by John Meaney
‘Stand right there.’ Garber gestured at the hundreds of Pilots all around. ‘You can see how many people we have. Enough to destroy your ship as well as you. I assume you’re enough of a Pilot to care about that.’
His personal staff were behind him, stone-faced to reinforce their superior officer’s intent. Of the group, Clara James stood furthest to the left.
‘Raise your hands, sir,’ said one of the Pilots controlling the restraint.
It glowed brighter, the twisted infinity that Max dared not place his hands inside.
‘You’re attempting to execute an illegal order,’ he said. ‘Hold back.’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ called Garber. ‘You’ve no choice.’
Max’s barrel chest expanded with preparatory inhalation.
‘No choice,’ he said, ‘but to take you bastards down.’
He slammed his big hands together and twisted, squinting against the fluorescence in his eyes, snarling with the effort of rotating the stuff of spacetime in this fashion, but doing it. In time with his hands, the infinity symbol rotated, then snapped outwards, ripping through the Pilots who thought they controlled it. One fell sideways, with a scream that came straight from the abattoir, while the other’s head bounced on the promenade, arterial blood spraying from his collapsed body.
‘Kill—’ Garber’s voice strangled shut.
Clara James stood between Garber and Schenck, her body cruciform: one extended fist pointed at Colonel Garber’s neck, the other at Admiral Schenck’s. Both fists were glowing scarlet.
‘No,’ she said.
Schenck’s lip turned up.
‘I’ve a thousand officers here,’ he said. ‘You have precisely—’
Those Pilots had been focused on the present danger, or they might have sensed it a second earlier: the twisting and shimmering of air around their positions, wherever they were.
‘Considerably more,’ said Clara.
Some three thousand Pilots stepped out of fastpath rotations, each with aimed fists, rings shimmering with the potential for devastation.
‘You thought it was time to move openly, after all those years of planning,’ called Max. ‘You were wrong.’
He stared up at the ceiling, for want of a better place to look.
‘How many of them can hear you?’
=Not so many.=
Perhaps being in the minority who could hear the city itself meant you were less likely to fall prey to Schenck’s type of treasonous conspiracy.
‘Tell them anyway.’
He waited, then gave a start as the words came through with full intensity, directed at everyone capable of perceiving them:
=Gould is correct. Schenck is a traitor.=
Here and there among the massed Pilots, individuals flinched. After a moment, those who had been part of Schenck’s force powered down their weapons. A few looked about to snarl: whether angry with themselves for being duped, or the city for not warning them, Max could not tell.
‘Kill them!’ yelled Schenck.
Max threw himself sideways – the moron – reacting even though he had expected Schenck to surrender – it’s insane – and he dropped to one knee, looking up at Schenck, in time to see the Admiral clap his hands and implode in blackness, disappearing.
What was that?
On the promenade and all around, isolated firefights flared amid screaming, while others threw themselves flat, but that was not the strangest thing: here and there, Pilots were coming to attention and clapping their hands, each disappearing in blackness.
Then around the dock space, ships were pulling clear, heading for the portal, accelerating at dangerous levels but with no collisions: streaming for the exit.
Max craned his neck back.
‘Stop them!’
The reply – directed at him, not generally – resonated through his body.
=I will not risk the damage.=
One by one, the Pilots most deeply immersed in conspiracy were fleeing Labyrinth, heading out into mu-space.
‘How many?’ said Max.
=Hundreds. Not just from your location.=
Meaning that, from other docks inside the city, and in ships that floated outside, Schenck’s people were getting away, still powerful, with their long-term intent unknown.
But it had a positive outcome: on the promenade, most of those who had been serving Schenck’s cause – thinking it legitimate – were surrendering. There was still fighting, but in some twenty isolated pockets, not spreading.
Max looked up at Clara. Her fist still glowed at Colonel Garber’s neck. The colonel’s face had manifested a layer of slick sweat, like transparent grease.
