by John Meaney
‘You know all about the darkness, if we label the phenomenon that way.’
Dad’s face dampened once more.
‘I . . . What?’
‘At least you did know, in the past. Whatever Roger saw, it has a deep resonance inside your unconscious mind.’
There was a flickering in Dad’s eyes; then a tightening of his facial muscles as he brought the reaction under control.
‘Amnesia.’
‘Deliberate, targetted and induced. And it happened a long time ago, perhaps before you came to Fulgor.’
Mum was looking scared.
‘What do you mean?’
‘He means’ - Dad’s voice was shaky - ‘it was our own people that carried out the procedure. Probably.’
Sunadomari smiled, an adequate comment on the likelihood of a trained Pilot intelligence officer undergoing amnesia at enemy hands and there being no trace of it.
Roger felt as he were about to vomit. Nothing could be this bad.
‘Good luck,’ said Sunadomari.
With a fingertip salute to Roger, he turned and left. A kind of tangible absence remained, a psychological vibration that told of everything changing.
Then Dad blew out a breath.
‘Time to bug out,’ he said.
THIRTY-FIVE
FULGOR, 2603 AD
In their lounge, they looked around for the last time. Dad appeared bigger and more muscular than usual, his face stronger. Perhaps this was the kind of situation he lived for.
Roger suddenly realized the impossibility of ever knowing his father’s mind.
Concentrate.
‘All right,’ Dad said. ‘Miranda, Roger, let’s make our departure nine minutes from now, outside.’
They nodded. Dad closed his eyes, and his lips moved. The words might have been: Come, my love. Come get us. Or Roger might have been mistaken.
‘Good.’ Dad’s eyes opened. ‘She’ll be here. Now, let’s check our understanding. The superintendent’s offer is genuine, but it’s not official. If it were, he’d have said so.’
‘What does that mean?’ Roger did not understand. ‘We’re not free to go?’
‘It means he’s told the ordinary peacekeepers nothing. We’re not under suspicion. But once a mu-space ship bursts into the open right before our house, there’ll be SatScan alarms screaming everywhere. They’ll try to disable the ship via grasers from orbit, so we’re talking only seconds. And maybe five minutes before armoured flyers make an appearance.’
Roger looked at the quickglass walls.
‘Can they subvert the house system remotely?’
‘Huh.’ Dad smiled. ‘Good tactical thinking, and the answer’s no. We’re well protected.’
Mum glanced at the rear wall, which was glistening in a way Roger had not noticed.
‘I thought we were going to have to use the tunnel.’
‘Me too,’ said Dad. ‘But I wasn’t sure we’d make it without Sunadomari stopping us.’
‘He’s all right, though, isn’t he?’
‘Yes. He’s a good man.’ Dad glanced at the wall. ‘But he wouldn’t break through that shielding. Not after twenty years of improvements.’
The glistening surface meant the wall was currently permeable, a viscous liquid, ready to allow three fugitives to run through: to reach the safety chamber that lay beyond, and the entrance to their shielded escape tunnel.
‘All right,’ continued Dad. ‘One last thing, and I’d better do it in here, unsurveilled.’
He gestured a holovolume into existence.
‘Yes?’ Xavier Spalding’s image regarded them. ‘Carl. Have you seen Alisha?’
For the second time this morning, a vomit reflex threatened Roger’s stomach.
Alisha’s missing?
‘I’m sorry, no. But the peacekeepers know what you did for us. A Superintendent Sunadomari, a Luculentus, worked out everything.’
‘That doesn’t matter now.’
Dad looked at him.
‘Good luck. You won’t see us again.’
Xavier Spalding nodded, and his image disappeared.
‘All right,’ said Dad. ‘Both of you, get ready to move.’
‘I’m ready.’ Mum clasped his arm. ‘It’ll be fun, right?’
Roger was backing away.
‘And I’m . . . ready.’
Alisha is missing.
She was gone, her father was a criminal, Luculenti were dead . . . and he was running away, never to see this world again?
‘Roger . . . ?’
‘No!’
He leaped back.
‘Sorry—’
And fell through the permeable wall, quickglass sliding over his skin. Then he tumbled into the chamber and yelled: ‘Seal up!’
The wall shimmered and hardened, just as Dad’s fist struck it on the other side.
‘I’m sorry,’ Roger said.
