"Victory is only hours away and you send me to some s.h.i.tball outside civilization to track down an incompetent part-time animal. I do not deserve this."

"Failure to comply will result in bodyloss. After the Swarm goes active, there will be no re-life available. I suggest you make your selection."

The dark hazy tendrils exuded by Marius"s toga suit swirled in agitation. He glared at Valean, sending Olympian contempt flooding out through his gaiamotes. "The true reason for physical contact, I see. Very well. I will comply. I am nothing if not devoted to our success."

"Of course you are."

Marius rotated a hundred eighty degrees and slipped out back to his own ship.

"Thank you," Valean mouthed at the airlock door after it closed. She ordered the smartcore to take her to Ellezelin.

Cleric Conservator Ethan had returned to the Mayor"s oval sanctum in the Orchard Palace. The Cabinet Security Service had downgraded the threat level, partially based on Ethan"s own conversation with ANA:Governance. The surviving ship was simply maintaining a stable orbit around Ellezelin and gathering up fragments of its vanquished foe.

His staff had served him a late supper of grilled gurelol fillets with minted potatoes and baby carrots, washed down with a sparkling white similar in taste to the one from Love"s Haven that Edeard had come to enjoy during his first life with Kristabel. It was dark outside, with few stars showing through the oval sanctum"s windows. Ethan ate by himself at a small table away from the big muroak desk, overhead a series of petal-like lines glowing a pale orange in the high ceiling. Shadows washed out from the walls, making the room seem even larger.

He was just pouring himself a second gla.s.s of wine when his u-shadow reported that Phelim was making a priority call.

Please, Lady, no more bad news tonight, Ethan thought wearily as he accepted the secure link. He was still awaiting the call from Marius"s "friend."

"We"ve found her," Phelim declared.

Ethan paused, the wine not quite out of the bottle"s neck. "Who?"

"The Second Dreamer. The advanced pattern recognition routines located her for us. She"s sharing Inigo"s Eleventh Dream, would you believe."

"Great Lady! Do you have her safe?"

"No, that"s where the problem begins. She"s not on Viotia anymore."

"d.a.m.n. Where is she, then?"

"Chobamba."

"Where?" Even as he asked, Ethan"s u-shadow was pulling data out of the central registry. "That can"t be right," he said, putting the bottle down.

"My response exactly. But the routines are good. The Dream Masters running them swear that"s an accurate reading. She started sharing the Eighth Dream twenty minutes ago."

"The Eighth?"

"Yes."

Ethan knew it couldn"t be particularly relevant, but his curiosity about the enigmatic Araminta was overwhelming. "So why did she skip over to the Eleventh?"

"She didn"t," Phelim said. "She"s on a linear run-through."

"Four dreams in twenty minutes?" Ethan said it out loud, his surprise echoing around the empty sanctum. At best, he would take a couple of hours to dwell in one of Inigo"s dreams, and that was because he was so familiar with them. Some of the more devout Living Dream followers had been known to spend days in a dream, supporting themselves with intravenous feeds.

"Absolutely. That"s what convinced me this isn"t a false reading. Her mind is ... different."

"How in the Lady"s name did she get to Chobamba? It was definitely her at Bodant Park; you confirmed that."

"Someone must have flown her there. And it must have been an ultradrive starship; there"s nothing else fast enough."

"So one of the factions got her and lifted her offplanet. Lady d.a.m.n them."

"That"s the obvious conclusion. But it"s a strange way to hide. If she wanted to be completely secure, she should have gone to a Central world where we have no control over the confluence nests. The faction must know that. Perhaps this is a message. Though its nature eludes me."

Ethan sat back in the chair, staring at the slim curving bands of light in the ceiling. The flowers they sketched had never been seen on Querencia or anywhere in the Greater Commonwealth. That is if they even were flowers. Edeard had always hoped to find them, but not even the grand voyages of his twenty-eighth and forty-second dreams had taken him to a land where they grew. And now Araminta was providing an even greater mystery.

"We have to have her," Ethan declared. "It"s that simple. Whatever the cost. Without her, the only contact humanity has to the Void is"-he shuddered-"Gore Burnelli. And I think we know where he stands."

"Justine can do nothing," Phelim countered smoothly.

