Absorption: Ragnarok v. 1 (Ragnarock 1) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  ONE - FULGOR, 2603 AD

  TWO - EARTH, 777 AD

  THREE - FULGOR, 2603 AD

  FOUR - EARTH, 1926 AD

  FIVE - FULGOR, 2603 AD

  SIX - EARTH-CLASS EXPLORATORY EM-0036, 2146 AD

  SEVEN - FULGOR, 2603 AD

  EIGHT - EARTH, 1926 AD

  NINE - FULGOR, 2603 AD

  TEN - EARTH, 777 AD

  ELEVEN - FULGOR, 2603 AD

  TWELVE - EARTH-CLASS EXPLORATORY EM-0036, 2146 AD

  THIRTEEN - FULGOR, 2603 AD

  FOURTEEN - EARTH, 1926 AD

  FIFTEEN - FULGOR, 2603 AD

  SIXTEEN - EARTH, 1927 AD

  SEVENTEEN - LABYRINTH, 2603 AD (REALSPACE-EQUIVALENT)

  EIGHTEEN - EARTH, 1927 AD

  NINETEEN - LABYRINTH, 2603 AD (REALSPACE-EQUIVALENT)

  TWENTY - EARTH, 777 AD

  TWENTY-ONE - FULGOR, 2603 AD

  TWENTY-TWO - LUNA, 502013 AD

  TWENTY-THREE - FULGOR, 2603 AD

  TWENTY-FOUR - EARTH, 2146 AD

  TWENTY-FIVE - LABYRINTH, 2603 AD (REALSPACE-EQUIVALENT)

  TWENTY-SIX - EARTH, 2146 AD

  TWENTY-SEVEN - FULGOR, 2603 AD

  TWENTY-EIGHT - EARTH, 777 AD

  TWENTY-NINE - FULGOR, 2603 AD

  THIRTY - FULGOR, 2603 AD

  THIRTY-ONE - EARTH, 1927-1930 A.D.

  THIRTY-TWO - LABYRINTH, 2603 AD (REALSPACE-EQUIVALENT)

  THIRTY-THREE - EARTH, 1930-1939 A.D.

  THIRTY-FOUR - FULGOR, 2603 AD

  THIRTY-FIVE - FULGOR, 2603 AD

  THIRTY-SIX - EARTH, 1939 AD

  THIRTY-SEVEN - FULGOR, 2603 AD

  THIRTY-EIGHT - EARTH, 1939-1940 AD

  THIRTY-NINE - THE WORLD, 5563 AD

  FORTY - EARTH-CLASS EXPLORATORY EM-0036, 2146 AD

  FORTY-ONE - LABYRINTH, 2603 AD (REALSPACE-EQUIVALENT)

  FORTY-TWO - FULGOR, 2603 AD

  FORTY-THREE - FULGOR, 2603 AD

  FORTY-FOUR - LABYRINTH, 2603 AD (REALSPACE-EQUIVALENT)

  FORTY-FIVE - EARTH, 1940 AD

  FORTY-SIX - FULGOR, 2603 AD

  FORTY-SEVEN - EARTH, 1940 AD

  FORTY-EIGHT - FULGOR, 2603 AD

  FORTY-NINE - EARTH, 777 AD

  FIFTY - FULGOR, 2603 AD

  FIFTY-ONE - EARTH-CLASS EXPLORATORY EM-0036, 2147 AD

  FIFTY-TWO - LABYRINTH, 2603 AD (REALSPACE-EQUIVALENT)

  Also by John Meaney from Gollancz:

  Bone Song

  Dark Blood

  Absorption

  JOHN MEANEY

  Orion

  www.orionbooks.co.uk

  A Gollancz eBook

  Copyright © John Meaney 2010 All rights reserved.

  The right of John Meaney to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  First published in Great Britain in 2010 by

  Gollancz

  The Orion Publishing Group Ltd

  Orion House

  5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane

  London, WC2H 9EA

  An Hachette UK Company

  This eBook first published in 2010 by Gollancz.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book

  is available from the British Library.

  eISBN : 978 0 5750 8873 3

  This eBook produced by Jouve, France

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  www.johnmeaney.com

  www.orionbooks.co.uk

  A note on Norse names:

  In English, the letter combination th has two pronunciations - compare ‘this’ll’ (as in this’ll be good) with ‘thistle’.

  The following names have a hard th as in ‘this’ or ‘other’: Óthinn, Heithrún.

  These names have a soft th as in ‘thistle’ or ‘thing’: Thórr, Thórrvaldr.

  PROLOGUE

  Asleep, a man of living crystal lies on a silver bier. Can it be possible to truly sleep with eyelids so clear, so transparent? Yet he does, he and the crystalline woman nearby. Her bier is silver too, inscribed with angular scarlet runes glowing softly in vacuum.

  Is that a twitch of the man’s fingertip?

  Around them stands a hall of glass and sapphire hung with shields, some of battered leather while others look unused. All bear runes that glimmer red.

