by John Meaney
‘Cooking-pot,’ said Gavriela.
‘The inscription says—’
‘It’s wrong.’
He raised an eyebrow, as if to ask when she had become an archaeologist, but said nothing. Gavriela had been expecting pointed irony.
‘How’s Brian?’ she asked, wondering if that was where the problem lay.
‘Shacked up with a dance choreographer in Soho.’
That stopped her. ‘Oh, Rupert.’
‘The fellow’s fifteen years younger than I am.’ This was bitterness such as Gavriela had never heard, not from Rupert. ‘And here I am among the antiquities. No jokes about old queens, please.’
She slipped her arm inside his. ‘I was going to suggest that pot of tea,’ she said. ‘And perhaps a nice chocolate biccie to dunk in it.’
They sat in a noisy corner of the tea-room, which was better than silence for private conversation. Gavriela was finishing her tea when Rupert said, ‘I’ve other news.’
‘What is it?’
‘Something best learnt when one has placed the cup back on the saucer, dear Gavi.’
She put it down carefully.
‘At least I’m already sitting,’ she said. ‘I take it you have smelling salts in case I decide to faint.’
‘Not an eventuality I thought of, quite frankly. It’s just that in addition to becoming a grandmother . . . Congratulations, by the way. I mean it.’
She patted his hand.
‘Yes, I know you do. And I’m getting nervous. What—?’
‘You’re also due to become a great aunt,’ he told her. ‘In three months’ time, give or take.’
Several blinks accompanied her search for meaning in his words.
‘I don’t . . . Oh.’ It was obvious. ‘You mean Ursula.’
Her niece. Step-daughter to Dmitri Shtemenko, defector, for whatever that was worth – the debriefers in the old Wiltshire mansion would have got everything they could from her, but no professional intelligence officer would shared classified material with their family – and living somewhere in Britain, as far as Gavriela knew, for these past, what, sixteen years? That would make her thirty-two or thirty-three, depending on when her birthday fell.
My only niece and I don’t know even that.
Or the name that people called her these days. It surely would not be Ursula Shtemenko, or even Ursula Wolf.
‘When did she marry?’ she asked Rupert.
His answer was a short silence, then: ‘A couple of my schoolfriends were bastards, literally speaking. They had a hard time of it, I grant you, bullied every day for years. But they got through it.’
That was not comforting. She wondered if Rupert were annoyed with Ursula out of principle or because – a better thought – he would have preferred to relay a happier version of events to her, Gavriela.
‘Carl wasn’t exactly born in wedlock either,’ she said.
‘He was, in the only way that matters.’ Rupert meant the legal documentation, forged by his department, that had showed Gavriela, or rather Gabrielle Woods, to be a war widow. ‘Sodding Brian, I don’t know how you could ever forgive him or me. Especially me.’
She squeezed his pale hand.
‘We did what we had to, all of us, dear Rupert. And as for them . . .’ She gestured to a group of young people dressed androgynously, males and females wearing identically flared pastel jeans, their hair equally shoulder length but without the braids a warrior needed to keep the hair out of his eyes – where had that thought come from? – and ridiculous shoes unsuitable for running or agile footwork. ‘They’ll never know what we went through, but it doesn’t matter.’
Give the young folk their due – they did not look like the kind of people who would care about illegitimacy one way or the other. Perhaps her great-niece or great-nephew would not face the same kind of harshness that others used to.
Or her grandson.
‘Anna’s not married to Carl either.’ She had not meant to tell Rupert. ‘I know I call her his wife, but they haven’t ever tied the knot, not legally. She’s still Anna Gould.’
Rupert sighed. ‘You and I . . . The people in our lives don’t have an easy time of it, do they?’
‘Cursed by gypsies, is that what you mean?’
He finally smiled, his face lean, porcelain skin showing lines. ‘On the rare times a game gets out of control,’ he said, ‘I prefer castling as a manoeuvre. A defensive huddle staving off defeat, while I find a way to survive.’
She had always thought of him as playing the chess game of life, and him a grandmaster, but she had never heard him use the metaphor so precisely.
Then he added, ‘Why don’t you come round for supper?’
‘Um . . . You mean to your house?’
‘That’s what I was thinking of.’
She had never been there.
‘And when were you thinking of?’
‘Tonight. If you’re visiting Anna and the baby in hospital, then a late supper, perhaps.’
Was this what he had meant by castling? Old friends spending time in each other’s company as a defence against loneliness?
‘I’d love to, dear Rupert.’
‘Well, good.’
Over the next few weeks, she became a regular visitor to Rupert’s Chelsea home, where listening to Brahms or Bach in his drawing-room (not a term she had ever used outside ironic conversation) became a pleasant habit. At Oxford he had read Greats, which the rest of the world called Classics, and his collection of sketches and old books was fascinating.
But there was another postscript to their meeting in the British Museum that she did not share with him at first, because he did not need the worry. He had officially retired from the Service, and his intention was to write monographs on ancient Troy and the relationship between the early Roman Empire and Greece – echoes of Macmillan’s speech in ’56 regarding Britain and the States – with the benefit of insight gained from a career spent among the secret strategists and covert machinations of international politics.
