The Hugo Awards Showcase - 2010 Volume

by John Kessel

  A handsome Russian was sitting at a news desk, speaking quickly but with a surprising measure of poise. It was easy to believe that Jefferson was wrong. Nothing awful had happened. Not understanding the language or the Cyrillic lettering streaming past, it was easy to embrace the doubts assuring you, “This is nothing. Nothing.”

  Then the feed switched abruptly, picking up CNN. An older but equally attractive newscaster sat several thousands of miles from the tragedy. But he didn’t have any trace of Slavic stoicism. Practically screaming, he declared, “In the morning, without warning, Hell was released just a mile from the Kremlin!”

  Jefferson collapsed in my only chair.

  I reclaimed my bed, watching the first in a series of inadequate views of an unfolding disaster. The flash was only as bright as the amateur equipment could absorb. The images jumped, and I could hear people screaming in Russian . . . and then the camera and I were being carried into the subway, the screen going black when the power abruptly shut off . . .

  The next view was a ten-second snippet from some high-rise far enough away to be spared by the blast.

  The third was from someplace very close, and more recent. A digital camera was shoved over a concrete wall, showing a firestorm that was starting to grow wings.

  “It’s their turn now,” I whispered.

  Jefferson didn’t seem to hear me.

  I glanced at my guest and then looked away. “Russia almost seemed to be blessed,” I mentioned.

  “This is bad, Carmen.”

  “Yeah.”

  “No,” he said.

  I stared at him. “What do you mean?”

  The last decade had been relatively sweet for Russia. Pragmatic and naturally authoritarian, it had managed to avoid most of the mayhem. And it didn’t hurt that when the Middle East turned to smoke and warlords, the Russians happily sold their oil and natural gas to the EU and a few select friends, increasing their own wealth many times over.

  Again, I asked, “What do you mean?”

  Jefferson dipped his head.

  The television jumped to the BBC. The Prime Minister had a few sturdy words to offer about giving support to all the victims of this latest misery.

  I muted the sound.

  Which helped Jefferson’s focus. With a conspirator’s whisper, he told me, “I was just in touch with somebody.”

  “Who?”

  He named the CIA director, using the friends-only nickname.

  I said nothing.

  Jefferson gave my brown carpet a long, important study.

  “What else is wrong?”

  The man looked old and extraordinarily tired. What he knew was so urgent that he had to practically run over here to tell me. But now he lacked the courage to put into words what a confidential voice had told him five minutes ago, from the other end of a secure line.

  “Has there been another explosion?” I prodded.

  “No,” he managed. Then he added, “Maybe.”

  “Shit, Jefferson—”

  “Do you know how we were after Indian Point? Down here, I mean. We were terrified that the big assault was finally coming. But then we heard that an old Soviet warhead did the damage. Which meant it wasn’t Abraham.” He breathed faster, his face red as a blister. “And this bomb wasn’t Abraham’s either. The yield and isotope readings point to it being one of ours. One of eight.”

  “Eight? What eight?”

  He rubbed his belly.

  “Just say it, Jefferson.”

  “I just learned this for the first time,” he reported. “After Indian Point, when everything was crazy . . . Washington dead and millions fleeing . . . somebody with the necessary skills ripped open an Air Force bunker and took out eight high-yield marvels, any one of which matches what we’re seeing here . . . ”

  I said, “Fuck,” once again.

  He nodded.

  “But the failsafes,” I said. “Soviet bombs are one thing. But how could somebody make our damned things detonate?”

  “Like I said, these people have skills.”

  The horrific images had returned, and we watched in silence for another minute or two.

  “What’s Russia doing now?” I asked.

  “Their president’s in St. Petersburg. And he’s talked to our president two, maybe three times.”

  “The Director told you this?”

  “Yes.”

  “Seven more nukes?”

  “What if somebody wants payback for Indian Point?” he asked me.

  Or himself.

  “But the Russians weren’t responsible,” I said. “At least not directly, they weren’t.”

