The name acted like some kind of recognition key. He He was why she"d woken. Her mind was abruptly aware of the turmoil bubbling out from the agent"s gaiamotes. There were images her own brain instinctively tried to shut out, repulsive sensations of pain-not direct impulses but memories of suffering that verged on nauseous, but worst of all were the emotions of guilt and fear that bridged the gap between them, plunging her into his nightmare of darkness and torment. She was suffocating in some giant cathedral where men and women were being sacrificed on a crude pagan altar. She was standing behind the high priest as the curved dagger was raised again. Screams blasted out from those awaiting an identical fate as the blade flashed down, then rose again, dripping with blood. The figure in the white robe turned, and it wasn"t a male priest. was why she"d woken. Her mind was abruptly aware of the turmoil bubbling out from the agent"s gaiamotes. There were images her own brain instinctively tried to shut out, repulsive sensations of pain-not direct impulses but memories of suffering that verged on nauseous, but worst of all were the emotions of guilt and fear that bridged the gap between them, plunging her into his nightmare of darkness and torment. She was suffocating in some giant cathedral where men and women were being sacrificed on a crude pagan altar. She was standing behind the high priest as the curved dagger was raised again. Screams blasted out from those awaiting an identical fate as the blade flashed down, then rose again, dripping with blood. The figure in the white robe turned, and it wasn"t a male priest. She She smiled gleefully, the front of her robe soaked in scarlet blood, making the fabric cling obscenely to her body, emphasizing b.r.e.a.s.t.s and hips. smiled gleefully, the front of her robe soaked in scarlet blood, making the fabric cling obscenely to her body, emphasizing b.r.e.a.s.t.s and hips.

"You don"t leave me," she explained as the smile widened. Lips parted to reveal fangs that grew and grew as the cathedral faded away. There was only darkness and her. The robe was gone now; blood glistened across her skin. The mouth opened wider, then wider still; there was no face anymore, only teeth and blood. "Come back where you belong."

He wanted to scream, joining the clamor kicked up by the others lost somewhere out there in the impenetrable blackness. But when he opened his mouth, blood poured in, filling his lungs, drowning him. Every muscle shook in the terrible struggle to be free, to be free of her, of what she"d made him do.

"It"s all right, son," a new, soothing voice chimed in. "Let me help you."

A soft irresistible force closed around his body, solidifying, immobilizing him. He stopped gagging for breath as bright red laser fans swept across the darkness, quickly arranging themselves into a spiral web with his head in the center. They contracted sharply, sending light pouring into his brain. Pain soared to unbelievable heights- "Yech!" Corrie-Lyn shook her head violently, closing off her gaiamotes. The sickening sensations vanished. Now she heard a sound, a m.u.f.fled yell from the captain"s cabin on the opposite side of the narrow companionway. "Sweet Lady," she grunted. No mind could survive that kind of psychological torment for long, not and remain sane and functional. She stared at the cabin door, fearful he would come bursting through, his weapon enrichments activated. But he didn"t. There were another couple of defiant cries and then some whimpering like an animal being soothed before silence claimed the starship again.

Corrie-Lyn let out a long breath, seriously alarmed by how great the threat of him going completely insane had become. Her skin was coated in cold sweat. She pulled the tangle of quilts off herself and wriggled over to the ablution alcove. Taking care to be quiet so she didn"t wake Inigo, she slowly sponged herself down with a mild-scented soap. It cooled her skin, leaving her feeling a little better. Nothing she could do about the sensations crawling along the inside of her skin-the residual shock of the dream.

If that"s what it is.

It was all a little too coherent for comfort. Not a brain naturally discharging its acc.u.mulated experiences orchestrated by the peaks of lingering emotion, the way humans were designed to cope with everyday experiences. These were like broken memories pushing up from whatever dark zone of the psyche they"d been imprisoned in. "What in Honious did they do to you?" she murmured into the gloomy cabin.

The next morning the servicebots had finished tailoring some of the fresh clothes as she"d instructed. "Not bad," Inigo said admiringly as she pulled on the navy tunic with shortened sleeves. She grinned as she wiggled into a pair of tunic trousers. They were tight around her hips. "Not bad at all."

"I need some breakfast first," she told him with a grin. The one-and only-advantage of their weird imprisonment was the amount of time alone they could spend catching up.

