Terraplane (4 page)

"Let's go," said Skuratov, recovering his hat and coat, managing
to appear both more and less bothered than I felt he should have
been. "You are as we hear, Jake. Come now Babushki will sweep in
morning before commuters arrive. Don't delay." His voice
betrayed no unreasoned emotion.

"Hold." Jake spun the retrieved pistol twice round his forefinger,
testing the balance.

"Leave him," said Skuratov. "He can consider the errors of his
life. "

"Never need to suffer overlong," said Jake, unclicking the safety.
Pressing his thumb and his fingers against the boy's jaw, Jake
squeezed open his mouth, inserted the barrel. "Hurts?" he asked,
his voice soft, as if confessing to uncaring mother. "Here. Peace."

I shut my eyes; once retired it no longer necessitated that violence must be watched. Air's whuff sounded loud as shot's blast as
the boy's breath left his body. Maybe too many field trips left me
unwilling; maybe too many takeouts left Jake hungry for more.
When I reopened I saw him examining the lacy pattern of blood
beneath the boy's head, pondering the flowery petals of brain, as if
considering form and texture. Art knew its fashion, whatever the
season.

"So pretty," Jake whispered.

Less blood reddened Skuratov's face; he looked to have heard the
woodcock, in Russian phrase. Had he expected? To enter Russia
was to enter a world but roughly correspondent to the one known, a
world whose logic demanded that seeds would grow in sand, that
plants there grown would look right once paint made their colors
more natural. Had he expected? I decided not. There was no
greater reason for him to have served us so well over the years.
Subtlety was all; there was no subtlety in having us termed in that
tunnel.

"What'd he call you, Luther?" Jake asked, pocketing the Omsk
for future frolic. Some mutterance sufficed his curiosity as we
hoteled ourselves, taking leave of Skuratov until the next morn.
Too rarely I'd had men such as Jake with me in combat-over
Mexico, in New Guinea, along the coast of Turkey; Johnson was
with me on Long Island's Martianed dunes, in the old days, and
Johnson was the only one who neared Jake's level. Still, only with
Jake siding me would I always have won.

JAKE SLEPT; LOOKING NO MORE HARMFUL THAN A BABY COBRA.
That night I waited till he bedded safely before linking up the
TVC's monitor and the telephone. Upon transmission override's
directive the screen glowed skin white, a grateful relief. Our room's
media-as in all Russian hotels, American owned or not-were
adjusted, and could be ordinarily neither switched off nor turned
down, so that advertisements might at least subliminally sink
through the murk of travelers' brains. That the phone, too, was
tapped made no difference. Inserting earphones, hooking my vocal
scrambler to my collar, I ran the codes; tied into the New York
mainframe to contact Alice, my company's computer. Unsullied
info essentialled, and if Alice didn't have it, no one did.

"Alice," I said. "QL789851ATM. Safeguard. Closed channel
sole. Audionse per basic." Ocean blue washed the white from the
monitor's screen.

`All secured," she voiced across the waves. "I was concerned if
you could transmit, Luther. Have you decided how I might be of
help?"

"Info needed pertinent to Oktobriana Osipova. Target residence
city Dubna. Present whereabouts unknown. Possibly Novy Marina
Roshcha, street unknown. Krasnaya file 9320005441-"

"Hold."

Hearing an unexpected creak, I flattened against my chair's
back, sealing my breath. Jake lay deathstill, his pocket-player's
phones tightclamped, the old sound he adored massaging his
mind. No lyrics shook their speakers but those of Robert Johnson,
the blues singer of the century past. His words came as whispers
through the muffle.

"I sent for my baby-and she don' come-"

There came no further creaks; the sound of the building aching
as it aged, I decided, though the walls' wrinkles looked no deeper.
The purr of cameras recording our lack of movement grew so
familiar as that of a loving pet, so long as you removed yourself
from lensview.

"Luther," said Alice after a five-minute absence, "Krasnaya's
limitless files accessible only through local retrieval modes account
for my delay. Please forgive."

"They'd roadblocked overmuch?"

"Using false headings, standard codes, the usual chicanery, they
had buried her file quite deep."

