The Dreaming Dragons Part 10

Go on, then, Professor Kukushkin, put it on the paper: I no longer think that I am dying.

I think I am going out of my mind.

'Tush, Ilya,' says beautiful crisp Sister Kuenzli, when I weep and clutch her arm most s.e.xlessly and tell my fear, sob it at her, rant and hurl the plates slos.h.i.+ng messy on the carpet. 'It's just a fever, Ilya Davidovich,' says Sister Anna, crouching carefully and efficiently and cleaning up the mess, showing disapproval by turning her face away, showing fear (or is that a delusion of my madness? and if so, she has every reason to fear me) in the tightness of her muscles as she sponges up the milk. 'The doctors will look after you, Ilya,' she explains, voice stern but matter-of-fact, 'it's just a touch of that poison still in your tummy.'

Well, why no stomach-pump? Why this fantastic set-up in the first place? I might not be the most popular of men, but old Georgii Piatnitsky sits with me over chess, and Lev Kamenev enjoys a bout or two at string theory, why haven't they arranged clearance and come to console the sick? Too many questions that can't be answered, not consistently: oh, there're glib retorts to every one, I can think of plenty myself; but put them together and what picture fits the total bill?

There is, if I'm to be rigorous -- what an agony it was to find that word -- that simple b.l.o.o.d.y word -- the thought I had before: I've got some revolting disease mutated into existence by the foul-minded military geniuses I had hoped we were putting out of business, some viral filth that squats in my brain. How, how? Is it possible for a thing like that to escape their gentle care, flutter on the cold wind of the steppes from Ekratkoye to Tse Complex, crawl on my skin, suck at my cortex. Christos, it's the conceit of a madman! What are Bio Containments for, if not to prevent every chance of such a disaster? And why am I the only victim? The other rooms here are empty, four beds unmade, their ticking bare, one freshly sheeted.

Those terrifying words.

They bring it back, the howling numbness in my mind, my raped soul, my very intelligence seeping away like blood drained into sand. And still it's there, the humming roar in my head, the fingers tugging at my memories, cutting me to shreds, I can feel it chewing and gnawing, O Christ bring it to a stop if You exist, stop this dreadful suction in my head.

I must concentrate on _facts_. I'm losing the words, losing myself, I pick up books from the elegant desk and flick pages back and forth -- the words are meaningless. I look at numbers and symbols, equations jotted in my own hand in the fly-leaves, and _I don't know what they mean!_ Facts: My name is Ilya Davidovich Kukushkin, DSc, PhD.

I am one of the international team which jointly developed the theory of sub-quark parastatics.

With my colleagues and a.s.sistants, I have puzzled over ancient debris from the moon and constructed from it an anti-nuclear s.h.i.+eld.

The s.h.i.+eld is an oblate spherical parastatic gluon bag. With this screen, the two great industrial nations of the world will be absolutely safe from atomic attack. We have neutralised each another, and any lunatic terrorists. This fact does not entirely dismay me.

How far my illness has progressed! The attack last night was no fleeting aberration. All the details, all the equations and engineering data concerning the s.h.i.+eld are gone beyond recall, wiped away as if by a wet sponge. My whole grasp of physics and math, and yes, those delightful subtleties in which I rejoice, the musical structure and form of Webern and Schonberg, all gone, dear Jesus. I look at Lem and the words are not even words any longer -- have I forgotten how to read Polish? Yes. And French is fading in my mind, German, English -- like a smear of ice across a windscreen, my mind is blurring over and hardening into darkness.

Phooey on those silly old books.

[Here Hugh had noted: _The following elisions and solecisms reflect the fragmentation of the Russian text_.]

I was reel bored waiting for lunch, and Sister said Try the TV. Well I did an guess what there was lots of bottles of cordial in the cubord. Sister K. give me some buns too but there wasnt much on TV except school stuff Proly its all rite to rite on this cos i did before only i kant understan any of them big werds Well I don't know but i feel pritty sad and glum which is the werd my frend Ana sed.

Reel sad and glum cos it wood be nise to rite how i usetoo. Most times i jest sit hear and cry becoz there is a big pain in my hed wich is like a hole.