"Don"t be too sure. They are a remarkable family. I"ve been accessing what I can of their history. And I suspect there"s a great deal that was never put into any records. Gore was one of ANA"s founders, you know. There are rumors of a special dispensation."

"So what do you want to do?"

"How long before you have her exact location?"

"She"s in a town called Miledeep Water, which presents us with a slight problem. It is somewhat isolated, and we don"t actually have anyone reliable there. The Dream Masters are going to have to visit its confluence nest to get an exact coordinate for her. It"ll be an hour before we know exactly where she is, probably longer. I"m just hoping she shares Inigo"s dreams for long enough."

"Do we also have the kind of people on Chobamba who are capable of bringing her to us?"

"There are some very loyal followers in the movement there, people I can trust. I"d like to suggest we hire some weapons-enriched troops to back them up. It"s pretty clear she"s got faction representatives guarding her."

"As you wish. And Phelim, I don"t want another Bodant Park."

"n.o.body does. But that is probably out of our hands."

"Yes. I expect you"re right. Please keep me informed of progress."

The link to Phelim closed, and Ethan looked at the rapidly cooling food on his plate. He pushed it away.

"You seem troubled, Conservator."

Ethan started, twisting around in his chair to see where the voice had come from. His u-shadow was already calling for help from Cabinet Security.

The woman-thing walking calmly out of the shadows on the other side of the desk disturbed his sensibilities. "I believe you"re expecting me," she said. She was naked, which only intensified Ethan"s censure; her body possessed no s.e.xual characteristics. Her skin was some kind of artificial covering that produced a gray layer whose exact boundary was indeterminable. Far worse than that was her figure. It was as though her internal organs were too small for her frame, leaving the skin to curve in between the ribs. And her eyes didn"t help, little patches of pink moonlight that never revealed exactly what she was looking at. There was a gold circle just below her neck from which sprouted two long streamers of dark scarlet cloth. The fabric was draped across her shoulders to float horizontally through the air for several meters behind her. It rippled with the sluggish fluidity of an embryo sac.

Five armored guards burst in through the main doors, their fat weapons raised. The Higher woman c.o.c.ked her head to one side while the gaiafield revealed a steely politeness in her mind.

Ethan held up a finger. "Hold," he instructed the guards. "Did Marius send you?"

A narrow mouth opened to reveal shiny metal teeth. "Marius has been moved to other duties. I am Valean, his replacement. I am here to help sort out our mutual problem with the ANA starship orbiting above you."

Ethan waved the guards out, suspecting they wouldn"t have lasted long against her. "What do you want?"

She walked toward him, the scarlet streamers wavering sinuously behind her. Ethan saw that her heels ended in long tapering cones, as if her feet had grown their own stilettos. "I require access to the Agra wormhole generator. Please inform the operations staff I am to be given full cooperation."

"What are you going to do?"

"Prevent the ANA agent from retrieving any more fragments."

"I can"t afford any kind of conflict with ANA. Some in the Senate are eager for the flimsiest legal grounds to authorize navy intervention."

"We are expecting that any such concerns will soon be irrelevant. Rest a.s.sured, Cleric Conservator, there will be no physical clash here."

"Very well. I will see that you have full clearance."

"Thank you." She inclined her head and turned for the main doors.

"Please tell your faction leaders I would prefer to deal with Marius," he said.

Valean didn"t even turn around. "I will certainly tell them." There was no trace of irony in her thoughts; the facade of politeness remained intact.

The doors shut behind her. Ethan let out a long breath of apprehension; he felt as if he"d finally been shown what awaited the lost souls who fell to Honious.

Preliminary sensor a.n.a.lysis of the debris cloud indicated there were one thousand three hundred twelve critical fragments, defined as anything over five centimeters across. When Chatfield"s starship exploded, over a third of them had been thrown down toward Ellezelin on trajectories that would see them burning up in the atmosphere within half an hour. The rest were whirling rapidly along wildly different orbital tracks. Recovery would be a b.i.t.c.h.

