Sputnik Caledonia

by Andrew Crumey

  ‘I shall have another Glenlivet,’ Kaupff instructed. ‘And you, Robert?’

  He had no idea what he should ask for – he had been a half-hearted social drinker at university and in the regiment, accustomed to little except beer and sherry, but guessed Glenlivet must be a kind of whisky sold in the foreign-currency shops that only Party people could use. ‘I’ll have the same,’ he said.

  ‘Ice and water, sir?’ the butler asked, casting a smile at Robert that showed an effortless sense of superiority.

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘I drink mine straight,’ Kaupff said as the butler left them once more. ‘I know the true Scot adds a dash of water to enhance the aroma, but I was born with schnapps in my blood, and though it was a long time ago – nearly seventy years – nevertheless I retain my German barbarism even here, so I’m afraid you shall just have to indulge me, dear boy.’ He reached across and gave Robert’s knee a friendly pat. ‘Now, tell me why you volunteered for special duties.’

  The question was so blunt it caught Robert completely off guard. ‘Why … ? Well …’

  Kaupff smiled. ‘You’re a patriot, of course; that’s one reason. And the pay’s better, that’s another. You want to help your country and enjoy a few perks – it’s perfectly understandable.’ Robert nodded silently, gratified by Kaupff’s pragmatism; then the professor grew more serious. ‘There are dangers, you understand.’

  ‘I know, sir.’

  ‘You signed a form consenting to all risks, your life is in our hands – and you willingly put it there.’ The door opened and Kaupff fell silent. The butler was carrying a tray on which stood an almost-full whisky bottle, a jug of water, a small ice bucket and glass. He placed the items on the table, stooping near Robert and exuding a soapy scent. His clothes seemed to crackle as he straightened; then he nodded and left. Kaupff uncorked the whisky bottle with an appetizing pop and generously filled the bottom of his crystal tumbler, then turned the bottle’s tilted neck to Robert’s glass, sending an equal quantity gurgling into it. ‘Help yourself to water and ice.’

  ‘I think I shall try it your way, sir.’ Robert raised the whisky to his lips, finding its oily smell almost nauseous, then let the alcohol burn on his lips and tongue, filling his head with warmth.

  ‘Do you remember exactly when you volunteered?’ Kaupff asked.

  A man came and talked to the regiment, there were interviews and meetings. Robert described the events to the professor but was aware how remote and vague they felt in his mind.

  ‘Do you remember a session at District HQ?’

  ‘Yes, but not very clearly. I’ve been ill …’

  ‘I know,’ said Kaupff. ‘Do you recall having tea with some people from the Ministry?’

  ‘I think so …’

  ‘And do you have any memory of what they looked like? What they said? How the tea tasted?’ Kaupff was staring fixedly at Robert who sensed the significance of the half-forgotten meeting but couldn’t guess what it might be until Kaupff said, ‘They put something in the tea. That’s what made you ill.’

  Robert froze with the whisky glass beneath his lips and looked down at it.

  ‘Don’t worry, Coyle, it’s pure Glenlivet and won’t do any more harm to you than it does to me. But the experimental drug you took had unexpected side effects; you developed an adverse reaction that nearly killed you.’

  ‘The doctors told me it was meningitis.’

  ‘Quite possibly that’s what they thought it was,’ Kaupff said with a shrug. ‘But you see, you consented to all risks, and luckily you’ve survived to hear the tale – though never tell it, of course.’

  Kaupff seemed to take it all so lightly, the days and nights when Robert had been close to death, feverish and delirious. ‘I don’t remember ever being told I might be given a drug …’

  ‘You weren’t,’ said Kaupff. ‘It’s designed to be administered secretly, and if you’d been warned then the conditions of the experiment would have been ruined.’ Seeing the shock on Robert’s face, Kaupff mellowed. ‘Don’t blame me; I had nothing to do with it. But you realize now, don’t you, that what you signed up for isn’t just perks and an easy time. What we do here is a matter of life and death – and it’s the preservation of our society that counts, not the fate of individuals. People here are privy to the most sensitive classified information – a few of them go back outside, and that poses a security problem. Wouldn’t it be good if there were some harmless way of regulating their memories? A departee could go home having forgotten everything about the Installation – it would be like a dream. And if a spy were to be sent inadvertently into our midst, he could be purged on arrival, given a potion like the waters of Lethe, so that all his mischievous plans would be erased and he would instead become a willing patriot.’