  The man’s face wrinkles - highlights rippling through pliable crystal - and he rocks his head, rolls a little to one side, then sees the woman. Pushing himself up, he swings his legs to sit sideways on the bier.

  —You’re so beautiful, and I know you.

  They are words without sound, for there is no air in here. Oddly, it makes no difference to the way he feels, chest swelling as if inhaling vacuum, fluids moving inside his complex body, his mind coming alive. The woman’s name does not matter for now, and neither does his own. Soon, he will know all he needs to know.

  Scarlet runes are glowing brighter now.

  Down to the floor - he feels its temperature through crystalline soles, hears nothing save the internal sounds of his body - and finds it easy to stand, to walk, to look around. There is an archway, and he walks towards it, through it; and he finds a larger hall, star-shaped with nine pointed annexes. Near the ceiling, a constellation of nineteen dots of sapphire light is shining.

  Each annexe leads to a hall with polished biers. The nearest, a place of silver and emerald, contains another crystalline man, while above him floats an array of twenty-three shining lights, all of them green, like burning copper.

  He remembers burning, and oxygen, and being alive in normal flesh.

  Then he staggers, with this memory:

  Floating in space, surrounded by a billion blazing suns. Tumbling, he sees what he was meant to see: like a needle thrust by gods through the galactic core, a jet one thousand lightyears in extent, its brightness a soundless resonance in his mind, a scream of fear amid magnificence, because this should not be here.

  This is the work of Darkness.

  As he rotates, the abomination slides out of sight, and he can remember what he should be feeling: awe and joyous humility, for he is the tiniest fragment of awareness at the galaxy’s heart, living for an eyeblink, no more; so how important can humanity’s welfare be?

  But then the galactic jet is visible once more, and this time he feels anger, because humans may be insignificant to the cosmic history but not to ourselves, and the betrayers deserve to die, while we do what we can against the Darkness.

  There is a spear on the wall nearby, and he takes it down to use as a staff. The runes along its shaft flare brightly at his touch. He stands for a while, leaning on the weapon, letting the emotions from his flash of memory diminish. Soon he will deal with things much better.

  From one annexe, a corridor leads away, long and straight, ending in a patch of blackness that draws him. He begins to walk, first with the spear’s support, then with a growing feeling of aliveness. Shifting his grip, he continues with the weapon held horizontally beside his thigh, feeling secure. In this place, there is no danger.

  He comes out on a rune-carved balcony of stone, and stares at a black star-strewn sky above a landscape of grey and sharp black shadows, a chiaroscuro of lunar wilderness, because this is indeed the moon that orbits Earth, the world that gav
e birth to humanity but not to him, not directly.

  Beneath the clouds of that living world, bands of crimson and silver shine more brightly than oceanic blue. What they signify, he does not know.

  —Hello my love.

  The words are inside his head. Smiling, he turns to see the crystalline woman.

  —My beautiful Gavi.

  —Is that my name?

  He reaches out, his clear hand grasping hers.

  —I am sure it is. If you remember mine, let me know.

  They stand looking out at the surface for some unknown time.

  —How long have we slept?

  It is a fair question. He is about to tell her that he does not know when something causes his gaze to drift to a familiar constellation. Three distinct stars form a row.

  —See Orion’s belt. What colour is the central star?

  —It seems . . . red. Does that mean something?

  If he waits long enough, she’ll remember the answer by herself. He tells her anyway.

  —It means a million years have passed.

  Her fingers squeeze his.

  —So much time.

  They stare at the banded Earth, sharing wonder, not knowing why they are here. Then words sound inside them, delivered by a feminine voice they respond to, a voice of command.

  —You remember what we’ve always known to do. Observe what the enemy does, deduce what the enemy intends, and then prevent it.

  It is the awakened woman, Gavi, who responds:

  —And now we fight the Darkness?

  —Now we fight.

  From the lunar night, like the All-Father’s eye, the homeworld of humanity regards them, as it swirls with cloud, banded with silver and crimson, changed in ways they cannot know. The crystalline man raises his spear, saluting Earth.

  And then, in soundless vacuum, he laughs.

  ONE

  FULGOR, 2603 AD

  Roger rolled straight out of bed, to his feet. According to his old school’s neurokinaesthetics teacher, this was typical acrophobic behaviour; but all he knew was it felt good to be alive, particularly today, because this was freedom. It was also scary: tomorrow, aged eighteen Standard, he would wake up in a new room, his parents far away.

  His physical wake-up routine was complex, moving his limbs through clover-leaf patterns, rolling on the floor, neither dance nor yoga nor fighting yet with elements of all. It had been a while since anyone had bullied him; but he remembered the humiliation.

  Slapping a glob of pine-scented smartgel on his chest, he walked around the room, touching each wall in turn, tapping the orange quickglass bed with his foot, saying farewell. As the gel wriggled across his skin, cleansing and exfoliating, he checked the tu-ring on his middle finger. Above it, a tiny real-image holo ninja sprang into being, holding a scroll that spread out into an old-style FourSpeak lattice, listing the templates stored inside: his favourite holodramas, his furniture design - if he wanted his new room to look like this one, then it would - and his clothing, all his artefacts besides childhood toys. Those, he was leaving here.

