The Evolutionary Void (55 page)

Jiska was lying on a cot, a terrible reedy wail bubbling out of her
throat. The level of pain filling the long room was enough to make Edeard’s
legs falter. He was crying as he approached. Three doctors were bent over his
daughter, trying to remove the burned cloth from her ruined skin. Potions and
ointments were poured over the blackened, crisping flesh, doing little to
alleviate the awful thudding pain.

He took another step forward. Marilee and Analee moved quickly to form a
barrier between him and the bed, minds fiercely steadfast. They were clad in
robes similar to his own signature black cloak, hoods thrown over their heads
leaving their faces in shadow. Steely guardians of their mortally injured
sister, determined to prevent any last violation of her sanctity.

“She has suffered enough, Father.”

“She doesn’t need you here to make it worse.”

“Jiska,” he pleaded. “Why?”

“Don’t do that.”

“Not here.”

“Not now.”

“Don’t pretend your ignorance is some kind of innocence.”

“You’re not ignorant. Nor innocent.”

“You are evil.”

“A monster.”

“We will do whatever we can to ruin your empire.”

“And destroy you.”

The two black-clad figures wavered in his vision, and he saw them on the
tropical beach as it had never happened so many years ago, both in long cotton
rainbow skirts, bare feet on the hot sand, both clinging adoringly to Marvane,
rapturously happy as Natran performed the marriage ceremony.

“I do this for all of you,” Edeard wept. “I am bringing you fulfillment.
The Lady knows I try to bring fulfillment to the whole world. Why do you reject
me?”

“Your evil would enslave everyone on Querencia, and you ask us why.”

“Evil. Evil. Evil man. Honious will take you.”

Jiska convulsed. Edeard groaned through clenched teeth as he forced
himself to share every aspect of her agony. He deserved nothing less. His legs
gave way.

“We will bring you down.”

“We are still free.”

“We have taught others how to liberate themselves.”

“Your slaves will rise up against you.”

“Domination does not deliver eternal loyalty.”

“Already your hold on the provinces crumbles away.”

“You?” he asked through the sickening pain. “You are the resistance?”

Then the longtalk he dreaded most spoke. “Who else was left?” Kristabel
asked. “Whose mind has your megalomania left unbroken?”

Jiska’s head turned slightly.

“Don’t move, don’t move,” the doctors chorused in concern.

Red scabbed eyelids fluttered, sending a yellow fluid seeping out of
freshly opened cracks. The remaining good eye stared right at him. “We will
beat you,” Jiska’s weak longtalk told him determinedly. “My soul will wander
the Void, but I will die knowing this. I am fulfilled, Father, but not how you
desired me to be, thank the Lady.”

Edeard fell to his knees. “You’re not to be lost. I can stop this,” he
told her with a whisper. “I can.”
Two hours, that’s all.
Just go back two hours and stop the fire from ever happening. I’ll talk reason
to them. We will find common ground
.

“If you try—”

“—you will have to kill us first.”

“All of us,” Kristabel longtalked.

Edeard raised his head to the shadowed ceiling. “You do not die. Not
again. Not ever while I live. I have suffered too much for that to be allowed.”

In the streets outside the hospital, minds were emerging from their
concealment. Their presence shocked him. Rolar, Dylorn, Marakas, even Taralee.
The oldest five grandchildren, all emboldened and resolute.
But not Burlal—he at least is spared this
. And they
weren’t alone. Macsen and Kanseen emerged with them, as did their children.
Then at the last Kristabel came forth.

“You can rule this world,” they told him with a loving unity whose
nobility was infinitely more beautiful than any he had ever imposed. “But we
will not be a part of it. One way or another.”

“But we must be one,” he shouted back frantically. “One—”
Nation
. With that he crumpled to the ground and cried out
in anguish as the shock of what he now believed in hit him with a physical
impact.
Oh, my great Lady, I have become my enemies: Bise,
Owain, Buate, the Gilmorn, Tathal, all the others I struggled to overcome. How
was I so weak to let them win, to adopt their methods? This cannot stand. This
is why fewer Skylords have come. Fulfillment is slipping away from me, from all
of us. I knew that. Lady, I always knew that
.

He had sworn not to go back again, but that was an irrelevance now—he
was
going back to save Jiska. Not two hours. That would
not be salvation. There was only one option left.

“You are right,” he told them, and opened his mind so they could see
whatever love and humility he had left. “I have fallen to arrogance and sin,
but I swear to the Lady I will show no more weakness.” And reached for that
wretched moment—

—to land on the ground at the foot of the Eyrie tower. His ankles gave
way, and he stumbled, falling forward. Strong third hands reached out to steady
him. A blaze of concern and adoration bathed his bruised thoughts.

