Wolfhound Century: Radiant State Part 17

1.

Engineer-Technician 2nd Cla.s.s Mikkala Avril receives the letter that will change her life. It is waiting for her in the morning. Breakfast at the Kurchatovgrad Barracks.

Today is her twenty-fourth birthday, but she isn't counting years; what matters is the acc.u.mulation of knowledge, the contribution she can make, not the piling-up of finished days you don't get back again. Only achievement is notable. Next week she takes examinations that will lead to her promotion, and she has a report to finish: her paper on the dynamics of volatile angel plasma under intense shearing pressures. There are efficiencies to be gained by scoring microscopic fresnel grooves in the face of the pusher plate. So she believes. The equations are beautiful: they click into place inevitably, like good engineering.

Mikkala Avril dreams of making universal vessels that are less crude and primitive and brutal. More evolved. She has had her hair cut short to save time in the mornings.

Citizen women! Race ahead of the lumbering carthorse years! Consecrate yourselves to speed!

Every day she devotes forty-five minutes to the gymnasium. A good worker is healthy and strong.

The envelope waiting for Mikkala Avril on the morning of her twenty-fourth birthday is flimsy and brown and bears no official crest. A crinkly cellophane window shows the typed address within. She has smoothed it and read the address three times. It is for her. On the gummed back flap there is a purple ink-stamp, slightly off centrePERSONAL & CONFIDENTIALand a ma.n.u.script addendum neatly capitalised: RECIPIENT ONLY. POST ROOM DO NOT OPEN. She notices that the flap has not been slit. The envelope is unopened, its peremptory instruction to the surveillance office (remarkably) obeyed. They must have known where it was from. But who communicates confidentially with an engineer-technician 2nd cla.s.s at the Kurchatovgrad Barracks and has the weight to give the censors pause?

Mikkala's heart runs faster: wild momentary anxieties show themselves, and crazy hopes she didn't know she had. It's probably nothing. Some error over her pay. A rebuke for some omission in the weekly returns. She leaves the envelope unopened on the tray and finishes her coffee.

Mikkala Avril is eking out the last empty moments of her old life. She is hesitating. She is wasting time. The letter stares back at her from the brink.

She rips it open and hooks out the single sheet.

FROM THE DIRECTOR, PROJECT PERPETUAL SUNRISE PROFESSOR YAKOV KHYRBYSK.

Technician Avril!

Please be informed, you have been selected for partic.i.p.ation in Project PERPETUAL SUNRISE. You are to present yourself for duty at the Yarkoye Nebo Number 3 Inst.i.tute immediately on receipt of this communication. Personal effects are not required and none should be brought. All necessary items will be provided. Onward travel will be arranged.

This is a secret appointment which you should discuss with no one. Conversation with your current colleagues and officers must be avoided. You are now under my command, and all other instructions are herewith superseded and void. The nature of your new duties will be explained to you at the inst.i.tute.

I congratulate you, Technician Avril. You will be contributing to special and challenging tasks of tremendous significance for the future of the New Vlast.

You should know that your name was brought to my attention as a candidate for this task by President-Commander Rizhin himself, acting personally. Your courageous determination and clarity of thought at the launch of Proof of Concept has been recognised by the award of Hero of the New Vlast. This is of necessity a secret decoration, of course. No medal can be given. Your promotion is confirmed without examination. I look forward to knowing you better.

Yakov Khyrbysk, Director

2.

Lom sat at the desk in the guardhouse at the entrance to the drive that led to Lukasz Kistler's house. The guard was slumped in the corner, unconscious. He'd have a headache but he would recover: nothing a few days' rest wouldn't put right. Lom was wearing the guard's cap. The interior light was dim: his profile would pa.s.s muster. Casual inspection from a distance, anyway. There was always risk.

There were two telephones on the desk: one an outside line, the other connected to the house's own internal system. A typed list of extension numbers was pinned next to it. lobby. garage. housekeeper. switchboard. security. study. bedroom. Lom took a guess and chose the bedroom. It was almost midnight. He dialled the three-digit number.

And seven miles away in a windowless bas.e.m.e.nt in the headquarters of the Parallel Sector a lamp on a switchboard console winks into life. The night duty operator stubs out her cigarette, puts on her headphones, flicks a switch and begins to type.

Kistler ResidentialInternal 23.47 Transcription begins Kistler: Yes?

