“The Prime allies of the Ocisen Empire fleet were animated by the thought routines of Donald Chatfield,” ANA:Governance said. “He is one of your agents in the Greater Commonwealth.” A vast flock of information repositories burst into existence within the assembly arena and settled on the audience waiting across the shell. Only Nelson Sheldon didn’t bother to access the information. Everybody else studied the records of Kazimir’s interception, the electronic interrogation and analysis of the inter-Prime communications. The conclusion was inevitable.
Ilanthe’s mentality switched residence from ANA’s edifice to the inversion core. For the first time since she had downloaded three hundred twenty-seven years ago, she was fully independent.
“What are you doing?” ANA:Governance demanded as it detected her withdrawal from itself.
“Claiming the right you were established to enforce,” the secondary routines manifested in the assembly arena told it.
“You cannot function separately within me,” it replied. “You will simply be isolated until your primary identity reconnects to my edifice. Until then, no interaction with any part of me will be permitted. You will effectively be placing yourself into suspension.”
“Really?”
“Your faction’s attempt to manipulate Living Dream into providing you passage into the Void is declared outlaw,” ANA:Governance announced. The base law upon which its entire edifice was built asserted itself, exposing the collective memory of the Accelerator Faction members. ANA immediately noticed gaps where whole segments had been erased, the information transferred to Ilanthe’s mentality. Everything else was there: the actions of their agents, the development of independent Primes to provide the Ocisens with the kind of allies that gave them enough confidence to launch the invasion fleet. The why of it was missing. ANA also familiarized itself with the way Ilanthe had grown to dominate the faction, how her obsession with the Void and its abilities had come to supplant all other goals to accelerate human evolution. The secret manufacturing sites producing hardware for agents were revealed. There was one station orbiting a red dwarf star for which there were no records. It examined how she had diverted every resource and ability of the faction within ANA to empower the center of the Accelerator compilation, producing the inversion core that they were going to fuse with the nucleus of the Void.
Too much was missing still to determine their underlying strategy. All of it, the ultimate essence of the Accelerator Faction, hung within the inversion core. ANA observed the core detach itself from all contact with the edifice. Yet still the object maintained its integrity contained within the overall subquantum edifice. Not quite real.
“The Accelerator Faction is hereby suspended,” ANA:Governance announced to the assembly arena. The thought routines of every individual comprising the Accelerator Faction immediately terminated, held frozen within the edifice, ready for an edit that would remove the illegal sections and impose limiters to restrain future behavior.
None of it affected the inversion core. ANA couldn’t find an entrance point. The Accelerators had fabricated it without the base law, a circumvention of its authority that was disturbing. Their knowledge of exotic quantum structures was extremely advanced. Presumably that had come from people like Troblum studying the Dark Fortress mechanism. Examination of the faction’s now-exposed memories showed that eighty-seven of their researchers had served with the navy on missions to Dyson Alpha. Their findings were not available.
ANA shut down the entire Accelerator compilation in case there were some remaining connections it couldn’t perceive. The inversion core remained; it was self-sustaining, truly independent. “What is your purpose?” ANA asked.
“Total evolution,” Ilanthe replied. “I have never hidden that from you.”
“Your actions thus far have caused extreme danger, not just to the Commonwealth. I cannot let that pass with impunity.”
“I reject you and your authority,” Ilanthe replied.
The inversion core exerted an exotic force against the collapsed edifice surrounding it. ANA felt its structure warp to an alarming degree. Far above Earth’s lunar orbit, spacetime twisted badly, distorting photons into a globular whirl, sucking light down like a small event horizon.
“Desist from this action,” ANA warned. Ten Capital-class warships on Sol assignment raced in toward the spacetime stress point, slipping smoothly out of hyperspace to target the anomaly. ANA also opened a link to Kazimir, who was already within the External worlds.
“Do you have any idea what it is?” Kazimir asked.
“I can assume the inversion core contains some of my own functions if that is what they intend to fuse with the Void. They have been extremely clever in producing the system within me. No matter what any individual or faction fabricates for itself within me, the base laws apply, for they are a simple extension of the quantum interstice that is my edifice. That is how my integrity is retained. However, in this case my base laws were evaded. This is not part of me.”
“I will be there in another fifteen minutes.”
“That is gratifying. However, I do not believe even Ilanthe will attempt to destroy me. If she did, she would find it extremely difficult. There are some levels which I have never employed.”
The inversion core increased the level of the force it was exerting. ANA perceived the quantum fields within which it was embedded start to separate as their cohesion faltered. Spacetime fractured.
Senses available to the boundary of the inversion core registered starlight falling upon it. “You can no longer constrain me,” Ilanthe said. The starlight grew stronger, twisting savagely as it poured through the severe rift opening all around the inversion core. Then it was free, emerging into spacetime as the rift collapsed. The Earth was a splendid silver-blue crescent half a million kilometers away while the smooth plains of the moon’s farside glimmered to one side. Ten Capital-class ships accelerated smoothly toward it. Ilanthe sensed their weapons powering up and locking on. The inversion core went from a sedate cislunar orbital velocity to point nine nine lightspeed in less than half a second.
“What do you want to do?” Kazimir asked as he flashed past the Oort cometry belt that marked the boundary of the Sol system. He’d followed the chase with interest. The Capital-class ships had immediately dropped into hyperspace as the inversion core sped away at its incredible velocity, something disturbingly reminiscent of a Skylord in the way it did so. They had some trouble matching speeds when they emerged, replicating its velocity as part of their exit vector. Then, when they did get close, it simply stopped, shedding its relativistic speed in an instant, which left the warships streaking away. The inversion core accelerated again along a slightly different trajectory, leaving the warships with no choice but to dive back into hyperspace. Any engagement was going to be extremely difficult, and they still had no idea of its true capabilities.
“Ilanthe has left us with no options. Please intercept her and nullify the object.”
“Very well.” Kazimir ordered the Capital-class ships to disengage. He manifested several functions into spacetime, his energy signature matching the inversion core’s velocity perfectly. When he attempted to analyze it, all he could perceive was an incredibly complex knot of exotic forces. He didn’t have the sensor functions necessary to interpret its intersection within the quantum fields. That left him in the very surprising position of not knowing what aggressive function to deploy against it.
The inversion core halted again, twenty million kilometers out from Mars. Kazimir’s energy signature matched locations flawlessly. Visually, the inversion core resembled a ball of black glass whose interior was beset by purple scintillations. Thermally, it didn’t even register, and the exotic energy sensors revealed a boundary layer of negative matter somehow entwined with quantum fluctuations of enormous power.