A portion of the spinpoint field grew dimmer.

  ‘Fate, Avernon. You’ve done it.’

  Then something small and dark moved against the spinpoint field, and the shuttle pilot gestured for a magnified display. He opened subsidiary holovolumes, capturing other blackened shapes tumbling against the darkness of space.

  ‘What—?’

  Blackened, melted lumps, that had been polished copper manipulators just a few seconds before, were following Chaotic trajectories in the images.

  ‘I...’ Avernon looked unsure. ‘The collapse should have been ... bigger. The volume…’

  Tom held himself in place against a stanchion. The carls, too, were staring at Avernon, alerted by something in his voice.

  ‘How much bigger?’

  Avernon did not answer.

  ‘How much bigger?’

  ‘A lot, Tom. I... Two orders of magnitude.’

  A hundred times.

  ‘Can we still make it work, Avernon? Can we make a shield?’

  The shuttle’s cabin felt like ice now.

  ‘I don’t know ... Warlord. I’m afraid ...’

  Chaos.

  ‘... I just don’t know.’

  Half an hour later, the big shuttle hung in the sky, close to Axolon Array, waiting for the terraformer sphere to extrude a morphglass corridor from one of its bays. Inside, near the airlock, Tom waited with Avernon.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Urn, yes, Warlord. I’ll be ...’

  Behind them, Kraiv and his carls loomed silently. They were warriors, not logosophers, but they had picked up enough to realize that the problem was serious. Avernon had expected the collapse volume to be a hundred times greater than it was, but it was not simply a question of building a hundred times more devices than predicted. It was obvious that Avernon was no longer sure a shield was even possible.

  And they knew that Tom had no backup strategy to employ against the Anomaly. Military action could only postpone the end, and not by long: maybe days, maybe only hours.

  Before them, the airlock dissolved, revealing the semi-transparent tunnel which led into the largest docking bay of Axolon Array. Elva was waiting there.

  ‘Can you manage, Avernon?’

  Walking through the tunnel, with hazy yellowish sky above and to either side, and wisps of cloud below, between them and the dark landscape ... it was not easy, but something inside Avernon seemed to have broken. He walked alongside Tom as if he thought he was going to die, and could summon no energy to fight.

  The collapse should have been ... bigger.

  Kraiv and his carls followed, their expressions grim.

  Elva kept tight hold of Tom’s hand as they climbed to the command centre. Scores of holos hung over the conference table, tracked by analysts, but there was one simple image that told Tom everything he needed to know: a hologlobe of Nulapeiron, almost enveloped in darkness. Only a few clear patches remained, all of them surrounded.

  ‘We’re almost lost, Tom.’

  Around the chamber, the carls deployed themselves and stood, impassive. It was obvious they were not going to leave Tom’s presence now.

  ‘I see. But almost may give me just enough to work with.’ Tom did not smile as he kissed Elva’s hand and then released her. ‘Could you go back down to the lab and check on Avernon? We need him to calculate how many shield devices are required, and we really need him to calculate a new deployment pattern. Get him anything he wants: he’s the absolute top priority.’

  Elva turned to a holo. ‘I can do that from here.’

  ‘Please, Elva. In person.’

  She looked at him, then: ‘All right.’

  ‘And drag Dr Xyenquil away from the med-wards; put him in charge of the replication teams. I don’t know the number of devices we have to create, but it’s going to be huge.’

  ‘Xyenquil’s a medic. He’s with the most critical patients.’

  ‘And he’s a damn good organizer. If this doesn’t work, he won’t have any patients to treat. Impress that fact on him.’

  ‘That I can do.’

  When Elva had left, Tom turned to the carls and said: ‘Can you wait outside, please? Just for a minute.’

  ‘Aye, Warlord.’

  Tom had to smile at the way they interpreted his request. The group split up: some stationed themselves by the doors on this level; two more descending the golden helical stairs that led to the deck below; the remainder stepped through the big membrane window and onto the ring-shaped balcony outside. There, they stood in the cold wind with their blue cloaks flapping.

  Tom gestured a privacy field into existence, antisound cutting him off from the analysts at the table, diffraction causing the chamber to appear a blur, just as he would appear to others. At the field’s centre, he opened up a comms holo.

  Immediately, a leather-clad woman turned to him inside the image, and smiled.

  ‘Well, my handsome Warlord. How goes it?’

  ‘Hello, Thylara.’

  She was sweating, and her leather suit was smeared with grime. The holo rendered some background; Tom could see riders saddled on speeding arachnasprites, racing across uneven ground.

  ‘How have you been?’ Tom added.

  ‘Are you asking whether I’ve bedded any man since you?’

  Tom shook his head, swallowing.

  ‘This is official, Thylara.’

  ‘And who else have you got there with you?’

  ‘No-one right now.’

  ‘Ha. Well, lover. What is it you want of me?’

