by Ben Bova
The secretary scowling behind her desk reminded him too much of his late wife. A face like an angry potato, heavy and solid and glaring at him every time she looked up from her word processor. Do you expect me to sit up at attention like a schoolboy waiting to see the headmaster? Markov asked her silently.
He clasped his hands behind his head and wondered what she would do if he started whistling. What tune should I pick? Then he grinned. Why let her turn me sour? Keith is alive. He’s alive! And working miracles in Africa.
That was the good news.
The bad news was that Keith’s miracle, a ceasefire all across central Africa that actually seemed to be working, was having terrible repercussions here in the Kremlin.
The door next to the secretary’s desk swung slightly open, and a thin, ascetic, cadaverous young man slipped through. Bald, hollow-cheeked, he looked to Markov like a zombie from some decadent Western horror video. But he was dressed in a Russian blouse of deep maroon, with billowing sleeves, and heavy dark trousers tucked into glossy boots. Everyone dressed very “Russian” these days, Markov reflected. Everyone wanted to proclaim openly his or her love for the Motherland.
The zombie nodded gravely to Markov. He scrambled to his feet, gave his most charming smile to the secretary—who glared back at him—and went to the door. The zombie slid through the narrow opening like a puff of smoke. Markov thought momentarily of flinging the heavy oak door open wide and striding into the council chamber with his head held high and his shoulders thrown back. Like a soldier. A conquering hero. But instead he edged sideways through the partially open door and tiptoed into the chamber with the meekness born of a lifetime’s experience in dealing with high authority.
The council chamber was neither as large nor as grand as Markov had expected, although it was quite impressive. The ceiling was a good five meters high and inlaid with beautifully carved wood. The windows along the wall to his right went from ceiling to floor, although the heavy red drapes were pulled tightly across each of them, so nothing of the outside could be seen. The floor was parqueted and bare, except for runners along the sides by the windows and the gleaming walnut sideboard that held stacks of reports bound in stiff covers, an array of electronic black boxes, and the inevitable ornate silver samovar.
The long conference table was also walnut, polished to a glistening finish. Only nine men sat at it, bunched up at the head. Three portraits hung on the far wall: Marx on the left, Lenin on the right, and the image of the man who sat at the head of the table, Viktor Ulanovsky, general secretary of the Communist party and chairman of the Council of Ministers. In the painting, Ulanovsky was smiling handsomely, his hair was dark and wavy, his eyes shone with dedication.
The man himself was considerably grayer, fatter, sallower than the portrait. And he was not smiling.
Neither were the other eight men grouped around him. They all looked deadly serious. And they all dressed alike. To Markov, it seemed that he was staring at nine imitations of Ulanovsky. They all wore dark, Western-cut business suits, all the ties were Party red, every lapel sported a gold hammer-and-sickle pin, every breast pocket featured a few small Hero of the People medals.
Markov felt suddenly shabby in his gray peasant blouse and tweed jacket.
“Comrade Markov,” said Ulanovsky in a surprisingly high-pitched voice, “thank you for joining us.”
Markov nodded dumbly, his mind irreverently flicking back to an ancient Marx Brothers film he had seen in his student days. At a decadent Hollywood restaurant a table full of lovely young women call to Groucho, “Won’t you join us?” He replies, “Why, are you falling apart?” The rejoinder seemed bitterly appropriate to Markov.
But he kept his lips pressed firmly shut as he walked to the chair being held for him by the zombie.
“Would you like some tea, comrade?” asked the general secretary.
“Thank you, sir,” Markov managed to mutter.
“We asked you here, comrade, because you apparently have a personal relationship with this American, Stoner.”
Markov nodded as the zombie placed a delicate china cup before him. He saw that the others had cups and even vodka glasses at their places. Ulanovsky, though, had nothing but neatly printed papers before him.
The general secretary leaned forward on his elbows, hands clasped almost as if in prayer, and asked in his strangely piping voice, “Do you realize what problems this man has made for us?”
