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RESONANCE

RAGNAROK TRILOGY

Book Three

JOHN MEANEY

GOLLANCZ

LONDON

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

One: Mu-Space, 2603 AD (Realspace-Equivalent)

Two: Earth, 1954 AD

Three: Labyrinth, 2603 AD (Realspace-Equivalent)

Four: Earth, 778 AD

Five: Mu-Space, 2603 AD (Realspace-Equivalent)

Six: The World, 5570 AD

Seven: Labyrinth, 2603 AD (Realspace-Equivalent)

Eight: Earth, 2033 AD

Nine: Labyrinth, 2603-2604 AD (Realspace-Equivalent)

Ten: Earth, 1954 AD

Eleven: Luna, 503970 AD

Twelve: Vijaya Orbit, 2604 AD

Thirteen: Earth, 2034 AD

Fourteen: Labyrinth, 2604 AD (Realspace-Equivalent)

Fifteen: Earth, 789 AD

Sixteen: Labyrinth, Mu-Space, 2604 AD (Realspace-Equivalent)

Seventeen: Earth, 1956 AD

Eighteen: Nulapeiron, 2604-2605 AD

Nineteen: Luna, 601000 AD

Twenty: Earth, 2034 AD

Twenty One: Vachss Station, Vijaya Orbit, 2604 AD

Twenty Two: Earth, 1956 AD

Twenty Three: Vachss Station, Vijaya Orbital, 2604 AD

Twenty Four: The World, 5575 AD

Twenty Five: Nulapeiron, 2604-2657 AD

Twenty Six: Earth, 2154 AD

Twenty Seven: Mu-Space, 2604 AD (Realspace-Equivalent)

Twenty Eight: Earth, 793 AD

Twenty Nine: Vijaya & Metronome Station, 2606 AD

Thirty: Earth, 1956 AD

Thirty One: Luna, 655003 AD

Thirty Two: Nulapeiron, 2657-2713 AD

Thirty Three: Magnus & The World, 5575 AD

Thirty Four: Mu-Space, 2606 AD (Realspace-Equivalent)

Thirty Five: Vachss Station, Vijaya Orbit, 2166 AD

Thirty Six: Nulapeiron, 2713-2721 AD

Thirty Seven: Earth, 1972 AD

Thirty Eight: Mu-Space & Galactic Core Environs, 2606 AD

Thirty Nine: Earth, 793 AD

Forty: Coolth, 2606 AD

Forty One: Earth, 1972 AD

Forty Two: Mu-Space, 2607 AD (Realspace-Equivalent)

Forty Three: Earth, 798 AD

Forty Four: Earth & Siganth System, 2607 AD

Forty Five: Nulapeiron, 3426 AD

Forty Six: Deep Space (R.A. ≈ 6h, D ≈ +40°, r ≈ 247000 lyear), 2607 AD

Forty Seven: Earth, 1989 AD

Forty Eight: Mu-Space, 2607 AD (Realspace-Equivalent)

Forty Nine: Earth, 1989 AD

Fifty: Luna, 697006 AD

Fifty One: Mu-Space, 2607-3427 AD (Realspace-Equivalent)

Fifty Two: Mu-Space, 2607 AD (Realspace-Equivalent)

Fifty Three: Nulapeiron, 3427 AD

Fifty Four: Mu-Space, 3427 AD (Realspace-Equivalent)

Fifty Five: Nulapeiron, 3427 AD

Fifty Six: Nulapeiron, 3498 AD

Fifty Seven: Mu-Space, 2608 AD (Realspace-Equivalent)

Fifty Eight: Luna, 703017 AD

Fifty Nine: Mu-Space, 3607 AD (Realspace-Equivalent)

Sixty: Nulapeiron Orbit, 2201 AD

Sixty One: Luna, 1005300 AD

Sixty Two: Shadow Gate At Halo’S Edge, Archaic Galactic Anti-Centre, 1005300 AD

Sixty Three: Home Galaxy, 1005300 AD

Epilogue: Home Galaxy, 1005300 AD

Acknowledgements & Final Note

Bibliography

Also by John Meaney from Gollancz

Copyright

Remembering Anne McCaffrey,

the writer who sang.

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.

‘Argh!’

He dropped the weights and they banged against the floor.

Fucking Schenck.

Now Max was in charge and the darkness-controlled admiral, Boris Schenck – make that former Admiral Schenck – 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 – torturers, let’s not mince words – 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 – talk about an old memory – 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.

‘Sir.’ Having adapted to Max’s preferred lack of small-talk and deference, he started by saying: ‘If 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.

‘Tell 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. ‘You 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. ‘Thousands of Fulgidi survivors are his testament.’