The Valhalla Covenant

Blaze, or Reimas as Jos knew him, made his way up through the garden to the main stairs and threw off most of his clothes on the wide stone landing. Inside, he made straight for the fire and stood close. Erin and the others crowded around. Steam lifted from them as if in a sauna and their spirits soon lifted with it.

Chenault and Hope were relieved that their new accommodation was, after all, respectable. Both had wondered when they first saw the old boat, but now instead of being suspicious they were overawed.

Erin, however, was not and had never been impressed by Jos’s wealth. Like Reimas, she quickly stripped down to undergarments. Someone turned on some music and then there were drinks.

As soon as she was dry, Erin furthered the impression of nonchalance by springing up onto Reimas’s back. Like an exuberant child playing riding the pony, she bounced up and down for a while before he grew tired and tossed her onto a chair.

From the moment they were inside, she was a different person — off duty and determined to make the most of things as payback for the bad day. Reimas growled at her a couple of times for her Matahari like performance, but she only squeezed him the tighter and pulled his head back so that she could kiss his brow.

“Hey, I didn’t get a welcome like that,” protested Jos, seeing her washing her long silky hair over Reimas’s face as he entered the room after about half an hour.

“And why would you?” she laughed. “No saint you ain’t.”

Jos gave a clipped sort of laugh.

“I’ll let the double negative go this time, but surely, brother, you’d be the first to knock that sort of hero worship on the head.”

“Can’t see the harm in it, myself.”

“Well, maybe there’s an angle in this for me as humble disciple,” he declared with a wry grin, “or at least some credit for providing you both with a nice warm bed for the night.”

Erin responded only with a scoff of tolerant amusement so he focused on Reimas instead.

“Unusual day?”

“Sure, but before you get started on me, we had no choice but to come here — got the worst of somebody else’s mess.”

“Seal sure did. My girl’s doing her best to patch him up, but by the way that she’s cursing I don’t like his chances. What happened?”

“Someone tried to do the right thing in the wrong way and got in the road of the worst possible obstacle.”

“The woman? What obstacle?”

“Xoldin.”

Jos’s face fell, and he looked fleetingly over his shoulder as if he expected to see a vision of their worst nightmare looming at the door.

“Good god man, are you sure?” he asked.

“Don’t worry. We had good cover. That storm was heaven sent.”

“Satellites might be blind with it,” he replied, “but you can’t count on that alone. You should have told me straight away.”

Reimas raised his eyebrows.

“Well, it’s been a tough day and I’m telling you now. Besides, we got away before they arrived. Nobody followed.”

“All the same, might as well get you folk down below, just in case.”

Jos spun on his heel and indicating that they should follow, headed for a door at the back of the room. A long corridor led to the rear of the house. At the end, he tapped out a distinct rhythm on the wall.

A brief trembling sensation preceded the appearance of a broad square crack in the tiled floor, which dropped slightly and slid back to reveal a spiral stair. Following Jos, they descended one level into a lobby that opened into a hidden apartment.

“Zikes, this guy must be loaded,” Hope whispered to her mother as they came in and took in the not quite understated luxury of the place. It was like the rest of the place on steroids.

Jos showed them through to the bedrooms then returned to the lounge. He lit an already prepared fire and poured rum. Reimas took one, then another straight away.

“What a day,” Erin declared when she returned wrapped in a warm bathrobe, carrying another for Reimas.

Jos raised his eyebrows.

“You mean the storm?”

“Negative,” she replied, wrapping a towel around her liquid, luxuriant hair. “That was the part I wouldn’ve missed — you ought to understand that. No — I meant before that. I thought I was late, and couldn’t get Blaze on the damn phone, but I got there before him and heard all about Xoldin’s latest caper.”

“Doesn’t add up as being all that bad so far.”

“Well, maybe not, but what followed was mayhem.”

“Pity things went bad. It’s still the prime way to get untraceable cash. Lucky you were there, though, I guess.”

