Transmission: Ragnarok: Book Two (7 page)

What did I say last night?

Drunkenness was necessary and even encouraged, from time to time; but with fellow officers, not gaijin. Shame filled him like tea inside a cup. Yet what should embarrass him? Letting down his guard with the wrong people … or immersing himself in the group insanity that swelled all around?

I befriended the gaijin because of Kano-san
.

One of the two foreigners trained at the dojo of Dr Kano, the brilliant educationalist who – as a spare-time activity – created judo from the brutality of old jujitsu schools, forming moral fighters who defeated the best that the thuggish older styles could throw at them. His creation was modern, western-influenced (which few understood), yet a recreation of purity from ancient times, one that deserved to spread worldwide.

Dr Kano was a friend of Kanazawa’s uncle, hence the visit which resulted in meeting the gaijin. He and the great man had spent long hours decrying the militarism which was rising tsunami-like to engulf Japan – all that, despite the uniform that Kanazawa wore. On one occasion with his new western friends, he took down Sun Tzu’s
Art of War
– required reading at all military schools – and related what he knew of the author.

‘One day the Chinese emperor commanded Sun Tzu to appear,’ Kanazawa said, ‘knowing the man’s reputation, and needing someone to lead the imperial army. Sun Tzu had declared he could instil discipline in any group – even the emperor’s wives.’

At that, the foreigners had made ribald jokes – like last night, much saké had passed through their lips – before Kanazawa finished his story.

‘After extracting an imperial promise that he, Sun Tzu, was to have total command, he ordered the women to line up and march. The result was giggling – at which he ordered the imperial guard to behead one of the wives.

‘The emperor tried to intervene, but Sun Tzu reminded him of the promise. Then the wife was beheaded, and the remaining wives marched in perfect, coordinated silence.’

The gaijin had asked what happened afterwards. When Kanazawa told them that the emperor gave Sun Tzu command of all his armies, both foreigners had laughed.

Perhaps it was national pride or shame that prevented Kanazawa from discussing Miyamoto Musashi, the heroic
kensei
– sword saint – that his countrymen revered in preference to the Chinese Sun Tzu. But Musashi, that most solitary of men, had suffered from scrofulous skin, stinking since he never bathed – after assassins ambushed him in a bath-house once – and had the temerity to write of a lifetime committing homicide as if he were the greatest of artisans or artists.

Kanazawa touched the tiny shinto shrine in the corner of the room.

My country is wrong
.

From the two-sword stand, he took a sheathed
katana
: the warrior’s primary sword, his a century old. Then he put it back, and picked up its smaller companion for close-work, the
wakizashi
.

My emperor is wrong
.

He knelt, placed the sword on the tatami mat, then sat back on his heels. Time slowed as millimetre by millimetre he pulled open his light robe, shucked it from his shoulders, and bared himself to the waist.

The Japanese spirit is wrong
.

It whispered from its sheath, the killing blade. Forged in the ancient way, incandescent metal folded on itself over and over in ritual, the
wakizashi
could part falling silk, or split iron-hard bamboo without sustaining damage. Or slice through a man’s body with ease.

It hurt.

He hardly felt it. Just the beginning: the parting of the skin.

So beautiful
.

Pantheistic, his view of the world: everything imbued with its own spirit; everything beautiful; the universe demanding worship.

Even the dust
.

White-gold dust in sunlight. Straw scent from mats. Softness of cotton on skin.

All to be extinguished, because of the …

Now is the time
.

Because of the …

Time to do it
.

The darkness, the twisting evil.

End it
.

Amid beauty, the loathsome
other
, the enemy.

End it all
.

Blade, ready to be pulled in, elbows close to his body for one tug inwards, then the sideways drag through stomach and intestines, to feel hot slickness spilling out.

Golden, the light
.

So exquisite, the pain.

Sweet, the dreaming.

When he woke, sprawled on the mat, he knew the world had saved him. Sunlight had spoken, told him he was better than the darkness, and directed him to live for himself, not wrongheaded others who confused bullying with courage, sadism with strength.

There was a monastery, and he knew the way.

I will find the path
.

Not just the physical way.

I swear it
.

His body moved slowly but his spirit danced as he prepared to leave possessions and his world behind.

Orange clouds pulled away from the front of their ship; and there, across a kilometres-wide gap, hung the floating city of Barbour: elongated and convex, gleaming orange encrusted with sweeping, ice-like external promenades, spars and buttresses: beetle-like from their first perspective, changing as they flew beneath, nearing the pendulous stalactite-form that depended from the asymmetric underside.

Jed slowed their flight, docking against a questing quickglass tendril, as gently as if his ship were kissing a long-time lover. At Jed’s command, an oval melted open in the control cabin wall. The city’s hollow tendril, to which the hull was conjoined, formed a tunnel into the city, wide enough for Jed and Roger to walk in side by side.

They wore black – in Jed’s case, edged with narrow gold – and their eyes were natural obsidian. Pilots, openly so.

‘They’ll want to talk to us first,’ said Jed. ‘Before off-loading the cargo. Er …’

‘It’s all right. I know what you mean.’

Roger had been feeling sick, imagining Alisha cocooned in delta-coma; but for Jed this was just another mission. Thinking of med-drones as cargo was part of getting the job done.

The air smelled different – a hint of honey, overlaid with something Roger could not name – and the gravity was odd. He could not tell whether it was greater or less than the mass-force of Labyrinth, designed to induce one-
g
acceleration. Instead, his sense of balance seemed to be searching for missing directions, axes of reality that were not there.

