The Abyss Beyond Dreams (5 page)

‘Er, yes, thank you,’ she replied, instinctively tightening her own thoughts so her emotional leakage was minimal. Judging by the stiff postures all around her, the others were
taking part in identical telepathic conversations.

‘You are leaving,’ the Skylord said with a tinge of concern. ‘Is my guidance no longer acceptable? We are so near a world where you will flourish and become
fulfilled.’

Rojas held up a hand, stalling anyone else’s reply, and opened up his own telepathic voice. ‘We thank you for your guidance, and anticipate joining our friends on the world you have
brought us to very soon.’

‘I am glad for you. But why do you delay?’

‘We wish to explore the nature of this world and everything close to it. It is the way we reach our fulfilment.’

‘I understand. Your current trajectory will take you close to our parturition region.’

‘Do you mean this clump of objects?’ Rojas sent a mental picture of the Forest.

‘Yes.’

‘Is this where Skylords come from?’

‘Not this parturition region. We came from another.’

‘What are the objects in the parturition region? Eggs?’

‘The parturition region creates us.’

‘How?’

‘It does.’

‘Do you object to us going there?’

‘No.’

‘The region is different to the rest of the Void. Why?’

‘It is a parturition region.’

‘Are they important to you?’

‘We come from a parturition region. We do not return. We guide those who have reached fulfilment to the Heart of the Void.’

‘Where is that?’

‘It is at the end of your fulfilment.’ The Skylord’s presence withdrew from the cabin.

Rojas shook his head and sighed. His thoughts were showing a degree of frustration. ‘Thus ends every conversation with the Skylords,’ he concluded. ‘Enigmatic shits.’

‘That’s a fantastic discovery,’ Joey said. ‘The distortion trees birth them or conjure them into existence, or something. This is where they come from. Our mission is
half complete and we’ve only been going two minutes.’

‘If you believe it,’ Rojas said. ‘They’re slippery little swines.’ He flicked a switch to open a channel back to
Vermillion
and began reporting the
conversation.

*

Three hours seventeen minutes accelerating at point seven gees, then Shuttle Fourteen flipped over and decelerated at the same rate. Six and a half hours after launching from
Vermillion
, Rojas performed their final velocity match manoeuvres and the delta-shaped shuttle was left hanging in space, two and a half thousand kilometres out from the Forest.

Laura stared at it through the shuttle’s windscreen – a huge patch of silver speckles that gleamed brightly, blocking off half of space. Her eyes fooled her into thinking each speck
was drifting about, while in fact it was just the bizarre patterns of their surfaces that flickered and shimmered. Sensors zoomed in, giving them a decent image of the distortion trees on the edge
of the Forest.

‘They don’t have that fog around them that the Skylords do,’ Joey slurred. His facial twitches were growing progressively worse. Now that they were in freefall, drool was
slipping out of his open lips to drift round the cabin. Laura didn’t like the way his problems were developing. Shuttle Fourteen had a medical capsule, but it wasn’t as sophisticated as
any of the ones on
Vermillion.
Not, she admitted to herself, that she’d like any medical capsule to run a procedure on her right now. Fourteen’s systems glitches were steadily
increasing.

In tandem with Joey’s affliction?
she wondered.

‘Other than that, there’s not a lot of difference,’ Ayanna said. ‘These are smaller.’

‘Narrower,’ Rojas said. ‘And they are rotating very slowly around their long axis. Nine-hour cyclic period.’

‘A thermal roll?’ Laura asked.

‘Looks like it. That’s the easiest way to keep a stable temperature in space.’

‘So something’s making them roll,’ Laura said.

‘Nothing visible. It’s not a reaction-control system.’

‘Magnetic?’ Joey asked.

‘I’m not picking up any significant magnetic field,’ Rojas said. ‘They’re almost inert.’

‘What about the anomalous quantum signature?’ Laura asked.

Ayanna studied several of the displays, a frown growing. ‘It is very strange. The temporal component of spacetime is different in there.’

‘Temporal?’ Ibu queried.

‘I think time is progressing at a reduced flow rate inside. It’s not unreasonable; our wormholes can manipulate internal time flow in a similar fashion. We can even halt temporal
flow altogether inside exotic matter cages if they’re formatted correctly.’

‘You mean things happen slower in there?’ Rojas asked.

‘Only relative to outside the Forest.’

‘So are the trees made out of exotic matter?’ Joey asked.

