The Abyss Beyond Dreams (66 page)

‘They messed up. That distortion they generated created some kind of loop in the local memory layer. They’re stuck in the past, or rather what the Forest remembers is the
past.’

‘Is that what happened to Laura?’

‘Yes. As soon as Shuttle Fourteen entered the Forest, it got entangled in the loop. There’s a place in the memory layer, a subsection where she repeats that whole experience every
twenty-seven hours and forty-two minutes. It creates her, and makes her and the science team relive the same section of their expedition every time. Sonofabitch, they started over every
twenty-seven hours and forty-two minutes for the last three thousand years. That’s . . . just . . . damn!’

Kysandra frowned, trying not to be too overwhelmed by the horror of it. ‘But why are all the exopods and bodies in the Desert of Bone all the same age? She should be landing on Bienvenido
every time she leaves the Forest.’

‘Paradox. You can’t actually travel back in time, so the Void outside the Forest’s distortion tries to normalize the event. As near as I can figure it, every time Laura’s
mission loops, it does so in the Void’s memory of three thousand years ago that the Forest has screwed up. It’s like a shared solipsism for her, except the person she’s sharing it
with is herself. And each time one of her dies inside that distorted memory segment, the creation layer manifests what happened as a piece of Bienvenido’s history.’

‘So it does happen?’ Kysandra asked. ‘It is real?’

‘To her, yes; but not to us. She doesn’t exist in this time, in our segment of the Void’s reality; what happens to her – to each one of her – is supposed to have
occurred in the past. So when her life ends and the loop throws her latest corpse out here, it’s instantly transformed to a chunk of a past that never existed. That’s how the Void
outside the loop attempts to balance the books and make the present correct, to neutralize the paradox.’ He grinned savagely. ‘It’s like the old Creationists claiming God laid
down the dinosaur fossils a few thousand years ago. Crud, how they’d love this!’

‘Uracus! But she still lives through it?’

‘Yes. Somewhere, in some aspect of the memory layer, Laura, Ayanna, Ibu, Rojas and Joey, all of them have been through the same event over a million times now.’

Kysandra closed her eyes, recalling the hill of exopods and their horrifying crust of mummified bodies. ‘So right now, in this screwed-up section of the memory layer, there’s a Laura
trying to escape the exopod landing point, to make it across the desert on a cart?’

‘That, or she’s waiting at the bottom of the exopod hill ready to kill the next Laura that comes floating down out of the sky; we saw she’s done that enough times. Then again,
given the height of the hill now, I imagine a majority of her will either die or be badly maimed when their exopod lands on top and goes tumbling down the side. Either way – every time
– she dies, and her personal segment of the loop ends.’

‘You have to stop it. You have to set her free.’

Nigel took a sip of the brandy. His gaze never left the Forest. ‘I know.’

Even though Kysandra considered herself so much more sophisticated and experienced nowadays, she was still excited to be visiting Varlan again. The rush and bustle of the city,
its smells and psychic effervescence, was something poor old Adeone could never match. The size, too, was impressive; even the Shanties were larger here. Looking at it with new knowledge and
understanding, she saw that size gave it power, economic and political. By design, it was the hub of the continent’s rail and river trade routes. Ports, train stations, factories, banks, the
headquarters of the Marines and the Meor, the seat of the National Council, seat of the civil service – it had them all. Varlan was a true capital.

‘You can’t change Bienvenido without changing Varlan first,’ Kysandra announced. She was standing on the balcony in the Rasheeda Hotel suite, staring out across the lush green
expanse of Bromwell Park. On the other side of the grass and trees, buildings and streets smothered the folds of the land in brick and stone. Rooftops stretched away to the riverbank, hard angular
waves of blue slate and red clay. A forest of tall industrial chimney stacks populated the north-east of the city, looking like the pillars of some gigantic folly roof that a mad captain had never
quite got round to building. They pumped out thick fountains of smoke that cast a palpable shade across that whole district.

‘That’s my girl,’ Nigel said from the lounge.

It wasn’t really a revelation. She’d always known. But it had taken this vista for her truly to comprehend the concept. ‘There’s so much inertia here,’ she
murmured.

‘Start small, and keep pushing.’

