Absorption: Ragnarok v. 1 (Ragnarock 1)

by John Meaney

  Then Kenna’s fingertips descended, causing Gavriela’s eyes to close; and even though her eyelids were clear, soft darkness closed in. Then the dream folded up inside her, wrapped itself in warm amnesia, to hide snugly in her mind.

  Waiting for the time when it could creep back to awareness.

  NINE

  FULGOR, 2603 AD

  Carl left the conference centre on foot. As he walked, his smartfabric suit reconfigured to extend a cloak from his shoulders. Others, dressed as formally, were crossing the blue plaza, entering or leaving via one of the glowing ellipses set among the flagstones.

  To his left, three men rose out of an ellipse and walked off. Carl’s tu-ring signalled that the shaft was vacant, so he stepped on to the glowing surface in their place.

  His downward motion through flowgel felt slow; but that was only his impatience. Then he was in a great vault, descending on a thread of viscous gel to the floor. A spiderweb of narrow black tracks littered the ground in all directions; on the web, one- and five-person speedcapsules were in motion.

  Beckoning the nearest vehicle, he waited for it to approach, then - while its shell was still opening - jumped inside. It sealed up, then moved along the route he selected, flicking among the other capsules before shooting into a tunnel that ran beneath Quiller Park and continued all the way to Lithrana Province.

  I shouldn’t do this.

  Miranda wasn’t expecting him home soon. What he’d implied was a meeting with the predatory Treena; the truth was somewhat different, and far more compelling.

  If only I could keep away.

  At the far end of Quiller, the tunnel veered north. Soon he was amid the active volcanoes of Pyrol Landing, where the capsule’s motion had to slow, as the tunnel twisted to avoid the magma chambers. That was where the shadow-code took over, hiding the details of the capsule’s deceleration, broadcasting false data that failed to show its opening shell or the way its solitary passenger tumbled out.

  Sealing up, it continued on its way, accelerating once more.

  Such a moronic risk.

  If someone found a reason to stop the capsule and inspect it, the difference between the official logs and its empty interior would cause an immediate investigation to swing into action. Peacekeepers would descend - on Miranda and Roger - and all would be finished, all because his massive self-control was a fake, because there were times that temptation could not be fought, only surrendered to.

  Stupid.

  His cloak changed colour to blend with the rock. After a moment, a small door dissolved and he stepped into the narrow tunnel he had prepared so many years before. So foolish to risk everything, and not just his own well-being.

  But it was remembered public shame, from twenty-three standard years ago in Labyrinth - not the imminent slaking of desire - that filled his mind as he squeezed along the narrow shaft.

  The losers’ platform had not been the worst thing.

  After Graduation proper, there had been a party: a noisy maelstrom of energetic music and triumphant fun, because one hundred and nineteen additions to the fleet meant benefits to humanity and the joy, for those young Pilots, of public vindication for their work and daring, and a declaration of purpose for the rest of their lives. However far they flew, in whichever universe - mu-space or realspace - they were part of a community that publicly acknowledged them, treasuring their contribution.

  Somewhere, his parents were among the Pilots greeting and congratulating their new peers. He could avoid them, for the main ballroom was dominated by the younger folk, while the others remained near the doors. But sooner or later he would have to face Lianna; and finally she saw him.

  ‘Oh, Carl.’ Her triangular features looked sad. ‘We’ll still be . . . friends.’

  ‘Sure. You’ll be in the smartest ship ever, flitting across the galaxy, while I’ll be- Shit.’

  It wasn’t supposed to go this badly.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he went on. ‘The thing is, you did so well. So really well.’

  Her sadness drew back, as her smile became pure pleasure.

  ‘Isn’t she beautiful?’

  ‘One terrific ship. Lots of people are talking about her.’

  ‘Yes . . . Look, I have to go see Commodore Durana. See you later?’

  ‘Daredevil Durana?’

  ‘The very one. And she wants to talk to me, is that possible?’

  ‘Of course it is. You’re brilliant.’

  Her fingertips, when she touched his face, felt like miniature novas.

  ‘You’re a good friend, Carl Blackstone.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  But she withdrew her fingers too quickly.

  ‘Whatever you end up doing, good luck.’

  She despises me.

  ‘All right.’

  She flowed away from him, so graceful as she moved among their dancing, celebrating friends - former friends, in his case - and smiled back once. Then happy people swept past, shouting a party song, bedecked with streamers, and his contact with Lianna was gone.

  No: it had disappeared earlier, before she had even gained her ship. It had happened the moment those words sealed Carl Blackstone’s fate in public consciousness.

  =No ship. This candidate has a different path to follow.=

  They would reverberate forever inside him.

  Across the room, he glimpsed Soo Lin and Riley, glasses in hand. Perhaps they would be easier to talk to. But no. That was not the way it was going to go. Not today.