‘I’ve no idea. But negative energy is the only way we know of manipulating spacetime, so there’s got to be something like it in there somewhere.’

‘We have to go in and take physical samples,’ Laura said.

‘So you keep saying,’ Ayanna replied drily.

‘Let’s see if we can, first,’ Rojas said. His hands moved nimbly over various switches on the pilot’s console. Two thirds of the way along the shuttle’s lower
fuselage, a malmetal hatch flowed open. Four Mk24 GSDs (General Science Drones) emerged from their silo and began flying towards the Forest, looking like black footballs studded with hexagonal
diamonds.

‘Functionality is good,’ Rojas said. Each Mk24 was displaying a visual image on a console pane. ‘I’ll send them in one at a time.’

‘There isn’t a clear barrier,’ Ayanna said. ‘The effect simply increases as you approach the outermost layer of trees.’

‘You mean I’ll get an increasingly delayed telemetry response?’

‘Could be,’ Ayanna replied. Uncertainty tainted her thoughts.

‘The first should reach the trees in forty minutes,’ Rojas said.

Laura kept looking at the view through the windscreen; she found it easier than constantly reinterpreting the images from the Mk24s. They weren’t getting much more than the full-spectrum
visual feed. Hard science data was sparse. The solar wind was normal, as was the cosmic radiation environment.

‘I wonder if this is what schizophrenia feels like,’ Ibu said after twenty minutes. ‘I wanted a new and exciting life; that’s why I joined the colony project.’

‘But not this exciting,’ Laura suggested.

‘No fucking way. But I have to admit, the Void is intriguing. From a purely academic point of view, you understand.’

‘I’ll take that over boredom.’

The big man cocked his head to look at her with interest. ‘You were going to another galaxy because you were bored?’

‘I’ve had six marriage partnerships, and a lot more fun partners. I’ve had twelve children, not all of them in a tank; I’ve actually been pregnant twice, which
wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. I’ve lived on the External and Inner worlds and sampled every lifestyle that wasn’t patently stupid. I thought becoming a scientist on the
cutting edge of research would be infinitely thrilling. It wasn’t. Damn, unless you’re in it, you have no idea of how much petty politics there is in academia. So it was either a real
fresh start, or download myself into ANA and join all the incorporeal minds bickering eternity away. And I just didn’t believe that was a decent solution.’

‘Interesting. What faction would you have joined?’

‘Brandts traditionally join the moderate Advancers. That sounded more of the same. So here I am.’

Ibu gestured at the vast silver stipple beyond the windscreen. ‘And is this not the infinite thrill you were searching for? You must be very content at what fate has dealt us.’

‘Hmm. More like infinitely worrying.’

‘Maybe, but we are in the middle of the galaxy’s greatest enigma. Unless we solve it, we will never return to the real universe. You can’t beat that for motivation.’

‘The more I see and understand,’ Laura said, ‘the more it seems to me we’re lab rats running around a particularly bizarre maze. What kind of power has the ability to
pull us in here, then apparently ignore us?’

‘You think we’re being watched?’

‘I don’t know. I suspect this place isn’t quite as passive as the captain believes. What would be the point of it doing nothing?’

‘What’s the point of it at all?’

She shrugged, which didn’t work well in freefall.

‘
Vermillion
has decelerated into low orbit,’ Rojas announced. ‘They’re launching environment analysis probes into the planet’s atmosphere.’

‘It’s an oxygen nitrogen atmosphere,’ Ayanna said disparagingly. ‘And spectography showed the kind of photosynthetic vegetation we’ve found everywhere we’ve
been in the galaxy. Unless there are some hellish pathogens running round loose down there, Cornelius will give the order to land.’

‘He doooesn’t,’ Joey began. The erratic spasms afflicting his face and neck mangled the words, so everyone had to listen hard now whenever he spoke. ‘Ever ned t-t-to
lanid.’

‘How’s that?’ Laura asked.

‘Because of the Skathl . . .’ A burst of anguish flowered in Joey’s mind as his traitor muscles distorted his words beyond recognition. ‘Thusss Skahh.’ He shut his
mouth forcefully. Began again. ‘Moih woold . . .’ His head bowed in defeat. ‘Because of the Skylords,’ his telepathic voice said clearly. ‘They brought us here for
whatever this ridiculous fulfilment kick of theirs is. If they wanted to kill us, the very least they had to do was just leave us drifting in space while all our systems glitched and crashed. But
they found us and guided us here, specifically here to this star which has an H-congruous type planet. On top of that, this whole place is artificial. Like Laura said, we’re here for a
reason. Death isn’t it.’

