“I weep. I am desolate. I feel driven to the brink of suicide and other desperate acts. I may very well sulk. Half the evening you are a delightful partner, and yet-you waste the other half recovering your energy.”
“I am but a mortal, after all.”
“But you need not be. If only you would reconsider… Dunyasha!” she said, using the pet form of the baronessa’s name, “See if you can’t talk some sense into this dear, obstinate creature.”
Baronessa Lukoil-Gazproma joined them, and Surplus turned so that they could all join hands (and paws) lightly, trustingly.“I honestly cannot understand,” the baronessa said, “why you would refuse an invitation to sample a substance that will give you direct and undeniable proof that an all-benevolent Divinity loves you intensely and personally. How can you possibly not wish to know?”
Which was another thing that surprised Surplus: that the ladies spoke rather more freely and often on the subject of God than a citizen of the Demesne of Western Vermont would think entirely proper to an orgy. Being an American, he was of course a deist, for, whatever their nationality, Americans were a rational people who prided themselves on their freedom from superstition. However, he did recognize that he was not in his homeland and that things might well be different here.
“Madam, no male gazing upon either of you as you are now could possibly doubt the existence of a benign Deity, nor fail to acknowledge the superiority of His or, as it may be, Her or even Its handiwork,” he replied gallantly.
“You are a terrible atheist,” Irina said with mock-sternness (but her eyes glittered merrily), “to speak of the living God in such cold and impersonal terms! I quake in fear for your immortal soul.”
“Impersonal? Why, the Supreme Being and I have always been on the best of terms. We understand each other perfectly. In fact, we have a gentlemen’s agreement, we two. I do not interfere with His running of the universe, and He doesn’t meddle with my little corner of it.”
“Oh, words, words, words! Your salvation will not be achieved with argument, I see now, but with action.” She brought her lips so close to those of her companion that when they moved to Irina’s ear, Surplus was caught by surprise. “Come, Irinushka,” she stage-whispered. “If the two of us cannot convert this rascal with all the passion and love at our disposal, then we must enlist help. I was thinking Serafima and possibly Elizaveta would enter enthusiastically into this worthy enterprise. Ksenija too. We shall make this infidel so ecstatic that he will stand in the crossroad and confess the goodness of God before all the world.”
“It is an inspired idea. But don’t you think the other men would object to his monopolizing so many women?”
“Oh, pooh on the men! They can watch. With any luck, they’ll learn something.”
That was the third thing that astonished Surplus: How unlikely enthusiasms would flare up and take over the ladies (and the gentlemen, too, he presumed, though he paid them far less attention) on an instant’s notice. In this way, if in no other, it was disconcertingly like being back among the Pearls again.
As the two hurried away, a man with a military bearing and an officer’s mustache paused in the replenishment of his glass of champagne, looked after their rumps with a little smile, and murmured, “Oh, Lord, get me behind thee.” Then, seeing he had been overheard, he raised the glass and said, “God is good, eh?”
“So I have been repeatedly assured, sir,” Surplus replied amiably.
He turned back to the window, pleasantly spent and more than a trifle bemused by the religiosity of his fellow orgiasts. Their evangelical mania, however, was a minor vice when held up to the commendable Christian charity with which they shared their bodies with whomever desired them. Surplus looked forward to the rest of the evening with glad anticipation, though he was certain that he would be wondrously sore come morning.
Then he saw the procession come flowing down the street.
A good quarter of the marchers held torches whose light bounced flickeringly off of waving red cloth banners, so that the procession appeared almost to be a river of fire. Then the sound of distant banging and blaring crossed the threshold of audibility, followed shortly after by the surf of human voices. As they came into focus, he saw that the marchers were waving their fists and chanting, and that many of them did not appear to be human at all.
“Huh,” he said wonderingly. “Will you look at this?”
