Lordie, this is what dreaming about those two days does to me. Hulluba was a thousand years ago.
Justine sighed in regret and her third hand pulled a robe out of the replicator module. The culinary unit produced a big glass of carrot juice with vitamin supplements. It brought a grimace to her face as she dutifully swallowed it all down.
Maybe there'll be some beaches on a planet here somewhere.
She sat on the floor and started stretching exercises. Already she was looking forward to a very hot shower with powerful jets, a forcefully applied heat that would rid her neck of those abysmal kinks.
'What have we got outside? she asked the smartcore.
The star appeared in her exovision. Justine frowned. 'I know this. It was the star system which was projected on to the ceiling of the Orchard Palace's Upper Council chamber. A copper star that shone warmly at the centre of an accretion disc. Comets with moon-sized nuclei prowled the outer edges of the disc in high-inclination orbits, their tails streaming out for millions of kilometres, fluorescing a glorious scarlet. But what she was seeing outside now was older, the accretion disc had thinned out from the time of Edeard's tenure. Nine distinct bands had formed within it, each one shepherded by dense curlicues of asteroids as proto-planets started to congeal. The tails of the fireball comets were smaller, less volatile than before. Long braids of white vapour corrupted their once-pure scarlet efflux.
Translucent data displays overlaid the astronomy image. Justine's secondary thought routines sampled the information, compiling summaries, and her focus immediately shifted to a tiny white crescent that circled the tenuous rim of the disc. 'No way! It was an H-congruent planet.
The Silverbird was still seven AUs out from the star. It gave her plenty of time to observe the planet as they approached. In the real universe outside the Void it wouldn't exist. Even if the accretion disc had produced an amalgamation of rock and minerals that built up to planet-size there wouldn't have been time for life to evolve. The Silverbird's spectral analysis filters identified water and chlorophyll, along with a lot of nitrogen in the atmosphere. Wherever the world had come from, it had oceans and recognisable plant-life covering the landmasses.
One AU out. It was small for a H-congruent planet; Mars-size. The atmosphere was thick, at the surface it would be a standard pressure. Temperature was typical. A magnetic field warped solar wind into characteristic Van Allen belts around it. There were no electromagnetic emissions. But she kept checking for that the whole way in.
An implausible world in an impossible place. Only in the Void. She knew full well the amount of mass energy the boundary had consumed during that short dreadful expansion phase was enough to create a thousand solar systems, let alone one small planet. I shouldn't be surprised at anything here. Edeard only scratched the surface of the Void's potential, as Living Dream keep emphasising.
Ten million kilometres out, and the Silverbird was decelerating at five gees, shedding the last of the colossal velocity that had carried her across three lightyears. Five gees was the best it could reliably maintain. The glitches were back with a vengeance. Sensor degradation was acute on some of the higher-function scans. But simple optical lenses were showing continents and ice caps. Whorl patterns in the clouds were becoming apparent. She saw one hurricane that was somehow splitting in two as it hit the coast, its leading edge separating as if a knife was cutting it. A very big knife. The phenomena triggered some uncertainty deep in her subconscious — an ancient memory that struggled to resolve. What cuts a storm in half?
Then she had more to worry about as cabin gravity started to fluctuate. Secondary systems were dropping out as fluctuations beset the power network. Back-up supplies didn't always compensate properly. She ordered the cabin to return to a neutral status, retracting everything except for her acceleration couch. At least her biononics remained fully functional. She activated her integral force field as the Silverbird flew across the remaining million kilometres. Ahead of her, the planet's upper atmosphere sparked constantly with contrails as meteorites from the fringe of the accretion disc impacted on the ionosphere. The Silverbird's force fields reported a build up of micro-particle strikes. Dust density outside was thickening rapidly.
Justine went and put her armour suit on.
Ingrav efficiency was twenty per cent down, and becoming erratic. Justine had already abandoned any idea of breaking into orbit. They were going to have to head for a direct landing. Hopefully the regrav drives would kick in once they were inside the planet's gravity field. Judging by the way the rest of the systems were behaving she wasn't placing any bets.
A thousand kilometres above the ionosphere and the smart-core began shutting down peripheral routines in order to concentrate on core functions. The ship curved round the bulk of the planet. Regrav was becoming active — just. They would make it down okay. Probably.
That was when the three gigantic rocky cones sticking up through the atmosphere slipped into view. Silverbird was heading straight for them, trajectory projections giving their landing site just beyond.
Shock set in as she focused the cameras on the astonishingly familiar profile of the three volcanoes. 'You have got to be fucking kidding me, she said out loud.
The Silverbird was approaching near-perfect replicas of Far Away's Grand Triad at mach thirty. She fought to quash her surprise. It can happen. Here in the Void, it can happen.
Terminating a voyage three lightyears long at the exact point corresponding to her hyperglider landing twelve hundred years ago was not random chance. It was purpose.
The dream. Oh my God, the dream.
Which left a possibility that was almost too much to contemplate.
No. That cannot happen.
The Silverbird hit the atmosphere. Tenuous air molecules screamed as it hurtled downwards, soaring round the side of the tallest volcano with its flat summit and dead twin calderas. Churning superheated air blazed in the starship's wake. Regrav units applied what force they could muster.
Acceleration pushed Justine down into the couch. Her chest was compressed as her weight quadrupled. Biononics reinforced her body, enabling her to breathe normally. The regrav wouldn't alter the starship's vector. Her landing point was predetermined.
Ordained?
The Silverbird plunged down through a light cirrus layer, its speed dropping to subsonic. The volcano's mid-slopes were beneath her, rocky crags and cliffs strewn with patches of lichen and moss, streaked with snow. Then she was flying over the volcano's upper meadows, undulating grassland that formed a wide verdant belt just above the treeline. Icy waterfalls tumbled down rocky outcrops, birthing a lacework of silver streams.
Another mind impinged on the starship's gaiafield. The person's thoughts curious and enthusiastic.
'Oh no. No no no. He can't be here. You can't do this to me.
A long glade opened up in the forest below. Silverbird descended fast. Its landing struts bulged out of the fuselage. Justine gritted her teeth. The bump wasn't too bad. The cabin shook and a crunching sound tremored through the superstructure. Gravity fell below a standard one gee. Some of the ship status icons turned amber briefly, then flicked back to green. Whole sections faded to neutral as the drive units ceased to operate. The starship wasn't going to be flying anywhere soon.