  “But what if we’re responsible for this?”

  “Who’s ‘we’?”

  Wearing an interrogator’s face, he stared at me. “I know where you went last week, Carmen. Believe me, I have friends. I have connections. I know whose limousine you sat inside.”

  I stared back at him.

  Then I carefully told him, “No. We had nothing to do with Moscow. Our president’s too scared of phantoms to pick a fight with an old enemy.”

  Jefferson bristled slightly. “What do you mean? ‘Phantoms’?”

  I didn’t answer.

  He said, “Carmen,” twice, and then gave up.

  A truce was declared, ushering in ten minutes of silence. I pushed the television back up to a comfortable volume, and using e-mail and my private sources, I pieced together a chain of events roughly the same as his.

  “Their president wants to believe our president,” I reported.

  Jefferson nodded.

  “But if there’s a second attack . . . ”

  He looked at me. For the first time, he had the roving eyes of a healthy male. As if emerging from a fog, Jefferson realized that he was sitting in a woman’s apartment and she was wearing nothing but a nightgown and slippers and a fuzzy old robe.

  If only to change the desperate mood, he wanted sparks.

  I pulled the robe across my chest. Then I told him, “You should go back to your apartment.”

  He said, “Maybe.”

  “Now,” I said.

  He stood stiffly and looked at me. Suddenly I could see Jefferson at his high school dance, standing beside the wrestling mats, too smart to bother asking any girl to accompany him out onto the gymnasium floor.

  Against my wishes, I felt sorry for the poor guy.

  Then I ushered him to the door and shut and locked it.

  Alone, I slowly dressed, and after another hour of television, I stepped out into a tunnel that was beginning to go through the motions of dawn.

  In the brightening gloom, I walked.

  Then I ran.

  I was pounding along my favorite stretch when I passed the round pond with its bluegill and a single dragonfly. Standing on the wooden deck was our resident fisherman. “Hey, Jim.”

  He almost jumped at the sound of my voice.

  “Any bites?”

  He said, “Hi, Carmen,” and rolled his head. Then he flicked the fly out onto the windless water, and after a pause and a couple of deep swallows, he said, “Somebody just told me something.”

  “What’s that, Jim?”

  Looking at his own hands, he explained, “It’s this guy I know. He works security upstairs. And I know it’s against every order, and we aren’t supposed to talk—”

  “You heard about Moscow?”

  “And St. Petersburg.”

  I had just enough time to ask, “What about St. Petersburg?”

  Then the alarms began to blare—throbbing, insistent noises meant to jangle every nerve—and the fisherman threw down his gear and sprinted toward the nearest elevator. But he was too late. The field station on the ground had declared a lockdown emergency, and according to protocols, every exit disabled itself. Just once, Jim struck the steel door of the elevator with a fist. Then after a moment of quiet muttering, he returned to the pond. His face was as white and dead as the salt surrounding us. Not quite meeting my eyes, he said, “
I’m sorry, ma’am. That won’t happen again.”

  And then he picked up his tackle and silently struck out for home.

  10

  For nine days, our prisoner was allowed to keep his normal routine. Guards brought hot meals, clean clothes, and the expected little luxuries. His plumbing and lights worked without interruption, and at appropriate intervals, we spared enough power to brighten his exercise yard. The only significant change was that I stopped meeting with Ramiro. But he didn’t mention my absence, not once, just as he refused to discuss what must have been obvious. The shrill alarms would have been audible from inside his cell, and less than an hour later, the first in a sequence of deep, painful rumbles passed through the surrounding salt bed.

  Fuel was limited, which was why the tunnel lights were kept at a midnight glow. And that’s why the vegetation began to wither and drop leaves, including inside Ramiro’s yard. The dying umbrella trees garnered a few extra glances, I noted. Then after six days, Ramiro’s milk turned to the dried variety, and there was a sudden influx of fried bluegill in his dinner, and the banana slices on his morning yogurt were brown at the edges. But his guards provided the largest clues. Even a sloppy observer would have noticed the miserable faces. Not even the hardest professional could hide that level of raw sadness. Ramiro would have kept track of which guards skipped their watch and who was pulled early when they felt themselves about to start blubbering. But again, he didn’t say one word that was at all removed from the ordinary.