My hans are very big and lumzee and there are blak hares on them wich i kant rember it is very skary i think sister Ana is reely my m.u.t.h.e.r but wen I tolled her she just went away very quick an i think she was sad or sumthin.

Well that is all i kan rite for now.

Ilya Davidovich. Ilya Davidovich. I. D. Kukushkin.

Thatz how i rite my name.

Horrses and kows an berds an fethers an hats an heds an fasez an nozes an muths an lips an eers an loleez ilya davidovich _[text turns into graphic at this point]_

NOVEMBER I6.

They gave me the antigen this morning.

The b.a.s.t.a.r.ds the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds the filthy depraved b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.

NOVEMBER 19.

Boris Sipyagin allowed me an hour in the sun today. Not needless to say, in the compound -- I still bear a potential pandemic in my tissues. Even so, a meditative hour beneath the gla.s.s roof of the Isolation sunroom was a relief.

My compulsion to keep the journal current has vanished these last several days. Understandably, perhaps; the sight of those tormented pages extruded while the 17-Tg-M Strain wrought havoc with my faculties is enough to destroy forever the urge to remember.

There remains, however, a grim and b.l.o.o.d.y necessity that transcends my reluctance. I must not falter. I must set down this abomination.

Three days ago, drooling and sucking my thumb, I lay curled on the floor as Zinoviev withdrew his needle from my arm. Sipyagin crouched watchfully at my shoulder, murmuring in a sing-song, offering a rainbow-spiralled confection. 'It doesn't hurt a bit now, does it Ilya Davidovich? Good boy, good little fellow, hush now, don't cry and we've got a lovely lolly for you, Ilya, shoosh now, there, there.'

That is the vile inhumanity of it: the vividness, those monstrous memories. Try as I might, as for hours I did try, I cannot blot it out. My degradation is scorched into my soul. But I no longer wish to forget. The obscenity they did to me must be recorded while the scar is livid.

I remember the gurgles dribbling from my lips. My hand clutched greedily for the sweet, pushed it into my mouth. Zinoviev motioned to the two hefty orderlies and stood back as they hoisted me into the big cot. Do you understand? It was as though I had withdrawn from my body, hung away from it, shackled in all the clarity of my most lucent perceptions to the shame of my humiliation. I could not cry out in rage. I tossed my limbs about in mindless contentment, sucking, sucking. Vaguely, my body heard m.u.f.fled sounds. Clearly, in my awful detachment, I knew the sounds were Sipyagin clearing away the large polyethylene Alphabet Blocks he'd brought in the day before.

After they had left, I crawled around the cot, uttering an infantile babble, and only began to cry when I wet myself again.

Recovery was hours later. By six in the evening I was in full possession of every faculty but my self-respect. I doubt whether that will ever, _can_ ever, be returned to me.

The two experimenters returned with the orderlies shortly after six and helped me to the bathroom. When I had cleaned myself and donned a fresh pair of pyjamas, they dismissed the nurses and offered their rueful version.

'You cannot know how sorry we are about this, Dr Kukushkin,' said Sipyagin, features carefully grave. I said nothing, my face turned, like stone, to the wall.

Iosif Zinoviev grunted. 'It is only fair we give you an honest account. You must understand, however, that everything you are about to hear is under the highest security cla.s.sification.'

'I'm sure the Academician understands,' Sipyagin said gently. Gently. 'You see, old fellow, you're the victim of a rather appalling accident. Ekratkoye Complex has been doing some rather advanced tricks with reverse transcriptase. Dr Piatnitsky was involved at one point, and somehow you managed to pick up one of the bugs from him. Very nasty indeed, and we'll all be cas.h.i.+ered if anyone hears about it.'

I turned and looked at him with loathing, thinking of the troops ma.s.sed along the Amur and the Ussuri. 'You're all set now, aren't you? You and the imperialists. Once the Aegis screens are mounted, you can plaster the People's Republic of China with ICBMs full of virus and slowly drive your divisions through the country cutting everyone's throats while they gurgle at you like happy imbeciles.'

