Ragnarok 03 - Resonance (18 page)

Motile fibres extruded from the wall.

For seconds, they sniffed the air for smartmiasmas, sensing nothing. Then they stretched out, growing microscopically fine as they extended all the way to the bedside table, to the cloth-wrapped package on it, and finally through the fabric.

It took an hour, while deVries slept but could have awoken at any time, to determine the shearing angle and the force required, and projection angles for collimated anti-sound to counter the tiny
snap
accompanying the act itself: the cutting off of a tiny sample.

Slowly, slowly, the motile fibres drew the minute crystal
splinter back to the ornate wall; then the splinter was inside the quickstone, and the first stage of the operation was complete.

By capillary action, the crystal splinter moved within the Palace walls, with speed no longer an issue, only the need to keep it undetected as it travelled to the laboratory chambers, close to Kenna's main components that remained, static as ever, in place.

There was no hurry now.

TWENTY-SIX

EARTH, 2154 AD

Jared Schenck was orphaned two days before his seventh birthday. The call came for Rekka at 7:32 in the morning, while Jared was asleep in her guest room, no doubt with his chocolate-brown teddy-bear in his arms. She was already up, even though it was Sunday, her limbering-up
asana
s complete, and about to drink her one and only espresso of the day.

‘No,' Rekka told her wallscreen. ‘They can't be dead. Not Randolf. Not Angela.'

She put down the tiny cup.

‘I'm so very, very sorry.' Google Li, on screen, looked shocked herself. ‘It was only a short passenger hop, but they're saying everyone on board was killed.'

Rekka stared at the door to Jared's room.

‘Oh no.'

‘Do you want me to come over?'

In the seven years that Rekka had worked in Singapore, Google Li had not become a friend, but there was no real enmity. Google Li cared only what UNSA management thought of her; and provided you took that into account, you could at least deal with her as a colleague.

Jared's door clicked open.

‘Auntie Rekka?'

He was holding the teddy bear.

‘Oh, honey.' She turned to Google Li. ‘I'll call you later.'

‘Do it any time. I mean
any
time.'

And then there was the stomach-wrenching task of telling a young boy that his parents were gone. It was one of those things you see on holodramas and hope never to have to do
yourself; one of those dealing-with-tragedy procedures you don't get to rehearse in advance, and wouldn't want to.

‘They're gone away,' she told him. ‘Gone to . . .' But she did not believe in heaven, because a single copy of software does not survive the immolation of the hardware it resides on; and she had a deep distrust of education founded on the concept of lies-to-children. ‘They don't exist, Jared. Dead means gone for ever, and there's never any way to—'

But then the sobbing took hold of her, and she crushed Jared to her, as he in turn hugged the bear, and he cried because she did, for he surely could not understand what she was telling him, not yet.

It would be Randolf and Angela's continuing absence over the years and decades to come that would render meaning to untimely death.

Of course Jared's biological parents were Amber and Mary. Amber was committed to her life as a Pilot, and deeply unhappy during her times on Earth, for her eye sockets were metallic I/O interfaces linking her to her ship, her occipital lobes and visual cortex having been nanovirally rewired for that purpose during the procedures that turned her into a Pilot.

Mary, absent from Jared's life since before his first birthday, had contributed the rest of the DNA; and she had also stolen fractolon infusions from the long-preserved Ro McNamara cultures, so that Jared might be a true Pilot. That had still required Amber, who carried Jared inside her, to spend the final months secretly in mu-space, there to give birth to her beautiful, wonderful obsidian-eyed boy.

Jared's legacy would be a golden universe unimaginable to ordinary humans, and yet he would be fully functional on Earth: a child of two continua.

Rekka was technically, legally, a friend of the family, still seeing Amber and shunning Mary, who had eloped with Rekka's partner Simon. Randolf and Angela had been Rekka's
friends, and Rekka had introduced them to Amber and facilitated their adoption of Jared.

Until now, it had worked out perfectly.

As the month progressed, legal processes crept into action.

Given that Rekka had exactly zero rights where Jared was concerned, you could say that UNSA did everything right. The shocking thing was her own ambivalence: love and obligation on the one hand, against a deep conviction that she would be an awful stand-in mother. After all, had Rekka's own mother not tried to kill Rekka along with herself? Was she not an accidental survivor of a Suttee Pavilion? And what kind of legacy was that? But she needed to know that Jared would be safe; and perhaps the UNSA welfare psychologists who talked to her picked up on that: Rekka left those meetings feeling reassured, without ever understanding what had been accomplished.

