Absorption: Ragnarok v. 1 (Ragnarock 1)

by John Meaney

  ‘A Bolshevik? And Shtemenko was his real name?’

  ‘That’s what he said.’

  ‘He—’ Erik stopped, lit another cigarette, and took two deep pulls. ‘He walks in darkness. I don’t know how else to say it.’

  ‘How did you—?’

  ‘It’s insane perhaps, but black - things - floated around him as he walked down the street, leaving the house. I was watching from my window.’

  ‘I don’t believe it.’

  ‘They were very faint, and I know it was only weeks after this’ - he pointed to his eye-patch, then his bad leg - ‘so I could have hallucinated. But my mind had knitted itself together by then, thanks to Ilse. I’m sure of it.’

  Gavriela let out a long breath.

  ‘I don’t believe,’ she said, ‘that you can see the darkness too.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I thought’ - she began to cry - ‘I thought I was the only one.’

  Perhaps she could see it more easily, for the darkness that she detected was always hard-edged and strong, curling and revolving in impossible ways; but at least he perceived something.

  Erik stared at her for a long time. Then he said: ‘There’s at least one other that we know.’

  ‘Who’s that?’ Gavriela dabbed at her eyes, recovering. ‘Who do you mean?’

  ‘Comrade Dmitri Shtemenko. He was aware of the shadows around him. He tried to shrug them off and walk away, but they moved with him. It looked as if he was used to doing it.’

  ‘Oy vay.’

  ‘Oy oy, indeed. He looked as if he was used to failing, too. To get away from the shadows.’

  Gavriela stared into her own memory.

  ‘I saw something strange in the old school hall,’ she said after a time. ‘Not to mention the graveyard afterwards.’

  Then she related all she remembered of the darkness-haunted orator, the real-seeming visions he conjured above the crowd, and later the apparition that appeared in the cemetery, distracting the thugs who were advancing on her and Dmitri, allowing the Russian time to use his blades, killing all three of them.

  When Ilse returned, teapot in hand, she looked from one to the other.

  ‘Are you two all right?’

  ‘Talking about . . . dark things,’ said Erik. ‘Sorry, dear.’

  ‘Well, there is evil in the world, I know that much.’ Ilse put the teapot down. ‘But there are good things too.’

  ‘And you’re one of them, Frau Wolf.’

  ‘Thank you, Herr Wolf.’

  Gavriela blinked.

  ‘I love you both,’ she said.

  THIRTY-TWO

  LABYRINTH, 2603 AD (REALSPACE-EQUIVALENT)

  Max gave it seven days, mean-geodesic time, before talking to the ancient Pilot whose title was Head of Records. His name was Kelvin Stanier, and they met in his office - that deprecated word again - because this was something that deserved to be done in person.

  ‘I’m here for a bad reason, Kelvin. Sorry.’

  ‘An operative deceased?’

  Max nodded.

  ‘My condolences. Will there be a body?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And the ship?’

  Max looked down to his right, then straight at Kelvin. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Okay.’ Kelvin gestured a holospace into being. ‘The officer’s name?’

  ‘Avril Tarquelle.’

  ‘Shit.’ Kelvin lowered his hands. ‘She’s so—She was a bright one.’

  ‘Not to mention young.’

  ‘Have we notified the family?’

  ‘There isn’t—She had no relatives. Or close relationships.’

  Kelvin said nothing for a time.

  ‘It was that kind of mission, was it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you have confirmation, or was it just that she never came back?’

  ‘The latter.’

  ‘So. Very well.’ Kelvin made the control gestures in a fine, exact manner, like sacramental ritual. ‘It’s done.’

  No trace of Avril Tarquelle’s existence remained in the official data.

  Kelvin added: ‘How are you doing, Max? Are you sleeping all right?’

  ‘I feel fucking awful.’

  Old eyes glittering, Kelvin looked at him for several seconds.

  ‘That’s exactly how you should feel, old friend.’

  Max used fastpath rotation, stepping out into the antechamber of his office. Just as he reached the threshold, more panes of nothingness began to rotate behind him.

  Waiting in the open doorway, he watched as a familiar white-haired figure stepped through, her movements lithe despite her years.

  ‘Admiral Kaltberg. Please come in.’

  He went inside, and gestured for drinks. A selection of decanters and crystal glasses rose on a table from the floor. Old-fashioned but stylish: that was the way to conduct this meeting.

  But something in the admiral’s manner, as she took a seat and crossed her legs, told him that this was not going to proceed in a predictable manner.

  ‘Brandy ma’am? Or something different?’

  ‘I don’t—Sorry, Max. What am I here for?’

