Empire V

by Victor Pelevin

  ‘So you have been thinking of joining the Tolstoyans, have you?’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘Osiris. You were intending to join his sect?’

  ‘Not at the moment,’ I replied proudly. ‘I was simply, ah, wanting to broaden my circle of acquaintances. But please don’t mention it to Enlil Maratovich. Why upset the old man?’

  ‘I won’t say anything, don’t worry. That’s all right, Rama. We’ll give you some bablos, and then you won’t need to visit any of these sectarians.’

  I shrugged my shoulders. Baal Petrovich advanced on Hera, bent down towards her ear and nodded his head as though responding to her quiet question. I had never before seen a vampire bite two people in such quick succession, but obviously Baal Petrovich was a specialist with great experience. After a few lip-smacking sounds, he said: ‘Very good to meet such a purposeful individual.’

  He behaved to Hera with great gallantry. Also, he devoted much less time to probing her.

  ‘For some reason all my recent acquaintances seem to lead to the same outcome,’ muttered Hera.

  ‘Nothing personal,’ replied Baal Petrovich. ‘These bites are for purely professional purposes. I have to find out the best way to instruct you on the procedure, and for that, my friends, I need to gain an accurate picture of your inner world. Now, please come in …’

  And with that he flung open the doors.

  What was revealed was a brightly lit circular hall in which two colours predominated: gold and blue. The walls themselves were light blue, while gold gleamed from the pilasters, the mouldings of the ceiling and the frames of the pictures. The pictures were not interesting in themselves; in their somnolent lack of variety they were more like wallpaper: romantic ruins, noblemen on horseback, gallant rendezvous in woodland clearings. The painted ceiling was a representation of a skyscape with clouds, from the centre of which protruded a large gilded relief of the sun, backlit by concealed lamps. The sun had eyes and ears, a smiling mouth, and the general impression was of Khrushchev hiding in the ceiling. His round, complacent face beamed down to be reflected in the polished parquet floor.

  Overcome by the splendour, I lingered in the doorway. Hera also stopped.

  ‘Please come in,’ Baal Petrovich repeated. ‘We don’t have too much time.’

  We entered the hall. It contained no furniture except five big armchairs arranged in a semicircle around the fireplace let into one wall. The chairs were high-tech military style, equipped with servo drives, open-face helmets and a plethora of complicated couplings. Beside the group of chairs was a level control desk, raised above the floor on a steel support. In the fireplace a fire was burning, which struck me as odd since the air-conditioning was on full. Two Chaldeans in gold masks were tending to the fire.

  ‘Interesting,’ I said, ‘you have very much the same set-up as Enlil Maratovich. He also has a circular hall, a fireplace in the wall, and chairs. But his, of course, is more modest.’

  ‘Nothing to be wondered at,’ replied Baal Petrovich. ‘All buildings designed for a similar function have things in common, just as all violins have a similar form. Please sit down.’

  He signed to the Chaldeans to leave the room. One of them stayed behind a little to add some fuel to the fire from a paper packet marked ‘BBQ Charcoal’.

  ‘As part of the Red Ceremony,’ explained Baal Petrovich, ‘it is customary to burn some banknotes. There is no practical point to this, it is simply one of our national traditions, reflected in folklore. We are not short of money, nevertheless, out of respect for human labour we prefer to burn old currency, which we get from the State Mint.’

  He glanced at his watch.

  ‘Now I must go to change my clothes. Please do not touch anything in the meantime.’

  Warming us with an encouraging smile, Baal Petrovich followed the Chaldeans out of the room.

  ‘Weird chairs,’ remarked Hera. ‘A bit like at the dentist’s.’

  To me they seemed more like props for a space odyssey film.

  ‘Yes, they are strange,’ I agreed. ‘Especially this breastplate thing.’

  Each chair was equipped with a device familiar from sci-fi films featuring interstellar foot-soldiers – it came down over the cosmonauts’ chests to keep them in place during landing and take-off.

  ‘I expect they’re to keep us from falling to the floor if we start writhing in convulsions,’ I suggested.

