by John Meaney
Winter-time in Russia.
I do not belong to the darkness.
In his dreams, he thought that the occurrence of warfare mattered more to that pseudo-imaginary power than any particular victory; still, he felt that it preferred the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to suffer defeat, meaning he had a choice: which of his masters to betray.
‘I tell you what,’ said Sergei. ‘Since you’re busy with that thinking stuff, I’ll make breakfast for both of us. All right?’
‘Huh.’
Because this piece of intelligence was crucial: he was sure of it. So he had three choices: take credit with Moscow, as Sergei suggested; allow Torginov and his contacts to investigate further and perhaps make their own report; or shut the whole thing down, killing Torginov and burying the news of Japanese plans to strike eastward.
He felt the expression grow on his face: the Trickster smile, the harsh-humoured grin of Loki, both a god and betrayer of Asgarth. Ever since Dmitri learned the meaning of the word ‘Russia’ and associated it with the natural redness of his hair, he had felt kinship with those Old Norse beings, a resonance that spanned the centuries, and never mind that the Nazis did the same.
A choice between evils.
What could be better?
Hideo Kanazawa had wept in his sleep: something that should not be possible, surely; yet it brought back his first days at Naval School, and the bullying he had received as a sissy-boy who missed his parents. Now, he stood in his thin yukata kimono, cold despite the sunlight outside, and stared at the smart, serviceable kanji he had inked in what had been a blank, virgin book.
The written words spoke of pincer attacks and the importance of intelligence; and they mocked him just as the bullies had, because they were not his thoughts: they were words strained from thickened idea-stuff forced through him like grains from cooked rice. It was turgid, the language of von Clausewitz, but not enough to hide the psychotic brilliance of that military mind. Kanazawa picked up the volume he was trying to translate, and pictured himself hurling it across the room to rip through a shoji screen; then he replaced the book with exquisite gentleness, and let out a silent breath.
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.
SEVEN
MOLSIN, 2603 AD
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.
No. Absolutely, no.
All in his mind.
Alisha’s face looked blue as the upper carapace grew transparent. Purple-garbed medics tended holodisplays. All around, the med-hall was a vast space of mint-green and icing-white quickglass, the floor shining, reflecting the dozens of med-drones laid out in rows. Peripheral archways led to similar halls. Here and there, green hemispheric quickglass bubbles grew from the floor to enclose a med-drone, cutting off the patient from view as human medics and the city’s inbuilt systems got to work.
‘—your friend?’ someone was saying.
‘Sorry?’ said Roger. ‘I missed that.’
The medic had short white hair and green eyes, matching the surroundings.
‘Alisha Spalding is your friend,’ she said. ‘Have I got that right?’
‘Yes. Yes, she is.’
Jed was off somewhere with Bod, sorting out the overall disposition of the comatose refugees. Roger could have done with Jed’s support.
‘We’re going to try to wake Alisha now.’ The medic nodded towards three younger
-looking colleagues whose hands were flickering through control gestures. ‘Taking it carefully.’
Many of the other drones appeared to be cycling to slow wakefulness without human oversight.
‘She was … traumatized,’ said Roger. ‘I guess the annotation data shows that, right?’
‘It does. Seeing the city come apart around her must have been frightening, so it’s understandable that—’
‘Alisha is – was – pre-upraise, about to become a Luculenta.’
Two of the medics stiffened.
‘She doesn’t have plexnodes implanted,’ Roger added to forestall their panic. ‘She’s not vulnerable in the way true Luculenti were. But she did get attacked through her interfaces, and she was, er, almost catatonic when I found her. Before everything went insane.’
At some point the Anomaly had gained the ability to link to ordinary minds; but at first it had been Luculenti who formed its components, linked through the virtual Skein: formerly their paradise and playground, finally the enabling mechanism of extinction. That was why Pilots had killed every Luculentus or Luculenta among the refugees, dumping the corpses before they dared fly to Labyrinth.
Medics would understand the need to squash a nascent epidemic.
‘We’re blocking cortisol and noradrenaline production,’ said one of them. ‘Dr Keele? We can bring her to full consciousness now.’
‘One moment.’ The white-haired medic turned back to Roger. ‘Alisha’s going to be spaced out, somewhat. She may not be able to focus on you.’
‘You need her to wake up feeling good.’
‘That’s the idea. All right, everyone. Let’s bring her out of it.’
Alisha blinked three times, then opened her eyes fully.
‘Good,’ murmured Dr Keele. ‘Very—’
The veins on Alisha’s forehead stood out as she saw Roger.
And screamed.
‘Shit.’
A medic gestured. Alisha’s eyelids fluttered. She dropped back into coma.