  ‘Admiral?’

  ‘My retirement, was that it?’

  Max moved behind his desk and sat, every sense on full alert.

  ‘You wanted to check that Dr Sapherson was going to give you very selective amnesia, ma’am. I believe that was your concern.’

  ‘I—Yes, that must be it. Why I’m . . . here.’

  ‘Only the most confidential data will disappear from your mind,’ he said. ‘A team of watchmen did a survey of retired operatives just last year. Practically zero memory disappearance beyond the desired data. And they reported a strengthening of cognitive functions, as the majority of memories were repotentiated during the procedure.’

  Beneath his desk, his hands formed a control gesture.

  Shit.

  In the admiral’s old eyes, golden sparks were forming.

  ‘Admiral, I need to warn you—’

  ‘M-Max . . .’

  He admired her so much. The idea of harming her was awful.

  ‘What’s going on, ma’am?’

  ‘G-uh . . .’

  ‘Ma’am?’

  ‘G-uh . . .’

  There two choices. He looked up at the ceiling.

  ‘Medical emergency,’ he said. ‘Open up—’

  ‘Get . . . out . . . Max.’

  Her left hand was trembling.

  Oh fuck.

  The hand that was holding the graser pistol, pointed at him.

  ‘Stop this.’

  It was an antique weapon, which was why it got past scanners - if it was carried by an admiral - but coherent gamma rays could kill as easily as smartmist.

  And her eyes were brightening, golden sparks whirling in black orbs.

  ‘Flee . . . Max. My . . . friend.’

  Her left hand was shaking, but the graser would still get him, and it took just a tiny movement to squeeze the firing-stud.

  ‘I’m not leaving you, Admiral.’

  ‘Must . . .’

  Finger, about to tighten.

  Everything dropped from his perception except that knuckle, about to squeeze.

  ‘Aaah! Fuck!’ she cried out.

  A golden explosion took place inside her eyes, yet no energy burst forth. Max had never heard of such a thing. His last new experience before dying?

  Still she had not fired.

  ‘Max.’ Smoke rose from her eyeballs. ‘I’m neurally wired. Get the fuck out of here.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Now. It’s an order. Whether I fire the graser or not’ - her eyes were opaque grey, burned out, but she could still target him - ‘it’s going to explode. You’ve ten seconds at most.’

  He made the emergency control gesture.

  ‘Drop the weapon. We’ll both go.’

  Behind him, a whirlpool of yellow nothingness grew: his escape.

  ‘I can’t control th
e hand, Max.’

  ‘No—’

  ‘Quick. Go!’

  She fired as he leapt into the yellow.

  He fell through layers of reality.

  Someone will pay.

  Max accepted the danger of his job. But someone had used Admiral Adrienne Kaltberg as an assassination tool, and that deserved punishment. In a city-world with fractal time, pain could be made to last forever.

  She would be dead by now. Clearly part of her mind - part of her brain - understood what had been done to her. It was easy to set a graser for self-destruction, and the explosion would be devastating - would have been devastating, for it had surely occurred.

  Bastards.

  Whoever they were, he would find them and bring punishment on their heads.

  Admiral, you were the best.

  Ironically, his office was thoroughly shielded and armoured. It would have served to contain the explosion; but everything and everyone inside would have been annihilated. He wondered how long it would take Internal Security to break in.

  And whether they would think that he had perished along with Admiral Kaltberg.

  That would be a help.

  He came out into a long cavernous space that looked as if it stretched forever - which was geometrically true. Bulbous pillars in all directions, glowing, illuminated the soft, endless, grey-blue floor and ceiling.

  There were food stashes all over - he had planned his emergency routes with care, over many years - but no devices existed here to help him. That was part of what kept this entire infinite subspace off the grid, undetectable from the rest of Labyrinth.

  And that was why the only way to reach any of his exit points was on foot. None was closer than a three-day walk from here.

  The Med Centre. That would be a good one.

  By exiting outside Ascension Annexe, he would be into public areas where enemies might hesitate to move; but the Med Centre would have access to emergency systems. He could mobilize people he trusted.

  Because the enemy, whoever they were, clearly included people with the highest level of security clearance, able to plan a killing inside the heart of the intelligence service.

  So, the Med Centre it was.

  ‘Here we go,’ he said aloud, to an entire reality inhabited only by him. ‘Might as well start now.’

  It would take seven, maybe eight days to reach the exit point he had decided on.

  Reading subtle rune-like markings on the pillars - his own secret code - he headed in the chosen direction. Perhaps twenty minutes into the journey, he stopped.

