"Make it stop. She can't get me. I can't allow that. Not again."

"There is n.o.body there. She is just a memory, a screwed-up memory you don't know how to contain, there's so much fear embedded with the experience."

Aaron suddenly let go of Inigo, stumbling around to face the broken door in a martial arts pose. "She's here."

"Aaron, listen to me. Ozzie's dream is corroding your rationality because it was never designed to deal with circ.u.mstances like these. You have to let them go; you have to let the real you out of those constraints your boss imposed. You must come forward. This artificial personality can't cope."

"Not good enough?"

"The real you is more than adequate. Come out. Come on, it's the only way you can beat this."

"Damage control ..." Aaron slowly sank to his knees, and then his back curled as he dropped his head between his legs. His breathing started to calm. The eerie semihallucinations around the periphery of the cabin began to melt away.

Inigo and Corrie-Lyn gave each other an anxious look. "Do you think?" she asked.

"The Lady alone knows," he murmured back.

They stood up. Corrie-Lyn hurriedly pulled her woolen robe back on, then they both approached the crouched figure cautiously. Inigo reached out tentatively but didn't quite have the courage to touch Aaron. He wondered if that was the dream field-or whatever-amplifying the worry. But it seemed sensible enough. Surely an emotional enhancer would boost his sympathy correspondingly. Maybe that was the way it worked, everything raised equally so that everything stayed in the same balance as before-no alteration to personality, just a greater perception or empathy.

Aaron's head came up; his biononics performed a thorough field scan of the starship. He stood up and looked at Inigo and Corrie-Lyn. His weapon enrichments sank back down into his hand; ripples of skin closed over them.

"h.e.l.lo?" Corrie-Lyn said hopefully. "Aaron, is that really you now?"

Inigo wasn't so sure. There wasn't a trace of emotion coming from the man. In fact ...

"I am Aaron," he said.

"That's good," Corrie-Lyn said hesitantly. "Have the disturbances gone?"

"There are no disturbances in my head. My thought routines have been reduced to minimum functionality requirement. This mission will be completed now. Arrival at the Spike is in eighteen hours. Inigo will accompany me to Oswald Fernandez Isaacs. You will then both be given further instructions." He turned and walked out the door.

"What in Honious was that?" a startled Corrie-Lyn asked.

"The last fallback mode by the sound of it; probably installed in case his brain got damaged in a firefight. He's running on minimum neural activity. Whoever rebuilt him must have had a real fetish about redundancy."

She shivered, clutching at the robe. "He's even less human than before, isn't he? And he was never much to begin with."

"Yeah. Ladyd.a.m.nit, I thought this was our chance to break his conditioning."

"c.r.a.p."

"But at least we know I don't get shot before we meet Ozzie."

"Oswald? I never knew that was his name."

"No, me neither."

She let out a long breath, then narrowed her eyes to stare at him. "The s.e.x wasn't that good naturally?"

"Ah. I had to say something that would shock him."

"Really?" She glanced around the cabin. Tiny shards of sharp metal debris glinted on every surface. "Honious, this is a mess."

"Hey, don't worry. We'll get through this."

"I'm not worried."

"Yes, you are. I can sense it."

"What? Oh!" Her eyes widened as she realized she could sense his mind as clearly as if they were fully sharing within the gaiafield.

He smiled weakly. "That Ozzie, he's really something. Over two hundred and fifty light-years away, and it already affects us. Whatever it it really is." really is."

"Do you think it can be used to connect everyone with the Void?"

"I have no idea. But I suspect we're going to find out. Maybe that's why Aaron's controllers want me there. I have proven access to thoughts from the Void; maybe they want to see if I can connect directly to the Heart."

"So what can this effect do?" she mused.