The crowd drew its collective breath in a loud “Ohoooo” at his dangerous
landing. Then, as he straightened up, they began to applaud the ostentatious
resurgence of their old Waterwalker.

For a moment he feared his jumbled recollections and shaky emotions meant
he’d completely misjudged the twisting passage through the Void’s memory. But
there was no powerful farsight following him, no Tathal, no nest. This was the
time immediately after he had vanquished that foe, when events were so close to
what they had been the first time, the genuine life he’d forgone so long ago.

Macsen gave him a derisory sneer, while Dinlay’s hardened thoughts
registered his disapproval at the madcap jump from the tower.
As they always do, thank you, Lady
.

Kristabel’s expression was one of unwavering anger. He looked at her and
smiled weakly. “I’m sorry,” he whispered inaudibly. “I’m so sorry.”

Her fury subsided as she measured the confusion and sadness filling his
mind. He held his arms out to her. After the briefest hesitation, she walked
over.

“Daddy,” Marilee scolded.

“That was so bad.”

“Teach us how to do that.”

Edeard nodded slowly. “One day I might just do that. But for now there’s
a young man I want you to meet, a sailor.”

“Which one of us?” Analee asked, playfully mistrustful.

“Both of you. Both of you should meet him. I think you all might be very
happy together.”

The twins turned to give each other a look of complete astonishment.

Kristabel moved into his arms. “What’s wrong?”

Edeard took a long time to answer. “I’m sorry for the way I’ve been
lately. I’m going to stop that now.”

She shrugged awkwardly inside his embrace. “I can’t be the easiest person
to live with.”

He pointed out across the city to the Lyot Sea. “The Skylord comes.”

“Really?” Like everyone in Makkathran, she extended her farsight to the
horizon as the astounded residents of Myco and Neph gifted their sight of the
giant creature.

“It will bring such change to our lives,” Edeard said quietly. “I think I
know how to moderate any difficulties. But I don’t know everything, I truly
don’t. I will need help. It will not be easy.”

“I’m here,” she said with a soft reassuring hug. “As are all your
friends, and together we will live through this. So just banish that horrible
old Ashwell optimism, Edeard Waterwalker. This is the life you were made for.”

“Yes.”
And this is the last one; whatever happens,
this is what I will live with. Sweet Lady, please, in your infinite wisdom,
give me the strength to get it right
.

T
HE CAPSULE CAME DOWN
close to the center of Octoron’s
little township. Acrid smoke layered the air. Several of the buildings
surrounding Entranceway Plaza were damaged; energy weapons had briefly turned
the iron structures molten, causing them to sag and twist as they started to
lean over. The wreckage of crashed capsules was sticking out of the ruins. Heat
from the impact in combination with all the munitions had ignited a great many
fires, which the chamber’s drones were only just extinguishing. They’d used a
lot of crystalfoam, covering vast swaths of the plaza in blue-green mush that
was still emitting sulfurous belches.

Human paramedics were scuttling around, performing triage. Serious cases
were carried to waiting capsules to be ferried off to the hospital on the edge
of town. Thirty heavily armored and badly pissed Chikoya were strutting around,
getting in the way of the human emergency teams. Resentment was starting to
rise on both sides. There’d be another clash if tempers didn’t start cooling
quickly.

The capsule’s door dilated, and he stepped out. It wasn’t a bad entrance,
he felt; he was wearing some really quite stylish mauve shorts and a
loose-fitting shirt of semiorganic white silk open down the front, like the top
half of a robe. Top-grade Advancer-heritage genetic sequences and a decent diet
had toned him up, and his slightly elevated position gave him that commanding
full-of-confidence appearance, as if he’d arrived ready to take charge and
everyone else could now relax. The frayed leather flip-flops admittedly
detracted from the image, but he’d been in a hurry, so nothing he could do
about that now. In any case, no one was looking at his feet; they were all
looking up at him. Except the fifteen armored Chikoya who had swung their
weapons around to splash their targeting lasers across his pristine shirt.

“Well, this sucks,” Ozzie said.

He trotted down the capsule’s three stairs to the ground and gave the big
aliens his best untroubled grin. The Chikoya resembled medium-sized dinosaurs
with vestigial dragon wings. Beefed up with armor that resembled black metallic
crocodile skin, they were imposing demonic creatures. And really very pissed,
Ozzie decided as their minds radiated the paranoia and aggression that only
their species could produce in such quantities.

“So what’s up?” he asked.

“You are Ozzie?” the lead one asked. Its thick neck curved down, putting
its helmet tip inches from Ozzie’s nose.

“Sure thing, dude.”

Three mirrored lenses in the helmet’s center swiveled slightly to focus
on Ozzie’s head. “Where is the human messiah?”