  ‘Probably,’ agreed Hera.

  ‘Aren’t you at all nervous?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Mithra told me it was a wonderful experience. A little painful at the beginning, but then …’

  ‘Would you mind awfully not talking any more about Mithra?’

  ‘All right,’ replied Hera. ‘Then let’s not talk about anything.’

  We had no more conversation until Baal Petrovich returned. I studied the pictures on the walls with exaggerated interest, and she sat on the edge of her seat looking at the floor.

  When Baal Petrovich re-entered the room I did not recognise him. He had changed into a long robe of dark red silk and carried in his hand a bag like a cash-in-transit courier’s. I remembered where I had seen a robe like it before.

  ‘Baal Petrovich, have you ever been in Enlil Maratovich’s study?’

  ‘Many times,’ he replied.

  ‘There is a picture on the wall in it,’ I went on. ‘Some odd-looking people in top hats are sitting round a fire, strapped to their chairs, and with something like gags in their mouths. Near them stands a man in a red robe exactly like the one you are wearing. Is that picture an illustration of the Red Ceremony?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Baal Petrovich. ‘Or rather, a representation of what it would have looked like two hundred years ago. At that time the ceremony was attended by certain risks to health. But nowadays it is a completely safe procedure.’

  ‘But how were they able to swallow the bablos? I mean the people in the picture. They had gags in their mouths.’

  ‘They’re not gags,’ replied Baal Petrovich, going over to the control desk. ‘They are special appliances in which are incorporated a capsule of bablos made from the bladder of a fish. They also protect the tongue and the lips from trauma. The technology we use now is quite different.’

  He pressed a knob on the control desk and the breastplates rose with a humming noise above the chairs.

  ‘You may sit down now.’

  I sat in the end chair. Hera settled herself two chairs away from me.

  ‘Let’s go,’ I said. ‘We’re ready.’

  Baal Petrovich shot me a disapproving look.

  ‘I cannot approve such a frivolous attitude. How do you know whether or not you are ready, when you do not even know what is about to take place?

  I shrugged.

  ‘Why don’t you explain, then?’

  ‘Listen to me very carefully,’ said Baal Petrovich. ‘Since I know what sort of rubbish your heads are filled with, I wish you to be clear that the experience you are about to undergo will be surprising and not at all what you imagine. For you to have a correct understanding of what will take place it is essential from the start to grasp one fact that you may find damaging to your self-esteem. It is not we who suck bablos. It is the Tongue.’

  ‘Are we not one entity?’ asked Hera.

  ‘Up to a certain point. And this is that point.’

  ‘But we will feel something, won’t we?’

  ‘Oh yes, indeed,’ replied Baal Petrovich. ‘In no small measure. But it will be nothing like what the Tongue experiences.’

  ‘What does the Tongue experience?’ I asked.

  ‘I do not know,’ replied Baal Petrovich. ‘No one knows.’

  I had not anticipated this answer.

  ‘How is that possible?’ I asked in dismay.

  Baal Petrovich burst
out laughing.

  ‘You were asking me about a picture in Enlil’s study,’ he said. ‘But do you remember the picture that hangs in your own study? Napoleon on horseback?’

  ‘To be honest,’ I replied, ‘I long ago became heartily sick of being compared to a horse.’

  ‘This is the last time, I swear. Does the horse know what Napoleon is thinking? What is your opinion?’

  ‘I think not.’

  ‘And I agree. But when Napoleon canters round the field of battle before his army, he and his horse appear as a single organism. In a sense that is what they are … And when Napoleon pats his faithful steed on the neck …’

  ‘Why bother to go on?’ I said. ‘There’s no point trying to explain anything to a horse, is there? Napoleon certainly wouldn’t have done so.’

  ‘Rama, I understand your feelings,’ replied Baal Petrovich. ‘But life is much simpler than is commonly believed. There are two paths. If a person is fortunate, incredibly fortunate – as you and Hera have been – he or she can become the horse that carries Napoleon. But by the same token, without that stroke of luck the person will remain a mere beast of burden.’