--- They spent the next few hours experimenting. The effect was remarkably like the longtalk they knew so well from the Void. When one of them carefully formed words or phrases, the other could perceive it, though they never worked out anything like the directed longtalk available to the residents of Querencia. But it was the constant awareness of emotion that was the most disquieting. If they hadn't already been so intimate and adept at using the gaiamotes to connect emotionally, Corrie-Lyn thought they would have had real trouble with guilt and resentment at such openness. As it was, the effect took a long time to accept at an intellectual level. Being so exposed and having no choice in the matter made her apprehensive. She was all right with Inigo, but knowing the machinelike Aaron could perceive her every sentiment was unpleasant at the very least, and as for the prospect of every alien on the Spike being able to see into her mind ... She wasn't sure she could cope with that.

The one time she gave a bottle of Rindhas a longing look, she immediately knew of Inigo's disapproval, which triggered her own shame to new heights. No wonder the cranky old Aaron had broken down under the mental stress. It was a weird kind of human who could cope with having his heart on his sleeve the entire time.

And yet, she told herself, that's what we were all wishing to undergo in the Void. Especially the all-inclusive telepathy as it was in the Thirty-seventh Dream. Perhaps it's just people who are at fault. If I didn't have so much to hide, I wouldn't fear this as much. My fault I'm like this that's what we were all wishing to undergo in the Void. Especially the all-inclusive telepathy as it was in the Thirty-seventh Dream. Perhaps it's just people who are at fault. If I didn't have so much to hide, I wouldn't fear this as much. My fault I'm like this.

They went to sleep a few hours later, with Inigo using a low-level field scan to monitor Aaron just in case. They woke in time for a quick breakfast before they reached the Spike.

The Lindau Lindau dropped out of hypers.p.a.ce fifty AUs above the blue-white A-cla.s.s star's south pole. The emergence location allowed it an unparalleled view of the star's extensive ring system. Visual sensors swiftly picked out the Hot Ring with its innermost edge two AUs out from the star and a diameter of half an AU. A hoop of heavy metallic rocks glittering brightly in the harsh light as they tumbled around their timeless...o...b..t. Three AUs farther out, the Dark Ring was a stark contrast, a slender band of carbonaceous particles inclined five degrees out of the ecliptic, so dark that it seemed to suck light out of s.p.a.ce. The angle allowed it to produce a faint umbra on the so-called Smog, the third ring, composed of pale silicate dust and light particles combined with a few larger asteroids that created oddly elegant curls and whorls within the bland ocher-tinted haze. Beyond that, at seventeen AUs, was the Band Ring, a thin, very dense loop fixed in place by over a hundred shepherd moonlets. After that there was only the Ice Bracelet, which began at twenty-five AUs and blended into the Oort cloud at the system's edge. dropped out of hypers.p.a.ce fifty AUs above the blue-white A-cla.s.s star's south pole. The emergence location allowed it an unparalleled view of the star's extensive ring system. Visual sensors swiftly picked out the Hot Ring with its innermost edge two AUs out from the star and a diameter of half an AU. A hoop of heavy metallic rocks glittering brightly in the harsh light as they tumbled around their timeless...o...b..t. Three AUs farther out, the Dark Ring was a stark contrast, a slender band of carbonaceous particles inclined five degrees out of the ecliptic, so dark that it seemed to suck light out of s.p.a.ce. The angle allowed it to produce a faint umbra on the so-called Smog, the third ring, composed of pale silicate dust and light particles combined with a few larger asteroids that created oddly elegant curls and whorls within the bland ocher-tinted haze. Beyond that, at seventeen AUs, was the Band Ring, a thin, very dense loop fixed in place by over a hundred shepherd moonlets. After that there was only the Ice Bracelet, which began at twenty-five AUs and blended into the Oort cloud at the system's edge.

There were no planets, an idiosyncrasy that sorely puzzled the Commonwealth astronomers. The star was too old for the rings to be categorized as any kind of accretion disc. Most wrote it off as a quirk caused by the Spike, but that had been in place only for at the most fifty thousand years; in astrological time that was nothing. Unless of course it had obliterated the planets when it arrived, which would make it a weapon of extraordinary stature. Again highly unlikely.

From their position poised above the system, Aaron asked for approach and docking permission. It was granted by the Spike's AI, and they slipped back into hypers.p.a.ce for the short flight in.