Kysandra grinned and went back into the lounge, where it was slightly cooler. ‘I thought you were going to say it only takes one pebble to start an avalanche.’

He cocked an eyebrow at her. ‘Now who knows it all?’

She sat down on a chaise longue, stretching out her arms theatrically. ‘What difference would it make, giving the world true democracy? People will still have to pay taxes to fund the
regiments, because the Fallers will never stop. They can’t. It’s what they are.’

‘I have to get back into space. That’s the first stage. Once
Skylady
is up there, I might be able to do something about the Forest.’

‘But you can’t get into space.’ She stopped, suddenly alarmed. ‘Unless you go back to before you landed here.’

‘If I could do that, I would, because then everything would change, even your destiny. But I can’t go that far back in time. There must be something missing, some part of
Edeard’s technique I haven’t grasped. Or my mind simply isn’t strong enough. Then again, it could just be more difficult in this part of the Void.’

‘Because of what the Forest is doing to the memory layer?’

He shrugged. ‘It’s my best guess. It’s also my biggest hope, because that would make the Forest very important.’

‘Important how?’

‘It’s damaging the Void – something no one else has ever done.’

‘Does that help us?’

‘Oh, yes! We’re missing a lot of Laura Brandt’s data on the quantum distortion. If I can analyse the effect properly, my allies the Raiel may be able to use it. They have
resources far greater than the Fallers.’

‘The Raiel can get us out?’

Nigel held up his hands. ‘We’re talking infinitesimal chances here. But then again, when infinitesimal is all you’ve got to grasp at . . .’

‘Then let’s do it. How can we get the
Skylady
back into space?’

‘I’ve been thinking about it. Regrav is the problem. It glitched on me the whole time, and since I got down it’s been dead. But ingrav worked. It still does. Not well; it
can’t generate a full gee of thrust, which is what I need to lift. But it’s still operational. If I could just get
Skylady
to a decent altitude, the old girl might be able to
accelerate to escape velocity.’

‘So you need something to boost
Skylady
to start with.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Can you get a Skylord to help?’

‘I don’t see how.’

‘Tell them you can help the Forest.’

‘Even if they understood the concept, you forget they’re the Faller variant that’s perfectly adapted to the Void. They’re not going to help change a damn
thing.’

‘Oh.’ She pursed her lips in annoyance. ‘Yeah. Uracus!’

‘I was thinking along the lines of something crude enough that the Void won’t glitch it.’

‘What?’

His grin was malicious. ‘Project Orion. Now that would be something.’

‘What’s Project Orion?’

‘Something utterly beautiful, and completely crazy. It involves a lot of atom bombs. But, don’t worry, I’m not actually going to use it. There are a few more rational options
open to us. We’ll run some experiments and see what’s the most effective.

‘How long will that take?’ It came out more childlike and petulant than she wanted.

‘I don’t know, because I haven’t decided which propulsion systems to test, yet. I need—’

‘—more information,’ she said in exasperation. ‘Yes, I know.’

‘Everything costs more and takes longer. You need to get used to that.’

*

They walked along the railings that isolated the Captain’s Palace from the rest of the city. At the front, where the grand façade looked down Walton Boulevard, was
the big open cobbled square where people could watch the Palace Guards and the Marines strut their ceremonial stuff twice a week. But, as you walked round, the rails gave way to a high stone wall,
blocking the palace gardens from casual view. It was topped by firepine – a prickly scarlet and orange bush that resembled a cascade of foam, with a venom in its thorns that was both
excruciating and lethal to humans. The stone was also thick enough to prevent most ex-sight perceiving what was going on inside. Mod-birds belonging to the Palace Guard avian squad flew ceaseless
patrols overhead, preventing anyone else’s mod-bird from getting close and providing curious citizens with a glimpse of the hanky-panky that the Captain’s family was rumoured to get up
to amid the lovely topiary paths, ornate ponds and shady glades.

Mayborne Avenue was the road which circled the perimeter directly outside the wall: a wide thoroughfare planted with ever-blue procilla trees, with elegant stone townhouses on the other side; by
law only two storeys high so they couldn’t see over the wall. The avenue was deliberately designed to draw attention to anyone who lingered.