Unknown caller: I wish to speak with Lukasz Kistler.

Kistler: This is Kistler. Who the f.u.c.k are you?

Caller: You don't know me.

Kistler: Where are you calling from? How the h.e.l.l did you get this number?

Caller: I have information for you and I am told you are someone who might make use of it. I am told you are a person of courage and independence. Was I told right?

Kistler: Who is this? What are you talking about? What kind of information?

Caller: Information of consequence. Doc.u.mentary proofs.

Kistler: Proofs? Proofs of what?

Caller: Proofs that a certain person is not who he says. Proofs of conspiracy. Deception. a.s.sa.s.sination. The seizure of power by a revolutionary terrorist operating under a false name with the collusion of certain very senior elements within the official security services.

Kistler: When would this happen?

Caller: It has happened. It has already happened. I am talking about the greatest power there is, and I am talking about incontrovertible doc.u.mentary proofs.

Kistler: [Pause] Why are you telling me this?

Caller: I want to give these proofs to you. I want you to use them. I am told you are a person who could do this. You have strength of will. You have influence and you are independent of mind. You are also perhaps a decent man. I offer you these proofs, which in the right hands are dangerousI would say deadlyto the utmost power.

Kistler: Who are you working for?

Caller: n.o.body.

Kistler: This is a trap. A loyalty test. Or you are a crank. Either way, I cannot speak to you. f.u.c.k off and leave me alone.

Call disconnected 23.50 Transcription begins Kistler: h.e.l.lo?

Unknown caller: I am not a liar. I am not a crank. This is not a trap.

Kistler: Then you are a most dangerous kind of man. You should not have this number.

Caller: I'm offering you a chance to act. To make a change. Perhaps to take power yourself if that's what you want. The utmost power in the land is a deception. A plot. A man who is not what he seems. See my proofs, Kistler. Let me bring them to you. I will come to your house. See what I have, Kistler. Listen to me, then decide.

Kistler: [Pause] When?

Caller: Now. I am at your gate. All you need do is tell your door security to let me in. [Pause] I'm coming now, Kistler. Five minutes. Tell them to let me in.

Kistler: They will search you.

Caller: That is reasonable. I expected that. I am unarmed. I'm coming now.

Kistler: Wait. Who are you? What is your name?

Call disconnected 23:51Transcription ends The transcription operative pulls the sheet from the platen, slides it into an envelope, adds it to the pile in her tray and lights another cigarette. She gives no thought to what she has heard. No reaction at all. Nothing she ever hears leaves any trace: she listens and types and then she forgets. She is a component in a transmission mechanism only, an instrument with no more capacity for retention than the headphones and the typewriter she uses. That's the safe way, the survivor's way, and she has been in her job for many years. If she happens to see the consequences of her transcripts later in the rise and fall of magnates and the newspaper reports of arrests and trials, she takes no notice and never says anything. Even to herself she makes no remark.

It's for others to read the transcripts in the morning and make of them what they will.

3.

Lom walked the length of Kistler's gravel drive in darkness, waiting for the sudden flood of light, the harsh call of a challenge, a bullet in the back. But there was nothing, only the restless animal calls from Kistler's menagerie in the summer night: the grunting of monkeys, the growl of a big cat. The air was heavy with the scent of orchids and roses. A peac.o.c.k, startled, disgruntled, stalked away across the starlit lawn.

What am I doing here? Blundering on. b.u.t.ting my head in the dark against trees to see what fruit falls, and every moment could be my last.

Kistler received him in his study, a dressing gown over his pyjamas. He sat on the couch, chain-smoking, and listened in silence as Lom outlined the facts against Rizhin. Told him the story of the rise of Josef Kantor, the list of his terrorist acts, Lavrentina Chazia's connection with him, their involvement in the a.s.sa.s.sination of the Novozhd by Lakoba Petrov. Lom made no mention of the living angel in the forest, Maroussia or the Pollandore.

'But you haven't brought me these papers from Chazia's archive?' said Kistler when Lom had finished. 'They're not with you now?'

'No.'

'Then you misled me.'

'I have them,' said Lom. 'They're nearby but safe, where you will not find them. If I don't emerge from here in another hour, they will be destroyed.'

'Perhaps that would be for the best.'

'They are as I have said.'

