Death is a Ruby Light

by Paul Kenyon

  She laughed. "If that was a sample, darling, we're going to stay warm all the way to China."

  * * *

  Omogoy peered through the window, his face contorted with fury. Inside he could see the giant American who looked like a Chukchee. He was lying on his back, naked, watching the girl Lena get dressed. He was big — big like a bear. His hairless chest was like a slab of granite. His arms were as thick as logs. He had not bothered to cover himself. His tool was enormous, like a horse's thing, hanging slackly now over one thigh.

  He was smiling at the girl, saying something. She shook her head regretfully and pointed at the steel wristwatch he, Omogoy, had given her.

  Her breasts, heavy as Georgian melons, bobbed as she bent to step into her quilted petticoats. Her thighs were as smooth and golden as mare's milk. Omogoy curled his lip. He had not slept with her for a moon or more; his new mistress when he visited the village was the Russian girl, Ludmilla. But Lena was shaming him to take up with another man so soon. And a man from across the Urals, across an ocean, at that!

  His hand tightened convulsively on the hilt of his knife. For a moment he was tempted to burst through the door and kill them both. The man he would kill immediately; he looked dangerous despite his nakedness. But with the woman, he would give her time to think about it.

  No. He would control himself. It would be better, out on the frozen tundra, as they had planned, he and the man from Moscow.

  Lena was ready to leave, modestly averting her eyes from the American-Chukchee's pelimeni. He slapped her on the rump, then turned down the kerosene lantern.

  Omogoy slipped around the corner, out of sight. The door opened, releasing a sudden explosion of mist into the night air. Lena came out, looking chubby in her coat and felt boots. She began trudging toward her cabin on the outskirts of the village.

  He trailed her silently, moving behind porches and fences. She turned at the end of the short street and headed downhill toward the stream that passed by her house. Omogoy made a wide circle.

  He was waiting for her in a tangled stand of larch. One moment she was humming to herself, looking at the stars. The next, he had her arm in a steel grip.

  "Omogoy!" she said, startled.

  "So, little whore, you are spreading your legs for foreigners now!"

  She faced him bravely. "And you are dipping your spear in Russian girls!"

  "I gave you a watch."

  "That was two winters ago."

  He showed her the knife. "And now I have something else for you."

  A satisfying fear filled her eyes. She tried to break away. He held her firm and unbuttoned her coat. First he raped her. She made no resistance. She thought he'd let her go when he was finished. He made a quick job of it; he wasn't really interested. Then, with her layers of petticoats still enclosing her head like cabbage leaves, he pushed the point of the long knife into her belly. A choking sound came from under the petticoats. He held her down while she thrashed her arms and legs, drawing the knife across her belly.

  When she stopped moving, he hoisted her on his shoulders and carried her across the frozen stream toward the taiga. He went a couple of versts into the forest and dumped her into a ravine.

  There was a pack of wolves in the area. He'd heard them howling at night. They'd find her before anybody from the village did.

  12

  They set off in the early morning darkness, heading south in a convoy of five truck-sized snow vehicles that had treads instead of wheels.

  "They're called vezdekhods," Alexey said. "It means the 'go-anywhere.' The best way to travel over the permafrost."

  Penelope sat beside him in a crowded little cabin that stank of diesel fumes. In the rear were Tarda, looking like a murderous Dutch doll, and Sumo. The other tanklike vehicles were spaced at intervals behind them, pulling sledges loaded with equipment.

  Penelope said, "How far to the border?"

  "Two hundred miles. We'll be there by night We'll leave the vezdekhods this side of the Amur River and cross under cover of darkness."

  "Won't there be Chinese patrols and spotter planes on the other side of the Amur, wondering about the vezdekhods?"

  He gave her a quick look, then went back to the twin control sticks. "Yes, of course. The border clashes are becoming more frequent."

  "Well?"

  "It will work to our advantage. We'll turn the vezdekhods over to a Red Army unit in the area. The Chinese spotters will assume they're reinforcements. The Army unit will take our vehicles fifty miles west, the site of the last Chinese border provocation two days ago. Two hundred Chinese soldiers crossed the ice and slaughtered some of our boys. Now they're expecting our usual retaliation. Our Army unit will launch a barrage of heavy missiles into Chinese territory. In the meantime, we'll be crossing the Amur on foot, fifty miles east."

