by Lewis Shiner
If nothing else, she thought, watching the endless miles of empty land unroll into the night, she had gained an appreciation of the way Novikov had risen so quickly. The workers at Kaliningrad, even the officers, had seemed absurdly grateful for any voice of authority. The dissidents who wanted a truly democratic society in Russia had no idea of the enormity of what they were asking.
“So,” Valentin said, his blond good looks even more wasted and sickly-looking in the green light of the control panel, “now we will have Zvezdagrad. What are we going to do with it?”
“Hold it,” Mayakenska said. “Hold it and wait.”
She held Zvezdagrad for seven months, the longest seven months of her life. She took cows and goats and chickens from the nearby village of Tyuratam at gunpoint, then offered the villagers sanctuary within her walls. They refused, of course; from the outside the space center looked depressingly like a Gulag, with its miles of barbed wire and its grim cinderblock buildings.
Most of the villagers died a few weeks later when the People’s Independent Army of Kazakhstan swept through the steppes like a modern Mongol horde, on the backs of jeeps and dune buggies and balloon-tired motorcycles, armed with Kalishnikov machine guns and towing what appeared to be a tactical nuclear ground-to-ground missile.
Mayakenska let them pass. They in turn seemed to feel the center wasn’t worth the trouble of getting past the fortifications. The surviving villagers didn’t agree. They attacked Zvezdagrad with the puny weapons they had available, and Mayakenska saw no way to reason with them. She ordered her people to fire on them, and they lived with the stench of decaying bodies for the next two weeks.
The radio, when it worked, brought news of the capital. The chekists had been the first to try to fill the power vacuum. While their communication lines were second to none, the apex of their power structure had been amputated in the Army coup. Without experienced leadership, their authority never solidified. Looters began shooting anyone in KGB gray uniforms, and the rape of Moscow went on.
In the end it was the unions that began to organize the pieces. Under the old order they had been just another arm of the state, responsible for morale and unemployment benefits, but when the first cases of cholera appeared on the streets, they extended their responsibilities. Mayakenska began to hear words like “corporate infrastructure” and “bottom line” on the radio. Using the zaibatsus and the multinationals for models, the unions put together a new, decentralized society.
On New Year’s Eve she put the traditional three pieces of paper under her pillow and went to sleep, alone, sober, and aching with hunger. In the morning she pulled out one of the pieces, unfolded it, saw the words “Good Year.”
“Please,” she said, sitting on the edge of the bed, glad there was no one to see her crying. “Please.”
She sent a cable to the old Aeroflot address in Moscow that afternoon. Within a week, the first company representatives had flown out to see what could be done with several square kilometers of vintage space hardware. Mayakenska was awarded the honorary rank of vice president, and all her loyal supporters were hired by the company.
“There is one condition,” she said, staring at the fine, meaningless print of the “contract” they wanted her to sign. “If there is another mission to Mars, I will be on it.”
“No problem,” said one of the other vice presidents. He was western educated, and wore glasses with colored frames, a silk shirt and tie, and dzhinsi pants.
“Write it down,” she said. “Write it in your contract.”
The company representatives looked at each other, and then they shrugged. The vice president with the colored glasses amended the contract and Mayakenska signed it and they all shook hands. And then, because they were Russians, the vodka bottle finally appeared and they drank to the dawn of a new age.
They seemed to expect her to retire to her dacha and her pension, but instead she brought her cosmonauts back to Kaliningrad and the training facilities at Zvezdny Gorodok. For three years. she put up with the bemused acceptance of her new superiors. She would have put up with it for another ten, but she didn’t have to. Word had come from one of the moles buried deep within Pulsystems of the incredible discoveries at Frontera base.
“We are ready,” she told her board of directors, and less than three months later she was back at Zvezdagrad, strapped into a modified Soyuz, pointed at Mars.
For Mayakenska, history was the irrelevant process by which a present moment was constructed. By extension, the present was no more than a tool for shaping the future. And this, she told herself, thinking of the laser orbiting over her head, is what I have to do.
