The Evolutionary Void (53 page)

“Negative. They are tracking your presence through the
telepathy effect. It is completely pervasive and leaves you exposed wherever
you are.”

Subject alpha: “So?”

“Switch off your force field. I will render you unconscious.
If you are not thinking, your thoughts cannot betray our location.”

Subject beta: “Inigo! No! He’ll kill us both. He will; it’s
what he does.”

“You are no use to me dead.”

Alert> Target acquisition: Building C rooftop.

Armed> Microkinetics suppression barrage. Fire.

Target eliminated.

Subject alpha: “But I can’t stop the Void if I’m unconscious.”

“When I acquire Isaacs, I will insist he switch off the
telepathy effect. No one will be able to find you then.”

Subject alpha: “Oh, sweet Lady.”

Subject beta: “No no no.”

Subject alpha: “You look after Corrie-Lyn, too.”

“I will.”

Alert> Nine Chikoya deploying in acquisition formation.

Subject alpha: “Aaron, whatever’s left of the real you in
there, I’m holding you to that.”

Exit capsule approaching. Landing zone designated to u-shadow.
Three decoy capsules en route—safety limiters disabled.

“You can rely on me.”

Subject alpha: “Very well.”

Subject beta: “No! Inigo, no, please.”

Scan confirmation, subject alpha force field deactivated.
Targeting.

Armed> Microkinetics, minimal tissue damage mode selected,
neurosedative tip loaded. Fire.

Subject beta: “No! Oh, Lady, you’ve killed him. Get away from
me. Get away, you monster.”

Subject beta attempting to run.

Targeting.

Armed> Microkinetic, minimal tissue damage mode selected,
neurosedative tip loaded. Fire.

Alert> Five Chikoya approaching, open assault formation.

Multiple target acquisition.

Armed> Disrupter pulse. Maximum power rating. Sequential
fire. U-shadow update: landing exit capsule behind Building D.

Armed> Neutron lasers. Maximum power rating. Sequential
fire.

U-shadow update: decoy capsules on collision vector. Mach
eight. Accelerating.

Armed> Microkinetics. Enhanced explosive warheads. Free
fire authority.

Armed> Ariel smartseeker stealth mines. Chikoya profile
loaded. Dispense.

Alert> New targets.

Fire.

Fire.

Fire.

The Delivery Man’s biononics ran a last scan over the weird
active-molecular vortex and the way it spun down through the quantum fields. It
was an interesting chunk of superphysics technology, certainly. He had no idea what
its function might actually be, though he suspected it was an elaborate
experiment. Whatever it was, he was fairly sure it wasn’t the elevation
mechanism.

His u-shadow opened a link to Gore. “Washout,” he reported.

“Yeah, me, too.”

“I’m coming out.” There was little light in the vast cave, a few cold
blue patches up amid the multitude of stalactites eighty meters above his head.
The bottom quarter of the cave had been cut smooth and flat, leaving the
natural rock formations above. Even two and a half thousand years ago, when the
advanced Anomine had set it up, the cave couldn’t have been a terribly
practical place. That was the thing with the Anomine; everything had an
aesthetic aspect.

Water dripped out of the deep fissures and off the ends of the stalactites,
creating long pungent algal ribbons down the rough walls. Drainage channels had
clogged, leaving dank puddles spreading across the floor. The vortex carried on
regardless; moisture and murky air were never going to affect its composition
or function.

As he retraced his steps along the winding passage back out to the
surface, the Delivery Man was puzzled by the lack of any communication system
connected to the vortex. If it was an experiment, surely they would need to
monitor the results; same for a control system.
Or maybe
I’m missing something
, he thought wearily.
Maybe
there is an ultrasophisticated net covering the whole planet that biononic
scans are simply too primitive to discover
. He was grasping at straws
and knew it. The
Last Throw
’s sensors were good.
They’d detected a hundred twenty-four advanced devices still functional on the
planet, of which the vortex was the eleventh they’d examined. If there was some
kind of web linking them,
Last Throw
’s sensors would
have revealed it.