  ‘My God, Admiral. How did you do it?’

  For he had worked out the meaning behind her actions, and could not imagine doing it himself. Such discipline and courage were beyond him.

  The neural wiring had been active and adaptive, reinforcing itself as it worked, predominantly inside the right hemisphere of her brain. Thinking back, it was obvious.

  Every intelligence officer learned to read minutiae. In everyday conversation, often a person’s left hand will make subtle gestures that either reinforce or give the lie to the words that the person is speaking. It happens all the time, yet so few people notice.

  But, though the admiral’s left hemisphere could utter words, it had not been enough to quell the cross-brain compulsion from the implanted neural ‘wiring’ - a femtoviral targetted infection.

  Not until she had directed her inductive energy inwards, burning out the corpus callosum in her own brain, severing the bridge that linked her two cerebral hemispheres.

  And then she had fought, herself against herself inside her mind, giving him time to escape.

  Admiral Kaltberg. She deserved to be remembered with honour; just as her enemies deserved to experience eternal pain.

  Now he had two reasons to keep on going.

  THIRTY-THREE

  EARTH, 1930-1939 A.D.

  One afternoon on Bahnhofstrasse, Gavriela was walking with Florian Horst, the big ex-soldier who had been in her class that first day, helping Herr Professor Möller use the big wire basket as a Faraday cage. Like Gavriela, he was working on his doctorate; and they were deep into discussion of the new Rutherford results when someone called Gavriela’s name.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Florian, these are old friends of mine.’

  Petra, Elke and Inge were smiling, waiting to be introduced. Elke blushed when she shook Florian’s hand.

  ‘You’ve known Gavriela for a long time?’ asked Florian.

  ‘Since her first week here.’

  ‘Well, that’s how long I’ve known her.’

  ‘So,’ said Petra, ‘do you know any juicy scandal about Fräulein Wolf that we don’t?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Then we’ll just have to tell you all her secrets.’

  ‘Oh, please.’ Gavriela was smiling.

  ‘You’re not the one who’s going to Denmark, are you?’ asked Elke.

  ‘Ah, no.’ Florian shrugged his heavy shoulders. ‘That would be Lucas Krause.’

  ‘I see,’ said Elke, smiling.

  Petra, Inge and Gavriela exchanged looks. Lucas was the one with the offer to join the Bohr Institute; he was also the one whose eyes captivated Gavriela, but who shied away from any hint of intimate conversation.

  ‘I believe I know you, sir,’ said Elke.

  ‘Fräulein?’

  ‘There was a strongman competition in a beer hall, during the autumn festival. Lifting the stones and anvils.’

  ‘Ah.’ Florian grinned. ‘That could be.’

  ‘Herr Horst used to be a soldier,’ Gavriela said.

  ‘I adore the military,’ said Elke.

  ‘But I’m only a physicist now.’

  ‘So you can explain to me how big the solar system is?’

  ‘And the entire universe, which we call the Milky Way.’

  ‘Gavriela was talking about the galaxy, but I didn’t understand.’

  ‘Galaxy and universe are the same thing,’ said Florian. ‘The Milky Way is just our perspective on the rest of the galaxy-universe. We’re right out on the edge, you know.’

  ‘Near the end of everything?’

  ‘That’s exactly right.’

  Elke shivered.

  ‘And it’s also the reason,’ Florian went on, ‘that we need careful management of the peace, because we’re a fragile species on the only known inhabited world, orbiting around the only star that is known to have planets.’

  The awe on Elke’s face bore little relation to the mild interest she showed in Gavriela’s physics. Among themselves, the others would later decide this marked the moment Elke fell in love.

  ‘We were about to go to a café,’ said Petra, for Elke’s sake. ‘Please join us.’

  ‘I’d be delighted.’

  Once installed at a table, they chose cakes and ordered coffee. While they were waiting, Petra put a tiny silver box on the table.

  ‘Anybody need a pick-me-up?’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Something that Sigmund Freud recommends’ - Petra nodded towards Gavriela - ‘as a way of clearing the mind of neurotic malaise, a positivity tonic.’

  ‘You mean cocaine,’ said Florian. ‘I hear it has some unfortunate drawbacks.’

  ‘Nonsense. Does no one else want to try some?’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘Not for me.’

  Petra opened the little box.

  ‘Suit yourselves.’

  Later, Gavriela would pinpoint that day as a turning-point, when their old friendships changed course. For Elke, it would be the commencement of a swift romance, a delirious marriage, and eventually emigration, as Florian too gained a post in Copenhagen.

  For Petra it was the beginning of a different kind of tale.