by John Meaney
Gavriela looked at Roger; he was looking at her. They were drawn to this place – this time – as much by what they felt for each other as whatever Kenna-driven technique enabled it to happen. What if they had been misled, mistaking teamwork for purity of purpose, camaraderie for enlightened conviction?
—Roger, you know what I feel for you.
—Dear Gavi, of course, because it’s mutual.
They understood each other: perhaps the price they paid for being here was too high.
Kenna stepped down towards them.
—No. You are required in the Council.
Gavriela dared to face her.
—That was what we thought. But perhaps we cannot trust our intuitions, not in this environment that you control. How do these bodies even function, anyway?
She looked down at her crystalline body. Even on her first awakening, she had felt natural in this form. How could that have been? What manipulation had prevented a natural human hysteria?
—Do not ask for explanations.
—Why not, Kenna? Why not?
—Because the answers are dangerous. The act of forming an answer can itself be deadly.
—To whom? To you?
Gavriela felt Roger standing at her shoulder, supporting her. Meanwhile the newcomer, Sharp, remained where he was. In Gavriela’s peripheral vision, Ulfr’s form remained slumped on the floor.
Kenna turned away. For a moment, sapphire sparks coursed through her. Then she was clear once more, and turning back to them.
—This is not the first Ragnarok Council.
Even Sharp made a movement at this, perhaps an involuntary surprise reaction. Gavriela felt Roger take her hand as he asked:
—If we’re the second, what happened to the others?
Kenna paused for the duration of an inhalation, though her torso did not move.
—They perished in paradox.
Her words were resonant with overtones of sorrow, undertones of emptiness, as she continued:
—I will not allow you to fall that way.
Then she gestured with both hands, and Roger’s eyes turned up half a second before Gavriela felt reality pull away, dropping her back through hundreds of millennia to the nothingness of sleep.
FORTY-EIGHT
EARTH, 2147 AD
Six weeks into Rekka’s new role in Singapore, she was still waiting for Simon to give her the date of his moving here, of his relocation from Arizona. Instead, the daily calls had become weekly, their manner increasingly tightened, even stilted. Perhaps it was just that Rekka suspected UN Intelligence might be eavesdropping.
Here, so long as she avoided Google Li, work remained compelling: the challenges of strengthening the mutual linguistic understanding with Bittersweet, working with colleagues like Randolf who proved to be very smart, and even conducting occasional short conversations with the six male Haxigoji who seemed to be here as Bittersweet’s bodyguard more than anything.
But Google had dropped further hints that Rekka should pressure Mary Stelanko, back in DistribOne, to spill the beans regarding Amber Hawke’s location. The threat of decommissioning Amber’s ship had been repeated in various ways. To be a Pilot, blind in this world and without a chance of returning to mu-space, was surely not the life that Amber wanted. But neither, it seemed, did she want to hand over baby Jared, natural-born Pilot, or even tell UNSA of the boy’s existence.
They’re not spying on me. I’m being paranoid.
More precisely, maybe someone was eavesdropping on her communications, but if so, the operation would be amateurish, contrived perhaps by Google herself. If UN Intelligence really wanted to track down a missing Pilot, they surely had the resources to do so.
Halfway through a Wednesday morning’s session in the xeno facility, cramps caught Rekka’s mid-section, and her arms began to tremble. The disconnection was the strangest and most frightening thing: the vibration of her limbs had nothing to do with her, would not stop at her mental command.
‘Rekka—?’ called someone, probably Xin.
‘It’s OK.’ Randolf, his pale bearded face a blur, was beside her. ‘Here, sit down.’
The chair he guided her into was stiff with newness, smelling of new-grown upholstery straight from the vat. Her shaking grew worse.
‘All right.’ His hands helped her rise. ‘Come on. You need to get out of here.’
He half-carried her from the xeno area to the lifts, held her as they descended, then let her lean on his arm as they walked out through reception. Outside, in the hot sauna-damp air, he led her to a European-style coffee shop. Inside, coolness shivered across her skin, and she felt better as he sat her down in a corner booth.
