The Abyss Beyond Dreams (20 page)

Nigel looked at Paula again.

She pulled a face. ‘So who do we get to go in?’ she asked.

‘Someone who’s been prewarned about the Void’s nature. Someone who’s smart enough to ask the right questions. You would be perfect.’

‘As would you. But I’m not going to flip you for it. In the Starflyer War, we took criminals out of suspension and offered them the opportunity to serve the Commonwealth in return
for a reduced sentence.’

‘Oh, yeah,’ Nigel said, surprised she’d even mentioned that. ‘Psychopaths and loons are just the kind of people we should be sending into that environment.’

‘Ask Living Dream followers. Every one of them would happily volunteer.’

‘Again, a great choice to represent us. We both know I’m the one that’s going to have to go in.’

‘I thought you were leaving the Commonwealth.’

‘I am. But dear old Vincent Hal Acraman has shown us how we get round that little problem, hasn’t he?’

The chrome-blue capsule descended out of the glaring Augusta sky to touch down on the lake house’s lawn. Nigel Sheldon walked out and immediately put on a pair of
sunglasses. In this new body, everything seemed brighter and louder. That or his old thought routines were simply jaded and faded, unused to perceiving the universe through sharp eyes. It was a
better theory; those old routines were having trouble controlling this body with its increased strength and reaction times. He had to concentrate hard just to walk. This body’s muscles were
strong enough to lift him off the ground at each step, as if he was in lunar gravity, not Augusta’s point-nine-three Earth standard.

He stood on the lawn and took a long deep breath. The El Iopi wind was blowing strongly today, bringing the continent’s heat with it. Inside his grey-green onepiece coverall, he started
sweating. His original came out of the capsule behind him, wearing a purple silk suit. He slipped a pair of mirrorshades on with exactly the same gesture Nigel had just used.

Paula Myo was standing on the lake house’s veranda, along with Vallar. She gave him and the original Nigel a sardonic grin. Nigel licked his lips and walked over.

‘Welcome to the world,’ Paula said directly to him.

Nigel guessed it was the hair which separated them. His original still needed a haircut, while his had barely grown more than a short frizz. ‘Did he tattoo the number
two
on my
forehead?’ he asked.

Her mouth twitched. ‘Do you remember me?’

Nigel took both her hands in his, and gave her a fulsome grin. ‘Nothing could banish you from my mind.’

‘That’s very sweet.’

‘So I was thinking, as the chances of me coming back are about a million below zero, how about you and I spend the last few days I have in this universe together? Condemned man, and all
that.’

She opened her eyes wide with mock adoration. ‘The night you come back,’ she breathed huskily, ‘I’ll fling myself at you like Ranalee on Edeard.’

‘Ah, dammit. They used to say it was impossible for you to lie,’ he said, remembering the young Paula who had caused such a stir when she started working for the Commonwealth Serious
Crime Directorate all those centuries ago.

‘Come back and find out,’ she told him.

‘Thank you, but I remember what fate Ranalee had in mind for Edeard.’

‘Yeah, but what a way to go.’

The original Nigel cleared his throat, his expression mildly disapproving. ‘If you two have
quite
finished . . .’

They all went into the lounge, and the window wall glass swept shut behind them. Nigel sat next to Paula on one of the wide grey couches, while his original sat opposite them – like some
kind of nineteenth-century chaperone. Vallar stood in the middle of the room.

‘How do you feel?’ Paula asked.

Nigel gave his original a smug look. ‘Better, stronger, faster than before. I should have downloaded into a re-life clone centuries ago.’

‘And how fortunate: you managed to keep your ego intact, too,’ she said drily. ‘What could possibly go wrong?’

Nigel laughed. ‘So how have you three done while I was being grown?’ he asked. ‘My memory stops five weeks ago, just after we’d gone through Inigo’s dreams and
decided on this – me.’ He cocked his head to glance at his original. ‘And the Dynasty’s network is sealed against me.’

‘You wouldn’t find what we’re doing on the Dynasty’s network anyway,’ his original replied. ‘This is a very private operation.’

‘The ship is ready,’ Paula told him.

‘How biological is it?’ Nigel asked.

‘About seventy per cent,’ his original said. ‘We’ve even managed to construct some ultradrive systems out of semiorganics.’ A slight pause. ‘Mark Vernon is in
charge of construction.’