  ‘Did they think I was a spy?’

  Kaupff shook his head. ‘It was only a test of an evidently imperfect strategic tool.’

  It had worked well enough, though, and Robert appreciated now why the life he had left behind felt so alien and insignificant to him. ‘Were the others given the same drug?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that,’ said Kaupff. ‘But you were the only one who fell ill – which suggests your brain functioning may be of an unusual kind. When you were feverish, did you hallucinate?’

  Robert struggled to remember, but all that came to mind was the radio beside his bed, left quietly murmuring day and night, which he was powerless to silence. ‘I heard voices.’

  Kaupff raised an eyebrow. ‘Intelligible voices?’

  ‘It was as if the radio was speaking to me.’ Robert was embarrassed to admit such lunacy but Kaupff, intrigued, leaned closer.

  ‘What did the radio say to you?’

  ‘I don’t recall – I expect it was nonsense.’

  ‘I’ve no doubt it was,’ Kaupff agreed, almost too readily, ‘but I’m sure Rosalind will want to follow this up in her own way.’ Then, without saying any more about his assistant or her ways, he changed the subject. ‘You’re not here to do drugs trials, you realize.’

  ‘I gathered that from the briefing, sir.’

  Kaupff took a sip of whisky, thought silently for a moment, and said, ‘Gravity.’

  ‘I beg your pardon, sir?’

  ‘That’s what our mission is about. Just as the proletariat had to surmount the barrier of class, we have to defeat the tyranny of gravity – a revolutionary endeavour. You always wanted to be a cosmonaut, didn’t you?’

  Now Robert understood – he was here because of that damned essay. Having got him thrown out of university and nearly poisoned, his foolish reminiscence had been interpreted as a job application. Yet the chemical lingering in his system made him willing to fulfil his childish dream. ‘I still want to go into space,’ he said.

  Kaupff looked sceptical. ‘Even if it might mean death?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Robert, embracing as an asset the spiritual lethargy he had been given in a cup of tea, surprised by his own boldness. ‘If there were any chance of flying to the frozen star – I’d do it.’

  ‘Then let’s consider the technicalities,’ said Kaupff. ‘The frozen star is moving very quickly at the edge of our solar system, which means it has a great deal of angular momentum. Do you know what angular momentum is?’

  ‘No, sir.’ Robert’s mental image involved an angler throwing bait into a sluggish river but that certainly wasn’t right.

  ‘It’s what keeps a bicycle from falling down,’ said Kaupff, so the fisherman now had wheels to ride home on. ‘Rockets launched from Earth need a tremendous boost, which is why they are launched from sites as close to the equator as is politically and technically possible, thus lending them some of Earth’s own angular momentum as an initial gift.’

  ‘Scotland is a long way from the equator,’ Robert observed sagely, feeling himself to be on somewhat safer territory with geography since it was one of the few subjects he hadn’t failed at Cromwell. But in the silence which Kaupff allowed to ensue, Robe
rt realized that his comment had instantly stripped the Installation of the hidden launch pad and floodlit rocket he had imagined seeping clouds of icy vapour into the night. He was back to a bloke with a fishing rod.

  ‘The most conveniently equatorial part of the free world is the Indian Federation of Socialist Republics,’ Kaupff continued. ‘But you know the delicate nature of relations between the Asiatic and Euro-Soviet powers. For Britain, the Pacific island territories have always been the best available option, which is why our unmanned satellites have all been launched from there. But we aren’t sunning ourselves on Mayday Island, are we? We’re here, warming ourselves against the Caledonian winter outside.’ It was a riddle Kaupff left unexplained; instead he glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. ‘Are you hungry?’

  It had been Robert’s vain hope that the whisky he had been sipping might displace or dissolve Mrs Frank’s coq au vin; instead it had enriched it. ‘To be honest, Professor, I don’t have much appetite.’