  The Baroness thought it over. "Okay. It sounds all right."

  "I'm glad you approve."

  "If I didn't, darling, we'd do it some other way."

  He gave her another quick look, and throttled both sticks forward. The tracked vehicle roared and sent up spumes of snow. They raced across the frozen landscape for hours. There was very little to see. Once, a small band of Buryat hunters waved at them from the distance. Once, she spied a gray sheet that flowed like a liquid over the snow, darting this way and that as it changed course.

  "Wolves," Alexey said grimly. "There must be a couple of hundred in that pack. We can be thankful that we're inside a steel cabin."

  By the time they climbed down to the ground, a powdery snowfall was obscuring the bright Siberian stars. "Good," Alexey said, "we're in luck."

  They waited in a dense clump of pine for their Red Army contact. He was a young captain leading a small detachment of men crowded into three jeeplike vehicles called bobyks. He was openly curious about their presence. Alexey said something to him between clenched teeth, and he turned white. He and his men unloaded the equipment, then climbed into the cabins of the vezdekhods and drove westward, their lights off.

  All around her in the pine grove, Penelope could hear people stretching, cracking stiff limbs, yawning after the cramped ride. A couple of Mongols were relieving themselves against nearby trees. She could hear Omogoy's harsh voice, giving orders to his men, Alexey was having a whispered conference with Sergei.

  Wharton ambled over, dim and bulky in the darkness, an automatic rifle slung over his shoulder. "Orders?" he said.

  "We'll rest here for an hour. Eat. Then we move."

  He nodded and went off to tell the others.

  The snow was still coming down when they moved out, obscuring their tracks and keeping them hidden from Chinese binoculars on the other side of the Amur. She sent Skytop and one of the Mongols ahead as point men. The big Cherokee had the sharpest eyes and ears in the party. She put herself a little to one side, where she could watch the forward group of Russians and Yakuts. Wharton brought up the rear, his rifle unslung.

  The Amur was only two miles wide at their crossing point. But it was two miles of almost flat ice, with little cover except a small island in the middle and a few tumbled blocks of heaved ice here and there.

  The River of the Black Dragon, the Chinese called it. It was one of the world's mightiest rivers, broad as an inland sea in places. The Russians and Chinese had been disputing the territory along its banks for centuries. If war came, it would start here.

  She strained to see the Chinese shore. But the white gloom kept it hidden.

  She knew something was wrong when she saw Skytop stop abruptly. He put a hand out to halt the Yakut tramping beside him.

  He waited for her to catch up with him. Alexey stumbled out of the whirling snow a moment later.

  "Soldiers," Skytop said. "On the island."

  "How can you tell?" Alexey asked.

  "I can smell 'em,"

  "And can you smell how many?"

  Skytop sniffed the air, the big nostrils flaring. "Enough for a camp stove instead of cold rations. But no gasoline o
r diesel vehicles for heavy equipment. I'd put it at twenty to thirty men."

  "That means a radio," the Baroness said, "But even a rifle shot would alert any Chinese on the south bank. All right, Chief. You and I are going in with knives. We'll take care of any sentries. We'll signal for reinforcements."

  "I go too," Alexey said firmly.

  She looked him over. She'd been watching him. He moved like a cat. "All right," she said.

  Omogoy was standing there. "I too. It is my right." He'd already taken out a long knife and was caressing its blade.

  She decided Omogoy would be an asset Besides, his men would expect it. She didn't want to break down the chain of command.

  They took off their heavy packs and left them stacked on the river ice. The rest of the party removed their packs too. She made them stack their firearms. "I don't want anybody getting excited," she said. They drew up the hand-pulled sledges in a semicircle.

  The four of them inched across the river ice, invisible in their white garments. They stopped, crouching amidst the scrub poplar poking up through the snow at the island's edge. A sentry paced nervously, no more than fifty feet away, blurred by the driving snow.