She shifted into the slow arpeggios of Max Middleton’s solo from “Diamond Dust.” From countless listenings she could recreate the string section in her mind, lacing their minor chords through the notes of the piano. Jazz music, for Mayakenska, was the only thing of value ever to come from the moral and spiritual desert of American culture. It was a music untainted by capitalist values, at least the best of it was, played only for the joy of the music itself.
The piece worked itself to the finish, climbing to the final B above high C. She loved that note, the way it floated above the rest of the music, the sense of completion it gave to the whole. At last she brought her hands away, unplugged the headphones, and folded the keyboard again.
She’d slept well before the landing, in order to be strong and alert, and though the Martian gravity had tired her she could not imagine trying to sleep again. Still not reconciled? she wondered. Still waiting to find that perfect note, the one that would make sense of this undeniably brutal and imperialistic mission?
After nine months she had been unable to find any answers. The transport device and, more importantly, the antimatter generator, must not become the exclusive property of Pulsystems, It would mean not only the end of Aeroflot, but the end of Russia as any sort of world power.
There was a knock at the door and she said, “Come in.”
“Valentin is asleep,” Blok said. “Are you all right? Can I get you anything?”
They were questions, she thought, he should be asking himself. His eyes seemed to vibrate with nervousness. “Relax,” she said. “There’s nothing to worry about. I think Curtis will accept the political realities of his situation.”
This was her fault, she knew. She had played Curtis off against Blok at their meeting, polarizing him before he was truly ready to make a choice. But she needed him, needed an inside man to take the load off of herself and Valentin.
“Do you?” Blok said. “I’m not so sure.”
He had been one of her most difficult students, a true political, a Komsomol member since his teens, with high marks in leadership and poor physical condition. She had done well, she thought, toughened him up enough that he had survived.
“It’s out of our hands, in any case,” she told him. Blok nodded, started to turn away, and then she had a thought. “Just a second. If you really want to do something for me, you could. Stay and watch things for a few minutes.”
“Of course. Get some sleep. You must be worn out.”
“No,” she said, “I’m fine. I just want to…to go outside. Just for a couple of minutes. I don’t think anything’s going to come up, but if it does you can radio me.”
“Let me come with you.”
“No. I’ll be fine.” She reached for her radio and called the orbiter. “This is Mayakenska at 15 hundred hours. Code Dniepr. Repeat, code Dniepr.”
“Okay, we have you,” said Chaadayev, the command pilot. “How did they take it?”
“Not too well. What did you expect?”
“I guess I hadn’t really thought about it. Listen, you may be getting some weather down there. Everything’s gotten really hazy-looking down to the south.”
“Any idea when it’s going to get here?”
“Are you kidding? I’m from Moscow. I don’t know anything about this shit. But it’s heading right for you and it seems to be moving prett
y fast. Maybe in a few minutes.”
“Okay,” Mayakenska said. “We’ll call back in an hour.” She threw the radio on the bed and stood up.
“Be careful,” Blok said. “If that’s a sandstorm you don’t want to be out in it.”
She hugged him. “You always worried too much,” she said.
In the changing room she tried on one of the American rigid suits. It fit well, but didn’t seem as solid and trustworthy as the Soviet model. She strapped on a life support pack and cycled through the lock.
For the first minute or so, she was distracted by the unfamiliar suit, by the vertiginous pull of gravity, by the rasping sound of her own breath. She had to pick her way through the jetsam of the dome, the ice bags and abandoned science experiments and rows upon rows of solar collectors.
And then she reached the top of a low rise, and for the first time she could see a horizon that had no human mark on it, an expanse of orange sand and dark brown rock and hazy, gray-green sky. She sat in the dirt like a child and ran some of it through her gloved fingers.
“Hello, Mars,” she said.
The wind swirled around her, and tiny grains of sand began to ping against her helmet.
ELEVEN
KANE DREAMED of an ocean full of colors, crystalline turquoise over shallow sand, purple where the sluggish living rock of the reefs grew toward the sun, dark, cold blue over the depths.
