The Evolutionary Void (32 page)

“What?” he finally asked when a particularly sharp burst of indignation
shunted his attention from Troblum’s amazing collection of Starflyer War
memorabilia. He shifted around so that he was looking back into the lounge. His
visor was open, so she could see his ire as well as feel it in the gaiafield.

Beckia gave him a look etched with rebuke. She was curled up on a long
corner couch, sipping a hot chocolate. Her armor was open and ready on the
floor beside her. “Haven’t you been following the news?” she replied.

He waved a gauntleted hand toward Francola Wood. “No! This is my shift,
remember? I’d like to focus on that.”

“No need to get touchy. The remote sensors will give us plenty of
warning. Besides, you don’t really think she’s coming back here, do you?”

“We have to be ready in case she does,” he said, hating how lame he
sounded.

“Do you know something we don’t, Oscar?”

It was there again, that niggling little question of trust that had hung
between them all since they had bumped into the Cat. “Apparently, some agents
got onto the path at Chobamba,” he said. “Paula thinks they might flush her out
faster than she’d like. Personally, I think that’s bullshit, but …”

“The paths aren’t straight lines; you know that.”

“I know. So what’s troubling you?”

“Local news. It’s getting worse here.”

“I’d like to say: impossible.”

“Take a look. I’ll watch the remotes for a minute.”

Against his better judgment, Oscar told his u-shadow to prepare a
summary. Beckia was right; it wasn’t pleasant. Once it had been confirmed that
Araminta was on Chobamba, Phelim had begun withdrawing the paramilitary troops
from Viotia. It was a well-planned pullout; starting with the cities farthest
from Colwyn City. Ludor, the capital over on the Suvorov continent, had been
among the first places to see the big dark capsules streak away. It also had
the highest number of Living Dream followers. Without the paramilitaries to
guarantee protection, Viotia’s native population began to turn on them. Local
police forces did nothing to prevent the attacks; on several occasions they
were seen joining in. Hospitals, already overcrowded from riot casualties, were
deluged by yet more injured.

In response, Phelim announced that the Ellezelin presence in Colwyn City
would remain until Living Dream followers were safe. He didn’t say anything
about the rest of the planet, and the paramilitary withdrawal continued
unabated. Thousands of the faithful fled in their capsules, hoping to pass
through the wormhole. But Phelim wouldn’t lower Colwyn City’s force field for
anyone except the Ellezelin capsules. Thousands of the frantic refugees were
stacking up in the skies outside the city. The lucky tens of thousands of
followers who originally had taken up residence in Colwyn City were now
trekking across a phenomenally hostile urban landscape, desperately trying to
reach the docks where the wormhole would take them back to Ellezelin. It was
almost impossible for them to get there; every street was seething with locals
on the lookout for the faithful. All the Ellezelin capsules inside the force
field were doing now was running a massive evacuation operation. Phelim had
indicated that if there was no end to the violence against Living Dream
members, he would impose a daylong curfew. That didn’t help; vigilante groups
weren’t even waiting for the followers to try to make a dash for safety.
Reports were coming in of houses being broken into to extract justice. Images
of bodies savagely beaten to death in their own homes were snatched by braver
reporters; there were a lot of children caught up in the violence. Of course,
the most devout Living Dream followers didn’t have memorycells, because Edeard
never had and they were all going to follow Inigo’s dreams into the Void, where
such contrivances were an irrelevance.

“Crap,” Oscar muttered. It would take a generation for Viotia to recover,
he knew. If it ever did. If it even still existed in a generation.

“We’re not supposed to get sidetracked,” Beckia said quietly. “But it’s
hard sometimes. That’s when your strength is really tested.”

“I lived through worse before,” Oscar said, aiming for tough and failing
woefully.
Dead children, for God’s sake; in the
Commonwealth, where everyone should be safe and happy
.

“So it would never happen again.”

“Yeah,” he said as he pushed the news shows to peripheral mode.
“Something like that.” Because he was distracted, because he wasn’t paying full
attention to that strange ancient strand of neutral thought in Francola Wood,
he was almost immediately aware when it began to change, to stir. Freshen: the
only analogy he could come up with.

“Uh oh,” Oscar murmured. Naturally, when he tried to chase down the
sensation, the damn thing slithered about, dwindling from perception.

“What now?” Beckia was rising from the couch.

“Get your suit on.” Oscar’s u-shadow was relaying images from the stealth
sensors. It looked like he wasn’t the only one in tune with the path. Several
members of the Welcome Team were on the move, emerging from the tangle of
whiplit fronds to slip past the dapol trunks. Through the lounge windows he saw
a flock of caylars take flight, their ultramarine wings flapping urgently.
She can’t be this stupid
, he thought. The girl he’d seen
in Bodant Park had been scared, yes, but everything she’d done spoke of a smart
mind.

Oscar opened a secure channel to Tomansio, who was in their stolen
capsule, flying a random course over the city. “Get over here. I think we’re
going to need you.”

“She’s coming?”

“I don’t know, but something’s happening.”

“On my way. Two minutes.”

Sensors showed several team members stepping out of their apartments in
full armor. They began to sprint over the long gardens that led down to
Francola Wood.

Beckia walked up beside him, her helmet sealing up. Oscar’s visor closed
as his integral force field established itself. He ran a check on his
heavy-caliber weapons. Accelerants flooded into his bloodstream as biononics
complemented his muscles. “Here we go again,” he said in complete dismay. A
low-power disrupter pulse shattered the lounge’s big window wall, and they ran
out onto the lawn.