Sipyagin was sanctimoniously hurt. 'You've been under great stress, old fellow, but what you're saying comes rather close to slander against the Motherland. It's very nasty stuff, this 17-Tg-M Strain, and it's a d.a.m.n shame you caught it. But you must understand that we have to keep abreast of what our enemies are doing, in case the worst comes to the worst.'

They were carrying on a rapid dialogue with their eyes. Sipyagin rose and patted me on the arm. Anna fetched me a meal after they'd left. I couldn't touch it.

Accident be b.u.g.g.e.red. These ghouls don't make that kind of error. I was injected with it during our monthly anti-radiation shots. They knew what they were doing all right, the motherf.u.c.kers.

They have to use it. It's the way their paranoid minds work. Now they're potentially proof against nuclear retaliation, they are obliged to get in first. I wonder if they intend to take out the Americans at the same time? I don't doubt the stupid b.a.s.t.a.r.ds really expect to walk in, take the key positions, vector the antigen and congratulate themselves on a bloodless victory. A handful of the fanatics might l.u.s.t after total obliteration of the old enemy, but I suppose the bulk of them view 17-Tg-M as the ultimate glorious evolution of humanitarian warfare.

The fools. I know beyond question the inevitable reaction of their victims.

They will have to slaughter every single one of their conquered enemy. They will be forced into the genocide of half the human race.

How can they fail to sense the ferocious hate, the murderous, vengeful loathing I feel for them? The self-disgust, the degradation of everything that makes a man human. Do they know what it feels like to have all the dignity and self-respect crushed inexorably out of you, until you squirm like an imbecile in your own stinking s.h.i.+t? What you would do to those who had done such a thing to you?

And yet surely I am not the first of their guinea-pigs. They must already have tried 17-Tg-M on criminals, on soldiers, on technicians and bureaucrats and housewives. They would leave the geniuses until last. Is it conceivable they'll realise the consequences of this filthy thing, before their own imperatives -- and the s.h.i.+eld, the screen I helped build, G.o.d pity me -- force them to use it in earnest?

No. They will not be balked. The vision of consequences did not hold Stalin's hand from the Kulaks, or Hitler's from the Jews, or Truman's and Attlee's from Hiros.h.i.+ma. It will not stop them now.

I hear approaching footsteps. I am a dead man but first I will kill _[here the text breaks off]_ --------.

*9. Uluru*

On the tail end of his dream of death, Alf Dean heard the rap at his door and knew he was asleep. Life, said the dragon named Kukushkin, would be much easier if your brain was a telephone. The reptile wrung its double-thumbed hands in aggravation. You won't remember any of this, d.a.m.n it. With dread, Alf told the dead dragon: I will. How could I forget? He rolled in his bunk. His brainwaves speeded up and diminished in voltage. At the repeated rap he woke, pyjamas pressing his skin like an ill-fitted wetsuit.

'Sir, the General wishes you to join him in the conference room.'

'Yeah. Okay.' It was late afternoon, according to his clock. Mouse's bed was empty, of course. The stink of his terror filled the room; he must have been dreaming again. Nothing remained of the nightmare. 'I'll have a shower and be right there.'

'As soon as you can, sir.'

Alf stripped off his sodden pyjama top. 'I don't think the general would appreciate it if I turned up in this state.'

'I'll tell him you're on your way.'

Beyond the hiss from the shower head he could hear the relentless drumming of impossible rain, the Vault's deluge on the Rock. Where did all the G.o.dd.a.m.n water come from? Fedorenko thought that a teleportation system was involved, more diffuse and less exacting than the grid designed to transfer complex organic structures of the order of living human beings. Or living dragons. s.h.i.+t, where had that come from? He quailed under the hot water. The rain was pure distilled water, so it wasn't coming straight from the sea or from buried water table. A lot of it seemed to vanish after it soaked into the desert. But it wasn't an endless loop -- if it had been that simple, gravitational acceleration would have turned each droplet into a lead brick moving near the speed of light.

Another echo of his repressed nightmare came back to him in the corridor. Soldiers on guard stood braced and alert; each pair or group contained equal numbers of Russian Federation and American soldiers, and they seemed to be warily sensitive of their differences.

