The Temporal Void (2 page)

The bunker had come to rest a hundred metres beyond the squat building holding the base’s main airlock. Two of the five Navy ships were poised on either side of her, hanging a few metres above the ground on ingrav, rocking slightly as they compensated for the treacherous gravity. Justine hastened round the nose of one to see the
Silverbird
waiting a further twenty metres beyond it. A welcome sight, its simple purple ovoid shape floating casually over the lava, holding a lot steadier than the Navy ships. She grinned in relief and scuttled underneath. The airlock at the base of the fuselage bulged inwards, opening into a dark funnel leading to the heart of the ship. The smartcore was already countering gravity to pull her inside when she saw something moving on the horizon. An impossible sight.

‘Stop,’ she commanded.

Her feet paused ten centimetres above the lava. Retinal inserts zoomed in. It was a mounted Silfen. The elf-like hominoid was clad in a thick cobalt-blue coat embroidered with the most fabulous stipple of jewels that sparkled in the wavering pastels of starlight. His black hat was tall and pointed, with a simple gold ribbon fluttering from the tip. A gloved hand gripped a long phosphorescent spear which he held aloft, as if in salute. It might have been such a gesture, for he was leaning forward in his saddle, half standing on the stirrups. As if his appearance wasn’t astonishing enough, she was dumbfounded by his mount. The creature most closely resembled a terrestrial rhinoceros, except it was almost the size of an elephant, and had two flat tails that swept from side to side. Its long shaggy fur was bright scarlet, and the four horns curving from the side of its long head were devilishly sharp. Justine, who had once ridden on the Charlemagnes which the old Barsoomians had produced on Far Away, knew that this fearsome beast was a true warrior-animal. Her ancient body instinctively produced a flood of worry hormones just at the sight of it.

The Silfen simply shouldn’t have been here. She’d never known one of their paths had led to this remote, desolate planet. And he was an oxygen breather; so, she suspected, was his lethally regal mount. This tenuous, radiation-saturated argon atmosphere was deathly to living things. Then she grinned at herself and her silly affront. Who was she to make such a claim, standing exposed to the eerie energy emissions of the Wall stars in nothing more than a disgracefully short cocktail dress?

So it wasn’t an absolute impossibility to find a Silfen here. Nor that he was using some technological protection from the environment.

But . . . ‘Why?’ she whispered.

‘The Silfen live to experience,’ Gore told her, equally absorbed by the alien’s presence. ‘Face it, my girl, you don’t get a much bigger experience than watching the end of the galaxy crashing down around you.’

She’d forgotten she’d left the link open. ‘A very short experience,’ she retorted sourly. ‘And what is that thing he’s riding?’

‘Who knows? I remember Ozzie saying the Silfen he encountered on a winter planet rode to the hunt on odd creatures.’

‘Odd, not terrifying.’

‘Does it matter? I imagine he’s here on the toughest steed he can find in honour of the event. After all, you’ve got the butchest starship in that section of the galaxy.’

‘A
butch
starship?’ But it broke her enchantment with the strange alien. She bowed her head formally at him. He dipped the spear in return, and sat back on his small saddle.

The
Silverbird
drew her up into the small luxurious cabin. Once inside, she relaxed into a deep curving chair that the deck extended. Within the ANA-designed craft she was now as safe as it was possible for any human to be. The starship’s sensors showed her the last of the station staff hurrying into the airlocks of the Navy ships. Another two Silfen had joined the first watcher. Her father was right, she acknowledged, they would only come here for something momentous. For her, their presence served only to amplify the whole deadly panorama unfolding outside.

‘Let’s go,’ she told the smartcore.

The
Silverbird
rose from Centurion Station ahead of all the other starships. As the rest of them began to surge up after her they made for a strangely varied flock: Commonwealth Navy ships sleek beside the cumbersome Ticoth vessels, while the glittering purple spheres of the Ethox danced nimbly round the big tankers containing the Suline. In another time she would have enjoyed travelling in the elegant avian-like artificial-life constructs that soared and swooped to carry the Forleene away from danger. Despite the devastation raging all around them, few of the departing species could resist a quick scan in the direction of the metal cube housing the Kandra. None, therefore, were wholly surprised when the whole mass simply lifted cleanly from the dusty ground and accelerated smoothly away from the collapsing structures of the observation project.

