Transmission: Ragnarok: Book Two (40 page)

‘An empire spanning the globe, and containing a quarter of it,’ said Gavriela. ‘Surely rebuilding is possible.’

‘That’s what everyone seems to think. Personally, I believe Hitler’s done what Communism and economic depression failed to achieve: begun the dismantling of our rotten class system.’

‘But …’ Gavriela wanted to point out his patrician accent and manner, but in some way that would not offend.

‘Oh, I’m as rotten as the rest of them.’ Stafford’s laugh was both girlish and self-deprecating. ‘Believe me, I’m aware of it.’

He rose then, and promised he would come again next week. Gavriela said she would look forward to it, and meant it.

When Stafford was gone, Mrs Wilson took the baby for a walk around the house, meaning she carried and rocked him as she perambulated, humming and talking softly, then came back, and said: ‘He’s told me he wants to be called Algernon.’

Gavriela smiled.

‘Really,’ she said.

Twenty miles into his prayer run, Kanazawa’s mind was as close to
mu-shin
, to no-mind, as he could achieve at his current level. The heavy straw sandals slapped at the stones of the winding path as he came out of the woods and onto a clear stretch of high wall overlooking the valley. Behind him rose the slopes of Mount Hiei, the clean lines of the temple buildings obscured by the mountain’s bulk.

He accelerated past a tiny pond into which water dripped from a bamboo pipe.

The world ripples
.

The water is still
.

Every stride of his run was a prayer of deep devotion, just as much as the ritual words recited at every shrine en route. His spiritual discipline was now twenty-seven miles of daily running in his gathered-up white robes, this being the thirteenth consecutive day. The paradox was this: in freeing his mind of thought, he was following a path that was his alone, not laid out for him by superiors in school then the Navy, not even by his parents. Even though the other monks followed the same rituals, it was different from the enforced uniformity of his earlier life.

It was his parents who had first shown him the mountain monks running their devotions, though they were arguably modernists: Father had been among the first volunteers to have the top-knot shorn. But Mother and Father had liked to watch the monks, as had so many others. Today, though, few spectators waited along on the route: times were different.

Something rippled among the treetops below.

No
.

Something dark.

Let the thoughts go
.

It was something he had glimpsed before: a symptom of his earlier wrongheaded life. But if anything the illusion was stronger now that he was following the spiritual path.

Keep to the path
.

Yet reality was an illusion that the Buddha called
maya
, while his true path was not a physical route but something deeper. He would have thought it should lead away from darkness; but something told him he needed to descend towards it, the enemy. Pine needles and soft soil meant his approach was soundless. The thickness of the trees was enough, perhaps, to hide his robes.

‘—to you, Moscow is safe.’

‘Not thanks to me, but Dmitri. He’s off doing something else now.’

The voices were Russian, only just comprehensible.

‘And you’re the most important part of the network.’

Moving to catch sight of the men, Kanazawa understood his mistake. The darkness, twisting and rippling, had been something associated with the other
gaijin
of the pair, the two westerners he had spent time with – including the day he witnessed the dojo death that changed everything. One of those two
gaijin
was here; but it was the assistant, the judo man. Perhaps contaminated by his master, he showed touches of the darkness now. But it was the other, his contact, who manifested the greater abomination: twisting black, impossible perspectives.

My path is devotion
.

He stepped out from the trees, still upslope from the two men.

‘What’s this? A monk?’

‘Looks like … I think I know him. Is that you, Kanazawa-san?’

Their faces were a blur, though they were only ten paces below him, maybe less.

‘But he’s like us. Like Dmitri.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Or maybe’ – the man pulled out a pistol – ‘I should say he’s our mirror image. He can see it but he does not hear. Does not
feel
.’

More words followed, but they were faint, as though pulled off into a great distance. Beyond the men, beyond the abrupt drop and far downslope, a mountain stream – perhaps the same one that fed a trickle into the pond above – shone white and fierce in its descent.

The way is peace
.

And then he ran, as he was born to do, the discipline becoming him and he the discipline, hurtling downslope.

‘—him, you fool!’

Accelerating. Arms outstretched as if to embrace, and the impact against their torsos.

Yes.

The world ripples
.

Taking them with him beyond the edge.

The water is still
.

Into the inviting void.

In Gavriela’s dream, she spoke in vacuum to a man of living crystal.

—If you had a son, what would you call him?

—I’ve never thought about it, Gavi
.

—Could you think about it now, for me?

Light refracted strangely through his features.

—I’d name him after my father, I guess
.

The airless hall and moonscape melted away with the ending of the dream.

She had decided that today was the day. Mrs Wilson and Stafford accompanied her to register the birth. The registrar was too young for his brush moustache and round glasses. If he found the delay in registering to be procedurally lax, he did not reveal his thoughts. Instead, as Gavriela sat down in front of the mahogany desk, he asked: ‘And what is the baby’s name?’

Mrs Wilson craned her neck to look at Gavriela; even Stafford looked interested, intrigued not by the naming but the mystery: Gavriela had given no hints what it might be.

‘His name is Carl,’ she said. ‘Carl Woods.’

The registrar held his pen at the ready.

‘That’s a little … Teutonic, Mrs Woods.’