A guard inspected his ident.i.ty card at the door and finally allowed him in. Sevastyianov gestured him to the remaining unfilled seat. There were at least twenty men in the room. Alf sought Bill delFord's eye; the man was tense, his compact body hunched forward across the conference table. Alf's apprehension found a focus. 'My G.o.d, has something happened to Mouse?'

'The boy is well,' Sevastyianov said curtly. 'Please be seated, Dr Dean.'

Before each place at the table a single sealed folder lay, blazoned with security injunctions. None had yet been opened.

Sevastyianov studied each of the group carefully, his gaze tracking with an impa.s.sivity at odds with the stress Alf detected. Chandler sat at the general's right hand, face hard, in his element.

'Gentlemen,' the Russian said finally, 'I have to inform you that certain events this afternoon came close to precipitating nuclear war between the Russian Armed Forces and the United States. Thankfully, that danger has now been resolved.'

In a non-military gathering of this size, the announcement would have produced pandemonium. Here not a word was spoken. Alf felt his nightmare move on him, a crack of memory opening. 'The precipitating agent,' he heard the general's deep voice saying, 'was a communication from the Vault. There can be no longer any doubt that it is under intelligent control. And it has made what can only be construed as its first overtly hostile move.'

The Russian paused, like an actor, giving them time. 'You will notice that I discount the deaths and injuries we have suffered to date. These were pa.s.sive responses, equivalent to trip wires triggering traps previously set. This afternoon, however, through the agency of the boy, the Vault attempted to provoke major conflict between our two nations.'

The room had receded. Alf clutched at the table's edge and the sealed folder slid under his fingers, tumbled into his lap. 'The dragon,' he heard himself blurt. 'The dragon Kukushkin.'

Bill delFord's face, a flushed moon, hung over him. 'Jesus, it's patching through him, now. General, could we delay the briefing for a -- '

'I see the implications. Go ahead, doctor.'

DelFord was steadying him, filling a gla.s.s from a jug on the table. Alf gulped the iced mineral water down, feeling like a fool. 'I'm sorry. This d.a.m.ned thing -- '

'That's okay, sport. Do you feel up to talking?'

'I'm okay.' It was incredible. They'd just missed a nuclear war, and he was falling down because of a bad dream.

'Alf, you just mentioned a name. Where did you get it from?'

The anthropologist blinked. 'Kukushkin? I don't know. Look, this is absurd.'

'He was a colleague of Dr Fedorenko. Has Victor mentioned his name to you?'

'I don't think so. G.o.dd.a.m.n it, if you must know I was having a nightmare just before the general sent for me. Do you really want to hear this garbage?'

'You bet. What do you think Mouse is doing all day long in the Cage? He's dreaming nightmares from the Vault, dude.'

'Oh. Well, most of it is gone now. I think I've been having the same nightmare ever since I -- ever since the Vault.' He felt himself convulse. 'All I remember is a dragon called Kukushkin. I suppose it should have been a bear.'

From the other end of the table Lowenthal broke in. 'General, is this pennyante psychoa.n.a.lysis necessary? I'd -- '

DelFord said: 'Shut up.' To Alf, he said, 'Nothing else? Was the dragon trying to tell you something? Maybe some message about Mouse, or something for the rest of us.'

Alf put the folder back on the table. It was damp with palm prints. Every face in the room was directed at him, several with deeply puzzled frowns. 'That was what it complained about. The fact that we forget.' He felt his scalp crawl. 'One other thing. I'll leave you to work out the symbolism. The dragon was dead.'

Bill clapped him on the shoulder. 'Well, General, I'd say that puts the cap on it. It's trying to communicate.'

'Thank you, gentlemen.' The Russian waited for the room to quieten. 'We shall defer discussion of Dr Dean's remarkable experience. I ask you now to unseal your folders.'

Alf gazed dully at his folder. The room rustled. He tore it open. It contained a single computer-written doc.u.ment headed NOTES MADE BEFORE HIS DEATH BY ILYA DAVIDOVICH KUKUSHKIN, NOVEMBER 19. The Russian name pierced him like a thorn. He uttered an inarticulate cry.

