The Fourth Rome

by David Drake

  She’d said, “I understand their need to send senior personnel to oversee such a visit. But it is not productive for me.” If she’d wanted to, she wouldn’t have been allowed to inspect any of the nuclear devices or large naval missiles she’d seen. During their tour of FILI, Orlov had leaned against one with a bad-boy smile and patted it, saying, “SS-N-25. The US does not yet know we have such a missile. So you can see, there is much of interest here.” A tart rebuke by Lipinsky, who by then controlled the agenda, had followed.

  She remembered Orlov introducing an old guard scientist sent to baby-sit her. “This is Dr. Nikolai Neat, Madam Roe-beck.” He’d pronounced it like the English word for tidy.

  Dr. Neat had darted over, hand outstretched, back hunched so that he seemed like a gnome among the huge nuclear missiles. His bearded chin had jutted out in welcome. “Privyel. Neat. Neat. Da. Da,“ he’d said.

  She’d already resigned herself to a useless visit by then. Whatever Orlov’s intent had been, this formalized exchange could include nothing of value. She’d had no choice but to continue going through the motions. She kept wondering how Chun was doing with Etkin, hoping Chun was having better luck. Tomorrow was another day.

  Orlov, after he’d extricated her from FILI, had promised that the following day would be different.

  So now, on the next morning, after four hours sleep and the disaster with the beggar girl, she reminded him of his promise. “Today we’ll see something useful, I hope. Without too many of your senior officials present.”

  “Madam, these senior officials were informed by someone else of your impending visit. Well, who could this have been? Was it, do you think, Madam Chun’s friend, Mr. Etkin?” He was still brooding over last night’s embarrassing proof that he could not deliver all he promised.

  “It could have been Mr. Etkin, I suppose. You did meet him. He is interested in helping us, of course.” Orlov needed to be reminded that she knew he didn’t run the only game in town.

  “Well, madam, today we shall see what no one else can show you. And I will appreciate it if you tell no one what you see today. Otherwise, as you have seen, future access could be denied you. You will see what these scientists have to offer. You will tell me if it is interesting. If so, then we will discuss how to proceed. Privately. Not at the dinner with Professor Etkin tonight to which you have so kindly invited me.”

  The car was driving along a divided highway with trolley tracks in its center meridian. It paused to cross. On the other side of the street was a tall stone complex with the gatepost indicating a secure facility. Its whole block was enclosed within one metal wall of large diamond-patterned panels. Its green-painted gates were pulled back as their car nosed across lanes of traffic.

  There was an interior guardhouse. Orlov’s driver got out of the car and had a discussion with the guard inside.

  Orlov’s driver came to the car’s rear doors, opened them, and stood there as Orlov, then Roebeck, got out. She was fumbling in her bag for ID when Orlov said, “No need. Come with me.”

  He walked her past uniformed guards without incident. He led her under a stone arch, through a side-set door in another stone wall, through an interior checkpoint. They received Cyrillic-printed entry cards for the facility. “Keep your card at hand,” Orlov advised.

  Then they were allowed to continue into a broad stone room that seemed part secure facility, part hotel lobby.

  Inside a Plexiglas and wooden booth there, a woman waited. Black leather jacketed men stood around talking very low in the cavernous reception area. Bright red leather divans were arranged on a broad granite and marble floor.

  Two men sat on a divan. One had a dial phone in his lap. The other was smoking.

  Orlov ignored the woman behind the Plexiglas and approached the two men. The three spoke together. Then all of them approached her. “Come,” Orlov said. “We go upstairs.”

  The men in leather jackets didn’t follow. She had the distinct impression that they were bodyguards, just looking her over.

  A narrow Soviet-era elevator opened to Orlov’s demanding jabs at a button. Into one fake wood wall was screwed a metal plaque with color engraving. One side of the plaque depicted a lit cigarette inside a red circle. The circle had a diagonal line through it: the international sign for no smoking. The other panel displayed the same diagonally bisected red circle around a bundle of dynamite: no explosives.