"What's shown?"

"Oktobriana Dmitrievna Osipova received special tutorials at
the Fourth School of Physics and Mathematics. While attending
classes at Moscow State University, under Krasnaya supervision,
she also took courses at Lumumba Institute, studying the use of
scientific theory when applied to political objectives. A fruitful
field, as we know-"

"No editorials, Alice."

"Her senior thesis on Lysenko was never published, having
proved acceptable but inappropriate to Krasnaya objectives. Copies
move through the samizdat matrix network to this day under
pseudonymous listing. After she was graduated she was assigned to
the Leningrad Selective Service Program, receiving doctorates in
theoretical physics, environmental engineering and neurological
bioadaptation. "

"Blo," I repeated. "Learning to make pigs glow in the dark-"

"As her thesis in that particular field, she created the recombinant gene plasma that eliminates neurofibromatosis. In physics her study on the military applications of Tesla coils remains
unpublished."

"What's a Tesla coil?"

"An air-core transformer with primary and secondary coils tuned
to resonate," she said. "Converts low-voltage high current into
high-voltage low current at high frequencies."

"English, Alice."

"They produce usable electricity and small ones are in common
use today though they were invented over a century ago. Their
inventor, Tesla, was brilliant but prone to develop theories years in
advance of possible application. One of his ideas concerned the use
of enormous coils harnessed to high towers so that through means
of resonation electrical power might be drawn not only from the
sky but from the earth itself, creating a source of perpetual energy
as well as a potential instrument of enormous nonnuclear destruction. I infer that she was working with that concept in particular."
"What else have you?"

"She holds six thousand hours in pilot time, is an accomplished
artist with a fine eye for perspective, performed gymnastics
throughout her teenage years. She received perfect scores in every
class at every school she attended, even when completed work was
denied acceptability. A unique accomplishment, it seems."

"Generate her picture, if possessed." An image rose from the
blue. Oktobriana Osipova stood in Red Square, in summertime,
judging from her lack of wrap; she showed as a very young woman.
Her dark hair was short in back, long in front. Her gymnast's
training evidenced in her overdeveloped shoulders, her muscular
thighs and her high, round buttocks. Scaling, I sized her to be no
taller than a meter and a half. "There're no shots more recent?"

"This is a near-contemporary," said Alice. "Taken two years ago
when she was twenty-one. Dependent upon date of testing her IQ
fixes between 253 and 280, Stanford-Binet, not to automatically
infer that such arbitrary scores are indicative of empirical intelligence."

"We've no record of her in-house," I said. "Why isn't she riding
the whale with such abilities as possessed?"

"Prejudice," said Alice. "She is a woman, and Georgian as well. More immediate to the situation is that her political opinions and
Krasnaya's differ sharply in several areas, though not so much as to
warrant exile or ultimate control. Following an unrecorded incident two years ago she was ordered to assist Doctor Alekhine and
sent to Dubna. I infer that they more easily compromised their
differences. "

"What shows in regard to experiment records?"

"Nothing."

"They must exist."

"They did."

"What's meant?" I asked.

"Files pertinent to experiments during these two past years were
entered in such a way that not even Krasnaya could uncover the
information within."

"Impossible-"

"Obviously not. Through unknown methods secret entries were
filed as required without standard dupes, using a remarkably complex encoding program. The code employed remade itself when
outside penetration was attempted. I raped the system in one
minute thirty-one and five forty-sevenths seconds, during which
time the code adjusted to block intrusion one hundred and eight
times. Upon final entry all records self-erased in accordance to
program directives."

`All lost?"

`All," she said.

"One question further, Alice. The Dream 'Ieam's awared of our
directives?"

"Of course," she said. "Continue as you have. The Dream Team
is the most incompetent of all covert surveillance and corrective
units."

"Closing time, Alice. Pass word topside."

"Luther," she added, "wait until airborne before renewing contact. Though words go unheard, they know a signal passes. Take
care."

"Good night."