They held hands as they went into the lounge. Inigo of course used the culinary unit to prepare some scrambled eggs and smoked haddock. She delved into the pile of luxury supplies the crew had stored on board. The only thing the unit made that she could force down was the drinks, and that was pretty much limited to tea and tomato juice, neither of which was a firm favorite. She tucked into a mix of toffee banana cake and dried mortaberries, gulping the tea down quickly so she could convince herself the taste was Earl Grey, albeit with milk and strawberry jam.

Aaron came in and helped himself to his usual poached egg and smoked salmon. Without a word, he shuffled himself into his broken chair almost at the other end of the lounge.

"Who is she?" Corrie-Lyn asked.

"Excuse me?"

"The high priestess or whatever she was. The one with all the blood. The one that scares you utterly s.h.i.tless."

Aaron stared at her for a long time. For once, Corrie-Lyn wasn"t intimidated. "Well?" she asked. "You shared last night."

It wasn"t embarra.s.sment-she suspected he was incapable of that-but he did lower his gaze. "I don"t know," he said eventually.

"Well, you must-" She stopped, took a breath. "Look, I"m actually not trying to needle you. If you must know, I"m worried."

"About me? Don"t be."

"n.o.body can take that kind of punishment night after night and not have it affect them. I don"t care what you"ve got enriched and improved and sequenced into every cell. That kind of c.r.a.p is toxic."

"And yet here I am each morning, functioning perfectly."

"Seventeen hours ago," Inigo said.

"What?"

"You were supposed to be on the bridge monitoring the ship. You actually slipped into the reverie. I felt it."

"My operational ability is unimpaired."

"It"s being undermined," Corrie-Lyn said. "Can"t you see that? Or is it that you just can"t admit it?"

"I can help," Inigo said.

"No."

"You have instructions for just about every eventuality," Inigo said. "Is there one for your own breakdown?"

"There is nothing wrong with me a bit of hush in the morning won"t fix. A man likes to break his fast in goodly contemplative silence."

"Contemplate this: If you go gaga, how are we going to reach Ozzie?"

Aaron grinned contentedly. "You want to?"

"Yes," Inigo said with great seriousness. "I don"t know who programmed you, but I think they might be right about getting the two of us together."

"Now, ain"t that something; progress at last."

"The only thing that can stop us reaching the Spike now is you," Corrie-Lyn said.

"I imagine that if bits of me start to fall off, I will ..." He stopped, the humor fading from his face.

"Suicide?" Inigo supplied.

Aaron was staring at a point on the bulkhead, his coffee cup halfway to his mouth. "No," he said. "I"d never do such an unrighteous thing. I"m not that weak." Then he frowned and glanced over at Corrie-Lyn. "What?"

"Oh, Lady," Inigo grunted.

Corrie-Lyn was fascinated, suspecting that the real Aaron had surfaced, if only for a moment. "You"re not going to make it," she said flatly.

"We"ve got barely two days to go until we reach the Spike," Aaron said. "I can hold myself together for that kind of time scale. Trust and believe me on that."

"Nonetheless, it would be prudent for you to load some kind of emergency routine into the smartcore," Inigo suggested.

"I can match that; in fact, I can top it in a big way on the survival stakes. I would strongly suggest, now that you"ve figured out I"m not on the side of harming you and that you and the great Ozzie are going to be best buddies standing before the tsunami of evil, you think about how to stop the Void."

"It can"t be stopped," Inigo said. "It simply is is. This I know. I have observed it from Centurion Station, and I have personally felt the thoughts emanating within. Out of all of humanity, I know this. So believe me when I tell you that if you want to exist in the same universe, you have to find a way around it. Our best bet would be to turn around and ask the High Angel High Angel to take us to another galaxy." to take us to another galaxy."

Aaron drank some of his coffee. "Someone thinks differently," he said, unperturbed. "Someone still believes in you, Dreamer; someone believes you can truly lead us to salvation. How about that? Your real following is down to one: me. And for now I"m the only one that counts."

They began to feel the Spike"s wierd mental interference while they were still a day and a half out. At first it was nothing but a mild sensation of euphoria, which was why they didn"t notice at first. Corrie-Lyn had cut down on her drinking, but there were still some seriously good bottles cluttering up the crew"s personal stores. Be a shame to waste them. A couple-the Bodlian white and the Guxley Mountain green-were reputed to have aphrodisiac properties. Definitely a shame. Especially as there was nothing else to do on board ship.

