The Abyss Beyond Dreams (16 page)

Nigel’s enriched vision showed him the Raiel craft while it was still fifteen miles high. He fed the estate’s sensor data into his sight, amplifying the image.

The craft was a twenty-metre sphere with a flat base. It was emitting gravitational distortions similar to a Commonwealth regrav drive.

Nigel watched it land in the centre of the lawn. His biononic fieldscan function caught a T-sphere expanding, and a Raiel was teleported onto the grass in front of him.

He arched an eyebrow.
Very dramatic. Overuse of technology, though. What’s wrong with a simple malmetal hatch?
‘Welcome to Augusta,’ he said out loud.

The Raiel was larger than a terrestrial elephant, with a tough looking grey-green hide. That was where any equivalence died. For Nigel, standing directly in front of the alien, it was like
looking at the crown of an octopus. The wide rounded head was surrounded by tentacles that varied from the pair closest to the ground, which were long and strong, clearly evolved for heavy work, up
to clusters of smaller, more agile, appendages. Behind the array of tentacles, odd ropes of flesh dangled down like flaccid feelers, weighted by heavy knobs of technology – or maybe just
jewellery, he conceded.

‘Thank you for receiving me,’ the Raiel said from a mouth that was all damp folds. ‘I am Vallar,
High Angel
’s designated liaison with the warrior
Raiel.’

‘Indeed? Please come in. I am delighted to grant you the freedom of my house.’

‘You are most kind.’

Vallar walked over to the lake house. She had eight short legs along each side of her body; devoid of joints, they moved in pairs, tilting up and forwards to move her along in an elegant
undulation. Nigel had to lengthen his stride to keep up.

The entrance in the window wall widened further to accommodate Vallar, then closed behind her. Nigel ordered the smartcore to activate another layer of privacy shielding around the building.

‘I hope we are secure enough now?’ Nigel asked. He remained standing. Somehow flopping back into a chair in front of the imposing alien would have seemed vaguely rude.

Her eyes were clusters of five separate small hemispheres that swivelled round in unison to focus on him. ‘Completely. I thank you for the courtesy.’

‘So what can I do for you?’

‘We are extremely interested in the latest development in the Commonwealth concerning the Void.’

‘Ah,’ Nigel murmured, and started to relax. ‘Of course. Inigo.’

Inigo was a human who had allegedly started to have dreams about a life lived by an adolescent named Edeard, living on a planet called Querencia inside the Void. Edeard’s story was of an
idealist making his way through some quasi-medieval society but with telepathic powers thrown in. So far Inigo had released four of these astonishingly detailed dreams through the gaiafield and was
just starting the fifth. A lot of people thought they were perfect forgeries, fantasy dramas produced by some External world company who were enacting the mother of all product placements. But a
lot more people – tens of millions already, and increasing daily – were utterly convinced by the visions Inigo alone had been mystically granted. Living Dream was a growing movement
that wanted to live the same life as Edeard, and people flocked to Inigo to await further revelations. He was rapidly turning into the human race’s latest unnervingly plausible messiah,
offering a glimpse into a very strange universe indeed, where you lived a simpler, yet very different life.

Nigel looked up at the Raiel’s eyeclusters. ‘I can’t vouch that those dreams are real. Humans are capable of very ingenious deceptions, for a variety of reasons, not all of
which make sense.’

‘The fourth dream shows Edeard travelling to the city of Makkathran.’

‘Yes, it does.’ Nigel didn’t quite blush, but he felt a mild embarrassment at admitting he’d accessed all the dreams – a twelve-year-old caught sipping his
father’s beer. ‘It was an odd city. Built by aliens.’

‘It is one of ours.’

‘What?’

‘Makkathran is one of the warships that formed our armada. It was part of the invasion we sent into the Void a million years ago.’

‘You’re
shitting
me!’ Nigel blurted.

‘I am not.’

‘No. Of course. Sorry. But . . . are you sure?’

‘Yes. It is what convinced us that the dreams are genuine, that Inigo is somehow connected to Edeard. And that Edeard himself is real. How else would he know that name? Even we had almost
forgotten it. And then there is the shape of the city, as well as its crystal wall.’

