Singularity

by Bill DeSmedt

  Captors and captives were still settling in when more footsteps sounded on the gangplank. Knox craned around curiously. One by one, seven refugees from the geriatrics ward filed through the airlock and took seats to the left of the big desk. All in their late sixties to mid seventies, all looking like well-cared-for wax effigies of themselves. Even their eyes looked dead. Knox hadn’t seen so many bleak, wintry faces all in a row since Boris Yeltsin had made the old Politburo stop holding its annual November get-togethers atop Lenin’s Mausoleum. Come to think, one or two of them looked vaguely familiar . . .

  Finally Arkady Grigoriyevich deigned to grace Navtilus with his presence. He strode through the hatch, issuing instructions to a hastily-scribing Sasha. Grishin was in a good mood, to judge by the way he gladhanded the seven gaffers on the way over to the big desk. Once there, he rubbed his hands briskly and bestowed a winning smile on one and all. Motioning Sasha to a chair at his right hand, Grishin took his own seat and gave a nod.

  The pilot moved to the navigation console and busied himself with pre-launch checks. A uniformed crewmember swung the hatch to and initiated its locking sequence. Outside, his compatriots could be heard retracting the gangplank.

  Forty-five seconds went by before the pilot spoke the launch command into his console mike. Nothing happened for a moment, then a low rumble, more feeling than sound, vibrated through the cabin. The scene out the viewport grew brighter as green-gold light began to filter up through the moon pool. Rusalka’s underwater hatch yawned wide to release Navtilus into the open sea.

  The submersible dropped like a stone. Knox watched the sunlit water swirl past the portholes. That sparkling green was already faintly tinged with blue. Soon it would turn to black.

  Navtilus was on her way to the depths.

  The USN Piccard fell through the empty dark. The view out her forward port showed only the milky cones cast by her exterior spots and, occasionally, a blurred vertical streak of light that meant they’d just plummeted past another drifting bioluminescent lifeform.

  It wasn’t much brighter inside, where Piccard‘s crew compartment was lit all in red. The effect was like riding to the bottom of the sea in a photographer’s darkroom.

  A crowded photographer’s darkroom. Euripedes Aristos found himself crammed together with ten fully armed and armored Ops Team six-footers, not to mention one civilian. All of them in a space designed to seat seven, uncomfortably.

  Pete Aristos was not a nervous man. Still, these accommodations were enough to give a sardine claustrophobia. The creaking of the pressure hull’s ceramic-metal composite wasn’t helping either. Add to that the fact that he was sitting on top of a low-yield nuclear device and, well, anybody could get a little edgy.

  Anybody but Piccard‘s civilian passenger, that is. He looked sound asleep, dead to the world and good to stay that way the whole trip. Pete would’ve given anything to kick back and catch some z’s like that guy. Burdens of command.

  Speaking of which. “Sir? Mr. Aristos?” What with the whir of the engines, the bleeps of the acoustic tracking pulses, and the background hum of the CO, scrubbers, the pilot’s soft drawl was barely audible.

  Still, Pete thought he made out the words, “Could you step forward a minute?”

  By the time he’d reached the pilot’s station, he was hoping he’d heard right. The cramped quarters had made stepping forward a semimajor operation.

  “What’ve you got, Harry?” Pete hunched down and looked over the pilot’s shoulder.

  Lieutenant JG Cindy Lee Harris, “Harry” to her friends, turned her round, freckled face toward him. “Not out there, sir—here, on the scope.” She tapped a green-lit screen to her left.

  They were not alone in their hurtling dive toward the mysterious installation called Antipode. Sonar had picked up another vessel. Still maybe five hundred meters above Piccard but descending fast.

  “Casualty?” Tsunami wasn’t scheduled to kick off for a couple hours yet, but some sonofabitch might have jumped the gun and got sunk for his trouble.

  “Huh? Oh, no, sir. She’s in a controlled dive, just like us.”

  “Jesus! Kind of big for a ’scaphe, isn’t she?”

  “Sir, yes, sir. A Cadillac to our Volkswagen.”

