The Temporal Void (35 page)

‘There, there,’ Tandra crooned and gave her a motherly hug. ‘It’s all right.’ Martyn, her husband, was also attentive, clearing the kids’ toys from the settee in the living room. Mixal and Freddy, their five-year-old twins, were given fruit smoothies to hush them up while Araminta blew into tissues and tried to get her sobbing under control. ‘I’m sorry,’ she wailed. ‘I shouldn’t have come. I’ve nowhere else to go.’ And at the back of her mind was the worry that just by being here she was putting Tandra’s family in danger.

‘You’re more than welcome, and you know that,’ her old friend told her. ‘Did you have a fight? Have you left him?’ She was giving Araminta’s roughed-up clothes a highly suspicious examination.

‘No. Nothing like that. There’s a whole bunch of people in the park outside my apartment. They’re very angry. The invader soldiers are there as well. I was frightened.’

‘Those bastards,’ Martyn grunted.

Tandra shot him a warning look, her gaze darting pointedly to the twins, who were watching intently over the back of a chair they were sharing. ‘Yes, they are unpleasant people who have behaved wrongly,’ she said with parental formality. ‘However, the law will prevail, and they will be expelled from our world.’

Martyn rolled his eyes. ‘Yes. They will.’

‘And until they are, you can sleep on the couch,’ Tandra assured her.

‘Just for one night,’ Araminta promised. ‘That’s all. I need to get myself back together.’

‘No boyfriend?’ Martyn asked.

‘Not right now,’ Araminta lied.

He didn’t say anything, but his tight little smile triggered a fresh wave of Araminta’s guilt. She didn’t dare delve into the gaiafield to learn his emotional state.

‘We’re staying here at home for the rest of the afternoon,’ Tandra said. ‘The twins are having the day off school as a treat, aren’t you?’

‘Yes!’ they yelled gleefully.

Martyn was looking out of the window. ‘How did you get here?’

‘Walked.’

‘From where?’

‘Bodant.’

‘That’s miles!’

‘They won’t allow capsules to fly, and my trike pod is being fixed.’

Tandra and Martyn exchanged a look. ‘You sit there and rest,’ Tandra said. ‘I’ll give those clothes a wash. Martyn, some tea.’

‘Coming right up.’

‘Thank you,’ Araminta said meekly.

Tandra waited until he’d vanished into the galley kitchen. ‘Anything else you need to tell me?’

Araminta shook her head. ‘I really will go in the morning. I’ve already got an idea what to do. There’s someone I need to talk to. I’ll call him tomorrow.’
When I’ve worked out how to.

‘Okay. I’d better go get a robe for you. Martyn will have a heart attack if he sees you walking round the place in your underwear.’ She patted her own legs. ‘He’s only used to women a size or ten bigger than a youngster like you.’

Araminta grinned. ‘I missed you.’

‘Sure you did. Out there enjoying yourself every night, I bet you thought of me the whole time.’ She gave the twins a critical look. ‘I swore I’d never have any kids again this life around, this one would be for me, but what the hell . . . A girl doesn’t stand a chance with a Love God like Marty.’

Araminta started laughing. Then stopped, casting a guilty look at the kitchen archway.

‘That’s better,’ Tandra said. ‘You have the world’s greatest smile, honey, that’s why the rest of us always insisted on pooling the tips on your shifts.’ She ruffled both of the children as she went past. They gave her an adoring look. ‘I just love the sleepless nights, the worry, losing my figure, no money, and lack of sex. It’s character building.’

‘I’m going to find out myself one day.’

‘Sure you will. And your introduction starts today.’ Her voice rose a couple of levels. ‘Guess what, Aunty Araminta is on dinner duty tonight. Then she’s going to give you both a bath and wash your hair.’

‘Yes!’ the twins yelled jubilantly.

‘Still want to stay?’

‘Oh yes,’ Araminta said. This house, Tandra, the twins: it felt like an oasis of decency amid the madness raging outside. After the last two days, she badly needed to remind herself what normal was.
Then I might be able to work out how to get back there myself.

*

Seven hundred years ago, Wilson Kime had officially handed over control of the Commonwealth Navy to Kazimir. It was the fifth time Wilson had held the role of Supreme Commander, on that occasion it was essentially a ceremonial appointment, lasting a single year before he downloaded into ANA. His final farewell to the physical.