“I don’t know. I like just got here. Right?”

“You are the one who broke through into the realm of the all-perception.
You can use it at the highest level. You must know where he is.”

Ozzie took a sad moment to reflect how semantics always betrayed the
universe-view of each sentient species. “I don’t know,” he said patiently,
pushing an intense feeling of benevolence out into mindspace. “The messiah is
powerful. He has mysterious ways of camouflaging himself from the rest of us.”
That was a slight exaggeration. Ozzie was sorely puzzled how Inigo had actually
managed to conceal himself. One moment he’d been there, his raging thoughts
glaring out into mindspace, and the next he’d gone, vanished, the mind
extinguished. It was as if he’d died, which, judging by the amount of carnage
let loose in the plaza, was a high probability. Except there had been others with
him, a woman and some kind of psychotic special forces bodyguard who also,
oddly, didn’t register in mindspace. For all three to vanish without leaving a
visible corpse between them just wasn’t going to wash. Either they’d teleported
out somehow, which he didn’t believe because the AI was showing the damaged
navy scout ship still sitting on the pad, or they knew a way to circumvent
mindspace, which he wouldn’t put past that slippery, gloating little shit
Inigo.

“Why is he here?” the Chikoya demanded. Oval vents at the front of its
helmet clunked open, allowing a misty stream of phlegm to come spitting out.

Ozzie dodged gracefully, managing to clamp down on his feelings about
that particular Chikoya body function. “As I haven’t met him, I don’t know.”

“He is a danger to all living things on the Spike. The Void may know of
his presence here. It will seek us out. We will be the first to be devoured.”

“I know. Real crock of shit, huh? When I find him, I’m going to kick his
ass right off the Spike. I’m going to be hunting hard.”

“We will locate the messiah. We will make him stop the Void.”

“That’s wonderful. We both want the same thing. But dude, you just gotta
make sure to let me know when you find him, please. I got me special
supersecret weapons that will cut the bastard to shreds no matter what kind of
force fields and military protection he’s brought with him.”

“You have weapons?” Sensor clumps mounted on the Chikoya’s armor rose up
like time-lapse mushrooms to scan over Ozzie as another jet of phlegm spit out.

“Hey ho, I used to be one of the Commonwealth’s rulers, you know. Check
your database to confirm. That means I had full access to its pre-postphysical
technology.
Of course
I have superweapons with me,
dude.” He pushed a starburst of sincerity and determination into his mind and
held it there. “I don’t want any more of your herd to be hurt or killed by his
soldiers, so please, if you find him, please call me. I can squash him like a
Kantr under a Folippian.”
Whatever they are
.

“We will inform you if he is troublesome.”

“Thank you. That’s very kind.” Ozzie smiled again at the monster’s helmet
and walked around it into the plaza. The other Chikoya let him pass. His
macrocellular clusters reported a quick surge in encrypted data between the big
aliens. They began to holster their weapons.

Oh, yeah. Still the man
.

That was exactly what he’d come to the Spike to get away from. He went
over to one of the triage teams. “Hi, Max.”

“Uh? Oh, hi, Ozzie,” the medic replied. He was kneeling beside an
unconscious woman who’d suffered a lot of burns.

“So what happened?”

“The guy was a fucking lunatic. He took on a whole army of Chikoya by
himself.”

“Did you see it?” Ozzie asked.

“Just the end.” Max applied some pale-green derm3 to the woman’s black
and red legs. The jelly spread out evenly over the terrible damage and began to
bubble like sluggish champagne. “And I had to wait until that was over before I
landed. Anything moving down here got trashed. I guess weapon enrichments have
come on some since I left the Commonwealth.”

“Yeah, looks like it.” Ozzie’s field scan told him the Chikoya were
starting to teleport out.

Coleen, the medic working with Max, broke off from implementing the stem
support module she’d applied to the woman’s throat. “What the hell is Inigo
doing coming here?”

“Sounds like he wants to talk to me,” Ozzie admitted.

“Why?”

“Don’t know for sure, but just a wild guess here: the Void.”

Max had cut away the smoldering fabric of the woman’s dress and started
applying the derm3 to the side of her abdomen. “Can you stop it?”

Ozzie gave him a bitter laugh. “No. I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

“Then why—”

“Dunno, man.” Ozzie spread his arms wide in surrender. “She going to be
all right?”

“She’s not Higher,” Coleen said. “But she should be able to avoid re-life.
I think she’s stable enough to make the trip to the hospital now.”

“I’ll take her,” Max said.

“How many hurt?” Ozzie asked. He didn’t want to know, but his conscience
was prodding him. That was something that hadn’t happened in a long time.
And it shouldn’t be happening now, damnit
.