  Jefferson was a minor revelation. That sturdy old bureaucrat threw himself into the disaster, holding meetings and ordering studies. Key machinery had to be identified, inventories made of every spare part. Our generators were industrial fuel cells, and it was a minor victory when two extra barrels of methanol were discovered behind a pile of construction trash. For two days, the practicality of hydroponics was explored. But a determined search found no viable seed, save for some millet and cracked corn meant for his assistant’s pet parakeet. Our home was a prison, not a long-term refuge. But at least there were ample stocks of canned goods and MREs, and the water and air were agreeable to purification. Plus, there were quite a few handymen in our ranks. Most estimates gave us at least six months and perhaps as many as eight months of comfortable security. That was a point worth repeating each day, at the beginning of our mandatory meetings.

  With nobody watching us, Jefferson was free to transform himself. He announced that there were few secrets worth keeping anymore. Only Ramiro remained off-limits. Then he told the grim, brief history of our latest war. All of us were invited to his apartment to watch the recordings that he’d made of news broadcasts and secret communications, and then the final pitiful message from the field station. Few accepted his invitation, but that didn’t matter. Word got out quickly enough. Everybody knew what had just transpired, and the long-term prospects, and in a fashion, just how extraordinarily lucky we had been.

  Through it all, Jefferson dispensed clear, critical directions as well as praise and encouragement, plus the occasional graveyard joke.

  I preferred to keep to myself, investing my waking hours in the endless study of Ramiro.

  Sometimes when he was alone, the man would suddenly grin. I had never seen that expression on him before. It wasn’t a joyful look, or wistful. What I saw was an empty expression—a broad sycophantic look that I have seen in other faces, on occasion, particularly when people are struggling to believe whatever thought is lurking behind their bright, blind eyes.

  Ramiro would fall asleep at his usual time, but then he’d wake up again, usually around three in the morning, and lie very still, staring up into the darkness for an hour and sometimes much longer.

  Instead of new books and movies, he requested titles that he already knew—as if granting his mind an easier, more familiar path to walk.

  On the ninth day, I had a tall cold glass of lemonade brought with his lunch, and he drank it without complaint.

  On the tenth morning, Jim opened the cell door and said, “Sir,” before ushering the prisoner down the short hall to the exercise yard. After the usual bookkeeping, he took his post inside, standing before the only door. Some of Ramiro’s guards had shown worrisome symptoms. But after his initial panic, Jim had turned outwardly calm, sturdy. Maybe if I had paid closer attention, I would have seen some clue. But then again, even the best interrogator must accept the idea that she knows more about the beginnings of the universe than she will ever learn about the shape of a person’s true mind.

  But Ramiro noticed something.

  I don’t know what it was or why then, but after a few trips back and forth in the yard, the prisoner paused, passing one of the rubberized weights to his other hand and then bending down, picking up the thick dried and very dead leaf from the floor beneath the starved tree.

  For a long moment, he stared at Jim, saying nothing.

  They were ten feet apart, and the guard was watching everything.

  Normal procedures demanded a second guard be on duty outside. She was watching on monitors and through the two-way glass, and sensing trouble, she set off a silent alarm. I arrived half a minute after a backup team of armed warriors, and two steps ahead of Jefferson.

  In that span, nothing had changed.

  Maybe Ramiro was waiting for an audience. But I think not. My guess is that he still wasn’t sure what he would say or the best way to say it, and like any artist, he was simply allowing time to pass while his invisible brain struggled to find the best solution.

  Through the monitors, I watched the brown leaf slip free of his hand.

  “So, Jim,” said Ramiro. At last.

