'Kazimir?
'In a manner of speaking. Damn, I never realized you were still so fixated. You really ballsed that one up, didn't you?
'What do you mean?
'So far all Living Dream has been promising is the chance to put your life straight, just like their precious Waterwalker did every time he made his many mistakes. Screwed up again? Never mind. Bang, he thinks back to the moment he went wrong and rearranges the whole Void to that instant. That's what sold it to them, all the sheep bleating to be taken on the Pilgrimage fleet.
'I know, time travel is everyone's wish fulfilment made true. Going back to correct your life's blunders is the ultimate fantasy.
'Time travel is pure bullshit, impossible; nobody can defeat causality or entropy. All the Void does is press the reset button. That's what that goddamn memory layer is, a template of every instant inside there. And how does it fucking power that?
'Dad.
'Every planet, every person, every Skylord, every star has to have its entropy reversed to the point in time Edeard fancied going back to. Every star! Every single atom in every star in the Void has to have its energy level pumped back up so he can begin again. Dear God, what arrogance. And where does it get the energy from to do that? From us. From eating our galaxy. That's what feeds the reset. Mass to energy, good old E equals MC squared.
'Dad, calm down, you're ranting to the converted.
'Oh am I? If they were converted, the stupid dumb shits wouldn't be going on their Pilgrimage, would they? Sometimes I think the Ocisens are quite right, they should just wipe us out because any species thick enough to produce a Living Dream doesn't deserve to live.
'Dad! she said, shocked.
'Yeah yeah. He grinned round savagely. 'You like this dream, Ethan? You like what's coming at you from the Void now? Or is this too much truth for you? Because it's not just going to be your dumbass Waterwalker skipping back through his life any more, is it? I could just about live with him being the saviour of a bunch of shipwrecked medieval cretins. But that was never enough for you, was it? You are so fucking stupid you want to take everyone in there. Millions of you resetting your lives every time you get a drop of shampoo in your fucking eye. Are you so fucking pitifully weak you can't face living your life properly? Learn from your mistake and move on. That's what makes you human. Not condemning the rest of us to extinction because of your personal goddamn failure of an existence. Grow some balls, for fuck's sake.
Justine put her arm around Gore, startled to find he was shaking with rage. 'It's okay, she told him. 'We'll find a solution.
'Oh yeah. That's right. Because now it's not just the integral memory function that the Void can use as a template for creation. It can delve into any old hang-up you care to take in there with you. The Living Dream bastards aren't going to be content with going to Makkathran and screwing themselves stupid with Ranalee. Not any more. Not now they can recreate anything from their own past. People, cities, civilizations, worlds. Bring anything you want back to life, anything from history, from fiction. Doesn't matter, we'll just suck down a couple of thousand new stars into the boundary to power it up. Jesus H Christ.
'Are you blaming me for this?
Gore stood still, his fists clenching and unclenching as he tried to calm down. 'No. It's not your fault. I'm not blaming you. This is all down to the bastard Firstlives who built the fucking abomination in the first place. The Raiel were right to try and destroy it. I wish they goddamn had, I really do.
'I can use the Silverbird to study as much as it can.
'No no, that's not the answer to anything. We can't go in there with ray-guns blazing. I thought you'd realized that. You were right earlier, the mind is the key in the Void. It is geared up to manifest every thought. The physical environment can only be a tiny part of it. Think of it as an eight-dimensional onion.
Justine straightened her back and gave her father an exasperated look. 'Thanks, Dad. That's helpful. I always think in those terms, it really helps a lot.
Gore gave her a gruff smile. 'All right, forget the eight dimensions, just picture the layers. They're interlinked dimensionally, not figuratively, but you get the drift. Every layer has a different function. There's the memory layer which captures everything that goes on in there. There's the creator layer, which must organize the reset. There's the interaction layer which formats thoughts for the creator layer, which is what makes telepathy and all the rest of that mental shit happen.
'A layer to make souls work, Justine said thoughtfully.
'Yeah. This is all built around rationality and its evolution, the fulfilment your retard Skylord is fixated on. So maybe another layer which handles thought processes — maybe that's the soul one, maybe not. That's not the point. There's a whole ton of layers, ones we can deduce from observation and stuff we can't even guess at. And Christ knows what the nebulas are and why they're singing. Doesn't matter. What we have here is an enormously complex construction. But the nucleus is the centre — again, not physically.
'So the nucleus does control it all.
'Who knows what the hierarchy is? What we have to do is find a route in, something we can rationalize and engage, just like you wanted.
'Why would the nucleus create Kazimir for me?
'It didn't. I don't believe you can think big enough to attract its attention. That confluence nest you have on board probably imprinted the Kazimir dream on to the creator layer. It was a thought more powerful than it's accustomed to. Most of the layers don't operate at a conscious sentient level, they just perform their task. And nobody ever took a confluence nest inside before. The one thing a confluence nest does above all else is hold a memory and repeat it ad infinitum. Your dream was the only one it received and that warped reality. The creator layer simply responded in the way it was designed. Nothing personal.
Justine sat on the bed, trying to fit together what he was saying. 'If my thoughts aren't powerful enough, what's the point of me trying to find the nucleus?
'This dream is being received by everyone who has a gaiafield connection. Understand?
'Ah.
'Don't try and find the nucleus, it's a waste of time.
'But, you just said—
Gore knelt in front of her, his hands gripping her upper arms. His eyes peered out intently from the gold skin mask that was his face. 'You have to get to Makkathran.
'There's nobody left there. The Skylord said the humans had all gone to the nucleus.
'I don't give a shit. Get to Makkathran. It's important. That's where humans are centred in the Void.
'How? The Silverbird can't fly.
'Wrong. Gore grinned right at her. 'You're in the Void. You've got telepathic powers. The Silverbird can't fly now.
'Oh. She worked out what he was proposing. 'Oh!
'That's my girl; as smart as you are beautiful.
'But, Dad, Kazimir won't exist then. I'll have killed him.
Gore let go of her arms. 'I'm sorry, run that by me again.
'If I go back to then, he won't exist.
'Oh, Jesus wept, Gore slapped a hand theatrically across his brow. 'Don't you go all liberal on me now. Not now.
'I can't wipe him out of existence. He's real now for better or worse. I have a responsibility.
'He is the equivalent of a re-life clone, one that has been stuffed with your recollections of his memories. How pitiful is that?
'He's alive, she said firmly.
'And you've got the hots for him.
'I have not.
'Your own DNA test showed you he's not Kazimir; just some poor doppelganger the memory layer had in storage.
'Exactly. He's human. I can't do this to him.
Gore took her hands. 'Listen to me, darling. This is the fundamental catastrophe that is the Void. He was a stored memory. Everybody who was ever in the Void is exactly the same, everyone who crashed there in the colony ship was copied; everyone who was ever born. Owain is still there, for God's sake, still frozen in the memory layer at the moment the Waterwalker shot him — and for all the decades he lived before. In all the resets Edeard performed afterwards, he never went back past the point where he wiped out the conspirators. He could never bring himself to do that all over again, because that's what he would have had to do each time. This is what the Void throws at us. They lived in the time they were meant to live. You can't change that, Justine. You cannot allow rationality and ethics that evolved in this universe to apply where you are now.