The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Fifth Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  “Indeed,” said Khorobrov. “That is not the proper attitude, Colonel Kimball.”

  Kimball shrugged, and did his best to look bored. “Take it up with Obawata,” he replied, pointing to the team leader of the U.N. observers. The Senegalese did not even look up.

  “No instructions,” he murmured.

  Kimball smiled again. “There you go.”

  Khorobrov said: “This field is to be rendered wholly inoperative by eleven A.M. eastern standard time on September 16th, Colonel Kimball. You are four days behind.”

  “By whose reckoning? Yours? Or your government’s?” Clearly Kimball was enjoying this. “Say, how do you know so much, Khorobrov? I thought you were just a reporter for Izvestia … or are you something else? A person of more … intelligent persuasions, perhaps?”

  And Kimball, in mock seriousness, wagged a finger at Khorobrov and frowned.

  In spite of herself, Avdotya smiled. It was common knowledge that Khorobrov was KGB, but the unspoken rule that Kimball loved to flout was to ignore the fact. Avdotya cautiously relished the occasional confrontations.

  “Avie the Red,” Kimball called her, admiring the color of her thick hair. The American officer was in his middle fifties, but he moved like a much younger man, and always had a smile ready for her. When he spoke, he spoke to her; he insulted Khorobrov and ignored the drunken pilot Kirsanov and the boy Siromakha, who looked so frightened and overwhelmed. Among his own people, he acted the part of a genteel father figure, and indeed, when he was not around, the American technicians and soldiers referred to him as “Pappy K.” He was a colorful man, an amazing attribute both rare and discouraged in Avdotya’s experience. She began to feel warm toward him, particularly after he presented her with a pair of cowboy boots with a red star emblazoned on each toe.

  Eventually he took her out, boots and all, to a bar in Wahoo. When Khorobrov objected, she told him to kiss his own ass. She could do that, she assured Kimball; she was the favorite niece of the party secretary of the Ukraine. Kimball had laughed and unexpectedly slapped her on her shoulder.

  Avdotya was still daydreaming when the klaxons howled throughout the operations center. Immediately the screens surrounding her went dead, and then flashed on again, but this time the displays were different. Unfamiliar symbols and combinations flickered on some, while others showed data-enhanced maps and tabular graphs. She reacted with surprise, having no idea what was going on, but Kimball was shouting above the bray of the alarms, and Khorobrov was edging slowly into the shadows beyond the consoles.

  If anyone knew what was happening, it would be Khorobrov, Avdotya thought. He glanced at her, apprehension and dismay on his face.

  Thereafter, events seemed to take on a hideously entropic quality, as though lives were lived in the space of minutes, drained of consequence.

  Ben Kimball shouted at someone to shut the klaxons off. In the consuming silence, he asked, “Is it real? Daggett, is it real?”

  “Those alarms are tied to the environmental sensors,” one of the technicians answered. “There are anamolous indications of top … pressure fluctuations, albedo disruptions, frequency distortions on most bandwidths … gamma radiation … x-rays … infrared…”

  “What do we have from the SACSIN link, Stiles?”

  “Nothing … just noise, sir. I think the net must be down.”

  “What about MEECN? Nightwatch?”

  “Nonoperational, sir … you remember, the receivers were taken down under 242 provisions two months ago … wait … yes. Something from Offutt on the TQ frequency … it’s garbled … now it’s gone.”

  “Hell. What was it?”

  The technician turned around and faced Kimball. “Sounded like an API scramble code … sir … is this real?”

  Avdotya suddenly remembered her child in Novosibirsk. She found herself unconsciously slipping slowly toward a shadowed side of the bunker. But a gun barrel prodded her in the back, and when she looked, she saw a determined looking guard with an automatic pistol.

  “Nyet!” the American hissed.

  “But what is it?” the U.N. team leader was demanding. “Colonel Kimball, what is going on?”

  “If he opens his mouth again, put a bullet in it,” Kimball said, to no one in particular. “Go to a DI-3 operational alert … and get me NORAD or somebody. Christ, I am not going to launch because of bad sensors and a thunderstorm … bloody hell not now, after all we’ve been through.”

