The Raiel was larger than a terrestrial elephant, with a tough looking grey-green hide. That was where any equivalence died. For Nigel, standing directly in front of the alien, it was like looking at the crown of an octopus. The wide rounded head was surrounded by tentacles that varied from the pair closest to the ground, which were long and strong, clearly evolved for heavy work, up to clusters of smaller, more agile, appendages. Behind the array of tentacles, odd ropes of flesh dangled down like flaccid feelers, weighted by heavy knobs of technology – or maybe just jewellery, he conceded.

‘Thank you for receiving me,’ the Raiel said from a mouth that was all damp folds. ‘I am Vallar, High Angel’s designated liaison with the warrior Raiel.’

‘Indeed? Please come in. I am delighted to grant you the freedom of my house.’

‘You are most kind.’

Vallar walked over to the lake house. She had eight short legs along each side of her body; devoid of joints, they moved in pairs, tilting up and forwards to move her along in an elegant undulation. Nigel had to lengthen his stride to keep up.

The entrance in the window wall widened further to accommodate Vallar, then closed behind her. Nigel ordered the smartcore to activate another layer of privacy shielding around the building.

‘I hope we are secure enough now?’ Nigel asked. He remained standing. Somehow flopping back into a chair in front of the imposing alien would have seemed vaguely rude.

Her eyes were clusters of five separate small hemispheres that swivelled round in unison to focus on him. ‘Completely. I thank you for the courtesy.’

‘So what can I do for you?’

‘We are extremely interested in the latest development in the Commonwealth concerning the Void.’

‘Ah,’ Nigel murmured, and started to relax. ‘Of course. Inigo.’

Inigo was a human who had allegedly started to have dreams about a life lived by an adolescent named Edeard, living on a planet called Querencia inside the Void. Edeard’s story was of an idealist making his way through some quasi-medieval society but with telepathic powers thrown in. So far Inigo had released four of these astonishingly detailed dreams through the gaiafield and was just starting the fifth. A lot of people thought they were perfect forgeries, fantasy dramas produced by some External world company who were enacting the mother of all product placements. But a lot more people – tens of millions already, and increasing daily – were utterly convinced by the visions Inigo alone had been mystically granted. Living Dream was a growing movement that wanted to live the same life as Edeard, and people flocked to Inigo to await further revelations. He was rapidly turning into the human race’s latest unnervingly plausible messiah, offering a glimpse into a very strange universe indeed, where you lived a simpler, yet very different life.

Nigel looked up at the Raiel’s eyeclusters. ‘I can’t vouch that those dreams are real. Humans are capable of very ingenious deceptions, for a variety of reasons, not all of which make sense.’

‘The fourth dream shows Edeard travelling to the city of Makkathran.’

‘Yes, it does.’ Nigel didn’t quite blush, but he felt a mild embarrassment at admitting he’d accessed all the dreams – a twelve-year-old caught sipping his father’s beer. ‘It was an odd city. Built by aliens.’

‘It is one of ours.’

‘What?’

‘Makkathran is one of the warships that formed our armada. It was part of the invasion we sent into the Void a million years ago.’

‘You’re shitting me!’ Nigel blurted.

‘I am not.’

‘No. Of course. Sorry. But . . . are you sure?’

‘Yes. It is what convinced us that the dreams are genuine, that Inigo is somehow connected to Edeard. And that Edeard himself is real. How else would he know that name? Even we had almost forgotten it. And then there is the shape of the city, as well as its crystal wall.’

Nigel flinched, angry with himself for not seeing the obvious. Makkathran was circular, with a crystal wall running round it. ‘Sonofabitch. It’s perfectly circular, and the city wall is the base of a dome. How obvious. Then the rest of the ship must be buried underneath. I didn’t know you had canals in your cities.’

‘We don’t. Our ships have an integral mattershift ability. Your species witnessed High Angel shape New Glasgow to suit you. This is what has happened here. Some other species lived in Makkathran, and the ship crafted itself to their needs.’

Nigel sat down in one of the lounge’s oversized couches. ‘And then they all got carried off by Skylords to live in the Heart of the Void, isn’t that the local religion?’

‘Yes.’

‘Wow. So that’s what’s inside the Void? A spacetime continuum that permits mental powers? How the hell does it do that?’

‘We do not know. Nigel, this is the first glimpse we have ever been granted into the Void. Our armada failed. No ship ever returned. We thought they were all dead, that the Void had defeated them. Now it seems at least one has survived.’

‘Okay,’ he said, becoming wary. ‘So what do you want?’

‘I have come to you because you are the leader of the Commonwealth.’

Nigel held up a hand, palm outwards. ‘Hardly. I drove a lot of its development and policy at the start, back when wealth mattered. But that was a long time ago. ANA: Governance bosses the Central worlds around now; as for the External worlds, hell, they’ve got political parties to pounce on every grudge. And as a species, we’re prolifically inventive when it comes to grudges.’

Vallar didn’t move. ‘Nonetheless, you remain the single most powerful individual alive in the Commonwealth today.’

‘I have influence outside the norm, yeah.’

‘We need to investigate Inigo’s dreams. It is urgent.’

‘There are certain resources available to me,’ he admitted slowly. ‘But . . . You turn back every ship from the Wall stars. I know this. I accessed the Navy reports on the stealth ships Admiral Kazimir has tried to slip past you. So how did humans wind up in there? And that civilization Edeard lives in is – what, a couple of thousand years old? Was the Void snatching people from Earth back in medieval times? No, wait; don’t Edeard and Salrana talk about ships falling onto Querencia?’

‘We do not know how humans got into the Void. This lack is greatly disturbing to us. However, one of your inter-galactic colony fleets disappeared two hundred years ago.’

‘Disappeared?’ Nigel barked. ‘What do you mean, disappeared? And if you knew that, why haven’t you informed us?’

‘It was the second Brandt fleet, consisting of seven starships. The warrior Raiel who guard the Wall stars monitored it flying past the galactic core at considerable distance. Then they lost track of it. Please understand the monitoring was not constant. The warrior Raiel are only concerned with starships that venture close. It is possible that the fleet changed course, or decided to settle a pleasant world they found in this galaxy – and we are looking for that right now. However, it is equally possible they were somehow taken inside the Void.’

‘If that’s right, then time inside the Void is different – faster,’ he mused. ‘Well, why not? Giving people telepathic powers is a lot weirder. Temporal flow is a much simpler manipulation of spacetime; we’ve done it enough inside wormholes.’

‘The method by which humans got inside the Void is possibly a higher concern to us than even the existence of Makkathran.’

‘How so?’

‘A fleet of starships two hundred years ago, or a pre-technology civilization on Earth. Either would mean the Void has an ability to bring sentient species inside that we did not know about, and cannot detect. Frankly, we are very worried. Our million-year vigil may have been for nothing.’

‘Huh, yeah, I see that.’ Nigel took a breath and stood up again. ‘Vallar, I will be happy to help you investigate Inigo as thoroughly as needed. And you were right to come to me; playing by the rules would mean Inigo could stall any normal government disclosure request for decades in the courts if he wanted.’