  Depression was a laxness in the trapezius muscles atop his shoulders, heaviness pulling down his chin, slouching to squeeze stress-juice inside: cortisol and neuropeptides springing from glands, washing through every organ. Feeling bad is a complicated process, not a state.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  He found a quiet exit and used it.

  Now he waited in the Logos Library, sitting in a study-carrel, elbows on desk and head in hands, ignoring the infocrystals that promised so much knowledge, wishing instead that he could forget all of his life, or at least today.

  No. He needed to take control.

  Breathe in. Then out.

  The simplicity of inhale-exhale was all he needed to focus on. Over and over, to simply breathe, to get in touch with his inner awareness. To forget the stress - the look in Lianna’s eyes as she turned away - to push all that aside.

  To attempt calm.

  Forget today.

  Because everything was new. He had to focus on himself, to gather his resources, because—

  =It is time.=

  He looked up.

  ‘I know.’

  The Logos Library being infinite in complexity, he was able to locate an obscure corridor to leave by. A quiet route allowed him to bypass the great Borges Boulevard, travel beneath the Great Shield, and enter the Ascension Annexe from below.

  There was a bronze door that crinkled up like tissue, allowing him to pass, before it reformed with adamantine hardness; a screen of pure light, washed through with sapphire and emeralds; and a dozen other barriers, each capable of obliterating him or passively obstructing; while scan fields passed through him, invoking sensations like itching deep inside.

  Finally, he was in a blank ovoid vault with no apparent exits. A chair budded from the floor and rose, but he ignored it.

  So this is it.

  His face felt like sand exposed by retreating tides. Every feeling inside was fresh and strange.

  ‘I’m ready.’

  An oval of wallspace melted away. A blocky figure entered: shaven head, heavy shoulders, rolled up-sleeves revealing muscled forearms. Eyes of jet, naturally.

  ‘So how do you feel, Pilot Candidate?’

  ‘Surviving, sir.’

  ‘You suffered the celebration party.’

  ‘I did.’ He thought of Lianna, the look in her eye, the quick withdrawal of her hand. ‘It was bad, but I felt no desire to explain myself. I was too busy making myself feel depressed.’

  ‘Good.’

&
nbsp; Carl looked away, then turned his attention back to Commander Gould.

  ‘Sir? Was it chance that my parents were here? They weren’t supposed to be.’

  ‘Perhaps not.’

  That was ambiguous, but the purpose of Carl’s question had been to demonstrate his perceptiveness, his awareness of manipulation; the answer was not relevant.

  ‘The real ordeal,’ continued the commander, ‘is right now.’

  To Carl’s left, the wall shimmered, transformed into a concave lattice of blazing white miniature stars, and then dissolved. Beyond lay a pale-blue hangar.

  While floating inside it—

  Oh my God.

  —hung a ship such as he had never seen: a black dart with scarlet edging, smaller than other vessels but with immense power, dynamically unstable, so it could tumble and manoeuvre with swift agility, and with devastating weaponry installed.

  You’re beautiful.

  For the first time he understood somnambulism, as his body walked forward without conscious control, his mind in awe, not daring to think this was real.

  Yes.

  You’re—

  I am. And you are Carl Blackstone, Pilot.

  He would have hung his head and wept; but her beauty captivated him.

  ‘You can take her out now, son.’ Commander Gould’s hand touched his shoulder. ‘Even though the city is full of people.’

  Carl glanced at the hangar walls.

  =You will be unobserved.=

  The commander smiled.

  ‘The city has spoken, Pilot Blackstone. She’ll provide you with a covert exit and cover outside.’

  ‘Sir . . . Thank you.’

  And if ever a ship had stealth capabilities, it was this one.

  ‘Enjoy your victory, Carl. A solitary victory, of course. That’s the nature of the beast.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘That’s why we chose you. Why you chose yourself. You can push yourself to win without spectators or boasting, suffer defeat in obscurity, endure whatever you have to in public.’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘Because that’s what it means to be a spy.’

  Carl reached up to touch his ship - his magnificent, powerful, lovely ship - ready for her to take him inside in their moment of triumph.

  A very private triumph.

  Now, over two decades later, he felt the same resonating thrill as he walked along a polished black glass floor and came out into a vast natural cavern. A bubble of triple quickglass layers separated him from the empty vault; that was a good thing.

  When she burst into being, a thunderclap of displaced air crashed among the rocks, and then she was hanging there: black, scarlet-edged and powerful. Such a tremendous ship.

  I’ve missed you.

  It was impossible to tell which of them originated the thought.

  ‘At last.’

  The quickglass shield dissolved; and then he was rushing to her, unable to hold back, needing both the intimate communion and the chance to immerse himself in mu-space, for a too-brief time.