A quarter of an hour later, the Delivery Man walked out into the evening
sunlight. Tall cumulonimbus scurried through the darkening sky, splashed a pale
rose gold by the vanishing sun. From his position high up a plateau wall, the
countryside swept away to the southeast, its farthest fringes already turning
to black. Several rivers traced bright silver threads across the mauve and jade
vegetation. Then there was the city to the east, larger and more imposing than
any of Earth’s cities even at the height of the population boom. A forest of
tall towers stretched over a mile into the air; elaborate spiked spheres and
curving pyramids filled the ground between the soaring spires like foothills.
Lights were still shining through windows and open arches as the service machinery
maintained the city in perfect readiness for occupation.

It was completely devoid of anyone, which he found strangely sad; it
reminded him of a spurned lover. The remaining Anomine chose to live in their
farm villages out in the open land. He could even see several of their little
settlements amid the darkening land, flickering orange lights growing as the
nightly fires were lit. He never did get that philosophy, living in the shadow
of a past civilization, knowing that at any time they could simply move into
the giant towers and live a life of unrivaled luxury, challenge their minds
once again. Yet instead, they rejected any form of technology beyond
labor-animal carts and plows, and filled their days tilling the fields and
building huts.

The
Last Throw
came streaking in over the
mountains behind him to finish up hovering a few centimeters above the
succulent spiral grass-equivalent. He drifted up into the airlock.

“This is getting us nowhere fast,” Gore grumbled as the Delivery Man
arrived in the main cabin.

“It’s your procedure. What else have we got? There’re not too many of
these things to examine.”

“They’re all small scale. We have to look big.”

“We don’t know that, remember,” the Delivery Man chided as he settled in
a broad leather-cushioned scoop chair. “We simply don’t know what it is. That
vortex I just examined. It had to be linked with the elevation mechanism.”

“How?” Gore snapped.

“I think it was some kind of experiment, probing the local quantum
structure. That kind of knowledge could only help contribute to going
postphysical, surely.”

“Don’t call me Shirley.”

“What?”

Gore ran a hand over his forehead. “Yeah. Right. Whatever.”

The Delivery Man was mildly puzzled by Gore’s lack of focus. It wasn’t
like him at all. “All right. So what I was thinking is that there has to be
some kind of web and database in the cities.”

“There is. You can’t access it.”

“Why not?”

“The AIs are sentient. They won’t allow any information retrieval.”

“That’s stupid.”

“From our point of view, yes, but they’re the same as the borderguards:
They maintain the homeworld’s sanctity; the AIs keep the Anomine’s information
safe.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s what the Anomine do; that’s what they are. They’re
entitled to protect what they’ve built, same as anyone.”

“But we’re not damag—”

“I know!” Gore snarled. “I fucking know that, all right. We have to work
around this. And listening to you sitting there whining twenty-four seven is no
fucking help at all. Jezus, I should have lived a fucking normal
twenty-first-century life and died properly. Why the hell do I fucking bother
to help you moron supermen? Certainly not the gratitude.”

The Delivery Man only just stopped himself from opening his jaw to gawp
at the gold-skinned man sitting in his antique orange shell chair. He was about
to ask what the problem was, then realized. “She’ll be out of suspension soon,”
he said sympathetically.

Gore grunted, shoving himself farther back in his chair’s cushioning.
“She should’ve been there by now.”

“We don’t know. In the Void we just don’t know. Time flow there isn’t
uniform.”

“Maybe.”

“The confluence nests are functioning. She will dream Makkathran for you;
she’ll be there.”

“It’ll mean crap if we don’t find the mechanism.”

“I know. And we’ve still got Marius to deal with when we do.” The
Delivery Man had been perturbed when the sensors showed them that Marius had
gotten past the borderguard stations. The Accelerator agent’s ship had
immediately dropped back into stealth mode once it was inside the cometary
belt. Currently it was lurking amid the orbital debris cloud above the Anomine
homeworld, watching them zip over the planet. It wouldn’t take much to work out
what they were doing.

“Ha. That dick. We can take him whenever we want.”

“We don’t know that.”

“It takes smarter and tougher than him to catch me with my ass hanging
out.”

The Delivery Man shook his head. He couldn’t decide if the machismo was
worse than the insecurity. “Well, let’s just hope it doesn’t come to that.”

“Oh, yeah. Wishful thinking; that’s what keeps the universe ticking.”

The Delivery Man groaned and gave up.

