Transmission: Ragnarok: Book Two

by John Meaney

  An older generation of teachers was struggling with this newness. The ones who accepted Gavriela were the minority, but they were enough; and she came to care for the boys as much as for the science that she taught them. So this was survival, therefore victory, if not the life she had dreamed of.

  Carl was in bed, and she was reading the new C.P. Snow, The Light and the Dark, when a triplet of knocks sounded from the front door of the flat, peremptory and recognizable.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked the empty room, putting down her book.

  When she let Rupert in, he sauntered through to the small sitting-room and sat down on the burgundy two-seater, before crossing his legs and greeting her.

  ‘I’m really glad to see you again,’ he said. ‘Dear Gavi.’

  His Oxonian drawl, to some ears, might have belied the surface meaning; but Gavriela thought, with surprise, that he meant it.

  ‘I’ll make some tea,’ she said.

  ‘No sugar, that’d be splendid.’

  She came back with tea and bourbon creams; and they made a start on both before continuing their talk, preamble to whatever it was that Rupert wanted.

  ‘I’m known as Gabrielle these days,’ she said. ‘Gabby was a little too informal.’

  ‘One needs a smidgen or more of gravitas among the brats, I suppose. How is the world of teaching?’

  ‘I don’t need to use the cane more than twenty times a day.’ She looked at him. ‘That was a joke.’

  ‘My old school’s motto was: So many thrashings, so little time. At least that was how we translated the Latin.’

  ‘Ours is ad astra.’ She smiled. ‘I point out that the RAF adds per ardua, because if you dream of reaching the stars, you have to put in the work.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘So why have you ventured out among the struggling classes, dear Rupert?’

  They smiled more or less together, in a harmony that was new.

  ‘This and that,’ he said. ‘I’ve a couple of photographs to show you, but that’s not why I’m here. May I?’

  ‘If you like.’

  They were in an envelope; he slid them out and handed over the first.

  ‘Do you recognize the older gentleman?’ he said. ‘Either of them, really.’

  ‘Sorry. They’re standing like father and son. Or …’

  Rupert’s smile was more sad than cold.

  ‘Or two men with a relationship they dare not speak of? The former, in fact. The older gentleman is Max Planck, which is a name I gather you are bound to know.’

  ‘Of course.’ She laid a hand on the book she had put down. ‘Doesn’t everyone?’

  ‘Neither Virgil nor Homer wrote much about quantum mechanics,’ said Rupert. ‘It’s a little outside my purview.’

  ‘And the younger man?’ she said. ‘Is he significant?’

  ‘To Planck, certainly. It’s his son Erwin, or rather was. The Nazis hanged him in ‘45.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘For trying to kill Hitler in fact, which makes me think rather highly of the chap. Take a look at this.’

  The second photograph showed the younger Planck standing with a man in suit and overcoat. Blurred though the background was, the black hooked cross was obvious: a Hakenkreuz, centre of a hanging Swastika. Wartime Germany or occupied Europe was the photograph’s setting. She had no problem recognizing the other man.

  ‘When I met him before the war,’ she said, ‘he told me his name was Dmitri Shtemenko, though he introduced himself to everyone else as … Jürgen. Oh, what was …? Jürgen Schäffer-Braun, that was it. He was … But you know what he was, don’t you?’

  ‘I do.’ Rupert re-crossed his legs, elegant as always. ‘When you debriefed in Baker Street to Brian’ – he paused, just a little – ‘that night we apprehended those two darkness-driven men in Trafalgar Square … You gave those names then, Shtemenko and Schäffer-Braun, when you talked about your past.’

  ‘Well, then.’

  It was a way of asking him to explain.

  ‘There was an incident in Berlin last month,’ he said. ‘During de-Nazification procedures, someone made an accusation against our man here.’ He tapped the picture of Dmitri. ‘He’d resurrected the Schäffer-Braun identity, presumably in a hurry, which is how he got flagged up. He featured in Berlin Station’s reports because of the rather unusual way he slipped out of their grasp.’