“Why?”

“Wouldn’ve been such exactly a steal for Blaze to get Seal out alone.”

Erin grimaced.

“I don’t know how much of a steal it actually was, but I take your point, and he might’ve been in the line of fire as well if he hadn’t been coming towards me at the store counter.

“Hard to believe it all came to nothing.”

Shrugging, Jos went over to the bar. The red rum, neat, would soften her up and maybe reveal a little more. He poured one for her and another for himself, hoping to get the full story before Chenault and Hope returned from their showers.

“Cash doesn’t matter for now,” he said, handing her the glass. “It’s more of a pity you didn’t get the chance to take these hoods down. Xoldin thinks he’s untouchable and he’s pushing his weight around more than ever. Lives not far from here, you know — on the mainland.”

“Really?” Erin took a gulp and shrieked: “God, what the hell’s that?”

“It’ll do you good. Grist for the mill eh, Blaze?” he said, turning to observe him kneeling beside the fire.

Reimas nodded and rolled back onto the floor. Feeling exhausted now that the pressure was off, he wasn’t immediately sure whether Jos was referring to the booze or the crime boss.

“Sure, he plays hard,” he responded eventually, propping his head up on one elbow. “He’s got more men with more firepower and they’re getting bolder. We’ve got to meet them somehow, even if they’re not yet quite on our case. I don’t know — maybe it’s time we faced reality and dealt with the fact that we need more help. We are on the skinny side.”

“That’s fair to say, but taking on more operatives would be risky,” Jos countered. “Sure, there are only two bets — either improve efficiency or get more people, but I say hail to the first.”

“What do you mean? I know some of our boys have run a little close to the wind lately, but we’re holding our own.”

“That’s not good enough and you know it. Anyway, it’s not what I meant. I wasn’t criticizing. The thing is, we need something new — something to give us an edge.”

“We’d have to jemmy into the heart of what they have planned to do that.”

“Exactly what I was thinking.”

Reimas looked at him harder.

“You have something in mind?”

“Maybe. Laurence has something up his sleeve.”

“Sure he has. He always has, but we need more than just information. We need a totally new way of getting it.”

“That’s the thing. He actually does have a completely new racket. Calls the set up a dream lab, but there’s more to it.”

“Dream lab?

“Yeah — you ever heard of remote viewing?”

Reimas relaxed, letting his head fall back onto the blue gum floor.

“Is that it? Used to be called astral projection but that just made people shake their heads.”

“So, what’s in a name? You tried it?”

“No — well not so I could do it again. Thought it was only a dream — imagination maybe.”

Jos laughed.

“You might have undersold yourself there. Doing it again, you were right about, though. It’s the hard part, isn’t it — the proof, so to speak.”

“And he can?”

“Take it from me, you can take it from him — I dunno, but he is on the lookout for lab rats.”

Reimas stood up and yawned.

“I’d rather sacrifice myself to science when I know Xoldin’s no longer around.”

“I hear you, believe me, but I have to say it — there could be more to this than you think,” Jos responded, coolly.

“Sleep on it, if you like, but the way I see it, I already have my work cut out for me.”

“Course you do,” said Laurence, entering the room, “bringing all these strays home like this, just to make things interesting.”

“Cut me some slack, Cort,” said Reimas, tipping a non-existent hat. “After all, they’re sweet lookin’ strays.”

“Damn the strays,” he replied rudely. “We need results and I think the astral will deliver.”

Laurence truly was the Cortex but he was also surprisingly thick skinned. As far as his friends were concerned, he was a miracle worker who could pick one alternative from a hundred and go with the best, and he knew it. He was indispensable, but then again most of the Institute’s personnel were — in their own area.

“But isn’t this astral thing a bit too far out?” said Erin. “And I seem to remember some swami guy saying it was all an evil delusion.”

“Religious are we?”

