by Isaac Asimov
"It might not take much money. A woman like that might do it for pleasure."
There was silence for a moment and then Morrison said, "If it's possible that you're beset by spies, Sophia, why not come to America with me?"
"What?" She seemed not to have heard him.
"You might be in trouble for getting me out, you know."
"Why? I have official papers that will place you on the plane. I am under orders."
"That might not save you if a scapegoat is needed. Why not just get on the plane with me, Sophia, and come to America?"
"Just like that? What would happen to my child?"
"We'll send for her afterward."
"We'll send for her? What are you suggesting?"
Morrison flushed slightly. "I'm not sure. We can be friends, certainly. You'll need friends in a new country."
"But it can't happen, Albert. I appreciate your kindness and concern - or pity - but it can't happen."
"Yes, it can. This is the twenty-first century, not the twentieth, Sophia. People may move about freely anywhere in the world."
"Dear Albert," said Kaliinin, "you do tend to live in theory. Yes, people can move about, but every nation has its exceptions. The Soviet Union will not allow a highly trained scientist with experience in miniaturization-related fields to leave the country. Think about it and you'll see that that's reasonable. If I do accompany you, there will be an immediate Soviet protest, a sure claim that I have been kidnapped, and there will be a loud howl from all corners of the world that I be sent back in order to avoid a crisis. Sweden will act as quickly for me as she has for you."
"But in my case, I was kidnapped."
"There'll be many who will believe I was - or who might prefer to believe it - and I will be sent back by the United States, as you are being sent back by the Soviet Union. We've papered over, in this fashion, dozens of crises over the last six decades or so - and isn't that better than war?"
"If you say, firmly and frequently, that you want to stay in the United States -"
"Then I never see my child again and my life may be at risk, too. Besides, I don't want to go to the United States."
Morrison looked surprised.
Kaliinin said, "Do you find that hard to believe? Do you want to stay in the Soviet Union?"
"Of course not. My country -" He stopped.
She said, "Exactly. You talk endlessly about humanity, about the importance of a global view, but if we scrape you down to your emotions, it's your country. I have a country also, a language, a literature, a culture, a way of life. I don't want to give it up."
Morrison sighed. "As you say, Sophia."
Sophia said, "But I cannot endure it here in this room any longer, Albert. There's no use waiting. Let us get into the car and I'll drive you to where the Swedish plane is waiting."
"It probably won't be there."
"Then we'll wait at the airport, rather than here, and we'll at least be certain that as soon as it arrives you can board it. I want to see you safely gone, Albert, and I want to see his face afterward."
She was out the room and clattering down the stairs. He followed hastily. He was, in truth, not sorry to be going.
They strode along a carpeted corridor and through a door that led directly out to the side of the hotel.
There, pulled up close to the wall, was a highly polished black limousine.
Morrison, a little breathless, said, "They're certainly supplying us with deluxe transportation. Can you drive that thing?"
"Like a dream," said Kaliinin, smiling - and then came to a full and sudden halt, her smile forgotten.
Around the corner of the hotel stepped Konev. He, too, halted and for long moments they did not stir, either of them - as though they were a pair of Gorgons, each of whom had frozen into stone at the glance of the other.
85.
Morrison was the first to speak. He said a little huskily, "Have you come to see me off, Yuri? If so, good-bye. I'm leaving."
The phrases sounded false in his own ears and his heart was pounding.
Yuri's eyes shifted just enough to glance quickly at Morrison and then moved back to their original position.
Morrison said, "Come, Sophia."
He might as well have said nothing. When she spoke - finally - it was to Konev. "What do you want?" she demanded harshly.
"The American," said Konev in a tone no softer than hers.
"I'm taking him away."
"Don't. We need him. He has deceived us." Konev's voice was becoming quieter.
"So you say," said Kabinin. "I have my orders. I am to take him to a plane and see that he gets in. You cannot have him."
