by Jack Womack
Dawn nuzzled me awake with groping light; I remained bedded, feeling that to rise too soon would only hurl reality onto my head again too hard, too early on. Hurling was already in progress, I gathered; Oktobriana moaned in pain, pain of disease and pain of knowing of the disease. Shortly I heard crying's sound, deep and choked, as Jake told her.
Freshening as best we could once we'd risen, meeting in the living room, Jake and I sat listening to Oktobriana while Wanda walked out onto the sun porch. Possibly in response to the pain she now felt, she seemed to have so focused her mind on the ramifications and pertinents of her situation-now that she knew what it was-and so kept such grip over her body with her mind that her multitudinous thoughts now came worded clear, with patterned logic. Her English, too, had become perfectly worded with classic phrase, if at times overrich with science's jargon and distance. As she lay on the couch, her arms wrapped round her drawn-up knees, she spoke as if to herself.
"The agent, then, would seem to be a highly mutatable retrovirus of unknown origin. The site of first appearance is fascinating in that were there to have occurred here an incident matching the noted Tunguska astronomic strike of 1908-that was in Siberiathen it would be impossible to disprove the likelihood of a relationship-"
"But have you inkling as to cure?" I asked.
"None will be found here for years," she said, the tendons on her neck bulging as if attempting to rip themselves free. "Even with expanded mental capabilities I can do little more than guess without access to a computer with which I might estimate all known variables. Millions of possibilities would have to be checked with an unknown disease so peculiar as this one. There're too many maybes. Why the virus manifests itself so virulently. Why the incubation period can be so extreme. How neurological functions can be so intensified." She paused, catching her breath; blue bruises showed at her wrists. "Why I have it and you don't. The disease would seem to be so widespread among the population that simple breathing might be the method of transmission. Yet in such a case there should be unavoidable immunity in some. What has made you so fortunate and me so unlucky?"
"Unless we've something worse that hasn't shown yet," I said. "Unless we've caught it since Doc did his tests."
"I doubt that there is anything worse," she said. `And while it is certainly possible that the virus has shown in your blood since the tests were made, I would suspect that your reaction might not be so much more different from mine. Possibly unknown preventative or enabling factors are at work here." As she brushed her head with her hand, long strands of hair fell out; pimples appeared on her cheeks and neck as her metabolism spiraled out of control. "This disease would be so much more fascinating in the broader sense if I didn't have it."
".'here's no possible action?" Jake asked, his good hand wrenching the dusty couch arm as if to rip it free. 'T'hough he remained blanked, his frustration-raw voice forewarned that he was on the verge of burst. "Nothing to be done?"
"Return. That is what must be done," she said. "Otherwise we may as well walk into the ocean, one by one."
The situation seemed so unbearable that I had to lose myself in anything else; the morning's rags lay near. Hauling them up, I gleaned the heads; read more carefully. They must have seen my stare.
"What's up?" Jake asked. "What's the word on the Big Boy?" he said, eyeing what I read. WHERE IS STALIN? the News asked. KREMLIN ADMITS PREMIER'S DISAPPEARANCE, read the Times in upper right; Stalin Last Seen Friday Night. In the Mirror: TOP RED VANISHES; frontpage-pictured were shots of the Big Boy, and of Amelia Earhart and Ambrose Bierce. Perhaps Oktobriana could have spotted the connection immediate, but I didn't. Trotsky Keeps Mum. SOVIET LEADER STALIN MISSING, REPORTS CLAIM, announced the Herald-Tribune and Mail's head. Trials Suspended Until Further Notice.
"Oktobriana," I said. "Did such as this occur in our history?"
"No," she said, studying the banners. "Stalin, in our world's June 1939, was secluded within the Kremlin, on one hand deciding to deal with Hitler in regards to Poland and the Baltic States while on the other hand making up lists of who else among his countryfolk should be killed. This is so unlikely as to-"
Clapping her hand to her forehead, she let the papers slide from her lap. When she took away her hand she showed a small black bruise left behind.
"You've connected?" I asked. "What's meant?"
"I've connected," said Jake. `Alek's behinding this fadeout."
"Such an utter fool," she said. "It must be Sanya. Took him three weeks to get through but he obviously did."
"Wait. What's inferred-"
"The Kremlin would not lose Stalin," she said, her eyes fury bright. "If they did they would never admit it unless, as is certain, they have no knowledge of how he got away. Sanya has done what he must have planned all along-"
"He's transferred this world's Stalin into ours?"
She nodded. "As we were leaving they must have been returning. More than a fool. He not only has brought enormous danger into our world but has committed deliberate retrocide in this one, destroying the future as it would have been by interfering with the past. "
"There'll be no danger of political upheaval in ours," I said. "Krasnaya has no desire to hold a living Big Boy. They'll gulag him from now till-"
"Think, Luther," she said. "What is it that is killing me? Sanya must have been immune or else not picked it up or the disease would have spread through Dubna following his first return. But if Stalin carries the virus, and as he has lived through its ravages, then it is certain that he has brought it now into our world's air. Even as we speak, it spreads. "
"Meantime in this one," Jake said, "with Roosevelt exed, Churchill gone-"
"And Stalin removed from the scene," she concluded, "Hitler remains to act as he pleases. The possibilities are enormous. Sanya has committed crimes against humanity in both worlds."