'Indeed, Dr Dean,' Sevastyianov said. 'This material was written by your nephew three hours ago, at the instigation of the Vault intelligence. I ask those of you who have not yet read the extract to do so now.'

Confused and distraught, Alf forced himself to read the d.a.m.ning, terrifying words. Behind Kukushkin's stuffy diction he saw the mocking clever face of his nightmare's dragon. The Rainbow Serpent, he told himself. He shook his head, turning pages and absorbing the dead man's words at some distant automatic level of consciousness. Dinosaurs and dreams. Viruses. Doomsday in a laboratory vial. The voice of the dragon was heard in the land. With a colossal effort he restrained the silly laughter inside his head.

Sevastyianov waited stoically until the last man had closed his folder. He laid his hands on the table. 'The material you have just read is absolutely restricted, as is everything you learn here pertaining to defence matters. All parties to this discussion, civilians as well as military personnel, are subject to battle discipline. Any breach of security, now or in the future, will attract summary execution without trial.' Again he allowed that to sink in. His eyes rested on Bill delFord, moved to Alf. 'This station remains under Yellow Alert War Orders. Tactical nuclear ordnance rings the Uluru region, supported by ma.s.sive program-targeted strategic firepower from Indian Ocean submarine weapons platforms. Within the station, customary need-to-know restrictions on command information have been partially relaxed, to provide the operational staff with the broadest access to multidisciplinary evaluation in the shortest time.'

While he was speaking the general's aide had entered. Now he pa.s.sed him a note. Sevastyianov scanned it, muttered briefly. The aide departed. There was an indefinable change in the room. Alf concentrated, sought to bring some resolution to his senses. Something -- An absence. 'Gentlemen,' the Russian said, 'it is a day for surprises. The rain has stopped.'

This time there was no composed hush. Engineers and physicists broke into a frenzy of debate, the unmelodic song of scientists handed one crucial datum more than their hypotheses can hold. Finally Sevastyianov rapped loudly.

'Another significant coincidence, no doubt,' he said. 'Let us restrict ourselves, for the moment, to the Kukushkin diary. I am authorised by the highest executives to tell you that the extract itself is genuine. It was retrieved after Professor Kukushkin's untimely death.' He ignored the quite audible hissing curse from Victor Fedorenko. 'The Academician's hysterical meditation on policy, however, is categorically repudiated. The _E. coli_ strain coded 17-Tg-M, produced by recombinant DNA engineering, is not part of the a.r.s.enal of the Russian Federation, nor was it so intended. As Colonel Sipyagin made clear to Kukushkin, it was developed for experimental study only.'

The Russian glanced at Hugh Lapp. 'Due to satellite transmission of the doc.u.ment to the intelligence communities of both our nations by covert agents at this station, a rapid escalation to High Readiness was set in train.' His voice deepened. 'Although these illicit transmissions const.i.tuted gross affront to the joint commanders of this station, I am under instruction to exact no retribution. The princ.i.p.als concerned may count themselves exceedingly fortunate.' The astronaut, Alf noted, listened alertly without emotion. Was he one of the 'covert agents' Sevastyianov was speaking about? If so, he showed truly remarkable self-possession.

'I repeat, the immediate threat of war has been averted. Since the primary source of the leak was the Vault itself, we may conclude that its intention was to provoke global preemptive holocaust.'

'General,' Bill said fiercely, 'I must protest. That is certainly one possible estimate of the crisis, but hardly -- '

The Russian scowled. 'Dr delFord, I had not finished speaking. I have made more than enough allowance for your status as a civilian. Please do not interrupt me again.'

DelFord hesitated. 'My apologies.' His face was flushed with anger.

'Very well. The predominant military estimate holds the Vault responsible for this afternoon's general nuclear alert. However, those behavioural specialists who have already examined the Kukushkin doc.u.ment regard it instead as a potential key to the Vault. These interpretations could not be more polarised. Personally, in view of the most recent phenomena, I incline to the latter position. I direct your attention to the scriptural quotation which the boy delivered, presumably as a verbal coda. Major Northcote.'