Before Markov could answer, one of the other ministers snapped, “This American is in league with the so-called International Peacekeeping Force to shut down the Soviet arms industry!”
Markov gaped at him.
“Not shut it down, exactly,” Ulanovsky said, more mildly.
“Strangle it!” insisted the minister, a bald, baggy-eyed old man with splotchy skin. “The so-called Peacekeepers actually have had the nerve to demand that we stop all arms shipments to Africa!”
“But isn’t the Soviet Union part of the Peacekeeping Force?” Markov asked, puzzled. “Aren’t our own men serving with the IPF in Africa?”
“Naturally we have loaned certain units of our own forces to the Peacekeepers,” replied Ulanovsky. “To do otherwise would have isolated the Soviet Union and made us appear to be antipeace. Besides”—he allowed a small smile to creep across his face—“how better to keep an eye on the wolves than to join their pack?”
A round of answering smiles went around the table, showing that the ministers agreed fully with their chairman.
“So considering the cease-fire,” Markov heard his own voice, so timid that it made him disgusted with himself, “wouldn’t it be in the best interests of peace if we…uh, suspended arms shipments for a while?”
The room seemed to erupt with angry, sputtering rebuttals.
“Refuse arms to our allies?”
“Turn our backs on comrades who are struggling for national liberation?”
“Allow these thinly disguised imperialists to dictate Soviet policy?”
Ulanovsky raised a hand and they quieted down. All except one of the younger men, bespectacled, dark-haired, his lips curled slightly in a knowing smile that was almost a sneer.
“Think of the economic situation, comrade Markov. Those arms shipments bring hard currency into our treasury. We need hard currency to buy grain to feed our people.”
Especially if the Ukraine actually manages to secede from the Soviet Union, Markov realized.
The general secretary said, “Comrade academician, the cease-fire that this American has somehow arranged places us in a delicate quandary. On the one hand, as my comrades have so aptly said, to stop our arms shipments would be a betrayal of our friends in Africa—and an economic hardship we can ill afford.”
Murmurs of agreement around the table.
“On the other hand,” Ulanovsky continued, “if the other arms exporters suspend their shipments and we do not, the Soviet Union would be held up to public ridicule…and possible economic sanctions that could hurt us severely.”
“Bah!” snorted the bald one. “This is an opportunity, not a crisis. Let the imperialists suspend their arms exports. We can continue to arm our allies, so that when the cease-fire breaks down, our comrades will have an insuperable advantage over the capitalist lackeys!”
“But what if the Peace Enforcers carry out their threat to interdict all shipments leaving the Soviet Union for Africa?”
“They can’t possibly….”
“They have threatened an embargo on all commerce,” Ulanovsky said, his girlish voice rising slightly. “They do not make threats lightly. Even if they are only partially successful, the economic consequences could be disastrous.”
“It’s the Cuban Missile Crisis all over again,” said one of the other ministers. “Only this time, the blockade begins at our own shores.”
“And overhead,” the young economist added. “They can shut down our major airports if they wish to.”
“Then we’ll fight them!” roared the bald one
.
“Fight who?” Ulanovsky asked mildly. “The International Peacekeeping Force? How does one fight them? They are not a nation. Do we attack their headquarters in Oslo? Do we attack their field stations scattered across central Africa? Every nation in the West and most of the Third World nations in Africa and Asia would rise up against us. The Uzbeks and Kazakhs and Ukrainians would love that, wouldn’t they?”
The splotches on the bald man’s pate grew redder, and he pulled his chin down into a glowering pout.
Turning back to Markov, the general secretary said mildly, “Comrade, you were asked several months ago to make contact with this American, Stoner, and bring him to the Soviet Union.”
“I did make contact with him,” Markov said in a choking near whisper.
“But you failed to bring him back.”
Instead of going into excuses, Markov cautiously put his trump card on the table. “That is true, comrade secretary. But fortunately, I have reestablished contact with him. He is on his way to the Soviet Union now, at this moment.”
