First analysis was of the Ellezelin interception. Every surviving physical section of Chatfield's starship was encapsulated by trajectory algorithms extrapolated and refined from Ellezelin's monstrously crude orbital sensor arrays. The flight of the eighty thousand scraps of matter were defined in a four-dimensional projection resembling a particularly beautiful scarlet firework scintillation bloom.
Origin point analysis designated the critical segments of the equipment Chatfield had been carrying. Exotic matter fragments were already decaying as their cohesion integrity was broken. But sufficient pieces survived; it would be possible to determine the interstice folds contained within them before their decay sequence fizzled to extinction. ANA might be capable of retro-profiling the nature of the equipment, and that would ruin everything.
Two more blank humanoid shapes walked across the sky. Fellow Accelerators, Colabal and Atha. Ilanthe transferred the trajectory construct to them. 'Supervise the wormhole interception yourself, she told Atha. 'It will need to be speedy, the ANA agent will see what's happening and instigate a hyperspacial distortion. You will need to collect seven thousand fragments.
'Confirmed, Atha said. The figure reversed its dimensions to zero and translocated.
'Is the replica functioning? Ilanthe asked Colabal.
'Yes. The sky beneath their feet began to undulate, its tempo increasing rapidly as if thin storm clouds were speeding past. A section glowed with a pale amber hue. Ilanthe immersed herself into it.
One of the accelerator agents that Colabal ran had collected a sample of Araminta's DNA from the Colwyn City apartment block. The sequencing had provided the Accelerators with enough information to formulate Araminta's neural structure.
Every scrap of information on her background had been transformed into simulated memories and loaded in. They were woefully inadequate, Ilanthe acknowledged, but the personality that knitted together was the closest thing they could produce to the actual Second Dreamer herself. Puzzlingly, there were no gaiamotes, how she connected to the gaiafield was a complete mystery.
Ilanthe hung in the middle of the simulacrum, and meshed herself with the mind that flowed within. Emerald threads of neurological emulates blended into her own primary mentality. Ilanthe allowed herself to see the block of flats beside Bodant Park go up in flame, fed in the shock pulse that Araminta had released into the gaiafield. Feelings raged around her, connecting to memories with erratic volatile associations, triggering irrational emotional responses.
Ilanthe disconnected herself. 'Laril, she said. 'She will turn to her ex-husband for help. This disconcerting meat-based memory fluttered through her thoughts, illogical and shaky. 'He represents a stability she has not known before or since. It is not a pleasant refuge for her, but a dependable one. She lacks that above all else.
'He's migrating inwards, Colabal said. 'That makes him susceptible. And his reputation is established. We can make cooperation worth his while. He is also weak. He will capitulate to threats.
'Proceed, Ilanthe said. She opened a secure link to Neskia. 'Marius made a huge mistake bringing Chatfield into operation this early, she told the station chief. 'And using the Cat against Paula was another blunder, he should have known better than to exploit personal animosity. His stupidity has exposed us to an unacceptable level of risk. Consequently, I'm restructuring our event sequence. Please take immediate command of the swarm, and bring it to Sol.
'I'll fly to it now, Neskia said. 'Do you want me to eliminate Marius?
'Not yet. I will restrict his initiative freedoms. It should act as a suitable caution. Clipping the wings of those who fly highest is always a profound disciplinary action upon them.
'I always found him unreliable.
'1 know. His temperament suited the majority of tasks he was assigned to. He may have come to enjoy the game so much he has lost sight of the goal. A common enough occurrence.
'Well I certainly haven't.
'I will rendezvous with you outside the cemetery belt. If all goes well. And it should. Kazimir is authorizing the deployment of the deterrence fleet.
'Finally! I wonder what it is.
'We'll know soon enough. Ilanthe ended the connection to the agent. Above her a black globe slipped out from the languid mirror-purple waves, no more than twice her height. She rose to greet it, slipping through the formless surface.
Ilanthe emerged through the side of a chamber measuring an apparent half a million kilometres across. The citadel of Accelerator ethos. Like an ancient godling she took flight, chasing through the chains of translucent planet-sized globes that spun idly through the immense formatted interstice. Flocks of fellow Accelerators flashed past her, calling out in welcome to their leader. They trailed long potentialities behind them, fragments of nonreality that struggled for existence then dissipated into little more than dreams. All of them, all of her kind, strove to imprint themselves on the modified space-time of their artificial environment, to bend reality to their wishes. Just as the Void achieved so effortlessly. Every second of existence was devoted to extrapolating the structure that would achieve the ultimate post-physical manifestation.
Up ahead, the inversion core glimmered with suppressed power, ready for her. Ready to break free and carry human evolution to heights not even ANA could envisage. Ready to change the nature of the universe for ever.
The Wurung Transport cab reached the end of the metro line sometime in the early hours. Araminta was not quite dozing when it came to a gentle halt in the middle of the Francola district. She'd never visited before, never even considered any of the properties which came up for sale here. In economic terms the area was as run down as the Salisbury district, but this decay was subtle, verging on genteel, as if the district had fallen into a cosy slumber, a retirement village content with its lot. The buildings here were mostly housing. Large and expensive when they were built; many had been subdivided into apartments. Sprawling gardens had matured, the trees growing up taller than roofs, casting long shadows during the day. Fallen leaves formed a dry mantle across the road, stirring briefly as the cab swished past.
Araminta opened the door and climbed out. Her boots crunched on the crisp brown leaves as she looked round, getting her bearings. About a mile away, behind the houses directly ahead of her, the city's force field was a near-vertical wall of shimmering air. She craned her neck, following the insubstantial barrier as it curved overhead to cover the entirety of Colwyn City. A flat layer of starlit clouds parted to slither around it, while the stars themselves were distorted smears of light speckling the apex high above the river in the middle of the city. She brought her head down again, almost dizzy.
'Go back to the nearest public slot and wait for me there, she told the cab. Not that she expected to come back, not for a very while anyway; but living with paranoia for the last few days had switched her brain to a very cautious mode of thinking.
The door closed up, and it hummed away down the rail. Araminta knew which way to go, it was instinctive; beyond the houses, where the streets ended and a strip of big native dapol trees acted as a buffer between the buildings and the force field. There was a warmth to be had there, her mind felt, a calmness that was almost the opposite of the gaiafield's exuberant emotive bustle.
She walked along the pavement, heading down the gentle slope and occasionally shying away from the hedges that had grown up to lean across the cracked mossy concrete. Little nocturnal rodents scurried about in the undergrowth, she heard cats yowling somewhere, a cry that carried a long way in the still air.