Everyone gathered before the windows, a warm mass of naked bodies jostling together as comfortably as so many cattle in a barn. Hips bumped against hips, arms were placed about waists, and shoulders affectionately rubbed shoulders, without discrimination or preference for age, gender, or station. A strangely meaningful sense of community encompassed Surplus, a conviction that they were all of one flesh and shared a common self. The edges of the window panes glinted prismatically.
This was, the rational part of his mind argued, merely a contagious intoxication resulting from his inhalation of air tainted by the sweat or breath or other exudations of his drugged comrades. Nevertheless, he felt a genuine and abiding love for them all, and for the whole world as well. It hardly mattered whence it came.
Outside, the procession drew nearer. Surplus felt his eyes grow wide with wonder. In among the torch-carriers and banner-wavers were beggars and aristocrats, soldiers in uniform and unbloused bohemians, a white-clad giant or two, and great numbers of what looked to be some kind of chimeric bird-demons as well. As he watched, one of the banners suddenly disintegrated in a puff of red dust. Yet those carrying the staffs continued waving them from side to side, as if the banner were still there. Meanwhile, horn-blowers who could not play and drummers with no sense of rhythm filled the air with cacophonous noise.
It was a parade that would have dumbfounded Hieronymus Bosch. And, inexplicably, gazing down upon it, Surplus felt an internal tugging, a desire to add his small spirit to their turbulent river of souls. The sheer press of numbers called to him, much as a pebble streaking through space is drawn to a planet. He wanted to pour himself into their molten river of souls, to be melted down, lost, and mingled into their collective identity.
Windows slammed up and doors were flung open in the buildings that the procession passed by. People of all kinds poured out to join the march.
“He has come,” Baronessa Avdotya murmured. Her eyes glowed fanatically.
“Eh?” Surplus said. “Who has?”
“It does not matter. All that matters is that he is here at last.”
To Surplus’s bafflement, the others made noises of agreement, as if her cryptic statement had been a model of sense and logic. The baronessa pointed over the rooftops to a growing brightness arising in the distance, entirely distinct from the procession flowing by outside. “That is where he is now,” she said with inexplicable certainty. “In Pushkin Square.”
“We must join him,” Irina said.
“Yes,” agreed the mustachioed gent who, minutes before, had been admiring her bottom. “As soon as possible. No, sooner! We must go out into the street now, this minute. Where are my clothes? Somebody summon the serviles to find our clothes.”
“I do not see that clothes are necessary,” the baronessa said. “Irina and I shall go forth to meet him in the same innocent flesh that God gave us and not one stitch more.”
The group was breaking up now, and Surplus could breathe more easily. He shook his head to clear it and then ran to place himself between the two ladies and the door.
“Wait, wait, my sweet loves. There is a fine distinction between delightful spontaneity and foolhardiness, and the two of you are about to cross over from one to the other.”
“Do not try to stop us. I never go back on a decision.”
“That’s true,” Irina said. “I’ve known her for ever so long, and it’s true.”
“Have you both gone mad?” Surplus cried. “Dear ladies, you simply cannot traipse out into Ilyinka ulitsa stark naked.”
Avdotya’s eyes flashed. “And why not? Are we not p
leasing before the eye of God? Is there anything shameful or inadequate about our bodies?”
“Quite the contrary. But surely questions of temperature alone…”
“Our virtue will keep us warm.”
“But, baronessa,” Surplus said desperately, “if you are naked, how is anybody to know you are of noble birth?”
Baronessa Lukoil-Gazproma stopped. “That is true.” She snapped her fingers to get the nearest servile’s attention. “Dress me,” she said, “in the green silk with crimson pearls.”
“And I,” Irina said, “in my self-cloned leathers.”
The servile went into the wardrobe and emerged first with a dress that flowed like water, and then with an outfit the exact same creamy color as Irina’s own skin. Emotionlessly he proceeded to dress the two ladies.
Surplus, who had no intention of leaving the safety and anonymity of the baronessa’s apartment before morning, picked out a midnight-blue dressing gown brocaded with gold-and-red firebirds and trimmed with lace at the cuffs and lapel. A garment of such masculine cut must ordinarily be reserved, he presumed, for the baronessa’s husband. However, that distinguished gentleman being so open-minded as to share his wife’s tenderest caresses, at least in absentia, Surplus did not doubt he would be equally generous with his wardrobe. So he threw it on and cinched the sash.