  “Colonel Kimball, you cannot declare an alert.” It was the boy from the foreign ministry, Siromakha. His voice was shaking. “You’ll endanger everything … the negotiations … my government—”

  “—has probably started a war,” snarled Kimball. “Shut up! Daggett! Wake up! Talk to me.”

  “Radiation … moderate levels … unfocused, I can’t get a fix. Pressure fluctuations are consistent with the mach fronts of several airbursts in the kiloton range … a rise in surface temperature … hell, sir, we’re under attack, don’t you see?”

  “Shut up, now, mister. Stiles, what about SACSIN or NORAD?”

  “No change. Nothing on cable, either, just noise … more noise … now I have pulsed harmonics on the higher frequencies … I don’t think it’s artificial.”

  “All right,” said Kimball. “Dean? What do you think?”

  “Could be a counterforce strike. They might’ve shut down our people already. Offutt was the last central command and control for SAC … if that was a scramble code, I’d say we’re screwed.”

  “Then why haven’t we been burned yet? Why airbursts instead of ground-level detonations?”

  “I dunno … we’ve been half shut down by 242 … maybe we aren’t considered important anymore … a series of timed low-yield airbursts above the field could hold us down for a while until more important business is finished.”

  “Listen,” said Kimball, his voice taking on a thin edge. “I got thirty-two megatons, and every operational missile out there is venting on the racks. They aren’t Titans … I can put a W87b warhead through the Kremlin’s front door.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. I just don’t know.”

  There were a few seconds of silence, and then Siromakha tried again: “Colonel Kimball, I respectfully request—”

  “Son,” interrupted Kimball, “I may apologize to you later, or I may have you shot. Right now it looks like the latter. Now be quiet. Sssssh!”

  “PACCS!” the technician Stiles shouted suddenly. “I got PACCS! On cable link EVI … a confirmed verbal encode … I’m routing it to you, sir.”

  The blue phone on Kimball’s desk buzzed. Kimball picked up the receiver and listened. His face went white.

  Bastards, thought Avdotya, an unexpected rage welling up and overwhelming her sick horror and longing for Nickolai. All over … all over … nothing left … nothing to go home to … bastards … a trick …

  “A trick,” she said. Kirsanov the pilot gaped at her.

  “A trick,” she repeated.

  Kimball turned and slammed the phone down. A gun was in his hand, pointed at her face. Anger suffused his skin with a deep red glow.

  “Damn right, comrade,” he said. “You’re going to die for it, too.”

  He gave the orders to launch. Avdotya shuddered in physical pain when the earth around her rumbled, as the operational portion of the wing was ejected from the silos by pressurized gas. There was a second of silence and then a deep thrumming hiss from above, as the boosters ignited and the missiles soared into a threatening sky.

  Omsk, Temirtau and Karaganda, Pavlodar, Petropavlovsk … Novosibirsk …

  The sound of automatic rifle fire replaced the evil thrumming, and she twisted to see Khorobrov, teeth clenched, shooting wildly. Ben Kimball suddenly disappeared. She flung herself on a blood-spattered rifle that clattered to the carpeted floor by her feet, and it was then and there that her long journey really began.

  8

  “Avie, we couldn’t find any detonation sites out there. None. Carmichael an
d Assad did find some minor blast damage in Omaha before they died, but the tapes we recovered from Offutt indicated that base command maintained a link to NORAD, and no one there knew what was going on. They had pretty well decided that the chain of events did not fit the profile of command and control decapitation before a counterforce strike, however. What little NORAD could get from the Russian-watchers after the low-orbit satellite network died appeared to show that your people were having similar problems. SACSIN never gave a launch-sequence order … it came from Post-Attack Command, and was initiated after a heavily-shielded satellite gave a degraded identification of multiple booster ignitions in the Pacific Ocean off Kamchatsky … your submarine base, you know?”

  The image of Ben Kimball on the monitor in the generator bunker looked haggard and cold. Avdotya could see cracked and open sores on the American’s lined cheeks.