‘I’ll get you something calming to drink,’ he said.
‘H-how did you know?’
That this was doing her good, she meant. That she needed to calm down.
‘I’ve seen hypertension before. Besides, my wife’ – his voice softened – ‘gets migraines from time to time.’
Did Simon’s voice change that way when he talked about her, Rekka?
Does he talk about me at all?
It was not a question she would have asked herself six weeks earlier.
‘Thank you,’ she said, taking the tea that Randolf brought back. ‘Thank you so much.’
She sipped, and it helped a little more. Jasmine, camomile, with a maybe a touch of something synthetic underlying the added honey.
‘And I got this.’ Randolf held out a small, soft silver ovoid. ‘It’s the brand my wife uses.’
She took it from him and ran it across her forehead.
‘Better. Yes.’
Closing her eyes, she leaned back against the upholstered booth.
Breathe the way you know how.
Years of yoga and she was behaving like this. It was embarrassing, but even the thought of that embarrassment was causing her breathing to quicken, her temples to pulse—
Let it go.
After a while, she opened her eyes.
‘I could call for a medic,’ said Randolf. ‘But you’re looking much more relaxed.’
‘I am, thank you.’
‘Then why don’t we take an extended break? The almond cookies here are wonderful, if you want something light. And some more honeyed tea.’
His kindness made her want to cry.
‘Yes, please,’ she said.
They talked about Singapore and a little about Randolf’s upbringing in Germany. They drank tea and ate croissants as well as cookies. It was an hour before he said: ‘Bittersweet will be worrying about you, you know. She has a caring personality.’
Rekka blinked.
‘I thought no one else had noticed.’
‘Because you’ve been working so hard.’
‘Oh.’
‘So how are you getting on,’ he said, ‘with finding a place?’
Her hotel was upmarket. On first arrival, as soon as she had walked through the entrance, she had received a cool drink from a pretty young staff member, while the inbuilt system registered her automatically and a porter came to take her bags. But that had been six weeks ago, and she had two more left before UNSA would stop paying the bill.
‘I’ve not really been … looking.’
Because she had planned on viewing properties with Simon, at least with him on the other end of a real time link. Because in trying to forget that, she had immersed herself in work to the extent of making herself ill.
‘Come to dinner tonight. My wife will be able to offer advice.’
‘Oh.’ The invitation surprised her. ‘I … would love to come. Thank you.’
‘So.’ Randolf held up his infostrand and tapped it, causing her strand to chime. ‘You have my details, and everything is organized.’
‘Alles in Ordnung?’ It was one of the few phrases Rekka knew. ‘Did I get that right?’
‘Exactly correct.’ He smiled. ‘Time to get back to our inscrutable friends.’
‘Not so inscrutable,’ said Rekka
.
Rekka rode up in one of twelve lifts that followed helical paths through the braided tower, where apartments were stacked like corn-on-the-cob given a twist. She wondered whether she could live here, if there were vacancies, and how much it would cost.
Imagined herself living alone.
No. It’s just the pressure, making him act weird.
If she could suffer from shaking hypertension, why would Simon be immune?
According to the text-and-map Randolf had sent, his wife’s name was Angela. Rekka had assumed, with her basic knowledge of German, that the name would have a hard g, pronounced An-gay-la. But the woman who opened the door was oriental, and when she introduced herself as Angela it was in the English fashion.
Over dinner, Rekka learned that Angela was native Singaporean, that she had met Randolf in an art gallery during his first week here – he had been a researcher at the University of Singapore before getting a post at UNSA – and that Randolf laughed a lot in Angela’s presence.
‘Come sightseeing on Saturday,’ said Angela. ‘Randolf will be hanging out with his old colleagues on campus.’
He seemed to belong here, with connections that extended beyond the closed world of UNSA.
‘Definitely,’ said Rekka.
