Watson, Ian - Novel 11 (13 page)

 
          
ANTON Astrov STOPPED
whistling the
Czarist anthem a few seconds before 3.00 p.m., Moscow time. ‘Wow, Anna.”

 
          
And
Anna Aksakova pressed the button to begin their Flux- jump; they started to
fall through time . . .

 
          
Alarm
bells rang out immediately; red lights stabbed on and off. Stars frisked about
on the viewscreens. The Moon raced from one screen to the next, trailing
phosphorescence in its wake.

 
          
On
the central screen the image of Earth held steady, but all detail had
disappeared: the world blurred and foamed like a whisking bowl.

 
          
Sasha
pointed a shaky finger at the frothing Earth. ‘‘Why are we still here? Why
hasn’t it gone?”

 
          
Anton
quickly shut off all the bells and panic-lights. ‘‘Here? Where
is
here, anyway? Yuri?”

 
          
Valentin
consulted the retardograph and temporal symptomo- meter.
‘‘Time
minus 5 years.
T minus
5.3 ..
.
minus
5.7 .. . We’re diving backwards through time, all
right!
If you can call it diving.
Drifting,
more like.”

 
          
‘‘The
Earth’s spinning backwards,” Sasha said. ‘‘We’re seeing it speeded up—that’s
why it’s so blurred.”

 
          
‘‘And
yet we’ve left the present,” said Yuri Valentin. “T minus 6.8 . . .”

 
          
‘‘But
we should be light years away by now,” said Anton. ‘‘Well, we aren’t. We’re
following the world-line exactly.” They all stared at the Earth spinning
widdershins on the screen.

 
          
Presently
Yuri tapped a jagged graph displayed on the cathode screen of the chronodyne
resonometer.

           
“Resonance, that’s it! Look, here’s
the evidence. The instant our own flux-field went into action, so did a second
flux-field. The two fields resonated momentarily. This had the effect of
subtracting most of our spatial momentum. We got glued to the Earth’s
worldline, kilometre for kilometre, year for year.’’

 
          
“A second flux-field?’’

 
          
“It
must have been Captain America’s Shield switching on, Commander.’’

 
          
“Was
it deliberate? Did they try to sabotage us?’’ “Spontaneous, I’d say. There must
be an acausal trigger effect, independent of distance . . .’’ Yuri pointed at
the isocalendar. “Look, our temporal momentum got slowed as well. This’ll
affect our point of emergence in past time—it could shake it plus or minus
fifty years.’’

 
          
“Are
you sure it wasn’t malicious?’’

 
          
“No,
the other flux-field switched on the
very
instant
ours did— without even a nanosecond’s delay! No human skill could
have arranged it. And I can tell you, if it
was
intentional it was a bloody stupid thing to do. Time-energy must have been
transferred.’’
“To the Earth?’’

 
          
“Presumably.’’

 
          
“Well,
what effect would that have?’’

 
          
Yuri
shook his head. “I’m not a time-theorist—nobody on board is. Those types all
stayed behind at their cushy research jobs in Academgorodok and Krasnoyarsk.
We’re star-colonists; so what do we need to know about time-theory?’’

 
          
“We
were
star-colonists. Right now it
looks as though we’ll end up colonising the Earth—a century or two ago.’’

 
          
Sasha
unbuckled herself. “You forget Cosmic Censorship. Paradox isn’t allowed. I’m
going to take a naked eyeball look.’’ She drifted up towards the observation
pod.

 
          
“Be
careful! It could be damned disorienting, seeing all this in the raw.’’

 
          
“It’s
my job, Commander.’’ Sasha disappeared through the hatch.

           
Anton turned to Anna. “What’s your
opinion of the consequences, Earth-wise?’’

 
          
“How
do I know?
Time-storms, maybe?’’

 
          
“What
are time-storms, Aksakova? Come on, tell me. Are they like snow-storms?’’

 
          
“How
do I know what they’re like? Or even if such things can happen? It’s just a
word—to cover our ignorance.’’

 
          
“T
minus 15.5 years,’’ said Yuri.

 
          
At
T minus 25 years Sasha bobbed back through the hatch; catching hold of Anton’s
seat, she righted herself.

 
          
“Rough, up there?’’

 
          
“Of
course it’s bad . . . That isn’t the worst thing!’’ Scrambling to her own seat,
she fiddled with the radar. “I thought so—we’re diving towards the Earth. We’re
on collision course.’’

 
          
“Oh
shit. How long have we got left?’’

 
          
“How
many years till it happens, that’s the important thing,’’ said Yuri. “Not how
many minutes ahead, but how many years
ago.
Sasha, patch yourself into my console and we’ll try to compute it.’’

