Lom brought the truck to a halt at the checkpoint, turned off the engine and swung down from the cab into a wall of noxious chemical fumes, plant noise, the smell of hot metal and the brilliance of floodlights bright as day. A guard in the black uniform of the Parallel Sector came over to check his papers. Two more hung back and covered him with automatic weapons.
The guard frowned.
‘You’re three hours late.’
Lom shrugged.
‘Brake trouble,’ he said. ‘Fixed now.’
He shoved the sheaf of documents towards the guard. They were creased and marked with oily finger marks. Lom was wearing the truck driver’s scuffed boots and shapeless coat. His hands were filthy.
‘I could do with a wash,’ he said. ‘And I haven’t eaten since breakfast.’
The guard glared at him.
‘The transport workers’ kitchen’s closed. You’re late.’ He went through the papers slowly and carefully and took a slow walk around the truck, checking the seals. Comparing serial numbers with his own list. Kicking the tyres for no reason. Making a meal of it. Bastard.
Lom’s heart was pounding. He smeared a greasy hand across his face, rubbing his eyes and stifling a yawn. There was a tiny sleeping compartment at the back of the cabin. The truck driver was in there, hidden under a blanket, trussed up with a rope, his own sock stuffed into his mouth.
The guard came back and handed Lom the signed-off papers. He looked disappointed.
Lom had wanted to come in late to avoid other drivers and catch the night-shift security: less chance they’d know the regular drivers by sight, that was the calculation. He hadn’t reckoned on a guard who was bored and looking for trouble.
‘What was the trouble with the brakes?’ the guard said, still reluctant to let him go.
‘Hydraulics leak,’ said Lom. ‘I patched it up. It should hold till I get back.’
He knew nothing about trucks and hoped the guard didn’t either.
Please don’t look in the cab.
The guard signalled to the kiosk and the first barrier lifted.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Bay Five. Follow the signs. Check-in won’t open till six but you can park there, and if you walk over towards the liquid oxygen generators there’s a twenty-four-hour rest room for the duty maintenance. You might be able to get something to eat there. Maybe someone’ll look at those hydraulics for you.’
Lom nodded. ‘Thanks. Appreciate that.’
The gates of Bay Five were closed. No one was about. Beyond the chain-link fence was a row of dark containerless cabs. Lom checked on the driver. The man glared back at him with hot, frightened angry eyes. He pulled against the ropes and grunted through the sock in his mouth.
Lom hauled him up and propped him in a sitting position.
‘Someone will find you,’ he said, ‘but not before morning. Don’t try to call out; you’ll make yourself throw up and that’ll be very bad for you. You’ll choke on it. Sit tight and wait.’
The man grunted again. It sounded like a curse.
Lom left the truck on the unlit apron in front of Bay Five, locked it and dropped the keys through a drainage grating. He reckoned he had seven hours before anyone would investigate. Maybe another half-hour before the alarm was raised.
So what the fuck do I do now?
He shouldered his bag and walked. The gun he’d taken from the VKBD man in Pir-Anghelsky Park was a comforting weight in his pocket.
He wandered among vast hangars and metal sheds. Chemical processing plants. Yards stacked with enormous pieces of shaped steel: curved components for even larger constructions. There was a river running thick and green under lamplight and a poisonous-looking artificial lake: scarfs of mist trailed across the surface and the acrid rising air warmed his face. Klaxons blared and gangs of workers in overalls changed shift. Parallel Sector patrols cruised the main roads in unmarked black saloons. It was easy to see them coming: he stepped into the shadows to let them pass.
For an hour he walked steadily, keeping to one direction as far as he could: east, he thought, though there was no way of telling. Vaporous effluent columns from a thousand vents and chimneys merged overhead in a low dense lid of cloud that shut out the night sky and reflected Vitigorsk’s baleful orange glow.
