Ragnarok 03 - Resonance (13 page)

‘No robbery,' says Xala. ‘That's not it at all.'

Carl misinterpreted the hard man: it was not a threat but an assessment.

‘We have a little problem,' Xala continues. ‘Someone isn't who they claim to be.'

Oh, shit
.

He feels the pulse behind his eyes, energy building up. His tu-ring is ready to cut loose.

‘Someone's not quite human.' Xala nods to the nearest bulkhead. ‘So they tell me.'

Zajinets could sense Pilots. Of course they could.

Ready
.

But the chances of being able to fly a Zajinet vessel, even if he can take out the crew without causing damage to the ship, are minimal. And then there is the family, with children he will not allow to be harmed.

The fake priests are sitting up but saying nothing, analysing the situation.

All except one.

No!

Carl sees it now, the thing that the Zajinets must already have sensed: the shards of darkness, twisting. The sense of something deep and awful controlling what might once have been a normal man; or perhaps there had to be something odd about a person to render them vulnerable to such manipulation.

Greybeard.

It is stronger now, the darkness, as Greybeard stands amid
glimmering smartmist, ready to destroy everyone. For the sake of visible persuasion, he grabs Xala by the throat one-handed, while keeping hold of the carry-case he has had all along; but the smartmist is the deadly threat.

Carl should have seen this coming.

But the darkness . . .

It's a weird, faint phenomenon – and for now, irrelevant.

Everyone is holding still, Scarface included. Even Xala is not struggling, for the one-handed pinch-hold around her throat is to intimidate, not kill. Not yet.

‘No need to speak, sweetheart,' Greybeard tells her. ‘It's your weird-minded masters I'm talking to. You hear me, Zajinets?' Then, to Scarface and the other hard men: ‘Change of plans. We're going to drop off the case all right' – he hefts it briefly, his other hand still firm against Xala's throat, fingers and thumb ready to pinch the larynx fatally shut – ‘but not on Nerokal Tertius. And you bastards are not coming with me.'

As their faces tighten, Greybeard adds: ‘You've already been paid, so nothing else matters. Check it now.'

There are glances exchanged and holovolumes opened, and nods among the hard men.

‘I don't like threats,' says Scarface.

‘Me neither,' answers Greybeard. ‘But that doesn't— Oh, look. One of the xeno bastards is here.'

A section of wall is flowing open, revealing a shining scarlet lattice-form. On the deck lies a pile of what looks like blue sand. Zajinets clothe themselves in solid material, but perhaps they act more freely in their natural form.

Pretty much everything Carl knows about Zajinets is conjecture.

As a Zajinet communication it is typical, perhaps clearer than the average, but useless to Carl.

‘I think you're bluffing.' Greybeard squeezes Xala. ‘I think you care what happens to her.' He speaks as if he understands the Zajinet.

You know the lightning
.

The words are a splinter of memory, from one of his Tangleknot instructors.

You know how fast it moves
.

So often there have been misunderstandings and violence between Pilots and Zajinets, though it has never spilled over into protracted military engagements. Can they be allies here?

Xala's scalp tattoos are writhing in response to her agitation.

Become the lightning
.

Then Greybeard's tu-ring shines, and the Zajinet's lattice-form jumps in the air and pulses – as if receiving a shock – before returning to its normal steady shine.

Carl holds back, tensing with the effort. The Zajinet is somehow entangled now with Greybeard's tu-ring. Any attack on Greybeard will injure the Zajinet also.

‘Drop me off where I tell you,' says Greybeard. ‘And I'll release the link and you go on your way, everyone safe and sound.'

He releases Xala. She slumps to the deck.

‘Do the honours, will you?' Greybeard adds to Scarface. ‘Delta-bands for everyone. We're flying onwards now.'

The Zajinet drifts out, ignoring the pile of blue sand on the deck.

‘You don't look very scared.'

Shit
.

Greybeard is addressing him.

‘I-I'm scared.' The shake in his voice is easy to produce. ‘Believe me.'

‘Good.'

All around, Scarface is pressing people's delta-bands, sending them back into sleep. When everyone but he, Carl and Greybeard are under, Scarface says: ‘You'll be last to activate the band, is that it? While we're helpless.'

‘You've been paid and you're safe. If I needed to kill you, I could do it now.'

Scarface nods. ‘All right.'

Greybeard and Scarface turn to look at Carl. He has no choice but to lie back, check the delta-band is snug on his forehead, and put his finger on the activation stud; but he does not press down. He hears the two men lie down, and senses the activation of their delta-bands; then he opens his eyes.

Transition.

It is like liquid amber filling the air: spacetime as it is meant to be, the fractal freedom that exhilarates. Carl swings himself off the couch and onto his feet.

He is in his element, but so is the Zajinet crew. Through the still-open doorway he finds a short corridor and follows it, entering a round windowless chamber where three Zajinets are floating. One is blue tinged with green; another is green tinged with blue.

The last Zajinet, a deep scarlet, shifts towards Carl.

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‘So you did recognise me.'

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Carl has never heard of such clear unambiguous communication from a Zajinet. Most people would say it is impossible.

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He has no idea how to assess the situation. The humans, Greybeard included, are helplessly asleep back in the hold; but this Zajinet is in some sense a prisoner, entangled with Greybeard's tu-ring.

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The vessel shivers into realspace. In seconds, the delta-bands will power down automatically.