Already the first of the guests was leaving, greatcoat draped over his arm, hopping on one foot as he donned a shoe. By the time Irina and Avdotya were fully dressed, most of their friends had disappeared out the door.
Surplus wandered back to the window. The procession was only a block away, and it filled the street. It seemed impossible there could be so many people in all of Moscow. Yet there they were, and their numbers were growing. He could see women running out of the buildings barefoot and men with their trousers in their hands. Nor was it only orgiasts who joined in. Caught up by the excitement, parents and nannies abandoned their homes, leaving children staring in bafflement from windows and open doors. It was as if all the world were made of up changelings, who were only just now revealing the goblins hidden beneath the skin.
Directly below, among the departing hedonists, Surplus saw one of the baronessa’s serviles throwing a scarf over her head. She threw a shrewd glance over her shoulder such as no servile was capable of. Perhaps she saw Surplus in the window; but she did not see him seeing her, that he was certain. She could not possibly see his eyes at such a distance in so dim a light, and he was careful to hold his head in a way that suggested he was not looking her way.
Slowly, carefully, Surplus turned to one side, yawned, and scratched himself in a manner that no gentleman would have done in the presence of a woman. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the servile turn her back with a disgusted flip of her head and hurry away. She did not go with the others, but in the opposite direction, toward Chortenko’s manor.
So, Surplus thought, the baronessa’s household had a spy. Well, on reflection, it was only to be expected. Still, he dared stay here no longer.
The obvious remaining option was to join the mob.
At the doorway, the baronessa had just bid a gracious farewell to the last of her guests. “Ahhh, Surplus,” she said, with a touch of sadness that suggested she already knew how he would answer. “Won’t you please join us?”
“You had but to ask, bellissima. While I’m dressing, I’ll have the carriage brought around to the door.”
Thus it was that Sir Blackthorpe Ravenscairn de Plus Precieux, ambassador of Byzantium, native-born American, and loyal citizen of the Demesne of Western Vermont, joined the revolution.
The taverns and brothels of Zamoskvorechye were hopping. There were bonfires in the street and music in the air. “That one,” General Magdalena Zvyozdny-Gorodoka said, pointing to the busiest house of ill repute. Throwing her reins to one of the soldiers they had conscripted along the way, she pushed through the door. Zoesophia followed, while the baron stayed outside to deploy their meager forces.
The brothel keeper, confronted suddenly by the stocky general with the famous red curls, rubbed both hands together and groveled. “Such an honor!” she cried. “Any of our girls are yours, General, as many as you wish! With no charge, of course.”
The general struck her to the ground. “You and your ‘girls’ have ten minutes to vacate this building, or I’ll nail shut the doors and burn this degenerate place to the ground with you in it. How many soldiers do you have here?”
The madam got to her feet and with a mingled look of resentment and grudging admiration-that of one professional for another-said, “Unless you placed guards at the side and back doors before you came in, none. The little girl at the top of the stairs-I doubt you even noticed her-was a lookout. All your geese have flown.”
“Thirty years in the military,” the general remarked to no one in particular, “and this civilian thinks I don’t know how to secure a whorehouse.” Then, to the madam: “Well? Assemble your harlots.”
The brothel keeper rang a bell and called up the stairs, “Quickly, quickly, girls! Everyone! Or you’re out of a job! Bring your outdoors clothing-you can dress in the parlor.” Already there were women in loose robes peering over the balustrade at the top of the stairs. These swirled about to go back to their rooms, while others, dresses draped over their arms, scampered past them. They were all smiling and serene with the indwelling presence of the Divinity.
Save for one woman who had not bothered to fetch respectable clothing, but stood proudly naked, revealing to all her zebra-striped skin. Apparently her mother had foreseen where she would wind up and paid for the genework that would enhance her status there. This woman’s eyes were dark and smoldering; clearly the God she worshipped was crueler and more pragmatic than that of her compeers.
