Ragnarok 03 - Resonance (39 page)

FIFTY-SEVEN

MU-SPACE, 2608 AD (REALSPACE-EQUIVALENT)

Autohypnosis is part of every Pilot's education, but this is a key moment, important, so Corinne is glad to have medics around her for every minute, with Clara nearby – a close friend since peace came to Labyrinth and Corinne got to celebrate Roger's memory with those who knew him, Jed Goran included. For over twenty tendays they have been close, and particularly supportive recently, not just because of the weight inside her and the aching back and all the rest.

And when it happens, it is just as everyone said: using trance and hypnotic time-distortion and breath control to hold back the tremendous impulse to push; and then in the second phase to do exactly that when the medic says: ‘Now, push now!'

Soon enough, it comes: the final yelling shove, and the sound she was dying to hear: a thin crying, the most beautiful sound in any universe, and those frequent yet never-to-be-forgotten words:

‘It's a boy.'

FIFTY-EIGHT

LUNA, 703017 AD

Kenna remembered her era of involvement with human affairs, at the beginning of her existence in this form, seven
hundred
centuries earlier, and the Anomaly's defeat on Nulapeiron, a defeat never replicated elsewhere, except for a handful of absorption attempts interrupted at an early stage. The twisty complexity of humans plotting and engaging in treachery were not the only things that came to mind, when it came to multitudinous lives intertwined and conflicting, but they became foremost during the dream awakenings, when she induced past-mind resonances in this particular crystalline body.

It was the same recruitment process she had employed for the other members of the Council, but this individual was different, though he might be their salvation. In admitting the Trickster, the risk was awful.

Knowing this, she awoke him in private, away from the others, on every occasion. In his earlier organic life as he dreamt, he was in his later years. Those who fully belonged to the darkness never heard her call across the aeons; those who were strongly affected
yet also fought it
were paradoxically the most sensitive to the possibility of resonance. Of that number, one stood out above the others in his dark, twisted strength. His was the subconscious call that she answered, and drew him forward across time from his dreams, and talked to him.

In the vast majority of other destinies, she avoided recruiting any hint of chaos, and in doing so met eventual defeat – assuming her pseudo-memories had any basis in reality, and were not imaginary workings-out, in her vast computational
subconscious, of different paths through the events she perceived.

The slumbering crystalline form was thin in appearance, and the first symptom of resonance engaging was the twisted smile, even before the transparent eyelids opened and he sat up.

—Kenna. Nice to see you again. Particularly since I was
already
dreaming, before I fell into this dream. It was very strange.

This was the Trickster, with whom no conversation could be taken at face value. Nevertheless, she asked him to elucidate.

—Tell me more about that, since it is on your mind.

Her name meant one-who-knows, but she did not know everything, though others often acted as if she did.

—I tore my own eye out, and then I crucified myself. It was not pleasant.

—Punishing yourself for the things you have done?

She knew much about the atrocities that were part of his original life.

—That is a pretty thought, Queen Kenna, but the dream is one I have encountered before, and it is not fantasy but memory.

—I understand.

—Truly? Then enlighten me, please.

He was always polite to her.

—You understand music.
She knew this about him.
Call it a subharmonic in the standing wave that is your mind. Or consider two wires alongside each other, one slightly longer than the other, vibrating together when plucked.

—I am not just me, is that what you mean?

Kenna regarded him with stillness, as only a living-crystal being could.

—In this place, we are all more than we once were, Dmitri Ivanovitch Shtemenko.

—But not necessarily better, is that it?

—To what are you alluding?

—You wake me away from the others, every time. Until I wake
permanently and the transformation is complete, you do not wish them to— Oh!

The Trickster's eyes widened, and his body shuddered. Kenna knew him to be capable of practical jokes, but this was not one of them.

—What is happening to me, Kenna?

Their previous sessions had on occasion been filled with rage, or calm, chilling descriptions of the darkest needs that drove him in his younger years, and any number of devious debates, games that he played because he was yet to make a final resolution, the commitment to join the Council for real. This was the first time his thoughts had sounded small with fear.

—It just happened,
Kenna told him.

—I do not understand.

She smiled, knowing that he was fighting against the knowledge inside him.

—In your sleep, as you dreamt this dream, you—

His face showed horror.

—No!

—Yes. You died, my Loki-Óthinn, my Dmitri-Stígr.

Even as they were talking.

—That is not possible.

But of course it was and, after a moment, that familiar self-mocking, universe-mocking smile appeared.

—I appear to have made my decision,
he added.
And accept you as my war-queen.

She held out her hand.

—Welcome to the Council.

