Hektor Shulmin was in a huddle in the far corner with Leon Ferenc. Shulmin saw Khyrbysk come in and waved to him cheerily.
‘Yakov!’ he called. ‘Come to see your baby waking up?’
Khyrbysk ignored him.
In the centre of the room, standing on a rubber sheet on a low platform, was another cube–a cube inside the cube–gleaming coal-black under the spotlights. It was a stack of blocks of pure graphite, sixty layers of blocks, rising twenty-five feet high and weighing almost three hundred tons. Half the blocks were solid bricks, but the other half had been carefully and precisely hollowed out. The hollowed graphite blocks formed a three-dimensional cellular lattice within the cube, and each cell in the lattice contained a small, neat gobbet of uranium.
From a rubber-sheeted scaffold over the stack, rods of cadmium plunged down through the black cube. Three men on the scaffold operated the mechanism, withdrawing the cadmium rods one by one with painful slowness. They had barrels of cadmium salt solution ready, to flood the cube if anything went wrong. They called themselves the suicide squad.
Khyrbysk went across to the desk from where Ambroz Teleki was supervising the operation. The neutron counters made their quiet trickling clicking noise.
‘One more rod will do it,’ said Teleki. ‘The reaction will become self-sustaining. It will not level off. We were waiting for you.’
Khyrbysk studied the dials.
‘Then do it,’ he said. ‘Do it, Ambroz. Do it.’
Teleki made a sign to the suicide squad. One of them turned a bakelite knob on a panel one notch forward. Then another.
The noise of the counters went faster and faster, the clicks tumbling over one another, a clattering rattle that turned into a steady hiss, a white waterfall of sound. The needles on the dials swung fully round to the right, hit their limit and stopped. But the pen on the chart recorder continued to rise, higher and higher, tracing a beautiful exponential curve.
A ripple of applause went round the room. The technicians broke into quiet chatter.
Khyrbysk watched the curve on the chart climb higher. Still higher.
‘Say the word, Yakov,’ said Teleki, ‘and we’ll drop the Shinn Rod in to close it off.’
Khyrbysk said nothing. His eyes were fixed on the rising graph. His mouth was dry. His hands were trembling. He let the reaction run on, faster and faster, hotter and hotter. The flow of neutrons becoming a roar. A flood.
He was Yakov Khyrbysk, father of stars.
‘Yakov?’ said Teleki anxiously, touching his arm. ‘Yakov. When you are ready, please.’
Khyrbysk paid him no attention. The technicians’ chatter fell quiet.
Seconds passed. Long seconds.
‘Yakov!’ said Teleki again.
Then at last Khyrbysk raised his arm.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Let it stop now.’
He watched the curve drop off and fall away.
Hektor Shulmin hustled over, drawing the ponderous Ferenc in his wake. He clapped Teleki on the shoulder.
‘Congratulations, Ambroz! A triumph! She works, man! She works! It’s beautiful.’ Shulmin produced a bottle of aquavit from his pocket and started handing it round. ‘So when are we going to go operational? Why not now? Everything is in place. How many tests do you need, after all? Ready is ready.’
Teleki looked tired.
‘Soon, Hektor,’ he said. ‘Soon.’
Khyrbysk took Shulmin by the elbow and drew him aside.
‘A word, please, Hektor,’ he said.
‘Of course, Yakov. Of course. I hear you were out on the Chaika the other night. A fishing trip, eh?’
‘You might say so, Hektor.’
‘A successful catch, I hope.’
‘The best.’
‘So friend Blegvad brought another package from our mysterious uncle in Mirgorod? How much? How much this time? Another hundred thousand? Tell me Yakov. I am agog. Our anonymous donor intrigues me. Our mystery philanthropist.’
‘A hundred thousand? No. More than that. Much more.’
‘How much Yakov? This time, how much?’
‘Thirty million.’
‘Thirty million? Thirty million?’ Shulmin looked suddenly serious. ‘Fuck, Yakov. We should be careful. We should go cautiously here. What are we getting into? Dukhonin himself never came up with such a sum, not all in one go. Thirty million! This is not a donation. This is a purchase. Who is this faceless, nameless man with thirty million roubles? What is he after? What did Blegvad say?’