Perhaps, in retrospect, the same psych specialists were equally adept at manipulating Amber and Mary. Legally, it was the biological parents whose wishes counted now.

‘Zurich is supposed to be the best,' said Amber, sitting in the tropical garden at the back of Rekka's apartment block. ‘With Karyn McNamara in charge.'

It would be a long way for Rekka to visit; but the point of a residential school was that you saw children only on holidays, wasn't it? She had no right to tell Amber what to choose.

It was now three weeks since the memorial service.

‘But I told the welfare people,' Amber continued, ‘that Switzerland was too far for Auntie Rekka to travel to, and Sue, that's Dr Chiang, told me that Kyoto is excellent. Better in some ways than Zurich.'

‘Oh.'

‘And you can come with me to check the school out. I mean without causing problems work-wise.'

It was the UNSA culture: if they decreed that an employee was to spend time on some UNSA-approved human welfare
task, that employee's line managers had better show enthusiasm, or
they
were in trouble. Often Rekka thought that the organisation was too involved with people's private lives, though her own solitary existence was unaffected; but at times like these you could take advantage of the corporate parental attitude.

‘Of course I'll come with you,' she said.

‘Good.' Amber picked up her iced lemon tea, then put it back down. ‘Am I a terrible person, Rekka?'

‘No.' Rekka took hold of her hand. ‘You are the very best, and Jared is proud of you.'

‘He's my son, and so very young.'

On Earth, Amber saw herself as a cripple in several ways – those metal eye sockets were incapable of shedding tears – while in mu-space she soared, like a ballerina or gymnast or perhaps a dolphin in her natural element. However much Rekka thought secretly that Jared needed a full-time parent, she could never even hint that Amber might wrench herself from life as a Pilot. A bitter, half-insane mother would be worse than none at all.

‘The only family I've got is an aunt in Oregon.' Amber sounded miserable. ‘But a stranger, you know? Wouldn't even know Jared's name.'

She sounded so
empty
.

Rekka squeezed Amber's hand and said, ‘You will make the best choice for your son, and I'll be there to help.'

‘I love you, Rekka. You know that, don't you?'

Rekka was straight and Amber wasn't, yet there was nothing awkward in the moment.

‘
We're
family,' said Rekka.

The family that you choose, you make, which need not be the one you were born with.

‘Yes, we are.'

But all families have the power to screw up children's lives, and their decisions over the coming weeks would affect Jared for ever.

*

Zen gardens in the heart of the city, silence punctuated by children's laughter during the breaks, gleaming polished halls and classrooms, laboratories and gymnasia. Rekka, her hand on Amber's arm to guide her, walked through the school premises, increasingly impressed.

‘We are teaching freedom and self-discipline, respectful of but not constrained by the local culture,' said a recorded holographic Frau Doktor Ilse Schwenger at the start of the tour. ‘While much of the teaching is in English and Nihongo, we also deliver lessons using Puhongua, and the advantages of that are obvious.'

One of those advantages was that knowing Puhongua – still ‘Mandarin' to the uneducated – made it easier to use Web Mand'rin online.

‘Excuse me, ma'am. Pilot,' said a young boy with black-on-black eyes. ‘I'm Carlos Delgasso and I'm nine years old. Would you like to see an aikido class?'

‘We would, thank you.'

Rekka's sole physical discipline was yoga, and other stuff bored her; but aikido and Feldenkrais body-awareness training had been part of Amber's initiation into Pilothood. Any mugger who laid a hand upon a Pilot, including those who were blind in realspace, was likely to find their face smashed into concrete, and their shoulder dislocated, or worse.

The class was impressive. A slight grey-haired man, in white gi jacket and black floor-length hakama split skirt, moved with magical ease while bodies flew everywhere. His demonstration was against adult black belts; when he took his younger charges through training drills, they seemed to spend most of their time rolling without hurting themselves.

Rekka said nothing of what she glimpsed, or thought she had, from the corridor that led here: a soundproof glass panel on a dojo door that revealed a mêlée of lean figures in black jumpsuits in swarming, robust combat, with throws and kicks and punches, almost too fast to see.

‘You like living here?' Amber asked young Carlos, back outside in the corridor.

‘It's the best,' he said.

‘Some Pilot children live in ordinary homes,' said Rekka. ‘With families.'

Carlos looked solemn as he nodded.

‘We're very sorry for them.'