  She motioned the others to spread out, looking for any other sentries who might be patrolling the bank. Then she slithered forward on her belly, as supple as the ermine whose furs she wore.

  The sentry almost stumbled over her. He was a stocky peasant in a quilted jacket, wearing a hat with ear flaps. He'd been peering across the river ice, looking for intruders. Now a slim shape in white fur sprang from the scrub in front of him and went for his throat like an animal.

  A strong hand closed on his finger in the trigger guard, preventing him from discharging his rifle. The hand tugged sharply and he was falling forward. The blade met his throat halfway. The Baroness made a sidewise swipe, and his windpipe was severed. She stepped deftly to one side before his blood could stain her furs.

  Skytop was suddenly beside her, grinning, a bloody knife in his hand. He made a sign to show her that the way was clear on his side. They went to find Alexey. The blond Russian was kneeling beside another body, unwinding a garrote from its neck. He looked up and frowned, his lips silently forming the word: Omogoy?

  The big Mongol appeared a moment later, carrying two Chinese rifles. He made signs to show that he'd knifed one Chinese, broken the neck of another. He looked unhappy when the Baroness made him dump the rifles.

  They could look into the camp through the screen of poplars. Skytop had been right. There were a dozen two-man pup tents, lined up in two neat rows like canvas sawteeth. A young sentry sat cross-legged, yawning. There was a cook, scooping snow into a pot over a camp stove, getting ready to wash utensils. There was another sentry, dipping his hand into a pot of leftovers. And there was a man returning from the latrine — an open trench with a board across it.

  It was going to be slaughter. But it had to be quick slaughter, before the man coming back from the latrine got into his tent, perhaps waking up his sleeping mate.

  The danger man was the alert sentry. He was the farthest away — about a hundred feet. Penelope decided to take care of him herself. She was the fastest runner. She could do the hundred feet in four seconds.

  With a few economical gestures, she gave each of them his man and made them understand that they weren't to move until she had covered fifty feet. Then they were to move fast.

  She waited until the sentry's head turned away from her. Then she sprinted, a flung spear hurtling toward him. At fifty feet she saw his head turn. Her brain was alive with adrenalin. It was like slow motion. There was all the time in the world to notice everything. She saw him open his mouth to shout. She saw the rifle swing ponderously around, his mittened hand grabbing for the trigger. He'd shout before he could fire. Her hands were at her scarf, whipping it off. It stretched in front of her, held wide and taut in her two hands. The shout still hadn't materialized. She was on top of him, close enough to see the smallpox scars on his cheeks. Her feet left the ground. The stretched scarf caught him in the throat. There was a strangled, squawking sound. He was falling over backward. She twisted at the hip, landing beside him instead of on top of him. She got one knee under him, between his shoulder blades. She jerked the scarf sharply, pushing with her knee. His neck snapped like kindling.

  She bounced to her feet, looking around. Alexey was straddling the sleepy sentry. The Chinese guard fell backward, smiling with the red gash in his throat. Skytop had his big thumbs pushing into the adam's apple of the man who'd had to go to the latrine. His eyes were goggling, his face turning purple. Omogoy had his two paws on the cook — one hand on his shoulder, the other pushing the chin upward. He forced the head all the way back, grinning wolfishly. There was the sharp crack of broken vertebrae and the cook's head lolled.

  Twelve tents. Twenty-four men. Nine of them were dead. Fifteen left. But in which tents?

  She got part of the answer immediately.

  "Shui?" a sleepy voice said. She looked around. A Chinese head was poking out of a tent flap, hanging there like a disembodied gourd. Omogoy was closest. The gourd opened an astonished mouth. Omogoy's long knife flashed downward, lopping off the head. It bounced and rolled a couple of feet A gout of blood spurted from the stump of the neck, staining the snow.

  Instantly Alexey was helping Omogoy peel back the canvas of the tent. A Chinese soldier in a sleeping bag was rubbing his eyes, reaching for a rifle. He'd been awakened by a reflexive kick from his headless companion. Alexey stretched out a hand almost casually and picked up the rifle. He reversed the butt in an easy motion and smashed the soldier's head with it.