Justine was ridiculously proud of the way that none of them seemed able to match the
Silverbird
’s acceleration. It had taken the ultradrive ship just a few seconds to reach an altitude of five hundred kilometres, where it stopped to scrutinize the last minutes of Centurion Station. Another gravity wave shook the hull so violently the onboard gravity generator could barely counter it. Justine felt a distinct shiver run through the cabin. The unnamed planet curved away below the fuselage, its ancient geology stubbornly resistant to the worst effects of the awesome gravity waves washing invisibly through its mantle. Underneath her, the hot Ethox tower was the first to succumb; rocking from side to side until the undulations became too great for the safety systems to compensate for. It toppled with slow grace to shatter against the unyielding lava. Big waves of water cascaded out from splits in the Suline tanks, pushing a spume of debris ahead of them. Flying spray quickly solidified into sharp needles of hail, to be re-absorbed by the dark water. Inevitably, the cold won, producing a rumpled ice lake three kilometres across. Thin grey clouds streamed out of cracks in domes of both the human and the Forleene, quickly dissipating in the weak gusts of argon.

In an astonishingly short time the structures were flattened, joining the greater enclave of ruins which marked the site where hundreds of alien species had spent millennia observing the terrible, enigmatic Void at the centre of the galaxy. Justine switched her attention to the wounded sky above. As if they could feel what was happening beyond the Wall stars, the massive ion storms were seething with a rare angry sheen, brighter than she’d seen in her brief time at the station.

The
Silverbird
was tracking the Raiel’s gas giant-sized DF spheres as they continued their flight across the star system. Gravity waves spilled out from them with astonishing force, distorting the orbits within the main asteroid rings. A couple of small moons caught in the backwash had also changed inclination. All nine of the DFs were heading in towards the small orange star which Centurion Station’s never-named planet was in orbit around. As the ship watched, the photosphere started to dim.

‘Holy crap,’ Justine yelped. The DFs must be drawing power directly from the star. She wondered how they would manifest it. The effect was fascinating, almost countering the anxiety she felt. There had been a few minutes after the emergency began that she’d seriously thought Centurion Station was where her body would finally die.

As if sharing her thought, Lehr Trachtenberg opened a channel to all the human starships. ‘Status report please, is everyone all right?’

‘I’m fine,’ she reported back to the
CNE Dalfrod
, where he was embarked, along with the senior staff.

Once he’d established all his own staff were safe, the director exchanged messages with the alien craft ascending out of the atmosphere. They all confirmed that everyone had escaped intact; though they had to assume the Kandra were safe as the enigmatic cube didn’t respond to any communication.

‘We’ll return to the Commonwealth immediately,’ Trachtenberg announced. ‘From what the observation systems can ascertain, we should manage to stay ahead of the boundary. It’s expanding at about three or four lightyears an hour. That gives us a huge safety margin.’

‘Is the data still coming in?’ Justine asked.

‘Some of it. It’s patchy now, there’s a lot going on in the Wall we don’t understand. I expect most of the disturbances we’re registering are coming from the Raiel defence systems, but even so we can keep a reduced watch until the sensors are overcome. We’re relaying as much as we can to the Navy Exploration Division centre back home.’

‘I see.’

Justine watched the other starships reach her altitude, feeling strangely annoyed with them and herself. Surely there was something else to be done other than simply flee? It smacked of not a little cowardice, ignorant peasants cowering from the lightning storm, howling that the gods were angry, looking for a sacrifice to appease them.
And we stopped that nonsense millennia ago. Yet for all our enlightenment we’re right back there sheltering from the onslaught in our nice dry cave.
Then the ships were accelerating past her, starting to disperse as they headed back towards their own home stars. The Forleene were the first to go ftl, slipping down into wormholes which closed immediately, a last farewell hanging in the ether from their pack leader.

The
Silverbird
’s cabin rocked again. Eighty million miles away the DFs were streaking into a low orbit against the darkening star. The motion hardened her determination.
This is not the way it should be
.

‘Dad?’