A cluster of signs at an intersection pointed to meaningless numbered sectors but one caught his attention: prototype–assembly. Cresting a low hill, he found himself looking out across a floodlit concrete plain. From the centre rose a huge citadel of steel capped with a rounded dome. It resembled a massively engorged grain silo with stubby fins at the base. The trucks parked at the foot of it gave some sense of scale: if it had been a building, it would have been twenty or thirty floors high. Lom had seen pictures of the Proof of Concept–everyone had–and this thing was the same but much larger: a parent to a child.
From the cover of a low wall he took a couple of photographs just for the sake of it–he couldn’t see what use Kistler could make of them, even if the facility was being kept secret from the Central Committee–and slipped away.
He glanced at his watch.
Almost 1 a.m.
He felt like he was playing at espionage.
What he needed was someone to talk to. Human intelligence.
PROJECT CONTROL. INSTITUTE OF RESEARCH. RESIDENTIAL CAMPUS.
It was a labyrinth of office blocks and apartment buildings, all crammed in and pressing against one another cheek by jowl: ramps and bollards and courtyards, walkways and flights of shallow concrete steps. Scrappy shrubs in concrete containers. Unlit ground-floor windows, service roads and areas of broken paving. A yard for refuse bins. Lom could see into uncurtained corridors. A few lights still burned in upper rooms.
Steps led up from a square with benches and flower beds to a revolving door. He heard voices, hushed but urgent. A couple standing in the splash of yellow light at the foot of the steps, arguing.
‘No, Sergei. Please. I have to go now. I must go in.’
The woman was young. Slight and not tall, with cropped hair. Neat, sober office clothes. The man was bigger, older. Aggressive. Standing too close.
‘Why not, Mikkala? What’s wrong with me?’
‘Nothing’s wrong with you, Sergei. It’s just… It’s late. I have to go.’
He grabbed her arm. ‘Come on, Mikkala,’ he said. ‘You’ll like it. I’m good. I’m the best.’
She pulled her arm away and stepped back. ‘I said no.’
‘You fucking bitch. All evening you’ve been… What’s a man supposed to think? You can’t just turn round and say no, you cold fucking…’ He reached out and pulled her towards him. Moved his head to hers. She turned her face away.
‘Please, Sergei.’
Lom stepped out of the shadows.
‘Hey,’ he said. ‘What’s happening? Is this man bothering you?’
Sergei turned. ‘Who the fuck are you?’ He was swaying on his feet. Squinting. Lom smelled the aquavit thick on his breath.
‘You should leave her alone,’ said Lom.
‘It’s nothing to do with you, arsehole. Piss off. I’ll break your fucking neck.’
Lom ignored him. ‘Is this where you live?’ he said to the woman. ‘Come with me. I’ll take you inside.’
‘I said piss off, fuck-pig,’ Sergei growled. ‘You can’t push me around.’
‘Sergei,’ said the woman. ‘Don’t.’
Sergei made a shambling lunge and swung a fist at Lom. He was big but soft and clumsy, and there wasn’t much speed or power in the punch. Lom could have stepped out of the way. But he didn’t. He raised his arm awkwardly as if to ward off the blow but he let it through. Turned his head slightly to take it on the side of the nose.
It hurt. A lot. He rocked back and put his hands to his face. Felt the warm blood flooding from his nostrils.
‘You hit me!’ he said to Sergei. ‘I’m bleeding.’
‘You were lucky, pig. Next time I’ll break your fucking spine. And yours, bitch. I’ll
see you again. I’ll ruin your fucking career. I’ll ruin your life. People will listen to me.’
He turned and walked away, swaggering, unsteady. Lom tried to staunch the bleeding with the sleeve of the driver’s coat. Smeared it around. It made quite a mess. His whole face felt stiff and sore.
‘Are you all right?’ said the young woman. She was thin and pale. Narrow shoulders. Her eyes glistened blurrily. She had been drinking too. ‘Did Sergei hurt you? ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Not much,’ said Lom. ‘Not really. I’ll be fine in a moment.’ He pressed the back of his hand to his nose and brought it away covered in blood. Red and gleaming in the light from the doorway. ‘I could do with a little cold water. And perhaps a towel. Is there somewhere…?’