Nigel flinched, angry with himself for not seeing the obvious. Makkathran was circular, with a crystal wall running round it. ‘Sonofabitch. It’s perfectly circular, and the city wall
is the base of a dome. How obvious. Then the rest of the ship must be buried underneath. I didn’t know you had canals in your cities.’

‘We don’t. Our ships have an integral mattershift ability. Your species witnessed
High Angel
shape New Glasgow to suit you. This is what has happened here. Some other
species lived in Makkathran, and the ship crafted itself to their needs.’

Nigel sat down in one of the lounge’s oversized couches. ‘And then they all got carried off by Skylords to live in the Heart of the Void, isn’t that the local
religion?’

‘Yes.’

‘Wow. So that’s what’s inside the Void? A spacetime continuum that permits mental powers? How the hell does it do that?’

‘We do not know. Nigel, this is the first glimpse we have ever been granted into the Void. Our armada failed. No ship ever returned. We thought they were all dead, that the Void had
defeated them. Now it seems at least one has survived.’

‘Okay,’ he said, becoming wary. ‘So what do you want?’

‘I have come to you because you are the leader of the Commonwealth.’

Nigel held up a hand, palm outwards. ‘Hardly. I drove a lot of its development and policy at the start, back when wealth mattered. But that was a long time ago. ANA: Governance bosses the
Central worlds around now; as for the External worlds, hell, they’ve got political parties to pounce on every grudge. And as a species, we’re prolifically inventive when it comes to
grudges.’

Vallar didn’t move. ‘Nonetheless, you remain the single most powerful individual alive in the Commonwealth today.’

‘I have influence outside the norm, yeah.’

‘We need to investigate Inigo’s dreams. It is urgent.’

‘There are certain resources available to me,’ he admitted slowly. ‘But . . . You turn back every ship from the Wall stars. I know this. I accessed the Navy reports on the
stealth ships Admiral Kazimir has tried to slip past you. So how did humans wind up in there? And that civilization Edeard lives in is – what, a couple of thousand years old? Was the Void
snatching people from Earth back in medieval times? No, wait; don’t Edeard and Salrana talk about ships falling onto Querencia?’

‘We do not know how humans got into the Void. This lack is greatly disturbing to us. However, one of your inter-galactic colony fleets disappeared two hundred years ago.’

‘Disappeared?’ Nigel barked. ‘What do you mean, disappeared? And if you knew that, why haven’t you informed us?’

‘It was the second Brandt fleet, consisting of seven starships. The warrior Raiel who guard the Wall stars monitored it flying past the galactic core at considerable distance. Then they
lost track of it. Please understand the monitoring was not constant. The warrior Raiel are only concerned with starships that venture close. It is possible that the fleet changed course, or decided
to settle a pleasant world they found in this galaxy – and we are looking for that right now. However, it is equally possible they were somehow taken inside the Void.’

‘If that’s right, then time inside the Void is different – faster,’ he mused. ‘Well, why not? Giving people telepathic powers is a lot weirder. Temporal flow is a
much simpler manipulation of spacetime; we’ve done it enough inside wormholes.’

‘The method by which humans got inside the Void is possibly a higher concern to us than even the existence of Makkathran.’

‘How so?’

‘A fleet of starships two hundred years ago, or a pre-technology civilization on Earth. Either would mean the Void has an ability to bring sentient species inside that we did not know
about, and cannot detect. Frankly, we are very worried. Our million-year vigil may have been for nothing.’

‘Huh, yeah, I see that.’ Nigel took a breath and stood up again. ‘Vallar, I will be happy to help you investigate Inigo as thoroughly as needed. And you were right to come to
me; playing by the rules would mean Inigo could stall any normal government disclosure request for decades in the courts if he wanted.’

‘I thank you. There is another aspect we would also request your assistance with.’

‘Which is?’

‘We would very much like to know how those humans got into the Void. Their arrival myth needs to be determined. Makkathran itself may be able to help.’

Nigel gave the huge Raiel a puzzled look. ‘Yeah, but how can you accomplish that?’

‘Someone has to go inside the Void and ask it.’