Astonishment made Ulanovsky’s eyes go round. But just for a fraction of a second. One does not rise to the top of the Soviet government or the Party by allowing oneself to be surprised.
“That is very good, comrade! Very good indeed.”
“Better late than never,” groused the bald minister.
“Stoner is on a plane from Nairobi, heading for Athens. I plan to meet him there and personally escort him to Moscow.”
“Excellent.”
“It doesn’t do anything for this cease-fire business,” said one of the ministers.
“No, but it will be extremely valuable to have this man in our grasp. There may be knowledge locked inside his brain that will make the central African affair look small by comparison.”
“Besides,” said the young economist, “we can circumvent the Peacekeepers by channeling the arms shipments through the World Liberation Movement. The route is more circuitous….”
“So is the payment,” somebody muttered.
The economist’s sneering smile widened. “To be sure. But the results in the field are good. A good percentage of the shipments go through the World Liberation Movement already. We will simply have to put the entire burden on them.”
“Do you think they are reliable enough to handle it all?” Ulanovsky asked.
“Not really. We will have to place more of our own people in key positions within the WLM to ensure reliability. We may have to take over its leadership entirely.”
Ulanovsky nodded, his mind made up. “Very well. See to it.”
A general murmur of agreement passed around the table.
Turning again to Markov, the general secretary said, “And now, comrade, I believe you have a plane to catch.”
Markov felt the chair being pulled out from behind him by the zombie. He got to his feet and made a smile that he knew was pitifully weak.
“I’m off to Athens,” he said, “to meet Stoner once again.”
“And this time you will bring him back with you,” said Ulanovsky.
“Yes, comrade secretary! Of course!”
“Do not fail.” Ulanovsky said it mildly, almost sweetly. It sent chills up Markov’s spine.
With an awkward little bow, Markov backed away from the table, turned, and made his way gratefully toward the door. He cursed himself for being a spineless mouse in the face of power. Yet even as he did, he glowed inwardly: not only was Keith fulfilling the promise he had made, but neither Ulanovsky nor any of the other ministers seemed to know that there would be a third person joining them in Athens—Jo Camerata Nillson.
As he stepped through the doorway, past the zombie holding it open for him, and into the outer office, Markov felt again the disapproving scowl of the secretary glaring at him.
It made him wonder if the ministers actually knew about his message to Jo or not.
“We’ll be landing in ten minutes,” said the pilot’s voice over the intercom. It sounded as if he were underwater, but Stoner made out the words with a little effort.
An Linh stirred in her sleep beside him. He looked up from the volume of Vedic hymns that a grateful Colonel Bahadur had pressed into his hands when they had left Nairobi. After a long night of reading from the lovingly crafted, elaborately printed pages, one verse from the ancient songs stuck in Stoner’s memory:
“Harness the plows, fit on the yokes, now that the womb of the earth is ready to sow the seed therein….”
The relationship between sex and agriculture had never impressed him before, but now he saw how miraculous it must have seemed to early men that food crops would grow from tiny seeds, and babies would grow from the seed of their own bodies. To early men. Stoner leaned back in the plane’s chair and wondered how early women felt about it. What power they must have had, he realized. And they still have it! No wonder almost every religion pays lip service to male gods but really reveres goddesses.
Even in cultures like those in Africa, where the people were selecting a heavy preponderance of male children over female, this would give women an even greater power within a few years. The fewer the women, the more important they will be to the society’s continuation. Stoner nodded to himself: That’s a factor that the IPF should exploit. A two-edged sword, certainly, but it could be useful if properly handled.
He smiled to himself. Then, glancing down at An Linh’s sleeping face, his smile vanished. How lovely she is, he thought. How fragile and vulnerable she appears. But she has the power of life within her. And the responsibility of choice. She decides who will mate with her. Men compete for her attention, and she decides among them. He sighed out a long, troubled breath. So she decides on me. Of all the men who would fight dragons for her, or lay the world’s wealth at her feet, she picks a man who’s no longer fully human.