It was drizzling lightly when Nigel and Kysandra started to walk along the pavement on the houses’ side. Originally they’d been built by aristocratic families and wealthy merchants
desperate to court favour with the Captain. But the two-storey law prohibited any truly grandiose house from being constructed on the avenue, so time had seen many converted into grace-and-favour
apartments for the palace courtiers; several, it was said, were now residences reserved for the Captain’s various mistresses, while the remainder became prestigious addresses for company
offices, legal firms, banks and charitable societies under the Captain’s generous patronage.

They stopped outside one whose yellow dressed stone was aged to grey, its surface pocked with innumerable cracks and patches. The brass sign beside the front door read: Varlan University
Bibliographical Preservation Society. Nigel’s teekay rang the bell.

A receptionist showed them to a first-floor waiting room, her shell not quite strong enough to contain her condescension. Their appointment was so routine, so predictable. Nouveau riche
provincials seeking a contact – any contact – within the palace court. Making a sizeable donation to one of the charitable societies of which the Captain was patron was the start of the
long road to acceptability by Varlan society.

After making them wait for a quarter of an hour, the receptionist showed them up to a second-floor office. It was a square room with high walls covered by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. The only
break was a tall sash window looking out over Mayborne Avenue. A broad applewood desk sat in front of it, almost black from age. Coulan rose from his chair and gave Kysandra a big hug and a
kiss.

‘You look great,’ she told him. Which he did, his hair cut shorter and gelled in a conservative style. White shirt and dark fuchsia tie, charcoal-grey suit jacket hanging on the back
of his chair. ‘A proper city worker.’

‘Really? So you mean I look bored, poor and miserable?’

‘Not that bad.’

‘I missed you,’ he said.

‘Nice,’ Nigel grunted as he sat down. ‘We brought a lot of files for you to access. But mainly we’ve made progress on the Fallers; turns out they’re a nasty type of
nano, built for planetary conquest.’

‘Fascinating. Well, on my side, I’ve built up a decent network of contacts in Varlan, some actives.’

‘Actives?’ Kysandra asked.

‘Dominated,’ Coulan said. ‘I need to be able to rely on key people, not just hope they’ll do as I ask.’

‘Oh.’ She looked down, studying the floorboards.

‘Once I got her detoxed, I placed Bethaneve in the Tax Office,’ Coulan continued. ‘Several others report back to her, so the inspectors won’t be bothering you.’

‘Glad to hear it,’ Nigel said. ‘What else?’

‘A couple of Citizens’ Dawn politicians in the National Council were eager for campaign contributions; there’s always plenty of internal party bitchfighting going on for secure
seats. Technically we’re living in a democracy, though in reality this is a one-party state; the Citizens’ Dawn party is the only one that counts. There are some opposition parties, but
they’re a rag-tag bunch with a few borough seats that nobody really bothers about, not even the voters. I’m developing contacts in the radical movement, such as it is, but I have to
proceed with caution there; they’re all as paranoid as they are committed, but I think I’ve found a way in.’

‘Sex?’ Nigel guessed.

‘Always: the eternal human weak spot. The other reason for my restraint in that direction is that, surprisingly, the Captain’s police are actually quite effective. They monitor all
opposition for anyone able to mount a real challenge, or even just garner some popular support. If you want to get on in politics here, you join Citizens’ Dawn and spend the next century
fighting your way up a very treacherous ladder. Outside politics, I’ve acquired assets in the banks, and even some in the regiments. Pamphlet editors are always eager to trade gossip, which
ties in neatly with the ten sheriffs who will private ’path information to me for a price. And I’m working on identifying possibles in the Captain’s police, but they’re
going to have to be turned by domination. I can’t trust anything else; the whole damn lot of them are fanatical about maintaining things the way they are.’

‘Sounds like progress,’ Nigel said.

‘Thank you. Oh, and you’ll never guess who’s just shown up in town.’

‘You’re right, I won’t guess.’

‘Captain Slvasta.’

Nigel’s grin was positively dirty. ‘Captain, eh?’

‘Yeah. They promoted him and booted him over to the Joint Regimental Council where all that bright-burning youthful enthusiasm will be snuffed out by bureaucratic procedure.’