  “So,” she replied in her awkward English. “You expect me to believe this? Perhaps you expect me to congratulate you because America won the war? Because a … trick, a betrayal killed my country, my child? You expect me to throw down the barricade and open the airlock, and let you in here? Then maybe we have a party, yes? You bring wine coolers, perhaps? Beer?”

  “Avie … please. I don’t expect anything, I merely ask.” Kimball sounded exhausted. “Understand me. It’s been five months, and the portable heaters we have out here in the corridor have had it. We can’t scrounge for food and fuel anymore because the temperature outside has dropped below the operational limits of our tractor. We’re the only ones left, Avie … six of us huddled here by this monitor. I doubt if there’s anyone else out there. We’re malnourished, suffering from prolonged exposure to radiation, and we’re sick. We’re cold. When we die, you’ll be alone. Have you thought about that?”

  “You sent thirty-two megatons into the heart of the Soviet people, Ben. You wish me to be sad when you die?”

  “Avie, I’ve told you … we found eight of our missiles in the Omaha area, and one more near Wahoo. I don’t believe anything we launched reached Siberia, and I’m sure no inbounds from your people fell around here.”

  “Oh, so now you are going to tell me there was no war, is that right, Ben Kimball? You are going to convince me that not your people or mine committed acts of barbarous aggression and suicide? It was all a big mistake, yes? What evidence do you have to present today, please? Will you explain for me the pressure fluctuations, the blast damage from airbursts, the radiations?”

  Kimball shook his head. “I don’t know, Avie … nothing makes much sense anymore. Pauley died last night, did you notice? Stress, scurvy, who knows? You’ve got food, heat, light, books and tapes in the strategic supply bunker … give us a break. We’re all that’s left. Save our lives.”

  “I cannot. You murdered my child.”

  Kimball bit his lip.

  After a minute, Avdotya asked, “Why do you want to live, if there is nothing out there?”

  “Me?” Kimball seemed surprised. “I don’t want to live … I don’t have the desire. But I have a bunch of twenty-four year olds who do. They really do. I guess they need me.”

  He shrugged and stared into the monitor’s camera. “Why do you want to live, Avie?”

  She did not hesitate. “I am going to wait until the … climate improves, and then I will go home somehow.”

  Days passed, and the Americans hardly moved in their nest outside the thick airlock doors. Ben Kimball looked worse.

  “You are going to stay here and die?” she asked.

  “As long as there’s a chance,” he replied hoarsely.

  “There is no chance. Go home, Ben Kimball.”

  “Wish I could, Avie … but home is in Oregon. Medford. My kid lives there now. Real political activist, especially since it became fashionable again. Good, solid husband with her … a real bore. Two children. Call me ‘grandfather’… hate that. Call me Ben, I say. Call me anything, but don’t call me old. My wife’s buried in Medford, on Pinery Way … she looked like you, Avie, did I tell you that?”

  “Many times, Ben.”

  “Good, solid … capable at whatever she wanted to do. Stubborn … strong. Shock of red hair, green eyes that noticed everything. Hated to see her go … took the life out of me, made me rude, a bore … hollow inside … sorry, just rambling on…”

  “You were a good person, Ben. I liked you.”

  “Save us, Avie.”

  “No.” Avdotya put her hands to her face. “I will tell you why, yes? My son, Nikolai … I am a little crazy most of the time. My husband, Gregori … he was a party official in Moscow. He drank a lot and beat me, even when I was pregnant. But he loved me, too … I think he loved me. In my second year at the Frunze Academy, I became very tired. I broke his jaw. There was a scandal. Gregori divorced me, and took my son. I was dismissed from Frunze, and posted to Karaganda for three years.”

  There were tears on her cheeks. She did not notice them.

  “I wanted my son. I wanted a career … to be good at what I do. So I think, if only I work very hard. I do everything I can do, and someday I have everything I want again, you understand? Nikolai … they do not give the son of a Central Committee alternate back to a soldier-wife unless I am very, very good.”