  ‘I’m going to need transportation.’

  ‘Then buy yourself an arachnargos. You can afford it now.’

  ‘I need fast mobile warriors who can take shuttle pilots and some small, light hardware at high speed through dangerous territory. I’m not just talking about the Clades Tau. I have challenges enough for as many clans as the TauRiders deal with.’

  In the image, Thylara looked over her shoulder at the other riders, then turned back to Tom. ‘Tell me the truth. What’s the situation, overall?’

  ‘Nulapeiron is almost lost.’

  ‘Fate.’ Thylara leaned over to her left and spat.

  ‘This is our last effort.’

  ‘When a member of the Clades Tau is too old to ride, they simply remain behind when the clan migrates. Without food. Facing the inevitable.’

  ‘Defeat is not inevitable.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Thylara leaned forward, and for a moment it seemed she could step through the holo. ‘Have you ever thought, we might be on the wrong side?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The entity you call the Anomaly, from our little bedtime conversations, is a leap forward in evolution. Should we deny progress?’

  ‘That doesn’t mean—’

  ‘The only reason there’s a war is because people are fighting it. Haven’t you wondered what it’s like inside a fully Absorbed world, where everyone works together? I’m talking about a whole network of planets where everyone cooperates and there is only peace.’

  Tom’s heart thudded. He felt sick.

  ‘On the other hand’ - in the holo, Thylara grinned - ‘I’m only thinking about soft effete bloody aristocrats like yourself. Because a rider of the Clades Tau never gives in to anyone!’

  ‘Sweet bleeding Fate, Thylara.’

  ‘I love you too, Warlord. Send me the details when you have them.’

  ‘Soon, I—’

  ‘Thylara out.’

  The holo was gone.

  Tom opened another image. In it, a Zhongguo Ren man with the braided hair of a pitfighter stared out and did not speak.

  ‘Zài năr?’ said Tom. ‘I need to talk to Zhao-ji.’

  In the holo, the man bowed.

  ‘Yes, Warlord.’

  His image was replaced by that of a drawn-faced Zhongguo Ren with a brush of black hair. Zhao-ji was clean-shaven, his narrow moustache gone.

  ‘Tom! Good to see you.’

  ‘Yes. Listen, Zhao-ji. How much influence do you have with other, ah, societies? There’s something you could help with, but not the Strontium Dragons alone.’

  ‘More than you might think’ - Zhao-ji gave a soft enigmatic smile -’since I became Dragon Master.’

  ‘What?’ It took Tom a moment to process that: such a fast elevation to head of a society was unheard of. ‘I didn’t expect ... Congratulations. Really.’

  ‘It’s what your General Ygran would call a brevet rank. Promotion in the field. We’ve had casualties.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Since the years of the Manchu emperors, there have been times when we had to fight openly. Times of bloody attrition.’

  In the holo, Zhao-ji adjusted his sleeve, and Tom caught a glimpse of sapphire blue fluid at his wrist.

  Was that an accidental gesture, old friend?

  ‘I need to get hold of shuttles,’ Tom said. ‘Particularly orbital shuttles. Very fast.’

  ‘So you finally took notice of what I told you.’

  ‘It was you who told me of the spinpoint fields. Because Strostiv arranged it.’

  ‘Not because of Strostiv.’ Zhao-ji shrugged. ‘I had to. Don’t ask me why, because I don’t know.’

  Tom felt himself grow cold.

  Because of the sapphire fluid?

  ‘We’re beginning tomorrow,’ Tom said. ‘Can you have a communications team standing by?’

  ‘Absolutely, Warlord. Remember old Kolgash, talking about Ragnarok? The Twilight of the Gods?’

  And final battle.

  Captain Kolgash had taught them history, among other things ... But old lessons were irrelevant. ‘My tac planners will hook up with your team in half an hour. We need shuttles from any sector of the globe.’

  ‘You’ve got it, Tom.’ A familiar brash grin spread across Zhao-ji’s features. ‘Who’d have believed we’d get from the Ragged School to this?’

  ‘Yeah, who would’ve?’

  ‘Zhao-ji out, Warlord.’

  The image was gone.

  Around Tom, shadows cloaked the control chamber. Outside, the sky had grown dark.

  Ragnarok. Perhaps it is.

  The outline of the carls, standing on the balcony outside, would have been familiar to those who wrote the old sagas.

  Tom remembered the day he met Corduven. Sent as a servitor to Corduven’s chambers, he had been there when Sylvana called via holo. She had made a reference to the way in which Old Norse sagas rhymed, which seemed to throw Corduven. Out of Sylvana’s sight, Tom had silently mouthed the word alliteration, which was not technically correct but close enough: it jogged Corduven’s memory so he could deliver a witty reply.

  ‘Wounded, he hung on a windswept willow ...’ That was the part Tom remembered from a saga called The Elder Edda, when one-eyed Odin crucified himself on the Tree of Life for nine long days and nights in his search for wisdom.