The Spike was in the middle of the Hot Ring. It was an alien artifact whose main structure was a slim triangle that curved gently around its long axis, which measured eleven thousand kilometers from the top to an indeterminate base. There was no way to determine the exact position of the base because that part of the Spike was still buried within some dimensional twist. To the navy exploration vessel that had found it in 3072, it was as if a planet-sized starship had tried to erupt out of hypers.p.a.ce with only partial success, the nose slicing out cleanly into s.p.a.cetime while the tail section was still lost amid the intricate folds of the universe's underlying quantum fields. The only thing that ruined that big-aerodynamic-starship image was the sheer size of the brute. On top of the triangle was a five-kilometer-diameter spire that was a further two thousand kilometers in length-function unknown.

Contrary to all natural orbital mechanics, the Spike remained oriented in one direction, with the tip pointing straight out of the Hot Ring ecliptic. Its concave curve also tracked the star as it traveled along its perfectly circular orbit like some heliotactic sail-shaped flower always following the light. Thus, the anchoring twist that held its base amid the whirling rocky particles was obviously active, although its mechanism was somewhere within the unreachable base. Few people still believed it was a ship, though the notion remained among the romantically inclined elements of the Commonwealth's scientific community and the more excitable Raiel/Void conspiracy theorists.

Contact with the fourteen known alien species living inside, which was remarkably easy, didn't advance the exploration starship's understanding of the Spike's origin or purpose one byte. All the species who'd found a home among the myriad habitation chambers had arrived there relatively recently, the Chikoya longest ago at four and a half thousand years. They, along with all those who had found a home in the Spike over the millennia, had made their adaptations and alterations to the basic structure to a point where it was difficult to know what was original anymore.

When the Lindau Lindau emerged from hypers.p.a.ce again, they were eight hundred kilometers sunward and level with the top of the Spike, so that the ma.s.sive spire stabbed up into the southern starfield above them. The smartcore accelerated them in, matching the ma.s.sive structure's errant velocity vector. Ahead of them the curved inner surface was segmented by crystalline chambers like a skin of bubbles. The smallest extended over a hundred kilometers wide, while the largest, an Ilodi settlement, stretched out to a full three hundred kilometers in diameter. Eight tubes wove around and through the chambers, each of them a convoluted loop with a diameter of thirty kilometers, acting as the Spike's internal transport routes. Seven of them had an H-congruous oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere; the eighth supported a high-temperature methane/nitrogen environment. emerged from hypers.p.a.ce again, they were eight hundred kilometers sunward and level with the top of the Spike, so that the ma.s.sive spire stabbed up into the southern starfield above them. The smartcore accelerated them in, matching the ma.s.sive structure's errant velocity vector. Ahead of them the curved inner surface was segmented by crystalline chambers like a skin of bubbles. The smallest extended over a hundred kilometers wide, while the largest, an Ilodi settlement, stretched out to a full three hundred kilometers in diameter. Eight tubes wove around and through the chambers, each of them a convoluted loop with a diameter of thirty kilometers, acting as the Spike's internal transport routes. Seven of them had an H-congruous oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere; the eighth supported a high-temperature methane/nitrogen environment.

Aaron directed them into a metal mushroom sprouting from one of the H-congruous tubes. There were hundreds of similar landing pads scattered randomly along all the tubes. Some of them were crude, little more than slabs of metal with a basic airlock tunnel fused onto the tube. When the Lindau Lindau settled on it, a localized artificial gravity field took over, holding the starship down at about a tenth of a gee. settled on it, a localized artificial gravity field took over, holding the starship down at about a tenth of a gee.

Inigo and Corrie-Lyn were standing behind Aaron in the starship's small bridge compartment, images of the Spike projecting out of a half dozen portals all around them. They could see a lot of movement on the surface. A huge variety of drones were crawling, rolling, sliding, skating, and hopping along the tubes and chambers, performing various repair and maintenance functions. All of them were operated by the controlling AI, itself a patchwork of processor cores that had been grafted onto the original management network by the residents who had come and gone over the millennia.

