Transmission: Ragnarok: Book Two

by John Meaney

  An opalescent wall dissolved.

  ‘There,’ said Max.

  She hung at the centre of the hangar.

  Hello, my love.

  Max smiled, not allowing tears to form.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Clara.

  The ship was huge.

  At last.

  Dark-blue and midnight black, thick delta wings webbed with startling white, throbbing with power and potential.

  ‘I’ve heard old stories about you, Max.’ Pavel stared at her, the ship. ‘Rumours from the past. Now I know they might be true.’

  Clayton was smiling.

  ‘He can do it, can’t he?’

  Jed Goran stepped out of the fastpath rotation and onto a polished dark-green and silver platform overlooking Cantor Circus. Rowena James from Far Reach Logistics was there, along with a tousle-haired Pilot it took Jed a moment to recognize.

  ‘You’re Davey Golwyn,’ he said. ‘The man who got a huge number of folk off Fulgor.’

  ‘Well, yeah.’ Golwyn shrugged. ‘Me and a couple of thousand others.’

  From Fulgor, Jed had carried only Roger Blackstone and Roger’s comatose girlfriend, Alisha … plus Carl Blackstone’s legacy, now growing by the day inside Ascension Annexe.

  Perhaps I should have stayed to rescue more.

  But the risk had been vast, and he had made a promise to Carl Blackstone, without whom no one would have escaped the Anomaly.

  ‘So.’ Jed turned to Rowena. ‘Is this a big job you’ve got for us?’

  ‘Pretty much. I’m waiting for a few more– Ah.’

  Fastpath rotations were forming all around them. Over the next few seconds, eleven more Pilots stepped through onto the platform.

  ‘OK, everyone.’ Having greeted each Pilot by name, Rowena looked around the group, smiling. ‘I’ve a nicely tricky schedule lined up, so I thought I’d use only the best Pilots I know for the job.’

  ‘But they weren’t available so you called us instead,’ said Felipe Copeland, an old rival of Jed’s. ‘Right?’

  Rowena laughed. ‘Absolutely not. Follow me, children. Everybody hold hands.’

  Jed held out his hand to Felipe, who gave a hooked-little-finger salute in return.

  Skilfully, Rowena summoned a fastpath rotation to envelop them all, and they passed through to a promenade that ran along a vast cavernous area of docks. Jed’s ship was already there as requested by Rowena, hanging among the fifty or so ships he could see. He presumed the others also had their vessels waiting.

  Scarlet light blazed at the promenade’s far end.

  ‘Emergency?’ said Golwyn.

  A blocky, shaven-headed man came tumbling through a rotation. Two younger men in Admiralty uniforms came running after him, but he gestured and the air rippled, and his pursuers dropped.

  ‘I’ve seen him before.’ Jed remembered the state funeral, of Carl Blackstone along with his wife, and the man who had appeared on Borges Boulevard only to be arrested. ‘Who is he?’

  Rowena had a holovolume open.

  ‘Guy called Gould, chief suspect in Admiral Kaltberg’s murder, according to this.’

  From below, in the gleaming abyssal depths of the docking volume, a dark, powerful-looking ship with white-webbed wings was rising.

  ‘Call security,’ said Jed. ‘Let’s get him.’

  Arms rising, he summoned a fastpath rotation to take him the short distance to where Gould was running. To curve around such a tiny spacetime interval was difficult, the geometric equivalent of minimal leverage; and the rotation did not begin to manifest until Davey Golwyn joined in, adding his manipulation to Jed’s with energetic skill.

  ‘Nice one,’ said Jed. ‘Come on.’

  The two of them jumped through.

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Nice try though, Pilot Golwyn.’

  ‘Call me Davey.’

  The air was twisting where Gould had performed a short-hop rotation of his own, coming out to stand on one of those powerful wings on the rising craft. Already, a man-sized oval was melting open on the fuselage, allowing him to enter.

  ‘Where the hell is security?’

  ‘There’s no general alarm.’ Davey looked around the docks. ‘You think maybe there’s some kind of sabotage involved?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Jed. ‘I think maybe I don’t want to stand around and watch while a murderer escapes from Labyrinth.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Davey grinned at him. ‘We are the best Pilots that Rowena knows, right?’