  And suffered.

  Everyone, sooner or later, faces their own private End of Days.

  But this time the whole world dies.

  Tom called his carls back in, and commanded glowglobes to brighten.

  You will not have Nulapeiron, Anomaly.

  It occurred to him then, as the carls filed back inside the command centre, that Zhao-ji had acted more naturally just now than on any occasion since they became adults. Because Zhao-ji had attained the rank of Dragon Master? Or because of a strange affinity between two men afflicted with a sapphire curse of unknown capabilities?

  Is this Ragnarok?

  Perhaps it was not an idle question, coming from a man like Zhao-ji. Perhaps the new Dragon Master of the Strontium Dragons was touched with Sight, or prescience.

  Twilight of the Gods.

  The end of humankind in Nulapeiron.

  ‘We need supper,’ Tom told the carls, ‘and then rest. Tomorrow we fight.’

  ~ * ~

  56

  MU-SPACE

  AD 2301 - unknown

  <>

  [17]

  This is not the place to tell of the First Chaos Conflict, which endured for so long that when Pilots finally drove the Zajinets from two universes - or the Zajinets simply chose to leave - only the infinite memory banks of Labyrinth’s Logos Library could contain the story. Nor may we dwell on the Stochastic Schism that so split Pilot society, though few realspace humans picked up even a hint of that tragedy.

  Dirk’s place among Labyrinthine society was a strange and ambiguous one. Already, by the time he and Ro arrived there, Pilotkind’s culture was diverging from its Terran roots. A young Pilot called Thierry Didier (who was an old man when Dirk met him) first laid down the upgradeable syntax and multilayered semantics of the language known as Aeternum. As more and more Pilots took wild voyages along time-dilating geodesies - by accident or intent - Aeternum became established as the first tongue of every Pilot.

  When Dirk made a brief return to Terra, incognito, he found that Anglic (though the language retained the name) was incomprehensible to his ears, delivered in a sing-song rhythm he could never master. Back in Labyrinth, he lent all his support to Didier’s cause, and helped to remove the final objections of those Pilots who felt that they were already too different from ordinary humankind.

  (Both factions agreed on the likely effect of change, on the extent to which language influenced thought. What they disagreed on was whether new thinking was desirable.)

  Among the Admiralty Council - for by this time a single Admiral was no longer sufficient to rule all Pilots, inasmuch as leadership was required at all - Dirk had both supporters and enemies. Admiral Schenck was foremost among those who considered Dirk a dangerous anachronism.

  In a long and bloody duel that began on Poincare Promenade among a startled crowd, ranged through Hilbert Hall and ended on Borges Boulevard, Dirk finally gained victory. They fought on many levels, through revolving layers of reality, and when Dirk struck the telling blow Admiral Schenck screamed as the air fractured into shimmering blood-red shards of geometry. Those shards swirled into a vortex, pulling Admiral Schenck inside.

  Schenck died - dies still, and will forever die - crushed inside a fractal maelstrom whirling to eternity.

  It was after this event that Ro, saddened and mournful, retired to the endlessly branching Aleph Annexe, where it was said that even her ship - whose whereabouts no-one knew - might be tucked away in some fractal pocket of Labyrinthine reality.

  Sightings of Ro became increasingly rare, until such apparitions became the stuff of archaic legend and no-one remembered that she had once been an ordinary, feeling person who had loved in vain - Luis Starhome was long dead - and raised sons who had not turned out the way she expected.

  But Aleph Annexe held wonders to beguile an enquiring mind, and miracles to soothe any hurt, in mazes that could never end.

  Myths and rumours.

  There were tales of a disfigured man with a scarred face and claw hand who appeared on the worlds of humankind, quietly recruiting people to his cause. He was never seen in Labyrinth; but those among the Pilots who might have been his followers became a powerful voice for moderation.

  Perhaps such a body of opinion was one of the root causes of the Stochastic Schism. But it was also, centuries later, an inherent part of the Tri-Fold Way which healed the rift and unified Pilots once more.

  Sigurd’s World was an isolated human colony with its own way of doing things. The Admiralty Council, through its network of observers and agents-in-place, became concerned at hints of offworld trade, of goods arriving from mu-space ... goods which had not been brought by Pilots.

  Zajinets had been off the scene for some time, and the Admiralty’s suspicions turned in a different direction: that those worlds were creating pseudo-Pilots of their own. The processes which had resulted in Ro’s abilities were part design, part chance; anyone who thought about it expected that humankind somewhere, somewhen, would try to create Pilots again.

  Pilots they could control.

  The Admiralty sent a Pilot called Jared deVries to investigate undercover, in the realm of King Rasmus. But Rasmus’s Palace Guard had had a great deal of practice in counterespionage, and they laid ambush to deVries, imprisoned him and put out his eyes.