  ‘Could we have done with horse-breeding?’ asked Hera. ‘Let’s get on with the matter in hand.’

  ‘With pleasure,’ replied Baal Petrovich. ‘So, the Red Ceremony is in two parts. First the Tongue sucks in bablos. This is the greatest mystery in the vampire’s world. But as I have already said, this procedure does not take place with us personally, and we know little of its essential nature. During this time what you experience will be extremely varied and fairly unpleasant, and can even be painful. You must endure. Do you understand?’

  I nodded.

  ‘After that the pain passes and the second part of the experience begins,’ continued Baal Petrovich. ‘Physiologically, what happens is this: having absorbed enough bablos, the Tongue injects directly into the brain a charge from an extremely powerful neurotransmitter we call dopamen, which compensates for the negative experiences arising from the first part of the procedure.’

  ‘Why is this compensation needed?’ I asked. ‘After all, the pain has already gone.’

  ‘Quite so,’ said Ball Petrovich. ‘But disagreeable memories persist. The neurotransmitter secreted by the Tongue, however, is powerful enough to alter the content of the memory. To be precise, not the memory itself, but the emotional balance connected with it. As a result the final impression the vampire retains of the Red Ceremony is in the highest degree positive, so much so that many vampires become psychologically dependent on bablos, a condition we call Thirst. This is, of course, a paradoxical reaction since the intake of bablos is in itself a fairly painful procedure.’

  ‘What exactly is a neurotransmitter?’ I asked.

  ‘In our case it is an agent which generates in the brain a sequence of electrochemical processes, experienced subjectively as happiness. In a normal person dopamine is responsible for similar processes. Its chemical name is 3.4 dihydroxiphenylethylamine. Dopamen is a closely related substance, as you will see if you look at the formula – on the right side of the molecule is the same nitric dioxide, but different figures for carbon and hydrogen. From a strictly chemical perspective the name is incorrect; it was invented in the sixties as a joke: “dope amen”, which became “dopamen”. At that time vampires were making an intensive study of their brains. This work was later curtailed, but the name stuck.’

  ‘Why was the work curtailed?’

  ‘The Mighty Bat became concerned that vampires might learn how to synthesise bablos themselves, and this could upset the time-hallowed order. If you’re interested we can go more deeply into the subject. Would you like me to write down the formula for dopamen?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Dopamen is also very similar to dopamine in the mechanism of its effect,’ continued Baal Petrovich, ‘but it is significantly stronger, approximately in proportion as crack is to cocaine. The Tongue injects it directly into the brain and it instantly generates its own reward circuits, which differ from the standard neuronal pathways of human happiness. It is therefore scientifically accurate to state that for a few minutes after receiving bablos the vampire experiences superhuman happiness.’

  ‘Superhuman happiness,’ I repeated dreamily to myself.

  ‘However, this is not what you might imagine it to be,’ said Baal Petrovich. ‘The best thing is not to have any expectations. That way you will not be disappointed. Well, that is enough by way of explanation, I think. We may now begin.’

  Hera and I exchanged glances.

  ‘Raise your legs and spread your arms out wide,’ commanded Baal Petrovich.

  Cautiously I adopted the required position, resting my legs on a supporting ledge that slid out from beneath the chair. The chair itself was extremely comfortable; the body was hardly aware of it at any point.

  Baal Petrovich touched a knob and the breastplate descended, gently pressing on my chest. He strapped my arms and legs to the chair with shackles made of what looked like thick plastic, and then repeated the procedure for Hera.

  ‘Now lift your chin …’

  As soon as I obeyed he placed in position on the back of my head something like a motorcycle crash helmet. Now the only part of my body I could move was my fingers.

  ‘During the ceremony your body may appear to be travelling through space. This is an illusion. In reality you will stay exactly where you are at all times. Remember this, and do not be afraid.’

  ‘Why do I have to be I strapped down like this?’ I asked.

  ‘Because,’ answered Baal Petrovich, ‘the illusion is extremely powerful and the body engages in uncontrollable movements to compensate for the imaginary motion in space. This can result in severe trauma. In the past there were numerous instances of this … Well, all is ready now. Do either of you have any more questions?’

