The Evolutionary Void (64 page)

Aaron gestured at the light spilling in through the open door.

“Yeah? So? The light never goes out in Octoron. You make your own days
here, man. And this is my night. Now take a hike.”

“No. You come downstairs now and greet Inigo.”

“Or what?”

“I start getting unpleasant.”

“Fucking fascist.” Ozzie slithered off the bed, muttering. “Drown in your
own shit.” He found a silk robe and tugged the belt tight emphatically. “Used
to some goddamn respect in my own home.” He combed his fingers through his mass
of wavering wayward hair.

“I know. Turn your back for a moment and the whole Ozziedamned universe
falls to barbarism.”

Ozzie glared at him for a long moment. It actually made Aaron nervous.
Secondary routines were poised to activate his biononic defenses.

“Don’t push it, creepy boy,” Ozzie growled.

“Sorry, but you’re not making my life easy.”

Ozzie stomped past him out onto the first-floor landing. “That’s not what
I was born to do.”

“So what with all this daylight, I guess I don’t have to worry myself too
much over those vampires,” Aaron said to the legend’s back.

Inigo and Corrie-Lyn glanced around as Ozzie walked out onto the veranda,
looking for all the world like guilty schoolkids. Inigo started to get up.
“This wasn’t my idea, but I’m genuinely pleased we can finally—” He began.

“No shit, asshole.” Ozzie dropped down hard in one of the chairs around
the table. He gave the remains of the meal a suspicious look and picked up a
tantrene sausage. “Get on with it.”

“Okay, then. So what’s the plan?” Inigo asked Aaron.

Aaron sat at the table, trying to project the impression of a reasonable
moderator. “My original goal was to take you into the Void,” he told Inigo.
“The intention was to establish a link with the Heart or nucleus or whatever it
is that has sentient control of high-level functions in there. With that
communication channel open, it was hoped to initiate negotiations.”

Ozzie shrugged. “Makes sense in a lame-ass sort of way. We know we can’t
shoot the thing down or blow it up. Who would negotiate?”

“I’m not aware what form the negotiations were to take. My job was to
secure the link. After that … I’d know.”

“How in the Lady’s name was I supposed to start talking to the Heart?”
Inigo asked incredulously. “Haven’t you people shared any of my dreams? You
only reach the Heart after you have achieved fulfillment.”

“There is a methodology, I know,” Aaron said. “That is, I’m certain I
have procedures to follow once we get inside.”

Inigo threw up his hands and slumped back in his chair for a sulk.

“Told you so,” Corrie-Lyn said smugly. “This whole mission is a complete
waste of time. You murdered hundreds of people for
nothing
.”

“So why come here, man?” Ozzie asked. “Why me? Everyone who knows me in
the Commonwealth knows I don’t do this kind of shit anymore. And your boss
knows me, too much.”

“There are several ways I would expect you to help. One would be an
ultradrive ship we can use to fly to the Void.”

“Dude, you need to stay current. Okay, first off, I don’t have an
ultradrive. If I need that kind of shit … well, let’s just say I’ve got an
arrangement with ANA. It’ll send me one if I ask. But we can’t ask anymore, can
we? Second, your replacement”—he stabbed a forefinger at Inigo—“has just
launched.”

“The Pilgrimage?” Corrie-Lyn asked. There was awe in her voice.

“Oh, yeah, babe. They’re truly that dumb.”

“How do you know?” Aaron asked.

“Myraian grooves all that cruddy gossip from the Commonwealth.”

“Myraian? The lady upstairs?”

“Yeah. The lady upstairs. Who, I’ll tell you for free, is mighty peed off
with all of you right now, not least over mindspace crashing, so watch your
mouth. I got a private TD link from the Spike to the Commonwealth. So even if
you’re out of
my
gaiafield’s range, you can still
get to dig what Araminta’s been doing.”

Inigo ignored the jibe about the gaiafield. “It will take them months to
reach the Void, so—”

Ozzie’s harsh laughter cut him off. “Seriously, man, you need to get
current. I’m going to open my house net for you to access. Catch up, and we’ll
talk again in the morning. You know, before you leave in a cloud of gloom and
defeat.”

He left them on the veranda and went back upstairs. At the last he opened
his gaiamotes a fraction.