Mellanie’s Redemption
hung in transdimensional
suspension a hundred thousand kilometers above Viotia. Passive sensors absorbed
what information they could, revealing that space around the planet was empty
apart from a single Dunbavend Line starship in a thousand-kilometer orbit. For
a passenger ship it seemed to have an awful lot of weapons systems, several of
which were active.

A secure TD link routed Troblum’s u-shadow to the planetary cybersphere,
allowing him to monitor events. The u-shadow also kept watch for the SI. So far
it hadn’t intercepted his connection, but Troblum was convinced it would be
watching the data flowing along the link.

“Why are we here?” Catriona Saleeb asked. She was sitting on a simple
stool beside the cabin wall, which had pushed out a small wooden bar.
Appropriately, she was dressed for an evening out on the town, wearing a slinky
blue snakeskin dress, her hair spiraling in an elaborate style and sparkling
with small red gems.

“It was the course I’d designated before the Swarm went active,” Troblum
said gruffly. “And we had to test the hyperdrive.”

Catriona glanced at the big image of Viotia that a portal was projecting
into the middle of the cabin. “Are you going to call him?”

“Who?”

“Oscar Monroe.”

“No.” He brought some performance tables into his exovision and studied
them, checking through the hyperdrive’s functions. Peripheral displays showed
the violence playing out across the planet as residents took their revenge on
Living Dream members.

“If you help them, they’ll take care of the Cat,” she said.

His u-shadow slid the performance tables to one side. He gave her an
angry stare. “They’ll do that anyway. Paula knows she’s been taken out of
suspension; she won’t rest until the Cat is back where she belongs. It’s over.
Do you understand that? Now I’m going to review the hyperdrive. Once I’m satisfied
it’s working correctly, we’ll leave.”

“I just want you to be safe; you know that.” Catriona picked up a
long-stemmed cocktail glass and drained its sticky red liquid. She swirled the
ice cubes around the bottom. “And I know you need closure on the Cat. If you
run now, you’ll never know what happened. You won’t be able to live with that.
You’ll spend the rest of your life seeing her everywhere; you’ll panic at every
strange noise in the wind.”

“I’m not that weak.”

“If you’re not afraid, then call Oscar.”

“That’s machine logic.”

Her lips pouted, their glossy scales darkening down to purple. “For
someone who cares about no one, you can be a real bastard at times.”

“Shut the fuck up. I mean it.” He brought his exovision intensity up. On
a street in Colwyn City a family of Living Dream followers was being chased by
a mob armed with power tools and thick clubs. Their clothes had betrayed them,
made from simple cloth in old styles. Two adults were dragging along three
terrified crying children, the oldest no more than eleven. It was a residential
street, houses and apartment blocks packed tight. The father found one he
obviously recognized and dashed up to the front door, pounding away, yelling
furiously. The mob slowed and surrounded them in an eerily quiet, efficient
maneuver, some primeval hunter knowledge governing their movements. They closed
in. The father kept hitting the door with his fist while the weeping mother
pleaded for her children to be let through. As if knowing how futile it was,
she put her arms around them, clutching them to her as she started screaming.
The news show’s reporter was good, focusing perfectly on the makeshift clubs as
they rose.

Troblum actually turned his head away as his u-shadow canceled the news
show; it was all too vivid.

“Do you want to be human?” Troblum asked. “Did you think I would grow you
a clone body and transfer your personality in?”

“Excuse me?”

“Is that what you were hoping for?”

“No,” Catriona said, sounding quite shocked.

“I won’t do that. Not ever. The universe doesn’t need more humans. We
have nothing to offer the universe. We need to leave our original form behind.
It does nothing but generate misery and suffering. The External worlds are full
of animals. They can’t be classified as true humans. They don’t think; they
just act. Animals, that’s all they are—animals.”

“So how do you define real humans? People like yourself?”

“A real person would want independence. If you were real, you’d want a
body. Did you talk about it with Trisha and Isabella and Howard?”

“Troblum?” She sounded troubled. “Don’t.”

“Was Howard a part of it, too? Were you going to put pressure on me to
make it happen?”

“No.”

“Did you tell the Cat about me?” he yelled.

“Stop this!”

“I don’t need you.”

“But I need you. I love you.”

“Don’t be stupid.”

She climbed off the stool and knelt at his feet. “I only exist because of
you. How could I not love you for that? I would not betray you. I cannot. You
know this.”

Troblum flinched. His hand hovered above her thick, tightly wound hair.

“Please,” she said. There were tears in her eyes as she looked up at him.
“Please, Troblum. Don’t do this to yourself.”

He sighed, lowering his palm onto her head, feeling the springy strands
of hair against his skin. Then her hand closed around his, letting him know her
warmth, her light touch. She kissed his fingers one at a time. Troblum groaned,
half-ashamed, half-delighted.
She’s not real. She’s an
I-sentient. Does that make her the perfect human for me?
His whole mind
was in chaos.

“You’d change,” he whispered. “If I gave you a meat body, you’d change.
Your routines would be running in neural paths that are never fixed. I don’t
want you to change.”

“I don’t want a meat body. I just want you. Always. And I need you to be
safe and happy for that to happen. Do you understand that, Troblum?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I get it.”

The starship’s sensors reported energy weapon discharges above Colwyn
City. Troblum frowned. “What’s that?” he queried. His u-shadow started refining
the scan.