  Kaupff looked puzzled. ‘You mean you don’t want to visit our dining hall? We lucky residents have the best cuisine in the whole of the Installation – the pheasant and venison are superb, and either goes very well with the excellent Saint-Emilion they cellar here. Well, to be honest, I’m not starving either – how about biscuits and cheese in my rooms?’ The professor rose, indicating it was an instruction rather than a suggestion, and Robert followed him to a door at the far end of the room which led onto a corridor simpler in appearance than the panelled one by which he had entered. This was more like an access passage, the plastered walls painted green and white and starkly lit by overhead electric bulbs; and as they followed its twists and corners it soon became apparent that this labyrinth constituted the true core of the building, rather than the ostentatious periphery Robert had first been shown. Along the corridor there were grubby numbered doors, most of them bearing the occupant’s name, with a sliding indicator to show whether each was in or out.

  ‘It’s all a little bit like how I imagine the old public schools might have been,’ Kaupff commented over his shoulder, walking ahead of his guest. ‘And guess who’s top of the form?’

  They reached a narrow spiral staircase, which Kaupff began to ascend. At the top there was a landing with a lace-curtained window looking out onto a dark courtyard, and two doors. ‘This is where I live,’ said Kaupff, taking a key from his pocket and opening one of the doors. He switched on the light to reveal a shabbily furnished room whose walls were almost entirely lined, from floor to ceiling, with books. ‘Sit yourself down, Robert, make yourself comfortable.’ The wooden-framed sofa had a light foam upholstery covered in checked fabric, frayed in places – the kind of basic and not particularly comfortable furniture Robert had seen in countless homes and shop windows. He sat down and surveyed the rest of the room: two armchairs matched the sofa, and beyond them there was a Government-plan deal table on which a small chipped vase bore a plastic flower. A framed picture on the wall appeared to be a print of an old-master painting; there was no television, only a portable radio on one of the many bookshelves. Robert watched Kaupff go through to the adjoining kitchenette, from which came a clattering of cupboard doors and a rustling of packets. ‘Like a sherry to go with your cheese and biscuits? Or a cup of tea?’

  Robert gave no answer; and Kaupff, understanding why, looked round the doorway at him. ‘It won’t be spiked, I promise.’

  ‘How can I be sure?’

  ‘Trust me,’ said Kaupff. ‘Those games are over. Tea, then?’

  At Robert’s nod he turned away to prepare it, leaving the recruit to gaze at the crowded library that was the professor’s home. Many of the titles on the spines were in German or Russian – Robert remembered only a smattering of the latter from his schooldays, and the polyglot shelves made him almost forget which country he was in. Nowhere near the equator, though. Kaupff returned and saw his companion staring with tilted head at the volumes. ‘Let me find you something useful to read,’ he said, depositing on the table a board bearing a wedge of orange cheese and then going with perfect and immediate accuracy to the place he wanted, taking a book and handing it to Robert. It was called Rocket to the Stars. ‘You’ll find the basics of interplanetary travel very clearly explained here,’ he said, going back to the kitchenette to get the remaining items for their snack.

  Robert leafed through the book. There was a photograph of a German missile painted black and white like a chequerboard, a monkey in a spacesuit. He felt sorry for the monkey.

  ‘Here we are,’ said Kaupff, returning. ‘Biscuits, pot of tea, the works.’ Kaupff unloaded the tray onto the table and invited Robert to come and join him. ‘Shall I be mother?’ he asked with a smile, pouring the tea into two china cups. ‘You see, I’ve picked up all your British expressions over the years. People guess I’m a foreigner but they never identify my accent as German. I’m rather proud of that. I can read the language of Shakespeare and Coleridge as well as any native.’ He passed a cup to Robert, who helped himself to milk from the open bottle, and sugar from the blue-and-white bowl Kaupff had assembled alongside the block of cheese, the half-eaten packet of crackers and a couple of small plates and knives. ‘Don’t go thinking I’m trying to turn you into some kind of teacher’s pet, Robert. All six of you have an equal part to play in the mission – but your case is particularly remarkable. When you were close to death, did you have any kind of mystical experience? Light at the end of a tunnel, perhaps? The neural basis of religious superstition is something that interests me …’

  ‘All I remember is the sound of the radio,’ Robert reminded him. ‘It was always tuned to Red Star, for the news bulletins I suppose.’

