Transmission: Ragnarok: Book Two Read online

  To John Richard Parker: the best of agents, true gentleman and friend.

  Contents

  Cover

  Dedication

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Chapter Seventy

  Acknowledgments

  Bibliography

  Also by John Meaney

  Copyright

  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 words have a hard th as in ‘this’ or ‘other’: Óthinn, Heithrún, Davith, Ingrith, Autha, Jorth, seithr (dark magic), Asgarth (home of the gods). These names have a soft th as in ‘thistle’ or ‘thing’: Thórr, Thórrvaldr, Arrnthórr. Mixing both, the first th of Thórthr is soft, while the second is hard, correctly written as Þórðr.

  Also, the ý in Týr is pronounced like the u in French tu, or ü in German Glück.

  ONE

  LABYRINTH, 2603 AD (REALSPACE-EQUIVALENT)

  Poor Roger. That was the sentiment in their obsidian eyes, those few Pilots who knew him: poor bereaved Roger, his parents famously dead, he a nobody (in a city-world that remained bounded yet infinite) who lacked the training that Labyrinth-dwelling Pilots were immersed in for years; while as a mudworld-raised youth-turned-man, what could he actually do?

  And those eyes! As he walked the endless Borges Boulevard and saw only strangers, each was without disguise: so many pairs of all-black eyes, glittering jet and hard to read, even for him, whose own eyes matched; for in this place, only a Pilot could remain sane.

  In the midst of Labyrinth, the air was never free of the faintest of amber glows, or the prickling feel of layers-within-layers of reality, the tactile sense of other geometries accessible with a gesture or a thought; for this was mu-space, the ur-continuum, a universe no ordinary human could comprehend or live in.

  In front of him, the air curved, pulled into a rotation; and he knew it was Jed Goran even before Jed stepped through. He was lean and hard-looking, grinning now.

  ‘Roger.’

  ‘Hey, Jed.’

  They shook hands – Jed’s grip stronger than Roger’s – in another ritual, newly familiar. Back on Fulgor, at least in Lucis City and the surrounding province, politeness had dictated the bumping of fists with acquaintances old or new. Just one more human behaviour extinguished when the Anomaly subsumed that world.

  For the place of his childhood was gone: Fulgor, now a hellworld ruled by a global collective mind, the Anomaly, each former human a component in a vast gestalt whose properties and processes were emergent, therefore different in the way that human cognition bears no relation to a single neuron’s chemical cycles.

  ‘Are you busy?’ asked Jed.

  ‘Well … I’ve been trying to study in the Logos Library, but’ – with an asymmetric shrug – ‘I can’t get into it.’

  ‘No rush, pal. You’ve got to rest up, get used to things, you know?’

  They were at the head of Feigenbaum Alley, home to shops run as part-time hobbies, often by families. Here Roger might buy some story-or study-crystals from his Admiralty-granted allowance. A part of his awareness noted the successive diminishing of shop dimensions along the alley’s length, like some odd, straightened-out Nautilus.

  Everything was different, even perspective.

  ‘Are your parents still alive, Jed?’

  ‘Sure. Not around much, but they’re fine.’ Jed glanced at the shopfronts, then: ‘Med Centre are shipping out the first batch. Did you want to watch?’

  ‘I don’t really—’

  ‘You won’t be able to see her, though. I asked.’

  ‘All right.’ A memory whipped into Roger’s awareness but he pushed it back, flattening the mental image and twisting it into a vortex, trying to blur the fat naked man over Alisha’s body, to forget how the brothel stank. ‘Shit.’

  With an effort, he flung it all away.

  ‘Maybe I should’ve told you afterwards.’

  ‘I can watch,’ said Roger. ‘And I need to see more ships in operation, don’t I?’

  ‘With me, then.’

  Jed summoned another fastpath rotation, a skill that remained beyond Roger’s power; then the two of them stepped inside – everything whirling, the axes of reality transforming – and came out onto Archimedes Avenue, facing an abyssal drop beyond which rose a cliff-like city wall, Med Centre blossoming upon it. Closer by, a shoal of white drones floated in the air, ready for wholesale movement towards the internal docks where ships were waiting with empty holds. The visual pattern would have been beautiful were it not for the similarity to coffins, and the knowledge that each med-drone contained a traumatized survivor, their present coma a prelude to waking in realspace, to remembering how their world had died.

  ‘Is Alisha in this batch?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Jed. ‘I haven’t seen my manifest yet, never mind anyone else’s.’

  ‘Manifest?’

  ‘I’m flying one of the loads to Molsin.’

  Of all the human worlds, Molsin had turned out to be the one most receptive to refugees. The others were scared, and it was hard to blame them. Who knew whether the Anomaly might replicate elsewhere? What if an infectious seed resided in one of the refugees’ minds?