"It's not I who must have him. It's the nation."
"Tell me. Go on and tell me. Say that Holy Mother Russia needs him and I'll laugh in your face."
"I'll say no such thing. The Soviet Union needs him."
"You care only for yourself. Step out of my way."
Konev moved between the two others and the limo. "No. You don't understand the importance of his staying here. Believe me. My report has already gone to Moscow."
"I'm sure and I can guess to whom it's going, too. But old gruff-and-grumble won't be able to do anything. He's a blowhard and we all know that. He won't dare say a word in the Presidium and if he does, Albert will be long gone."
"No. He's not going."
Morrison said, "I'll take care of him, Sophia. You open the limo door." He felt himself trembling slightly. Konev was not a large man, but he looked wiry and he was clearly determined. Morrison did not believe himself to be a successful gladiator under any conditions and he certainly didn't feel like one now.
Kaliinin lifted her hand, palm turned toward Morrison. "Stay where you are, Albert." She then said to Konev, "How do you intend to stop me. Do you have a gun?"
Konev looked surprised. "No. Of course not. Carrying a hand weapon is illegal."
"Indeed? But I have one." She drew it from her jacket pocket, a small thing almost enclosed in her fist, its small muzzle gleaming as it edged through the space between her first and second fingers.
Konev backed away, eyes widening. "That's a stunner."
"Of course. Worse than a gun, isn't it? I thought you might interfere, so I'm prepared."
"That's also illegal."
"Then report me and I'll plead the need to fulfill my orders against your criminal interference. I will probably get a commendation."
"You won't. Sophia -" He took a step toward her.
She took a step back. "No closer. I'm ready to shoot and I might do so even if you stand where you are. Just keep in mind what a stunner does. It scrambles your brain. Isn't that what you once told me? You'll be unconscious and you'll wake up with partial amnesia and it may take you hours to recover or even days. I've even heard that some people never quite recover. Imagine if your magnificent brain should not quite regain its fine edge."
"Sophia," he said again.
She said, through almost closed lips, "Why do you use my name? The last time I heard you use it, you said, 'Sophia, we will never speak again, never look at each other again.' You are now speaking to me, looking at me. Go away and keep your promise, you miserable -" (She used a Russian word that Morrison didn't understand.)
Konev, white to his lips, said a third time, "Sophia - Listen to me. Believe that every word I have ever said is a lie, but listen to me now. That American is a deadly threat to the Soviet Union. If you love your country -"
"I'm tired of loving. What has it gotten me?"
"And what has it gotten me?" whispered Konev.
"You love yourself," said Kaliinin bitterly.
"No! You kept saying that, but it's not so. If I have some regard for myself now, it is because only I can save our country."
"You believe that?" said Kaliinin, wondering. "You really believe that? - You are mad to do so."
"Not at all. I know my own worth. I couldn't let anything deter me - not even you. For the sake of our country and my wor
k, I had to give you up. I had to give up my child. I had to tear myself in two and throw the better half of myself away."
"Your child?" Kaliinin said. "Are you claiming responsibility?"
Konev's head bent. "How else could I drive you away? How else could I be sure I would work unimpeded? - I love you. I have always loved you. I have known all along it was my child and that it could be no one else's."
"Do you want Albert so much?" Her stunner did not waver. "Are you willing to say that it is your child - say you love me - believe I will, for that, give you Albert - and then deny it all again? How low an opinion you must have of my intelligence."
Konev shook his head. "How can I convince you? - Well, if I deliberately threw it all away, I can't expect to get it back again, can I? Will you, in that case, give me the American for the sake of our nation and then throw me away? Would you let me explain the need for him?"
"I wouldn't believe the explanation." Kaliinin threw a quick glance in Morrison's direction. "Do you hear this man, Albert?" she said. "You don't know with what cruelty he cast my daughter and me aside. Now he expects me to believe that he loved me all along."
