Masculine expendability
[in war]
proves a part of the cosmic scheme for research and development. And so does the itch of one superorganism to fling itself into battle against another
.

Howard Bloom
, The Lucifer Principle

It may now be possible for us to answer the question: How and why do we accept one theory in preference to others?
[...]
We choose the theory which best holds its own in competition with other theories; the one which, by natural selection, proves itself the fittest to survive
.

Karl Popper
, The Logic Of Scientific Discovery

You'll see what your eyes will allow you to see
.

Muhammad Ali
, addressing Joe Frazier

ONE

MU-SPACE, 2603 AD (REALSPACE-EQUIVALENT)

Call it triumph, following disaster. Say further, that love powered their flight through golden void, as they hurtled past blood-coloured nebulae amid night-black fractal stars. Conjoined, a single being, a black powerful raptor whose wings were webbed with red and gold, they flew: ship-and-Roger, soaring past Mandelbrot Nebula, arcing through breakers of roiling vacuum, coursing along Calzonni Gap, heading finally for home.

For Labyrinth, so beautiful, the city-world whose infinite richness no ship or Pilot could experience in full, knowing only this: they would die for her.

Old-school powerlifters, like Clayton (now in his prime and becoming one of Max's best officers) used mag-suits to strain against induced forces; but Max Gould was older still, and his methods were primeval, even atavistic. A metal bar, loaded with three times his bodyweight, was his enemy as he hauled upwards against a one-
g
Higgs field, his breathing stentorian, face reddened and arteries ridged: blood pressure through the roof and Fleming in his mind, the torturer who had gone to work on Max with such professional thoroughness; and no one would ever try such a thing again, or Max would tear them apart.

âArgh!'

He dropped the weights and they banged against the floor.

Fucking Schenck
.

Now Max was in charge and the darkness-controlled
admiral, Boris Schenck â make that
former
Admiral Schenck â had fled like the bastard coward that he was, along with hundreds of renegade Pilots; and the best analysis suggested they were headed for the realspace galactic core, where corrupted humans, helped in the past by Schenck's people, had established a huge deep-space base. So Max was vindicated, his power greater than ever; and to prove it, and demonstrate cold self-control, Commodore Max Gould, director of the intelligence service, held back from visiting personal revenge upon Fleming, who had only (in the ancient excuse) been following orders.

Besides, the service could not afford to lose efficient interrogators â
torturers
, let's not mince words â and he could be magnanimous now, with the endorphins of triumph pumping through his blood, while he reconfigured his flowmetal room into the configuration known as
office
, even though the term was deprecated, due for removal from Aeternum in the language's forthcoming upgrade, soon to be published.

The word
renegade
, in contrast, possessed a new prominence in the dictionary.

He used smartgel that smelt like wood-chips â talk about an old memory â and, clean once more, he retuned his jumpsuit to sharply tailored lines, then summoned Zeke Clayton. Less than ten seconds later, Clayton stepped out of a swirling fastpath rotation.

âSir.' Having adapted to Max's preferred lack of small-talk and deference, he started by saying: âIf we're still due to see Roger Blackstone, then I've got to say, I'm not entirely sure of him.'

Max gestured a flowmetal chair into being.

âTell me about your doubts.' This was Max playing devil's advocate against himself, for he had doubts of his own, but was always keen to check another's thinking. âYou can't ask for a better pedigree. Carl Blackstone sacrificed himself in a hellflight to save a world.' Ultra-relativistic trajectories along
massively non-linear geodesics were a desperate measure and often fatal, as in Blackstone's case. âThousands of Fulgidi survivors are his testament.'

In perverse irony, a large percentage had perished more recently when Molsin's sky-cities, the best part of a thousand in number, in close proximity because of a Conjunction celebration, had annihilated each other or committed suicide using seppuku bombs. The violence was born of confusion and deception, initiated and orchestrated by one person: Petra Helsen, creature of the darkness, creator of the Anomaly and now this. A society destroying itself out of fear â itself and the refugees it had taken in, when other worlds rejected them.

âSon of a hero?' Clayton meant Roger. âHardly an asset in Tangleknot.'

âAn additional challenge to overcome, then.'