‘Blegvad? Blegvad deals only with intermediaries. He has never met the man, never even spoken to him. But I have.’
‘Have you, by fuck!’
‘He telephoned me. In the middle of the night. And you are right, of course: he has made a request, a most courteous request. Not a purchase, he didn’t put it in those terms, not at all. He was most careful not to do that. He is a supporter of our cause, he says. An admirer of our ambition. He shares our common purpose. We are visionaries, doing great work, and he has just a small favour to ask of me.’
‘What does he want?’
‘Artillery shells. A hundred artillery shells.’
‘Is that it? The man’s an idiot. He could pick up a hundred shells anywhere.’
‘No. He wants the yellow shells.’
‘The yellow? He knows about them? How can he know about them?’
‘He does, Hektor. He was most specific. A hundred yellow shells. They are to be on a train to Mirgorod tonight. Leaving this very night. This can be done, Hektor? There is no problem? I don’t want to hear there is a problem. I agreed. Of course I agreed. I gave him an undertaking.’
‘Tonight? Yes, it can be done. No problem, Yakov. But—’
‘Then arrange it, Hektor. I want you to go with them. Travel with them to Mirgorod yourself and make sure they are delivered safely. There is to be no fuck-up, Hektor. No delay. It is a matter of extreme urgency. Our benefactor was absolutely explicit on that point.’
48
In Mirgorod, in the Raion Lezaryet, Vissarion Lom woke suddenly, heart pounding, the sour taste of sleep in his mouth. The attic was in darkness. He knew instantly by the feel of the room that Maroussia was gone. He fumbled for the matchbox and lit the lamp. Looked at his watch. Just after three.
Shit.
He pulled on his clothes, grabbed the Blok 15, stuffed it into his waistband and went downstairs. The kitchen was in darkness, the banked-up fire in the stove glowing dull brick red. The door at the end of the hall stood open. Maroussia’s coat was not on the hook.
There was a small pile of coins on the hall table, a few kopeks and a single rouble. He scooped them into his pocket and stepped out into the dark and icy cold.
49
Bez Nichevoi entered the Lodka by the long tunnels, carrying the unconscious weight of Maroussia Shaumian across his shoulders. He found Chazia in her workshop. Bez noted the changes there: the benches pushed back out of the way, equipment boxed and crated and standing ready in piles beside the old rail track, the stock of angel flesh gone.
The wall of the Pollandore chamber had been smashed and lay in rubble, and the iron construction that held the Pollandore itself had been dismantled and removed. The uncanny, enormous and faintly disgusting sphere hung suspended six feet above the flagstones, apparently without support. It turned slowly on its own axis, milky, planetary, luminescent but shedding no light. Swirls like small storms, oil on water, spiralled across its surface. Bez kept his distance and avoided looking at it, though it tugged at his awareness. The sense of its presence jangled his nerves. Made him feel weak. When he couldn’t see it he couldn’t tell exactly where it was. As if it circled him. Stalking.
Bez was surprised to realise that he feared it.
He shed the burden of the Shaumian girl with relief, slipping her from his back and letting her fall to the ground. She moaned and stirred. Her face was flushed, her hair matted with sweat. His immobilising scratch had made her feverish.
‘Be
careful with her!’ Chazia snapped. She glared at him with distaste.
‘I found her,’ said Bez. ‘I brought her. I give her to you.’
It had been a hard run from the raion. The smell of the girl on his back, the feel of her belly warm against his shoulders, had nagged at him the whole way.
‘Is she all right?’ said Chazia, bending over her. ‘She is bleeding. You didn’t…?’
Bez noticed how Chazia’s fox-red hair was thinning. Patches of angel flesh were visibly growing across her skull.
‘A graze,’ he said. ‘She fell.’
As Chazia straightened up he tossed the stinking knotted ball of twigs and bones and stuff towards her.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘She was carrying this. Only this.’
Chazia caught it neatly and cupped it in her hands. She grinned–a vulpine stretch of thin lips–and laid the thing carefully on the bench.
Bez hated this woman. He’d served her too long. He had served for too long altogether. He was Bez.
‘You are leaving?’ he said, indicating the preparations around them.
