Futurity checked his data desk. Under the Ideocracy, these accretion-disc colonies had been in place for two thousand years, almost since the final victory at the Galaxy’s Core.
Poole, a man of the fourth millennium, seemed stunned. ‘Two thousand years?’
Captain Tahget leaned forward and peered into the fish-tank. ‘Virtual, we once fought a war that spanned tens of thousands of light years. We learned to plan on a comparable scale in time. During the war there were single battles which lasted millennia.’
Poole shook his head. ‘And I imagined I thought big. I really have fallen far into the future, haven’t I?’
‘You really have, sir,’ Futurity said.
Poole sat down again and faced Mara. ‘I can see why you didn’t want to leave. Your roots were deep, on your Greyworld.’
‘Time was running out,’ she said. ‘We knew that. Our black hole was slowly spiralling deeper into Chandra’s accretion disc. Soon the turbulence, the energy density, the tides – it would have been impossible for us to hang on.’
‘Although,’ said Poole, ‘the black hole itself will sail on regardless until it reaches Chandra’s event horizon.’
‘Yes.’
Poole said, ‘I still don’t understand. If you knew your world was doomed, you must have accepted you had to evacuate.’
‘Of course.’
‘Then what—’
‘I just didn’t like the way it was done.’ Her face worked, deep emotions swirling under a veneer of control. ‘I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye.’
‘Who to?’
‘Sharn. My daughter.’
Poole studied her for a moment. Then he said gently, ‘You see, you’re losing me again, Mara. I’m sorry. According to the ship’s manifest you don’t have a daughter.’
‘I did have one. She was taken away from me.’
‘Who by?’
‘The Ideocrats.’
‘But you see, Mara, there’s my problem. I saw the records. Once the evacuation was done, there was nobody left on Greyworld. So your daughter—’
‘She wasn’t on Greyworld.’
‘Then where?’
‘She lives in the satellite black hole,’ Mara said simply. ‘Where the Ideocrats sent her.’
‘In the black hole?’
‘She lives in it, as you, Michael Poole, live in light.’
‘As some kind of Virtual representation?’
Mara shook her head. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t explain it better. We aren’t scientists on Greyworld, like you.’
He thought that over. ‘Then what are you?’
‘We are farmers.’ She shrugged. ‘Some of us are technicians. We supervise the machines that tend other machines, that keep the air clean and the water flowing.’
Poole asked, ‘But why are you there in the first place, Mara? What did the Ideocracy intend? What is your duty?’
She smiled. ‘To give our children to the black hole. And that way, to serve the goals of mankind.’
Futurity said quickly, ‘She’s probably doesn’t know any more, Michael Poole. This was the Ideocracy, remember, heir to the Coalition. And under the Coalition you weren’t encouraged to know more than you needed to. You were thought to be more effective that way.’
‘Sounds like every totalitarian regime back to Gilgamesh.’ Poole studied Mara for a long moment. Then he stood. ‘All right, Mara. I think that’s enough for now. You’ve given me a lot to think about. Is there anything you need? More food?’
‘I’m tired,’ she said quietly. ‘But I know if I lie down that Captain or the acolyte will sneak in here and disarm the bomb, or hurt me, and—’
Poole said, ‘Look at me, Mara. Things will get flaky very quickly if you don’t sleep. Nobody will hurt you, or change anything in here. You can trust me.’
She stared at his Virtual face. Then, after a moment, she lay down on her bunk, her knees tucked into her chest like a child.
Poole’s fish-tank representation popped out of existence.
Poole, Tahget and Futurity faced each other across the table in Tahget’s office.
Tahget said, ‘We need to resolve this situation.’
Poole had another glass of Virtual whisky in his hand. ‘That woman is determined. Believe me, you don’t separate a mother from her child. She’ll blow us all up rather than give in.’
Tahget said coldly, ‘Then what do you suggest we do?’
‘Comply with her wishes. Take her back to Chandra, back to the centre of the Galaxy, and to her black hole Garden of Eden. And help her find her kid.’
Futurity said, ‘There is no child. She said the child lives in the black hole. That’s just impossible. No human being—’
‘Who said anything about it being human?’ Poole snapped. ‘I’m my mother’s son, and I’m not human. Not any more. And black holes are complicated beasts, Futurity. You’re a scholar; you should know that. Who’s to say what’s possible or not?’
‘Actually I don’t know anything about black holes,’ Futurity said.
‘You know, you’ve got a really closed mind,’ Poole said. ‘You Ecclesiasts have origins in an engineering guild, don’t you? But now you want to be a priest, and the whole point of being a priest is to keep your knowledge to yourself. Well, maybe you’re going to have to learn to think a bit more like an engineer and less like an acolyte to get through this.’
Tahget was glaring at Poole. ‘If you insist on this absurd chase to the centre of the Galaxy, Michael Poole, you will have your way. You are accorded respect here. Too much, in my opinion.’
Poole grinned. ‘Ain’t that the truth?’
‘At least it will buy us time,’ Futurity said, trying to reassure Tahget. ‘But you must hope to resolve this situation before you reach Chandra, where you will find there is no magical child in the singularity, and the woman’s condition will veer from denial to desperation.’
‘Or it all works out some other way,’ Poole said evenly. ‘Don’t prejudge, acolyte; it’s a nasty habit. One condition. I’m coming along too.’
They both looked at him sharply.
Futurity said hesitantly, ‘I don’t think the Hierocrat would—’
‘Into Lethe with your bishops and their “copyright”! I didn’t ask them to bring me back from the dead. I only want to see a little of the universe before I get switched off again. Besides, right now I’m the only sentient creature poor Mara trusts. I think you need me aboard, don’t you, Captain?’
Futurity opened his mouth, and closed it. ‘As the Captain said, if you ask for that I imagine it will be granted, though the Hierocrat’s teeth will curl with anxiety.’
Tahget growled, ‘Your Hierocrat will have more to think about than that.’ He grabbed Futurity’s wrist in one massive hand. ‘If Michael Poole is joining this cruise of ours, so are you, acolyte. When this Virtual fool starts to cause trouble, I want somebody I can take it out on.’
Futurity felt panicked; for a boy who had never been further than low orbit before, this was becoming a daunting adventure, out of control.
Poole laughed and rubbed his hands together. ‘Great! Just leave a piece of him for the Hierocrat to gnaw on.’
Tahget released Futurity. ‘But I have a condition of my own.’ He waved his hand over the table, and its surface turned into a schematic of the Galaxy. ‘Here is our original route, planned but now abandoned.’ It was a simple dotted line arcing from Base 478 in the Core out to the sparse Galactic rim, where Earth lay waiting. There were a few stops on the way, mostly at nominal political borders. One stop was at a flag marked ‘3-Kilo’, outside the Core, and Tahget tapped it with his fingernail. ‘This is the Galaxy’s innermost spiral arm, the 3-Kiloparsec Arm. Whatever our final destination, we go here first.’