The Claus Effect

by David Nickle

  The wait wasn’t long. Olga was sure she could hear low muttering almost as soon as they’d pulled out of the firelight, and barely a heartbeat later, Olga swore she could see something move in the dark, just beyond the firelight.

  “A dwarf,” whispered Mikhail.

  Olga shot him a look—Quiet! she said with her finger—then looked where he pointed.

  Olga caught her breath; Mikhail was right. It was a dwarf, a tiny man-thing scarcely more than half a metre tall. Olga had seen deformities before—she had family near Chernobyl, and they sent postcards—but she had never seen anything like this.

  The creature was almost skeletally thin, dressed in blackened rags. His skin was coloured an ash-grey and his eyes were enormous, bulging amphibiously. And his ears—they actually came to a point!

  “He has got a gun,” hissed Dmitri, and he was right too. The creature was carrying a Skorpion machine pistol, cradling it in two arms like an assault rifle. At Dmitri’s exclamation, he lifted his gun and aimed it in their direction.

  “Whozzat?” he squeaked.

  Olga decided to take a chance: after all, it wasn’t the old days anymore. She set down her gun, motioned for her comrades to stay back, and stepped out into the firelight.

  “We are Cossacks,” she said in English—once again playing a hunch. “We don’t want to fight.”

  The little man stepped back and waved the machine pistol erratically in Olga’s direction.

  “Ye’re whit?” His bulging eyes widened as he spoke.

  “Cossacks,” Olga repeated. “Originally from the Ukraine but before that from the east. The word means ‘freebooter.’”

  “Fryeebyuter?” The bulging eyes narrowed, struggling with the concept. “I din’t knae. Whit are ye dyuin’ here?”

  Olga had to struggle herself to make out the little man’s horrible pronunciation. What. Are. You. Doing. Here.

  “Ah,” she said finally. “We are trying to find out what is going on. We want in on the action,” she added as an afterthought.

  The creature seemed to consider this. “In on ’a ackshin,” he said, then looked at Olga with sudden comprehension.

  “Ye’re one ’a ’em Rushin’s whit ’a Claus tyuk all ’em nyukes frim, ain’t ye?”

  Olga had no idea what the little man had just said, but she nodded anyway. He grinned horribly and lowered his gun.

  “Will why ’in’t ye say so?” he said. “Come ’an wiff me!”

  The little man turned around and stomped off into the dark. Olga glanced back at her Cossacks.

  “Well come on,” she said. “I think we’ve just made a friend.”

  “Whether we like it or not,” complained Dmitri.

  When they joined her, Mikhail offered Olga her pistol back. After a second’s consideration, she slipped it into her waistband. Insurance, she told herself as they hurried after the dwarf-thing. Just insurance.

  “Doon hyere!”

  The three Cossacks looked at each other over the edge of the pit. They had actually climbed down what felt like about fifty metres to get to this spot, which resembled nothing so much as a huge volcanic crater in the crook of the peaks. Olga could see twists of half-melted steel emerging from the rock here and there. The smell of burning tires from below was nearly overpowering.

  “Cim ’an!” The dwarf’s voice had taken on an echo he was so far down the flimsy rope ladder. “Toyme’s a-wastin’!”

  “What did he say?” asked Mikhail.

  “No idea,” said Olga. “But I would guess that we are to follow him. Anyone care to go first?”

  After an uncomfortably long wait, Olga shrugged and started down herself. One day soon, she was sure her leadership-by-example would take hold.

  The climb down was more difficult than it should have been. The ladder wasn’t designed for a normal-sized adult—it couldn’t have been more than fifteen centimetres wide and the rungs were spaced at twenty centimetre intervals. As a result, nearly every step saw Olga’s climbing boots nearly hopelessly entangled in the nylon cord. Judging from the noises coming from above, Mikhail and Dmitri were having the same problems.

  And it was a long way down.

  They seemed to be descending through layers of debris. At first Olga could only feel the bent steel as it brushed against her elbows and backside, but before long there was a kind of illumination, filtering up from far below. The shadows made ghoulish renderings in the twists of broken catwalk, thick pipes that veered into nothingness, and strange, wide plates of steel, messy and crumpled like discarded handkerchiefs, dangling from creaking braids of cable.

  For that matter, the whole pit seemed to be creaking. Olga couldn’t help but imagine the sounds that would come after just a sliver of the ruin broke loose, and plummeted through the rest. She shut her eyes for a moment, then continued down.

  In the final layer, the source of the light became apparent. They had emerged from the ceiling of a huge cavern, its floor scattered with unnameable debris. But at regular points around its perimeter, someone had stood up old oil drums and lit fires in them. There were as many as twenty of these drums, their smoky flames both heating and illuminating the great cave.

  The dwarf was already on the floor when Olga saw the others.

  “Sweet Mother Mary,” she breathed.