  ‘Allegedly.’

  In unison, each looked for his own ship; in response, each ship pulled back from her berth, bobbed up, then headed for the promenade where their Pilots stood.

  ‘Good luck, man,’ said Davey.

  ‘Luck,’ said Jed.

  They jogged in opposite directions, making distance between them so their ships would have no problem in coming alongside. Up on the platform where Rowena stood, columns of twisting air told of fastpath rotations being summoned; while out in the dock space, other ships rose from their berths.

  Looks like the hunt is on.

  But the dark powerful ship with the white-webbed wings was heading for the exit portal; and with no sign of security alerts, there was every chance she would fly straight through, bearing Gould into open mu-space where the probability of capture diminished. Jed’s silver-and-bronze ship settled level with the promenade, and he ran onto her delta wing as she opened to let him inside, while adrenalized joy washed tidally through every cell of his body.

  Rowena and the last of her summoned Pilots, Justina McGowen, watched from the platform.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Justina. ‘Not really my business, you know?’

  Besides Jed and Davey, eight of the others had transported themselves close to their ships and were rushing to board, while two had created fastpath rotations to take them to the Admiralty where they could raise the full-on alert that should already have occurred.

  ‘All right,’ said Rowena.

  She herself was one of the Shipless, though her skill in visualizing complex geodesics raised interesting questions in the minds of those who knew her.

  Justina had recently paid off a massive fine for infringing Admiralty regulations, and her body language was more pulled-in than usual. Whatever the analysis, fast aggression was not on her agenda.

  ‘The freight schedule is off, is it?’ she asked.

  ‘I think I’d better reschedule, Juss,’ said Rowena. ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘Right. Later, then.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  There was a dispirited fuzziness to the fastpath’s rotation; then Justina slipped inside and it twisted from existence.

  ‘Shit,’ added Rowena.

  Out in the docking volume, Jed’s ship was following Davey’s through the exit portal, both flying faster than allowed. Seven others followed. Another ship was tilted at an angle against the promenade, having collided in the haste of her manoeuvre, though Rowena had not heard the bang.

  Because I’m too scared.

  Beside her, the air shivered as another rotation manifested itself. Clara stepped out.

  ‘Hey, sis,’ she said.

  Rowena could only swallow.

  ‘You’re doing the right thing,’ Clara added. ‘For Labyrinth.’

  ‘Are you sure they’re not in danger?’

  At this, Clara’s facial muscles tightened. For all her training, and the Admiralty role she did not discuss but which Rowena had long held suspicions about, they were sisters who could not, standing this close, sustain a lie to one another.

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Rowena.

  The last of the ships slipped through the exit portal and out of sight.

  As Max-and-ship tore through the portal, Labyrinth’s farewell resonated in the control cabin.

  =Good luck=

  ‘Thank you.’

  Then ship-and-Max were out in the golden void, taking a geodesic hard enough to challenge the pursuers without losing them. Ahead was a scarl
et nebula that served as a destination for now, while black fractal stars lay sprinkled against the glowing stuff of mu-space.

  The rear-view holorama showed nine ships following.

  Good enough.

  Max slipped out of conjunction-trance.

  ‘They won’t catch us before transition.’

  I know.

  He smiled as he dropped back into unification, and whether it was Max-and-ship or ship-and-Max who took a long, banking, geodesic-shifting turn was moot as the conjoined pair flew on, so very fast, as they were born to do.

  Behind them, the pursuers accelerated.

  FORTY-THREE

  EARTH, 1942 AD

  On the second day of the return journey to New York, when they were almost alone in the railway carriage – except Americans called it a car – Gavriela asked Payne about the hand-to-hand combat session she had witnessed, and the quotation fastened to the wall of the training hut.

  ‘In war you cannot afford the luxury of squeamishness.

  Either you kill or capture, or you will be captured or killed.

  We’ve got to be tough to win, and we’ve got to be ruthless –

  tougher and more ruthless than our enemies.’