  “What is this place?” Roebeck asked when she’d puzzled out the sign’s meaning.

  “This is the Gorbachev Foundation Socio-Economic Hotel,” Orlov said gravely. “Provided to Mr. Gorbachev in thanks for valuable service. It is only semi State organization. Here we can meet without interruption. Without being overheard. Castro has stayed here. Arafat has stayed here. Very safe for discussions. Has Olympic swimming pool. Three cafes. Very good coffee bar. Only people who have done great service to the State may lodge here. Prominent Russians from out of the town stay here, as a prize or for important Moscow conference.”

  “Whatever you say. I’m sure it’s fine.” Roebeck was disappointed. She would see no technology in a hotel.

  When the elevator opened on a large meeting area, two more men awaited. These, also, spoke only to Orlov in Russian, then handed him a key attached to a large wooden ball.

  Orlov motioned her to follow. “This way.”

  Orlov’s key opened the door to a suite of high-ceilinged rooms. There, briefing materials and several samples of electronics were laid out on a long table. Four Russians were smoking acrid cigarettes and talking in a corner.

  Orlov began introductions immediately. Nan Roebeck needed no prompting to recognize Dr. Nikolai Neat. Her heart sank. The show scientist cum baby-sitter from yesterday was here to make sure nothing interesting happened. And to report back to his masters. If Lipinsky slithered through the door to join the party, Nan resolved to leave.

  Neat strode up to her, stared her right in the eye, and spoke in Russian, rapid-fire.

  Before she could object that she didn’t understand, Orlov translated verbatim.

  “Dr. Neat says we meet today under different circumstances. He is here representing solely the interests of certain scientist you see. These scientists are from a voyenna strate-giya—strategic military—organization. So Dr. Neat says this is a meeting which is not happening. You agree to these terms?”

  “Certainly,” she said. Whatever was on that table was important to these people. It might not look relevant to her, but at least the precautions seemed real enough.

  Orlov turned to Neat: “Da, da.”

  Neat spoke again in Russian.

  Orlov rephrased in English: “Dr. Neat says that these scientists are willing to show you the know-how. It is know-how for implanting in a person a device for moving that person from one—” Shaking his head, Orlov broke off. He questioned Neat. Neat responded. Orlov then said to her: “Is medical know-how for moving humans with implants back into the past.” He shrugged. “I am just a translator. I am not sure this is technically correct description. But better translators are not trusted for this meeting. Please wait. I will ask more details.”

  Neat and Orlov began a long exchange.

  Nan Roebeck needed the time. An implant technology? To send humans to the past? Could that be correct?

  Neat began again to speak. Orlov translated, staying about a phrase behind Neat. “This technology is based on Russian know-how in very small devices and in human bone and tooth replacement material. It also involves very small—microscopic—technology machinery embedded in insulation. This is called silicon-on-insulator. These technologies are joined with special…”

  Orlov stopped to question Neat again. Then he continued to translate, the English translation staying a few words behind Neat’s Russian. Neat watched her closely as he spoke, as if suspecting that she understood every word of his Russian.

  “The technologies are joined with special know-how to produce a remodulating—maybe ‘transducing’?—system to tune human
biostatic—electromagnetic—fields. This implant allows—causes—biological systems to become out of phase with current moment. Implant then allows biological system be moved. Remodulator attracts biological system to place in time where harmony with local fields can be reestablished,” Orlov relayed.

  It sounded like techno-bullshit to Roebeck. Neat, and then Orlov, stopped talking and waited expectantly. She had to say something.

  “Go on,” she encouraged. “Nanotechnology—small machines. Attuning biological systems to … home tones of epochs. I guess I understand that. Music of the spheres, and all. So tell me what you’ve got.…”

  “Please, Madam Roebeck.” Orlov held up his hand. “Say to me slower. Simpler. Not so many technical concepts before waiting for translation.”