On Saturday, they sat in a pavilion in Stanley Park; explored the resurrected Raffles Hotel with its airy white corridors and ceiling fans and Sikh doormen; saw the harbour and the sea-lion statues and, in another park, a group practising in the designated ‘tai-chi area’; and watched shoppers buying smartfabric and biotech off the stalls in Chinatown. There, Angela frowned as a young oriental couple walked off with a new configurator, smiling, while the proprietor was blank-faced.
‘What’s wrong?’ said Rekka.
‘If you want anything here, let me buy it, and give me the money afterwards.’
‘Because …?’
‘There’s such a thing as preferential pricing. I’d pay less. You’d pay more, but not as much as those two.’
She meant the young couple.
‘Why would they be charged more?’
Angela shrugged.
‘They’re Japanese.’
Afterwards they took the mag-lev to Changi station, transferred to a bus, and travelled along white-paved streets through an upmarket residential area: gardens an explosion of tropical colour, scarlet blossoms bigger than Rekka’s head, the ubiquitous palm trees surrounding beautiful homes. When they got off at the stop, it was just the two of them. As they walked, to their right rose a tall fortified wall with razor wire rotating non-stop, coated with neurotoxin nanovectors according to Angela. The establishment was Changi Prison, and its security was the best that modern tech could provide.
‘Let’s carry on,’ said Angela.
There was a white one-storey building outside the prison wall.
‘During World War II, that building would have been inside’ – Angela pointed – ‘because it’s one of the original prison buildings. The Japanese treatment of prisoners was notorious, that’s European prisoners as well us.’
Rekka noted the pronoun – us – and wondered why events of two centuries earlier should be so manifest in the present.
They went inside, to see the exhibits and to experience the dark claustrophobia of a cell – Rekka thought that perhaps ultrasonics magnified the effect – and return to the display cases. Angela pointed to a diary whose entries, in twentieth-century handwriting, were hard to make out.
‘“We thought the Europeans to be superior,”’ she read aloud, ‘“yet they seemed as lost and bewildered as we were.” That’s a world-view being shattered, right there.’
No history buff, Rekka was intrigued.
‘At school we learned that white people used to think themselves superior.’ She looked down at her dark hands, then up at Angela. ‘I hadn’t realized that the rest of us agreed with them.’
‘Disquieting, isn’t it?’
As they left, Rekka wondered what negative beliefs she might subconsciously hold, constraining her life now as people two centuries ago had limited theirs.
Simon. Why don’t you call?
Waiting for the return bus, Angela asked: ‘What about your family, Rekka? Were you born in India?’
‘Born, yes.’ She tried to tell it objectively. ‘My father fell victim to the Changeling Plague when I was a baby. Maybe even while my mother was pregnant with me. And with so many people starving in those days … She took me to a Suttee Pavilion – you know about those? – for a last wonderful meal and music and all the rest, intending to kill me along with herself.’
‘Oh, my God.’
Rekka had not talked about this so openly with Simon. Perhaps because Angela was a near-stranger – or a brand-new friend with no shared history between them – the facts had been easier to verbalize.
‘My adoptive parents were Canadian. Pulled me out of the Pavilion before the flames went up. They took care of me. Took me with them when they left India.’
Angela’s eyes were wet.
‘Oh, Rekka. That’s … But good for them. Good work.’
‘Yes.’
Not knowing why Angela was so affected, Rekka patted her shoulder.
‘We …’ Angela stopped, stared down the street, then looked at Rekka. ‘We can’t have kids, Randolf and I. We’ve been talking about adopting, and your story …’
She pulled out a tissue and blew her nose.
‘Sorry,’ she added.
Rekka shook her head, then hugged Angela.
It was three in the morning when Amber called. In the grey semi-darkness, wrenching herself out of sleep, Rekka blurted: ‘Simon?’
Silver metallic sockets in place of eyes. Not Simon.
‘Rekka, what time is it with you? I’m sorry.’
‘Amber, no.’ Rekka rubbed her face. ‘Are you all right? How’s Jared?’
