by Neal Asher
"What are you doing?" Vielgorsky whispered harshly. Mirsky thrust the pistol forward with more force.
"Quiet. Your rat is gnawing a hole in my bungalow."
They walked with measured steps to a truck waiting by the lakeshore. Pogodin unceremoniously pushed Vielgorsky into the back and threw a tarp over him, climbing in after and lightly tapping the barrel of the AKV on the bulge his head made.
Mirsky climbed behind the steering column and looked across the dark sand to the soldiers in the woods. Another group was playing lapta—a kind of baseball—with branches and pinecones; none seemed concerned with the truck or its occupants.
"Where are we going, General?" Vielgorsky asked from the rear, voice muffled by the tarp.
"Quiet, sir," Pogodin said, prodding him again with the AKV.
*38*
The chaotic and scarred section of the corridor stretched for half a million kilometers, airless and barren. Plans for a second sortie to the floor were abandoned; without an atmosphere, ascent and descent would use an exorbitant amount of fuel. If the barren segment continued past their million kilometer turnaround point, they would abandon the mission and reverse course, Lanier decided.
"Do you think all of it's like this?" Farley asked, sitting next to him. "From here on?"
Lanier shook his head. "They took Patricia somewhere."
"Have you thought about the wells? Perhaps they left the corridor, and we can't follow."
"I've thought of that—and I have a hunch they didn't use a well."
"Another wall!" Heineman announced.
They gathered in the cockpit, Carrolson sitting in the copilot's seat and Farley and Lanier jammed into the hatchway. Lanier was all too aware of the press of Farley's body.
The tuberider's passage through the corridor was dizzying; it reminded Lanier of running through a drain pipe. The corridor fled past on all sides, purple and brown and black with its scars, the revealed corridor surface dirty bronze. The Forward-Looking Radar returned a steady beep at half-second intervals.
"Seats please," Heineman said. "We're going to slow this sucker down. Reverse seats this time; I want to keep our FLR facing forward, and there'll be about two-tenths of a g..."
Carrolson strapped herself into the copilot's seat with a pixie grin at Lanier. "Backseat, boss," she said. "I was here first."
Lanier and Farley crawled past the equipment boxes and sat next to each other. Lanier took a deep breath and closed his eyes; the urge was almost unbearable.
"Something wrong?" Farley asked.
"Not at all." He touched her hand reassuringly with his own and drew it back.
"You feeling all right?"
He smiled unconvincingly and nodded.
"Something's wrong, Garry. I've been around you long enough—"
"We'll be there in an hour or so," Heineman announced from the cockpit.
"So what is it?" Farley pursued.
He took a deep breath and his face reddened. "I can't help it, Karen. It's crazy. I've been ... horny for the last twenty eight hours. It isn't going away."
She regarded him without expression, and then her eyes widened the merest fraction.
"You asked, dammit," he said.
"Just in general?"
"No."
"Someone in particular."
"Yes," he said.
"Who ... or is that asking too much?"
He raised a finger and pointed it at her, shaking with stifled laughter. His face was red as hamburger now and he sounded like he was choking.
"That's funny?"
"No-oo-o," he said, finally controlling his laughter. "It's crazy."
"You've never been interested in me before?"
"No—I mean, yes, you're attractive, obviously, but—"
"Then shut up."
The deceleration had already started. She unbuckled her belt and fell slowly toward the cockpit, easing herself along with the handgrips on the side of the seats and storage racks overhead.
"Wait," Lanier said, reaching for her and missing. He looked back over the neck rest. "Karen!"
Farley hung in the cockpit hatchway. "Wake us when we're at the wall," she said pointedly, sliding the partition shut with a decisive snick of the bolt. She pulled herself back along the aisle and braced one knee against his seat and the seat opposite.
"I'm sorry—" Lanier began.
"Not at all," Farley said. She tugged at her jumpsuit zipper and pulled it down, revealing a T-shirt with a Chinese character on the front, signifying "whale," the Chinese name for the Stone. She shimmied it off quickly and removed white cotton panties.
Lanier watched in shock.
"You should have said something sooner," she admonished. "Anything that keeps you from thinking straight is a detriment to our mission." She pulled the T-shirt over her head and stuffed all the clothes in a rear seat pouch.
He removed his jumpsuit, glancing nervously at the cockpit partition. She lay on the rear of the two opposite seats; the tuberider's deceleration provided an effective if skewed sense of direction. "You never did put yourself on the social roster," Farley said, taking his hand and pulling him toward her. "Not because you were shy, surely."
Lanier touched her breast, his heart hammering. He gently rubbed the knuckles and backs of his fingers along the line between her hips and stomach. "I've never needed anyone more in my life," he said.
