The Dreaming Void (54 page)

But in slow increments, every time she needed to undergo rejuvenation, she modified a little more of her psychoneural profiling. At the end of the three-century process, she was still obsessive about a great many things, but now it was through choice rather than a physically ordained compulsion. One time long before, when she had tried to overcome mentally her need to apprehend a criminal in order to achieve a greater goal, the effort had put her body into a severe type of shock. By removing the Foundation's physiological constraints, her mind now could flourish in ways her long-departed designers never had envisaged. She had been born with the intention of tracking down individual criminals, the kind who might plague the society of Huxley's Haven, but now she had the freedom to take an overview. Yet none of the liberations she selected for herself ever touched the core of her identity; she always retained her intuitive understanding of right and wrong. Her soul was untainted.

Iaioud tested her new versatile self to the extreme. She accepted that the way in which the Halgarth collective had set up the constitution was intrinsically wrong, oppressing an entire population. In fact, she probably would have acknowledged that before. But the whole nature of Iaioud's rigid society was uncomfortably close to that of Huxley's Haven. After a while she decided that the difference was simple enough. On Iaioud people were being kept in line by a brutally authoritarian regime misusing Commonwealth medical technology. On Huxley's Haven strictures and conformity came from within. Possibly there had been a crime back at the founding, when the Human Structure Foundation had started birthing an entire population with DNA modified for its grand scheme. The old liberal groups might have been right, a thought that would have finally pleased the radicals who had stolen her as a baby. But however great the sin committed at its genesis, the constraints placed on the population of Huxley's Haven were internal. Its people now could not be changed without destroying what they were—by far the bigger crime.

So she convinced herself, anyway. These days she wrote it off as an argument between philosophies, interesting and completely disconnected from real life. The Commonwealth had enough real problems to keep her fully occupied, though even she had to admit that the whole Pilgrimage issue was creating some unique complications.

For once she couldn't decide. Did Living Dream have the right to set off on Pilgrimage and possible consequences be damned? Her dilemma arose from the total lack of empirical evidence that the Void would consume the rest of the galaxy. She had to admit that a lot of pro-Pilgrimage factions and commentators were right to be skeptical. The assumption that Living Dream was courting annihilation was based entirely on information that came from the Raiel. The immense time scale since the last catastrophic macroexpansion phase would distort any information no matter how well stored; throw in aliens with their own agenda and she simply could not accept the claim at face value.

ANA: Governance was keen to acquire more information on the situation; that gave Paula a useful outlet for her energies and, thankfully, little time to brood over the politics involved. Her assignment, as always, was to stop the factions from engineering the physical citizens of the Commonwealth into actions they otherwise would not have performed.

She'd left the St. Mary's clinic and returned to her ship, the
Alexis Denken,
a sleek ultradrive vessel that ANA: Governance had supplied and armed to a degree that would have alarmed any navy captain. She left the planet and then hung in transdimensional suspension twenty AU out from the star. It was a position that allowed her to monitor the FTL traffic within the Anagaska system with astonishing accuracy. Unfortunately, the one thing her ship's sensors could not do was locate a cold trail. There was no trace of Aaron's ship. Given the time between the raid on the clinic and her arrival, she suspected that he had an ultradrive ship. Marius certainly had one. Her u-shadow monitored him arriving back at the city starport and getting into a private yacht.
Alexis Denken
's sensors tracked it slipping into hyperspace. For those in the know, the signature was indicative of an ultradrive.

An hour later the Delivery Man took off in his own ship, which had an equally suspicious drive signature. He flew away in almost exactly the opposite direction of Marius. Ten minutes later another starship dropped out of transdimensional suspension, where it had been waiting in the system's cometary halo, and began to fly along the same course as the Delivery Man.

“Good luck,” Paula sent to Justine.

“Thanks.”

Paula opened an ultrasecure link to ANA: Governance. “It appears your ultradrive technology is completely compromised,” she reported.

“To be expected,” ANA: Governance replied. “It does not require my full capacity to derive the theory behind it. Most factions would have the intellectual resources. Once the equations are available, any Higher replicator above level five could produce the appropriate hardware.”

“I still think you should exert a little more authority. After all, the factions are all part of you.”

“Factions are how I remain integral. I am plural.”

“The way you say it makes it sound like you have the electronic version of bipolar disorder.”

“More like multi-billion-polar. But that is what I am. All individuals who join me do so by imprinting their personality routines upon me. I am the collective consciousness of all ANA inhabitants; that is the very basis of my authority. Once that essence is bequeathed, they are free to become what they want. I do not take their memories, too; that would be an annexation of individuality.”

“You have to pass through the eye of the needle to live in the playground of the gods.”

“One of Inigo's better quotes,” ANA: Governance said with a cadence of amusement. “Shame about the rest of that sermon.”

“You don't help make my job any easier.”

“Any and all of my resources are available to you.”

“But there's only one of me, and I feel like I'm battling the Hydra out here.”

“This lack of self-confidence is unlike you. What is the matter?”

“The Pilgrimage, of course. Should it be allowed?”

“The humans of Living Dream believe it to be both their right and their destiny. They are billions in number. How can that much belief be wrong?”

“Because they might be endangering trillions.”

“True. This is not a question which has an answer. Not in the absolute terms you are demanding.”