"The effect's no stronger here than when it first hit us. It must be uniform," Corrie-Lyn said wonderingly as she tried to sort through the mult.i.tude of foreign sensations that Ozzie's telepathy effect were allowing to impact on her mind. She could feel Inigo's mind as before and the odd unemotional threads buzzing through Aaron's brain, but beyond them was a sensory aurora not too dissimilar to the gaiafield. Human minds were present, though she wasn't sure how many, probably no more than a few thousand. Alien minds were also intruding that were intriguingly weird, possessing a different intensity and emotions that were subtly different.

"What I'm feeling can't represent everyone on the Spike," Inigo said, perceiving her interest. "For a start, there's over a million of the Ba'rine-sect Chikoya, who settled here after they got kicked off their homeworld. They're aggressive in their beliefs and not afraid to show it. That level of animosity is absent. Then there's the Flam-gi and their whole nasty little speciesism superiority-they're definitely not sharing. And Honious alone knows who or what's in some of the sealed chambers."

"So they're not all part of Ozzie's dream, then?"

"It would seem not."

"Why?" Even as she asked it, she could sense his dismissal.

"I don't know. We'll just have to ask him. Aaron, do you know where he is?"

"No." The agent's head didn't move; he was studying a projection of the Spike's entire inner surface. Some kind of mapping program was active, sending flashes of color across sections and down tubes. "The controlling AI has no information on him. U-shadow-based data retrieval routines do not function effectively in the network, and some compartment sections are blocked; I cannot check the data with any accuracy."

"Reasonable enough," Inigo said. "There's no overall government as such. From what I remember, you just turn up and find somewhere that supports your biochemistry and move in."

"So what now?" Corrie-Lyn asked.

"We will visit the largest human settlement and ask them for Isaacs's location."

"And if they don't know?" Inigo asked.

"He is renowned. Someone will know."

"But he already knows we're here," Inigo said.

Aaron turned to stare at him. "Have you signaled him?"

"No. But this telepathy effect exposes everything to everybody. That's what he came here to do. Therefore, he is aware of our arrival."

"Can you determine the source of the effect?"

"No."

"Very well. Come with me now." Aaron walked out into the companionway.

Inigo gave Corrie-Lyn a bemused shrug, and the two of them followed meekly behind Aaron as he went into the scoutship's main airlock.

The landing pad had extruded a malmetal cylinder that was compatible with the starship's seal. The outer door expanded, showing the cylinder curving down. Aaron stepped through and glided forward in the low gravity. The cylinder bent in a sharp double curve to take them through the tube wall. They pa.s.sed through a translucent pressure curtain that shivered around them, and then they were inside a small blue metal building with open archways. The temperature and humidity rose sharply to subtropical levels. They walked through the arches onto a broad paved area. The tube's inner surface was covered in lush pink-tinged gra.s.ses and long meandering gray-blue forests. Fifteen kilometers above their heads, a sliver of dazzling white light ran along the axis of the tube, shining through the thick smears of helical cloud that drifted along the interior. As soon as they'd stepped through the pressure curtain, Corrie-Lyn had felt the gravity rise to about two-thirds Earth standard, which gave her the visual impression of standing at the bottom of a cylinder where anything moving on the solid roof above her should fall straight down, though intellectually she knew d.a.m.n well that every point of the landscape arching above her had the same gravity.

She puffed her cheeks out, partly from the heat and partly from the improbability of the vista. "And this is just the transport route?"

"One of them," Aaron replied. "There are short-length wormholes and some T-spheres operational within the structure. However, they are under the control of the species which installed them. The tubes provide a general connection between chambers."

"We walk?" she asked incredulously.

"No." Aaron looked up.

Corrie-Lyn followed his gaze, seeing a dark triangle descending out of the glaring light straight toward them. As it grew closer, she could see it was some kind of aircraft, maybe twenty meters long and quite fat given its otherwise streamlined appearance. Human lettering was stenciled on the narrow swept tail fin, registration codes that made no sense. Landing legs unfolded neatly fore and aft, and it settled on the tough wiry gra.s.s. A door swung open halfway along its bulging belly. No malmetal, then No malmetal, then, she mused. She couldn't see any jet intakes, either. Whatever propelled it had to be similar to ingrav.