  “Right. My apologies. I’m not used to working with a simultaneous translator so talented.”

  Orlov translated her request—she hoped. Central hadn’t given them linguistic implants—most Russians spoke some English; most Americans didn’t speak Russian, and the ones that did were assumed to be spies. Right now, she wished Central had decided they could sustain a fiction of not knowing Russian. But wishing didn’t make it so.

  Neat nodded very gravely.

  If this was a joke, the punch line wasn’t obvious.

  Neat spoke once more in Russian, this time taking Roebeck by the elbow to guide her to the table as he was talking.

  Orlov followed behind. “Dr. Neat says that you will see how this is working with animals very soon. Animal must be fairly young. Old animals so far have not had resiliency to accept surgical implant. Bodies must be young to survive implant and … initialization … process. Remodulation is easier procedure.”

  “I understand,” Roebeck lied.

  On the table were a series of Russian briefing charts, a few computer chips, some circuitry. She now recognized a primitive high-powered microscope, a bulky personal computer. One of the men then brought in a cage holding four white mice. He extracted one.

  “Mouschka,“ the man said, stroking the white mouse in his hand.

  The white mouse looked no different from the three others left behind in its cage.

  The Russian holding the mouse pushed a clock timer much like a chess timer. Then he opened his hand. The mouse stayed docilely on his palm.

  Neat spoke.

  “Watch the rat,” Orlov translated.

  A second scientist or technician stepped forward. First he marked the mouse’s spine with a red pen. Then he touched a handheld device against the mouse. The mouse disappeared from the first man’s open palm.

  “Now look at the cage,” Orlov told her, once more translating Neat’s words.

  There were now four mice in the cage. One had a red mark down its spine.

  It had to be a parlor trick. Yet the mouse on the first man’s palm had never been obscured from her view.

  “Do it again,” Roebeck ordered, forgetting her manners.

  “Nyet, nyet,nyet,“ Neat refused.

  “Don’t bother to translate that, Sergey,” Roebeck told Orlov. “I know ‘no’ when I hear it.”

  Neat spoke again. Orlov translated, “Same rat, that is, mouse cannot do this twice the same. Mouse cannot occupy two places in same space-time at same time.”

  That explanation, more than anything else, convinced Roebeck that the Russians weren’t playing an elaborate joke on her. “Then do it with a different mouse,” she demanded.

  Orlov translated. All the Russians conferred. Roebeck’s head was spinning. How could these primitives do this? If they had done it.

  Neat evaluated her speculatively. “Roebecka,“ he said, adding a Russian suffix to her name, then jabbering at her in light-speed Russian. She hardly noticed Orlov translating. It seemed to her that Neat himself was speaking in English, so accustomed to the translation procedure had she become.

  “We cannot go further until we know how you are involved with Etkin and the KGB. This is very secret technology. Not known to much of our government. Too dangerous for any single government to control. Our government might use this technology against the Russian people if the Politburo’s inheritors knew of this. Do you understand?”

  “Da, da,“ Roebeck said. These Russians understood at least some of what was at stake here. “What can I do to help?”

  Orlov translated her words, then Neat’s response. “Dr. Neat says we must have international commission to regulate use of know-how. We wish you to help arrange this? While protecting principals, of course. Before those you met yesterday do otherwise.”

  Otherwise?

  “Certainly,” Roebeck said. She’d do no such thing. But she still couldn’t be absolutely sure if those at yesterday’s meetings were the revisionists she was seeking. Neat and Orlov might be fingering their own enemies for their own reasons. If this Foreign Ministry clique were really the people who’d sent revisionists to 9AD, they couldn’t have done so without Neat. And Orlov was clearly involved up to his neck. Maybe Orlov was trying to feel her out, make her break cover. Roe-beck must be very careful.