‘I don’t …’
He stopped, clearly not knowing what to say. Max had no reply, either. He was too far away to deliver a kick to the balls.
‘We’ve stopped you bastards,’ said Clara.
Her shoulder exploded, spray spattering Max’s face and Garber’s.
They met in the Admiralty Council Chamber: Max, Pavel Karelin, and several other Pilots, male and female, whom Jed did not know. Quite why he, Jed Goran, was here, no one said. They sat around the big conference table, and Jed was not the only one to be checking out the simple yet lustrous surroundings, unchanged from the Council’s founding after the first Admiral, Ro McNamara, stepped aside centuries before. Max, Jed noted, took a seat to the left of the empty chair at the table’s head. Opposite him, the right-hand seat was also vacant, while Pavel took the next one down.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said Max. ‘I’m here to prevent a treasonous coup, not perpetrate one. My intention is not to hold control. I sincerely hope that this is the only time I will sit at this table.’
There were nods from all around, though a few touched the richness of the tabletop. Perhaps they did have ambitions of returning here – hopefully by legitimate career advancement.
‘Our intention,’ Max added, ‘was that Admiral Asai run this session. His death was not as natural as official reports indicated, as some of you know. It was in fact one of the triggers for moving our counter-coup to the final stages.’
He looked around.
‘I would like to invite Admiral Whitwell and Admiral Zajac to take their seats, please.’
The black doors opened, and the two men entered, their physiques very different – Whitwell slender, Zajac stocky – but with similarly tightened body language. Jed assumed that they had not been part of Max’s covert campaign; the lack of friendly looks from those seated confirmed it.
Zajac’s face was blotched as he sat down at the table’s head. He did not look at Whitwell lowering himself into the seat at his right; instead he stared at one face and then the next face among the others: memorizing them in sequence, recognizing some.
‘Let us watch some footage first,’ suggested Max. ‘Because neither of you, gentlemen, saw what happened at the dock.’
Growling deep in his larynx, Zajac looked about to swing a punch. Then he said: ‘Agreed.’
The holovolume was of the highest resolution, while every chair offered its occupant the option of additional copies to be manipulated and explored at will. Everyone watched as the events played out once more. Jed found it odd to see himself, and embarrassing to see that he had done nothing but watch; but then, he had not known what was happening. Nor did he feel he had much grasp of the situation now.
‘What was that manifestation?’ asked Whitwell finally, with the vocal precision that Jed associated with academics. ‘Schenck’s escape mechanism at the end, along with his … cohort.’
Zajac, his face still blotched, took in a breath as if about to let loose verbally; then he stopped himself.
‘We don’t know,’ said Max. ‘Something like a fastpath rotation, clearly. But with the number of people and fastpaths in place, he should not have been able to summon an exit. The best we can think’ – he nodded to some Pilots further down the table – ‘is a sort of permanent spacetime fracture, rather than something that needs to be created as it
’s used. An escape route that’s always in place.’
‘He used an unknown technique,’ said Zajac, ‘to escape a larger hostile force. Nothing in that constitutes treason.’
Jed, staring at the now-still holo, had a different question to ask.
‘What happened to Clara?’ he said.
Frowns came from all sides; but she was one of the few people involved here that he actually knew, and he liked her.
‘In the Med Centre,’ said Pavel. ‘With Clayton guarding over her.’
‘Well, good. Sorry.’
Max gestured, and the holoview was replenished. For a moment, Jed thought it was a replay, because it showed the same docking space. But this was an earlier time, with fewer ships at dock, and after a moment he recognized one of them. It was distinctive: black and powerful, banded with red. Configured for unusual work, since it clearly lacked cargo space.
‘That’s Carl Blackstone’s ship,’ he said. ‘I saw it on Fulgor.’
Several people looked at him. Everyone knew who Blackstone had been, and the story of his hellflight sacrifice, coming here to raise the alarm.
‘You’re right,’ said Max. ‘And the city will verify what you’ll see if you zoom in on her hull. Admiral Zajac, you have control.’