  “Shit!” Their best intel was that Antipode was unoccupied. That had made things real simple. But if there was a submersible heading for it, well, it might not stay unoccupied for long. Which could change things.

  “Harry, how maneuverable is this tin can of yours? Can you hold us in place a couple minutes?”

  “Let her catch up with us? Yessir. Sucks juice like Times Square at New Year’s, though.”

  Normally, Piccard just filled her negative-buoyancy tanks with enough seawater to fall to her target depth. Stopping anywhere short of that took extra power. Power they’d be needing for, among other things, life support.

  “I hear you. Do it anyway. And, Harry?”

  “Yessir?”

  “Rig for silent running and plot me an intercept course. Let’s go have a look at that Caddy of yours.”

  Grishin sat gazing out the bathyscaphe’s forward port into the silence of the deep ocean, and silently gathered his thoughts. There had been so many obstacles blocking his path, so many adversaries ringed around him, and yet he had overcome them all. Nothing could stop the Antipode Project now.

  A small smile played over his features; he clapped his hands once and swiveled to face his fellow Council members. Time to begin.

  “Comrades, permit me to welcome you aboard Navtilus. The pilot informs me that we have now reached our terminal free-fall velocity of thirty meters a minute. And since our destination is some three kilometers down . . .”

  A groan of tortured metal issued from Navtilus s walls. Several members of the Council looked about them nervously.

  “Pay that no mind,” Grishin said with studied nonchalance. “A certain amount of structural stress is the price we pay for maintaining a sea-level cabin pressure. But it is no cause for alarm. Three kilometers is nothing to Navtilus; she is rated for four times that depth. Now, as I was saying, between our rate of descent and the distance to be traversed, we have another hour and a half before we arrive at Antipode Station. At the same time, circumstances have compelled us to curtail our original agenda somewhat, so . . . Yes, you have a question, Pyotr Fillipovich?”

  The sharp-featured little man with the intent, glittering eyes lowered his hand and said “As to these ‘circumstances,’ Comrade Director—I am sure I speak for the Council as a whole when I insist on knowing their nature and origin. We had been told we would have the entire morning to review and approve your final report on the Antipode Project. Yet no sooner did we arrive on Rusalka than we were escorted to this vehicle and launched on our voyage.”

  “Yes, yes, I was on the point of explaining this.”

  “Permit me to finish, Comrade. This was not the only curious circumstance. As the helicopter was ferrying us in from Horta, we overflew an aircraft carrier group steaming in the direction of Rusalka under blackout conditions. I demand to know what is going on!”

  “There is no cause for alarm, Pyotr Fillipovich. If you had troubled to read your Project briefing book, you would have noted that the probability of American detection of, and response to, the capture event has been assessed at greater than seventy percent. Accordingly, this contingency has been planned for. It is, in fact, the reason for the presence onboard Navtilus of our guests.”

  At a nod from Grishin, Yuri prodded the spies to a standing position.

  “Members of the Council for National Resurrection,” Grishin said with a small flourish, “Permit me to introduce Ms. Marianna Bonaventure and Mr. Dzhonathan Knox, representatives of the American Critical Resources Oversight Mandate.”

  Karpinskii shot to his feet. “Have you gone mad, Grishin, to bring two CROM agents aboard? Comrade Council Members, I appeal to you—”

  “Sit down!” Grishin said. “I warn you, Karpinskii: another such o
utburst will not be tolerated.” He leveled a finger at his opponent as if aiming a pistol.

  The little man took his seat again, slowly, his features contorted with now-silent rage.

  “To resume then. It is precisely because Ms. Bonaventure and Mr. Knox represent the adversary that they are being brought along. They are here in the capacity of an insurance policy, to attest to the innocuousness of our intentions—and the credibility of our threat—should need arise.”

  As if on cue, Navtilus s hull rang with the echo of a single active-sonar ping. The passengers had only an instant to look around in bewilderment. Then a videoconferencing window popped open on the flatscreen display behind Grishin’s desk. The image that formed in it left much to be desired: low-rez, black and white, five-frame-a-second refresh rate, tops. Still it was the best that very-low-bitrate underwater video transmission had to offer, and it was enough to depict recognizably the face of a nearly bald, scowling man.

