Then flame licked across the hulls of Penrose and The Big Aleph, and the news came in: more Anomalous centres were appearing, in cities where the authorities no longer had time to evacuate and order urban suicide. Only one response remained: sky-city after sky-city activated energy-weapon systems they had never used in anger, not before.
Now, they let loose.
Soon the warfare was all-out, or even worse than war: for each city fired upon every other city nearby, no longer knowing who the enemy was, therefore assuming all.
Only the baby cities, unable to fight, floated clear of the conflagration.
For a second, dropping through the toxic air, Roger had come round – Dubrovnik’s lower hull was receding overhead – and then a gold-and-cobalt-blue ship was underneath them, a dorsal opening appeared a second before they fell inside, then whatever had bound him to Rhianna was gone. But the impact against the control cabin floor was hard, knocking him into a state where he could not see though hearing remained. Perhaps for a few seconds he was out of it entirely.
And then transition.
Waking up to amber-tinted air, and the deep knowledge in every cell of his body that this was mu-space, and he and Rhianna were safe.
Friss Reejan, in her quickglass bubble, fell clear of the awfulness above. As Lady Mayor of Deltaville, she had been the officers’ first priority in the evacuation process, getting her to the city’s edge where she toppled clear, encased in quickglass. Dry-eyed because she had to be, she commanded the extrusion of glider-wings, bringing the bubble’s flight under some kind of control. Soon her trajectory flattened out, at an altitude far lower than the lowest point of Conjunction.
When she looked back, flames and dropping debris were all she could see.
‘My God. Oh, sweet God.’
She looked at her hand. How incongruous: holding a bowl of orgasmousse from the fresh consignment, so much better than any other food. The officers had snatched her clear of a banquet, and she had not even let go.
Behind her, the cities were gone.
‘Oh, God.’
Using her fingers, she spooned all of the orgasmousse into her mouth. Immediate pleasure flooded through her, more intense than she had never known, wave after wave of sheerest joy. Eyes closed, whimpering, she formed control gestures.
The wings melted back into the quickglass as it formed a vertical bullet-shape, driving straight down to the hydrofluoric acid ocean.
Tannier hit Helsen with a hooking palm-heel, smashing her sideways.
‘You think we’re all fucking amateurs, bitch?’
She was down on one knee. Most men would have been in coma.
I’m going to kill you, Helsen.
He was a professional, and he had picked up her trail through a tour de force of surveillance hacking that he would never be able to share with anyone; and he had intercepted her here, in a lonely chamber just inside the hull of Pneumos, too late to prevent the cascade of violence she had kicked off. Too late for normal procedures of arrest and detention then: just time for him to be the executioner.
‘Piss off,’ she said.
The floor ripped apart between them: a gap widening very fast. Already they were separated by a chasm too wide to jump across. He stared around, raising his arms to summon quickglass tendrils; but a rush of wind indicated the outer hull was splitting open, and then he was choking as Molsin’s toxic atmosphere mixed with city air.
Shit.
He saw Helsen throw herself out through the gap – good, she’s suicided – but then a shining hull told of something very different: a mu-space ship, and Helsen’s being dropped inside by a city tendril before the ship’s opening sealed up.
It turned away, silver and red its colours; then it slammed out of existence.
Escaped.
He could choke here, throw himself out, or run back inside the city to prolong his end; but whichever way it went, this was it.
It’s all too soon. Maura, I should never have—
Then scarlet light was blazing.
<<Man, with us.>>
<<Ending is.>>
<<Now now now.>>
<<Death not death.>>
Sapphire blue, as the surroundings changed. A cabin, with air that did not choke him; and three more traceries of living light.
‘Wait,’ he managed. ‘I can’t survive in mu-space.’
Not conscious, anyhow. But they did not seem to hear him.
Oh, frigging God.
He stood up, stared at the metal bulkhead, then crouched.
Oh, Maura.
And lunged headfirst against the—
SIXTY-EIGHT
MU-SPACE, 2603 AD (REALSPACE-EQUIVALENT)
Piet Gunnarsson and his ship were basking in the golden void, meditating on the distant strings of black fractal stars, glad to be back in the universe where they belonged. It was a rest period, and he had already slept. Here, strictly, they had nothing to do.
In realspace there had been Fulgor to watch over, from what they had hoped was a safe distance. However deadly the possibility of attack from the planet-locked Anomaly, there was always a tedium to hanging in realspace. Here, the opposite was true: simply relaxing involved a resonance with mu-space energies that made him-and-ship fully alive.
Far off, Alice’s ship floated, and beyond her the others from their shift. A replacement sequence of ships was hanging in realspace to observe the hellworld of Fulgor.
**Someone’s in a hurry.**
That was Alice.
**I see them.**
No ID signals were evident, but the ship was flying hard – her hull silver and scarlet, translated to realspace colours. Not a vessel that Piet recognized. It would be past them in seconds.
Another signal came in from Alice.
**No response to hails and pings.**
On this geodesic, the newcomer could transit into realspace and pop out close to Fulgor. Piet’s stomach churned as he sank into ship-interface, and he-and-ship powered up their weapon systems.
**You can’t be serious.**
Alice again, but ship-and-Piet did not reply, because they knew how ferocious was the intent behind their orders: to let nothing leave or approach the realspace hellworld.
**Σ Γ 7 ≡ Ψ 9 **
Piet-and-ship felt the signal activate their recognition module. Entanglement collapsed to reveal the corresponding eigenmessage:
Priority Aleph. Admiral on board.
He-and-ship allowed their weaponry to relax as the other ship sped past, flared with light, and disappeared from the golden void.
**Ours not to reason why, Piet.**
**Nobody tells us nothing.**
In Aeternum, the double negative implied an infinite mutual recursion akin to paradox, while the counter-rhythm of the nouns formed a twisted pun. It was enough for Alice to transmit a chuckle without words.
But Piet was not amused by his own joke, because he could see no reason why a lone admiral would fly straight towards the most unpredictable of danger zones.
On the other hand, Piet had his orders.
I’m not going to fail in my duty.
If he had been more alert days earlier, he would have followed the evacuation fleet to Fulgor and helped refugees get clear before the Anomaly took over. Then, he had not been civic-minded, and the shame would remain for ever.
So I’ll do what I’m told.
In a subjective hour, he would be back in realspace, on watch once more.
Observing the enemy.
Because when it boiled down to it, the Anomaly was simply that.
The enemy.
SIXTY-NINE
FULGOR, 2603 AD
It had evolved. It continued to evolve.
Its billions of constituent, pinpoint components, had once been independent minds. Buried deep inside were flimsy theories from Its ancestral species, such as: in the absence of a vast plurality, evolution could not progress: a solitary, unitary organism could only grow. Yet It continued to change in ways tiny life-forms could not contemplate, unable to fully grasp the strong coupling between emergent resonance and natural selection. It spread across the face of Its world. Soon, It would become Its world; only solitude was necessary.