Perhaps that was the moment that clinched their decision. Before Rekka and Amber left, Jared was officially enrolled, and all that remained was the logistical task of getting him to Kyoto with his belongings.

And saying farewell, of course.

The only surprise, when Rekka returned to work, was that Google Li had handed in her notice and already left. No one seemed to have any idea of her plans, or even whether she remained in Singapore.

It would be many years before Rekka bumped into Google Li by chance at a conference in Frankfurt, where they did something very rare for both of them: got tremendously drunk on schnapps, Cointreau and tequila, and woke up the next morning on separate twin beds in Rekka's hotel room.

That morning, Google Li would share the suspicions that caused her to question her career aspirations and leave UNSA without a word; but by then, Rekka had been asking herself similar questions for years, regarding the likelihood that Randolf and Angela's death had really been an accident, instead of orchestrated murder in which their fellow passengers and flight crew were collateral damage within acceptable parameters, by the standards of an organisation grown too big and remorseless to own a conscience.

Or in which schemers like the two UN senators, Luisa and Robert Higashionna, wielded such unquestioned influence, pursuing goals that no ordinary people could guess at, moving like sharks through a sea of political and
corporate power that minnow-like citizens would never understand.

Rekka and Google Li would share tears and hugs that morning, and never see each other again.

TWENTY-SEVEN

MU-SPACE, 2604 AD (REALSPACE-EQUIVALENT)

Call him a fuck-up seeking atonement. As far as Piet Gunnarsson was concerned, the first part – without the atonement-seeking – was what everyone did already.

Self-loathing and desperation do not lend attractiveness to any business proposition, but somehow he persuaded the Far Reach Centre logistics people – he talked to someone called Rowena James – to let him make a rescheduled cargo delivery to Vachss Station, in orbit around Vijaya, along with a personal package for one Jed Goran, Pilot. It was urgently required, the main cargo load, because some sort of onboard crisis had caused the original delivery to be cancelled.

The schedule was almost impossible, unless Piet followed something close to a hellflight trajectory. A whole bunch of other Pilots, he was sure, had already turned down the job.

‘This is important, then?' he asked.

‘Lives aren't at stake, but' – Rowena touched the personal package – ‘you know what people are like.'

‘Whatever. I'll take the job.'

‘Thank you, Pilot Gunnarsson.'

Her straightforward politeness was very different from the glances he received afterwards, walking along the Poincaré Promenade, heading for the great docking bay where his ship was waiting for him, filled with unconditional, understanding love.

You're OK, my love.

I'll try to be, for your sake.

For his sake, she acquiesced in the choice of geodesic; and as they flew the almost-hellflight, their conjoined selves filled
with pain as well as the exhilaration of effort. Their suffering brought them closer than ever, offering the possibility of healing and redemption in a way that Piet did not feel he deserved.

Tearing through an unusual spiralling trajectory, Piet-and-ship burst out of a blood-coloured nebula close to their destination, finding themselves behind three Zajinet ships whose weapon systems were in the process of powering up.

So. Zajinets.

Whatever Piet's role in causing hostilities, there had been open attacks on seven worlds that he knew of: it wasn't just about him. If this was another such raid then he could
not
allow it to happen.

We fight, my love?

Oh, yes. We fight.

Only soft people who have never experienced conflict believe in the concept of a fair fight. There has never been such a thing. When the objective is to take out the enemy, an attack without warning is the surest strategy. Ship-and-Piet followed the three Zajinet vessels through a realspace insertion and cut loose immediately, taking out the centremost vessel and arcing right, away from the explosion, aware that violet beams of not-quite-analysable energy split vacuum only metres away from Piet-and-ship's wing. The surviving Zajinets were zig-zagging to set up a pincer attack on ship-and-Piet, whose weapons-fire sprayed past them, finding them hard to target—

They're so fast.

And used to working together.

—and glimpsing the complex orbital that was Vachss Station, so vulnerable to such a sudden attack from nowhere—

Look out!

—as the trailing edge of their left wing burned with pain, but they tumbled into a desperate escape trajectory, firing bursts designed to make the bastards think and hesitate, and Piet-and-ship were scared that this was the end and not for themselves alone—

There.

Yes. Got it.

—but they screamed through a hard turn, letting loose with everything they had and causing no damage but getting the effect they wanted, both Zajinets coming round to deliver the final weapons burst, but they were not going to succeed because the bronze-and-silver ship streaking this way was moving very fast indeed and its weapons were—

Got one.