‘Spelt with a “c”,’ she said.

‘Hmm, well. If it’s good enough for the king’s bodyguard …’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘King Harold’s carls, don’t you know. Viking bodyguards to help him fight the Norse invasion. Then back down south to fight the Normans, of course. More Northmen, when it boils down to it.’

Stafford smiled. So did Mrs Wilson.

‘And the father?’

Thinking of Rosie’s fiancé, she said: ‘Jack Woods, deceased.’

‘Oh, I’m very sorry.’

There were a lot of widowed mothers these days, not to mention unmarried mothers assuming the guise of widowhood to avoid pariah status for themselves and their bastard children. In her case, Rupert could create a full fictitious biography, should it ever become necessary.

The registrar filled in the names, first and last, writing in a careful, clear script, making it final.

It did not begin as a hellflight, the pursuit, but that was how it ended: with Max-and-ship tearing along the most extreme of geodesics deep into golden void, while his nine pursuers pushed hard, one of them faltering at the edge of a crimson nebula, spinning away, all control lost. Max could not tell if recovery was possible. It was perhaps the first fatality.

I can’t lose them all
.

The point was to keep the leaders with him, close enough so they believed his capture to be possible – so they would not give up – while ensuring he remained ahead of them and free.

Lightning spat past his hull.

Take me if you can
.

Ship-and-Max screamed through a Koch cluster of black, infinitely branching stars, then twisted onto another geodesic, equally hard, the shift itself causing wrenching vibration, and another pursuer fell away.

Seven ships pursuing him.

Better
.

He increased acceleration yet again.

Jed’s nerves were howling, a voice in his head screaming the question: why was he doing this? But Davey Golwyn was flying alongside even more recklessly, and the whole thing had become a challenge Jed could not set aside. Mulling things over was not an option: a lapse in concentration would mean losing the fugitive’s trace. It was a binary choice: follow or give up.

Another ship dropped out.

Six of us left
.

If they caught Gould soon, it would be enough.

A discontinuity plane threw off all of their trajectories, a message flaring among the pursuers—

**I’m sorry**

—all of them suffering as they were reduced to five, their sanity as at risk as their hulls, with no time to wonder how an older Pilot could stay ahead of them, swinging through a sequence of appalling shifts and breaks, the most chaotic of hellflights—

**Transition, everybody!**

—as Davey Golwyn’s message saved them, hauling through a tight geodesic after Gould, straight into the exiting transition, all of them expecting black space sprinkled with stars because that was the usual realspace reality, and they had been too busy to figure out where Gould’s insane trajectory had led: realspace, but not as they were used to.

All five Pilots were stunned at the blazing light of a billion suns surrounding them, dangerous in its massive magnificence, impressive and immense.

The heart of the galaxy, or near enough.

Close to the core.

Gould’s ship was behind them: some last-second shift placing them at a disadvantage, but not much. The rearmost three vessels flipped around, conjoining their communications, one of the Pilots forming the words that blasted along the high-intensity signal.

**SURRENDER OR WE OPEN—**

But something moved across the shining light of all those stars. Jed saw it, but once again it was Davey Golwyn who reacted fastest, understanding the situation.

**If you want to live, break off!**

He threw his vessel into a hard, curving trajectory; and Jed did likewise, noting that Gould was doing the same: his dark, white-webbed vessel powering in a new direction at about .9
c
, an immense speed in realspace.

Then a tightbeam message sounded in Jed’s ears.

**This is Max Gould. I am not the enemy. Follow me, you two.**

Jed tried to work out why Gould had said two, not five; but the mirage-like twisting of starlight intensified, and Jed-and-ship threw themselves aside then hurtled along a new path, following Gould, powered by fear because three of their number were doomed.

The trio of ships blew up.

Drifting in the braided rings of a gas giant, Jed remained silent, emitting no broadcasts. Passive visual observation showed Davey’s vessel likewise hiding. Somewhere nearby, Max Gould’s ship also floated, but out of sight.

Waiting for the enemy, whatever it was, to pass.

Max had three more deaths on his hands: not just innocents, but arguably heroes, trying to apprehend someone they thought was a criminal. Perhaps it was four deaths or more, for at least one of the pursuers in mu-space had broken off the chase during dangerous manoeuvres.

I’ll get you home
.

Was that her thought or his? The ship surrounding him was infinitely comforting.

I know you will
.

Perhaps they were each making the same promise to the other. Then it was time to tightbeam a signal to the two survivors.

**Follow me now. Minimal acceleration, passive sensors only.**

They were smart, given that they were still here, but he made his instructions explicit all the same. Both Pilots blipped back acknowledgements.

**And now.**

Slowly, slowly, he drifted up from the concealing planetary ring.

From this place of blazing starlight, one direction shone even more brightly, with radiation from the core itself … and there, pointing radially into shining space, the long narrow-looking line of a galactic jet, blasting its away outwards. And hanging between the jet and the three mu-space vessels, a vast space station of what looked like human construction, around which a flotilla of strange ships floated.

Several of the ships turned around.

**We’ve been spotted.**

That was Gould.

All three Pilots threw their vessels into arcing escape trajectories; then Davey Golwyn changed direction again, and lightning played across his ship’s hull as all his weapon systems powered up.