The cabin interior was basic and somehow primitive to anyone accustomed to the Commonwealth's ubiquitous capsules. She sank into a chair that could have been designed only for a human body. The hull wasn't transparent, either, which disappointed her. Inigo picked up on the feeling. "There's a sensor feed," he told her, and gave her u-shadow a little access routine that wasn't like any program she was familiar with.

"How do you know that?" she asked as the aircraft's camera views unfolded in her exovision. They were already lifting fast, not that the acceleration was apparent.

"I'm monitoring Aaron's datatraffic," he replied levelly.

After it rose above the thick winding clouds, the aircraft shot forward. The speed made Corrie-Lyn blink. "Wow," she murmured.

"As best I can make out, we're doing about Mach twenty," Inigo said. "Even with the way this tube bends about, you can probably get from one end of the Spike to the other in a couple of hours."

"So what's the place we're going to?"

"The chamber has been named Octoron," Aaron said curtly.

"How far?"

"Flight duration approximately three minutes."

She rolled her eyes, hoping her mind wasn't showing just how unnerving she found this machinelike version of Aaron, though presumably he no longer had the thought routines that bothered about such emotional trivia. When she concentrated on the few thought impulses inside his head, they were all calm and cool, so much so that it was hard to sense them at all.

Their little plane looped casually halfway around the axial light, then slowed quickly to begin its vertical decent. They landed close to a broad low dome of some silver-gray fabric that had wide arches around the base. It was obviously a transport hub; several other planes were landing and taking off. People came and went from the cathedral-sized dome, dressed like any citizens of the Outer Commonwealth worlds in a mix of styles from ultramodern toga suits down to the whimsy of centuries past.

Sitting right at the center of the airy dome was a gold-mirrored sphere whose lower quarter was hidden belowground. People were walking in and out of it, pushing through the surface as if it were less substantial than mist. As she walked toward it, Corrie-Lyn was conscious of the suspicion and curiosity starting to emanate from the minds around her. Her consternation that Inigo at least would be recognized was acting as positive feedback. Several people stopped to stare. She felt their astonishment as recognition dawned. It was swiftly tinged by anger and resentment.

Just before they reached the gold surface, Aaron took Inigo's hand. "Do not attempt to evade me," he warned.

"I have no intention to," Inigo told him.

Aaron was still holding him as they all went through the sphere wall. Corrie-Lyn felt the surface flow around her like a pressure curtain. Then she was falling slowly as gravity shrank away again. It was gloomy inside. Her macrocellular cl.u.s.ters ran vision-amplifying routines, enabling her to see the wide shaft she was dropping down. It was a variant on a null-grav chute, about three hundred meters long. Aaron and Inigo were a couple of meters ahead of her.

The descent took barely a minute. Whatever gravity distortion was gripping her, it began to flip her around so that she wound up rising to the far end of the chute. It was covered by a murky barrier identical to the one at the other end of the chute. Her skin tingled as she pa.s.sed through.