  “Attention, unidentified craft,” the man said in English. “Drop ballast and surface immediately. Or the next sound you hear will be a torpedo in the water.”

  Marianna barely had time to see Grishin gesture over her shoulder, to Yuri. Then she was being jerked forward, into the line of sight of Navtilus’s own VLB videocam. She recovered her balance—less easy than it looked with her hands tied—then raised her head and looked at the man in the conferencing window.

  “Hi, Pete,” was all she could think to say.

  “Marianna? What the f—what are you doing there?”

  “If you will permit me, Ms. Bonaventure,” Grishin cut in, in passable English, “Mr. Aristos, is it not? My name is Grishin, Arkady Grigoriyevich Grishin. I am responsible for the presence of your associate and Mr. Knox aboard Navtilus. I ordered it done against the chance that CROM might put in an appearance. And here you are.”

  “Here we are,” Pete echoed. “And if you think for one damn minute I’m going to hold fire just because you’ve got a gun to Bonaventure’s head—”

  “Please, Mr. Aristos.” Grishin held up a hand. “Nothing of the sort is intended, I assure you. Your colleagues are here as witnesses, not hostages.”

  “Witnesses? To what?”

  “Why, to the undesirable—extremely undesirable, I might say—consequences of any attempt to interfere with my plans. I intend to show Mr. Knox and Ms. Bonaventure what we have been laboring on these past twelve years and let them judge for themselves.”

  Pete just said, “Huh?”

  “Think of it as one of CROM’s famous on-site inspections, if you like,” Grishin said smugly. “Your representatives can serve as your eyes and ears within Antipode Station. I am confident that, once you hear what they have to say, you will see the wisdom of pursuing a strict noninterference policy as far as Grishin Enterprises is concerned. Pending their report, I would appreciate it if you would have your surface forces hold at their current ten-mile perimeter, and if you yourself would withdraw your little submersible an equivalent distance from Antipode.”

  “Marianna?” Pete said. “Help me out here. What’s this guy talking about?”

  Would the fact that Grishin had gone to the trouble of kidnapping them make the story any more plausible than last time? “Pete,” she began, “it’s complicated.”

  “Skip the complications. What the fuck is he up to?”

  “At last,” came a voice from behind her, “I was beginning to think nobody would ever ask.”

  Marianna spun around. She had nearly forgotten who was still standing back there all by himself.

  “It’s simple, really,” Jon said. “Arkady Grigoriyevich here is going to undo the assassination of Yuri Andropov in 1984. And resurrect the Soviet Union.”

  40 | Project Report

  YES, JONATHAN KNOX had worked it out, all right. What would the shadow KGB do with a time machine? The key lay buried in a rumor about murder and mayhem at a very exclusive Moscow hospital two decades ago, a rumor Knox had first heard from a Russian gypsy cab driver.

  Despite its lowly origins, the insight was having a gratifyingly major effect. The scene in Navtilus s passenger cabin took on the aspect of a single moment frozen in time. No one moved, no one spoke. Still-life with mouths agape.

  Then everybody began shouting at once.

  Pete bellowed, “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  He was all but drowned out by Grishin. “This is an internal matter, of interest solely to the peoples of the Russian Republic, and of no concern to the international community what-so-ever!”

  That foxy-faced midget who’d locked horns with Grishin earlier on—Karpinskii or something—was back on his feet, spewing out recriminations. The rest of the Comrade Director’s kangaroo Council contented themselves with muttering incoherently, like an aphasic Greek Chorus.

  Knox paid no heed to the hubbub he’d raised; time enough for that in a bit. For the moment he just basked in the warmth of Marianna’s astonished smile.

  “Silence!” Grishin fairly shrieked. He whirled to face Aristos in his videoconf window.

  “This. Changes. Nothing! Your sole duty here, Mr. Aristos, is to verify the terrible power that my associates and I now wield. To that end, you will receive Ms. Bonaventure’s report no later than one hour after our arrival. I recommend you consider it carefully. Until then, I insist that you hold at your ten-mile perimeter, and—to use an Americanism—that you get out of my face!”