  She chose her next words slowly, cautiously. Just because these particular Russians were giving her the party line didn’t mean they had any interest in an international commission. Their work was still government supported, after all. “When I understand just how this technology works and what you have at risk, we’ll discuss options. I have my own credibility to protect, you must realize. I’m sure you’re aware how fanciful all this sounds. I must have proof. And we must be truthful with one another. Then I can act.”

  “Good,” Neat said, not waiting for Orlov to translate. The bastard had better English than he’d been pretending. “Then you will tell us about what trouble we may expect from Director Etkin.”

  “No trouble. We’ve got a social dinner, at seven tonight.” She’d better play the Etkin card herself, or they’d worry she was either stupid or holding back. “I haven’t seen anything here worth troubling about. Some artifacts of experimentation with no viable theoretical underpinnings. And nothing’s going to happen until I see something more concrete than a disappearing mouse.”

  A disappearing mouse on a one-way short-distance time trip with no geographical displacement—if that. The demonstration could have been rigged. She was on their turf. They controlled what she saw.

  Orlov translated her words, probably to give Neat time to think. Nan was now positive that Neat understood every word she said.

  “Yes, yes, yes,” Neat agreed. “We will arrange further demonstrations.”

  “When will that be?” Roebeck asked. “I don’t have much time.”

  Neat laughed as if she’d made a great joke. “Right now, this day. Time is what this know-how is concerning, yes? So, we shall make time obey us. Then you will be convinced.”

  Do that, old fox, and you bet I’ll be convinced.

  “I’ll want to speak with the scientists—all the principals.” Roebeck wondered if she could get Chun over here without causing these Russians to get terminal constipation. Probably not.

  “We have arranged all things,” said Nikolai Neat. “We will show you much more before your dinner with Etkin, our friend from the Academy of Sciences. You will know everything you must know.”

  At least these Russians were consistent about distrusting one another. Factions will be factions.

  Orlov added, “And since you have invited me to this dinner, perhaps afterward we may continue our work?”

  “You bet. We’ll get out of the Etkin dinner as early as possible without being impolite. Then I’m all yours. We can work all night long if you wish. I’d cancel the dinner, but it might insult our host.”

  There were still four mice in a cage in front of her. She went over and lifted the cage to examine it. “To get you money and support for new work, I need to evaluate this research and its value to us. I need to know enough to write a proposal. I need to know where the real work is centered, who’s involved. How many people. I need to project a cost estimate
for any ongoing joint effort. On the other hand, I can buy existing reports or prototypes out of hand. However, to safeguard any work or contact with us in future, I need to know who else in your government knows about this technology. What use others are making of it. Can you trust me enough to let me help you?”

  Without waiting for Orlov’s translation, Neat spoke. “We are capable of rectifying small errors in judgment, using this technology. So it is not a matter of trust. It is a matter of mutual interests. We can help you. If we wish.”

  The bastard was threatening her. And in doing so, he was letting his facade slip. Neat was now sounding exactly like a homegrown revisionist in need of a one-way trip to 50K.

  All that remained was to find out how many others were directly involved, where the technology was kept. Once that was done, she could bring the ARC Riders’ considerable resources to bear.

  This Foreign Ministry clique couldn’t be allowed to turn the world into a Russian nightmare of a Fourth Rome, with Dictator for Life Nikolai Neat and his boy Lipinsky running the show.

  Above all, one thing bothered Roebeck. In the mouse demonstration, nothing had been said about retrieving the mouse from its past. Of course, a mouse couldn’t implement plans or utilize technology. But she’d been shown only the capability for a one-way trip.

  She remembered what Grainger had said about technology in Russia. When one group was working on something, the assumption had to be made that others were working independently. So did she have the right group? Was there another, independent effort that was farther along? Or was Neat’s group, hungry for dollars, nevertheless unwilling to show the real extent to which they’d developed their technology?

  Roebeck needed Chun to evaluate what she’d seen. Now that she had formulated what seemed like an answer to her primary question of who was messing with the timeline from this horizon, secondary questions were popping up like weeds.