Emergence location: plaza.Active> Grade three integral force fieldActive> Level two biononic field scan. Scan summation: plaza one hundred seventy-eight point three meters major diameter. Three main access roads, five secondary streets. Immediate population eighty-seven adult humans, subdivision fifty-three Higher; nineteen children under twelve. No alien life-forms. Surrounding buildings average height twenty-five meters, facade composition high-purity iron. Domestic power supply one hundred twenty volts; high rate communication net. Visible transport: bicycles. Gravatonic fluctuation indicates seven ingrav drive units operational within three kilometers.Preliminary a.s.sessment: secure environment. No threat to subject alpha. Subject alpha restrained by physical grip; maintain restraint condition.Primary mission commencement: Determine location of Oswald Fernandez Isaacs.Four options.Initiate option one: ask."You."Octoron citizen one: male, height one point seven two centimeters; biononic functionality moderate: "Yes?""Where is Oswald Fernandez Isaacs?"Octoron citizen one: "Who? Hey, aren't you Inigo?"Subject alpha: "Yeah, 'fraid so."Octoron citizen one: "You b.a.s.t.a.r.d. You stupid selfish b.a.s.t.a.r.d. What are you doing here?"Subject alpha: "Look, I'm sorry. This is complicated. Please answer his question. We need to find Ozzie."Octoron citizen one: "Hey, why can't I sense your thoughts?""Irrelevant. Do you know where Isaacs is?"Octoron citizen one: "You're with Inigo? Go screw yourself."Scan> Octoron citizen one altering biononic field functions. Skin temperature rising, heart rate increasing, muscle contraction, elevated adrenaline. a.n.a.lysis: possible aggression.Threat.Response.Activate> Biononic weapons field.Armed> Disrupter pulse. Target: midsection Octoron citizen one. Fire.External sound level increasing. Human screaming.Subject beta: "Oh, great Lady! You killed him.""I neutralized the threat.""Threat? What f.u.c.king threat, you monster?"Primary mission: option one failure. Go to option two."You."Octoron citizen two: female, one point five eight centimeters, zero biononics, full Advancer macrocellular sequence. Running.Capture."You."Octoron citizen two: "What? I haven't done anything. Let me go. Help! Help!"Subject beta: "Put her down, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d.""Is Oswald Fernandez Isaacs resident in the Spike?"Octoron citizen two, no response.Option two, second level.Octoron citizen two: incoherent scream."Is Oswald Fernandez Isaacs resident in the Spike?"Octoron citizen two: "Yes, yes, he's here. Oh, s.h.i.t, that hurts. Stop it, please. Please."Subject beta: "Let her go."Subject alpha: "Stop this now."Scan summation: twenty-three Higher humans activating high-level biononic fields.Approaching. Interperson data exchanges increasing.Threat imminent.Response grade one to hostile enclosure situation."Halt now or I will kill her."Subject beta: "Stay back. Back. The maniac means it. Please, stay back.""Where is Oswald Fernandez Isaacs?"Octoron citizen two: "I don't know. Please.""Who knows where Isaacs is?"Three Octoron citizens, simultaneously: "Let her go."Scan reception> Eight target sensors locking on."I will kill her unless he is brought to me."Subject alpha: "Stop this. Let me talk to them.""No."Enclosure threat elevated to grade five.Response. Random target selection twelve citizens, three buildings.Armed> Disrupter pulse. Sequential fire pattern.Armed> Ion beam. Sequential fire pattern.Scan> Level five> Successful penetration of debris cloud and atmospheric ionization.Zero immediate threat.Surrounding sound level high.Humans in plaza retreating. Casualties fifteen. Fatalities five.Octoron citizen two struggling. Uncooperative.Primary mission: option two failure. Go to option three.U-shadow download general broadcast into local communication net."This is an open message for Oswald Fernandez Isaacs. I mean you no harm. It is imperative that you contact me. I have Inigo with me. Together you can resolve the Void catastrophe."Subject beta: "Oh, that should do it, you moron d.i.c.khead. I'd be rushing to call you if it was me." Voice level raised/condition hysterical."Be silent."Subject alpha: "Aaron, this has to stop. Do you understand? You are wrecking your own mission."a.n.a.lysis.Claim refuted."I know what I have to do. Don't interfere."Subject alpha: "You don't know. You're dealing with humans; you need an emotional component in your reasoning. And you don't have that anymore.""This environment is hostile to my emotion-based routines; it corrodes my rationality. They cannot be permitted."Subject beta: "Oh, s.h.i.t. s.h.i.t, what do we do?"Subject alpha: "I don't know."Alert> T-sphere establishing across Octoron. Emergence of eleven objects-distance fifty meters. Scan> Level eight> Intruders identified: adult tri-stage Chikoya encased in armor. Multiple weapon hardware attached. Force fields active.Surrounding sound level increasing-human screaming.Subject beta: "Great