—powerful, tearing one of the Zajinets apart in a tenth of a second, and clipping the other as it turned away and white light blazed—

Give chase?

No, we can't.

All right.

—and the Pilot ship hung there as if hesitating, deciding whether to follow the survivor into mu-space, then gliding around to come close to Piet-and-ship.

**You're wounded.**

**Yes, but treatable.**

**Agreed, and you should be in Labyrinth.**

Vachss Station, their destination, lay before Piet-and-ship.

**We have cargo to deliver.**

**All right, give me one moment.**

After a few seconds, as Piet partially disengaged from his ship, an ordinary realspace comms holo appeared in the control cabin.

‘I'm Ibrahim al-Khalid, in Vachss Station Control,' said the morose-looking Pilot in the image. ‘You have our gratitude, Pilot. Jed Goran tells me you want to deliver cargo.'

‘Jed Goran? He's in the other ship?'

Something very sad and proud was involved in al-Khalid's expression. ‘That's him.'

‘Then I've something for him, too.'

‘He's heading back to Labyrinth. Fly together, and you can give it to him there. If you like, to save time, you can eject
the rest of the cargo from your hold, and I'll come out with a shuttle team to pick the stuff up. The containers are tagged with long-wave markers?'

‘Standard encoding.'

‘Good enough. And . . . That was well fought. Thanks again, Pilot.'

Piet blew out a long breath.

‘Any time,' he said, and closed the comm session.

I told you that you're all right.

Only because of you.

Closing his eyes, Piet re-entered conjunction trance, as he-and-ship opened their dorsal surface and let go of their cargo. As the containers tumbled free, ship-and-Piet dropped away and sealed up their hull once more.

**Ready, Pilot Goran.**

**With me then, Pilot Gunnarsson.**

They performed the mu-space transition quickly, just in case, but no Zajinets were lying in wait: the golden void was clear. So they chose an easy geodesic, and both Pilots-and-ships turned in synchrony, matching trajectory.

We'll be OK.

Yes, we will.

Flying easily together, heading for Labyrinth.

Inside the great docking bay, small self-guided tenders clustered around Piet Gunnarsson's wounded ship while he disembarked. Before stepping onto the dock's walkway, he went down on one knee atop his ship's wing and pressed his palm against her warm soft surface, while his other arm clasped a package against his torso.

They'll look after you. Heal up.

Yes. Come soon.

Of course I will.

From the walkway, he watched as the tenders gently shepherded his wonderful ship into a wide white tunnel leading deep into Ascension Annexe, where Labyrinth could bring
all her healing powers to bear. She would be all right, his ship.

‘You saved Vachss Station.' Pilot Goran, from the bronze-and-silver ship, had a muscular face and an easy grin. ‘Well done, Pilot Gunnarrsson.'

‘Call me Piet.'

‘And I'm Jed.'

The two Pilots shook hands. Then Piet held out the package.

‘I was supposed to give this to you on the orbital.'

‘Well . . . A personal delivery?' Jed pressed the outer wrapping to display the manifest data. ‘Ah.'

It read
Sender: Clara James.

Piet said, ‘Shall I leave you to—?'

‘No, let me unwrap this, and then we'll go for a drink.'

‘If you like.'

The wrapping unfolded at Jed's command. Inside was a box containing a small medal, shaped like a knot formed of Möbius strips, on a chain. And a holo note that read:
If you're going to dash around saving worlds, you'd better marry me. –C

Jed looked as if someone had just dug him in the solar plexus.

‘Er . . .' he said.

‘Wow,' said Piet. ‘Are you going to say yes?'

‘Oh. Yeah. Hell, yeah.'

‘I'd better you leave you to it, then.'

‘No . . .' Jed stopped with the medal and chain in his fist. ‘I was going to buy you a drink and tell everyone what a hero you are.'

‘There's no need.'

‘But people think—'

‘It doesn't matter what they think,' said Piet quietly, ‘so long as they're wrong.'

Jed stared at him, then activated his tu-ring. It swapped ident-codes with Piet's tu-ring.

‘Let's meet up later,' said Jed. ‘For a private celebration. Good enough?'

‘More than.' Piet pointed at the medal and holo. ‘Good luck.'

‘Yeah. Thank you.'

They nodded at each other then turned away, each summoning a fastpath rotation.

The Admiralty debriefing report was copied to Clara, and displayed as a her-eyes-only virtual holo while Max and the others continued the conference. Anything tagged
Jed Goran
was for her immediate attention, and she grinned as she realised he was back. Then her lean, endurance-athlete's face and body tightened as she read through the annotations and watched holo footage of ship-to-ship combat against Zajinets.