  TEN

  EARTH, 777 AD

  Dawn was a tattered cloak across the sky, grey and torn with nascent thunderclouds. Beneath Stígr’s body, the chill ground sucked warmth from him, as if underworld spirits of deep Niflheim drank from his lifeforce. Unpleasant wakefulness goaded him into standing.

  A skeletal, leafless tree stood nearby. From its bonelike branches, two dark ravens watched. At the familiar sight, his empty left eye-socket, beneath the patch, crawled and itched.

  ‘You are a stranger here.’ A woman’s voice came from some distance behind him. ‘Are you alone?’

  Something shifted as he turned. A quick peripheral glance showed him the expected: a tree unoccupied, bare of corvine watchers. Then he was regarding a grey-haired woman whose cloak was wrapped around her body, against the wind.

  ‘My name is Stígr,’ he told her. ‘Poet and wanderer, is what I am.’

  ‘Then you’ll visit our stead, and grant us an epic, if you will.’

  Her tone was peaceful, and it took a few seconds to perceive the source of her security: two warriors in shadow, spears in hand.

  ‘I am called Alfsigr,’ the woman continued. ‘And these are two of my sons, Alvíss and Meili.’

  Stígr touched the brim of his soft hat as he bowed.

  ‘My honour, sirs.’

  Poets were supposed to see more deeply into the world, to catch sight of things that others missed. If that were true, then how could three people so easily walk up on him? He was fortunate that they were friendly.

  Staff in hand, he walked with them to the village. His face was smiling, for part of him enjoyed meeting new people, and lived for the warmth of making friends; yet he felt a haunted tension around his single eye, courtesy of his other half, the part that responded to darkness when it called.

  Inside the main hall, by firelight, he divested himself of hat, stave and cloak. From some of the villagers, a hiss sounded. A one-eyed wanderer: that resonated with the old tales in a way that could be disturbing.

  ‘I am Stígr,’ he said. ‘And I am a very ordinary poet, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Is he Othinn?’ whispered a child’s voice.

  Stígr was able to chuckle, and then he clasped his hands together before the flames, casting a birdlike shadow on the wall.

  ‘I do have a raven. You see?’

  The little boy groaned, and several adults laughed.

  ‘Perhaps your verse is better than your shadowplay, good poet.’ A heavy-shouldered man, his beard hanging in twin braids, grinned at Stígr. ‘In any case, avail yourself of mead and solid food.’

  ‘My thanks, chieftain.’

  ‘I’m Gulbrandr. A spinner of tales is always welcome, though we have young Hildr here’ - he pointed to a girl of perhaps seven - ‘who creates many a fanciful yarn to explain her unfinished chores.’

  Stígr bowed to her, and men and women laughed again. This was a friendly hall.

  If only they knew what I really am.

  But he was weak, and would accept their openness, and pray to whatever part of the light remained that he would spare them, that he would not be called upon to wreak evil in this place.

  Someone placed a horn cup in his hand, and filled it from a leather bag with sweet, heavy mead. Roast meat was emitting a wonderful odour.

  Then he noticed the large collection of weapons by the threshold, and bundles of supplies tied with leather cords.

  ‘There’s a Thing occurring soon,’ murmured Gulbrandr. ‘Perhaps you know of it. Many chieftains will be there, even the Rus.’

  ‘I . . . did not know, sir. Do you gather for a reason?’

  ‘As chieftains,’ Gulbrandr said ambiguously, ‘it is our clans’ welfare we consider above all.’

  Stígr looked around the hall, at the easy gestures and smiles, hearing the murmur of jokes and ironic boasting, and from one corner the sound of young warriors battling with riddles instead of arms.

  ‘Yours is a fine clan, with marvellous people,’ he said.

  Several days’ journey away (as an ordinary wanderer might travel), in a single men’s hall, a large warrior farted without waking up. Beside Ulfr, Brandr stirred, ears twitching once: the warhound could come alert in an eyeblink, as Ulfr knew from experience, but tonight there was no need. Ulfr himself was keeping watch, though not from choice: he simply could not sleep.

  In his mind’s eye, reflections from the spirit world were clear: poor Jarl’s bloodied features, his dead stare accusing, against a backdrop of Niflheim, the black realm of Hel.

  Almost as bad was his memory of Eira’s expression, her knowing that Jarl’s death was a mercy, but unable to forgive him for it. He felt so weary.

  ‘It wasn’t you,’ said Jarl.

  The dead spirit’s voice was clear, perhaps because Ulfr’s eyes had drooped shut.

  ‘You died at my hand, warrior.’

  ‘You ended what another started.’

  Had there be
en ensorcelment? Or had some temporary madness controlled the others for a time?

  ‘I’m sorry, my friend.’