  —CAPTAIN W. E. FAIRBAIRN

  Payne said: ‘Our own Colonel Applegate set up the training programme, but the start point was him watching a Limey, said Captain Fairbairn, demonstrating his stuff on attackers who ended up in the laps of the audience, all of them senior military officers.’

  ‘It looked effective.’

  Gavriela realized her analysis was likely to offend Payne – as in, how dare a woman offer an opinion on the matter? – but he nodded before adding an explanation that surprised her.

  ‘The government are worried about after the war, when the soldiers are civilians again, but trained in silent killing and the rest. That’s why G-men are being trained harder than anyone, though we’re expecting to remain Stateside. It’s for later.’

  In Britain, planning was geared towards surviving the war or winning it, not beyond.

  Payne delivered other tough-minded observations on the political situation, but when he and Gavriela finally ended up in Grand Central where his wife was waiting on the concourse, he showed another side of himself: embracing his wife with no regard to anyone around, as though the rest of the world had disappeared. Gavriela thought of her night with Brian and shook her head.

  ‘This is my wife, Sadie. Sadie, this is the Gabby I told you about.’

  ‘Oh, nice to meet you, Gabby.’

  ‘Er, yes …’

  The station announcer recited a sing-song of poetic names – Poughkeepsie, New Haven – and Sadie said: ‘They’re going our way, except we’re going by automobile.’

  When they reached the car, Payne seemed content to sit in the passenger seat while Sadie drove. From the back seat, Gavriela watched the sureness of Sadie’s movements, aware that this was another world in many ways. Outside the car window, much of the landscape was as alien as the Paynes’ manners. From the desert around Los Alamos she had come back to Manhattan’s skyscrapers, and soon enough the green of rural Connecticut as Sadie drove them through the countryside. Finally they pulled up before the perfect wooden-fronted house that was home to the couple. Payne got out first, rounded the car, and held open the door for his wife to exit, even though she had driven. Something about the gesture made Gavriela want to weep.

  Two police officers came along the street, hats in hand, unbuttoning their tunics.

  ‘Hey, good buddy.’

  ‘You made it back on time.’

  Gavriela got out, and suffered the introductions – the cops were Olly and Chet, and they were coming off duty – before Sadie led her through the house and into the kitchen. It was movie-perfect, down to the pleated curtains and the lawn beyond, with whitewashed fence.

  ‘I’ll get the boys their beers,’ said Sadie, ‘and then we’ll talk.’

  Once the men were settled in the front parlour, bottles in hand, Sadie came back, set coffee to making, and sat down at the table with Gavriela. She wiped a microscopic mark from the oiled tablecloth.

  ‘Charles tells me you’ve been ill quite a lot.’

  ‘I … yes.’ Gavriela had noticed Sadie’s gaze on her ringless left hand.

  If I were Polish, the ring would be on the other hand. If I had a ring.

  In England, it was better to be thought Polish than German, and she often was. The same probably applied here.

  ‘Sick in the mornings particularly?’ said Sadie.

  ‘Maybe.’

  Gavriela could hear the joylessness of her own voice.

  ‘There are ways’ – Sadie glanced towards the hallway – ‘of making sure things don’t go to term. You’re not showing yet, so it’s early days.’

  ‘I don’t—’

  Gavriela turned her head, but none of the men had left the front parlour.

  ‘This isn’t legal, is it?’ she added. ‘What you’re suggesting?’

  ‘Oh, my dear.’ Sadie took hold of Gavriela’s hands. ‘I’m not suggesting anything. I’m trying to find out what you want.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Charles Payne was clearly a good husband, adoring Sadie and adored by her. Could Brian occupy a place like that in Gavriela’s life?

  I should try, for the—

  Even the thought was hard to complete.

  For the baby’s sake.

  At least she had three choices: marriage, send the baby to an orphanage, or the whispered option that Sadie offered.

  ‘I need to sleep on it,’ she said.

  ‘Of course.’ Sadie patted the back of her hand. ‘First thing in the morning, then. You’re off to Washington in a couple of days, is that right?’

  ‘That’s the schedule.’