Gore’s golden lips parted in a small smile. “The navy teams didn’t
exactly push the AIs.”

“Uh huh,” the Delivery Man said warily.

“We’ve got another hundred or so of these tech high spots left to
examine, right? So that’s not going to take more than four or five days if we
hustle.”

“That sounds about right.”

“Then we do it. If we draw a blank, we go to plan B.”

“Which is?”

“Did you know I actually knew Ozzie?”

“I didn’t, but it doesn’t surprise me. You were contemporaries.”

“He pulled off two of the greatest thefts in human history.”

“Two? I knew there was some dispute with Nigel about taking the
Charybdis.”

“Dispute? Jesus, do they even teach you people history these days? Nigel
nearly killed him, and that’s not a metaphor.”

The Delivery Man ignored the “you people” crack. After two weeks cooped
up in the
Last Throw
’s cabin with Gore, it was
almost a compliment. “So what was the first crime?”

Gore grinned. “The great wormhole heist. The smart-ass bastard cleaned
out the Vegas casinos, and nobody ever knew it was him. Not until after the war
and Orion let it slip. Can you imagine that?”

“No, I truly cannot.”

“Well, sonny, you and I are going to steal the knowledge of an entire
species. If that’s what it takes to find this goddamn mechanism, then that’s
what we’re going to do. Nobody will remember Ozzie’s legend then, so screw
him.”

I didn’t know it anyway
, the Delivery Man
complained silently. He had no idea how Gore was planning to circumvent the
Anomine AIs, but he suspected it wouldn’t be a quiet method.

“We can visit any place on your world where we sense
those who are fulfilled gathering in readiness for our guidance to the Heart,”
the Skylord had said in answer to Edeard’s question
.

“So the towers of this city where you
have come today play no part in guidance?”

“Those who inhabited this world before
you built them to bid their kind farewell. They are where we came before;
therefore, they are where we come now. You use them as they did.”

“Then we can call you to gather us from
anywhere?”

“Of course. My kindred welcome all those
who have reached fulfillment. It is our purpose.”

Edeard kept dreaming that single crucial event over and over. It was one
of the few natural dreams he ever had. Though even that faded after a few years
in his personal time scale.

The two Skylords had been visible on the horizon every morning for eight
days, moving slowly across the pantheon of the Void’s nebulae as they
approached Querencia. Edeard stood on the highest balcony in the Orchard
Palace, staring up into the pale sky as a cool breeze wafted in off the Lyot
Sea. If he really stretched his farsight, he could just sense the placid
thoughts of the massive creatures.

Two, where every time before it has been
four. Why? Why should that be? The whole city is a unified society. I have made
sure we’ve achieved contentment within ourselves this time. That makes us
better people. So why have only two come?

He didn’t like how much that disturbed him. Even on the occasion two
times past, when Oberford’s Great Tower of Guidance was being built and the
whole economy was falling apart as if Honious were establishing its very own
kingdom of bedlam across Querencia, four Skylords had come. It was the start of
autumn on the fifth year after Finitan’s death. One of the few constants
linking his attempts to change the world for the better.

Ladydamnit, four always come now!

The breeze played over his bare skin, and he rubbed his arms absently at
the chill. Those two gauzy stars were still too far away for him to talk with
them directly. But when they were within his range, he would be asking. Yes,
indeed.

High above the compact streets and pointed roofs of Jeavons, a couple of
ge-eagles were floating lazily on the updrafts. They weren’t any he was
familiar with, and their long circling flight meant that one of them was always
turned toward the palace. He scowled up at them but resisted hauling them down
out of the sky. Someone was interested in him. Hardly news. Though none of the
independent provinces were a direct threat to Makkathran.
That
I know of. Perhaps they’re just running scared and want to spy on me to satisfy
their paranoia
. Knowing the provinces and the trouble they’d caused this
time around, it wouldn’t surprise him. But still, the brazenness: watching the
Waterwalker, the absolute Mayor of Makkathran, in his own city. That took some
gall. That in itself narrowed it down to three provinces—or, rather, their
governors: Mallux in Obershire, Kiborne in Plaxshire, or more likely Devroul in
Licshills. Yes, any one of them would dare; they were all busy establishing
their claims as unifiers to rival him. Each was fierce in his independence,
greedy in his desire to absorb his neighbor. Exactly the opposite of what the
world should be, what he was trying to make it.