‘What?’
‘Of the image, sir. Please go ahead.’
‘Hmm. Right.’
The black-and-red ship expanded in the display, and the scoring became obvious: gashes in her hull only just beginning to heal and scar.
‘That’s not realspace weapon fire,’ said Whitwell.
Max smiled, as if he had placed a bet with himself about who would spot it first, and had won.
‘Are you fucking serious?’ Zajac’s voice boomed around the majestic chamber. ‘You’re saying that one of Schenck’s people tried to kill Carl Blackstone? Tried to stop him raising the alarm regarding Fulgor?’
‘That’s right,’ said Max. ‘That’s what fucking Schenck did.’
Matching Zajac’s profanity had no noticeable effect.
Whitwell said, ‘More than one, I think. A prolonged engagement could leave similar traces, but I think there were multiple attackers, perhaps an ambush.’
‘Ambush?’ said Zajac. ‘You mean you believe these bastards?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps I do.’
Zajac turned on Max.
‘You’d better have more than this.’
‘Of course I do,’ said Max. ‘When Schenck began to move openly, we had the final confirmation on who was part of his coup. Our surveillance has been years in the construction, you understand. Recruiting the counter-strike force and keeping it secret, that was Pavel’s work. He saved us, gentlemen, in case you haven’t got that yet.’
‘So you have the details of all Schenck’s … co-conspirators, is that it?’
‘One of whom’ – Max nodded to Whitwell – ‘was your aidede-camp, Admiral. I’m sorry to say that she was killed … on her way to assassinate you.’
‘What? You’ve got … evidence. Of course you have.’
‘Yes. Sorry. While you, sir,’ Max said to Zajac, ‘Schenck thought safe to leave in place. It gave us suspicions about you, but he simply thought he could use your … ebullience … to his advantage, at least in the early days of assuming total control.’
Jed thought: for ebullience read belligerence.
‘What’s more, um, rarefied,’ added Max, ‘is that we have some people capable of detecting a sort of malign influence that … Schenck is not normal, and he broadcasts some kind of signs of that. Our people haven’t determined its nature, but every sensitive individual detects the same phenomena under the same double-blind circumstances. Call it an evil aura.’
‘Is this some form of mysticism?’ said Zajac.
‘Not to me. Maybe to Schenck. The point is, Carl Blackstone was one of the sensitives, and so is his son.’ Max looked at Jed. ‘Currently in hiding, and I think someone should fetch him back, don’t you?’
‘Er … Yes, sir.’ Jed started to shift forward, the chair reconfiguring to help him stand.
‘Not right this moment. Stay now, for pity’s sake,’ said Max. ‘Your testimony is possibly the most important part of what we’re discussing today.’
Confusion twisted vortex-like inside Jed.
‘Me?’
Max sighed.
‘Everyone, this footage I’m about to show you is from my ship. You’ll see Jed Goran’s ship appearing in it. The point is, since he was there with me, he’ll have similar footage from his own vessel’s memory. Not to mention, he can verify what he saw himself.’
Jed both understood and did not. Everything had been massively strange since the moment he gave chase to Max Gould; only now could he see that it had been two insane episodes, not one: the events at the galactic core, then here on the docks.
This time the holoview showed realspace, but blazing so brightly that someone had to ask: ‘Where is this, exactly?’
‘It’s near the heart of the galaxy,’ said Max. ‘There’s a phenomenon that I’ve known of for some time, but had not witnessed myself. Unlike Carl Blackstone.’
Jed did not know what to make of that.
‘I was there,’ he said. ‘Following the commodore.’
The image swung, revealing the linear spike from the galaxy’s core, like a needle thrust into a shining ball.
‘Galactic jet,’ said Whitwell. ‘In our galaxy. I didn’t know, but what is the point?’
Everything was in slow motion. They watched as the space station swung into view, saw the five mu-space vessels that were Max’s pursuers, and the ripple in reality that preceded the triple explosion destroying three of the ships. Jed looked away, not wanting to see Davey’s death again.