  Speaking of faces, Marianna wished she had an eight-by-ten glossy of the look on Grishin’s when Jon had pulled that latest rabbit out of his hat. You just had to love the guy.

  Pete was talking to her. “Marianna?”

  “Um, sorry, Pete.” She turned back to her boss’s grainy image.

  “Listen, I’ve got to make a judgment call here. You’re the AIC of record. Like it or not, I’ve got to factor in your input.”

  She looked over to where Grishin and his minions were staring at her, waiting. Was she really supposed to discuss the disposition of a case in the presence of the perpetrator? Didn’t seem like she had a whole lot of choice.

  “Okay, sure. Just bear in mind we’ve got an audience.”

  “Makes no never-mind. I’ve only got the one question.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Is this stuff for real?”

  “Real as it gets, I guess. It’s what I was trying to tell you yesterday.” Seeing his frown she hastily added, “Look, Pete, it’ll only cost you an extra hour to find out for sure. There’s no way Grishin can get out from under the hammer in that amount of time. It’s not a whole lot to ask, if you think about the downside.”

  She held her breath. Pete hadn’t wanted to think about the downside before. And who could blame him? End of the freaking world?

  Please, let him think about it now.

  The silence stretched on. Marianna looked away from the flatscreen display, looked out one of the forward viewports. There was nothing to be seen, though. The two vessels hung suspended in deepest indigo, bordering on utter black. Falling together through limbo.

  “Okay,” Pete said finally.

  His gaze shifted then, and locked on Grishin. “You’ve got your hour. The clock starts ticking soon as you dock. And one more thing . . .”

  “Yes, Mr. Aristos?”

  “When this is all over, I get my people back, good as new. You fuck with them, I will personally carve you a new asshole. That understood?”

  “I believe we understand one another perfectly.”

  Pete cut the transmission without another word.

  That went about as well as might be expected, Grishin thought to himself.

  “Well, Comrades,” he said aloud, reseating himself behind the big desk, “we have the better part of an hour remaining before our arrival at Antipode. And, as Pyotr Fillipovich reminded us earlier, our departure from Rusalka was too, ah, hectic to allow for the Council’s scheduled consideration of our final Project report. I move we take up this agenda item now.”

 
“You cannot be serious, Grishin!” Karpinskii had remained standing. “Surely you do not propose to discuss affairs of such sensitivity in their presence?” He waved a hand at the two Americans.

  “Permit me to point out, Pyotr Fillipovich,” Grishin said, “that Mr. Knox has just now demonstrated he knows most of these affairs already.” Which reminded him. “Mr. Knox? I confess to being curious myself as to how you learned of our ultimate intentions.”

  “Not as curious as I am about how you’ve been tracking us ever since we left Rusalka.”

  “Ah, as to that, once Yuri had alerted me to the likelihood of CROM’s involvement, we employed—or, more properly, will have employed—some rather extraordinary means at our disposal to establish your whereabouts. Now, as to how you penetrated our security . . .”

  “I’d say ‘extraordinary means’ about covers that one, too.”

  The woman smiled at this last remark.

  “No matter.” Grishin dropped the subject and turned to face the Council again. “As regards Pyotr Fillipovich’s objection, the terms of our, ah, arrangement with Mr. Aristos dictate that we conceal nothing. The plain and simple truth is our best ally.”

  He could hardly believe he’d said that. He had detested Gorbachev’s disastrous policy of glasnost, of openness, and history had borne him out. Yet Sasha had been right about the effect of a full disclosure regarding Vurdalak. Very well, then, for as long as it served his purposes, he would play at being this curious creature, this new, open Arkady Grishin.

  “And in that spirit,”—he turned to the Americans—“it is time I properly introduced myself.” He couldn’t very well bow sitting down, but he straightened in his chair and inclined his head, “Mstislav Platonovich Gromov, Colonel KGB, at your service.”

  The woman, Bonaventure, knit her brows in concentration. Then she gasped. “Of course! You were Shebarshin’s protege; he made you deputy director of Foreign Intelligence when he moved into the top slot in 1988. No wonder we couldn’t match you back to the old KGB—that’s one amazing job of plastic surgery.”