He went back into the master bedchamber. Kanseen had always enjoyed the
Orchard Palace’s state rooms. It was what all the city buildings should be
like, she’d claimed, a blend of old Makkathran architecture and more practical
human adaptations. Theirs had been a pleasant two years together, though in
truth, after Kristabel’s increasing sourness, anyone else would have been a
relief. But in parallel to the breakdown of his own marriage, Macsen had become
intolerable for Kanseen, so the two of them finally winding up with each other
was almost inevitable.

Since he’d moved out of the Sampalok mansion, Macsen’s downfall had
continued at a rate that upset even Edeard. Not that there was anything he
could do to help—not yet. Macsen cut himself off from everyone: his old
friends, his children, political allies, anyone who might stand between him and
his food and drink and miserable self-pity. He also completely rejected
Edeard’s unity. Not for him the growing solidarity of the city, an extended
family whose open minds would sympathize and care for him and help him regain
his dignity and purpose in life.

The last time Edeard had farsighted him three weeks ago, the former
master of Sampalok made a woeful figure, living in some squalid room in a
Cobara household by himself, spending his coinage in nearby taverns whose forte
was cheap beer and cheaper food. His reaction to the intrusion had been a
viciously personal diatribe that went on for almost an hour before it finally
sputtered away when he succumbed to a drunken slumber.

Edeard had withdrawn then, guilty and angry in equal measure. Macsen was
one of his oldest friends; he ought to have been able to do something. Yet he
despised the way Macsen had just let go and given in to whatever Honious-born
spirits that now possessed him; he was stronger than that, Edeard knew. Yet
Macsen in his alcohol-and-kestric-derived state blamed Edeard for the way his
life had tumbled into the abyss, with his rejection of unification at the heart
of it. Edeard knew that the trust and understanding he’d brought to Makkathran
was the true way forward. He couldn’t stop now, not for one person, no matter
how much his friendship used to mean.

Edeard’s relationship with Kanseen hadn’t helped Macsen’s condition. That
was just the most personal way to wound Macsen there could be. It ensured there
would be no reconciliation now, Edeard knew, no last-minute mellowing and
putting aside of pride—not on either side. So his own triumph in establishing
the unification of the city had come at the cost of his friend and, if he
wasn’t careful, his friend’s soul, for in the end what Skylord would ever guide
Macsen’s embittered, unfulfilled soul to the Heart? He had no choice, he knew.
Each day now was simply spent putting off the inevitable. Soon a subtle
domination would have to be applied, gently guiding Macsen back into the
embrace of those who loved him.

Edeard padded over to the wide circular bed and pushed aside the gauzy
curtains that surrounded it. A hazy patch on the ceiling above the soft
mattress radiated a warm copper light, its dusky illumination just enough to
reveal the outlines of her body as she slept. The sheet had slipped down past
her shoulders, exposing skin that still gleamed from the oils the two younger girls
had massaged in at the start of the evening. It was a pleasurable
entertainment, variants of which he enjoyed most nights now. Proof, as if he
needed it, that the city was now on the right course to provide fulfillment for
everyone. Nobody censured anymore, nobody criticized or fought or complained.
They cooperated and helped one another succeed in their individual endeavors.
He had brought them liberation of themselves, the sure route to the kind of
fulfillment the Skylords sought.

Edeard bent over and kissed her gently on the lips. Hilitte stirred,
stretching herself with indolent grace, not fully awake yet smiling when she
saw him. “What time is it?” she mumbled.

“Early.”

“Poor Edeard, couldn’t you sleep?” Her gathering thoughts were tinged
with genuine concern.

“There are things I worry about,” he admitted with voice and mind.
Honesty with each other; that is the key to true unity
.

“Even now? That’s so wrong. So unfair.” Her arms rose up to twine around
his neck. “Let’s think of something else for you to occupy yourself with.”

For a second he resisted, then allowed her to pull him down so he could
lose himself in simple physical delights and forget all about the rebel
provinces and Macsen and the others who struggled against the city’s unity. For
a while at least.