âWell, OK, and getting through the training is only the beginning. I understand that, Max. An officer's operational record is everything. But given that he's our most reliable observer for detecting this
darkness
phenomenon, how exactly would you deploy him?'

âCarefully.' Max's voice was mild. âWouldn't you say?'

Clayton's mouth puckered in a downward smile. âGuess I'd better try to stay high in your ratings, boss. I like careful ness. Wouldn't want Control putting me into the field on a whim.'

âSometimes it's necessary to sacrifice a high value piece,' said Max. âCareful calculation is not necessarily to the field officer's advantage.'

âI can't tell you how reassuring that is.'

Max allowed his lips to twitch, acknowledging the ambiguity, as a holo brightened.

âStay for the chat,' he said.

âRoger's arrived?'

âHe's right there.' Max pointed his big hands forward like a springboard diver, and pulled them apart, causing a flowpath
rotation to drop a fit looking young Pilot into place. âPilot Blackstone.'

âSir.'

Max caused a flowmetal chair to rise. Roger sat on it.

Hard edged. Tough looking, not like before
.

Roger Blackstone was not quite nineteen standard years old, but he was no longer the soft student Max had met during Roger's first visit here from Fulgor, before everything went to hell. Then, Max had determined the lad's extraordinary sensitivity to the darkness; now he had a potential field agent before him.

âTell us about Molsin,' said Max.

âI was there with Jed Goran, part of our plan' â Roger nodded in Clayton's direction â âto keep me away from Schenck's surveillance. But Helsen was there, no coincidence, I'm assuming, since that was where most of the refugees ended up. She stole an autodoc, which was a tactical mistake, because other wise I would never have known sheâ'

As the debriefing continued, Max analysed Roger and watched Clayton doing likewise, enumerating the changes in the young Pilot. When Roger came to the part of the story where Rhianna Chiang revealed herself as a Pilot agent-in-place â
dear Rhianna, always the best
â and took Roger through an intense mind-body training regime that ended with a total cognitive restructuring, everything made sense: the thousand-metre stare that spoke not of trauma but a heightened reliance on peripheral vision, hearing and smell.

A present from my beloved Rhianna
.

Which was to say, a weapon Max had yet to learn how to wield. A weapon called Blackstone. That thought remained as Max picked up the conversation, led the debriefing to its conclusion, and told young Roger to take time out for relaxation and wait for a call. One fastpath summons later and the flowmetal chair was empty, already beginning to melt back into the floor.

Clayton was staring at the ceiling, or rather something in his mind's eye. Without looking at Max, he said: âYou realise he never attended Graduation.'

A ceremony was irrelevant. Max parsed the sentence for unspoken semantics.

âYet he has a ship. Good point.' Earlier, separately, they had each watched holo footage of a triumphant return to Labyrinth, Roger and his black ship webbed with scarlet and gold: a ship no one had known existed. âAnd so very like his father's.'

âExactly. I don't have a fixation with mindwipe' â Clay ton was clearly lying, because the continuing inability of his former partner, Darius Boyle, to regain a normal life following selective amnesia induction that went too deep still burned like acid â âbut we caused Carl Blackstone's wiped memories to resurface, me and Darius, when we questioned him.'

âWhat are you saying?' asked Max. âThat his ship might have possessed the same memories all along?'

âAnd couldn't share them because of the mindwipe.'

The amnesia treatment would have affected Carl Black stone's ability to retrieve the memories in his ship's mind as well as his own: that was a known phenomenon.

âWhether his ship knew already,' said Max, âis irrelevant when you consider that Carl regained his memories before his last two flights, to Fulgor and back. During one or both of those trips, his ship must have grown a daughter, wouldn't you say?'

Without the guidance and shelter of Labyrinth, parthenogenetic ship reproduction was so very rare.

âIf you're worried about the content of those wiped memories,' added Max, âI can tell you what theyâ'

âDon't, please,' said Clayton. âDarius and I learnt them once, and look what happened.'

It was ironic, that their probing had reawakened memories which they themselves, Clayton and Boyle, did not have
clearance for: hence the mindwipe, and the neurological side-effects that ended Darius Boyle's career.