Ahead was Mount Arganthon, its hollow peak veiled in thin sheets of cloud; off to port he could see the powdery soil and dark green brush of the Cianian coast. The wind was freshening, finally, now that his fifty oarsmen were exhausted and the sun was within a hand’s width of the horizon. A gust puffed out the single massive sail in the center of the penteconter, and he gave the command to ship oars.
They rode the breeze into the port of Mysia, rich smells of frying oil, ripe fruit, and mingled sweat and perfume drifting across the water of the harbor to meet them. They tied the Argo at the dock and climbed into the city by torchlight, the Mysians in crudely dyed chitons and pepla swarming around them, desperate for news.
Over dinner he stared hungrily at the dark-eyed woman across from him, steam from the charred sheep carcass in the center of the table rising between them. Afterwards, the grease from the meal still smearing his mouth, his nose full of her thick perfume, he plunged his swollen, aching penis into her, holding her wrists against the rocky soil of the hillside, her heavy breasts lolling in the night air, her linen clothes scattered behind them like the wake of the Argo, her mouth open in a silent scream of protest or perhaps even pleasure.
When he finished, he rocked back onto his knees, sniffing the air. Someone was moving, below, on the path that led to the village spring. He let his chiton fall over his loins and crept barefoot down the slope for a better look.
It was Hylas, Herakles’ lover, done up in full kosmetikos, hair and cheeks dyed red, face blanched, eyebrows painted in, his hair full of flowers. He carried a bronze pitcher over one shoulder.
Kane followed him, irritated that the boy was wandering around unarmed. Hylas was enough trouble as it was, stirring up the other men, afraid to brutalize his hands with an oar, toying with Herakles’ unstable emotions. But he was the price that went with Herakles’ services.
Kane stood behind a thicket while Hylas bent over the still surface of the water. The moon was high, and Kane could see that they were alone, but his calf muscles were jumping and the air smelled wrong, smelled like rain though the sky was clear.
The water of the spring began to stir.
Ripples Kane could have understood, but what he saw was the entire surface tilting and swaying. At the same time it began to glow, an oily sheen like glistening fat, but with rainbow colors melting and turning inside. The air began to hum and Kane felt the hairs on his legs and arms stand straight away from his body. The Gods, he thought. They’re moving.
Hylas disappeared.
“Hylas!” The scream came from Herakles, trampling the path with the thunder of an entire army.
Kane stepped out in front of him, said, “Reese, stop!” not knowing why he used the strange-sounding name.
Herakles knocked him aside. As he tumbled into the dirt, Kane saw Herakles circled with a light like the phantom fire that danced from the masts of ships. And then Herakles was gone.
The water shimmered and heaved, and before it went still again Kane saw the image of a cup, and a strange, curved sword, and finally the Fleece itself, the wool heavy with glittering particles of gold.
“Kane?”
The voice came from the spring, a woman’s voice, stirring something just out of the reach of his consciousness.
“Kane, snap out of it!”
He crawled toward the water, feeling the sand soften and pucker under him, light flooding his eyes, blinding him.
“Jesus, I thought I’d lost you for a moment there. What the hell happened to you?”
Kane focused, saw a woman with a dark, sculpted face looming over him. Fragments of the ancient sailor’s personality still clung to his own, making him feel drugged, dissociated from himself. Gradually he recognized Lena, remembered having brawled with Curtis in the airlock.
“Kane? Are you all right? Can you talk at all?”
He had trouble hearing her. The voices were filling all the unused spaces in his brain, had moved smoothly from the dream into this other reality with their echoing harmony. “What did you give me?” he asked, feeling a sudden wash of chemical energy shoot through his spine.
“Adrenogen,” Lena said. Kane nodded. He’d heard rumors of the stuff from his uncle’s chemists, a synthetic hormone that forced the body to produce massive quantities of adrenaline. He felt light-headed and barely in control of his emotions, alternately terrified, enraged, and moved nearly to tears by the music in his brain.