From outside sounded seagull cries, surfs steady beat.
"What's possible, then?" Jake asked.
"Hitler can take Europe in two years," I said, "including England. Inference from our history's progression suggests he may or may not hold on to western Russia; depends on when he invades and what strategy he uses under these changed circumstances. He'll certainly be able to take all of northern Africa, and Egypt. If he chooses to slow, if he heeds some among his group, Germany might invade the Middle East, move through Iran from Russia, join with Japan somewhere in India-" It was the old worst-case scenario as laid out, the difference here being that all was yet possible. "That in twenty years or so there might be only Germany, Japan and North America. If Germany develops the bomb-"
This world, suddenly, seemed even worse than ours.
"Luther," Jake said, pitching me the Times's front unit. "Viz this." Frontpaged low was an article concerning a meteor's descent.
... neither information detailing its nature, nor even size, which local residents estimate to be enormous. Several dump trucks have brought dirt to the area, where bulldozers are being used to build a ramp across the marsh from the site of impact to Route 3. Members of the New Jersey State Militia have erected an enclosed tent around the apparent meteorite and stand guard....
"Deep cover," I said. "Meteorite. They've certified it's not contemporary flight-oriented-"
"Unless they've begun dismantling the controls they know only that they have in their possession a Russian plane of advanced capability outfitted with weapons. That they would make the obvious, if erroneous, connection seems certain. That would easily explain last night's events, with or without Skuratov's assistance."
"They think Stalin came with us?" Knowing Skuratov, he may well have told them that he was Stalin.
"It is the obvious inference," she said. "That the ones investigated brutally murdered all members of the investigating party might conceivably convince them entirely."
But what, I thought, feeling my own mind's line unreeling, if this tale of disappearance was nothing but disinfo in itself; Skuratov's scheme. Mayhap he'd broken or lost his tracker du
ring his drop, and found himself unable to sight Oktobriana's glow as he earlier had. What better way to set a lure than to let fly a tale of a problem's disappearance, knowing we would make the obvious decision; to wish return quickly, to find him fast-
Ridiculous, I told myself. The love of plot is my disease.
"In any event, under these circumstances they must be quite aware that Skuratov would seem to be, to someone, one of great importance," she said. And so, as it seems evident as well that Sanya has returned to our world accompanied by his hero, our hope of escape remains with Skuratov."
"If its still in one piece," said Jake.
"There is one additional possibility to which I must give further thought," she said.
"What?"
"We had a theory that with Tesla coils of great size conjoined with resonating towers of equivalent power, the effect produced by our device might be caused without any such device, that the energies resulting could split the wall between worlds. We could never test such theories, for we hadn't funding to build a coil and tower of the necessary size. So Sanya developed his machine-"
"Where would such a coil be-" I began to ask; remembered her odd silence of the night previous after passing the fair.
"Inferring what I can in these articles, I would say it is obvious that this Trylon and Perisphere are a tremendous Tesla coil and resonating tower, and they will be switched on tomorrow night. "
"We may be able to use it to get back?"
"There are further calculations to make. The danger, nevertheless, will be much greater."
"Why?"
"There will be no control over the effect, if such an effect occurs. The transferral may be imperfect. There are many awful possibilities but as last resort it is worth investigating," she said, curling her feet beneath her to slow their unending jiggle, her face drained of color by the effort's pain. "My mind is useful so long as I have it. Let me use it." She suddenly paused; turned and looked at Jake. "What was it you gave me after we crashed?" she asked him. "Extamyl, was it?"
"Three hundred mils to lessen pain and shock," he said, his voice seizing as if he needed lube. "The last of it. It would assist now, I know-"
"In such massive doses Extamyl decreases the immunity to transient respiratory ailments," she said, tapping lip with finger; she bled beneath her nails. "Of course. Certainly there would be no concern ordinarily but I'm afraid that this particular transient takes its vehicle with it when it reaches its stop. Examining the possibilities, I feel assured now that it was the dosage of Extamyl that likely assisted in any immediate infection, even if it has had no bearing on the speed of its progression, which I would gather is rapid."
"I had Diodin-" Jake said, his face drawn tight.
"There are no such side effects with Diodin," she said. "Who's to say that Diodin might not have lent you greater immunity? Or temporary immunity?" Bruises blotched her arms and wrists, where everflexing muscles forced capillaries to break. A vein had gone at elbow joint, leaving a Rorschach of desperate sign. "Jake, you showed wise concern and acted properly. There is no reason to blame yourself."
So, pronouncing sentence on Jake, she faced him full; in his own look he showed, through his lack of emotion, the strain of holding it within. Good intentions always killed, or killed often enough to give pause to any samaritan. I myself would have thereafter seen a murderer in any mirror, deservedly or not; what he might see, I never knew. He patted her hand clumsily, as if fearing he might be struck down for affection's show.