Inigo didn’t like the arrogance he exuded one little bit; it verged on
smugness. Standard communication icons were slipping up into his exovision as
the house’s nodes acknowledged his u-shadow. “We’d better see what’s been going
on,” he said.

“Yeah,” Aaron agreed. His gaiamotes gave nothing away, but he sounded
troubled.

Ozzie’s temper had improved slightly when he came down for breakfast the
next morning. That was deliberately quite a while after he’d woken the first
time. He and Myraian had gone at it the way they had the night before, and
after that he’d dozed contentedly for an hour. Then there was a shower—none of
that modern itchy spore crap that clogged up his hair but a proper hot water
and scented gel affair. Myraian hadn’t joined him, which was a shame, but you
couldn’t have everything in life. Well, actually you could if you’d lived as
long as he had, but then you learned not to be too demanding of people. They
were transient enough without the stresses and strains everyone unwittingly put
on a relationship. It had taken a long time for him to learn why it was women
never stayed with him beyond a couple of decades, so now he knew how to treat
them right. Or at least fake treating them right.

Myraian was dressed and ready when he finally came out of the bathroom in
his shorts and T-shirt. She’d resequenced herself back to her mid-twenties,
then tweaked various chromosomes to produce a great figure, which, in
combination with a mind that was away mushrooming with fairies most of the
time, made her utterly irresistible to him.
No accounting
for some things, but she’s perfect for me at this time of life
. He took
an enjoyable look at the thin ankle-length skirt of sky-blue cotton and the
black mesh shirt that with her skin color made it look like she was wearing
nothing at all. Her skinlight patterns shone through the thin weave, creating
weird diffusion ripples.

“Cool combo,” he told her. “Kinda earth mother meets dominatrix.”

“Thank you.” She shook her hair, allowing the long blond, auburn, and
pink tresses to sway around her head in an underwater slow motion as the fluff
fronds elevated it.

And no way was he ever putting them in no matter how much she nagged.
“Let’s go catch them crying into their teacups.”

She pouted. “You should stay up here. I’ll teach them not to bully my
baby Ozzie.”

“They’re not nice people,” he told her again, hoping it registered this
time. “Don’t let them bug you. And really, man, don’t get cross with them. I
don’t want any of that.”

“I’ll eat them up, scrummy yummy,” she promised.

“Yeah.”
Okay, maybe it’s not so much the mind that’s
the attraction
.

He found Aaron, Inigo, and Corrie-Lyn in the lounge, slouched across the
couches and looking slightly dazed like a bunch of students from his time at
Caltech pulling an all-nighter. The only thing missing was the pizza boxes.
They did stare a little at Myraian but didn’t say anything. Ozzie wasn’t really
surprised when it was Corrie-Lyn who rounded on him first. She reminded him of
not a few ex-wives.

“You knew! You knew you were going to die in the expansion, and you won’t
do
anything
to help us?” she barked.

“I normally have orange juice, coffee, and toast for breakfast. Man, the
old habits are the hardest to break, don’t you find?” His u-shadow gave the
culinary unit its instructions.

She just growled at him.

“You don’t get it,” Ozzie told her. “You don’t get
me
.
Dude, I’m over one and a half thousand years old. I’ve seen it all, and I do
mean all! I can live with dying.”

“But what about the rest of the galaxy? All the people who don’t get a
chance to live as you have? The children?”

“Wow! Dude,
big
shift there from one of the
most truly devout Living Dream disciples
ever
.”

“Cleric Councillor,” Myraian said distantly as her hair fronds swam about
lazily. “The Dreamer’s lover. Chief prosecutor in the Edgemon heresy tribunal.”

“That was not—” Corrie-Lyn ground to a halt, furious.

“If you’re so worried about what you’ve unleashed on the rest of us, why
don’t you rush into your precious Void and be safe?” Ozzie challenged.

“Enjoy your victory,” Inigo said softly. “The Void is not our salvation.
I was wrong to hold it out as a symbol of attainable Nirvana, of a life that
can be perfect. It is none of those things. I. Was. Wrong.”

“Crap,” Ozzie muttered. It wasn’t often he was rendered speechless, but a
messiah renouncing his life’s work, well, that would just do it every time.
“I’ll make that a big pot of coffee. You’d better all join me for breakfast.”

“We all understand the Void threat well enough,” Aaron said as the
maidbots slid around the table in the kitchen, delivering plates and cups. “I’m
interested in your take on whatever Ilanthe has become. That could be a big
factor in the expansion.”