  ‘Naturally,’ Kaupff said, then paused. ‘You know, it’s a very apt description of the object that has entered our solar system: Red Star. Its event horizon is a zone of infinite red-shift.’

  Robert was grateful for this arcane piece of information, though less appreciative of the single dry cracker he accepted out of politeness and started laboriously chewing, hoping it wouldn’t undergo an explosive chemical combination with chicken à la Frank.

  Kaupff said wistfully, ‘Perhaps what you heard was the voice of the Red Star – yet you remember none of it! We shall have to probe that young mind of yours – and we shall have to nurture it carefully. You are here to be trained and educated – you are here to grow.’

  Robert looked over towards the settee he had been sitting on, and the book he had left lying there. ‘I shall read my homework very carefully,’ he promised.

  ‘Good,’ said Kaupff. ‘Then you will understand the sheer impossibility of reaching our Red Star by conventional means. The object is too distant, too swift. If we had ten years to get there then it might just be possible – but in a matter of weeks, forget it. We must think hard, Robert. We must find another way.’ He sipped his tea with rhetorical deliberation. ‘What do you suppose is the most important attribute for a space explorer?’

  Robert thought about it. ‘Courage … determination … a cool head.’

  ‘And do you have those?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir.’

  ‘There’s another equally important quality we require, and you do have it. I mean a vivid imagination. You sit in an exam hall at Cromwell University and instead of writing about social policy you describe how you used to do exercises with baked-bean tins so you could become a cosmonaut. I like that.’

  ‘My tutor didn’t,’ Robert said glumly.

  ‘Your tutor knows nothing about the frozen star, nothing about the Installation or how we do things here. The finest military minds in the Republic – we need them. The finest engineers and scientists – we need them too. But when we hit a barrier and are unable to move forwards we must be prepared to take a sideways step around the obstacle. That takes a kind of imagination one could almost call poetic.’

  The only verses Robert could remember were a few lines of doggerel he used to recite when guising door-to-door on Fallen Comrades night. ‘I’m no
poet, sir.’

  ‘I use the term loosely,’ Kaupff assured him. ‘Sonnets and villanelles will never make anyone airborne. But our programme requires a mind that is open to association, able to make unexpected connections; a mind that can perceive what others miss. And it’s not only your little essay or your unusual reaction to a drug that have made us bring you here. Other factors are right too.’

  It was all so flattering: already a thin crust of pride was beginning to envelop the young man whose talents had been too subtle and refined for the doltish eyes of Cromwell’s geriatric professors.

  ‘Intelligence has nothing to do with it,’ Kaupff added. ‘In fact your score was rather low, but that doesn’t matter to us, so don’t feel put off by all the brainy people you’ll meet here, such as Rosalind.’

  ‘Does she live here in the Lodge too?’

  ‘No, her home is in the town. She’s Category D – has anyone explained the system to you?’

  Robert recalled Mr Frank’s overly detailed but apparently incomplete induction. ‘I was only aware of three categories,’ he said. ‘A for the general workforce, like the people I’m staying with, then B and C for the higher levels.’

  Kaupff explained, ‘Something the A’s aren’t allowed to know, at least not officially, is that there are more than three categories. You will of course say nothing to them about this.’

  It was another secret to add to Robert’s burgeoning stock. ‘And what category am I?’ he asked.

  ‘I can’t tell you that,’ said Kaupff. ‘But one thing you’ll know already is that some people are allowed to leave the Installation and others aren’t. I can never leave, because my brain holds too much strategic information. Then there are those whose minds are less nimble than their tongues – they might reveal the most trivial details about the Installation which would nevertheless assist our enemies. We see people come and go – but we can never be sure exactly where it is they go to.’

  Robert caught his drift. ‘You mean … ?’

  The professor shrugged. ‘I don’t know. People disappear from the Installation and no one ever sees them again – to us they might as well have gone to another world. We get news from the outside, we get mail … but evidence has to be placed in context. What I’m saying, Robert, is that anyone who enters the Installation must be prepared for the possibility that they will never see the outside again. This was what you freely consented to – it is the cost of all the rewards you will be given.’