“Ludmila! Where are your clothes?” the madam cried.
“Rubles were flowing like wine.” Ludmila’s voice was low and husky. “They emptied their wallets for me. All I had to do was ask.” Casually, she slapped a hand around the newel post at the bottom of the stairs and ripped it free. Splinters went flying. Lifting the post over her head like a club, she said, “Who was it who dared drive the marks away?”
“It was me.” The general calmly raised her pistol and shot the woman in the head.
The whores shrieked.
Standing over Ludmila’s corpse, General Zvyozdny-Gorodoka addressed the shocked room. “This is serious business. Whether they know it or not, everyone in Moscow is now under military rule. That means that whoever disobeys an order from a uniformed officer can be summarily executed. Is that clear?”
There were nods and mumbles.
“Good. Now you and you”-she jabbed her finger at two whores at random-“take this body and put it in a room that can be locked. Then secure it and bring me the key.”
Baron Lukoil-Gazprom chose that moment to enter the parlor. He glanced at the dead body, but made no comment on it. “We’ve got thirty-nine enlisted men. Plus one we nabbed on his way in. He’s drunk, of course, but a little action will sober him up fast enough.”
“It’s a start. Form them up into four squads. We can use them to raid the other whorehouses.”
Zoesophia cleared her throat. “Provided the baron agrees, of course.”
“Protocol be damned! It’s the only sensible thing to do, and the faster it’s done the better.”
The smallest of smiles blossomed on the baron’s face. It was clear that he found the notion of the two women coming close to blows amusing. But, “Good advice is good advice,” he said. “I’ll take it.”
“It wasn’t-” the general began, exasperated.
A messenger entered the room. He stopped in astonishment at the sight of the half-dressed trollops, pulled himself together, and saluted. “Ma’am. Sir. You ordered the Arsenal to send a wagonload of klashnys, along with bayonets and ammunition? It’s just arrived out front.”
“That’s just wonderful. We’ve got guns when we need soldiers.”
Yet an
other messenger ran into the room and saluted. “Ma’am. There’s a force of hundreds of civilians coming up Bolshaya Yakimanka. They have banners and they’re singing.”
The general spat on the floor.
“If I may make a suggestion…” Zoesophia murmured, flicking a glance at the prostitutes and hoping the baron would catch her meaning before the general could.
However, it was General Zvyozdny-Gorodoka who caught her thought on the fly and, turning to the brothel keeper, asked, “Are all your harlots as strong as the one who attacked me?”
“For tonight, I am afraid so,” the madam said apologetically. “It is this new drug, you see. It-”
“Never mind that! Your girls are under my command now. If I cannot have my soldiers, I’ll have the next best thing.”
“How many of them are there?” The baron’s mouth moved as he counted silently. “Plus the two who are disposing of the corpse. I’ll have bayonets fixed on enough klashnys for the lot of them. No ammunition, however, I should think.”
“No, of course not,” the general snapped.
Zoesophia looked thoughtfully after the baron as he went out into the street. He had not noticed that General Zvyozdny-Gorodoka had established her ascendancy over him. Which made him the only person in the room who hadn’t.
***
Once he was free of the drug-saturated confines of the City Below, the cold night air cleared Darger’s head wonderfully. But clarity of thought did not make him any the happier. Quite the opposite, in fact, for the seriousness of the rebuilt-cyberwolf ’s threat came home to him with full and terrifying force.
Quickly, he ran a mental thumb down the particulars of his situation. A creature that was the stuff of nightmares, yet undeniably real for all that, had promised him torture and slow death sometime in the very near future. Meanwhile, he was helplessly strapped down on an apparatus from which he, not being an escape artist, could not hope to free himself. Further, a genetic chimera engineered for strength and (to judge by appearances) controlled savagery was his own personal prison guard. Those were the negatives. Against all of which, he had no weapons, allies, or special abilities other than his own native wit.
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