âExcept that inside the Admiralty, everyone now should know this.' Max knew better than anyone how fast the strategic landscape, and specific needs for secrecy, could change. âCarl Blackstone saw the realspace base at the galactic core, over two decades ago. The trail led to a young Pilot Schenck, though it took years. That's how my whole counter operation began, Deke, and I had to keep it buried.'

âShit,' said Clayton.

It was the first time he had sworn inside Max's office, since Max had officially become director of the intelligence service. But then, Max had never used Clayton's first name before â people rarely did â which signalled that this was an apology, or close facsimile.

Max looked up at the ceiling.

âYou could have told us,' he said. âAbout the Blackstone ship.'

Both he and Clayton belonged to the minority of Pilots able to perceive Labyrinth's direct communications. But the chances of receiving a reply were millions toâ

=Yes.=

Clayton smiled.

âGetting an answer is one thing. A satisfying answer, that's something else again.' Like Max's apology, he implied.

But it was as far as Max would go.

I can't help other people's neediness
.

The Anomaly had enveloped Fulgor, Molsin society was gone, and the renegades' massive base at the galactic core seemed merely a bridgehead for an invading darkness whose origins lay so very far away, somewhere on the far side of a cosmic void, itself one hundred and fifty million lightyears in diameter. An invasion was in progress, albeit one initiated aeons ago, and whether its arrival was imminent or a million years away, no one yet knew.

In the face of all this, weak-hearted feelings signified nothing.

Max accepted responsibility because he had to â because no one else had his background or talents, of which the primary one was this: since schooldays he had hated bullies. In the end, his own rotten childhood might help to save humanity; and how ironic was that?

When Clayton left, Max was enveloped in sour meditation, scarcely noticing the man's departure. But Clayton was going to approve Roger's recruitment, officially and on Max's behalf, so that was something: another small piece moving forward a square in the tactical game that was Max's life work.

Another day at the office, except that soon he would have to find another way to phrase that thought â
office
being deprecated â because nothing remains unchanging, not even the language in which you communicate and think. The ground might shift beneath your feet, but so long as you remembered what you were fighting for, that was enough.

It would have to be.

A fastpath rotation opened before Roger, and Jed's voice sounded: âStep right in, buddy.'

Roger had called Jed from ErdÃ¶s Endway, an offshoot of Borges Boulevard, saying only that he had good news. Not that anything was guaranteed: this was the first step into the training programme â one with a failure rate of ninety-something per cent, apparently â and never mind an actual operational career like Dad.

Reality swirled.

âDaistral's warmed up.' Jed held out a goblet. âFor you, mate.'

Roger was in an apartment lounge decorated with holo streamers blaring
Congratulations!
while a lean-faced woman â Clara James, now part of Jed's life â raised her own goblet
and said: âYou flew her, Roger. Well done.' She came forward to give him a one armed hug, drink in her other hand.

âYeah, well done.' Jed clapped Roger's shoulder.

A three-person party. But who else did he know?

âThank you both. But that's not all that happened today.'

Jed grinned. âGuess your balls dropped, old mate. Seems likeâ'

âAhem.
Jed.'
Clara poked him in the shoulder with a fore knuckle fist. âBehave.'

âOw. But his voice is deeper already.'

Clara winked. âI noticed.'

Roger looked at them, his friends, knowing that Jed must have been security-vetted â he and Clara had moved in together, after all â but with restricted clearance, presumably. Only Clara was an intelligence officer.

He looked at her. âI'm going to be one of you.'

With a muscular grin, Jed said: âWhat, a woman?'

Something there?

Roger detected a private joke between Jed and Clara, but no more than that, no hint of what it entailed. As for Clara, her obsidian eyes were focused on him, Roger, her colleague-to-be if he ever graduated.

âAre you willing to pay the price?'

âMaybe I already did.'

Jed let out a melodramatic breath.

âIt's like spook central,' he said. âWhat have I got myself into?'

âTangleknot, then.' Clara still looked serious.

Roger nodded. âStarting tomorrow.'

âDidn't we try that earlier, darling?' asked Jed.

âOh, forâ'

Then they looked at each other and laughed, clinked goblets, and drank a toast. Things were beginning to happen: a career under Roger's control, instead of a maelstrom of events
sweeping him up without reason or predictability.

BOOK: Ragnarok 03 - Resonance

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