In all her seventeen years Alicia di Cadi had never seen anything as lovely as the isle of Llyoth. It was one of over a thousand tiny coral islands that made up the Anugu
Archipelago, stretching for three hundred miles across Mayaguan’s Sambrero Ocean. The C-shaped ridge of coral was barely a kilometre long. Thanks to Mayaguan’s large close-in moon, low
tide pulled the waves back for five hundred metres, exposing a shallow beach of the finest white sand, while on the other side of the isle a circle of low dragonspine polyps produced a shallow
lagoon whose water was bath-hot. Native cycads clinging to the slender ground between had saltwater roots, allowing them to produce towering stems with emerald fronds that rolled out like sails
every morning.

There were twelve wooden vacation shacks spread out along the curving shore. Deceptively ramshackle looking from the outside, but their interiors were a plush boutique design, promising the
clientele a break of unashamed luxury.

Darrin had rented one of the shacks for a week. Darrin was twenty years old, a Natural human like herself, as were most of Mayaguan’s population – a stubborn little External world
rejecting both Higher culture and the more prevalent Advancer ethos that so many in the Commonwealth adhered to. Darrin, who had moved to her mainland village only four weeks ago, taking up a
position as assistant manager at the local Walland general store franchise. Darrin, who was simply a dream of perfection with his lean dark-skinned body, flat face with a wide smile and soft brown
eyes that every girl in town wanted to have gaze at her.

But Alicia was the one who he made a special effort to talk to. And he was slightly shy, and funny, and had the same simple dreams as her. He seemed to understand her so well, the frustration of
living in a backwater, her timidity of venturing out into the Commonwealth with all its wonder and strangeness.

‘Just don’t rush,’ he’d told her. ‘It’s been there for a thousand years, and it’ll last a lot longer. Wait until you’re confident enough.
That’s what I’m doing. I will see it all, but when I do it’ll be on my terms.’

Darrin, for whom it took four whole days before she’d dumped Tobyn, her steady fella of seven months. Darrin, who she went for long walks with. Darrin, who encouraged her to keep up her
schooling. Who seemed to understand her battleground relationship with her sixty-seven-year-old mother who was set in ways that belonged in some distant anachronistic century. Darrin offering
support and advice and sympathy. Who was so unselfish and empathized with her own insecurities.

Darrin, who she was completely and utterly in love with like no boy and girl had ever been before, who she wanted to live with forever and give him as many children as he asked for. Darrin, who
she would willingly die for.

He’d never made a move on her in those three weeks. Not that she would have said no to him. But instead he talked openly and honestly about them becoming true lovers. And then he’d
suggested this week together.

With only a mild reluctance, her mother had agreed she could go. And so they took his ageing fifth-hand capsule to Llyoth’s discreet landing lawn in the middle of the isle that
afternoon.

Their shack had a huge circular bed. Alicia blushed in delight as she looked at it; just considering all the possibilities it offered for naughtiness that night made her deliciously excited.
Then they changed quickly and went out exploring the sublime isle, running down the vast deserted beach, where they splashed about in the waves. After that they took a paddle board lesson in the
lagoon, constantly falling off, they were laughing so much. Holding hands during the walk back through the lush foliage, they discovered a number of sweet little secluded glades. Every time they
stopped in one, they kissed, taking longer and longer each time until she just wanted to rip his swimming trunks off there and then.

‘Tonight,’ he said, his gorgeous eyes never leaving hers. ‘I want it to be just perfect.’

She nodded, nearly biting through her lower lip in frustration.

Dinner was served on a big wooden platform at one tip of the cove, with tables for two that had living canopies of scarlet flower vines. The only light came from candles.

Servicebots waited on the tables, but it was a real human chef working at the grill, cooking the fish. Alicia had put on her navy-blue polkadot dress, the one with a very short shirt and a
neckline deep enough that Darrin just couldn’t stop staring. It was heavenly being able to entrance him like that.

There were five other couples on the platform that night. But the tables were placed well apart to grant each of them solitude. Alicia smiled round at how fine everyone looked. There was only
one person dining on his own, a really old man – like almost thirty or something – with shaggy blond hair, wearing a dinner jacket that was as black as she’d ever seen – but
even his table was set for two.

‘A tiff, do you think?’ Alicia asked with a giggle.