  Jim didn’t move, and he didn’t make any sound. And if his face changed, the expression didn’t register on the security cameras.

  As if getting ready to unwrap a wonderful gift, Ramiro smiled. It was an abrupt, startling expression followed by the joyous, almost effervescent words, “So how’s your home town these days? How is Salt Lake City doing?”

  Jim sagged against the door.

  From outside, Jefferson ordered, “Get in there!”

  “No,” I ordered.

  The backup team ignored me.

  “No!” I stepped in front of them and looked at Jefferson. “You tell them. Who’s in charge here?”

  With a tight sigh, Jefferson said, “Wait then. Wait.”

  Jim was crying now. In a matter of moments, a weepy little boy had emerged and taken charge.

  I told the guards to back away from the door.

  Jim muttered a few words, too soft for anybody to understand.

  “What’s that, Jim?” asked Ramiro.

  Nothing.

  “I can only guess,” the prisoner offered with a warm, infectious tone. “Another nuclear weapon must have struck another reactor. But this one was closer to us, wasn’t it? And the wind must have blown those poisons over the top of us.”

  That was a dreamy, hopeful explanation, considering the circumstances.

  “So we’re temporarily cut off down here. Isn’t that about it, Jim? And we’ll have to wait what? A few weeks or months to be rescued?”

  “No,” said Jim.

  Finding success, Ramiro smiled.

  “Am I wrong, Jim?”

  The response was abrupt, and vivid. With a string of awful sentences, Jim defined the scale of the new war and its brutal, amoral consequences.

  “Everything above us is dead,” he declared.

  Ramiro’s smile wavered, but he wouldn’t let go of it.

  “About a thousand nukes went off, and wildfires are still burning, and the entire continent is poisonous dead. The field office is abandoned. We aren’t getting any messages from anybody. Not a squeak. We’ve got some security cameras working, our only connections to the surface, and they’re only working on battery power. It’s the middle of August, but there isn’t any sun, and judging by what we can see and what we can guess, it isn’t even reaching forty below at noon . . . !”

  Maybe Ramiro had
genuine hopes for his dirty nuke story—an awful but manageable nightmare. But this nightmare was more plausible, and he must have known that for several days. Yet he refused to react. He did nothing for one, two, three breaths. Enormous events had pushed him farther than even he could handle, and discovering what might be a weakness on his part, the prisoner suddenly looked lost, perhaps even confused, unable to conjure up one thin question, comment, or even a word.

  And then Jim pulled his weapon.

  The pistol would work only in his hand, and its ammunition was small and lightweight, designed to bruise and break bones but never kill. That’s why I told everyone, “No. Leave them alone!”

  My instincts were looking for a revelation.

  But other people’s instincts overrode my order. The guards pushed me away and started working at the door’s stubborn locks. For a few seconds, nothing happened. Neither man spoke or moved. But then Jim set the gun’s barrel against his target’s eye, and I heard a quiet thump, and the bullet shattered the back of the socket before burrowing its way into the miserable, dying brain.

  Ramiro dropped the weights, one striking his right foot. But he didn’t appear to notice. Unblinking eyes stared at the corpse twitching on the floor in front of him. The prisoner was impressed. Enthralled, even. Perhaps he had never seen a man die. Cities and nations had been destroyed, but carnage had remained cool and abstract. Until that moment, he never appreciated just how messy and simple death was, or that he would have to take a deep breath before regaining his bearings, looking up slowly before noticing me standing in the open door.

  “So this is what you wanted,” I said. “The death of humanity, the end of the world . . . ”

  “No,” he whispered.

  “Are you sure?”

  He sluggishly shook his head.

  “Or Abraham wanted this,” I suggested. “A nuclear winter, the extinction of our species.”

  No reply was offered.

  I stepped over Jim and then stared up into Ramiro’s face, allowing him no choice but to meet my eyes. Quietly, I said, “There is no such creature as Abraham, is there?”

  He didn’t react.

  “And no army of temporal jihadists either.”