 
          
“But
this ship can’t possibly enter the Earth’s atmosphere,’’ said Anna. “We aren’t
aerodynamic.’’

 
          
“Oh,
we can enter the atmosphere all right,’’ snapped Anton. “What happens then is
another matter.’’

 
          
Anna
hesitated. “The flux-field might protect us ... as though we’re in an envelope.
I mean, we aren’t in direct contact with our own space-time environment, are
we? We’re only in virtual contact.’’

 
          
“Oh
yes. But can we navigate, while we’re in virtual contact? Well, maybe we can,
at that! Anna, I want you to fire the starboard and upper attitude jets—then light
the plasma torch.’’ She swallowed.
“Acknowledged.
Five seconds, and counting . . .’’

 
          
Five
seconds later the ship jerked and shuddered; but the central screen remained
full of the Earth, swirling amorphously.

           
“This isn’t normal motion that’s taking
us in,” said Anna hopelessly. “It’s the Flux.”

 
          
“Any chance of killing the field?”

 
          
“Before the pre-set time?
I’d have to reprogramme.”

 
          
“How
long would that take?”

 
          
“By
the looks of it: too long.”

 
          
“Start
doing it, anyway—conditions may alter.
Yuri, any idea what
year we’ll hit the Earth?”

 
          
Valentin
had been trying to average the fluctuating readings of his datalscope. “I think
it’ll be some time between 1910 and 1908.”
“Where,
geographically, Sorina?”

 
          
“Possibly
it’ll be . . . where we were looking at before Anna pushed the button.”

 
          
“The Indian Ocean?
Himalayas?
Suppose we re-enter there . . . we end up over . . .
Siberia
“I’d say the best estimate is 1908.”

 
          
“1908?
My God.
That was the year of the Tunguska explosion!
Are
we
the Tunguska event?”

 
          
Anna
sat back. “If so, then we’ve had it. Because Tunguska already
happened
—we can’t alter that, can we?”

 
          
“Tunguska
might have been something else: a giant meteor, anything. Carry on trying!”

 
          
“Or
it might have been the first and last flux-ship from the future
. .

 
          
“T minus 37 years.”

 
          
At
long last
—and none too soon for
Anton’s liking, since he was heartily fed up with Krasnoyarsk by now—on a crisp
blue Thursday the expedition was ready to set off, from a jetty on the Yenisey.
(The weather was also ready for them: mornings were sharp with frost again, and
flurries of snow had blown by during the past few days.)

 
          
Scores of well-wishers and spectators gathered on the riverbank;
foremost among them Governor Vladimirov and his lady, accompanied by the editor
of
Krasnoyarets
who had written an
extolling leader the day before.
Rode and Fedotik were there, of course,
though they too would quit Krasnoyarsk within hours; they had received further
travel expenses and testy orders to proceed post-haste to the Amur before the
full onset of winter could entrap them into months of gambling, balls and other
festivities.

 
          
Old
Polena and Olga Franzovna were shepherding Lydia’s daughters . . .

 
          
Masha
waved and wept and capered, and at one point was in danger of falling into the
river. But Nastya squinted tightly at her Mother, as though Countess Lydia was
a criminal who ought to be reported for abandoning her family, were it not for
the amazing fact that the authorities connived corruptly in whatever was going
on. The little girl stared daggers at Vershinin—to get rid of him; though this
was useless, since he seemed to be
eloping
with her Mother. And Mr Chekhov she continued to regard with beady suspicion.
He was supposed to be famous, but he didn’t behave as if he believed it; so
Nastya suspected a confidence trick—particularly when Mama had given the man so
much money. Mr Chekhov hadn’t even shown a scrap of interest in his ‘own’ play!
Maybe he hadn’t actually written it ... As for that scruffy fellow Tsiolkovsky,
whom the said ‘Chekhov’ had invited once he’d tested the bath-water with his
toe, obviously
he
was a shady
accomplice! None of his hamstrung, hectic talk of people on other planets and
ships sailing through the sky had fooled little Nastya. It was simply amazing
how gullible grown-ups could be.

 
          
In
one respect the girl was looking forward to her Mama’s absence with some
relish. For this would allow her ample leeway to practise deceptions of her
own—upon silly Masha, and daft old Polena. Maybe even upon dear Olga Franzovna,
too—though Nastya respected that effervescent lady’s ability to make cards
vanish and pop up in unexpected places. Still, a governess was only a jumped-up
servant!

 
          
Finally,
Nastya brought herself to wave. And a moment later, to her great surprise, she
also cried.

 
          
The
six members of the expedition had embarked upon two specially constructed
rafts, piloted by a small gang of hired rivermen. Stout rails penned the pack
horses with their stock of hay, two sledges, and assorted panniers, saddlebags
and boxes.
On the first raft rode Sidorov, Mirek and
Tsiolkovsky; on the second, Vershinin, Lydia Zelenina and Anton.