Lady, what are they?"Chikoya one: "You are the human messiah."a.n.a.lyze: How did they know that and locate subject alpha so quickly? Time elapsed since landing seventeen minutes.Subject alpha: "I am Inigo, yes."Situation a.n.a.lysis. Chikoya engaging deployment maneuver. High tactical advantage in successful encirclement.Probability of protecting subjects alpha and beta from synchronized Chikoya weapons fire: minimal. Option one: discard subject beta.Chikoya one: "You have initiated a devourment phase in the Void."Subject alpha: "I haven't been in contact with Edeard for over a century and a half."Chikoya one: "You initiated contact. You are responsible. You must stop it.""All Void activity will be ended. We will see to it. Now leave Octoron."Chikoya one: "Messiah, you will come with us. Your threat to the galaxy must be ended. Come now.""Not permissible. Remove yourself and your kind from this place."Chikoya one: "Your messiah comes with us.""Inigo, raise your integral force field to its highest setting."Subject alpha: "What about Corrie-Lyn? d.a.m.n you, she's naked out here."Subject beta: "What's happening? Inigo, don't go with those things, please. Aaron, you have to-"Alert> Chikoya weapons activation.Multiple target acquisition.Armed> Disrupter pulse. Sequential fire.Armed> Neutron lasers. Sequential fire.Electronic countermeasures. Engaged. Full power.Armed> Microkinetics. Smart acquisition. Free fire authority.Cease fire.Scan> Active Chikoya immediate area withdrawal. Redeployment. > Tracking.Current tactical situation poor. Move. Subject alpha to accompany.Subject alpha holding subject beta, force field extended to protect her."Let go of her."Subject alpha: "f.u.c.k you."Scan.Move into Building A. Utilize the cover it provides."Come with me."Moving. Subject alpha, subject beta, accompanying.Alert> Multiple target acquisition.Greatest tactical location: stand in Building A doorway.Armed> Disrupter pulse. Sequential fire.Armed> Neutron lasers. Sequential fire.Armed> Ion beams. Sequential fire.Armed> Microkinetics. Smart acquisition. Free fire authority.Armed> Ariel smartseeker stealth mines. Chikoya profile loaded. Dispense.Alert> Teleport emergence, eighteen armored Chikoya."We can't get away. They know you're here."Cease fire.Subject alpha (shouting): "Tell me something I don't know."Exit doorway. Weapons fire impact weakening Building A structure."This way."Enact exit strategy.Scan> mapping Building A layout. Exit route confirmed. U-shadow established in local communications net, infiltrating adjacent transport capsules.Alert> Chikoya access of Building A.Targeting Building B structural load points.Armed> Disrupter pulse. Fire.Integral force field strengthened to resist partial Building A collapse. Fire outbreak. Scan through smoke. Three Chikoya disabled.Subject alpha: "Where do we go?""We must leave the immediate area. Switch off your force field."Subject alpha: "What? In the Lady's name, you've got to be joking.""Negative. They are tracking your presence through the telepathy effect. It is completely pervasive and leaves you exposed wherever you are."Subject alpha: "So?""Switch off your force field. I will render you unconscious. If you are not thinking, your thoughts cannot betray our location."Subject beta: "Inigo! No! He'll kill us both. He will; it's what he does.""You are no use to me dead."Alert> Target acquisition: Building C rooftop.Armed> Microkinetics suppression barrage. Fire.Target eliminated.Subject alpha: "But I can't stop the Void if I'm unconscious.""When I acquire Isaacs, I will insist he switch off the telepathy effect. No one will be able to find you then."Subject alpha: "Oh, sweet Lady."Subject beta: "No no no."Subject alpha: "You look after Corrie-Lyn, too.""I will."Alert> Nine Chikoya deploying in acquisition formation.Subject alpha: "Aaron, whatever's left of the real you in there, I'm holding you to that."Exit capsule approaching. Landing zone designated to u-shadow. Three decoy capsules en route-safety limiters disabled."You can rely on me."Subject alpha: "Very well."Subject beta: "No! Inigo, no, please."Scan confirmation, subject alpha force field deactivated. Targeting.Armed> Microkinetics, minimal tissue damage mode selected, neurosedative tip loaded. Fire.Subject beta: "No! Oh, Lady, you've killed him. Get away from me. Get away, you monster."Subject beta attempting to run.Targeting.Armed> Microkinetic, minimal tissue damage mode selected, neurosedative tip loaded. Fire.Alert> Five Chikoya approaching, open a.s.sault formation.Multiple target acquisition.Armed> Disrupter pulse. Maximum power rating. Sequential fire. U-shadow update: landing exit capsule behind Building D.Armed> Neutron lasers. Maximum power rating. Sequential fire.U-shadow update: decoy capsules on collision vector. Mach eight. Accelerating.Armed> Microkinetics. Enhanced explosive warheads. Free fire authority.Armed> Ariel smartseeker stealth mines. Chikoya profile loaded. Dispense.Alert> New targets.Fire.Fire.Fire.