In her overcoat pocket, when she had recovered it from the museum cloakroom, there had been a photograph, the second time such a message had been left for her. The other time, the picture had shown Ilse and Dmitri, with the girl who turned out to be Ursula; it suggested that this second photo came from Dmitri also, but the darkness did not leave traces in handled material, so there was no way to be sure.
It was consistent with the location, a photograph of a withered, blackened iron blade that might have come from the museum’s Roman room, except that Gavriela could read the pattern that surely no one else could see among the creases and folds.
The sword, more than a millennium old, seemed to be in a display case, no doubt a museum, but the photographer had been careful to exclude any clues as to which museum, or even which country, it might be in. And yet it was not the physical object but the runic word upon it that resonated with Gavriela—
So brave, my Wolf.
—and that was upsetting because it was surely what the anonymous donor intended, and she could not think of anyone but Dmitri Shtemenko who would play with her mind that way. After a day’s thought, she decided to share it with Rupert, because she did not like the coincidence of Dmitri’s being in the country – him or someone working for him – at the same time that Ursula was pregnant.
‘You said he considered Ursula a possession.’ Rupert was sitting with legs crossed in his high-backed armchair. ‘Not a stepdaughter he loved, but something he owned. That we had stolen from him.’
‘I was biased against the idea of him defecting, because I didn’t trust him not to play a double game.’ Gavriela was in the matching chair, at an angle to the fireplace, sitting upright because she could not relax. ‘It may have shaded my perceptions. But I think I was correct, in terms of how he felt about Ursula.’
The knowledge that Rupert was officially retired hung between them.
‘I’ll make a phone call,’ he said after a minute.
�
�Thank you.’
There was nothing to do but increase whatever security and surveillance was around Ursula. The details were up to others, far outside Gavriela’s purview and even – these days – Rupert’s.
‘You remember when you sent me to the States?’ she said then.
His lean form tightened. He had sent her in wartime across the dangerous Atlantic – pregnant, though no one knew that, not even Gavriela – to visit Los Alamos for legitimate reasons but also to get her away from Brian, her one night stand, his long term secret lover.
‘The FBI man,’ she said, softening her voice, ‘called Payne, who showed me around, also taught me some New York slang. Noo Yoik,’ she added, ‘including “doing a Brody”, meaning to take a dive off a bridge, suicidally.’
Rupert shook his head.
‘Damnable,’ was all he said.
The ‘Americanisation’ – itself a hated term – of the English language was something he detested, and often said so.
‘I think I mentioned it to Anna once,’ said Gavriela. ‘I’m wondering if that’s where she got the name from.’
‘Dear Gavi’ – he could use her real name here – ‘I really am failing to catch your drift.’
‘My grandson is to be called Brody Gould. Not even his father’s surname, you’ll note.’
‘Oh, dear.’
‘I feel like killing her. Know any decent assassins, Rupert?’
‘None that you can afford.’
She let out a breath and sank back in the comfortable arm-chair. ‘Just as well.’
‘Speaking of what you can afford . . . The rent on your flat is probably quite steep.’
‘No more than anyone’s. What about this place? It must cost a fortune, so it’s lucky you have one.’
Rupert’s lean face twisted.
‘Not the word I’d use, but I’m comfortably off. As for the house, I own it outright, as did my parents for that matter.’
Without jealousy, Gavriela said, ‘Lucky you.’
‘Yes, I know. And with all those spare bedrooms that Mrs Hooper keeps spotless and no one ever sleeps in. So I was wondering . . .’
This was unusual hesitation for the retired spymaster.
‘ . . .whether you’d care to move in, dear Gavi. With all your science books and whatnot, of course. Slide-rules, kind of thing. Broaden my mind.’
She looked at the shelves of books in here – a small portion of the collection scattered throughout the house – then back at Rupert.
‘I’ll move in tomorrow,’ she said.
They stared at each other for a moment, then they both nodded.
‘So,’ said Rupert, picking up a folded Times from the floor. ‘Have you seen today’s crossword?’
‘Not yet.’
He retrieved his fountain-pen and unscrewed the cap. No pencil for him: ink meant getting it right first time.
‘Shall we tackle it together?’
‘Yes,’ said Gavriela. ‘I think we should.’
THIRTY-EIGHT
MU-SPACE & GALACTIC CORE ENVIRONS, 2606 AD
Bad luck hit the mission early. A squadron of Zajinets was heading along the same trajectory, and perhaps for the same purpose; but that was the problem with a war on two fronts – three if you counted the realspace Anomaly of Fulgor and Siganth – against different hostile forces. My enemy’s enemy is trying to kill me, thought Roger, as comms burst into life with a command from Nakamura:
++Scatter right high. Plan 7 alpha.++
Roger and ship sent the ack signal – acknowledgement – along with everyone else as forty-five vessels split into nine soaring threads that curved around to avoid the energy beams tearing along the geodesic they had been following, and allowed them within seconds to target the Zajinets.