The young woman hesitated. Made up her mind.
‘Come with me,’ she said. ‘I’ll find you something.’
4
Lom sat on the bed in Mikkala Avril’s room. She brought a bowl of cold water and a couple of rough grey towels. He dipped the end of one in the bowl and dabbed at his face.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I haven’t got a mirror. There’s one across the way, in the bathroom, but it’s women only. Actually we’re not meant to have men in this building at all.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Lom. ‘I’ll manage. You tell me how I’m doing. Is there much blood?’
She sat down next to him on the bed and studied his face. Her face was very thin, her eyes unnaturally wide.
She hasn’t been eating. Pushing herself too hard.
‘There’s still blood coming from your nose,’ she said. ‘There’s some in your hair, and it’s all over your coat.’
He wet the towel again and pressed it against the side of his nose.
‘I don’t even know your name,’ he said. His voice was muffled by the cloth. ‘I’m Vissarion.’
‘Mikkala. And… thank you. For what you did just now.’
Lom waved it away. ‘It was nothing.’
‘But I feel awful,’ said Mikkala. ‘I was so stupid; I should never have gone with Sergei and got drunk like that, it’s not the kind of thing I do. Ever. I’m not… I wasn’t good at it. I didn’t handle it. It all went wrong. Everything’s gone wrong here. I was so proud when I came, but nothing’s going right…’
She was really quite drunk. Words tumbled out.
‘Is Sergei your boyfriend?’ said Lom.
‘No!’ She shook her head fiercely. ‘No, no, not at all–nothing like that. I’ve met him two or three times, that’s all. It’s just… I don’t know many people here. I work on my own; there’s no one I can talk to, and the resurrectionists are more friendly than the others. They drink and talk and they’re not so cold and stuck-up. I started spending evenings with them. It was… a mistake.’
‘How long have you been here?’ said Lom. ‘At Vitigorsk?’
‘Not long.’
‘Same here,’ said Lom. ‘It’s an odd sort of place. It’s hard to know what it’s all here for. It’s not easy to fit in.’
Mikkala nodded. Her cheeks flushed.
‘Yes!’ she said. ‘Yes! That’s it exactly. That’s how I feel too. I thought I could be friends with the resurrectionists. I thought they liked me, and it made me feel part of something, not just on my own.’
Lom put down the towel and showed her his face.
‘How is it now?’ he said.
Mikkala frowned and squinted.
‘Your nose has stopped bleeding,’ she said. ‘It looks a bit sore though, and I think you’re going to have a black eye. Oh, there’s still blood in your hair. You poor man, I’m so sorry.’
Lom dipped his hands in the water and pushed them through his hair.
‘So what went wrong tonight?’ he said. ‘I mean, if you don’t want to talk about it…’
‘Oh it was awful,’ said Mikkala. ‘Sergei took me to see the resurrectionists’ building, where they work. He showed me the freak shop and it was horrible. It made me really upset. I was sick on the floor, and afterwards… Sergei had a bottle of aquavit and we went somewhere and drank it. He said it would make me feel better but it didn’t. I drank too much–we both did. I don’t normally drink at all. But after what I saw…’
‘At the freak shop?’
‘Yes.’
‘How’s my hair, Mikkala? Do you mind just checking?’
‘What? Oh, yes, it’s fine now–I think so–but your coat…’
‘That’s nothing.’ Lom took it off and began to dab at the sleeve. ‘What did Sergei show you at the freak shop?’
She shuddered. ‘Dead babies. In jars. Ruined babies. Deformed foetuses.’
She went quiet.
Keep going, thought Lom. Don’t stop now.
‘Dead babies?’ he said gently.
‘It’s not right,’ said Mikkala. ‘What they’re doing. I don’t think it’s right. Of course they have their duty. It’s their part of Task Number One, they’re working to solve the common problem and that’s a good thing, but… they’re experimenting with the effects of exposure to different isotopes, and it goes wrong all the time. It feels wrong. They have old bodies too. From graves.’
‘Why are they doing that?’