In the final minute, they were shadows, barely visible to each other through metre-thick armoured quickglass. There was no way to undo Roger’s command, no way to make the wall permeable once more. No way for his parents to reach him, or him to get back to them.
And Dad’s ship was a matter of seconds away from appearing outside the house.
‘I love you,’ Roger said.
He kissed his own fingertips, then pressed them against the quickglass. On the other side, after a moment, Mum did the same, followed by Dad.
Then Dad grabbed hold of her, and they moved fast, heading for the front door.
They’re gone.
He waited until thunder crashed outside. Then he counted fifty seconds more, just in case.
‘Really gone,’ he said aloud.
He formed the control gesture Dad had drilled him in so many times.
‘Shit.’
And closed his eyes as the floor became a liquefying whirlpool, dragging him down to the tunnel below.
There were two last things Carl could do for his son. As he ran outdoors with Miranda, he worked his tu-ring at a speed beyond thought. Behind him, a smartmiasma trailed, and the image it broadcast upwards was his first gift: to SatScan, it would appear that Roger Blackstone was fleeing the house behind his parents.
The second gift was easier: a tightbeam from his tu-ring to Roger’s, zipblipping copies of all the espionageware he possessed.
‘Be careful,’ he muttered. ‘It’s dangerous stuff.’
‘What—?’ asked Miranda.
‘Nothing.’
Then his ship burst into being overhead: a curved dart, black and powerful, edged with scarlet, ready for anything.
He was grinning, dreadful though that was, as she hauled him and Miranda on board with a fast black tendril. Within four seconds of her appearance in realspace, he was in her control couch.
And go.
Yes, my love.
Fulgor slammed out of existence around them.
Finally . . .
Replaced by golden void, a sprinkling of black fractal stars, and a distant crimson nebula.
‘What have we done?’ said Miranda.
‘The best we could,’ answered Carl.
Then he immersed himself in the joy of flying hard for Labyrinth, aware that despite the elation of being with his ship, there were hard issues to deal with: Roger, alone on Fulgor; Miranda’s distress; and the truth Sunadomari had revealed to him: the tampering with his mind by his own people.
Max Gould would have the answers.
‘Oh, Carl.’
‘I know, my love.’
He increased the severity of their trajectory, following a geodesic that would add to Miranda’s strain, but should be manageable. It was less than he wanted, more than he should aim for.
A hellflight was out of question.
After a time, Miranda was able to ask: ‘Will we live in Labyrinth now?’
‘Do you want to?’
She thought, then: ‘Yes, I believe I do.’
‘Then so do I. Continuously.’
Miranda
blinked her obsidian eyes.
‘You mean you’re giving up field work?’
‘Don’t you think it’s time I did?’
They were both thinking of Roger.
‘Way past time,’ said Miranda.
‘Yes.’
They flew on a short way.
‘Miranda?’
‘Darling?’
‘There’s—’ Carl’s face tightened. ‘We have someone chasing us.’
A crescent of golden display showed a tiny shape moving. Then another, and another.
‘Three of them,’ said Carl.
They’re fast, my love.
I’ll bet we’re faster.
They swung into a new trajectory.
‘Who are they, Carl? Zajinets?’
‘Our own kind.’
Miranda looked puzzled.
‘Shouldn’t we make contact?’
‘They’re using targetting systems.’
Carl frowned, and the ship took a hard turn. The trio followed.
Enemies.
It was a short time later that the pursuers closed the range, their weapon-nodes beginning to sparkle. The only escape was a hellflight, something he had not wanted to put Miranda through. But neither did he want to fight.
Twist now.
Carl-and-ship tumbled through a gut-wrenching geodesic jump, and then a series of shifts to different scales of reality; and Miranda might have cried out but he could no longer tell, because he was the ship and the ship was himself, and all that mattered was the flying.
Cascades of energy whirled past them.
Shit.
Ship-and-Carl flung themselves through a helical descent into fractal magnification, the hull coruscating with spillover from the weapons fire, as they corkscrewed away from the enemy trio.
Energy slammed past them again.
Faster.
Judge the moment right, and they could slip onto a geodesic that no one could—
It burns.
Energy touched her hull and Carl’s voice cried out and then they were one again, into a howling turn, and as they came out their resonance chambers hummed; and the first of the ships was right in front of them, no longer pursuer but target, then ship-and-Carl let loose.
He yelled at the release.
Then he-and-ship were twisting away as the enemy exploded, a nova burst of detonation leaving a storm of dazzling fragments; and then the remains were behind them.