  “I was good,” she continued, haltingly. “Gregori … he made some mistakes. He retired a year ago. My uncle in the Ukraine talked to some people in Moscow … by that time I was a major assigned to one of the rocket regiments near Novosibirsk. The psychologists went to see Nikolai … they said he was not … healthy. He had no zeal. He was not interested in acceptable social organizations. They said it was Gregori’s fault. It is all bullshit, as you say … yes? But I take him anyway. He came back to me a month before I was assigned here.”

  She looked up suddenly, and gritted her teeth.

  “You took him away from me, you bastard. You took him away, you took everything away again. Everyday I wake up and I say, ‘Avdotya Nazarovna, you are not a murderer, you must give those bastards outside a chance. They did not know your son, they did not willingly do this to him.’ But I am crazy…”

  She shook her head. “My hands do not obey my mind. I cannot pull the lever to open the airlock. I get sick … I hate you, and the thought of living with you, breathing the same air with you makes me ill. I must go home. When the weather breaks, I must find a way to go home. Please. Tell me this, Ben Kimball. Would you let me live, if I let you in here? Would you let me go, when I wanted to?”

  Ben Kimball had been silently staring at her for many minutes. He did not move. The flush in his face had paled, the beads of sweat on his brow had frozen.

  “Ben Kimball? Ben?”

  When he did not answer, she slumped to the floor.

  9

  When she awoke, she lay on a cot in a ruined casino in Wendover, Nevada, and a giant duck sat by her bed.

  “Hello, Daffy Duck,” she said.

  “Daffy Duck? The animated cartoon waterfowl? How shall I take that?”

  She laughed quietly and fell asleep again.

  Later, she opened her eyes, and saw Daffy and Dewey bending over her.

  “How do you feel?” asked Dewey.

  “Better,” she replied. “I’ve been a lot of trouble to you, haven’t I?”

  Both ducks straightened and looked at each other.

  “You were close to death when we found you,” said Dewey. “I believe you have recovered now. There is a bone splint on your left ankle. It is not very good, and the bone may heal crookedly, but I believe you will be able to walk. It was the best I could do.”

  “Thank you, you’ve been very good to me … what happened to the biologist? The one I found out there in the desert?”

  “Dead,” replied Daffy. “I am sorry.”

  “Why? Why suicide? It isn’t the first time, is it?”

  “Would you like to sit up?” asked Dewey.

  “Thank you. Can I have a glass of water?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you a
nswer my question?”

  “Yes,” Daffy said, and sat down beside the cot.

  “There are certain factors that I have failed to comprehend,” it began. “There are others that I have hesitated to talk about. You have slept for several days. You spoke in your sleep, and told me a great deal. I did not realize how difficult it had been for you.”

  The duck rocked back and closed its eyes. “Poor us … poor us. We were so curious, so willing to help. We wanted so much … we desired a meaningful dialogue with your people. Voyagers at the very dawn of the loneliest voyage, looking out over the vast sea of stars, longing for any safe haven among the myriad lights, any port with friendly natives. Any comrades we could find … what have we done here? See what we have done.”

  Dewey Duck moaned softly and tucked its snout under an arm. Daffy paused, and opened its eyes.

  “There was no war. At least, no nuclear conflict. You were mistaken.”

  Avdotya chewed on her thumbnail and thought. “Someone told me the same thing a long time ago. But I was in it. I witnessed an order to launch a large number of missiles. The missiles flew … I was there.”

  “Yes. They flew. We scanned the wreckage.”

  “What happened?”

  “The missiles went up. I do not believe that any reached a target, however. We did find some rare detonation sites, perhaps where warheads exploded when the malfunctioning boost vehicles impacted the surface. Guidance systems were destroyed or scrambled by radiation, or the vehicles themselves were knocked down by massive detonations high in the atmosphere.”

  Avdotya shook her head in confusion, “I don’t understand. What caused the radiation? What about the airbursts?”

  “Dust traveling at relativistic speeds,” replied Daffy, staring at her with a shockingly contorted expression. “Several days ago I told you a little bit about how our ships operate … and about the accident one of them had while decelerating into this system.”

  “Yes? Explain, please. I still don’t…”