  There were hundreds of them, each one as tiny as the first dwarf. Some wore pointed toques, others wore oversized Soviet Army helmets, and others still had left their pates uncovered, their tiny bald skulls gleaming in the firelight. Many of them carried weapons, and they all stood around the base of the long ladder, staring up with their soot-rimmed eyes.

  What had Olga gotten the three of them into?

  “Cim ’an, a’ready!” shouted the first dwarf. “Claus is a’ waitin’!”

  Olga gave up climbing two meters from the ground and jumped. There was a gonging sound as she landed on a plate of sheet-metal and slipped to her knees.

  “Gowan!” shouted another one of the dwarfs, this one waving a rusted bayonet in her face. Olga recoiled and scrambled to her feet. “Tell ’a Claus ta smarten oop!”

  The other dwarfs waved their weapons or their tiny fists in the air and joined in:

  “Gowan!”

  Olga glanced up the rope ladder. Dmitri and Mikhail had stopped climbing just below the dangling wreckage. She shrugged. They’d be down soon enough.

  “All right,” said Olga. “Let’s gowan.”

  “You!”

  At first, Olga didn’t know what the man in the chair was talking about—although he seemed to recognize her immediately, Olga was sure she’d never seen him before.

  He wore an enormous red greatcoat, stained here and there with soot and tobacco, and his hair and scatterings of beard was as white as a fresh snowfall. The dwarfs had lashed him to what appeared to be a dentist’s chair, using thick leather straps that Olga had only seen in psychiatric asylums and KGB training films. They were in a small chamber cut out of the stone off the main cavern. The dwarf-creatures had left them alone.

  “I’m sorry,” she said in English. “Do I know you?”

  “Know me?” The man thrashed ineffectually back and forth in the chair. “Hell, woman! You pistol-whipped me, not two months ago!”

  Could it—Olga leaned closer and squinted—could it be so?

  “Mister American Spy?” she asked incredulously.

  The straps creaked and somewhere cartilage popped as the American spy leaned forward in the chair. “Don’t call me that, you neo-Communist hussy!”

  “My apologies.” Olga tried with no success to supress a grin. “You should have stayed with us. You would have been a lot more comfortable. What happened to your hair, by the way? Have they been torturing you?”

  “No. I mean yes. I mean—” the American slumped back in his chair “—I don’t know.”

  “I hope you didn’t tell them anything,” said Olga, then seeing the seeds of his reaction to her jibe, changed her tack. “I’m sorry, Mister Spy. I
shouldn’t be making jokes at your expense. I’m still a little pissed off over that clubbing you gave me—it kept me in bed for three weeks, you know.”

  The spy wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Sorry about that…Helga? That’s your name, isn’t it?”

  “Close. It’s Olga.”

  “Olga, Helga. I’m losing more of my edge the longer they keep me here.”

  “Mmm. Tell me, Mr. Spy—what exactly is going on in this place?”

  The spy lifted his face and glared at Olga. “That’s classified,” he snarled.

  Olga shrugged extravagantly. “Okay, Mister Spy. Have it your way. I understand what Classified means; I’m a neo-Communist hussy after all, and everything is classified here in Communist Land. I’ll just leave you to your friends.” She turned to leave the cave.

  “Wait!”

  Olga turned, raised an eyebrow inquiringly.

  “You’ve got to get me out of here,” he hissed. “You don’t know what they’ve got planned for me!”

  “Well you’ve got me on that one. Why don’t you tell me what they’ve got planned? Then I can make an informed decision.”

  The spy licked his lips, and his shoulders shook with what Olga could only take to be a sob. “All right,” he said finally. “Sit down, Olga; this might take a while.”

  Mikhail and Dmitri were sitting against the wall, passing the bottom half of Mikhail’s last Cuban cigar back and forth when the spy—Mr. Beland—stopped talking. Their indifference made Olga painfully aware of how little justice her periodic translations did to Mr. Beland’s incredible tale.

  “You will excuse me for a moment while I confer with my comrades,” said Olga finally.

  “Comrades.” Mr. Beland nodded wearily.

  Olga walked over to Dmitri and Mikhail and sat down beside them.

  “So what happens next?” asked Mikhail. “Does Father Christmas beat the brave American spy and shoot down the Easter Bunny with his Dark Sphere satellite gun? Or does American pluck and knowhow win out in the end? Dmitri and I are on the edge of our chairs.”

  “Or we would be if we had any,” complained Dmitri.

  “Give me a puff of that thing.” Olga took the stogie from Dmitri and clamped it in her teeth as she spoke.

  “Here is what he says happened next. When he got to the tower, Father Christmas was not there at all, but had flown his sleigh to the North Pole. Instead, Mr. Beland—” both Cossacks sniggered, as they did every time Olga mentioned the spy’s name “—met with a young American defector, who had taken control of the Black Globe system after subduing some of Father Christmas’ dwarfs. Mr. Beland used the Black Globe to destroy Father Christmas. And then there was some business with a hostage that Father Christmas had brought to the North Pole with him. Mr. Beland wasn’t too clear on that point, but it was at this time that the American defector turned the Black Globe beam on this very mountain.”