Because I’ve been in mu-space too long?

It was a question for later, when they were back in the ship and preferably in mu-space. When you grew up with a spy for a father, privacy became a habit.

In a greeting-hall – as near as Roger could decipher the holokanji – a pale-faced man bowed, his two fists pushed together. Jed returned the gesture; Roger copied it in haste.

‘Greetings, sirs. I am Bodkin Travers by name, and I hereby grant you all best—’

‘Knock off the bullshit,’ said Jed. ‘I’m a working man, and I’ve been here before. No need to treat me like one of the toffs.’

‘Thank Cosmos for that. You can call me Bod, if you like.’

‘Fair enough. I’m Jed and this is Roger.’

Grinning, Bod held out his right fist. Roger bumped it with his own – smiling: it was like being home on Fulgor – then Jed followed suit.

They were speaking Spanalian, one of Roger’s languages since the age of three. This might not be Lucis City, but face it: Barbour was closer to the place he grew up in than Labyrinth could ever be.

‘The commercial formalities’ – Bod grinned at Jed – ‘are waived in any case. It’s not exactly a trade mission today.’ More seriously: ‘The first lot, two hundred or so, are being released from the med-halls today. Poor bastards.’

‘One of Roger’s friends,’ said Jed, ‘is among this consignment.’

‘Oh. I am sorry.’

‘She got clear,’ said Roger. ‘At least it means that much.’

With treatment, she might recover. It was a splinter of hope amid the reality of so many dead or Anomaly-absorbed.

Maybe I need treatment too
.

But that was soft thinking, and there was work to do.

‘What happens to the refugees after the medics have released them?’ he asked.

‘There are support groups,’ said Bod. ‘Cabin suites are arranged, so they’ve somewhere to live. Plus employment, based on capabilities, part-time at first.’

‘It’s good of you take them.’ Jed almost growled: ‘Unlike other worlds.’

‘An attitude that’s hard to understand, at least among the rich ones.’

Some colonies could scarcely support the scrabbling inhabitants they already had: that
was
understandable. But Roger thought that perhaps if Bod had seen Fulgor’s final hours, he would be less keen on refugees coming here, no matter how minuscule the risk of another Anomaly might be.

‘What can I do to help?’ asked Roger. ‘With getting the refugees in from the ship, I mean.’

Bod said, ‘The ship’s Pilot is supposed to start the process from on board, then come out into the reception space to oversee things. If you, Roger, could do the overseeing – not that you really have to do anything, you understand – then Jed won’t have to pause things while he returns from the ship.’

‘Good plan,’ said Jed. ‘Can you send me to my ship the quick way?’

‘Ah.’ Bod smiled. ‘You really
have
been here before. So, brace yourself.’

‘I’m braced.’

‘In that case—’

Bod’s chin dipped and his eyes narrowed, triangulating on some mental image; then Jed was ankle-deep in quickglass, and filaments were coiling around his legs and torso.

‘—go!’

Jed whisked down the tunnel and was gone.

‘Bloody hell,’ said Roger.

‘Trivial,’ said Bod. ‘Are you up for the same?’

‘Crap. I suppose so.’

‘I tell you what. I’ll slow it down, since it’s your first time.’

Roger was used to quickglass architecture, but he should not say so – at least, not to reveal the extent to which he had lived his life incognito, along with Mum and Dad, hiding what he was. In any case, he thought, as a thick band wrapped around his waist, this place seemed different.

‘With me.’ Bod’s hand clamped Roger’s upper arm. ‘Ready.’

‘Shit. OK.’

‘Now.’

They flew, without leaving contact with the floor.

It was grand and huge, the great reception hall, though not in comparison to Labyrinth’s spaces. Roger stood on a balcony with Bod, now almost bored with the slow-floating shoal of med-drones manoeuvring into twin corridors that led apparently to the med-halls. There was no telling which drone contained Alisha; she might have already been carried out, or remain in the ship’s hold, the last of Jed’s cargo to be discharged.

Some twenty watchers stood scattered around the hall. Official observers, it seemed to Roger: no casual passers-by. When the last of the med-drones had slipped past, the watchers drifted together into clumps, conferred, then made their way out in twos and threes.

‘I’ll take you to the med-halls,’ said Bod. ‘Jed can obviously find his own way.’

‘Thank you.’

Bod must have other duties; it was good of him to take the time to help.

What if I weren’t a Pilot?

Too cynical. The matter-of-fact manner suggested Bod’s behaviour was natural and professional both, ready to assist anyone, not caring who they were.

‘We’ll take our time,’ said Bod. ‘You’re OK just walking?’

‘Of course.’

Roger did not really process the peripheral sights – cross-corridors, convex-ceilinged halls edged with colonnades, something that appeared to be a market-place filled with a swirling crowd – as he walked with Bod along a thoroughfare whose shining blue floor curved up to form the walls, while white decorative panelling ran horizontally some four metres up, beneath a concave white ceiling with the visual texture of icing. The city must be richer in colours and style than the outside suggested.

Trying not to think of Alisha.

Will they wake her straight away?

Trying very hard not to think of her.

One trick was to imagine something else entirely, but sod that because Alisha had been through evil and did not deserve to—

He stopped, shuddering.

… da-da
.

No.

He could
not
have heard what he thought. Not possible.

‘Roger? Are you—?’

‘Fine. Let’s … carry on.’

It had to be stress and the ongoing shock of the new.

There’s no way it can be here
.

Really, it just had to be.