Carrolson ascended the ladder up the middle of the aisle. Farley and Lanier had dressed and seated themselves opposite each other. "Ten minutes and we'll be there," Carrolson said, deadpan. She looked at Farley and then turned her head toward Lanier, her eyes lingering for a moment on Farley's face. "It seems like the same sort of wall as the last one, but this one rises even higher above the level of the atmosphere with a narrower clearance—no more than a hundred meters—around the singularity. We should run the same tests we did before, though."
"Agreed," Farley said.
"Garry—" Carrolson began, regarding him intently.
"What?"
"Never mind." She descended the ladder and returned to the cockpit.
"Jesus, I'm embarrassed," Lanier muttered.
"Why, because you're human?" Farley asked.
"I have responsibilities," he said.
"There isn't a person on the Stone who doesn't," she said. "And there was an awful lot of hamky-pamky going on while I was there."
Despite himself, he chuckled. "That's 'hanky-panky.' "
"Whatever. Don't tell me you didn't notice?"
He shook his head. "No, I honestly didn't. The boss is the last to know."
"Only if the boss has his eyes shut. I doubt Hoffman is letting such things escape her."
"All right, so I'm a ... I don't know. I'm not a prude, but I'm maybe a bit innocent."
"Not innocent at all," Farley said, reaching across to touch his arm. "And don't worry. You're still the boss."
*39*
Vielgorsky had difficulty keeping his calm. He sweated profusely and smelled bad. His voice was hoarse. Mirsky almost felt sorry for him.
The black entrance way to the third chamber library opened impressively, and Pogodin and Pritikin urged the captive through with a few well-placed jabs of their AKVs. Mirsky followed at a more leisurely pace.
"This is where you've been wasting your time," Vielgorsky cried over his shoulder.
"You've never been here?" Mirsky asked, pretending surprise. "At the very least I would have thought you'd be curious."
"It's useless," Vielgorsky said. "It's filled with American propaganda. Why waste my time?"
Mirsky laughed out loud, more in anger than humor. "You poor son of a bitch," he said. "The people who built this starship were no more American than you or I." They halted before the ranks of chairs and chromium teardrops.
"If you kill me, Belozersky and Yazykov are fully capable of carrying on," Vielgorsky said.
"I'm not going to kill you," Mirsky said. "We need each other. I want you to sit down."
Vielgorsky stood his ground, shivering like a cold dog.
"The chairs won't eat you," Pogodin said, prodding him again.
"You cannot brainwash me," Vielgorsky blustered.
"No, but maybe I can educate you. Sit."
Vielgorsky slowly lowered himself into the nearest chair, facing the teardrop apprehensively. "You will force me to read books? That will be very silly."
Mirsky came around behind the chair and reached over to flip the control cover. "Would you like to learn how to speak English, French, German?"
Vielgorsky didn't answer.
"No? Then perhaps you'd like to learn a little about history. Not from an American point of view—from the viewpoint of our descendants. The Russians who survived the Death."
"I don't care," Vielgorsky said, his pale moist face almost all nose in the teardrop reflection.
"This is what the Americans were hiding from us," Mirsky said. "Isn't it your duty to inspect the treasure we were fighting for? Your superiors cannot. They are dead, or soon will be. The entire Earth will be covered with smoke for years to come. Millions will starve to death or freeze. By the end of this decade, there will be less than ten million of our countrymen left alive."
"You're talking nonsense," Vielgorsky said, wiping his face with his sleeve.
"Our descendants built this starship," Mirsky said. "That's not propaganda, it sounds like fantasy, but it's truth, Vielgorsky, and all our squabbling with each other cannot conceal the truth. We trained and came here and fought and died to find the truth. You would be a traitor to turn away from it."
"Are you proposing we share power?" Vielgorsky asked, glancing up at him. Mirsky swore under his breath and turned on the machine.
"It will speak to you in Russian," he said. "It will answer your questions and it will teach you how to use it. Now ask."
Vielgorsky stared at the floating library symbol, eyes wide.
"Ask."
"Where do you want me to start?"
"Start with our past. What they taught us in school."
The symbol changed to a question mark.
"Teach me about..." Vielgorsky looked up at Mirsky.
"Go on. It isn't painful. But it is addictive."
"Teach me about Nicholas I."
"That's pretty safe," Mirsky said. "Too far back. Ask it to teach you about the grand strategic plan of the Soviet Army from 1960 to 2005." Mirsky smiled. "Weren't you ever curious?"
"Teach me ... about that, then," Vielgorsky said.
The library silently searched and organized its presentation, numerous colorful utilily symbols flickering around Vielgorsky's field of view. Then it began.