  They worked quickly then, in teams of two. It was like clubbing fish in a barrel. Knives were too chancy, with the sleeping bags and the padded clothing; you might miss the instant-kill point. Rifle butts were surer. First the quick tug to pull the tent pegs out of the impacted snow. The two soldiers suddenly exposed to view, beginning to wake up. The instant decision: which one to kill first? Then the rifle butt, smashing the head like a pumpkin.

  But they made some noise. With two tents left to go, there was suddenly an officer springing up like a jack-in-the-box, his horrified eyes taking in the scene. He was bringing a machine pistol up in a jerky arc, the muzzle wavering.

  Penelope made a long, low dive. She and the officer tumbled over and over, down the slope of the bank. The edge of her hand flashed like a cleaver, breaking his wrist. The machine pistol dropped into the snow. He scrambled for it with his other hand. Penelope hit him sharply on the point of the shoulder. It should have paralyzed his arm, but the padding was too thick. She hit him a crippling blow in the kidney. The padding absorbed the shock. He was still thrashing around. It was nightmarish, like fighting with a stuffed teddy bear. She got a knee into his groin, but the quilted skirt of his coat muffled the impact. He twisted away, too bulky to hold. He caught her in the ribs with a heavy boot. Her own lightweight thermals and the ermine were less protective. She felt a sharp pain, and gasped to recover her breath. The Chinese officer was on his knees now, reaching with his good hand for the machine pistol. She reached over and began to unbutton his collar. He squirmed, like a child resisting the grownup getting him out of his snow suit. She continued doggedly, her fingers clumsy in the gloves. She got the first two buttons open. His hand was on the butt of the machine pistol.

  She pulled the top of his coat open. She could see his neck. His adam's apple bobbed. She drove three stiff fingers into it. She could feel the cartilage crunch. He fell over backwards like a broken doll.

  Up above, she heard a scream, suddenly cut off. No one had come to help her; they were mopping up the last few soldiers. She didn't mind the scream; it wouldn't carry over the river like a gun shot, and by this time it didn't matter if a remaining soldier or two was alerted.

  One of them had got away. She could see him careening over the ice, heading for the Chinese side of the river. His motions were uncoordinated, terror stricken. She saw Omogoy lumber af
ter him. The big Mongol caught the soldier by the back of the belt. The soldier's legs continued to make running motions as Omogoy drew him toward him. He jerked the soldier, one-handed, into the air. Penelope narrowed her eyes; the Mongol's strength must be immense. He had the soldier now by the shoulder and hip. He brought the thrashing man down on his knee, breaking his back like a rotten log.

  Alexey was sauntering down to join her. His eyes took in the officer she'd killed. "All taken care of," he said. "You never signaled for reinforcements."

  "We didn't need any," she said.

  She found the domino-sized magnetron in her pocket and pushed the stud. It would trigger the little transponder in the button of Sumo's parka. She walked back with Alexey to wait.

  Skytop was standing amidst the scattered tents and sprawled bodies. He shook his head. "I can't say I cared for that job," he said. "It was nothing but butcher's work."

  "They were soldiers," Alexey said. "They were occupying Russian territory. They were taking their chances. Us, or a napalm barrage."

  "I thought the islands in the Amur were disputed territory."

  "We won the dispute."

  The rest of the party arrived a few minutes later, dragging the sledges. The Mongols went wild when they saw the rifles and equipment. They started stripping the corpses.

  "Would Russian soldiers take souvenirs?" Penelope said.

  "Yes," Alexey said.

  "All right. But see that they don't weigh themselves down too much."

  Alexey was digging into one of the packs on the sledges. "Here's some manufactured evidence," he said. He dropped a few items amidst the carnage: a Red Army hat, a couple of buttons, some Russian shell casings. "We can set a time charge before we leave — a big explosion to stir things up a little, burn the bodies. I don't think the Chinese will check the island before morning."

  As he spoke, there were red flashes in the sky to the west. The sound didn't reach them till four minutes later.

  "There's your missile barrage," Penelope said. "How long will it go on?"