After the formal hand over for the benefit of the President, senior Senators, and unisphere reporters, the two of them had gone up to the Admiral’s office on the top floor of the thirty-storey Pentagon II tower. Wilson had given Kazimir two pieces of advice as they stood looking across the agreeable parkland of the Babuyan Atoll dome.

‘Don’t ever give in to political pressure,’ Wilson had said. ‘I’ve been President myself, so I know the convenience of a military who’ll snap to and say yes to every dark instruction you issue. Resist them. Stick to the fundamentals. We have two roles as ordained by the Senate in more honourable times: protecting the human race in all its forms against alien aggressors, and peaceful scientific exploration of the galaxy. That’s all. Don’t let the Executive wear that down. The general population must have faith in us.’

‘I can hold the line,’ Kazimir assured him.

‘And second, feel free to change this goddamn office. I always hated it; never got round to redecorating, so now every crappy white molecule qualifies as tradition because this is the way it was when we gained our victory over MorningLightMountain. Every other admiral from Rafael onwards just rolled over and accepted that. I want you to give the conservation fascists a good kicking and bring in your own furniture.’

Kazimir smiled at the man’s strange passion. They shook hands. ‘I will,’ he promised.

To date, he’d proudly held that line through some extraordinary difficult political events. The second promise hadn’t been broken, exactly. Like Wilson, he just hadn’t got round to changing things yet.

Today he looked out of the office to see a circular habitat that also hadn’t changed that much in the last seven centuries. Pentagon II was still the same (which was more than could be said of the original back on Earth that ANA had decided wasn’t significant enough to maintain); several buildings had been reshaped,
High Angel
adapting their growing-stone material in accordance to each new set of human requirements. It was the living parkland itself which had seen the most alteration, the average level of the tree canopy had risen by over fifty metres since the day Kazimir had assumed command. Under the protective dome of the Raiel arkship, the organic environment was perfect. Every species of tree prospered in a way they could never do on a planet with variable seasons and winds and fires and earthquakes and diseases and parasites and bark-eating creatures. Here there was no real reason for them to die, so they just kept on growing, nurtured by their flawless climate. There were some monster arboreals out there, twenty or so had even reached the same height as Pentagon II, their osmosis now assisted by
High Angel
, which had reduced the gravity field around them, allowing nutrients to flow unhindered all the way to the topmost branches. It was a forest which could never exist on a planet, and all the more alluring because of it.

When he glanced up, Kazimir saw Icalanise was a slim tawny crescent overhead. The New Storm seemed to bulge out of the Great Northern cloudband. He’d been watching the moon-sized storm growing for two centuries now, absorbing all the smaller storms it clashed with to become the largest of all the gas giant’s cyclonic swirls. Human starships flittered around the orbital cluster of stations and micro-gee factories like a metallic shoal, mostly Navy craft, with a few commercial freighters and passenger ships.
High Angel
was still the largest Navy port in the Greater Commonwealth. Its residents took a lot of pride in that, supplying a disproportionate amount of officers.

Kazimir gathered his thoughts and returned to his big white desk. The office’s ancient tragwood furniture really was aesthetically awful, made worse by the clinical glowing walls and ceiling. But he did concede it was comfortable as he sank back into the cushioning.

‘Convene the ExoProtectorate Council,’ he told his u-shadow. The office dissolved from his natural vision, leaving him in the perceptual conference room with its white and orange furniture (not much of an improvement on his own, he reflected sadly) looking out over the tempestuous furore of the Millavian plains.

Gore and Ilanthe appeared first, sitting next to each other. The Accelerator faction representative had changed her appearance since the last meeting, allowing her dark hair to hang down to her waist in a single tail wrapped with red leather bands; she wore a stylish black dress of horizontal pleats. She nodded politely to Gore, who was in his golden incarnation, dressed in a perfectly tailored tuxedo.

‘Any news of Justine?’ Ilanthe asked.

Gore’s gaze flicked to the chair Justine had occupied last time the Council convened. ‘Nothing. I guess we’ll have to wait to see if the Second Dreamer deigns to reveal anything to us.’

Crispin Goldreich arrived. The ancient Senator gave Justine’s chair a look. ‘Gore. Kazimir,’ he said formally. ‘My sympathies to both of you.’