‘Makes sense,’ Laura said. ‘On the plus side, it probably means the
Vermillion
and the others will be able to land intact.’

Ibu grunted in agreement. ‘And probably won’t be able to fly again.’

‘Fulfilment,’ Rojas said, as if hearing the word for the first time. ‘You’re making it sound like a sacrifice to a god.’

‘Best theory yet,’ Ayanna said. ‘The Void is the most powerful entity we’ve yet encountered. God’s not a bad description.’

‘Now you’re into infinite regression,’ Ibu said cheerfully. ‘If this is a god, what does that say of whoever created it?’

‘I’m not sure this qualifies as an entity,’ Laura said. ‘I’m sticking with my theory that the Void’s a more advanced version of ANA. Just a big-ass computer,
running a real-life simulation that we’re trapped in.’

‘Nothing so far disproves that,’ Ayanna said sympathetically. ‘But that still means there’s a reason for it existing, and there’ll be a controlling
sentience.’

‘My vote’s for a work of art,’ Joey told them. ‘If you can create this, you’re a long,
long
way past us on the evolutionary scale. Why not do it for
fun?’

‘Because it’s dangerous and going to kill the galaxy,’ Rojas said.

‘If you’re a god, that might be fun.’

‘Let’s hope we don’t meet Her then,’ Ibu said sardonically.

Laura looked at the Forest again. ‘Well, I don’t think she’s likely to be in there.’

‘We might not get to find out,’ Rojas said. ‘The first Mk24’s telemetry feed is going weird on us.’

‘Weird, how?’ Ibu asked.

Rojas was studying several displays. ‘The datastream is slowing down. I don’t mean there’s less information; it’s dopplering – the bit rate separation is
increasing.’

‘Temporal flow reduction,’ Ayanna said in satisfaction. ‘The quantum sensor data was right.’

‘Where’s the drone?’ Laura asked.

‘A hundred and fifty kilometres from the nearest distortion tree,’ Rojas said. ‘Approach rate, one kilometre a second. I’m reducing that now; I need more time to initiate
manoeuvres.’

‘How’s it responding?’ Joey asked. There was a lot of curiosity behind the question.

‘Sluggish,’ Rojas admitted. ‘Oh: interesting. The second Mk24’s data is speeding up.’

‘The effect is fluctuating?’ Ayanna asked. ‘Now that is odd.’

‘Okay, and now the second Mk24’s telemetry is dopplering back down,’ Rojas said.

‘Maybe it’s a variable threshold,’ Laura suggested. The lack of instant information was exasperating; this mission was like operating in the Stone Age. Once again, she
instinctively asked her u-shadow to connect to the shuttle’s network. Startlingly, the interface worked. A whole flock of icons popped up in her exovision. Secondary thought routines
operating in her macrocellular clusters began to tabulate an analysis on an autonomic level. The raw torrent of information suddenly shifted to being precise and edifying.

Joey and Ayanna immediately turned to look at her, and she realized she’d let out a mental flash of comfort. ‘What’s the antonym of glitch?’ she asked. ‘I’ve
just got a full-up connection to Fourteen’s network.’

‘Resurrection?’ Ibu suggested.

Small icons in Laura’s exovision told her the rest of the team were taking advantage of the shuttle’s return to normality as the glitches faded. But she was concentrating primarily
on the quantum environment which the first Mk24 was gliding through. The temporal components were certainly different. There were other abnormalities as well.

‘Do you understand this?’ she asked Ayanna.

‘Not really.’

Laura closed her eyes as the Mk24 passed within seventeen kilometres of a distortion tree on the fringe of the Forest. The image it relayed of the tree was excellent. Its long bulbous structure
was made up from the wrinkled folds of some crystalline substance; they were arranged in a much less convoluted fashion than a Skylord. Pale multicoloured shadows rippled vigorously inside, as if
there was something deeper within the tree that was prowling about. The image flickered.

The Mk24’s datastream was dopplering down fast. Even with buffering, it was degrading badly. Laura shifted her focus to the second Mk24, which was five minutes behind it, approaching the
outer tier of trees. The image was much better.

With that front and centre in her consciousness, she ran a review through the rest of the data construct that Shuttle Fourteen was assembling.