After a half hour, Mirsy turned to Pogodin and Pritikin and told them to go back to the fourth chamber. He nodded at the entranced Vielgorsky. "He'll be no trouble. I'll watch him."
"When will we get our chance?" Pritikin asked.
"Anytime you're free, Comrade," Mirsky said. "It's open to all."
Belozersky jerked the muscular Pletnev up from his chair and swung him around with surprising strength. "I know fantasies when I hear them," he growled.
"It's easily proven," Pletnev said, his head turned to one side to avoid Belozersky's fist on his collar. "We must go there—comrades Pritikin and Sinoviev have told us as much as they know. The seventh chamber does not stop. It goes on forever."
Belozersky let him go and backed away slowly, fists clenched. "Deviationist crap. Pritikin and Sinoviev are intellectuals. Why should I believe them?"
Yazykov motioned for the three soldiers to take Pletnev by the arms. "You sold us into defeat for your own miserable skin," he said. "It was your duty to die out there, not come sniveling to the Americans."
"It was finished," Pletnev said. "We had no other choice."
"This rock can be ours!" Yazykov shouted. "Now, where is Mirsky?"
"I've told you. He's in the fourth chamber."
"Shit. He's in his beloved library," Belozersky said.
"Then that's where we'll arrest him," Yazykov said. "Now we should find Garabedian and Annenkovsky—they're Mirsky's men as well. Comrade Pletnev, I will personally execute you against the far wall of the seventh chamber. I will spread your blood and counterrevolutionary brains on solid proof of your gullibility." He threw his hands up in the air in disgust. "Keep him here until we find the others."
Rimskaya walked across the compound with the message from Belozersky in his hand. He climbed the steps to what had once been Lanier's office, and was now Hoffman's, and knocked on the door. Beryl Wallace answered.
"Message from the Soviets," he said tersely. His face was pale and he looked as if he hadn't slept in days.
"Something important?" Beryl asked.
"Beryl, don't play the protective underling with me. Where is Judith?"
"She's downstairs in conference with the medical supervisor. I'm not being officious, Joseph, but she's very busy."
"Yes, well, the Soviets are busy being Soviets, and I think there's going to be trouble." He wiped his eyes and blinked owlishly.
"I'll get her. She'll meet you downstairs by the secretary's desk."
Rimskaya grunted and clumped back down the stairs.
Hoffman emerged from the executive conference room and took the slate from Rimskaya's hand, reading it over quickly. She also looked exhausted, though less so than Rimskaya. Her eyes were rimmed with purple and her cheeks were puffy from lack of sleep.
"What is Belozersky ... position, rank?"
"A Zampolit—political officer," Rimskaya said. His hands were shaking. "Major. I've talked with him once or twice."
"What did you think of him?"
Rimskaya shook his head grimly. "Hard-liner, ignorant and unimaginative. These other two, Yazykov and Vielgorsky, they worry me. They're smarter, more dangerous. If they say they've deposed Mirsky and we have to deal with them directly, they've probably done it."
"Then arrange a meeting. We can't just stop talking because of their internal squabbles. And find out from—what's his name?—Sinoviev or Pritikin. Find out from one or the other what's going on and how this affects the Russian civilians."
"They aren't around. They may be in detention or dead."
"You think it's gone that far?" Hoffman asked.
"They're acting very Russian," Rimskaya said, spreading his hands.
'I'll be in this conference for another hour or so. Get them to meet with us in an hour and a half."
"Better to let them suggest the time, and then make them wait a while," Rimskaya suggested.
"You take care of it."
She watched the tall, dour mathematician walk out the door and then stared at a blank space on the wall over arm's empty desk. The secretary was in the cafeteria on lunch break.
"Just thirty seconds," Hoffman said, focusing on nothing. She stood alone, breathing steadily, one finger tapping lightly on the corner of the desk, beating time to some internal meditative clock. When half a minute had passed, she closed her eyes tightly, opened them wide, took a deep breath and turned back to the hallway and the conference room door.
*40*
The tuberider slid slowly past the second wall. On the opposite side, beginning about a kilometer from the wall and
paralleling it around the circumference of the corridor, a series of dark brick-colored structures squatted on the bare bronze floor. Each sat on a square base about two hundred meters on a side, rising in a series of steps, each step-level twisted slightly, creating a rounded, half-spiral pyramid.
"Bingo," Heineman said, pointing down the throat of the corridor. The floor was alive with moving lights channeled into lanes, the lanes piled many layers deep like a super-dense freeway system. "We are not alone."
"How far have we come?" Carrolson asked.
"Seven hundred and seventy thousand kilometers, give or take two," Heineman said. "Garry, could you pilot for a bit?
I'm going to run more tests."
"We'll just keep moving ahead slow, ninety
or a hundred kilometers an hour," Lanier said.