‘Clara?' said Max. ‘Are you with us?'

‘Sorry, sir.' She gestured, and the virtual holo became a real image above the conference table. ‘Just in from Vachss Station. Seems Piet Gunnarsson has redeemed himself.'

They watched, the seven people in the room, and nodded at the destruction of two Zajinet vessels.

‘There was only one Pilot at the orbital?' asked Bob Weng, one of Admiral Asai's strategy aides. ‘Doesn't it have a Sanctuary?'

‘With one permanent resident and one semi-permanent,' said Clara. ‘But they're Shipless, Draper for the usual reason, and al-Khalid because his ship died. Some of you might remember the incident.'

People shivered. For a Pilot to live on past the death of their ship—

‘Poor bastard,' said Clayton.

‘I can't imagine it,' said Weng. ‘How can he face waking up in the mornings?'

‘Or going to sleep and dreaming.'

‘Hell.'

There was a silence which took a few moments to shake off.

‘We need to spread out a protective net,' said Copeland, who was Weng's opposite number on Admiral Zajac's staff.
‘The question is, can we assume that they'll continue to attack in small numbers, two or three vessels at a time?'

Max flattened his big hands against the tabletop.

‘The longer we're occupied with Zajinets,' he said, ‘the less we know about Schenck and what he's up to.'

Everyone in the room was cleared for knowledge of the renegade base near the realspace galactic centre. Also for intelligence regarding the darkness, to the extent they knew anything at all, and of the strategists' best guesses as to its intentions.

‘You think the renegades will mount an attack fleet?' said Clayton. ‘On what target?'

‘I don't know,' answered Max. ‘And my ignorance is what scares me.'

He gestured, and Clara's holo report disappeared, replaced by the familiar view of the galactic core and the shining needle, a thousand lightyears long, emanating from the centre.

‘I'm guessing—' He started, then coughed wetly.

‘Max?' Clara was out of her seat.

Clayton was already sending an emergency signal.

‘Medics,' he said. ‘We need medics.'

Bending forward, Max's fists were in his lap, fighting the pain. ‘
Black. Stone.
'

‘Don't talk,' said Clara. ‘Medics are— Here.'

The air rippled apart, and three uniformed medics stepped into the conference room. The rotation held open for an autodoc to slide out, its carapace already opening.

‘Positive . . . Vetting,' said Max.

‘Using Haxigoji.' Clayton took hold of Max's shoulder. ‘Get Roger to train them up, right?'

‘Right . . .'

‘Everyone, we need room.' The lead medic moved Clayton aside. ‘All right, Commodore. We're with you.'

Golden sparks blossomed all around Max, interacting with his normal medical femtocytes that should have sent warning signals of any impending medical catastrophe. Perhaps he
had spent too long working inside security-sealed rooms from which all comms were blocked; perhaps it was that simple.

Pavel Karelin rotated into the room, his face pale. ‘Commodore . . .'

The medics were bundling Max into the autodoc, which after a few moments sealed up.

‘Casevac now,' said the lead medic. ‘Back off, everyone.'

‘I'll handle security,' said Clayton. ‘A watch team at all times.'

To guard Max, he meant.

‘Do it,' said Pavel.

Clayton disappeared a second before the medics, and the autodoc that looked so like a coffin, rotated out to a secure layer of the Med Centre. After the rush, everything transitioned to stillness; then everybody moved and talked at once.

‘All right, listen up,' said Pavel. ‘I'm Deputy Director
pro tem
, so let's settle down and keep things running. And don't worry, I want Max back in charge as soon as possible. I'm sure you do, too.'

But Clara thought of all the massive strain Max had been under for so long: it wasn't just the torture he underwent while a prisoner; it was the years of being the only one who understood the threat the darkness represented inside Labyrinth, of identifying first Schenck and then the most powerful of his co-conspirators, slowly and secretly working without ever knowing whether he had just confided in an agent of the darkness few people could sense at all, and then only dimly.

Apart from Roger . . . and possibly every native inhabitant of Vijaya.

It took hours to get things organised, to respond to the shock of Max's collapse. When Clara finally fastpath-rotated back to her apartment and Jed was standing there grinning, saying, ‘The answer is yes, my love. Definitely yes,' there was a long, dislocated pause during which she did not know what he was talking about. Then it came to her, and for the first time
in years she came close to crying as she kissed the man she loved.