  ‘It’s going to be a one-leg flight for me,’ Jed went on. ‘But most ships are stopping off at a dwarf-star orbital for interview. They’re going
to wake the poor bastards up to question them.’

  In case of Anomalous infection. An extra layer of precaution, and sensible enough.

  ‘So why aren’t you stopping off?’ said Roger.

  ‘I’m taking the ones that they daren’t wake up, not without medics present.’

  ‘I— So Alisha’s one of them, is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘As I said, my manifest hasn’t arrived.’ Jed held up his tu-ring. ‘But there’s a good chance she’s on my list, don’t you reckon?’

  En masse, the floating drones began to move.

  ‘Do you think—?’ Roger tried to work out what he wanted to ask, then let the words fall out anyhow. ‘Could I come with you to Molsin?’

  ‘That’s why I showed you this.’

  ‘You think I should go?’

  What he meant was, should he be there when Alisha woke up? But Jed had never known Alisha properly, for she had been unconscious during the Fulgor rescue and ever since.

  ‘Actually, my friend … I don’t.’

  ‘You think I should stay in Labyrinth?’

  ‘I think you should have the choice. But if I were you, I’d stay on here. Keep communing with your other girl.’

  Jed’s words produced an echo in Roger’s memory: something he said once to Dad, about the other love in his life.

  ‘Excuse me?’ called Jed. ‘Did you want something?’

  A wide-shouldered Pilot was watching them. At Jed’s challenge, he gave the tiniest of starts.

  ‘Sorry. My name’s Dak Stilwell.’ He stepped closer. ‘I didn’t want to interrupt, Pilot Blackstone. But I did want to pass on my sympathies.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Roger, not sure of the man. ‘Did you know my parents?’

  ‘I met your father briefly, in fact. But I’m with the Med Centre, and we offer many services, including simply talking.’

  ‘You’re a counsellor?’ asked Jed. ‘You don’t look like one.’

  Stilwell raised his hand. The knuckles were shiny and enlarged.

  ‘What do counsellors look like? I teach close-quarter combat in my spare time.’ He turned to Roger. ‘When you’re alone and feel like talking, call Med Centre and mention my name. At absolutely any time.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Roger.

  ‘Then I’m off.’ Stilwell gestured for a fastpath rotation. ‘Take it easy.’

  He stepped inside and was gone.

  ‘Counsellor, my arse,’ said Jed.

  Beyond the boulevard, the shoal of autodocs continued to move, heading for the ships that would take the refugees away from Labyrinth, where no realspace menace could reach, but where ordinary people could never wake up to continue their lives, to experience joy or hardship or anything else.

  The man who called himself Dak Stilwell exited the rotation at the centre of a long, clear chamber whose defences were invisible. In front of him, a holo figure stood.

  ‘Identify, please,’ it said.

  ‘I’m Zeke Clayton, beta team leader, section 7.’

  ‘Confirmed.’

  As if loosening a heavy backpack, Clayton shrugged his ursine shoulders, then walked straight through the holo to the next chamber, where shielded doors curled out of existence, allowing him to pass inside. Pavel Karelin was waiting: narrow-bodied, narrow-eyed, quietly spoken.

  ‘I’m going in with you,’ he said.

  ‘It’s only Colonel Garber.’ With another shrug of Clayton’s big shoulders: ‘I’m not exactly scared of him.’

  ‘Of course not. You’re a loyal officer.’

  Was that a faint stress on you’re? A hint about Garber’s loyalty? Clayton was trying to figure a way to frame an innocent-sounding question when a doorway folded in on itself, revealing Garber.

  ‘Come inside,’ he called.

  Pavel entered alongside Clayton.

  ‘I’m sitting in,’ he said. ‘Given our overlapping areas of operational responsibility, Colonel, it seems best.’

  ‘Very well.’ Garber gestured for flowmetal chairs to rise from the floor. ‘Sit down, both of you.’

  ‘Roger Blackstone knows nothing.’ Clayton knew better than to begin with chitchat. ‘That’s the short version. Maybe Analysis can find something in my logs, but for my money, every indicator says Carl Blackstone kept his family separate from his work. Trained his son in a few good habits, kept him clear of operations.’

  ‘Uh-huh. Blackstone senior has already had the posthumous medal.’ Garber’s tone was tight and cold. ‘Now we can pick apart the reality.’

  ‘Understood, sir. But the son has made no attempt to contact anyone, and he’s said nothing to indicate special knowledge. Poor lad hasn’t got to grips with the basics of spatiotemporal manipulation, so even a simple dead-letter drop is out of the question.’

  Pavel said, ‘That’s natural, for someone raised in realspace.’

  ‘Yes, but he’s not motivated to do anything about it,’ said Clayton. ‘That’s my point. It’s natural for someone who’s, er, grieving, but not for a clandestine operator. If the father cached anything in Labyrinth, it won’t be out in the open.’