"This explains so many things," she said. "The untoward energy and euphoric feelings earlier on. I am so tired. Hand me something to write with, Jake. I'd better set down whatever I have to offer." Her left eye showed pink, where something else had given way. The head of a fullpage ad in the opened paper, lying at my feet, announced: WF. ARE ALL IN'TEREST'ED IN THE FUTURE/For That is Where We Will Spend the Rest of Our Lives. So I hoped; it seemed evermore unlikely.
Wanda stood sole and only on the sun porch still, peering towards oceanedge through bulged-out, rusted screens. I walked across to where she was, leaving Jake and Oktobriana to be by themselves a short time longer.
"How're you?" I asked.
"I've been better," she said, avoiding my eyes. "Hurts being here. "
Hurts us both, I thought, remembering the ambush suffered as we neared Southampton so long ago. Breaking formation, positioning roadside, we delivered our own messages, rocketing all within radius. Those hit with phosphorus fire popped up from their burrows as if from a Roman candle. We felt the earth wince with shellblast as we lay upon it. C-380s swept overhead, bearing napalm eastward to cauterize dissent's wounds. Ten lost there in the road, for no purpose, for no reason, to no effect.
"Luther," she said, stirring me from my reverie. "Where are you?"
"Sorry," I said. "Daydreaming."
"Wish I was like you all, in a way."
"What's meant?"
"I wouldn't feel any of this," she said. "It'd be so much easier."
"Feel? Feel what?"
"That's what I mean. You don't feel anything, do you? Emotions, I mean. You've all gotten rid of 'em somehow Streamlined 'em away. It just seems like you get along easier without them."
"They're there," I said, speaking at least for myself; she was right, in the broader sense. "We bury them deep enough not to rise again.
"Can't get 'em down that deep," she said. "It's close in here."
"Let's take outer air," I said. She nodded. Opening the screen door, its spring shuddering loud as its rust flaked away, we exited. None rose from underbrush to meet and greet when we showed; no warning shots blew out our brains. We moved forward, careless as icebergs. The abandoned garden through which we passed was overgrown with kneehigh weed; the faint marks of path and a tilted sundial at center showed where a pattern once used, failed. Reaching an outcrop of rock at beachside, we sat. Blue-and-white butterflies drifted by like paperscraps tossed over fire; I'd not seen one living since youth. Birdsong rose; eyeing upward I sighted a boiling feathered cloud cross the sky, aiming inland, towards the east. No ornithologist, I.
"What are those?" I asked.
"Passenger pigeons," said Wanda. "They set up a preserve for em somewhere out here 'cause they say they're dying out. When I was little big flocks'd fly over ever' year and the men'd wait till they settled in the trees. Then they'd beat 'em down with long sticks. My grandparents told me they'd black out the sun for hours when they'd pass, back when they first came here."
"They're over a century extinct in our day," I said.
"That's life." She shrugged. "Nothing but damn birds anyway. Gave 'em a place to live just the same. Killed off the buffaloes. Killed off the Indians. They'd kill off all the colored folk, thought they could get away with it. But they try to save those damn birds." She shook her head. "Sounds like it's too late for them, too."
For a few minutes we watched waves folding in on themselves, rising again, striking the beach with seaspittle. Coastlight lent all a gentle gilt.
"You've seen the disease in progress previous?" I asked.
She nodded her head. "Ever'body's seen it in progress. Just not as fast as it's happening with her. Two of my brothers died of it."
"Sorry," I said. "Quickly?"
"Don't know," she said. "I wasn't with 'em and my sister never said much. They never left Georgia and I wouldn't go back there on a bet."
"Doc pastspoke only yesterday," I said. "Related early life tales."
She nodded, again. "Your grandfolks must of told you some kind of stories like that," she said. Father's father owned three mortuaries; mother's father was president of Citibank, until the Ebb.
"Some kind," I said. "He told me you were in Cuba. Didn't have chance to lend color and detail-"
Wanda lit a cigarette after rolling it between lips, wetting its end. "We weren't there long. Not as long as some."
"The description horrified."
"Being there was bad," she said. "Getting home nearly killed
us. That was the worst of it. "
"I asked Doc how you effected return, but he didn't elaborate."
Her smile suggested the remembrance of a lost one's beloved, if fatal, quirks. "He wouldn't have. Norman always thought he got the short end of the stick in the long run and maybe he did. We both had it hard getting back, but we made it hack. Helluva lot of 'em didn't. Almost like it happened to somebody else, now," she said; drew in smoke as if to inflame memory's burned-out circuits. "That last morning they woke us up at five like they always did, lined us tip in front of the barracks like they always did. We'd get our work assignments usually then and that'd be it. All they said that morning was, `You're free.' Turned around and headed hack to the office.
"Well. We all just stood there looking at each other like maybe we was still asleep and still dreaming. Longer we stood there the more we realized we weren't. What exactly they meant by what they said worried us, though, and so in a little while me and Norman and a few more went down to the office to find out just what they did mean. We were young, remember."