DEDICATION
To all my extended family.
ULTIMA
STEPHEN BAXTER
GOLLANCZ
LONDON
CONTENTS
Cover
Dedication
Title Page
Epigraph One
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Part Two
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Epigraph Two
Part Three
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Part Four
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Epigraph Three
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Chapter Seventy
Chapter Seventy-One
Chapter Seventy-Two
Chapter Seventy-Three
Chapter Seventy-Four
Part Five
Chapter Seventy-Five
Epigraph Four
Afterword
Also by Stephen Baxter
Copyright
EPIGRAPH 1
In the heart of a hundred billion worlds –
Across a trillion dying realities in a lethal multiverse –
In the chthonic silence –
There was satisfaction. The network of mind continued to push out in space, from the older stars, the burned-out worlds, to the young, out across the Galaxy. Pushed deep in time too, twisting the fate of countless trillions of lives.
But time was short, and ever shorter.
In the Dream of the End Time, there was a note of urgency.
ONE
CHAPTER 1
AD 2227; AUC (AB URBE CONDITA, AFTER THE FOUNDING OF THE CITY) 2980
‘Danger, Yuri Eden! Danger!’
‘ColU? What’s the emergency? Another Prox flare? We need to get to the shelter.’
‘Be calm, Yuri Eden. You are no longer on Per Ardua.’
‘Beth. Beth and Mardina. Where—’
‘Your daughter and her mother are far from here.’
‘Far? … Are they safe?’
‘That I cannot tell you, Yuri Eden. We must carry on in the presumption that they are.’
‘So why did you yell “danger” in my ear?’
‘It was the only way to wake you, Yuri Eden. The drugs the medicus has been prescribing for you are rather random in their effects, although they are satisfactorily strong.’
‘So you lied, right? Since when was an autonomous colonisation unit programmed to lie?’
‘I fear I have exceeded the parameters of my initial programming rather extensively by now, Yuri Eden.’
‘You know, I feel like I’m blundering down a dark corridor. And I open one door after another, trying to make sense of it all. But I’m safe when I’m asleep …’
‘Take your time, Yuri Eden.’
‘Medicus. That word … I’m still on that damn Roman tub, aren’t I?’
‘We are still guests aboard the Malleus Jesu, yes.’
‘And – ow!’
‘The medicus would advise you not to try to sit up, Yuri Eden.’
‘When I sleep, I forget. The crap growing inside me. I forget it all.’
‘It’s still here. But so am I, my friend. So am I. Here with you.’
‘Well, I can see that. So why the hell did you wake me?’
‘You asked me to. Well, to be precise, you asked me to witness and record your last will and testament. I can do that for you. But you have been asleep many hours, Yuri Eden. I thought it best to wake you before—’
‘Before the time comes when I never wake up at all, right?’
‘It was Stef Kalinski’s suggestion.’
‘Ha! It would be. How is she, by the way?’
‘The last time I communicated with her she was drinking hardened legionaries under the table. Anything to get the taste of the Romans’ disgusting fish sauce out from between her teeth. That is close to a direct quotation.’
‘She’ll outlive us all. Her and her impossible twin, probably.’
‘I hope to learn that some day. Yuri Eden, we must press on—’
‘Before I pass out again. It’s OK, old pal. So. My last will and testament. What kind of legal form can we use that will be recognisable in the Roman system? Whatever the hell that is, two thousand years after the Empire was supposed to have fallen. It’s not as if I have much to leave to anybody anyhow. Only the stuff we walked through that final Hatch with.’
‘Including myself.’
‘Including yourself, buddy. It’s strange to think of you as property but I guess that’s how it is.’
‘I am only an AI, Yuri Eden. And in this – different reality – human beings are property, some of them. Some even on this interstellar vessel. So I am less of an exception than you would imagine here. We cannot change such things.’
‘Maybe not. But my instructions are clear enough. If Stef survives me, my share of you, in the Romans’ eyes, is to go to her. If she doesn’t survive me you go to Beth, on Earth, if by some miracle you can find her.’
‘Quintus Fabius has promised me he will make sure of it, Yuri Eden, with the support of the legion’s collegia.’
‘So, let’s begin. I was born in 2067, old style. Getting on for a hundred and sixty years ago, then. Even though I have only lived—’
‘Sixty-two years, Yuri. The name your parents gave you—’
‘Is irrelevant. I was born in North Britain. My parents were both members of the Heroic Generation, who struggled to save the world from the climate Jolts of the previous decades. Well, they succeeded. And before the prosecutors caught up with them, they had me cryo-frozen at age nineteen. Just as well they never saw me revived on Mars, a century later.’
‘Your name, though …’
‘Some joker called me “Yuri” when they hauled me out of the cryo tank.’