The Delivery Man's biononics ran a last scan over the weird active-molecular vortex and the way it spun down through the quantum fields. It was an interesting chunk of superphysics technology, certainly. He had no idea what its function might actually be, though he suspected it was an elaborate experiment. Whatever it was, he was fairly sure it wasn't the elevation mechanism.

His u-shadow opened a link to Gore. "Washout," he reported.

"Yeah, me, too."

"I'm coming out." There was little light in the vast cave, a few cold blue patches up amid the mult.i.tude of stalact.i.tes eighty meters above his head. The bottom quarter of the cave had been cut smooth and flat, leaving the natural rock formations above. Even two and a half thousand years ago, when the advanced Anomine had set it up, the cave couldn't have been a terribly practical place. That was the thing with the Anomine; everything had an aesthetic aspect.

Water dripped out of the deep fissures and off the ends of the stalact.i.tes, creating long pungent algal ribbons down the rough walls. Drainage channels had clogged, leaving dank puddles spreading across the floor. The vortex carried on regardless; moisture and murky air were never going to affect its composition or function.

As he retraced his steps along the winding pa.s.sage back out to the surface, the Delivery Man was puzzled by the lack of any communication system connected to the vortex. If it was an experiment, surely they would need to monitor the results; same for a control system. Or maybe I'm missing something Or maybe I'm missing something, he thought wearily. Maybe there is an ultrasophisticated net covering the whole planet that biononic scans are simply too primitive to discover Maybe there is an ultrasophisticated net covering the whole planet that biononic scans are simply too primitive to discover. He was grasping at straws and knew it. The Last Throw Last Throw's sensors were good. They'd detected a hundred twenty-four advanced devices still functional on the planet, of which the vortex was the eleventh they'd examined. If there was some kind of web linking them, Last Throw Last Throw's sensors would have revealed it.

A quarter of an hour later, the Delivery Man walked out into the evening sunlight. Tall c.u.mulonimbus scurried through the darkening sky, splashed a pale rose gold by the vanishing sun. From his position high up a plateau wall, the countryside swept away to the southeast, its farthest fringes already turning to black. Several rivers traced bright silver threads across the mauve and jade vegetation. Then there was the city to the east, larger and more imposing than any of Earth's cities even at the height of the population boom. A forest of tall towers stretched over a mile into the air; elaborate spiked spheres and curving pyramids filled the ground between the soaring spires like foothills. Lights were still shining through windows and open arches as the service machinery maintained the city in perfect readiness for occupation.

It was completely devoid of anyone, which he found strangely sad; it reminded him of a spurned lover. The remaining Anomine chose to live in their farm villages out in the open land. He could even see several of their little settlements amid the darkening land, flickering orange lights growing as the nightly fires were lit. He never did get that philosophy, living in the shadow of a past civilization, knowing that at any time they could simply move into the giant towers and live a life of unrivaled luxury, challenge their minds once again. Yet instead, they rejected any form of technology beyond labor-animal carts and plows, and filled their days tilling the fields and building huts.

The Last Throw Last Throw came streaking in over the mountains behind him to finish up hovering a few centimeters above the succulent spiral gra.s.s-equivalent. He drifted up into the airlock. came streaking in over the mountains behind him to finish up hovering a few centimeters above the succulent spiral gra.s.s-equivalent. He drifted up into the airlock.

"This is getting us nowhere fast," Gore grumbled as the Delivery Man arrived in the main cabin.