‘Shit.'

Carl sprints back to the hold, leaps towards the unconscious Xala and tears the delta-band from her forehead. Kaleido-scopic colours swirl across her bare scalp before coalescing into maroon-and-silver dragons, scaled and fierce as they coil and slither.

‘Ah, my head,' she moans. ‘The case.'

‘What?'

‘Open his—'

‘Got it.'

His tu-ring is working furiously, and the case pops open as his spyware succeeds in defeating its locks. Inside is a small, complex device about the size of Carl's fist. He has no idea what it might be. But Greybeard's closed eyes are shifting from side to side, moments from waking, so Carl abandons caution to reach inside, closes one hand around the device and—

What the hell?

—totally fails in his attempt to tug it upwards. It feels massive.

‘—interacting with the darkness,' Xala is saying. ‘They told me, the Zajinets.'

‘What was that?'

He tugs, and perhaps it shifts slightly.

‘We're just shadows. Ghosts,' says Xala. ‘I mean because we're baryonic matter.'

‘Yes, but that doesn't—'

Greybeard turns his head, eyes opening. ‘Well, how about that?'

Too late.

‘Where did this come from?' It is the most important thing for Carl to ask. ‘Who made it?'

‘No one alive,' says Greybeard. ‘No one who's left any trace of their work.'

‘Fuck you,' says Carl.

Because the implication is right there: no trace means zero survivors.

‘Open up.' Greybeard swings his feet to the deck, takes the case one handed – at his touch, it closes up around the device – and lifts it without effort. ‘I mean the hull.'

His tu-ring sparks, and Carl senses a wild pulse of energy – the Zajinet equivalent of howling in pain – from the control cabin. After a moment, a large section of inner hull grows transparent, and Xala sucks in a breath; perhaps Carl does likewise.

It is a magnificence of stars, an incandescence of a billion suns.

‘Where is this?' whispers Xala.

‘Galactic core,' says Carl. ‘The only place it can be.'

Greybeard's smartmiasma glitters deliberately, reminding them of the threat. Then he looks at the inner bulkhead to address the Zajinets, and raises his fist, emphasising the tu-ring.

‘Detonation in thirty seconds.'

‘No!' shouts Carl.

Greybeard turns and runs at the transparent hull which, liquefying, allows him to pass through and tumble into space. There is only one chance for Carl and that is to follow,
sprinting hard before the hull can harden, throwing himself through – wetness sliding across his skin – and then stars are whirling as he tumbles over and over, trying to sight Greybeard –
there
– but the bastard is out of sight again because Carl's tumbling is chaotic, so hard to orient himself to—

A blaze of light marks the Zajinets' exit from realspace. The ship is gone.

Oh, you stupid bastards
.

Thinking they could break the quantum entanglement by entering mu-space while Greybeard's tu-ring remains in this continuum.

Haven't you heard of a deadman switch?

Whatever Greybeard rigged up, it will have detonated the instant the Zajinet vessel entered mu-space.

Issue the command.

It is the voice of panic inside his head.

No. Too soon.

Panic because he cannot breathe and soon his blood will boil. His eyes are already bleeding, hence his stinging vision while the most magnificent sight of his life in realspace shies everywhere: the centre of the galaxy, where a billion suns are gathered.

There it is, the thing that had to be here: some kind of craft taking the figure of Greybeard aboard.

Wait.

Such an ache in his desperate lungs.

Can't—

Just wait.

Tumbling still.

Going?

It is hard to tell, with his smeared vision, whether the vessel is moving away.

Yes.

A flare and a spurt of motion, and it accelerates away, leaving him.

In the void, tumbling and dying.

Now?

It is a vast relief.

Yes, now.

He presses his tu-ring and it commands the quickglass, in emergency mode, to spread fast across his body. From the band around his waist, inside his clothes, it extends across everything, including his eyes – he has to fight against reflex to keep them open – and into his open mouth, forcing its way down into his lungs, painful and hard, or at least it feels that way –
shit
– and the pain increases –
shit shit shit
– before something wonderful happens and suddenly he feels euphoric.

Oxygen entering his bloodstream.

Fantastic.

Soon the hypoxia fades, but the euphoria remains, because he is floating in magnificence.

How many have seen what I'm seeing?

Well, more than one might expect, given that Greybeard had allies here: allies possessed of at least one ship and probably more, perhaps even permanent stations, and you had to wonder how they got here without assistance from Pilots. Were Zajinets involved?

Given their reaction to Greybeard, maybe not.

Pilots, then.

Helping . . . whatever it was that manipulated Greybeard.

Tumbling still, but breathing and surviving.

Help me.

He understood the artificial link that Greybeard formed between his tu-ring and the Zajinet: that understanding had been immediate because of that other link, the one that Pilots did not talk about (other than perhaps the Shipless, who knew only theory, never the reality), the bond between Pilot and ship. They never discussed it because they did not need to. They knew how beautifully lucky they were.

Come now.

Knowing she has heard him.

Come to me, my love.

And is even now, black and scarlet-edged and powerful, soaring through golden space to reach him.

I love you.

Twenty-five thousand lightyears and transition between universes are not enough to keep them apart, and never will be.

Oh, my love.

Soon enough, she will come for him.

And they will be together, as they are meant to be.

As they will always be.

]]]

When Roger disengaged from the memory sequence, his face was chill, with cold tracks down his cheekbones left by evap-orating tears.