Her blue rinsed from the white; she was gone. In memory my exwife's voice sounded almost as Alice's, and the match would have exacted had she had spirit like Alice's. Mayhap I was wrong; it
possibled that as time's lobotomy settled over years, that which
seemed most unexpectedly familiar became the recipient of all
long-bound pain. It was the hour's least attractive and most oftoccurring thought, and as on every night I bade it leave my mind.
Once unlinking, feeling the usual sadness at taking leave of Alice,
I didn't bedaway immediate; I sat staring into the screen's milk,
attempting to hear the radio strains of Gayaneh over the toilet's
perpetual gurgledeglurp. When ease enough to allow sleep
returned to me, I bedded, settling into troubled sleep. Eyes overlooked my dreams, eyes watchful, eyes alert; little-girl eyes,
dimmed by pain. From the sandy bloodred dune upon which I
stood, panting, catching breath, the sound of breakers scarring my
ears, Johnson rose, dragging me into his depths, where I so surely
belonged. I awoke, screamless. Jake, safely earphoned, slept on.

At morningside we attached scramblers previous to wording. At
check-in we'd bug-run, stopping the count at forty-seven within
the living room alone. If we'd searched and destroyed all, we
would still have been eared, through the radio, the phone, the
window, so long as our words rang free. With scramblers and
phones, we communicated sans worry.

"Seven-forty," said Jake, reading his watch, collapsing before the
TVC. As heard scrambled, his voice sounded as a tape rewound at
hypermode. "We've an eight-thirty set to toystore it?" I nodded.
"Why such earlybirding? Heavy action expected?"

"No," I said; he frowned. "Washes idle speculation. Recall that
as cover goes, we move toys. Just two businessmen keen to measure
product. That gives our check hours to clear."

"Transporting footways or on rubber?"

"I've called for a cab. Eight o'clock arrival."

"A cab sans media?" he asked. "The background racket gave me
splitters nightlong." The room's radio, by daytime, blared no classical, as I would have wished, only American apocalypso or European postwave redone con tempo. Over TV's air showed whatever
its wires sucked from the sky. Backgrounding us as we spoke was a
Leningrad exershow called jump, People! Russian television, no less enjoyable than America's, bore one demonstrable diff: those
televised here were ugly, therefore close-to-real; people on American air always seemed alchemized from some unnatural clay.

"Alice's info enlightened as to whether this associate's worth the
bullet?"

"She's the catch of the day," I said. "Good as Alekhine."

"Can't viz this fucker half a minute till the throb digs in," Jake
said, eyeing the screen, rubbing his temples violently. I recognized
his problem. Taking a hotel-provided blank, inslotting it, I taped a
minute of air. Rewinding, I paused and pressed superslo playback.
White blurs imaged midscreen. "What goes?" he asked. "Jam
session?"

"Of sorts. Here's your pain's excuse."

Pressing freeze, I showed the words whole as they emerged, four
frames per phrase, and translated. "Go now and buy. Money is
life-spend it. Thrifty are traitors. They've run these onscreen
yearslong. It must affect over time. "

Jake shook his head as if to reattach his brain. "Where's our
takeoff?"

"Near her living space."

"Which is where?"

"Maliuta knows the route."

"Him you trust?" Jake asked. "He's secured proper and tight?"

"One of few," I said. Under circumstance it was like trusting
Jake; there was no choice if accomplishment was expected. "He
delivered last year in Leningrad. Gave us our visit's reason this
year.

We'd connected while crossing the bridge to Vasilovski Island.
As we walked Skuratov had worded me of developments in areas
long studied. Through the military Krasnaya funded projects
studying potential application of parapsychological battle methodologies. To American eyes such implausibilities showed as corrupt idiocies befitting a spirit's world; compared, Freudianism
seemed scientific. The dropping sun drew thin shadows over the
river; he told of how, in the Dubna science colony north of
Moscow, hard evidence had recently showed during experiments
performed under Alexander Alekhine's guidance. Alekhine, Russia's leading theoretical physicist, oversaw the Academy of
Sciences. We had generated photos; knew he was four times a Hero
of Socialist Labor, twice winner of the Lenin Prize. All else
involving him was as fog. In that first success of which Skuratov
spoke in such nonspecifics, what had manifested? The bending of
forks? Control over the tumble of tossed dice? No one knew.