‘Yeah, thanks,’ Gore said.

‘I prefer to consider her successfully positioned to assist us further,’ Kazimir said. ‘She has achieved something remarkable, after all.’

‘Yes,’ Crispin said sheepishly.

Creewan materialized in his chair, to the left of Kazimir. The Custodian faction member gave the Admiral a formal bow. He hadn’t completed the motion when the Darwinist faction representative, John Thelwell, arrived in a seat on the opposite side of the table. The two of them always seemed to appear at the same time. Kazimir wondered idly if there was some kind of alliance involved, though how such diverse factions could find any common ground was a mystery.

‘Aren’t you going to activate Justine’s ANA personality?’ John Thelwell asked in some surprise.

‘Why?’ Gore asked. ‘Her actual is still alive. Duplication is still our biggest anathema, isn’t it? Or have you converted to that pervert multiple philosophy.’

Thelwell threw up his hands. ‘Fine. If that’s how you want to play it.’

‘If you’re ready,’ Kazimir said. ‘I have the secure link to the
Yenisey
available.’

‘All right,’ Gore said. ‘Let’s take a look and see what the Ocisens have come up with.’

Captain Lucian was proud of his small crew. For nine days the
Yenisey
had flown in pursuit of the greatest fleet of warships the Ocisens had ever assembled. If intelligence summaries about the Starslayer-class ships was correct, then not even MorningLightMountain had enjoyed this level of firepower to deploy against the Commonwealth. Unsurprisingly, then, tension on board had been building as they closed on the fleet. Yet he considered they’d coped remarkably well. This mission wasn’t anything they’d expected or trained for; however, as one they had risen to the challenge. Toi, the systems officer, actually relished the chance to confront the Ocisens.

‘They’ve learned nothing in five hundred years,’ she said. ‘They genuinely believe we’re just a bunch of decadent animals who got lucky on the technology front. We are the classical immovable object in their way, and all they do is crack what passes for a head against us. They don’t try to learn or adapt.’

‘This fleet is proof they have tried to think round the problem,’ Kylee, the first tactical officer argued. ‘They saw what they needed to overcome us, and they set out to obtain it. That’s adaptive.’

‘They set out to steal it,’ Toi said.

‘Negotiating an allegiance is hardly stealing.’

‘I don’t believe they could do that. They found the leftovers of a post-physical, and bootstrapped themselves up a whole weapons-level.’

‘Even that’s pretty adaptive.’

The argument had been just about continuous. The four of them had completely different positions, not that it interfered with their tasks. Although Lucian was slightly concerned about Gieovan, the second tactical officer, whose solution to the whole Ocisen problem was unpleasantly crude. He would be allying himself directly to the Accelerators at download, Lucian decided, if not the Isolationists or possibly the more radical Darwinists. For a moment, he did worry about confronting the fleet with Gieovan’s hand on the trigger of their formidable arsenal. But none of them ever allowed their personal views to affect their professionalism. He was confident they’d deliver the result Admiral Kazimir had tasked them with.

For eighteen hours they’d flown beside the Ocisen fleet in stealth mode, and monitored the alien warships. To Lucian’s huge relief, they were all Ocisen.

‘Unless they’ve got stealth,’ Kylee pointed out after the first hour.

‘You can’t stealth a continuous wormhole drive,’ Gieovan countered. ‘In any case, you can only minimalize the hyperdrive emission and damp down its distortion effect. You’re never truly stealthed to a top-level sensor array. Detection and concealment technology are a constant race for superiority.’

‘But we’re not registering anything?’ Lucian asked.

‘No, captain,’ Gieovan. ‘We could use more active scanning, of course, but that would give us away.’

‘Let’s not make this any more difficult. Continue monitoring their communications. We need to identify the command ship.’

The Ocisen fleet hierarchy was of course a replica of their imperial structure, with the Emperor’s nest having ultimate authority. Individual captains had very little leeway. Consequently the communication traffic reflected that, with one ship issuing orders to everyone else. There was no cross-ship chatter.

Once they’d identified the command ship beyond any doubt, Lucian called Admiral Kazimir and received authorization for the interception.

‘Knock them out of ftl,’ Kazimir said, ‘and deliver our warning. They are to turn around or every ship will be disabled.’