“What if they do trigger the Void's final devourment phase or at least a bad one?”

“Ah, now, that is the real question. It's also one which I doubt we can have prior knowledge of. Neither I nor any of the postphysicals I have interacted with are aware of what happens inside the Void.”

“Inigo showed you.”

“Inigo showed us the fate of humans in the Void. Which incidentally isn't too dissimilar to downloading yourself into me, though the Void has the advantage of quasi-mystical overtones to win over the technophobes among humanity. And you get to remain physical. What he did not show us is the nature of the Void itself.”

“So you're prepared to take the risk?”

“At this moment I am prepared to let the players strut the stage.”

“Yes. That's about as undefinitive as it gets.”

“If I were to forbid the Pilgrimage and enforce that decision, it would trigger a split within myself. Pro-Pilgrimage factions such as the Advancers would likely attempt to create their own version of myself. And kindly remember I am not a virtual environment. I am fully established within the quantum field intersections around Earth.”

“You're scared of a rival?”

“The human race has never been so unified as it is today. It has taken our entire history to reach this congruity. People, all people, lead a good life filled with as much diversity as they wish to undergo. They migrate inward until they download into me. Within me they are free to transcend in any way imagination and ability can combine. One day, as a whole, I will become postphysical. Humans who do not wish to travel along that path will begin afresh. That is the vision of evolution which awaits us. A ‘rival' focal point would distort that, possibly even damage or dilute the moment of singularity.”

“There can only be one god, huh?”

“There can be many. I simply wish to avoid engendering hostile ones. No one wants to see a war in heaven. Trust me, it would make a Void devourment seem trivial.”

“I thought diversity was our virtue.”

“It is one of them and, as such, flourishes within me.”

“But …”

“It is also a danger that can lead to our destruction. Opposing forces have to be balanced. That is my function.”

“And this is one instance where you're going to fail if you're not careful.”

“Undoubtedly.”

“So we have to find other options.”

“As people have sought since civilization began on Earth. That, I think, is a greater virtue.”

“Okay, then.” Paula took a moment to marshal her thoughts. “I'm uncertain who is behind the raid on the clinic. It is puzzling why the Advancers and Conservatives should both have their representatives there after the fact. Do you think a third faction is involved?”

“Very likely. I do not know which one. Many alliances are being formed and broken. However, you may soon be able to establish the identity. Admiral Kazimir is currently receiving a report from the base admiral at the
High Angel.
He will probably ask you to tackle it.”

“Ah.”

“If you need anything.”

“I'll let you know.”

The link ended. Paula sat back on the deep curving chair the starship's cabin had molded for her. Given her own uncertainty about the mission, she was feeling vaguely troubled by the lack of reassurance ANA: Governance could offer. She supposed she should be grateful it had been so honest with her.

Kazimir called less than a minute later. “How did the Anagaska inquiry go?” he asked.

“Positive result. It was definitely someone with advanced biononics and possibly an ultradrive ship. The target was Inigo's old memorycell.”

“Interesting. And I've just had a report that the
Alini,
a private starship, docked at
High Angel.
”

“How is that relevant?”

“It docked at the Raiel dome. The navy sensors detected a drive signature, which could indicate an ultradrive.”

Paula was suddenly very interested. “Did it, now? There are very few humans the Raiel will allow into their dome. Who does the
Alini
belong to?”

“Unknown. It's registered to a company on Sholapur.”

“I'm on my way.”

The Delivery Man landed at Daroca's main starport, parking his ultradrive ship, the
Jomo,
on a pad connected to the third terminal building, which dealt with private yachts. Then he started walking across the field to the nearby hangar zone. Even knowing all about the diversion bug infiltrated into the ground navigation section of the starport's smartcore did not help him. All the hangars were identical, the rows regimented. It was mildly confusing. Not that he would lose his way, not with all his enrichments and an instinctive sense of direction. But just to be on the safe side, his u-shadow snatched real-time images from a sensor satellite and guided him directly.

Eventually he was standing at the base of a glossy black wall where the small side door was protected by an excellent security shield. Not even his full field function scan could determine what lay inside. He smiled. This was more like it.

His biononics began to modify their field function, pushing a variety of energy patterns against the security shield, introducing small instabilities that quickly began to amplify. His u-shadow reached through the fluctuating gaps and launched a flurry of smart trojans into the hangar net.

The door irised open.

Ninety-seven seconds.
Not bad.

Inside, his field function scanned, looking for possible guard armaments, while his u-shadow rifled through the hangar's electronic systems. Troblum had set up a fairly standard defense network with concentric shielding around the main section of the hangar. The physicist was clearly more interested in maintaining privacy than in providing physical protection.

His scan did not reveal any human presence in the hangar. The first office was clearly just a reception area, cover for anyone who did make it past the diversion system. Beyond that was a second office with one of the biggest smartcores the Delivery Man had ever seen. It was not connected to the hangar network or the unisphere. His u-shadow established a link to its peripheral systems and began to probe the available files.

The Delivery Man went into the main hangar. He whistled softly at the vast array of Neumann cybernetic modules occupying half the space inside. The machine was powered down, but he was familiar enough with the technology to guess that its sophistication probably put it beyond a level-six replicator. That was not something an individual Higher citizen normally possessed. No wonder Troblum needed such a large smartcore; nothing else could operate such a rig.