  Mikhail took the cigar and nodded thoughtfully. “That would explain the avalanches.”

  “And the mess in here,” said Dmitri.

  “The story becomes quite fanciful at this point,” said Olga.

  “Only now?” Mikhail offered the cigar to Dmitri, who motioned no thank you.

  “You remember the bauble that Mr. Beland said he found in the snow? Good. Mr. Beland has since deduced that the bauble was in fact Father Christmas’ missing eyeball.”

  “Left eyeball or right?” asked Mikhail.

  Olga gave him a look and continued. “Mr. Beland is convinced that the eyeball contained some vital part of Father Christmas’ life-force. After a short time, that life-force began to invade Mr. Beland’s body and take it over. That is why his hair has gone white, his teeth have become crooked and yellow, and apparently his fingers have grown a full inch.”

  “Metaphysics,” snorted Dmitri.

  “But before that life-force could complete the takeover, Mr. Beland says that a little girl knocked the eyeball over the side of the tower with her bullwhip.”

  “Oh, bad luck!” It was Mikhail this time.

  “The dwarfs found Mr. Beland sprawled amid the stonework at the base of the tower and brought him here. Since that time, they have been searching for the missing eyeball so the takeover can be complete. So far, every time they’ve gotten close there’s been another avalanche to cover it up, but the mountain appears to be settling. Mr. Beland is terrified that any day now one of these creatures will come skipping in and re-insert the eyeball in a cavity just below his left nipple.” Olga waited until they were finished.

  “I am only repeating what I was told,” she said simply.

  “Of course you were,” said Mikhail, wiping his eyes. “So tell me, all-knowing Leader. What do we do now?”

  Olga looked over to where Mr. Beland sat trussed. He was attempting a hopeful grin.

  “Well comrade? What do you say?”

  Olga turned back to her Cossacks. “We undo those straps to begin with. I wouldn’t wish this place on my worst enemy.”

  “Byut we hivin’t foond th’ eyebill yit!”

  “Do not worry, little dwarf-man,” said Olga, leaning forward with her hands on her knees. “When Father Christmas speaks with President Yeltsin, he will send huge earth-moving machinery and find the eyeball in no time.”

  “Fither—Chris-mis?” The dwarf appeared confused.

  “She means me,” growled Mr. Beland.

  They had made it back to the perimeter of the main cavern—it had been the hangar when the mountain was intact—before anyone challenged them. The dwarf who finally stopped them was carrying a small-calibre Walther auto-pistol, and reluctantly he lowered it to his side. Dozens more dwarfs stood behind him, though, their own weapons held ready.

  “Hoo d’ we knae ye’ll rilly talk ’a Yiltzin?” shouted another. “Ye’re still nae th’ Claus we rimimbir!”

  Olga spoke up. “He will never become that—Claus—without the help of our government!”

  The dwarfs appeared to consider that for a moment.

  “At some point,” continued Olga, “you have got to put your guns down and trust in your fellow—” she searched for the word “—your fellow bipeds. It is a new world that we are awakening to, dwarfs. A world where neighbours trust one another and the Cold War is only an unfortunate hiccough in history! It is up to us to embrace this new world order, not turn our backs on it.”

  “Damn straight!” shouted Mr. Beland, the effect of the exclamation undermined only a little by his rapidly shifting eyes.

  But it was enough for the dwarfs.

  “Ah richt!” shouted one from the rear. “Claus be bick!”

  A wheezing cheer went up in the hollowed-out mountain, and from every imaginable fissure, dwarfs streamed out. There were even more than the first time—perhaps as many as a thousand, all scrambling over one another to get near to their reborn leader. For a moment, Olga was afraid that the dwarfs would trample the four of them into the rubble, but these creatures were better-trained than that and stopped short.

  “Ye’ll be bick syune, won’t ye Sir?” squeaked a round little dwarf.

  “An’ ye’ll bring mare nyukes?” piped in another.

  “You can bet your poxy little behinds I will,” said Mr. Beland. He gave a nervous laugh. “Now get out of old Claus’s way.”

  The crowd obediently parted, and Mr. Beland limped over to the rope ladder. Olga followed closely behind.

  “You really had them going with that new world order crap,” said Mr. Beland as they climbed up past the first dangling catwalk.

  “I believe it was your president who first coined—” began Olga, but Mr. Beland interrupted.

  “Look sister, don’t you Russkies know when you’re being complimented? That was the best line of crap that I’ve heard in months.”

  Olga was about to say something more—it’s not crap, it can’t be crap if we are to survive this millennium in any worthwhile way—but Mr. Beland turned away before she could. The hem of his coat slapped against her forehead. He
began to laugh as he climbed. It was a booming sound, containing nothing of the mirth and humour she associated with the act. She could not imagine ever laughing in such away herself.

  Olga paused and let Mr. Beland climb farther ahead. She didn’t start up again until the stink of his huge red greatcoat was only a memory in her nostrils, the laughter a buzzing echo amid the ruined machinery.