‘The strength of the Vlast lies in the east,’ said Chazia. ‘We will build a new capital, better, stronger and more pure, at Kholvatogorsk. I intend that Kholvatogorsk will be a clean city. Mirgorod is too… tainted. Too near the margins. Old things not properly cleared away.’
She means me, thought Bez. The bitch. She refers to me.
‘I have not touched the woman yet,’ he said. ‘You will give her to me when you’ve finished.’
Chazia looked at him sharply.
‘I need her alive,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how long for.’
‘I am no lickspittle of the Vlast,’ said Bez. ‘Service is not its own reward. Service is no reward at all.’
‘Your assistance to me, as to my predecessors, has always been appreciated, Bez Nichevoi. If you’re leaving by the underground way you’d better go quickly. A train is coming.’
‘A train? Here?’
‘This tunnel connects to the Wieland station. The way was closed after the Pollandore was brought here. I’ve had the tracks repaired to take it out again.’
‘You’re taking that thing with you?’
‘Mirgorod will fall. I’m not going to leave it here for the Archipelago to find.’
When Bez Nichevoi left the Lodka it was still thick night, but the fierce edge of dawn was burning its way across the face of the Vlast. Already the burning light was less than five hundred miles east of Mirgorod, and the turning of the planet was bringing it closer. He could feel it. He needed to hurry. Get out of the light. He knew a place in the cellar-age of what had once been a brewery. It would be quiet there. Out of the way, if the bombers returned. Bez never slept in the same nest two days running.
Between him and refuge lay the Black Wisent Quarter. It wasn’t wise to pass through the Black Wisent on such a night as this. Old things were near the surface there. But he’d lost too much time already and a detour would cost him more. The sun was coming. He scrambled from roof to roof and ran across open spaces, angry and frustrated. The warmth and smell of the Shaumian woman was still in his clothes.
Chazia’s new Vlast in the east was no place for him. Perhaps he would stay in Mirgorod. War was coming and there would be good pickings in the city. Or maybe it was time to go back to the mountains. Some brick-turreted burgh in the Erdyeliu would suit him well. Glaciers and pinewoods. Lynx and chamois. Giants and trolls and rusalkas. His kind had lived off such as them long before the Vlast had come, and still would, long after the Vlast had crumbled and faded.
But he would go back for the Shaumian woman before he left. When night came again he would go back to the Lodka and fetch her and take her with him. Make her last a while. If Chazia didn’t like it, he would kill Chazia. That would be good.
Bez was well into the Black Wisent Quarter now. The snow had fallen more thickly here. It lay feet-thick in the squares and mounded in high drifts against walls. He skittered lightly across the surface, his feet scarcely leaving traces.
Something on the wind alarmed him.
Wolf was following. Coming fast.
Dawn was too near. It was better to avoid a fight.
Bez picked up speed. A bitter pre-dawn wind whipped his face. Hard pellets of snow stung his cheeks. Snow. Thick, sudden snow. Snow-thorns scraping at his eyes. Something was wrong. Snow. Too much snow. He ran faster, his sunken chest burning.
He should not have entered the Black Wisent Quarter.
The snow under his feet slipped suddenly sideways, like a rug pulled out from under him. Unbalanced, he fell. Hard. Onto icy cobbles.
Bez picked himself up. The snow was watching him. Waiting to see what he did. He was in an empty space between buildings. Snow-dogs circled in the shadows of the mouths of the streets and observed him from under the low branches of snow-heavy trees. He stood his ground, turning slowly, looking for a way out or a place to make a stand.
Wolf walked out to meet him. A man in a long coat and an astrakhan hat.
‘Where is the girl?’ said wolf. ‘Did you find the girl? Did you?’
‘Fuck you, turd puppy!’
‘Did you find her?’ said wolf. ‘What have you done?’
‘Too late, teat licker. The bitch fox has her now.’
Bez hissed and went for wolf, fast. At the last moment he jumped high to come down from above and take his eyes. A quick decisive kill.
But wolf was faster. Faster and stronger.