Digby was quietly pleased at the way the Columbia505 Columbia505"s smartcore was handling the collection operation. Modified ingrav drive emissions were pulling fragments out of their terminal trajectories; sensors had identified several particles that had exotic matter const.i.tuents and were tracking them constantly. The sleek ultradrive ship was darting about, drawing the first chunks into the midhold, where they were embedded in a stabilizer field. ANA:Governance had a.s.sured him a forensic team would be arriving within ten hours. Digby hoped so. Stabilizer fields weren"t designed to preserve exotic matter; a lot of it was decaying right in front of him, and there was nothing he could do about it.

His exovision suddenly threw up warnings he never expected to see. A very large wormhole was intruding into s.p.a.ce not three kilometers from the Columbia505 Columbia505.

"What the h.e.l.l?"

The smartcore tracked several chunks of wreckage tumbling down the wormhole"s throat. Then the wormhole shifted exit coordinates, reappearing five kilometers away. More junk was sucked down. Exoimage displays showed him it was the wormhole that normally linked Ellezelin to Agra. Somebody was redirecting it with unnerving skill, scooping up precious evidence. His u-shadow connected him directly into the planetary cybersphere and tried to access the generator net. "It"s been isolated," the u-shadow reported. "I can"t even gain access to the building net. Whoever"s in there, they"ve sealed themselves in tight."

Columbia505"s sensors swept across the generator complex on the outskirts of Riasi, seven thousand kilometers away around the curvature of the planet. A force field was protecting the whole area. "c.r.a.p." Digby ordered the smartcore to distort the wormhole"s pseudo structure. Negative energy fluxes reached out from the starship"s drive, attempting to destabilize the wormhole"s integrity. But the planetary generators had too much power available compared with the starship. It was a struggle Digby was doomed to lose.

"Take us down," he ordered the smartcore. "Fast." As the starship dived down into the atmosphere, he called ANA:Governance and explained what was happening.

"I will call the Cleric Conservator," ANA:Governance said. "He must be made to understand that he cannot act against us with impunity."

Digby was pretty sure the Cleric Conservator knew that but held his counsel. It was long gone midnight in Makkathran2, which meant that Riasi was just slipping across the terminator line into daylight. Columbia505 Columbia505 was decelerating at fifteen gees when it hit the stratosphere above the Sinkang continent, upon whose northern coast the ex-capital city was sited. The ship scorched its way down through the lower atmosphere like a splinter carved from a star"s corona. It braked to a halt five hundred meters directly above the Agra wormhole generator"s force field. The hypersonic shock wave of its pa.s.sage slammed past it, shattering all unprotected panes of gla.s.s within a three-kilometer radius. Nearby regrav capsules tumbled through the air like leaves in a blizzard as their smartnets used emergency power to try to right them. Local traffic control was screaming warnings at Digby on every frequency. Metropolitan police cruisers curved around to intercept. He sent out a blanket broadcast to be picked up by every cybersphere node and macrocellular cl.u.s.ter surrounding the force field. was decelerating at fifteen gees when it hit the stratosphere above the Sinkang continent, upon whose northern coast the ex-capital city was sited. The ship scorched its way down through the lower atmosphere like a splinter carved from a star"s corona. It braked to a halt five hundred meters directly above the Agra wormhole generator"s force field. The hypersonic shock wave of its pa.s.sage slammed past it, shattering all unprotected panes of gla.s.s within a three-kilometer radius. Nearby regrav capsules tumbled through the air like leaves in a blizzard as their smartnets used emergency power to try to right them. Local traffic control was screaming warnings at Digby on every frequency. Metropolitan police cruisers curved around to intercept. He sent out a blanket broadcast to be picked up by every cybersphere node and macrocellular cl.u.s.ter surrounding the force field.

"Everyone in the generator complex, switch off the force field and deactivate the wormhole. You are violating an ANA-sanctioned operation. I am authorized to use extreme force to end your transgression."

As he suspected, there was no reply. There never would be, he knew. Every moment he waited, playing the good guy, was another moment spent eradicating the precious evidence in orbit. All that left him with was the problem of knocking out the force field without flattening half the city.