He took her fingers gently, and went down on one knee, head bowed. It was a graceful gesture of obeisance, a promise of fealty, performed with such feeling that a human leader might have been taken in by emotion alone. But Kenna knew that what bound him was logic and self-interest, for his resurrection was by her machinations; and only the Council and the forces they commanded were of his kind, now that he
lived in this form (for not even he could live totally alone for ever); and when the darkness came, its goal would be to obliterate them. The only special treatment that the Trickster might receive would be a more agonising destruction, suitable for one who had betrayed the betrayer.

Thus would he fight hard and craftily and well, loyal to Kenna as a side effect of loyalty to self, hoping that through victory he might survive the Final Days.

The Trickster was nothing if not adaptable.

While the touch of chaos he brought to their armies might be the edge they needed against the enemy. Or it might be their ruin.

She led him in to meet the others.

FIFTY-NINE

MU-SPACE, 3607 AD (REALSPACE-EQUIVALENT)

A thousand years had passed since The Trapping of Schenck's Armada, and it was almost time.

The evacuation of Labyrinth was complete.

Fleets of ships, hundreds of millions of shining vessels, hung at a safe distance from the city-world, also keeping far away from that region of shining nothingness soon to collapse and reveal the massed enemy ships. All of the Labyrinthine ships were armed; but none expected to use those weapons.

This was Labyrinth's moment.

=It has been an honour, Pilots.=

The moment of her death.

**We love you.**

Every ship conjoined in sending Labyrinth that message. Then she split apart—

**We love you!**

—becoming a thousand fragments as she died.

Giving birth.

To a thousand daughters.

Much had occurred during that millennium, including the Stochastic Schism that so divided Pilots. Many aimed for secession as the darkness had wanted, but for different reasons, seeking to divorce mu-space, which seemed cleansed, from the home universe where the darkness still manifested and would one day come in strength.

Others argued for increasing involvement, citing the success in using Haxigoji allies to root out those who were corrupted by the darkness, realspace allies who were literally
incorruptible – who died if the darkness started to take hold – and in the spacetime shields that prevented several new hellworlds from forming, though the Anomaly did gain new worlds from time to time, and no existing hellworld was ever freed.

Both sides of the Schism evoked the legendary image of Dirk McNamara in their rhetoric; but there was also the mysterious, crippled figure who appeared from time to time as a moderator, and was supposed to have lived in semi-secrecy in Labyrinth for a while, before returning to his wanderings; and whether it was truth or fiction that Kian McNamara originated the Tri-Fold Way, what was certain was the success of that philosophy in eventually merging both views, both halves of Pilotkind, once more.

They had forged unity and peace, in full view of a blatant symbol showing how important and how fragile such concepts remained.

The event horizon that enclosed Schenck and his renegade armada.

Each of the thousand new city-worlds was magnificent, infinite in her complexity, able to steal as much time as required to grow and get ready . . . to become strong. Each honoured their mother, each loved the inherited memory of her, the first Labyrinth; and each knew well the circumstances that had forced her to produce another generation, and in the process, die.

Spacetime rippled.

**It's starting.**

Signals flitted among Pilots, but the daughter-Labyrinths had no need of comms. They knew what was about to happen.

The event horizon around the renegade armada and the graveyard ships, along with Roger-and-ship frozen in the instance of their death, collapsed, revealing the ships within. There was no hesitation as, in their wrath and sorrow, the thousand new Labyrinths poured their infinitesimal-point
energies upon the captive ships, obliterating spacetime within that horizon.

It blazed, so that even the shining golden void appeared momentarily in shadow.

Then they were gone, the millennium-old enemy, along with the selfless allies who had trapped them, held them in place for the kill.

Victory.

Almost a billion Pilots and ships took part in the remembrance ceremony that followed; and when it was done, they convened among their new homes, their extended realm of a thousand Labyrinths that in future would grow even greater. As the region of mu-space in which they dwelled was now vast, they recognised it was time to choose a name for their realm: a name for the ages, if not for ever.

They chose to call it Ásgarth.

SIXTY

NULAPEIRON ORBIT, 2201 AD

In realspace orbit around the cloud-creamy world, Amber Hawke's ship drifted. Rekka was in the control cabin with her, some twenty minutes out of delta-coma. They were drinking fragrant tea, taking time over their farewells.

‘Things are coming to a head in UNSA,' Rekka told her oldest surviving friend. ‘Too much, too soon, your people are asking for.'

‘Maybe,' said Amber.

Her eye sockets looked scratched around the edges, but the metal was bright as ever across the contact surfaces where the cables plugged in.

‘Jared's generation might be the last to take ships for granted.' To Rekka, this was the urgent point. ‘I know they can survive here in realspace, but to be without ships . . .'

‘You mean' – Amber tapped a fingernail against one of her eye sockets – I/O sockets – in a gesture that Simon, blast his memory, used to describe as scrotum-tightening – ‘they didn't sacrifice their sight for the organisation.'