And Morrison heard himself say, "That much is true, Sophia. He loves you and he has always loved you - desperately."
Kaliinin froze for a moment. Her free left hand gestured at Morrison while her eyes remained fixed on Konev. "How do you know that, Albert? Did he lie to you, too?"
But Konev shouted in excitement, "He knows. He admits it. Don't you see? He sensed it with his computer. If you now let me explain, you will believe everything."
Kaliinin said, "Is this true, then, Albert? Do you confirm Yuri?"
And Morrison, too late, clamped his mouth shut, but his eyes gave him away.
Konev said, "My love has been unwavering, Sophia. As much as you have suffered, so much have I. But give me the American and there will be no more of it. I will no longer ask that I be spared any chance of hindrance. I will do my work and have you and the child, too, whatever the cost may be - and may I be cursed if I don't manage both."
Kaliinin stared at Konev, her eyes suddenly swimming in tears. "I want to believe you," she whispered.
"Then believe. The American has told you."
As though she were sleepwalking, she moved toward Konev, holding the stunner out to him.
Morrison shouted, "Your orders - to the plane!" He rushed wildly at them.
But as he did so, he collided heavily with another body. Arms were around him, holding him closely, and a voice in his ear said, "Take it easy, Comrade American. Do not attack two good Soviet citizens."
It was Valeri Paleron, who held him in a strong and unbreakable grip.
Kaliinin clung as closely to Konev, though with different effect, the stunner still gripped loosely in her right hand.
Paleron said, "Academician, Doctor, we could become conspicuous here. Let us go back to the American's room. Come, Comrade American, and come quietly or I will be compelled to hurt you."
Konev, catching Morrison's eye, smiled tightly in absolute triumph. He had it all - his woman, his child, and his American - and Morrison saw his dream of returning to America pop like a soap bubble and vanish.
Chapter 19. Turnaround
In the true triumph, however, there are no losers.
— Dezhnev Senior
86.
Morrison sat in the hotel room that he had, for some fifteen minutes, thought he would never see again. He was close to despair - closer, it seemed to him, than he had been even when he was alone and lost in the cellular stream of the neuron.
What was the use? Over and over again, he thought this, as though the phrase were reverberating in an echo chamber. He was a loser. He had always been a loser.
For a day or so, he had thought that Sophia Kaliinin had been attracted to him, but, of course, she hadn't. He had been nothing more than her weapon against Konev and when Konev had called to her - beckoned to her - she had returned to him and had then no further use for her weapons, either for Morrison or for her stunner.
He looked at them dully. They were standing together in the sunlight streaming through the window - they in the sunlight, he in the shadow, as it must always be.
They were whispering together, so lost in each other that Kaliinin seemed unaware that she was still holding the stunner. For a moment, her knees bent as though she was going to get rid of its weight by dropping it on the bed, but then Konev said something and she was all attention and again unaware of the stunner's existence.
Morrison called out hoarsely, "Your government will not endure this. You have orders to release me."
Konev looked up, his eyes brightening slightly, as though he were being persuaded, with difficulty, to pay attention to his captive. It was not, after all, as though he had to watch Morrison in any physical sense. The waitress, Valeri Paleron, was doing that most efficiently. She stood a meter from Morrison and her eyes (somehow amused - as though she enjoyed the job) never left him.
Konev said, "My government need not concern you, Albert. It will change its mind soon enough."
Kaliinin raised her left hand as though to object, but Konev enclosed it in his.
"Do not be concerned, Sophia," he said. "Information at my disposal has been forwarded to Moscow. It will make them think. They will get back to me on my personal wavelength before long and when I tell them we have safely secured Morrison, they will take action. I am sure they will have the persuasive power to make the Old Man see reason. I promise you that."
Kaliinin said in a troubled voice, "Albert!"
Morrison said, "Are you getting ready to tell me that you are sorry, Sophia, that you crossed me out of existence at one word from the man you seemed to have hated?"