  ‘Using something like hypnotism,’ said Gavriela.

  ‘Exactly.’

  She handed him back the photographs.

  ‘But this wasn’t why you came here?’

  ‘No, I just wanted confirmation of our slippery friend’s identity. In case he reappears someday.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Er … Would you mind if I use the little boy’s room?’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  She cleared the cups and plates while he was gone. There was a thump – Rupert had pulled the chain unnecessarily hard – and he waited with the door closed before the sound of flushing diminished – how very like him – before exiting the lavatory and going in to the bathroom to wash his hands.

  Gavriela checked on Carl: asleep, tired out by his day.

  She went back to the sitting-room and sat down, knowing that Rupert on his return was going to come to the point.

  Afterwards, for all her resolution against it, she went back into Carl’s room and woke him.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t help it.’

  ‘Ugh … That’s all right, Mummy.’ Sleepy smile, trusting eyes. ‘All right.’

  ‘I wondered … How would you like to live in a new place? Go to a new school?’

  Carl frowned. School was new. What else could it be?

  ‘I mean a different new school,’ Gavriela added.

  But Carl was blinking, yawning.

  ‘Go back to sleep,’ she told him. ‘Go on now. Mummy’s sorry. Sleep now.’

  She used the voice tone she had read about in D.A.R. Greene’s book on mesmerism, but it was probably exhaustion that dropped her tired son back into sleep.

  Four weeks later, she took a bus then walked along a drab street in Eastcote, the sooty air typical of Middlesex, or northwest London if one preferred. After tomorrow, there would be special transport she could ride on, so she had been told: a grey-painted coach that looked like a factory bus for ferrying workers to its site; and that had a certain accuracy.

  Am I doing the right thing?

  She would miss the boys, but she knew what she was good at, and here she could achieve so much more, if it was anything like she imagined.

  ‘There’s a list of names, old thing,’ Rupert had told her, ‘of those who worked at BP. It won’t be published for thirty years, of course, under the usual rules.’

  Three decades was too long to worry about. The annual declassification of thirty-year-old secrets was nothing that could concern her.

  ‘And of course, there are quite a few chaps with clearance to read the list right now,’ added Rupert. ‘You’d expect that, naturally.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ she had said.

  ‘The thing is, if one compares the number of names on the list with the known complement of the Park, well, there’s something of a shortfall. A four-digit shortfall.’

  Perhaps it was the reference to numbers or the hint of a mystery, but that was the moment she had become interested.

  ‘What happened to them all?’ she asked.

  ‘They never left, of course.’

  ‘But Bletchley Park—’

  ‘The site’s been decommissioned, but it’s not the location that’s important, is it?’

  ‘No, of course not.’ Now she understood the decision he was after. ‘Did you think I might say no? So long as you realize I don’t speak Russian.’

  ‘I’m sure you can learn, old girl.’

  Now, she arrived at a gateway between a wall and a brick building with barred windows. In the courtyard beyond, a single-storey whitewashed affair stood
before a two-storey backdrop, the whole site looking like the headquarters for one of the big dairy companies or some such, except that here no fleet of milk-carts would be setting out at dawn for the doorsteps of Middlesex. Overt signs of armed guards were absent; but the men at the gate had the relaxed, joking, watchful manner of grizzled NCOs, fazed by nothing.

  ‘It’s my first day,’ she said, as they checked her name off a list in the security hut. ‘I suppose someone needs to meet me.’

  ‘Too true, lass,’ replied a heavyset guard.

  ‘Aye ‘appen,’ said someone else, aping the Yorkshire accent. ‘Lucky I’m here, then.’

  It was Brian, of course. The suit was of better cut than she had seen him in last; the empty left sleeve was tucked in to the pocket as if sewn in place and ironed flat. When he looked at her, no emotional spark leapt between them.

  Good.

  There had been nothing to worry about.