They were two old women, looking back across the years; and although both had taken time-dilated journeys, they were not that much younger than they would have been on Earth: Rekka herself was born seventy-eight years earlier, five years before the height of the Changeling Plague, eight years before her adoptive parents rescued her from the Suttee Pavilion.

‘If mu-space is as wonderful as you say, as you've always said,' Rekka told Amber now, ‘then you can't deny it to the next generation.'

‘Because we need UNSA to build ships.'

‘Well, of course you do . . . er, not. Oh, Amber!' Rekka found herself grinning. ‘You haven't, have you? Found a way to—?'

‘If we had,' said Amber, smiling, ‘we wouldn't be able to tell anyone, would we? Not even old friends.'

‘No. No, you probably wouldn't.'

Rekka sipped from her tea, closed her eyes, exhaled.

Good for you.

As for herself, today was surely the beginning of her last big adventure. Relocation at UNSA's expense was a benefit that few people in her position would have taken, preferring the cash option to add to their pension at home.

That Jared had turned out bad, or at least estranged from both Amber and Rekka, was a festering memory that lay between them, not to be discussed today. For herself, Rekka had occasionally wondered whether the boy would have turned out a better man had he gone to Zurich, when Karyn McNamara still ran the place.

Nowadays only the grandson, Kian, remained alive, as far as anyone knew. He was married to an acerbic American scientist, and had consistently refused plastic surgery, preferring to wear his injuries as a reminder of the way that fear and ignorance produce intolerance.

‘I could still take you back.' Amber's voice pulled Rekka into the present. ‘And hang the schedule.'

‘That kind of thing can get you in trouble.'

‘Like I should care, at my age.'

Rekka squeezed Amber's hand. ‘I'm where I need to be. Nulapeiron. The world with no borders. It's a good name.'

‘Also ironic, given how they plan to live.' Amber hesitated. ‘I have a contact for you. Someone who's ex-AAC. She'll give you a consulting job if you want it.'

‘XAAC? I've never heard of it.'

‘I mean she used to be with the Altair Adventurers' Combine, the neurocomp division, before they relocated to Fulgor and called themselves LuxPrime.'

All these new colony worlds. It was hard to keep track of them.

‘Her name's Claudette d'Ovraison,' Amber went on, ‘and she's working on a concept called logotropes, which should be right up the alley of a smart person who can make an autofact sit up and beg, never mind force-evolving new proteins on a whim.'

‘Unfortunately,' said Rekka, ‘that smart person got replaced with a tired old woman who falls asleep easily. But I'll talk to this Claudette.'

Rekka was going to Nulapeiron to live out her remaining days – and that did mean
living
, not slowly dying. A challenging job, no matter how little she might contribute in the end, was exactly what she needed.

‘She lives on one of those floating terraformer spheres,' said Amber. ‘Could probably make room for you to stay on one, if you've problems finding a place to live.'

‘I'd rather take my chances living below ground,' said Rekka. ‘But it's nice to have another option.'

‘So. Good.' Amber reached out to the side, and a narrow robot arm delivered a package to her hand: a slim box the length of a person's forearm. Amber held it out and said: ‘A present for my sister.'

No court would recognise the relationship, but they
were
sisters: the last two members of the
de facto
family they had chosen.

‘Shall I unwrap it?'

‘If you like. I inherited the thing when Aunt Adele died. I'd rather you owned it, you and not a museum.'

‘Er . . . Amber! Is this some kind of replica? Because if it isn't, it's far too valuable.'

It was in the shape of a spearhead, but formed of crystal.

‘Heirlooms should be kept in the family, don't you think?'

‘Oh, Amber.'

They hugged then, the gift forgotten amid the greater significance of the moment.

*

An hour later, in the cargo hold, they embraced for the last time. Then Rekka stepped into the drop-shuttle that already contained her belongings, everything she needed to begin her new life on a new world, settled back in the tiny cockpit that flowed shut and vitrified into solidity.

She glanced back at Amber standing there with her blind silver eyes, then felt the sudden jerk and the stomach-dropping freefall that followed as her drop-bug took her out into space. It headed down towards the cloud-filled atmosphere, below which a nascent, perhaps superior, civilisation was being brought into existence.

As on the day she learned of Simon and Mary's betrayal, and later when Jared was orphaned, with Amber unable to cry for the lack of tear-ducts, Rekka bit her lip and wept enough for both of them.

But when she reached the surface, her crying stopped. She would not feel so deeply, had there not been love in her life. That being so, what was there to be sad about?

The drop-bug descended slowly inside a vertical shaft, to a bright reception area below ground, with smiling people waiting to greet her.

A new world!

For a moment Rekka was young again, alone on the surface of EM-0036 before it became Vijaya, on the verge of changing her life and becoming the person she was meant to be.

I'm in the right place, at the right time.

This would be a good ending.