‘Still here.’

‘What have the Raiel said about the expansion?’

‘Sweet fuck all. The
High Angel
is a lifeboat, remember. Their defence systems are all concentrated round your part of the galaxy. Anyway, we can hardly blame them for not telling us anything. Right now every sentient species in the galaxy is pissed at us over the Pilgrimage, and who can blame them. I’m pissed at us.’

‘I know. That’s why I’m going in,’ she said, surprising herself at the speed of the thought.

‘You’re doing
what
?’

‘Heading in to the Void.’ Even as she told him she was instructing the smartcore, laying down the course. Fast.
Before I chicken out
.

‘You’re doing no such thing, my girl.’

The
Silverbird
dropped smoothly into hyperspace, heading in towards the Wall stars at fifty lightyears an hour. ‘Tell him,’ she said to her father. ‘Tell the Second Dreamer. Get him to ask the Skylord to let me in. Once I’m in, once I’m talking to the Skylord direct, I’ll try to explain the situation, the damage their boundary is causing.’

‘Get your ass back here right fucking now!’

‘Dad. No. This is our chance at a diplomatic solution. The Raiel have tried force for a million years. It doesn’t work.’

‘Come back. You can’t get in. This thing is killing the whole fucking galaxy. Your ship . . .’

‘Humans can get in, we already know that. Somehow we can do it. And if the Second Dreamer helps me, I’ll stand a really good chance.’

‘This is insane.’

‘I have to do this, Dad. Somebody has to make the effort. We have to try a human method. We’re part of this galaxy now, a big part. It’s our turn to attempt our way. We have the right.’ The blood was pounding in her ears as she hyped herself up. ‘I’m going to carry the torch for all of us. If I fail, then . . . we try something else. That’s being human, too.’

‘Justine.’

Over thirty thousand lightyears she could feel his anguish. For a split second, she shared it. ‘Dad, if anyone can get to the Second Dreamer, if anyone can make them see reason, it’s you, it’s
the
Gore Burnelli. All he has to do is tell the Skylord I’m out here. Ask him. Beg him. Offer him riches. Whatever it takes. You can do it. Please, Dad.’

‘God-
damn
, why are you always so fucking difficult?’

‘I’m your daughter.’

Bitter laughter echoed across the stars. ‘Of course I’ll ask. I’ll do a damn sight more than that. If he doesn’t get down on his knees and beg that Skylord he’ll wish all he faces is oblivion in the expansion.’

‘Now don’t start threatening people,’ she rebuked immediately.

‘Yeah, yeah.’

‘I’ll try to keep a channel open to Centurion Station’s relay as long as I can. The Navy systems are tough, they should hold out a while yet.’

‘Okay, I’ll go find me the little tit responsible for this almighty screw-up.’

‘Thanks, Dad.’

‘Godspeed.’

*

At three o’clock in the morning Chris Turner left the staff canteen on the east side of Colwyn City’s docks and grimaced at the rain splattering on to his face. He’d hoped the unseasonal weather front would blow over while he was taking his break. But no, the thick clouds showed no sign of relenting. His semi-organic jacket rolled a collar up round his neck, and he hurried back to the maintenance depot.

Chris couldn’t see anything moving in the docks tonight. Not that other nights were much different. Night-time staffing levels were low. Bots were off line for maintenance, which was why he’d pulled this grotty shift – it wasn’t popular but it paid well. Trans-ocean barges stayed moored to the quay while their crews slept or clubbed the night away in town. Warehouses were shut.

There wasn’t any activity in the city, either. The rain had put a halt to the usual nightlife. Capsules and ground vehicles had hauled the last optimistic revellers back to their homes a long time ago. He could just make out the huge single-span arch bridge over the Cairns, its lights a hazy smear through the rain. Normally there would be something driving over it, or a few taxis sliding along its metro rail. But not tonight. He shivered. The city like this was actually kind of spooky. To counter the feeling of isolation he reached down into the gaiafield to gain some emotional comfort from the eternal thoughts whirling within. The usual busy background babble slithered round him like noisy spectres; thoughts that called, mournfully and eagerly, feelings which intrigued, though he shied away from the sadder ones.