  Garber changed position, his chair adapting.

  ‘So you’re persisting in the notion that Carl Blackstone was clean?’

  ‘Sir, I’m not presenting an opinion either way. What I do think is Roger Blackstone lacks all operational knowledge of his father’s work.’

  ‘Very well. Present the full report now.’

  ‘OK.’ Clayton manipulated his tu-ring. ‘Done.’

  Garber checked his own tu-ring, nodded, then looked at Pavel.

  ‘Molly-coddling your team is hardly to anyone’s credit, Colonel Karelin.’

  ‘I couldn’t agree more, Colonel. I’ve softened them so much, they can’t take the cut and thrust of memos and meetings in the dangerous corridors of power.’

  No tightening of facial muscles betrayed Garber’s feelings, but his voice flattened.

  ‘I’m glad we share the same analysis. Thank you both for coming.’

  Clayton stood up a tenth of a second before the flowmetal subsided to the floor. Pavel was already on his feet.

  ‘Always a pleasure,’ he said.

  He led the way out, and Clayton followed.

  Sitting in the study carrel, Roger found it impossible to concentrate. Around him the Logos Library contained effectively infinite knowledge; but the amount he felt capable of absorbing hovered between infinitesimal and zero.

  ‘This is impossible.’

  He shut down the display, then gestured for the crystal array to fold back into its designated pocket of fractal reality. It took three attempts before the crystals were tucked away. At this rate, he would soon have the capabilities of an eight-year-old.

  I’ll never have a place here.

  As he left the carrel, it rotated itself into a fist-sized holding-shape; but he could take no credit: the process was automatic.

  ‘Been studying?’ asked an olive-skinned woman.

  ‘Uh, trying.’

  ‘It never gets any easier, does it?’

  She smiled, her face triangular and feline, then twisted away and was gone.

  Bloody hell.

  Behind him, a young female Pilot said: ‘She spoke to you.’

  ‘Er— What?’

  ‘You’ve just been visited by a living legend. Don’t you get it?’

  ‘I don’t … No, not really.’

  ‘Oh, for—’

  Her fastpath rotation tore the words away, leaving silence in the infinite corridor.

  I’m getting out of here.

  But he would have to do it the hard way, by walking.

  Roger considered Jed a friend; yet it would have been nice to utilize a route of his own devising instead of this one, constructed by Jed. It took him to a chamber off Poincaré Promenade. Once there he had only to stand still: the chamber itself moved fast, a bubble through flowmetal. By logical deduction and feel, he decided it was following a horizontal path acro
ss the cliff-like series of edifices that became Ascension Annexe. This was one of the most notable sections of Labyrinth, one that an observer might expect Roger Blackstone to view from a distance and admire, but not to enter.

  Great panes of energy swivelling in mid-air, along with the golden lightning flickering across walls, indicated this was a secure area. Internal itching grew in every organ of Roger’s body as deepscan fields passed through him. Then they were gone, and he felt himself grinning as he walked fast through building-high doors that folded back, allowing entrance to a huge hangar space.

  Far too vast for her.

  I’m here.

  A small shape moved, some ten metres above the ground. Black, mostly: a convex triangle webbed with scarlet and gold that only emphasized how dark her body mostly was. She turned in the air.

  Roger!

  Warmth more than verbalization flared in his brain. He opened his arms as she flew towards him; then she stopped, quivering, to hang level with his face. She was growing bigger: no longer could he reach all the way across her triangular width. Twin differentiating folds were visible, where her lateral extremities would grow into delta wings.

  When she became a big girl.

  Play now?

  For the first time since the catastrophe, he laughed without sadness.

  Race you!

  He broke into a sprint, moving in a fast straight line then dodging, breaking right then left, throwing himself through a shoulder roll and coming back to his feet, while she swooped around him, tumbling through aerobatics: never touching him at speed except to brush his clothing; and all they felt was warmth and love as they played until they were tired and then they stopped. Afterwards, Roger sat on the soft floor, and she settled beside him so her nose was on his lap, and his hand was upon her dorsal hull that felt so warm and strong. Though ships and Pilots alike possess a fine-grained sense of time, neither could have said how long they held each other like this, so fully absorbed, so filled with love and rightness.

  Knowing they belonged together.

  TWO

  EARTH, 1941 AD

  To be a Nazi in Tokyo was … interesting. The Reich and Imperial Nihon might be allies but their cultures were different; while to be a pretend Nazi, like Dmitri Shtemenko, meant every day was filled with pervasive threat, the good and the bad of it: nervous fear yet a sense of life on the edge. There were recurring icons: blades, blood and a fascination with suicide by sword, the hallmarks of the homosexual ultra-right-wing subculture that Dmitri continued to infiltrate.