'But who are you? You ask me to take your word on trust, yet I don't even have a name. You attack my guard and force yourself into my house, and tell me this wild story, which if it's true-'

'It is true,' said Lom. 'I told you: I have authentic doc.u.mentary proofs.'

'If it's true, for me to even hear it is lethal. Even if it's not true, look at the position you put me in by coming here. How am I to react? I should make a report immediately, but if I do that Rizhin will feed me to Hunder Rond anyway. You tell me others have died to keep this rumour silent, and I don't doubt that, even if all the rest of this is horse s.h.i.+t. The only thing I can safely do is have you shot myself, here and now. Get rid of your carca.s.s quietly and forget you ever came. There are a half a dozen VKBD men in the house. It would be straightforward enough to arrange.'

'You'd have done it long before now, if you were going to,' said Lom. 'You wouldn't have let me reach the door. Though I'm not so easily killed.'

'Maybe I was curious,' said Kistler. 'Maybe I'm not afraid of a little risk. You're an impressive fellow. You intrigue me. But I need to know who I'm dealing with.'

'My name is Lom. I used to be a senior investigator in the Political Police. Six years ago I was commissioned by Under-Secretary Krogh to pursue the terrorist Josef Kantor. This is what I have found out.'

'Used to be?' said Kistler. 'And what are you now?'

'My official career came to an end. I'm freelance now.'

'You work for no one? Really?'

'I work alone,' said Lom 'You're one of Savinkov's experiments, I think?' said Kistler. 'That I can see for myself.'

Lom's hand went to his forehead, reaching for the indentation in his skull where the angel piece had been before Chazia gouged it out. It was an involuntary movement. He caught himself and pulled his hand away. Too late. It was a weakness shown, but there was nothing to be done.

'That's gone now too,' he said.

'I see,' said Kistler. 'OK. Let's say I accept all this. Let's say I take you for what you say you are. Let's say you're a good fellow and your heart's in the right place. My advice to you is to destroy these proofs of yours. Burn them. Forget it. Get on with your life and find something else to do.'

'You're not interested then. You will do nothing. You will not take my proofs.'

'n.o.body will take them, man! What you have is useless. Worthless. Rubbish. It is no good, no good at all. Oh it's good police work, surely, but police work will not bring Rizhin down.'

'But-'

'Listen. I'll tell you something about Rizhin-'

'Kantor. Josef Kantor.'

Kistler shrugged.

'Rizhin or Kantor,' he said. 'It makes no difference. It's just a name.'

'No!'

'Listen to me. I sympathise with you, Lom. I should not say so, but I do. Osip Rizhin is a terrible man. He bullies, he intimidates, he kills. He diverts resources to the military and to idiotic pet projects like the f.u.c.king s.p.a.ce programme. He sells our grain to our enemies while our people starve by the million. The ordinary economy is collapsing and he has no idea at all. Industrially the Archipelago walks all over us. We have no chance. You can't run a modern nation on the labour of convicts and slaves, for f.u.c.k's sake. It's not sustainable. In ten years this Vlast of Rizhin's will be history's forgotten dust. I see this and it pains me. I do what I can-'

'You do nothing,' said Lom.

'I do what I can. Here's the truth about Rizhin. Not the story, the truth. The public fiction is maintained that Papa Rizhin runs his New Vlast alone. He sits in his plain office and smiles, bluff and avuncular, and through the haze of his pipe smoke he sees everything that happens. He intervenes everywhere. Nothing is done without Rizhin's permission and every decision is his. He is the authority on all subjects. Politics. Culture. History. Philosophy. Science. Works in his name are published in their millions and studied by millions. That is the fiction for the people. Recognise it?'

Lom said nothing.

'It's s.h.i.+t,' Kistler continued. 'Of course it's s.h.i.+t. The New Vlast is huge, complex and technical. One man couldn't possibly direct the government, the armed forces, the security services and the economy. Rizhin needs support. He needs lieutenants. People with the expertise and competence to make decisions of their own. Yes?'

'Go on,' said Lom.

'Have you never wondered,' said Kistler, 'what kind of person works for Rizhin? Does it not astonish you that people will do this, knowing what they do? They tolerate the bullying and the humiliation and worse; they accept terror and purges; they know the fate of their predecessors and still they step forward, still they accept appointment to the Central Committee, still they do Rizhin's work, a.s.siduously and as well as they can. Don't you wonder why?'