At four months old, he would still be a worry. When did a mother start taking her child for granted? Ever? A real, caring mother, that was. Not like—
‘He’s … Oh, shit. He’s OK.’
‘Well,’ said Rekka. ‘Good.’
She was still trying to pull her faculties together. Amber was in a bad state and not saying why.
‘How have you been coping, Rekka?’
‘Me? Er, working hard. Too many hours to leave time for thinking.’
‘Enough to forget the bastard? You do it, girl.’
This felt like Rekka’s first night in Singapore, with the timelag messing up her perceptions, the world appearing off-balance when really it was herself out of kilter.
‘I hate them,’ said Amber. ‘I hate them for leaving me no choice, even if it’s the right one for Jared.’
‘Oh. UNSA.’ Rekka was beginning to understand. ‘You’re going back to UNSA, to your ship. And sending Jared to an UNSA school?’
But he was only four months old.
‘I don’t have tear ducts, you know that? Well of course you do.’ Amber shook her head. ‘Makes it worse. Maybe it makes me a worse person, too. Maybe if I could cry, I’d still have a partner and so would you.’
What?
Rekka tried to ask: ‘P-partner?’
‘Fucking Mary,’ said Amber. ‘Fucking Mary fucking fucking Simon, that’s the problem, isn’t it? And vice versa. Shit, I hate them.’
Rekka coughed as if punched.
‘I … Rekka?’ In the image, Amber reached up with one hand. ‘You knew, didn’t you?’
‘N-no.’
Mary. Simon and Mary.
‘Simon didn’t call you? Didn’t …? Oh, God, Rekka.’
Six thousand miles apart, linked only by technology, the two women bawled; and for the next twenty minutes, Rekka produced enough burning tears for them both.
FORTY-NINE
MOLSIN 2603 AD
He ought to kill Hansen, assuming he found her.
I want to. I really want to.
Roger knew he could kill. Or perhaps he only thought he knew. Maybe he h
ad the emotional toughness, or whatever you called it, but lacked the physical ability. After all, Helsen had got away with so much already. She had killed an entire world.
Rhianna was staring at him, her black Pilot eyes glittering.
‘Maybe I can’t,’ he told her.
‘What’s stopping you?’ she asked.
It was a classic question from neurorhetoric studies, and she must have known it would trigger the traditional counterpart: What would it be like if you could?
‘Helsen can alter your thoughts,’ he said. ‘Make you see things that aren’t really there.’
‘My thoughts?’
‘Well, mine, I guess. But—’
‘How do you know? What evidence do you have?’
Her eyes were vast, deep-space obsidian.
‘The medics who failed to see her walk past them. The, the …’
In his mind he saw enthralled men in brownshirt uniforms staring at collective visions of helmed warriors wielding blood-axes and war-hammers, and a one-eyed poet casting armed men into confusion as they slew one of their own, a young man tied by leather ropes to a longhall’s entrance-post, crying out as tumbling axes chopped into his body, butchery ended only by the casting of a mercy-spear, releasing the poor man’s—
‘… deeper and deeper,’ came Rhianna’s voice, ‘into this relaxed and dreaming state, and my voice will go with you as you sink ever …’
—shade to be borne on dread Naglfar, Hel’s vast ship formed of corpses’ fingernails – such a multitude of the dead – to the realm of Niflheim, unless by chance the Death-Choosers of Óthinn had taken Jarl to train among the bravest of warriors, to prepare for the distant future when Ragnarök would be upon them—
‘… because your unconscious now can keep you safe as you find the trance inside the trance to go deeper than you ever have before your eyes can close again, that’s right …’
—and they would fight, the warriors of living crystal, those who led from the high command established on an airless moon, while in the night sky there shone the homeworld of humankind, banded now with crimson and silver, once thought to be the entirety of the Middle World – of the nine worlds, the only one to support living humanity – while it seemed now that baryonic matter was the true Midgarth, while the danger came from the realm of, of—