So in the afternoon she"d gotten a bot to make up, or rather unmake, a semiorganic shirt so that just a couple of b.u.t.tons held the front together. Satisfied the end product was suitably naughty, she stripped off and stepped into the ablution alcove. While she was in the shower, the bot also remade a thick wool sweater into a long robe; it was scratchy on her arms, but what the Honious.

She"d left Inigo in the lounge reviewing astronomical data on the Void. Now he hurried to their cabin when she called him, saying something important had happened.

"What is it?" he asked as the door parted. Then he stopped, surprised and then intrigued by the low lighting and the three candles flickering on nearly horizontal surfaces. The culinary unit might be rubbish at food, but it could still manage wax easily enough.

Corrie-Lyn gave him a sultry look and ordered the door to close behind him. He saw the bottle of Bodlian and the two long-stemmed gla.s.ses she was holding in one hand.

"Ah." His gaiamotes emitted a simultaneous burst of nerves and interest.

"I found this," she told him in the huskiest voice she could manage without giggling. "Shame to waste it."

"Cla.s.sic," he said, and took the proffered bottle. She kissed him before he"d even gotten the cap off, then began to nuzzle his face. He smiled and pressed himself up against her while she toned up the mood her gaiamotes were leaking out. Together they undid the belt of the crude robe. "Oh, dear Lady, yes," he rumbled as the wool slipped down to reveal what remained of the shirt.

Corrie-Lyn kissed him again, the tip of her tongue licking playfully. "Remember Franlee?" she asked. "Those long winter nights they spent together in Plax."

"I always preferred Jessile."

"Oh, yes." She sipped some of the wine. "She was a bad girl."

"So are you." He poured his own gla.s.s and ran one hand down her throat, stroking her skin softly until he came to the top b.u.t.ton. His finger hooked around it, pulling lightly to measure the strain.

"I can be if you ask properly," she promised.

Two hours later Aaron fired a disrupter pulse into their locked cabin door. The malmetal shattered instantly, flinging a cloud of glittering dust into the confined s.p.a.ce. Corrie-Lyn and Inigo were having a respite, sprawled over the quilts on the floor. Inigo held a gla.s.s of the Bodlian in one hand, carefully dripping the wine across Corrie-Lyn"s b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Secondary routines in his macrocellular cl.u.s.ters activated his integral force field instantly. Corrie-Lyn screamed, crabbing her way back along the floor until she backed into a bulkhead.

"Turn it off!" Aaron bellowed. His cheeks were flushed as he sucked down air. Jaw muscles worked hard, clamping his teeth together.

Inigo rose to his feet, standing in front of Corrie-Lyn. He expanded the force field to protect her from direct energy shots, knowing it would ultimately be futile against Aaron. "The force field stays on. Now, in the Lady"s name, what"s happened?"

"Not the f.u.c.king force field!" Aaron juddered, taking a step back. Weird unpleasant sensations surged out of his gaiamotes, making Inigo flinch. It was a torrent of recall from the strange cathedral with the crystal arches, terrified faces flashing past, weapons fire impossibly loud. Each memory burst triggered a devastating bout of emotion. Even Inigo felt tears trickling down his cheeks as he swung between fright and revulsion, defiance and guilt.

"The mindf.u.c.k," Aaron yelled. "Turn it off or I swear I"ll kill her in front of you."

"I"m not doing anything," Inigo yelled back. "What"s happening? What is this?"

Aaron sagged against the side of the ruined door. "Get them out of my head!"

"Deactivate your gaiamotes; that"ll kill the attack."

"They are off!"

Inigo"s skin turned numb with shock-his own emotion rather than the chaotic barrage coming from Aaron. "They can"t be. I can feel your mind."

Aaron"s hand punched out, knuckles finishing centimeters from Inigo"s face. Enhancements rippled below his skin, and squat black nozzles slid out of the flesh. "Turn it off."

"I"m not doing anything!" Inigo yelled back. Ridiculously, he felt exhilarated: This was living living, the ant.i.thesis of the last few decades. He cursed himself for hiding away rather than facing up to everything the universe could throw at him. Which was stupid ...