  Sadie blinked, perhaps because Gavriela had pronounced schedule in the English rather than American fashion.

  ‘Come on, and I’ll show you your room. Dinner’s in an hour.’

  ‘You’re so kind, and your house is so lovely, and your marriage and … everything.’

  Gavriela was crying.

  I thought I’d forgotten how.

  But now she had a link to the future growing inside her.

  After breakfast, Payne – Gavriela had begun calling him Charles here in his house, but still thought of him as Payne – excused himself, saying he needed to read the paper alone in the front parlour, where he could concentrate on the funnies. Gavriela wanted to tell him he did not need to do that, not for her sake; but she did not have the words. She watched as he adjusted his braces – suspenders: American English was as bad as Schweizerdeutsch – and checked his tie and cuff-links, as though the New York Times demanded formal dress for reading. Then he went out with paper in hand.

  Sadie said: ‘He’s being diplomatic.’

  ‘I know. You love him very much.’

  ‘Of course I do. Not everyone can be so lucky.’

  It was an indirect way of asking, and Gavriela appreciated it.

  ‘I don’t know whether …’ She put her hand across her abdomen. ‘I think he’s a good man, the … You know.’

  The father. Sadie nodded.

  ‘A child needs a stable family,’ Gavriela added, ‘and I don’t know, but … I want to try.’

  Sadie’s smile was beaming.

  ‘Good choice,’ she said.

  Afterwards, Sadie went out to the front parlour while Gavriela freshened up upstairs. When Gavriela descended, Payne was waiting in the hallway, looking more relaxed than before.

  ‘I’ve got a trip lined up for you,’ he said. ‘For your last day here.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Gavriela. ‘All right. Thank you.’

  Payne winked at Sadie, and she grinned.

  They’re so wonderful.

  Later, as Payne drove, he taught Gavriela local pronunciation from fahchrissake to wazitoyuh, huh?, and expressions from ‘doing a Brodie’ to ‘twenty-three skiddoo’, the latter explained as they drove pa
st the narrow-angled Flatiron Building. Gavriela smiled and occasionally laughed out loud as they left the city and headed for New Jersey – Noo Joizey – eventually to arrive in Princeton’s clean, leafy avenues. Payne parked as close to Fine Hall as he could, went inside and came back with a blunt-faced older man and a student dressed in suit and bow tie.

  ‘We’re your escort,’ said the older man. ‘This way, Dr Woods.’

  Could this be what she hoped? As they neared the building they were headed for, beautiful violin music drifted out to meet them.

  ‘Brahms,’ said Gavriela. ‘Played perfectly.’

  The rumour was that his playing was awful. Perhaps she had the wrong idea about what was to happen here; or perhaps she should not listen to gossip. Then the music stopped, and angry words followed.

  ‘Uh-oh,’ said the older man.

  ‘Sometimes,’ said Payne, ‘you hurl abuse, you get a smack in the kisser in return.’

  ‘It won’t be like that.’

  ‘It better not be.’

  They went inside, and knocked on the study door. When the great man came out, his white hair formed a mane in disarray, while his creased bloodhound features were avuncular, as Gavriela had imagined. His baggy clothes were rumpled.

  ‘This is Dr Gavriela Wolf,’ said Payne, surprising her.

  Her hand trembled as she reached out to shake.

  ‘Es freud mich sehr Sie kennenzulernen,’ she said.

  ‘Ah, Gott sei Dank.’ He smiled at Payne. ‘Forgive me. English is a wonderful language, but not as alive for me.’

  Their escort stayed outside, but Payne and Gavriela entered the study as bidden. Her attention was caught by the dusty blackboard, or rather the equations upon it. Written in his hand, that was the thing.

  ‘Was denkst du?’ From anyone else, the use of the familiar would have been unthinkable; here it seemed natural. ‘Das Lambda hab’ ich nicht gern.’

  He pointed at the Λ symbol, so necessary for an expanding, steady-state universe.

  ‘Ich weiss nicht–’ Gavriela began.

  But he picked up the violin and plucked with his fingers, causing her throat to constrict as if one of Payne’s soldiers had snapped on a chokehold.