“She was the leader of the Accelerator Faction,” Ozzie said as he
accepted his glass of chilled orange juice from the maidbot. “The original idea
was that they elevate themselves up to postphysical status courtesy of the
Void. Thing is”—he scratched at his hair—“the Accelerator Faction is trapped
behind the Sol barrier along with the rest of ANA, so they can’t pull off their
whole Fusion concept. And the Silfen Motherholme is worried about her, which is
new to me. Nothing gets that placid goddess riled. Nothing. Till now. Draw
yourself a map.”

“The Silfen Motherholme?” Corrie-Lyn asked cautiously.

“Sure, babe. I’m a Silfen Friend.” He tried not to sound too smug,
settling for merely superior. “I know what’s going down across the galaxy.”

“Ozzie is the father of our species’ mind,” Myraian announced; her
skinlight glowed a proud mauve.

There was a polite silence for a moment.

“Of everything that’s happened, I find her involvement the most
disturbing,” Inigo said. “It was inevitable Living Dream would be corrupted and
manipulated after I turned it over to the Cleric Council—that was the point of
me abandoning it as I did. But I never envisaged anything like this.
Ultradrives, unbreakable force fields … this was not meant to be.”

Aaron turned to Ozzie. “Do you know anything about these technologies?”

“Not really my field,” Ozzie said quietly. He waited.

“It used to be,” an omnidirectional voice spoke up. Ozzie let out an
exasperated breath. It was his own voice. “Just shut the fuck up,” he told it.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Nobody can run from their past. Not
forever,
dooode
.”

“What is this?” Aaron asked.

“I told you, dude,” Ozzie said with an edge. “I’m ancient. Human bodies
aren’t designed with this kind of life span in mind. Grab the ‘in mind’ bit
there? Back in the first-era Commonwealth when all we had was rejuve, we used
to edit memories and store the ones that
weren’t important
.
Then there was memorycells and neural augmentation chips. Biononics added a
whole load of new memory capacity. And there’s always an expanded mentality
network.” He raised his head and glared at a random point on the ceiling.
“That’s if you want to carry all that junk around, contaminating your body. I
didn’t. Not anymore.”

“So he dumped me,” the voice said. “Literally. I’m Ozzie. The real
Ozzie.”

“You’re a goddamn me-brain-in-a-jar, and don’t you forget it,” Ozzie told
it crossly.

“Seriously,” the voice said. “I’m one and a half thousand years of
memories, while you’re what? Twenty years’ worth? Who’s the most real of them
all?”

“Only one of us got to keep the personality, man,” Ozzie shouted back.
“I’m the biochemical, hormonal, awkward, sonofabitch soul of a human. You’re
the hardwired copy that’s frozen in the past.”

“You can mouth off all you like, but I’m the one with the knowledge and
talent that these fine and sincerely desperate people need. You got rid of all
the serious physics and math and shit clogging up your little meat brain. Admit
it, tell them. Be a man. As much as you can be with so much missing.”

“Ozzie lacks nothing,” Myraian said calmly. “He has purged himself at a
spiritual level to make himself complete again. You are the contamination that
was holding him back, preventing the angel within from spreading his wings.
He’s been clean for decades now and has grown because of it.” She smiled
widely.

Ozzie caught the narrowing of Aaron’s eyes as he noticed the tiny fangs
that that otherwise blissful smile revealed.

Aaron blinked and put his hands down on the table. “Okay. Please tell me
you can access and assimilate whatever knowledge you need from … you?”

“From the me-brain-in-a-jar? Sure. I retained autonomous integration for
the smartcores I stuffed it into—me into.”

Inigo gave Ozzie a bemused grin; there was respect in there, too. “I’m
sure you can. But let’s face it: There’s you, me, and him.” He jabbed a thumb
at Aaron. “A smart-ass smartcore and a reasonably good replicator. Doesn’t
matter how good we all are in combination, we’re not going to bootstrap
ourselves a superweapon to smash open the Sol barrier or an even faster
ultradrive that’ll get us to the Void before Araminta charges in. And that’s
not even talking about the Ilanthe-thing.”

“Yeah,” Ozzie admitted. “But man, on the plus side, I can get us out of
here safely. Qatux owes me. The
High Angel
will stop
by and collect us on its way to Andromeda or wherever the hell it’s going.”