  And when he added, ‘Welcome to GCHQ. Or rather, welcome back,’ his tone was only marginally warmer than neutral, mildly marking her re-entrance to the covert world.

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  MOLSIN 2603 AD

  The maths was more painful than the fighting.

  ‘I can’t do this.’ Roger minimized the holo display. ‘Really, I can’t.’

  They were sitting cross-legged on the quickglass floor, facing each other. Without the holo phase space and subsidiary equations glowing in mid-air, their mutual view was unobstructed.

  ‘It’s only a form of fear that holds you back,’ she said. ‘Are you open to a motivational technique?’

  ‘What kind of technique?’ he asked.

  ‘There are all sorts of mental states we can usefully distinguish.’ Reflected lights slid across Rhianna’s polished-jet eyes. ‘Being lost in a holodrama – very trance-like – or fascinated by abstract geometry or fearfully aware of physical danger. They’re all useful states in context, all worth triggering when appropriate. Agreed?’

  ‘Er, yes.’

  Roger had grown wary of agreeing with her. It seemed to indicate a short path to a situation he was not going to like.

  ‘So here’s my psychological technique,’ said Rhianna, ‘for encouraging you to become fascinated with maths. All right?’

  ‘Um, OK.’

  ‘You’re ready for this technique?’

  Saliva was doing odd things inside his throat.

  ‘I … Right.’

  ‘Brace yourself. Here it is.’

  He held himself ready.

  ‘If you don’t solve the Lockwood equations,’ said Rhianna, ‘I will beat the fucking shit out of you.’

  ‘Er …’

  Her knuckles cracked as she made fists.

  ‘Are we motivated yet?’

  They were four days into the training. Roger checked through the inverse-power-law high-connection web that modelled the surveillance network Rhianna was tapped into – not just in Deltaville and Barbour, but in other sky-cities. It was a robust set-up, and he told her so.

  ‘But we haven’t caught sight of Helsen, have we?’ said Rhianna. ‘What do you think that means?’

  ‘That she’s not stupid. Specifically’ – he knew Rhianna would want an explanation – ‘she’s done the same kind of analysis, matching surveillance coverage to connectedness, and exploited the, er, dark areas. The places no one watches.’

  He had come to another conclusion. Rhianna had helped ensure that no Zajinets or other Pilots remained on Molsin, thereby isolating Helsen and Ranulph, confining them to this world. It was better for the risk to be here, known and imminent, than on some other planet, unknown to those who lived there.

  Roger did not want to die, but beyond that, he would have hesitated rather than risk Leeja’s life, even Tannier’s. Rhianna would have understood precisely what was going on; and he was sure that she would commit suicide before allowing darkness-controlled people to seize her ship … assuming she had one. Perhaps she was one of the Shipless (he dared not ask), requiring others to transport her. If anything, it might make her a better agent-in-place than Dad had been, always pining for his own ship.

  Just as Roger missed his ship, child though she was, not big enough to fly for real.

  ‘We’ll make a true Pilot out of you,’ said Rhianna. ‘Back in Labyrinth, when this is over.’

  He was getting used to her spooky manner of deducing thoughts. Then he processed the plural pronoun.

  ‘But you’re …’ Roger thought about it. ‘Dad was in place for decades. On Fulgor, I mean.’

  ‘I have to consider myself compromised.’ Rhianna popped open several holo-volumes. ‘Tannier is a good man, and I’m sure his superiors are good people. But someone will talk, even if the immediate group choose to protect me. Which I doubt.’

  ‘Not even if you move to another sky-city?’

  ‘Ah.’ Rhianna smiled. ‘I rather fancy living on Yukawa. But I think I’m done here.’

  ‘My fault.’

  ‘No, it’s the nature of the job. As you well know, and well done for keeping control of the conversation.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean’ – Rhianna caused the holos to grow and brighten – ‘you’re trying to avoid more maths.’

  Roger smiled. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Yeah, well. Start by telling me what these pictures have in common. Keep it easy and conceptual, and we’ll get to the hairy equations shortly.’