Nigel smiled in delight. ‘Wow, we’re really reverting to the good old days. What did Mark have to say about being brought in?’

‘He’s loving it, of course,’ his original said. ‘Between moaning like hell. But there really is no one better for integrating odd systems like this.’

‘Excellent.’ Before Nigel’s new body had been fast-grown in a vat at the Dynasty’s private clinic, his original had agreed with Paula and Vallar that organic systems were
the most likely to retain functionality in the Void. Something in that weird continuum seemed innately hostile to most technology. ‘Anything new come up?’

He watched his original and Paula exchange a glance.

‘Not really,’ Paula said.

‘But . . .’ he prompted.

‘We’ve been trying to understand the Skylords. They seem to be independent; they’re certainly sentient in a savant fashion. But at the same time they only exist to guide souls,
or fulfilled minds, to the Heart. That’s a little puzzling.’

‘Paradoxical,’ his original said.

‘So?’ Nigel asked.

‘We’re uncertain if you can rely on them,’ Paula told him. ‘They don’t seem to be antagonistic, more like aloof, which again is contrary, given the function they
perform.’

‘I’m not sure something like that can evolve naturally,’ the original Nigel said. ‘They were probably created by the Void Heart or its controlling mechanism, whatever
that is. But they do seem a little odd.’

‘Unlike the rest of the Void,’ Nigel observed.

‘The Void is odd, granted, but it’s all integral, and even has a kind of internal logic.’

‘You said it,’ Nigel said. ‘They serve a function, guiding fulfilled souls to the Heart.’

‘It just doesn’t quite seem right,’ Paula said.

‘You can’t seriously think the Skylords evolved outside and then fell into the Void like other species,’ Nigel countered. ‘That’s even more illogical.’

‘Our neural bioware is artificial,’ Paula said. ‘It is technically machinery, yet it can hold sentience. And we’ve seen AIs become sentient.’

‘Don’t remind me,’ Nigel muttered.

‘So they might be external artificial organisms, AI starships or an alien variant of ANA, which have adapted to the Void,’ the original Nigel said.

Nigel looked over at Vallar. ‘Is that what Makkathran has become?’

‘Makkathran sleeps. That is all we have seen. It seems to respond to Edeard at some autonomic level. We have composed a stimulant that you may download into it. We hope this will trigger
its awakening.’

‘That has got to be one giant needle.’

‘It is a thought routine that you should be able to deliver through the “longtalk” telepathy which Querencia’s human citizens use. In a worst-case scenario, your ship
could make a physical connection to Makkathran’s network. The conduits would be relatively easy to identify.’

‘Okay, and after it awakes?’

‘If there is a way out, it will use it.’

‘And if not?’

‘The information it has gathered simply by being in there for such a period of time will be invaluable.’

Nigel exhaled a long breath. ‘And we’re still hoping a gaiafield connection will get that information out?’

‘It did for Inigo and Edeard – somehow,’ the original Nigel said. ‘So it ought to allow me to dream you. The gaiafield function was sequenced into you, every neurone has
it. If that doesn’t work, I don’t know what will.’

‘We made you as best as we could to survive the Void environment,’ Paula said. ‘Your brain is faster and smarter than normal. With luck, that should give you a stronger psychic
ability than everyone else. You have weaponized biology in case it’s not.’

‘What about my backups?’ Nigel asked. They had all decided he would need help he could trust implicitly.

‘They’re ready,’ the original Nigel said. ‘Modifying a standard ANAdroid was relatively easy, certainly compared to growing you. We managed to build in every ability I
thought of. They’re fully feature-morphic. Mentally, they can operate independently, or you can go multiple with them as soon as you activate them; their neural structure is compatible with
your routines, and they have gaiafield access capability, too. We don’t think anyone’s ESP can tell the difference between them and a standard human.’

‘Right.’ Nigel looked at Paula. ‘Anything else? You don’t look happy.’

‘I’m confused by the genistar animals,’ she admitted.

‘What about them?’ Nigel recalled how prevalent they were on Querencia. A native species that humans had learned how to shape into various subspecies to help with simple manual
labour. It was Edeard’s Eggshaper Guild that was responsible for them. The genistars had several subspecies, which could be telepathically selected just after egg fertilization by someone
particularly skilled in the art.