Not surprisingly, Edeard didn’t wake again until the sun was well above
the horizon. He and Hilitte bathed together in the oval pool in the bathroom,
where water gurgled in along a long raised chute he’d crafted to resemble a
small stream. It also showered down on them from a bulge in the curving ceiling
when they asked; since he’d moved into the palace state rooms after the
election, he’d been modifying things so he could have any kind of spray from a
heavy jet to a light mist. He lounged in a sculpted seat at the side of the
pool, watching Hilitte rinse herself off under the fast rain of droplets,
deliberately stretching and twisting so he might appreciate her lithe figure.
Which he did, but … Kanseen had enjoyed the new improved shower, he recalled
with a touch of melancholia. That wasn’t the problem that ultimately had come
between them. They’d differed over Makkathran’s unification. How he wanted to
go about creating an atmosphere of trust, how to use family and political
supporters and those who eagerly sought the Waterwalker’s patronage, building
so many allies and seeding the districts with unity groups so that the outcome
would be inevitable. She never fully agreed with the concept, regarding it as a
form of domination.

What Kanseen did not understand and he could never explain was just how
badly wrong the nice and open and honest approach had gone—twice in a row. How
the time before, the one after the whole Oberford tower disaster, the method of
inclusion, which he’d so carefully crafted from his horrendous experience with
the nest and had given freely so Querencia might live as one, had been warped
and subverted by the malcontents of the emerging generation of strong psychics
(and Ranalee, of course) to build new, small versions of the nest centered on
themselves in what was almost a reprise of Tathal’s time. Bitter struggles
ensued, tipping the world yet again into chaos and hurt, leaving him with no
choice this time around but to launch the unification in a way that enabled his
governance to be paramount. Restricting dissent was a small price to pay for
such an achievement. Even now, strong psychics in eight provinces had managed
to subvert the gift, declaring independence from Makkathran’s benign
governorship—the Waterwalker’s menacing empire, as they called it. Their own petty
little fiefdoms were hardly beacons of enlightenment. He was still considering
if and how he should move against them; as with the original nest, they
wouldn’t allow anyone to leave of his or her own free will.

“What’s the matter, sweetie?” Hilitte asked, suffused with concern.

“I’m fine.”

She struck a sultry pose under the shower. “You want me to bring the
girls in?”

“We did enough of that last night, and we will again tonight. I’m going
to get breakfast now.” He stepped out of the bath and snagged a big towel with
his third hand. Behind him Hilitte gave a small pout and ordered the shower
off.

That was the one trouble with her, he realized: She really was too young
to be anything but a bedmate. He couldn’t talk to her about anything, exchange
ideas, argue problems through, reminisce about events. They never went to the
Opera House together, and she swiftly grew bored at the more formal dinner
parties he was constantly invited to—so much so that she rarely went to any
these days, which was just as well. But she did have a delectably dirty mind
and a complete lack of inhibition. It all came as something of a revelation
after being married for so long. However unfair that was to Kristabel,
Hilitte’s bedroom antics provided a grand way of getting his mind off the
troubles of the day.

Which makes her more convenient than visiting the
House of Blue Petals. Not necessarily cheaper, though
.

Breakfast was taken in the huge state dining room with its long roof
forever showing intense orange images of the sun’s corona from the vantage
point of some endless orbit a million miles above the seething surface.
Underneath the fluctuating glare, the long polished black ash table was capable
of hosting city banquets for a hundred fifty guests. This morning it had been
set for the two of them. The kitchen staff had laid out big silver ice-bed
platters on one of the dozen bolnut veneer sideboards, laden with an array of
cold smoked meats cut as thin as parchment. Petal-pattern segments of fruit,
cheeses, and glass jugs of yogurt were laid out next to them like small works
of art. Warm dishes contained scrambled eggs, poached eggs, fried eggs,
tomatoes, mushrooms, bacon and sausages, and crisped mashed potatoes. Five
earthenware pots contained the mixes of cereal, and a small charcoal grill was
ready to toast any of the five different types of bread or warm his croissants
for him.

Edeard sat down and stared over at the ridiculously extravagant spread of
food without really registering any of it. He directed a ge-chimp to bring him
a tall glass of apple juice and a bowl of cereal. Hilitte sat next to him,
dressed in a thick toweling robe with fluffy pink house socks. She gave him a
warm smile before issuing a whole batch of instructions to the ge-chimps.