  All the information he needed was in his tu-ring. He was packed, ready to go.

  After pulling on a suit of clothing, he tuned the fabric to dark-blue edged with yellow, and hardened the slippers’ soles, suitable for outdoor walking. Then he tapped his tu-ring, and pointed at the quickglass bed, subvocalizing a command.

  The orange quickglass shivered, grew viscous, and melted into the floor, absorbing the smartfabric duvet. Some people changed their living environment daily; but his room’s configuration remained static in normal times. Dissolving the bed was a gesture, marking a transition.

  An adult at last.

  He went down to breakfast. Mum smiled at him, waving a bowl of peach rice.

  ‘You need to fuel up. Big day, isn’t it?’

  ‘I guess so, Aged Parents. Dad, are we going in to the city together?’

  But his father’s eyes were solid white, the smartlenses opaque, lasing images against his retinas. Even over breakfast, he was hard at work.

  ‘Carl, have words with your upstart son, why don’t you.’

  ‘Sure.’ Dad’s smartlenses cleared. ‘Plasma. Negentropy. Custard. How am I doing?’

  His eyes looked grey now. That was no more the truth than white opacity had been.

  ‘You’re confused,’ said Roger. ‘I can beat you this morning.’

  ‘Suicide chess, seven dimensions. Most negative points in two minutes to win.’

  In 2- or 3-D, it was a fast game, offering pieces to the opponent to take, the objective being to get rid of your pieces as quickly as possible. Given a vulnerable opposing piece, you had to take it; but if there were several, you got to choose, and that was part of the art. Seven dimensions could slow the game right down, or cause cataclysmic high-speed reversals, depending on the game-flow.

  ‘Deal.’

  Mum said nothing as they worked on virtual boards visible only to them, Roger flinging around his yellow pieces with subvocalized instructions, failing to hold back the onslaught of red attackers he was bound to take, unable to avoid the tide dissolving before him.

  When the game popped out of existence, Mum put a bowl of rice in front of Roger.

  ‘He’ll take you in to Lucis City anyway, never mind.’

  Roger looked at Dad, and they both shook their heads.

  ‘Mum, you’re a genius.’

  Part of the game had been to mask their body language. Without access to their shared virtual holo, Mum should have been unable to work out who won - though the odds were against Roger.

  ‘I try to keep up with my favourite son,’ she said.

  ‘You know I’m your only son.’

  ‘That’s right, isn’t it? Fair enough.’

  Dad smiled. The banter was familiar.

  ‘But there’s no such thing as—’

  ‘—a fair fight,’ Roger and Mum said together.

  ‘Keep that in mind’ - Dad smiled with one side of his mouth - ‘in the big, bad world.’

  Mum let out a breath.

  ‘I’ll remember.’ Roger blinked, misting his smartlenses. ‘I—Whew. Is it time we got going?’

  ‘You haven’t finished your—’

  ‘I don’t think I can. When I get there, I’ll eat. Promise.’

  ‘You’re not too big to get a clip around the ear.’

  ‘No.’ Roger smiled at her. ‘And I never will be.’

  Dad’s hand clapped his shoulder.

  ‘Spoken like a man.’

  ‘Goodbye, Mum,’ said Roger.

  The aircab ascended in a spiral, the house and its blue surrounding flagstones diminishing below. In the Conjoined Calderae to the north, giant silver guardian fish leaped from dark waters, hunting pterashrikes. Overhead, stretched a lime-green sky with golden-cream clouds.

  They passed over a scree slope leading to the nearest hypozone. Far from its natural habitat, a purple native slimegel followed a slick track, moving by laminar flow, sheets of tissue looping like caterpillar tracks. Once out of poisonous oxygen, it would split apart to form a fast-moving herd of fist-sized blobbers.

  ‘That’s a big one,’ said Roger. ‘Near to budding.’

  He meant generating a sub-organism, a daughter herd.

  ‘How can you tell?’ Dad touched his shoulder. ‘You belong here, son, in a way I never will.’

  A tight claw of tension squeezed Roger’s torso.

  Then why don’t you let me leave?

  Because there were other places he could venture, far beyond Lucis City, beyond the world of Fulgor, even beyond the universe. But this was a hired aircab, and for all of Dad’s capabilities, the stakes were too high to discuss confidential matters here. If he’d wanted to raise the subject, he should have done so at home.

  That was what he thought. But what Dad did next surprised him.

  ‘Let’s talk openly.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘This aircab is, well, special. We’re protected
here.’

  Beneath them, a valley was filled with striped fog, a moving tiger-skin configuration of purple and green, forming a Turing pattern: emergent properties from simple chemistry.

  ‘How protected?’

  ‘This much.’ Dad reached up and dabbed at his eyes, removing his smartlenses. ‘See?’

  Freed of disguise, his natural eyes were obsidian, without surrounding whites. Black upon black, dark as space.