“No, but I also seem to remember you banging on about some wise guy who said we should only tackle one world at a time.”

“Thank you Henry David, but the thing is, this here’s a vast new frontier and it’s difficult to say how much factors within it might affect things in the here and now,” Laurence replied, correctly assuming she had no idea who the wise guy, Henry David Thoreau, was. “And when all is said and done, you can’t define the astral as being outside our zone of influence. I mean, less than a couple of centuries ago the sky was pretty much off limits, let alone space.”

“So, it’s actually a goer?” Erin probed, a hint of real interest making its way into her voice.

“It’s real, alright. It’s just a real twister to break through.”

“Excuses, excuses,” she laughed prettily. “Have you done it or not?”

“I have.”

She looked surprised.

“Really? So you can float around and spy on Global Unity whenever you want?”

Laurence, unlike Reimas, was all too familiar with Erin’s prodding tactics and wasn’t keen to give too much away yet.

“It’s not something I should really go into specifics about right now. In any case, I take it you’ve heard of the expression ‘quantum leap’.”

“Sure.”

“So you’ve got a grip on what it really means?”

“I don’t know, I guess. Isn’t it something to do with jumping to a new level?”

“Of course,” he replied, “along with the implication that, without taking an inspired leap of faith to reach the new level, many of the mysteries of the current level of understanding simply can’t be explained.”

“So, when all’s said and done, it really is just about spying on the government?”

“Ach, whatever’s the use, woman? If that’s all you can take from what I’ve just told you, you’re even dimmer than I thought.”

Erin might have cringed but she knew that a tendency towards emotional hacking was simply his way, and drove on.

“So spying’s not important?”

“Oh, sure it is. I’m hoping the astral will have such uses, but there’ll be more, much more. Quantum leap, girl.”

Reimas had been listening closely.

“All the same, it sounds as if you don’t know exactly where it’ll lead,” he interceded.

“We’re getting up close to the end of the twenty-first century and nothing’s really changed,” Laurence shot back, his eyes on fire. “The shit only gets thicker and no one has an eye for the big.”

Erin looked ready to challenge him but at the last moment something gave and her expression softened. She stood up and, leaning in provocatively, took him firmly by the shoulders. Giving his face a lazy flick with her heavy blond locks, she fixed him in an intense blue gaze — one of the searching, vaguely pitying kind for which she was renowned.

“I get it,” she admitted in an initial feint of generosity, “but you can’t blame me if I’m a little down on the idea that all’s lost and allz we’re doing is muddling around in ever-diminishing circles.”

“I’m not saying that,” he replied matching her rising energy, then continuing more calmly, “but if the way thing’s are done now is ticking the box then why’s there an Institute, anyway? Trouble is, it all gets harder as time goes by. The shite only gets worse and every time you turn around there’s more of it.”

“I second that,” Reimas agreed. “In our line of work we see all kinds of pain. Even we’re hurting, but the little guy hurts worse and the little creatures even more, given that we’re the ones actually in the driver’s seat and get to keep the worst of it at bay most of the time.”

“If we’re clever,” Laurence added, quietly.

Conversation dropped away as Hope entered the room with a full measure aura all her own. Now warm and dry and back in the zone, she’d heard the gist of what she counted as storming or ‘stro’ in the vernacular of the current crop of youth, and wanted a piece.

“Don’t you guys stop the stro on my account,” she said. “You were all full metal at it there. Slams my head in the sand to see people trashing the bounty without a thought. You’d think after all these years of flat lining we’d know better.”

Reimas made room for her by the fire.

“With you,” he said. “Just look at the beaches. Palmy’s gone now, most of the time. My father used to bring me to the strip when I was no more than knee high to a hopper — and he took it all in when he was a nipper so he could tell me a thing or two.

“Told me about all the things that lived in the rock pools when he was small — starfish, crabs, crazy little fish and all kinds of things. The starfish were the first to go, then most of the shellfish. Now — out in the wider — half the plankton’s dead.”