  ‘No,’ I replied.

  ‘Please be aware that once the procedure has started there is no way back. Your only option is to endure until the end. Therefore, do not attempt to remove your shackles or get up from your chairs. You will not be able to. Is that clear?’

  ‘Quite clear,’ answered Hera.

  Baal Petrovich once again looked carefully over both of us and appeared satisfied with what he saw.

  ‘Well, then, shall we go?’

  ‘Into darkness, back and down,’ I replied.

  ‘Good luck.’

  Baal Petrovich moved behind the chair, out of my line of sight. I heard a quiet humming noise. From the right-hand side of the helmet extruded a small, transparent tube, which came to rest exactly above my mouth. Simultaneously two soft rubber plugs exerted pressure on my cheeks, one on either side. My mouth opened and at the moment a single bright crimson drop escaped from the end of the tube and fell into my mouth.

  It fell directly on to my tongue, and in a reflex motion I pressed it up against my soft palate. The liquid was thick and viscous, tangy and sweet to the taste, as though someone had combined syrup with cider vinegar. I had the impression that it was instantly absorbed, as though a tiny mouth had opened just there and sucked it in.

  My head began to spin. The sensation increased in intensity for several seconds and culminated in total spatial disorientation. I was relieved that my body was firmly strapped in so that it could not fall. Then it seemed to me as though the chair itself was rising from the floor.

  This was most strange. I continued to see everything around me – Hera, the fireplace, the walls, the sun in the ceiling, Baal Petrovich in his dark red gown. Yet at the same time I had an unmistakeable sensation of my body and the chair ascending, moreover at a velocity such that I experienced the G-force a cosmonaut does when his rocket lifts off.

  The gravity became so extreme that I had difficulty in breathing. I was frightened of suffocating, and tried to communicate this to Baal Petrovich. But my mouth wou
ld not answer to my commands; all I could do was move my fingers.

  Gradually it became easier to breathe. I felt the speed of my ascent decelerating, as though I was approaching an invisible summit. I realised that I was on the point of overshooting, and then …

  I just had time to curl my fingers into fists before my body plunged into a dizzy, delirious but at the same time terrifying weightlessness. I felt something cold tickling in the pit of my stomach as my body hurtled downwards at an appalling speed – and all this while I was sitting still in a motionless chair.

  ‘Close your eyes,’ said Baal Petrovich.

  I glanced over at Hera. Her eyes were tight shut, so I followed suit in screwing mine fast shut as well, and that was even more terrifying because the sensation of flight was now all-consuming and utterly real, and I could no longer see the room around me, to reassure me second by second that what was happening was no more than a vestibular hallucination. I tried to open my eyes once more but could not. Evidently I had begun to whimper from terror; I heard a low laugh from Baal Petrovich.

  Now a visual element was added to my hallucinations. The illusion of flying through the cloud-covered night sky was complete. All around was dark, but even so amid the darkness there were some clouds of a yet more impenetrable murk, like dense emboli of steam, and these I passed through with incredible speed. I seemed to be enveloped in a kind of crease in space which was absorbing air friction. From time to time I felt something inside my head tauten and the direction of my travel alter, which was a deeply unpleasant sensation.

  Soon I began to distinguish something like luminous dotted lines among the clouds. At first they were so dim as to be hardly visible, but gradually they became clearer. I knew that these points of light had some kind of connection to people: either they were human souls, or thoughts, or dreams, or perhaps an element common to all these …

  And then at last I knew what they were.

  They were that part of human consciousness Enlil Maratovich had identified as Mind ‘B’. They appeared like spheres in which flickered a softly appealing, nacreous luminescence – the ‘Northern Lights’, he had called it earlier. Linking the spheres was an invisible thread, looping them into long garlands. Countless numbers of these garlands spiralled upwards to culminate in a tiny speck of sheer black, which was where Ishtar had to be found. I could not see her, but her presence was as plainly perceptible as the sun above one’s head on a hot day.