‘How do you evolve that function naturally?’ Paula asked. ‘Granted, it’s a big strange universe out here, but I don’t believe that could ever happen. They have to
be artificial, which is slightly contrary, because that ability to manipulate their final shape can only happen in the Void. As they’re not sentient, that has to be performed by someone else,
someone with an excellent telepathic ability. Simply put, they were developed as a slave species. And I’m not sure how you’d do that in a technology-free environment like the
Void.’

‘That’s a lot of conjecture you’ve come up with, there,’ Nigel said bluntly. ‘I’m not going to prejudge them.’

‘It’s a logical extrapolation. Edeard’s civilization never encountered the slavers themselves. I’m assuming they were the ones who lived in Makkathran before humans, but
that doesn’t necessarily mean they all vanished into the Heart. I just want you to be extremely careful around genistars, that’s all.’

‘Got it.’ Nigel looked round the three conspirators, feeling a buzz of excitement he hadn’t known in centuries. ‘So we’re basically ready to go, then?’

‘Indeed,’ his original said.

Nigel regarded Paula slyly. ‘What about my emergency fallback? The fabled plan B?’

She sighed reluctantly. ‘The package is ready. But you have to
really
need it. If I find out you activated it without any kind of disaster looming . . .’

‘Yeah, I know. And thank you,’ he said sincerely. ‘All right then, I guess I’m ready. Let’s go kick some Void butt.’

‘Oh, I knew it,’ Paula said disapprovingly. ‘Nigel, that’s completely the wrong attitude. This is an information-gathering mission, not a war party.’

‘Hey, you’re getting seriously gloomy; I’m just trying to lighten things up. You know me.’

‘I certainly do. That’s why I came up with plan B.’

‘Have a little faith. This calls for me being smart and sneaky. That I can manage. I won’t call for the intellectual cavalry unless I really need to.’

‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ she asked. ‘Really sure?’

Nigel did his best to lower his gaze, but the stare she was giving him seemed to be looking into his mind far more easily than any telepathy. ‘It’s a simple mission,’ he said
earnestly. ‘Land as close as I can, try and wake Makkathran. Dream whatever I find back out to you. If the ship still works, try and follow a Skylord to the Heart and dream that back for you
as well.’

‘And if it doesn’t work?’ Paula asked.

‘Then I’ll go live a quiet life somewhere in the countryside. Maybe teach them better medicine.’

‘Don’t do anything—’

‘Stupid?’ Nigel asked.

‘I was going to say, dangerous,’ she said. ‘And to that we can add: foolhardy, reckless, irresponsible—’

‘Okay! Hell, I get it, I’ll be good.’

Paula gave him a mournful smile. ‘That would be nice.’

‘Mark has a whole load of instructions for you,’ his original said. ‘Take as long as you want to familiarize yourself with the ship, and after that we’ll
leave.’

Paula leaned over and gave him a light kiss. ‘You take care. I mean it. You’ll have me to deal with if you don’t.’

‘I am aware of that.’

She grinned. ‘You have the naming privilege. What are you going to call the ship?’

Nigel grinned back. ‘
Skylady
, of course. What else?’

The
Skylady
rose silently up into Augusta’s night sky. A fat ellipsoid twenty-five metres long, with rounded delta wings. Her nondescript grey-green fuselage
soaked up the starlight, making her very difficult to see.

Umbaratta
flew beside her, Nigel Sheldon’s personal starship – a sleek teardrop ultradrive, capable of flying anywhere in the galaxy at fifty-six lightyears an hour. Two
thousand kilometres above Augusta, they both rendezvoused with Vallar’s spherical starship, and all three went FTL.

*

Eighteen hours later, a long way outside the Commonwealth, they dropped back into ordinary space. The nearest star was three light-years away.

Sitting in the
Umbaratta
’s circular cabin, Nigel Sheldon told the smartcore to scan round. The starship’s excellent sensors could detect nothing. He’d been expecting a
Raiel starship of some kind to be waiting for them. One of their colossal warships, he’d hoped. They were still over thirty thousand lightyears from the Void, and he was extremely interested
in how the Raiel were going to transport them there. The Commonwealth had never managed to produce anything faster than ultradrive.

Vallar opened a link. ‘Stand by,’ she told him.

Nigel opened his gaiamotes, and detected his clone’s thoughts. Like his, they reflected a quiet anticipation.