Jos nodded in agreement.

“I’ve had to rebuild the jetty higher since I’ve been here,” he said, “and I can’t catch a thing from it.”

“We may not have the know-how to fully turn it back,” Reimas added, “but at least we can stop the wrecking bolshies getting everything their way from now on.”

Everyone applauded that thought, including Chenault, who had only recently returned, and he knew the space was there for a little more.

“Every time something shiny happens,” he said, “three or four punishers turn it around. I know we do our best to hit the snakes and lift the needy, but what we do is really only a drop in the ocean.”

Erin and Jos were silent. The truth of what Reimas said was unshakeable but Laurence for one had his attention on the speaker rather than the speech. It was refreshing, if a little alarming, that someone like him could admit his powerlessness.

“I don’t know for certain if I can offer you a few more drops or a bucketful,” Laurence responded, “but we’ve got to try. That’s a core vision you’ve just been giving vent to Blaze, if ever there was one, and one you’ve been holding back the telling of for some time —unless I’m much mistaken.”

“Whoa, boy. I don’t mean for it to sound like I’ve given up just yet,” Reimas said, laughing. “Only you keep doing your thing and I’ll keep doing mine.”

“So I suppose that means it’s back to the beat?” said Erin. “I mean, what with this astral thing really being just some illusion anyway and you having all this serious business to get on with.”

Reimas smiled. A serious question lay behind her teasing. Knowing her better now and appreciating her indirect methods of attack, he took time to dwell on the matter. Co-incidentally, he’d only recently found himself thinking about some fairly out there things and knew he couldn’t dismiss them out of hand.

His normally hard grey eyes mellowed.

“There’s got to be more than this damn tail chase, in the end,” he said, his conscious awareness of a number of issues crystallizing after a few weeks of intermittent speculation. “Life all seems so roundabout — so goddam futile. All of it — all of it out there seems to be laying down its life just to keep us on the back foot.”

“You mean you’re one of those that holds to the idea that it’s all about the big director in the sky keeping us so busy that we can’t see past our own noses?” Laurence asked.

Reimas frowned, reluctant to seem so fatalistic, but couldn’t wash from what he’d said.

“Maybe. I’d hoped to spend some time stroking a few possibilities along the way, but when it comes down to it, everything only gets more and more curly all the way and it is hard to make the jump from it.”

Laurence nodded slowly in silent agreement.

“You’d know better than anyone, I suppose,” Reimas continued. “Dammit, I’m begging you to deny it, but I know you won’t. Everything keeps you so on the go that in the end it feels like you don’t know where you’re going.”

“Yet action is all we have in the end,” Jos cut in. “There’s no getting off the roller-coaster ’til it stops. Deal with it.”

“So, we go on,” Reimas agreed, “but at least we should get a bit clever ’long the way. Access to another perspective, maybe even an extra dimension, might be the way of it all.”

Erin’s expression softened again.

“Could be part of what’s needed,” she said, finally pensive after being wound up hard like a spring all day, “but only if it’s all really clear, like looking down on things from up on high.”

Laurence sighed.

“But of course,” he said. “That’s exactly what it is. It really is all there for the taking, and why shouldn’t we be the ones to have the use of it? Only a handful may’ve ever gotten on top of this li’l skill set, but that don’t mean it can’t be done.”

“So it is real?”

“Of course. It’s the only other sphere I know about, where you can pop out and get a handle on things that we all know are real and experience them in an all-out different way.”

“Real, is it?” said Reimas. “I guess something like that isn’t too much to believe, with all I’ve seen, and if it is real, then it just might be more a whole lot more than simple dreaming brings.”

“Now you’re with me,” said Laurence.

Reimas conceded a curt nod of agreement. The idea was persuasive but the idea and the reality were for him still far apart.

After that, the conversation continued for some time, but Reimas contributed no more.