Four ruby-red laser targeting beams fanned out of Aaron"s enrichments, playing across Inigo"s face. "Switch. It. Off Off," the crazed agent growled. Somewhere close by dark wings flapped in pursuit. The edge of the cabin began to shimmer away as if the darkness were claiming it molecule by molecule. Her presence was chilling, seeping through Inigo"s force field to frost his skin.

Aaron flung his head back. "Get away from me, you monster."

"It"s not me," Inigo whispered, fearful of whatever stalked them through the gloom that was now busily eating away at the edge of his own vision. He could see her smile now, predatory teeth bared. If she did break through to whatever Aaron believed to be reality, there was no telling what would happen.

The laser beams started to curve through the air, sliding smoothly around Inigo to cage him in red threads. Their tips studded Corrie-Lyn"s naked body.

"I can be as bad as her," Aaron purred with smooth menace. "After all, she taught me. I can make this last for hours. You will hear Corrie-Lyn plead with you to switch it off. She will beg you to kill her as the only way to stop the pain."

"Please," Inigo said. "Listen to me. I"m not doing this to you."

The arching lasers grew brighter. Corrie-Lyn"s skin sizzled and blackened where the tiny points touched her. She gritted her teeth against the p.r.i.c.ks of pain. "Wait," she gasped. "Where are we?"

Aaron was shuddering as if someone were shoving an electric current through his body. "Location?"

The darkness surrounding the cabin pulsed with a heart"s rhythm, stirring up a gust of air that pushed against them.

"Yes!" Corrie-Lyn demanded. "Our location. Are we near the Spike?"

"It"s two hundred and seventy light-years away."

"Is that close enough for the dream? Is that what we"re feeling?"

Aaron c.o.c.ked his head to one side, though his hand remained steady just centimeters in front of Inigo"s face. A drop of saliva dribbled out of his mouth. "Dream? You think this to be a dream? She"s here. She"s walking through the ship. She"s here for me. She never forgets. Never forgives. For that is weakness and we are strength."

"Not your dream, you f.u.c.king moron," Corrie-Lyn said. "Ozzie"s dream. The galactic dream he left the Commonwealth to build."

"Ozzie"s dream?" The curving lasers dimmed slightly. Corrie-Lyn wriggled away from their enclosure.

"That"s right," Inigo cried. "This effect is like an emotion amplifier. I knew the s.e.x was good, but ..."

Corrie-Lyn stopped rubbing her burns. "Hey!"

"Don"t you see?" Inigo urged. "He"s heightened our emotional responses through the gaiafield. But with your screwed-up psyche that"s simply helped with the destabilization. Whatever controls your masters installed are starting to crack under the pressure."

The blackness pulsed again. Inigo swore he could feel the pressure increase on his inner ears.

"My gaiamotes are closed," Inigo hissed.

"They can"t be! I"m witnessing your dreams."

"He"s right," Corrie-Lyn said. "My gaiamotes are shut, too, but this f.u.c.king nightmare is terrorizing us all. It"s not the gaiamotes."

Aaron"s targeting beams snapped off. "What, then?" he demanded. His knees nearly buckled. "I cannot risk my mission failing in this fashion. It leaves you open to capture. We will have to die." His hand moved to clamp his fingers over Inigo"s face. Inigo"s exovision was suddenly swamped by warning symbols as his force field began to glow a weak violet. "Your memorycell, too," Aaron said. "Nothing of you must survive to fall into the hands of the enemy, especially her."

"He"s circ.u.mvented it," Inigo said, trying to keep calm. Violence wasn"t the solution to this; he had to break through Aaron"s neuroses. "This is Ozzie"s dream; it doesn"t need the gaiafield anymore. He"s propagated the feelings through s.p.a.cetime itself."

"This is an attack," Aaron vowed.

"It"s not. I promise. He"s a genius, an authentic off-the-scale live genius. The gaiafield was just a warm-up for him. Don"t you see? He"s created real telepathy. Ozzie has made something that can make mind speak directly to mind just like he always wanted. It"s internal. Do you understand? Your instability is coming from within."

"No." Aaron fell to his knees, gasping for breath, pulling Inigo down with him.

"You are the cause of the mission failure. The damage is coming from your own subconscious."

"No."

"It is."