‘It’s the resurrection programme, learning to grow artificial bodies and bring people back from death, making it so people can live for ever and not die any more. So we can make the long journey to planets around other stars. The Director told me himself, one day we’ll be able to bring someone back to life if you have even just a few atoms left from their bodies, because atoms have memories and they’re alive. Sergei said they’re thinking now that you don’t need living people on the ships at all, only a few crew: you could maybe just send out small pieces of the dead and bring them back to life when you get there.’
Lom remembered Josef Kantor’s strange invitation to him, six years before, alone in Chazia’s interrogation cell in the Lodka. Looking into Kantor’s dark brown eyes was like looking into street fires burning.
Humankind spreading out across the sky, advancing from star to star!
Impossible, Lom had said, and Kantor slammed his hand on the table.
Of course it’s possible! It’s not even a matter of doubt, only of paying the price! Imagine a Vlast of a thousand suns. Can you see that, Lom? Can you imagine it? Can you share that great ambition?
It had seemed like an invitation. Lom had turned him down without a thought.
‘But you must know this already,’ said Mikkala. ‘Everyone here knows about the resurrectionists.’
‘Not me. I’m just a grease monkey. Rivets and bolts. I do what I’m told. I haven’t been here long. Still learning the ropes.’
Mikkala got up from the bed and moved to the chair at the desk.
‘I shouldn’t talk so much,’ she said. ‘I feel giddy. I’ve had a lot to drink.’
‘It’s fine, Mikkala,’ said Lom. ‘You’re fine. That thing with Sergei was a shock, but you’ll be OK.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I can’t remember your name. I don’t know what you do. I’ve never seen you before.’
‘Vissarion. I’m a construction engineer.’
‘What are you working on?’
Lom thought fast. ‘Prototype assembly.’
‘Yes? Really? Then maybe you can tell me about the—’
She stopped.
‘I don’t think I’m supposed to ask,’ she said. ‘I ought to know, for my work, but nobody will say. They don’t trust me; they keep me in the dark and they expect me to work alone. I don’t like it. I don’t feel comfortable here; it doesn’t feel right.’
‘I’ll tell you what I can, Mikkala. We’re all in this together. Working for the common purpose. That’s what Vitigorsk is all about. What do you want to know?’
‘Oh, nothing.’
‘What?’
‘It’s just… the vessels, the planetary ships… I’m supposed to be working on launch calculations, only there are two kinds, and one kind is meant to lea
ve this planet and make the long voyages, but the other only needs to reach a low orbit, and I think there are going to be more of those. But that makes no sense, does it? It doesn’t fit in and I don’t know why. Which kind is it you’re building? I’ve never even seen it.’
She was looking at him, hot and staring eyes. He could see the wildness there. She was on the edge.
‘I don’t know,’ said Lom.
‘Oh.’
‘Like I said, I just build what I’m told.’
‘You mean you wouldn’t tell me,’ she said fiercely, ‘even if you knew.’
‘Of course I would.’
Her shoulders slumped.
‘I don’t feel well,’ she said. ‘I’d like to sleep now.’
‘I would tell you if I knew, Mikkala. I tell you what: I’ll help you to find out.’
She got up unsteadily from the bed.
‘I think you should go,’ she said. ‘You’re not meant to be here, you know.’
‘Of course.’ Lom stood and started putting on the truck driver’s coat. There was blood soaked into the sleeve.
‘Who would know?’ he said.
‘Know what?’
‘Who knows about the plans for the different ships? Where could we find out about that?’
‘Some people know, but they won’t say.’
‘So who knows? Who could we ask, if we wanted to?’
‘I… Oh, lots of them know. The von Altmann programmers, the supervisor of mathematics, the chief designer. And the Director of course. Khyrbysk knows everything.’
‘Khyrbysk? Yakov Khyrbysk?’
‘Of course.’
‘Khyrbysk is here? Where?’
‘What do you mean, where?’
‘I mean where’s his office?’ said Lom.
‘Why?’
‘We’re old acquaintances. I’d like to go and see him. Where’s his office?’
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