 
          
As
the rivermen poled them away from the jetty into the rushing current, Lydia
snapped a photograph of all the people waving farewell then restored her camera
to the safety of its waterproof box.

 
          
“Well,
the die is cast,’’ said Vershinin. “Or as Vasily Romanych would put it: the
Rubicon is crossed!’’

 
          
“But
we aren’t crossing the Yenisey,’’ Lydia said, puzzled. “Not till we get to the
Angara . . .’’

 
          
“Exactly!’’
Vershinin roared with laughter. “But that’s what
old Fedotik would say, bless his heart.’’

 
          
She
smiled at him. “Yes, he would, wouldn’t he?’’

           
Meanwhile Fedotik and everyone else
on the shore diminished swiftly in size till they were indistinguishable. Anton
turned away, and began to roll a cigarette. Had Krasnoyarsk been Moscow itself,
he would still have been bored with it long ago . . .

 
          
This
first stage of the route was by far the easiest: swiftly downstream along the
river for a couple of hundred versts as far as the confluence with the Angara.
Soon they left the lumber mills and tanneries and workers’ hovels behind; and
then, behind them too, some chilly marshes where the honk of geese sounded more
like the sad croaking of frogs soon to be interred by ice. Presently, forest
pressed gloomily about both banks.

 
          
Occasionally
their rafts sped past a clearing in the mass of spruce and stone pine, larch
and silver fir; there would be a hut or two, where a few peasants might be
hunched around a wood fire, smoking fish to last them through the winter. Once
or twice they passed a vaster devastated scab, work of one of the summer’s
forest fires. But these gaps in the woodland were as nothing.

 
          
“All
these trees!’’ exclaimed Lydia effervescently. “What a theme for drama!’’

 
          
“Do
you really think so?’’ asked Vershinin. “Surely there’s no action in trees—you
need action in a drama, eh Anton Pavlovich?’’

 
          
For
weeks now Anton had suspected it would be a wise move never to write another
play again . . .

 
          
“You
do agree, don’t you?’’

 
          
“If you say so, Nikolai.’’

 
          
Lydia
struck a poetic pose. While the rivermen gaped at her, she improvised:

 
          
“Surely
the Angel of Silence has passed over this land! With her wing she has brushed
the ducks, the herons, the hares, the . . . the frozen mammoths slumbering in
the soil, and the infinitude of trees. How fearful is this silence! Heaven help
the homeless wayfarer lost in it!

 
          
“Yet
the humblest human wayfarer is a Higher Being. He is higher than a goose or a
fox. Wherever
he
goes, in his
despair, he seeks—all unknowing—for the World Soul of the taiga ... to free her
from that seal of silence so that she shall finally speak her secrets—hidden
from all human ears and eyes till now.”

 
          
Vershinin
grinned. “I thought we were looking for a million tons of iron ... or a
shipwreck from the stars?”

 
          
“And
only she, the World Soul, knows where those brave Higher Beings from the
heavens have found their last resting place . . . Kolya.”

 
          
“Tsiolkovsky
says they all evaporated into thin air.”

 
          
“Ah,
but what if they didn’t? Just imagine, Kolya, finding the body of a being even
higher than Mankind! It would be like coming upon the corpse of an
angel.
. . preserved by the cold, the way the mammoths are
preserved. Imagine a play written about a Baron—who gets exiled to Siberia for
conspiracy. He escapes! And he’s trudging through the wilderness in despair,
soliloquizing, when suddenly he finds the dead body of an angel ... Or maybe
the World Soul herself hears him and crosses his path. She guides him through
this army of trees to where the angel lies. . .
And lo!”
Lydia gestured. “Here she comes! Behold the World Soul, herself!”

 
          
Just
then another little clearing happened to open on the riverbank; wrapped in a
shawl of rags a crone stood staring blankly over the rushing water at them.

 
          
With
a chuckle, Anton tossed his latest spent cigarette away. “You really ought to
write that play when we get back, Lydia Fyodorovna.”

 
          
“Should
I? Ah, the words flow freely enough at the moment— but how does one halt them
for long enough to set them down?” Lydia clapped her hands. “I know! I shall
dictate the speeches to Olga, while I walk around composing them. She’ll be my
amanuensis.”

 
          
For
a while the rivermen had been humming to
themselves
.
Now the humming grew louder, like a hive of bees. Before long they struck up a
dirge of a song. It was about the great bell of Uglich, deported across the
Urals to Siberian Tobolsk for the crime of having been rung by rebels. This had
happened four centuries ago, yet the memory of that ancient banishment was
still as freshly preserved as a prehistoric carcase by the permafrost . . .