“Eleven got bodylossed,” Coleen said. “We’ve shipped eight live criticals
back to the hospital, and there’s another five bad ones waiting. Maybe two
dozen more with minor injuries.”

Ozzie gave a tight nod. “Could have been worse.”

“The Chikoya aren’t going to get over this in a hurry,” she said.

“I know.”

“They think the Spike belongs to them.”

“It doesn’t.”

“But this …”

“They’ll get over it. We’ve all got to get along.”

“So you keep saying,” she said.

Ozzie was disappointed by the amount of bitterness and resentment in her
mind, even though Coleen was good at toning down her feelings.

“I’ll sort this out,” he assured her.

“Good.” She hurried off to another victim, her boots squelching through
the crystalfoam.

Max gave Ozzie a sympathetic look. “I don’t blame you.”

“Very big.”

“But it’s
Inigo
, Ozzie! The Dreamer himself.
Things have to be bad if he’s come to you.”

“I know.”

“And that bodyguard—”

Ozzie held his hand up, palms outward. “I’m on it, man.” He turned and
walked slowly back to the capsule, stopping briefly to study the broken
buildings. No doubt about it, they were going to have to rebuild the whole
center of town. “Connect me to him,” he told his u-shadow.

The code embedded in the general message made a connection instantly.
“This is Ozzie.”

“You are the eighth person to claim this.”

“That’s gotta be a bummer for you. And what if I’ve cloned myself? Would
any of us brothers do, or did you want the original?” He waited for a reply,
slightly mystified by the delay.

“I need the original.”

“Then this is your lucky day, pal.” Ozzie’s u-shadow informed him that a
very sophisticated infiltrator was trying to take over the capsule’s smartnet.
“Let it in,” he told the u-shadow. “But if we land in deep shit, I want to be able
to wipe it.”

“Confirmed,” his u-shadow reported. An exovision display showed him the
infiltrator’s progress.

“I will require DNA verification that you are Oswald Fernandez Isaacs.”

“Nobody calls me that.”

“That is your name.”

“It was my name.” Even after all the re-life procedures and biononic
regenerations he’d undergone in the last fifteen hundred years, with all their
associated memory edits, he’d never quite let go of the childhood persecution
that name had brought down upon him. “Now I’m just Ozzie; always have been,
always will be.”

“Very well, Ozzie, I am loading a coordinate into your capsule. Please do
not attempt to deviate from the route.”

“Dude, wouldn’t dream of it.”

A map of Octoron compartment flipped up, with his u-shadow showing him
the route the infiltrator was preparing to fly. Ozzie studied it, but the
destination was a nowhere, a remote stretch of land past one of the water
columns, about thirty kilometers away. Just the kind of nowhere outlaws would
choose to lie low in, in a decent Western.

The capsule lifted silently and curved around over the town. Ozzie
watched the buildings shrink away while the resentment built in his mind. The
Spike was his escape from the shitty vibes of life in the Greater Commonwealth,
and Inigo was the one man who’d subverted and ruined his hopes for the
gaiafield.

Nigel Sheldon had offered Ozzie another way out, a berth on the Sheldon
family armada of colony starships. They weren’t just going to the other side of
the galaxy to set up a new society. Oh, no, not Nigel; he was off to a whole
new galaxy to begin again. A noble quest, restarting human civilization in a
fresh part of the universe. Then in another thousand years a new generation of
colony ships might spread to further galaxies. After all, as he’d pointed out,
this one is ultimately doomed with the Void at the center, so we need somewhere
that’s got a long-term future. Ozzie grabbed the logic even as he argued back
that humans would have gone postphysical long before the Void would ever
present a tangible threat.

Ha! Yeah, right. Goddamn Nigel, always gets the last
laugh
.

The Spike had been a kind of compromise for Ozzie. A withdrawal from
Commonwealth life for sure but not a complete retreat the way Nigel had
chosen—not that he saw it as a retreat. He did it because there was a slight
chance he could still turn things around and reclaim the dream that he’d lost
to Inigo, Edeard, and the insidious Void.

He had intended the gaiafield to allow humans and aliens to understand
each other better, eliminating conflict and confusion across the galaxy. The
oldest liberal dream of all:
If we just keep talking
… And now the gaiafield could back up the talk with sincerity and
understanding. Except, as always, the human race had found a way to fuck it up
and turn it into the carrier wave of the latest and stupidest of all religions.
So he came to the Spike with an idea of how to make something bigger than the
gaiafield and commune with the Silfen Motherholme, a wonderful union of the
mind that couldn’t be subverted by selective, edited thoughts like Inigo’s
seditious dreams with their sole purpose of entrapping people.