dreamer’s cool composure as she led her followers onward to their promised destiny.

Unisphere access to the sensor feeds rose sharply as the entire Greater Commonwealth sought to witness the outcome. Gaiamotes were opened wide to receive Araminta’s gifting.

The imagery and sensations ended without warning. Two hundred light-years behind the Pilgrimage fleet, eight relay stations failed simultaneously. Nobody knew what was happening.

Paula did. She was sitting in Qatux’s private chamber, watching a display similar to a holographic portal projection. The warrior Raiel had taken out Living Dream’s relays; now the main attack force was converging on the twelve giant ships.

Over the next nine hours eighteen gas giants were obliterated, their dying mass converted to exotic energy. Some resulted in omnidirectional distortion waves slicing through hyperspace. Others were subject to incredibly complex formatting architecture, producing coherent beams targeting specific Pilgrimage ships.

The Sol barrier force fields protecting the ships resisted every attack tactic, every weapon the warrior Raiel had. As well they might; they were the best it was possible to create. If anything, the Accelerators had improved the design they’d reverse engineered from the Dyson Alpha generator.

When the Pilgrimage fleet was halfway across the Gulf, the warrior Raiel withdrew, allowing it to continue unimpeded.

“I feel shame this day,” Qatux said.

“I feel anger,” Paula told him. She rubbed her hand across her face, unpleasantly weary from watching the aborted interception. “Did they find any trace of Ilanthe?”

“Regrettably not. If it is there, it is exceptionally well stealthed.”

“Crap! We know the ship that picked it up was equipped with high-level stealth. But I never expected it to elude your warrior class.”

“Even if they had detected the ship, there would be nothing they could do about it. The force fields the Accelerators built were flawless.”

“There’s nothing else left, then?”

“Our warships are abandoning the Gulf where they have patrolled for these past million years. Now there is only one option remaining: the containment.”

“What’s that?”

Qatux waved one of his two large tentacles at the glowing images that floated across the chamber. “See. It begins.”

Ever since their invasion armada had failed to defeat or even return from the Void, the Raiel had been preparing for what they regarded as the inevitable catastrophic expansion phase. The strategy was centered on the largest machines the Raiel ever constructed. Humans called them DF spheres, which they first encountered at Dyson Alpha generating the shield that imprisoned the entire Prime solar system. The second encounter was at Centurion Station, which indicated they had more than one function.

Once the Raiel had established their production facilities in a dozen star systems, the gas-giant-size spheres were distributed throughout the Wall. Over ten million of them had been made over the course of a hundred thousand years, of which only seven had ever been diverted to deal with other problems: Two were loaned to the Anomine, three loaned to species that faced similar difficulties, and two used to imprison stars that were going nova to protect nearby prestarflight civilizations that would have been eradicated by the radiation.

Now, courtesy of Qatux’s status, Paula was observing the overview of their activation. During the Void’s last brief expansion when Araminta had denied the Skylord, the DF spheres had all moved into a close orbit around the stars they were orbiting in preparation for their final phase. Now they began to exert colossal gravity fields, increasing the gravity gradient within their host stars, accelerating the fusion rate.

Throughout the Wall, supergiant stars started to brighten, chasing up through the spectrum to attain the blue-white pinnacle.

“Their raised power levels will be consumed by our defense systems to produce bands of dark force much like the force fields your Accelerators learned how to create,” Qatux explained. “They will link up into a bracelet and ultimately expand into a sphere which englobes the entire Gulf.”

“The containment,” Paula murmured in amazement. The Raiel had conceived a true marvel, an endeavor that until today she’d have said could only possibly belong to a postphysical. It almost made her feel sorry for the Raiel; to have devoted their entire race to such a feat meant they had nothing else. Their commitment to overcome the Void had imprisoned them as surely as if they were inside it.

After a few hours the glittering band of stars circling the chamber was showing a filigree of black lines multiplying along its inner edge, slowly coalescing into a wide bracelet.

“Will it hold the Void?” she asked as she watched the slow progress of the lines.

“We don’t know. We have never dared use it before. Our hope is that it can last long enough so the Void consumes all the mass left within the Gulf as it actualizes the reset dreams of everyone inside. Once its fuel is exhausted, it will collapse. If the Void is able to break through, the resultant surge may well be so fast as to overwhelm any starships seeking to leave the galaxy.”

“So if it works, everyone inside the Void will die?”

“And the galaxy will live.”