The first ship to explode was a heavy Zajinet vessel, raked by fire from Rhames and the four Pilots forming her wing. But the chase was on through layers of self-similar spacetime contours, fractal fire forking and branching, like living lightning, and in the next few subjective seconds Roger counted thirteen ships exploding, seven of them Pilots including an entire five ship wing.
But the Zajinets were tricky, and several vessels broke away and disappeared into mu-space depths. Seeing that, Nakamura sent the break-off signal, and the thirty-eight surviving Pilots disengaged from the fight and tore off onto a near-hell-flight geodesic that the Zajinets would find it hard to follow, starting as it did from a hugely non-linear volume of turbulence: only continuous inter-vessel comms allowed the Pilots to keep their ships aligned together and following the same trajectory.
++They might call for reinforcements. Bug-out count-down is now 100 hours from insertion, repeat 100. Copy all?++
Ship and Roger were straining with the effort of flight, but they spared the attention to send an ack blip, and presumably the rest of the squadron did likewise because they kept formation and flew harder than ever until Nakamura finally gave the signal to disengage and slip into an easier glide mode, ready for the final insertion.
But this was one of the things that made them special forces: the ability to fly hard, beyond the point where most Pilots and ships would break down, and then without recovery to move into a battle zone and operate better there than ordinary com bat trained ships and Pilots could when fresh.
Insertion.
And the exit into blazing space, filled with a profusion of starlight from the massive population making up the galactic core.
Quiescent and watching, in a warrior’s state of not-thought, of mushin, they floated, using passive sensors only – no transmission waves to ping against whatever they observed – for their job was reconnaissance, not assault, with the proviso that if they had to fight to get clear, they would bring shock and awe to the renegades, spreading death and confusion as they escaped.
Ordinary Pilots might have seen nothing, but the thirty-eight SRS Pilots and their highly trained ships were able, through stillness and hyper acuity, to observe shapes and movement against the blazing background, to make out patterns that others would not perceive, to piece together the nature of the installation existing here, and the vessels that attended it.
In briefing sessions they had referred to it hypothetically as Target Shadow, and here it was, not just a figment of the planners’ imagination but real and still growing, from what they could see.
The extended construction was vast: a sprawling free-floating militarised base, around which a flock of vessels moved, both realspace shuttles and mu-space ships Piloted by renegades. It was that mixture of Pilot and non-Pilot forces that meant the base had to be situated in realspace – that and the fact that the darkness was of this universe, perhaps more so than humanity, with goals that had nothing to do with mu-space and everything to do with the galactic core, and the thousand lightyear jet that spurted from it, perhaps from the legendary black hole at the exact centre of—
Maybe not.
What do you mean?
Drifting.
No one’s been to the very centre, have they?
Not alive. Maybe fragments of wreckage have drifted in.
I wouldn’t risk your safety, my love.
Quiet. No signals chatter among the ships.
We’re already in danger together, aren’t we?
True.
But the countdown continued, one hundred hours steadily diminishing to zero, the bug out time set by Nakamura acting as squadron leader, while Rhames as commander kept to the rear, relinquishing her right to lead – not the way Roger had envisioned combat squadrons operating, not until he joined one – and made no comment, indicating confidence in Nakamura’s decision.
Zero.
Stealth meant exiting to mu-space at such a precise angle and energy that spillover radiation was close to nothing, detectible only to someone who knew where to look and what to look for, with the most sensitive of equipment. One by one, the Pilots’ ships slipped out of realspace existence and were gone . . .
Ready?
. . .un
til Roger-and-ship alone remained.
Ready now.
They blasted into mu-space, creating a transition signature that would have lit up the realspace environment like an explosion, even amid the shining light of a billion suns.
Because they were heading into the true core, and it would take force as well as finesse to prevent them breaking apart in the jagged mu-space reefs corresponding to the titanic gravitational swirls of the black hole at the centre, except, except—
I love you.
Yes.
—they burst out into realspace for a fraction of a second, right at the threshold of obliteration, enough to see what they knew they were going to see, and then they ripped away into mu-space once more, turbulence and chaos as they had never experienced – so hard to fly – as they twisted around obstacles like coral reefs formed of folded spacetime, hurtled down through spirals of reality – very hard, but we can do it – and finally, finally pulled onto a geodesic that with luck would take them clear – yes – and they screamed along a trajectory more extreme than a hellflight, a reality-shearing, self-immolating, agonising way to fly for which there was no word, not even in Aeternum; and then they were through, tumbling into a clear golden void which by the standards they had grown used to was simple mu-space, easy to traverse, though its currents were strong.
They coursed into a crimson nebula.
What year will it be when we return to Labyrinth?
I don’t know, I really don’t.
Even their superlative ability to track distortions had failed during the ultra-hellflight episode that challenged most of what they had learned in Labyrinth about theoretical limits to ship-and-Pilot performance.
But we’ll still be able to find Labyrinth.
That will never change.
Their flight was easier now.
And was it worth it?
The Admiralty will think so.
As of this moment, only Roger-and-ship knew that a theory long held by humanity was wrong, in a way that must be linked to the aeons-long engagement with the darkness that, from the point of view of Pilots and non-Pilots alike, could only be considered an extended act of invasion, of cosmic war.