“You pulled me out of this,” he said. “Why? I thought you were with Curtis.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I was with him. He’s a psycho, Kane. Full of power—political, personal, sexual, you name it. But he’s hooked on it, and now his whole midway ride is starting to come apart on him.”
“The Russians,” Kane said, remembering.
“Yeah, the Russians. They’re going to laser this whole place into a junkyard at midnight. That’s like three hours from now. Maybe sooner, if somebody panics. It’s time for us to get the hell out of here.”
“No,” Kane said.
“Listen, man, there’s stuff you don’t know about. Your uncle did a number on your head. I’m not talking about brainwashing here, I mean some really serious shit, some kind of implant wetware that we don’t even know what it’s doing.”
“Implant,” Kane said. “Jesus.”
“Something about North Africa, Takahashi said. They had to put it in to get your brain to function at all, or something. He said they can swap programs in and out of it like changing cassettes.”
The sequences began to click into place for him: the years of stunted ambition, the phantom voices distracting him, the cryogenics briefcase with a new module to be installed, the subliminals to activate it, the headaches, the dreams, the music. “How long have you known about it?’“
“Me? Just since last night. But Takahashi’s known all along, him and your uncle both.”
“Yeah, sure he would. But he’d have to. It’s just part of the Pattern, see?”
“See what?”
“My father died on the Gulf Freeway, an axle broke or something, and he went into a concrete embankment. I was seven, I was in the car, and I got thrown clear. I was wearing those Mexican sandals, huaraches, and one of them got blown away. When my uncle came to get me at the hospital, I was just wearing one sandal.”
Lena stared at him as if he were raving.
“Don’t you see?” Kane said. “That’s how Pelias was supposed to recognize the man that was going to kill him. Which was Jason. So Pelias sent him after the Fleece, thinking he would never make it back.”
“Greek mythology,” Len
a said. “Do you know where you are? Do you understand what’s happening?”
“I’m on Mars. Where my uncle sent me to die. But that’s only a piece of it, it’s the entire Pattern that’s important. Separation, initiation, and return. Where we are now is the Penetration to the Source of Power.” Kane sat up, saw that he was on a bare stained mattress in a deserted living module. Empty bottles, hypos, and various plastic wrappers littered the floor. “What is this place?”
“Curtis calls it ‘Little Juarez.’ Charming, isn’t it?”
“We’re looking for a cave. That’s where it is, usually, like where Orpheus goes into hell to rescue Eurydice.”
“Curtis’s kid is in a cave,” Lena said.
“What?”
She looked startled, as if she hadn’t meant to say it out loud. “There’s some kind of a cave out on the slope of the volcano. A bunch of the kids moved out there, including Curtis’s little girl.”
“Why? What are they doing out there?”
“I kind of got the impression there’s something wrong with them. Birth defects, genetic damage, like that. There’s a couple of lifetimes’ worth of work up here, and they won’t even let me see those kids.”
“Then that must be where it is.”
“Where what is?”
“The source of power. Like the Fleece, or the Grail, or Susa-no-wo’s sword.”
“Kane, man, this is not a myth. This is happening. Real Russians, real lasers, real corpses, real soon.”
“But what if the other was real, too? Like some kind of tension in the universe, and it has to keep happening over and over again until somebody gets it right. See, because Jason got the Fleece, but he didn’t do it right and ended up all alone, an outcast. Percival gets to see the grail, but he doesn’t get to keep it. Yamato-Takeru was a great warrior, but his spirit was weak and that was what killed him.”
“And now it’s your turn? Is that it?”
“Maybe.”
“I’ve got a better idea. All this mythology crap, that’s what you did in college, right? So your uncle puts this implant in your skull because there’s something up here he wants you to do for him, and he doesn’t trust you to do what you’re told. Only the biotic circuit isn’t quite hooked up right. Or maybe it is but you’re fighting it too hard, and as a result all his orders are getting filtered through a layer of intellectual bullshit, and it comes out in these crazy fantasies of yours.”