Kaliinin reddened. "You are not crossed out of existence, Albert. You will be well-treated. You will work here as you would have worked in your own country, except that here you will be truly appreciated."
"Thank you," said Morrison, finding some small reservoir of the sardonic inside himself. "If you feel happy for me, of what importance is my feeling for myself?"
Paleron intervened impatiently, "Comrade American, you talk too much. Why do you not sit down? - Sit down. " (She pushed him into a chair.) "You may as well wait quietly, since there is nothing else you can do."
She then turned to Kaliinin, around whose shoulders Konev's right arm was protectively placed. "And you, little Tsaritsa," she said, "are you still planning to place this fine lover of yours out of action that you hold this stunner so menacingly in your hand? You will be able to embrace him the more tightly if both arms are free."
Paleron reached for the stunner Kaliinin was holding and Kaliinin gave it up without a word.
"Actually," said Paleron, looking curiously at the stunner, "I am relieved at having it. In the paroxysm of your newfound love, I feared you might shoot in all directions. It would not be safe in your hands, my little one."
She moved back to the vicinity of Morrison, still studying the stunner and turning it in various ways.
Morrison stirred uneasily. "Don't point it in my direction, woman. It may go off."
Paleron looked at him haughtily. "It will not go off if I don't want it to, Comrade American. I know how to use it."
She smiled in the direction of Konev and Kaliinin. Relieved of the weapon, Kaliinin now had both arms around Konev's neck and was kissing him with quick, gentle touches of her lips against his. Paleron said in their direction, but not really to them, for they weren't listening, "I know how to use it. Like this! And like this!"
And first Konev, then Kaliinin crumpled.
Paleron turned toward Morrison. "Now help me, you idiot, we must work quickly."
She said it in English.
87.
Morrison had difficulty understanding. He simply stared at her.
Paleron pushed his shoulder as though she were trying to awaken him from a deep sleep. "Come on. You grab the feet."
Morrison obeyed mechanically. Fir
st Konev and then Kaliinin were lifted onto the bed, from which Paleron had stripped the thin blanket. She stretched both of them out along the narrow confines of the single mattress, then searched Kaliinen in a quick, practiced way.
"Ah," she said, staring at a sheet of folded paper, whose close-set print marked it indelibly as something written in governmentese. She flipped it into the pocket of her white jacket and continued the search. Other items came to light - a pair of small keys, for instance. Quickly she went over Konev, plucking a small metallic disc from the inner surface of his lapel.
"His personal wavelength," she said and placed that, too, into her pocket.
Finally she retrieved a black rectangular object and said, "This is yours, isn't it?"
Morrison grunted. It was his computer program. He had been so far gone he had not been aware that Konev had taken it from him. He clutched at it frantically now.
Paleron turned Kaliinin and Konev toward each other, propping them so that they would not fall apart. She then placed Konev's arm around Kaliinin and covered the two with the blanket, tucking it in under each to help keep them in place.
"Don't stare at me like that, Morrison," she said when she was done. "Come on." She seized his upper arm in a firm grip.
He resisted. "Where are we going? What's happening?"
"I'll tell you later. Not a word now. There is no time to lose. Not a minute. Not a second. Come." She ended with soft fierceness and Morrison followed her.
Out of the room they went, down the stairs as softly as she could manage (he following and imitating), along the carpeted corridor, and out to the limousine.
Paleron opened the front door on the passenger side with one of the keys she had obtained from Kaliinin's pocket and said brusquely, "Get in."
"Where are we going?"
"Get in." She virtually hurled him into the limo.
She settled quickly behind the wheel and Morrison resisted the impulse to ask her if she knew how to drive. It had finally gotten through to his stunned mind that Paleron wasn't simply a waitress.
That she had played the part of one, however, was made plain by the faint odor of onions still clinging to her and mixing rather infelicitously with the richer and pleasanter odor of the limo's interior.