But the remaining two were closer now.
Nebula.
I see it.
They plunged though crimson, arced hard, burst back into golden void. One of the enemy was side-on as Carl-and-ship fired.
Its delta wing blew apart, but only as the last ship cut loose with every weapon.
Another cry filled the cabin, then he-and-ship were twisting away - geodesic, there - trying to find the path - got it - and then they were pouring on the acceleration - do it - putting everything they had into forward power - do it now - as they howled into the only way out, the most extreme of flightpaths that few survived.
Hellflight.
And finally, the calm.
They came out into peaceful golden space, Carl’s mind separating from the ship as he slumped back in the cabin. Inside was—
Red.
—not the crimson of nebulae, more like the hull’s scarlet trim, glistening with oxidation.
‘No. Please . . .’
He pulled himself from his seat.
‘Oh, Miranda.’
THIRTY-SIX
EARTH, 1939 AD
The Wolf house was broken. The yellow star - runnels of yellow ran toward the ground: they had been careless with the paint - marked a front door whose lock was smashed. Only a few triangular fragments of glass remained in the windows. Inside was darkness.
Gavriela did not dare to stand on the street gaping.
It’s not possible.
She lowered her head as forced herself to walk on, trying to work out how she might circle around to the back. But a low voice said: ‘Get away.’
A bent-backed man was in front of her.
‘They took your parents. I’m sorry.’
‘Herr . . . Herr Schäffer?’
‘Yes, and you’re little Gavi Wolf. Do you need money?’
‘No—’
‘All you can do is get away. Survive. Here.’ He pressed a book into her hands. ‘Carry this.’
It was battered from much reading.
‘I can’t.’
The title was stark: Mein Kampf.
‘Carry it, read it on the bus or train, nod as if you’re agreeing with it. You have papers that declare you’re Aryan?’
‘Sort of.’
Her Swiss cantonal ID showed her religion as None. But the German passport, in an inner pocket of her coat, could kill her.
‘Go.’
Herr Schäffer walked on. She wanted to call him back, but knew it was dangerous for both of them. If he could recognize her after all this time, what about the other neighbours?
Without destination, she forced herself into motion.
It was some unknown time later when a guttural male voice said something. She looked up, saw the elegant length of Unter den Linden stretching before her, the eponymous trees making twin perspective lines; and she saw the grey-uniformed soldier with his hand out. Behind him, two more soldiers stood, watching the subdued passers-by.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Your papers, Fräulein.’
The ID shook as she produced it.
‘Swiss?’
‘Yes.’
‘You don’t sound Swiss to me.’
‘My family moved—’
Her brain swirled with the effort of trying to construct a convincing fiction. She was dead, and nothing could save her. That knowledge seeped through her, and her shoulders slumped.
Suddenly a beautiful blonde woman was standing there, smiling above her red-fox collar. A small dog was at her heel.
‘Soldier, this lady is a good Aryan. I have travelled with her in person.’
‘And you are—?’
But she was already showing her papers.
‘Ma’am?’ His eyes widened, then he slammed his bootheels together. ‘Sieg Heil!’
‘Likewise.’ She returned the salute. ‘Be vigilant.’
‘Yes, Frau Göbbels.’
‘Nice to see one of our own,’ she said to Gavriela. ‘You have a husband?’
‘A . . . a fiancée, Lucas.’ It was the first name she thought of. ‘He’s serving in, er, I think he’s in Poland right now.’
‘Ah. Good.’ Magda Göbbels tugged her dog’s lead. ‘Come along, Rufus.’
Then she continued along Unter den Linden without looking back.
‘Thank you.’ Gavriela looked down once more as she shuffled away. ‘Thanks.’
Earlier, during the train journey, she had been heartened by how easy it was to cross the border. Now she understood what she had failed to register: it was getting out that was impossible.
Mother. Father.
And for the sake of survival, there were things she should not think of, could not allow herself to dwell on.
I love you . . .
Her Swiss ID was correct in that she had no religion, therefore no belief in heaven.
But there was a hell, and proof was all around her.
At the same moment, several hundred kilometres to the east, Dmitri Shtemenko stood on a broad grey plaza. In front of him stood the forbidding pile of Moscow University, its spire rearing towards a secular heaven, its red star dull in daylight, requiring darkness for its full glory, when its internal lights would transform it into the state’s blood-red eye staring down upon the grateful proletariat.