Eight slender atomic distortion beams stabbed out from the starship to the top of the force field dome, ripping the air molecules apart in a blaze of incandescence. Monstrous static discharges flared away into the heaving atmosphere. The force field began to glow a pale purple, as if it were growing a bruise. A cl.u.s.ter of dump webs skittered down from the Columbia505 Columbia505. They struck the force field, kicking out blooms of dusky ripples. The darkness around them intensified, expanding rapidly. Under such an a.s.sault, overload was only a matter of time. The force field collapsed amid a deluge of wild energy flares and superheated shock waves that battered the surrounding buildings. Columbia505 Columbia505 received a heavy buffeting, which the smartcore fought to counter and hold stable above the circle of glaring ion flames that were eating into the generator building. Sensors reported the wormhole had failed. Digby was worried about how much evidence it had already cleared away. received a heavy buffeting, which the smartcore fought to counter and hold stable above the circle of glaring ion flames that were eating into the generator building. Sensors reported the wormhole had failed. Digby was worried about how much evidence it had already cleared away.

Ellezelin Civil Defense Agency force fields were coming on above Riasi, a series of large interlocking hemispheres protecting the city"s districts. Five large Ellezelin navy cruisers were racing around the planet, their trajectories curving sharply to position them above the city.

A starship hurtled up from the buckling generator complex, accelerating at nearly forty gees. It fired a barrage of energy beams and disrupter pulses at the Columbia505 Columbia505. Digby found himself gripped by safety webbing as the starship spun helplessly. Planetary atmosphere was an alien milieu for it; systems designed for combat in the clear vacuum of s.p.a.ce were operating below optimum, fogged by the dense gases. The force field shimmered a vivid amber, spitting off glittering scintillations while Digby"s vulnerable inner ears conjured up a wave of nausea. Far below, consecutive shock waves crashed down across the beleaguered commercial buildings and warehouses that comprised Riasi"s sprawling interstellar commerce district.

The Columbia505 Columbia505 leveled out, and the routines in Digby"s macrocellular cl.u.s.ters neutralized the nausea. Exoimage displays showed him the other starship streaking up through the troposphere, a huge ionic contrail shimmering behind it. "Follow it," Digby ordered the smartcore. The air above the shaken city howled yet again as the leveled out, and the routines in Digby"s macrocellular cl.u.s.ters neutralized the nausea. Exoimage displays showed him the other starship streaking up through the troposphere, a huge ionic contrail shimmering behind it. "Follow it," Digby ordered the smartcore. The air above the shaken city howled yet again as the Columbia505 Columbia505 powered its way up, ignoring the cruisers that were attempting to converge on it. The other starship slipped into hypers.p.a.ce. powered its way up, ignoring the cruisers that were attempting to converge on it. The other starship slipped into hypers.p.a.ce. Columbia505 Columbia505 followed. followed.

"Why?" Paula asked before Digby had even cleared the Ellezelin system. "Those fragments were vital. We"ll lose most of them now."

"Forensic a.n.a.lysis was only ever a long shot," Digby countered. "I determined the faction ship was a much better lead. They risked a lot to obstruct my collection operation."

"Which implies the fragments you were recovering were important."

"My judgment," Digby insisted, wishing he didn"t feel quite so small. No other human-Higher, Advancer, or normal-could ever make him feel so inadequate and defensive as his great-grandmother.

"Indeed it was, and you"re committed now. How good is the sensor reading?"

"Holding steady. They"re stealthed, of course, but my smartcore can still detect some distortion. It"s a good ship they"ve got, equal to Chatfield"s."

"All right. I"d probably have done the same in your circ.u.mstances. You stay with it and see where that representative is going. The ANA judicial conclave is beginning now. I"m expecting the entire Accelerator Faction to be shut down within the next hour or two."

"Excellent."

"It has its problems, not least the agents and representatives still at large, like the one you"re following. I suspect we"re going to be a long time mopping up."

"At least we"ll have a complete list of them and their activities."

"Yes, that should help. Let me know when the ship reaches some kind of destination."

"Of course." Digby scowled as the secure call ended. This whole mission was proving very unsatisfactory. He was leaving too many unanswered questions behind him as he tagged along after the latest possible lead. He was also feeling plenty of stress from the destruction he"d caused and then fled from in Riasi. There would have been a lot of bodyloss due to his actions.

After a quarter of an hour it was clear the faction ship was heading in toward the Central worlds. It looked like the destination was Oaktier.

