The drop-bug descended slowly inside a vertical shaft, to a bright reception area below ground, with smiling people waiting to greet her.

A new world!

For a moment Rekka was young again, alone on the surface of EM-0036 before it became Vijaya, on the verge of changing her life and becoming the person she was meant to be.

I’m in the right place, at the right time.

This would be a good ending.

SIXTY-ONE

LUNA, 1005300 AD

The crystalline man twitched on the silver bier. He opened his transparent eyelids as he came awake, seeing a woman, equally of living crystal, asleep on a bier like his. At that beautiful sight, he smiled.

–You’re so beautiful, and I know you.

For now he remembered nothing more, but confidence was strong in him, and soon everything would come back. He swung himself to his feet, onto a polished floor; a shining hall of sapphire and glass surrounded them. This was a fastness, a place of power, and his body thrummed with it.

Shields hung on the walls, decorative and war-like simultaneously, some ancient and battered, others new and formed of exotic matter, each marked with a rune; and each of the runes glowed a soft blood red. A sign of some kind. There was deep history here, a sense of the glory involved in sheer survival across time.

In an archway, he paused at the threshold of an even larger hall, this one star-shaped with nine annexes, while sapphire dots of light shone overhead, soft and elegant, a sign of great powers tamed. Another man was lying here asleep, his name almost available to memory; but another mental image came crowding in.

The galactic core, the light of a billion suns, and the fifty-thousand-lightyear jet arrowing outwards, stretching from the dark-matter centre to the outer halo, the bridgehead of . . . what?

Darkness.

Peaceful vitality filled him, but this was not a time of peace.

There was an enemy invading from beyond the void, and the warlike glory of these halls reflected long preparation for the Final Days. He understood that conflict was, is, and always would be awful; that pride and camaraderie are born of necessity, without which defeat will follow; but there was the possibility of moving beyond fear, of finding the best within a person when the universe was at its worst.

From the wall, he took down one of the heavy spears, and runes flared upon the haft.

He walked through to a long, gleaming corridor of crystal, and followed it to an external balcony set upon an outer wall of that shining fortress, overlooking the grey landscape marked with sharp black shadows, beneath a black and airless sky.

This was the homeworld’s moon.

And there it was, the planet that gave birth to so much: her disc full, revealing blue oceans and green land, beneath the ribbons of crimson and silver that girded the globe.

–Hello my love.

The words had formed inside his head. He smiled as he turned.

–My beautiful Gavi.

More than beautiful: wondrous.

–Is that my name?

He took her hand.

–I am sure it is. If you remember mine, let me know.

Hand in hand, they looked out upon the moonscape for a long time before she asked a question:

–How long have we slept?

Looking at the stars, he shook his head, then stopped. Three stars formed a distinct row.

–See Orion’s belt. What colour is the central star?

–It seems . . . red. Does that mean something?

He had remembered the constellation’s name, and she recognised it. Full memory was about to come flooding back, but he answered her question nonetheless.

–It means a million years have passed.

She squeezed his fingers, crystal upon crystal.

–So much time.

Emanating from behind but sounding in their heads, a feminine, commanding voice manifested:

–You remember what we’ve always known to do. Observe what the enemy does, deduce what the enemy intends, and then prevent it.

Without turning, the man sensed Gavi asking:

–And now we fight the darkness?

–Now we fight.

He raised his spear in salute to the banded Earth, as everything came back to him.

And laughed, though the vacuum was hard.

For Ragnarökkr was imminent.

Rathulfr joined them in the Council conference hall, straight from the star-shaped chamber in which he had lain. Sharp was waiting, their watcher who could see the darkness more clearly than the rest, with pinpoints of reflected light sliding along his living-crystal antlers; along with Harij the Seeker, around whom sapphire light billowed and blazed, for Harij embodied the talent of mind-talk and hyperdimensional severance, their defence against absorption.

Kenna, Roger and Gavriela stood near the great table.

Magni teleported into existence, smiling.

–This may turn out to be exhilarating.

Of them all, only he had not known death and crystalline resurrection. He represented humanity of the past half-million years, and those of his kind who had not fled the galaxy were preparing to fight.

They could entangle their minds, the Council, the linkage mediated by Harij. When the crystalline fortress blazed at full energy, slamming orthophotons backwards through time (to use a primitive metaphor) to recruit their masses of warriors, such conjunction was necessary to maintain control; but when the need was over, they were individuals once more.

But the coming fight was not just theirs.

–We need to inspect our Valhöll that is Earth, suggested Rathulfr.

Awoken from the conjunction-trance, for the ninth and final time, they were not just recovered – they were energised, and Rathulfr’s thoughts gleamed with power.

–Roger and I will go first. That was Gavriela. To check they have absorbed what they need. If that sits well with you all.

The others smiled at her.

A feminine reply hummed through the hall, vibrating with gentle humour:

–Time for young lovers to be alone?

Another Council member.

Freya her name, a slender crystalline woman who looked a lot like Roger, her brother. In her pre-resurrection existence, she had not required a name: she had been a ship, uniquely Roger Blackstone’s. Now, in their present forms, it would be truer to label both Freya and Roger as superpositions: she partly her Pilot, he partly his ship.

–Not so young, sister. Roger was smiling. For the rest, we plead guilty.

Rathulfr was scanning the hall.

–We are eight, war-queen. Perhaps the Trickster will not come.

Kenna shook her crystalline head.

–It’s unlikely he . . .

Shimmering sapphire light brightened then attenuated, revealing the kneeling figure of a living-crystal man, the last of their number.

–Trust him to turn up like that.

That was Roger, primarily to Gavriela. Long-range teleportation in this manner – Dmitri reeked of ancient, distant stars – was natural to Magni and his modern ilk, something of an affectation to those of the old kind.

Dmitri the Trickster rose without effort to his feet, and his smile was sly.

–Waiting for me, brothers and sisters?

His presence altered the Council’s dynamic in a manner that kept them on their toes. He was insightful regarding the ways of the darkness, his cunning wisdom occasionally disturbing. Roger believed that Kenna recruited him in part because the inherent risk kept everyone else alert – don’t step in any causal loops, she liked to remind them – and remembered a conversation from half a million or a million years ago, depending on viewpoint:

—This is not the first Ragnarok Council, Kenna had told him.