‘Let’s reset.’ Max gestured, and the galactic jet was visible once more, the image frozen. ‘And take a look at the geometry, will you, everyone?’
Numeric data glowed.
‘The ascension and declination look familiar,’ said Zajac. ‘I mean, tracing the jet’s path, the way it’s pointing …’
‘Earth,’ said Whitwell. ‘The jet is pointed radially out of the core, directly at Earth.’
That was when the air above the table began to ripple.
‘Holo, out!’ commanded Max.
Without the image, the distortion was obvious, and growing bigger. People began pushing themselves back from the conference table, getting to their feet.
‘Evacuate,’ said Max. ‘Everybody get—’
A hole in reality appeared, and a small white-and-red object fell out, hit the tabletop and bounced. Then spacetime wriggled back to normalcy, and the phenomenon was past.
Everyone looked to Admiral Whitwell for the answer – he had a reputation for immense eclectic knowledge, and his observations on the holo footage had been perceptive and incisive – but he shook his head, mouth downturned.
‘I think I know what it is,’ said a Pilot who looked too young to be part of this. ‘I’m a history buff, and my dad was a – he flew a large-distortion geodesic before I was born, see. With the time dilation, he remembers visiting Earth centuries ago. So I’ve always been interested in artefacts, and … Can I?’
Max took hold of the small object, remained still for a moment – nothing happened – then slid it along the table.
‘Oh, yeah.’ The young man picked it up. ‘This is great. Fantastic specimen. You’d think it was made yesterday instead of—’
Zajac growled.
‘Oh. Er … Sorry. It’s a graphene flake.’
‘What’s a graphene flake?’
With a blush: ‘Graphene was the miracle material of the twenty-first century. They called it a metamaterial, effectively a two-dimensional solid.’
To a roomful of Pilots, this was quaint, unimpressive stuff.
‘Get on with,’ said Max. ‘What use is a flake of material?’
‘Oh, didn’t I …? It’s a memory flake, almost indestructible. Data storage device. No one’s
used anything like this for five hundred years.’ And, with a wondering look: ‘If there’s any data on here, it would be like a message from the past, wouldn’t it?’
Zajac looked at Max.
‘Your doing?’
‘No, sir.’
Jed wondered if everyone was as confused as he was.
SIXTY
EARTH, 2033 AD
So here it was: Los Angeles. White-top freeways, crowded and stinking, and sun-glitter everywhere. The airport pick-up had no air-con, and the hot draught did little to help the seven passengers breathe. No one talked to the driver. Two British couples started comparing cynical notes, popping up local news sites on their qPads and pointing out the lack of international reportage. One of them muttered about parochialism. Lucas stared out the window as if he spoke no English, only occasionally glancing at the driver whose frown deepened by the mile.
They pulled up by the awning over the hotel entrance. The driver got out first, to unload the luggage from the side compartment. Lucas, whose bag came out last, slipped the driver a ten-dollar coin. Perhaps the tip-your-service-provider meme kept cash in existence here; back home, it was cultural inertia.
As the pick-up bus pulled away, Lucas scanned the sky and busy road before looking back at the entrance. There was a doorman, but he was helping one of the couples. Lucas might not be a trained spy or criminal, and he had flown on his passport because he had no idea how one might get a forgery; but he had been to the States before, and knew there was something unknown to the urban culture, a blind spot that might allow him to slip surveillance.
It was called walking; or perhaps he was relying too much on perceived gross differences. But so much of the city area was devoid of footpaths, designed only to be driven through.
His bag could be worn as a backpack, and after he had left the immediate environs of the hotel, he adjusted the strapping and slipped it over his shoulders, then tightened it up without breaking stride. As he walked, he thought back to the Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, and his sojourn in England before the First World War. It was G.H. Hardy in Cambridge, renowned in the mathematical world, who had spotted the self-educated genius – had Ramunajan been a painter, he would have been called a primitive – and brought him over from southern India.