  That suited him. One by one he checked the holos: fireflies pulsing in a forest, wind-rays billowing and brightening above paramagnetic sands, the planet Mercury and Earth’s moon in their respective orbits, a swaying rope bridge as a party of tourists marched along it—

  ‘Resonance,’ he said, without examining the rest. ‘Synchronization caused by feedback.’

  It was a universal property in so many contexts, from the quantum realm to entire worlds, like Mercury whose orbit and axial rotation were phase-locked, its year and day identical. Put two pendulum clocks together and they alter their swings until they are in opposite lock-step. Let the same effect occur in cardiac cells and you have a heart that knows how to beat in rhythm.

  ‘Give me some more examples of negative feedback adjusting towards resonance.’

  ‘Well, there’s—’

  ‘With equations now,’ said Rhianna. ‘Come on.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’

  Later they stared at a holo depicting Fulgor.

  ‘Here be dragons,’ said Rhianna. ‘The place no ship dares to approach.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we be doing some modelling?’ asked Roger. ‘You know, maths? Those equations I love to formulate?’

  ‘Feeling more confident, are we? Well, good enough. Cheek your elders and betters, why don’t you.’

  The more Roger grew used to her bullying, the less she seemed to do it.

  ‘We don’t know how far the Anomaly can reach through the hyperdimensions,’ he said. ‘Is that it? We haven’t got a critical parameter for the model.’

  ‘Maximum range is of the order of tens of kilometres in the main three dimensions.’ Rhianna enlarged the holo. ‘No doubt the Admiralty will have posted ships beyond that range. And other observers at successive distances further out, just in case we got it wrong.’

  Cold-blooded but sensible.

  ‘So we’re safe,’ said Roger, ‘as long as we quarantine the planet.’

  ‘Molsin was under quarantine, but the bastard Zajinets still appeared.’

  ‘They hate the darkness more than we do.’

  ‘Maybe they’re not the problem, though I hate to say so.’

  Alone and with time to think, Roger pondered while flexing his hand. The forearm felt intact, thanks to Rhianna’s ministrations after her armbar technique had snapped the bone through. Long-molecule arrays formed of smartatoms were aggregated into a lattice that held everything in place, promoting and directing the healing process. As the new cells formed, the smartatoms would pull away, dissolving themselves.

 
; Resonance, global synchrony from local feedback, enabled the aggregated arrays to work as if collectively intelligent. Whether the Anomaly functioned like that, resonating from one component to another like pendulums in step, no one knew for sure. But reasoning from mathematical principles, it seemed likely.

  Can you use maths that way?

  The history of computation had been an odd subject, taught in Fulgidi schools at age twelve standard. Centuries ago, early software had been cobbled together more than mathematically designed, even though symbolic logic and set theory were well understood long before the mathematics of cohenstewart discontinuities and other forms of emergent phenomena. It was a wonder the old systems had ever worked at all.

  And while AI had been a success for more than a century, it became subsumed in other technology – such as quickglass – and largely forgotten (while a part of Roger’s mind noted that Ai had been the forefather of the race of serfs, just as Fathir and Mothir had produced the noble-born). Nowadays system studies tended towards the descriptiveness of ecoscience as much as the prescriptiveness of engineering disciplines.

  What the Fulgidi educational system did not address was the study of war.

  Labyrinth must be different.

  Because the Aeternal word for tactic had structural similarities to the words schema and process, while military engagement had overtones of network and parallel sequential-process interactions. The word for war was almost identical to the term for global system architecture.

  Warfare as a branch of mathematics.

  For a moment it did not sit right with him, this notion. But that was the old Roger, the innocent whose world had not yet been torn to shreds. Now, nothing could be more important than revenge, to take the fight to the enemy.

  For the first time, maths came totally to life in his mind.

  Some three hours later, Rhianna looked over the phase-spaces, schemata, proof-trees and system diagrams, hanging in holos like a small orchard of tree-images, rich and complex and structured, artistic in its overall configuration.