There had been only one judicial conclave in ANA"s history. It had been called to deal with the Separatist Faction, which had wanted to break ANA up, leaving them in a section free from any regulation or limit imposed by the base law control that acted as a universal governor across the entire edifice. The majority verdict was to disallow any such action. An ent.i.ty with ANA"s ability and resources and under the authority of a dogmatic ideology might conceivably pose a threat to the original ANA, not to mention the rest of the Greater Commonwealth. The duplicitous method by which the Separatist Faction had sought to seize command of the quasi-physical mechanism that sustained ANA in order to achieve the segmentation was verification enough that they couldn"t be trusted to evolve quietly in some distant corner of the galaxy. A whole host of other agendas to encourage postphysical ascension were exposed at the conclave.

As before, ANA:Governance produced a spherical a.s.sembly arena with an equivalent diameter half that of Earth itself. Such a size was necessary to accommodate the manifested forms of every individual mind embedded within the edifice of ANA. They appeared within seconds of the judicial conclave being announced, materializing across the vast curving sh.e.l.l, cl.u.s.tering with those of their own factions or in simple groupings of friends or relatives. Ilanthe, as the nominated representative of the Accelerator Faction, floated at the center of the sphere. She had chosen to manifest as her primary representation, a featureless human female with fluid silver skin. Only her face retained any characteristics, showing a long jawbone and a small elegant nose. Her eyes were the absorptive black of an event horizon.

"Thank you for responding," ANA:Governance said to the convened population.

Ilanthe performed a random sweep over sections of the a.s.sembly arena, noting the various forms and shapes manifested across the sh.e.l.l wall. Over half retained a human appearance, whereas the rest had selected a mult.i.tude of geometries and colors from minimal spheres of light, to swarms of neuron echoes, to the simple yet sinister black pyramids of the radical Isolator Faction. One of the human figures was Nelson Sheldon, who was contemplating her with the relaxed disdain of a man who had won his game. Of Gore Burnelli there was no sign, which perturbed her more than it should have. She still didn"t understand how he"d become the Third Dreamer; his mentality must have some private link out of ANA to the gaiafield that she didn"t comprehend. Not that it was going to matter now.

Her fully expanded mentality (still anch.o.r.ed within the Accelerator compilation) regarded her jury with a degree of amus.e.m.e.nt, especially as some infinitesimal portion of her own mentality was contributing to ANA:Governance, effectively making her judge herself.

"We are called here to review the activities of the Accelerator Faction," ANA:Governance continued. "The charge against them is one of high treason."

Ilanthe"s peers remained quiescent, awaiting the information repositories containing ANA"s evidence.

"Do you wish to say anything?" ANA:Governance asked Ilanthe.

"You exist to provide us an existence which promotes intellectual development and evolution, yet you place restrictions upon enacting those very developments in the reality of s.p.a.cetime. Now you complain when we try to achieve that which your fundamental nature encourages. Please explain the logic."

"All individuals within me are free to translate their goals into physical or postphysical reality," ANA:Governance replied. "You know this. What I cannot permit is for those goals to be imposed on an unwilling majority. When and if we transform to postphysical status, it will be as a consenting majority."

"Nice in theory. But the restrictions you impose on those of us who are ready to transcend are completely unacceptable. We shall achieve our objective on our own." Ilanthe"s primary consciousness withdrew back into the center of the Accelerator compilation, where the inversion core awaited. Secondary routines took over her manifestation within the a.s.sembly arena, producing responses to ANA:Governance"s questions.

The globular inversion core shimmered a dark metallic indigo, its surface cohesion rippling slightly as the bands of exotic force structuring its boundary began to disengage from the quantum pseudofabric that was ANA"s edifice.

"The Prime allies of the Ocisen Empire fleet were animated by the thought routines of Donald Chatfield," ANA:Governance said. "He is one of your agents in the Greater Commonwealth." A vast flock of information repositories burst into existence within the a.s.sembly arena and settled on the audience waiting across the sh.e.l.l. Only Nelson Sheldon didn"t bother to access the information. Everybody else studied the records of Kazimir"s interception, the electronic interrogation and a.n.a.lysis of the inter-Prime communications. The conclusion was inevitable.