‘The tower is fine,’ Nigel said as they started walking along the twisting tracks. ‘What I mean is, when you’ve got a project like this, you complete the drudgework first, then build the landmarks. That’s how you make sure the donations keep coming in.’
Paula had her gaiamotes open, receiving the emotional wash of the eager followers and the general emissions of the city’s confluence nests. The gaiafield was an excellent simulacrum of Makkathran’s telepathic buzz, reproducing the same sensations of busyness and determination that Edeard experienced. ‘I don’t feel there’s going to be any shortage of donations.’ A couple of days previously, they had run a sweep through Living Dream’s official accounts. The figures involved had surprised her. Some seriously wealthy individuals had made large donations. Living Dream had refined its recruitment techniques to a degree which put most External world cults to shame. She’d almost assumed a degree of illegal coercion, maybe some advanced version of the old narcomemes, except for the sheer number of mid- and small-level devotees also handing over money – in some cases, everything they owned. It wasn’t entirely limited to Advancers and Naturals either: a significant percentage of Living Dream was made up from Highers.
That level of universal commitment couldn’t be written down to fraud and dirty practices. Edeard’s life held genuine appeal, and from the four dreams she’d witnessed, she could actually sympathize with that. It helped that Inigo was now releasing the Fifth Dream, slowly unveiling it a few minutes each night.
And that was what made her extremely suspicious. Those perfectly self-contained sequences were being offered up a little bit too neatly for a mythical vision which was supposedly gifted, and over which he had no control. It was one of the reasons she’d agreed to help Nigel. That and the whole mystery of Makkathran being a warrior Raiel armada ship – a puzzle she just couldn’t resist.
They walked from Ilongo over into Isadi, across a hologram of the Pink Canal – a wide ribbon of blue light stretching across the ground. Then Ysidro district, where the first phase of genuine Makkathran buildings were being laid out. The ge-eagle looked down on foundations of enzyme-bonded concrete forming an intriguing jumble of shapes in the raw earth. There were as many constructionbots as there were people working on the site. Large trucks were being driven at speed along makeshift roads, shifting subsoil out and material in.
‘Those aren’t automated,’ a surprised Nigel protested as they had to scuttle quickly across one of the roads to dodge a ten-wheel digger. The driver gave them a long angry blast on the horn as he thundered by.
‘You have to admit, Inigo’s going for authenticity.’
‘No he’s not. Makkathran is actually a technology even we haven’t mastered.’
Paula shook her head wryly. ‘Yeah, but he doesn’t know that. Or at least, if he does, he’s not admitting it yet.’
Upper Grove Canal, which marked the boundary between Ysidro and Golden Park, was a giant gash in the ground six metres deep. Extruderbots were working their way slowly along the floor and walls, chewing up a thick stratum of the earth, and squeezing out a seamless sheet of enzyme-bonded concrete behind them. The ge-eagle showed her that the Zelda district was covered in big biovats breeding enzymes; Living Dream was going to need an awful lot of it to complete this remarkable homage, she thought.
They made their way over a rickety temporary bridge and into the featureless expanse that was Golden Park. Holograms of the white pillars that lined the real thing appeared insubstantial under Ellezelin’s hot late-afternoon sunlight, flickering into translucency every now and then. Over on the other side of the park, the Outer Circle Canal had been completed and filled. The intersecting roofs of the Orchard Palace rose up beyond it like a giant primitive crustacean left behind by a treacherous tide, engulfing most of the Anemone district. Insect-like bots crawled over the curving edifice, dismantling the scaffolding.
‘Now what?’ Nigel asked.
‘We wait.’
Long open-sided marquees had been set up along the side of Outer Circle Canal, protecting tables from the elements. As the sun went down, people started to congregate there. Some tents were kitchens, others served drinks. A few had stages where acoustic bands started to play. The gaiafield was conducting some very mellow emotions.
Paula sent the ge-eagle over to Orchard Palace as they found themselves a bench under one of the marquees. It circled low over the steep domes and dispensed several batches of tiny semiorganic microdrones. Modelled on Tetranychidae mites, they began to invade the massive headquarters of Living Dream, penetrating deeper and deeper into the maze of rooms. A three-dimensional map began to build up in her exovision.
‘These can’t be the actual rooms,’ she murmured. ‘It’s just a grid of cubes made from lokfix panels. Standard cheap throw-it-up construction material. Nothing fanciful here.’
‘I guess we’ll see the interior in one of the dreams eventually,’ Nigel said. ‘In the meantime, something that can be changed easily makes sense.’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’ She sent the ge-eagle back for another pass, scattering more of the microdrones.
The cube rooms formed a stack of offices, living quarters for the senior disciples of Living Dream, kitchens, lounges, some labs where confluence nest technology was expanded, kilometres of identical corridors, store rooms, small replicators, a well-equipped clinic . . . It was like a government administration complex on a frontier planet. Every amenity present and correct, but basic.
‘Ah, the man himself,’ Paula muttered.
As the sun dipped below the horizon, Inigo had appeared at the marquee next to the one they were using – a tall ginger-haired man with pale skin and a lot of freckles. He had the appearance of a fit Natural Faction human in his mid-thirties, with an easy, sincere smile.
People were rising from their meal to greet him. He was polite and welcoming, working the crowd like a professional politician. When Paula checked his gaiafield emissions, he seemed genuinely to appreciate the attention – an emotion mixed in with just the right humility. I am not the chosen one, just the humble messenger.
‘He’s good,’ she admitted.
Nigel had turned to look. It wasn’t something he had to be circumspect about. Everyone in their marquee was craning for a glimpse of the man who offered them a vision of a different existence. ‘How old is he?’
‘Seventy,’ Paula said.
‘Then he’s got some excellent Advancer genes to look that good at seventy.’
‘He’s not Higher,’ Paula said, ‘so maybe he had a quiet rejuve. People like their leaders to have youthful vigour.’
‘Yes, you truly are a professional cynic.’
‘Why else would I be here?’ she countered. ‘We both know that this is all too good to be true.’
‘Yeah.’
They watched Inigo for several minutes until he finally accepted an invitation to sit with a group of people, most of them female and dressed like the daughters of Makkathran’s nobility, all low tops and skirts fluffed out by petticoats.
‘Let’s go try the local food,’ Nigel said.
One of the kitchen tents was doing a hog roast. They queued up and collected their paper plate, piled high with meat and apple sauce and a wedge-chunk of bread. Both of them chose a fruit juice. Nigel paid with a gold coin, stamped with the Eggshaper Guild crest: egg-in-a-twisted-circle. When they’d bought a supply of the coins at the landing field, the exchange rate had proved exorbitant.
‘They must have a big problem with forgery,’ Nigel decided as they sat back down again. He held up some of the brass and copper coins he’d been given as change. ‘Any old fabricator could churn these out. Hell, even an old-style printer could manage it.’