Stoner squeezed his eyes shut and pressed himself deeper into the softly cushioned seat. The twin-engined jet belonged to the International Peacekeeping Force. It was small, but quite comfortable, with generously wide seats that had plenty of leg room between them, even for a man Stoner’s height. He and An Linh were the only passengers, which made the flight truly luxurious. But the plane was obsolescent, slow and short-ranged. It had taken nearly twelve hours to reach Athens, with refueling stops in Aden and Cairo.
The plane banked and Stoner looked out the window, surprised to see the sky over Athens clear and clean. He remembered attending a scientific conference in Athens, a lifetime ago, and being shocked at the gray-brown pall of filth that hung over the city. Down in the streets, choked with honking, growling automobiles, he had learned where the pollution dome originated. The noxious fumes were eating away the ancient marble monuments of the Acropolis.
Dr. Richards had told him that cars had gone electric or to clean hydrogen fuels. Stoner could see the result as the plane circled over the ancient rock of the Acropolis. The streets below were just as clogged with traffic as he remembered, but the air was crystalline. And there stood the Parthenon, the most glorious structure in human history, Stoner told himself—and the presence within himself.
Built by the ancient Athenians, nearly destroyed by war, eroded by pollution, the many columns of the Parthenon still stood proud and beautiful, glowing in the morning sun. Stoner saw scaffolding was being erected at one end of the ancient temple. Repairs? Restoration?
Then the plane banked again, and the Acropolis was swept from his sight. He settled back in his seat and listened to the thump of the landing gear being lowered, felt the plane swaying slightly in the gusty wind as the pilot lined up for her final approach to the runway.
An Linh stirred. Her eyes opened.
“Are we there?” she asked, like a little girl.
“Yes, almost,” said Stoner.
He had still not made up his mind about her. He knew that the work he had to do with Markov did not involve her. Yet he could not leave her in Athens, alone, penniless, and probably still being hunted by agents of Vanguard Industries. Stoner tol
d himself that he would find Jo, get her to take An Linh under her protection. A tall order, he knew. Jo had wanted to run An Linh out of the corporation. But a life was at stake now, and he was certain that Jo would see things differently once he explained them to her.
For the time being, then, An Linh would have to stay with him. All the way to Moscow. She ought to strike some sparks of interest from Markov, he thought, smiling inwardly. We’ll see just how old Kirill really feels once he sees her.
And there he was, standing in front of the hangar as the twin jet rolled to a stop. One hand leaning on his cane, Markov seemed to be peering intently at the plane, trying to make out Stoner’s face in the thick windows. Aged, stooped, his goatee ragged and wispy, his hair white and pitifully thin, still Markov managed to look like an eager schoolboy as he waited for the plane’s hatch to open and his old friend to come out and join him.
For a moment Stoner felt the same happy impatience. But then it all dissolved, ebbed away, and the deadened calm enveloped him once again. He thought, with all the passion of a computer readout, that it was unfair of the alien to suppress even welcome emotions. But the thought itself was a mere observation, not even a complaint.
There is important work for me to do, he told himself. I must be free to exert every ounce of strength and will in me to accomplish this task. As he unbuckled his safety belt and got up from his seat, he heard in the dim recesses of his memory his old tae kwan do instructor urging him, “Focus. Focus! Strength and skill mean nothing if they are not focused entirely on the object at hand.”
The plane’s cabin was so small that he had to bend over to get down the aisle. He ducked through the hatch and clambered down the shaky aluminum ladder to the concrete ramp in front of the hangar. The golden sun of Greece felt good, the morning air was warm without being humid.
And Kirill Markov’s eyes lit up when he saw Stoner. Twirling his cane in one hand, he advanced toward Stoner, who half ran to his old friend and clasped him in his arms. The Russian pounded Stoner’s back with his free hand, but it felt like the feeble taps of an old man.