Wolf ducked sideways and reached up and gripped Bez by the ankle. Caught him out of the air and whiplashed his light body down. Smashed him against the ground, crashing the back of his head against the cobbles. Before Bez could recover wolf was on him and ripped his head clean away from his neck. Foul-smelling black watery ichor sprayed from the mess between his shoulders and dripped from the root of his skull.
Antoninu Florian began to walk, holding the head of Bez in one hand, out to the side, away from his body, like a dark lantern. The head shrieked and cursed and screamed and tried to bite the hand that held it by the hair, but its teeth tore nothing but its own lips and tongue. With his other hand Florian dragged the thrashing, spasming living corpse behind him by the leg. The corpse tried to kick itself free but could not. Arched its back and slashed at the air with needle fingers.
‘Fucker! Fucker!’ the head was screeching. ‘You stinking bag of shit! I will lay your eyeballs on your shoulders so you can watch me eat your brain.’
It was curious, Florian thought, how much noise the mouth could make when disconnected from its lungs. He wondered what the biology of that was.
Somebody pulled aside an upstairs curtain and looked out from a house as they were passing. A pale face pressed against a window. The face disappeared and the curtain fell back.
Florian dragged the body to a place he had prepared in the shell of a bombed-out building. A pyre of roof timbers and furniture waited there, supplemented by a kindling of mattresses and curtains and books. He flung the lightweight, disgusting head onto the pile and threw the body after it. Weighted the thrashing body down with heavy beams and doused the whole heap with kerosene from a jerrycan he’d stashed nearby. Lit a cloth-wrapped chair leg with a match and laid it carefully at the base.
The pyre went up in a sudden explosive flowering. Flags and sheets of flame billowed in their own twisting wind. Dry wood chattered and spat. One more bomb-fire in a city pitted with smouldering buildings.
Florian stayed to watch the body burn, feeling the heat on his face. He had to make sure. The smell of the body burning was very bad. The corpse writhed and thrashed as the fire took it. The head continued to scream and curse as its hair and flesh charred and crisped and peeled away.
One by one, Bez Nichevoi gave up all the deaths by which he had lived. Hundreds, thousands of deaths, human and otherwise, absorbed and accumulated during the long centuries of his existence. Antoninu Florian felt every one. The victims swirled around him in bitter smoke-clouds of sad
ness, surprise and pain, and their features flickered across his face like fire-shadow. Remembrance. Each death was as raw as the first.
Florian felt each one die. One by one, he reflected their dying faces back into the fire. He worked the subcutaneous muscles of his own humani form face–zygmatic, corrugator, depressor, levator, buccinator, orbicularis, risorus–until it was agony. Until the skin stretched tight across the shifting bones of his skull was reddened and swollen and burned as if stung by bees. Tears spilled down his cheeks and soaked his shirt. From time to time he turned away to vomit, until he was hollowed out and sour.
On and on they came, the many many dead, and Florian Antoninu wept.
Only when the blaze had collapsed in on itself and slumped to charred stumps and ash and the corpse of Bez Nichevoi was empty and quiet, only then did he turn and walk away, weakened, trembling.
50
Lom had been walking for six hours, looking for Maroussia. All night an uneasy windstream had bundled high dark cloud mass eastwards across the sky. Ragged clearings opened across patches of fathomless star-speckled darkshine. Moon-glimpses dilated and closed. Sometimes Lom knew where he was and sometimes he was lost. The steep intricate streets, courtyards and passageways of the Raion Lezaryet defeated system and pattern. As he walked he tried to make sense of Maroussia’s disappearance, but he could not. She had woken in the night. She had not dressed–her clothes were still in the attic–but she had taken the solm and a coat, and gone out into the dark and disappeared.
He climbed the Ship Bastion to see if she was there. He went down to the Purfas Gate, which was closed and barred and unattended. Taking a different route back, he passed the blank darkened windows of a watch repairer, a tailor, a bookseller showing lonely yellow lamplight in an upstairs room. A night reader. The streets of the raion smelled wild and ancient–old woodsmoke, damp stone cellars, pig yards and open drains. The snow, the river mist and the sky. A pony grunted and shifted uneasily on the other side of a fence. A bat flickered close past his face, an indistinct smudge of fur. Lom flinched as if it had touched him, but it had not.
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