Wolfhound Century: Radiant State Part 20

Lom's heart was pounding. He smeared a greasy hand across his face, rubbing his eyes and stifling a yawn. There was a tiny sleeping compartment at the back of the cabin. The truck driver was in there, hidden under a blanket, trussed up with a rope, his own sock stuffed into his mouth.

The guard came back and handed Lom the signed-off papers. He looked disappointed.

Lom had wanted to come in late to avoid other drivers and catch the night-s.h.i.+ft security: less chance they'd know the regular drivers by sight, that was the calculation. He hadn't reckoned on a guard who was bored and looking for trouble.

'What was the trouble with the brakes?' the guard said, still reluctant to let him go.

'Hydraulics leak,' said Lom. 'I patched it up. It should hold till I get back.'

He knew nothing about trucks and hoped the guard didn't either.

Please don't look in the cab.

The guard signalled to the kiosk and the first barrier lifted.

'OK,' he said. 'Bay Five. Follow the signs. Check-in won't open till six but you can park there, and if you walk over towards the liquid oxygen generators there's a twenty-four-hour rest room for the duty maintenance. You might be able to get something to eat there. Maybe someone'll look at those hydraulics for you.'

Lom nodded. 'Thanks. Appreciate that.'

The gates of Bay Five were closed. No one was about. Beyond the chain-link fence was a row of dark containerless cabs. Lom checked on the driver. The man glared back at him with hot, frightened angry eyes. He pulled against the ropes and grunted through the sock in his mouth.

Lom hauled him up and propped him in a sitting position.

'Someone will find you,' he said, 'but not before morning. Don't try to call out; you'll make yourself throw up and that'll be very bad for you. You'll choke on it. Sit tight and wait.'

The man grunted again. It sounded like a curse.

Lom left the truck on the unlit ap.r.o.n in front of Bay Five, locked it and dropped the keys through a drainage grating. He reckoned he had seven hours before anyone would investigate. Maybe another half-hour before the alarm was raised.

So what the f.u.c.k do I do now?

He shouldered his bag and walked. The gun he'd taken from the VKBD man in Pir-Anghelsky Park was a comforting weight in his pocket.

He wandered among vast hangars and metal sheds. Chemical processing plants. Yards stacked with enormous pieces of shaped steel: curved components for even larger constructions. There was a river running thick and green under lamplight and a poisonous-looking artificial lake: scarfs of mist trailed across the surface and the acrid rising air warmed his face. Klaxons blared and gangs of workers in overalls changed s.h.i.+ft. Parallel Sector patrols cruised the main roads in unmarked black saloons. It was easy to see them coming: he stepped into the shadows to let them pa.s.s.

For an hour he walked steadily, keeping to one direction as far as he could: east, he thought, though there was no way of telling. Vaporous effluent columns from a thousand vents and chimneys merged overhead in a low dense lid of cloud that shut out the night sky and reflected Vitigorsk's baleful orange glow.

A cl.u.s.ter of signs at an intersection pointed to meaningless numbered sectors but one caught his attention: prototypea.s.sembly. Cresting a low hill, he found himself looking out across a floodlit concrete plain. From the centre rose a huge citadel of steel capped with a rounded dome. It resembled a ma.s.sively engorged grain silo with stubby fins at the base. The trucks parked at the foot of it gave some sense of scale: if it had been a building, it would have been twenty or thirty floors high. Lom had seen pictures of the Proof of Concepteveryone hadand this thing was the same but much larger: a parent to a child.

From the cover of a low wall he took a couple of photographs just for the sake of ithe couldn't see what use Kistler could make of them, even if the facility was being kept secret from the Central Committeeand slipped away.

He glanced at his watch.

Almost 1 a.m.

He felt like he was playing at espionage.

What he needed was someone to talk to. Human intelligence.

PROJECT CONTROL. INSt.i.tUTE OF RESEARCH. RESIDENTIAL CAMPUS.

It was a labyrinth of office blocks and apartment buildings, all crammed in and pressing against one another cheek by jowl: ramps and bollards and courtyards, walkways and flights of shallow concrete steps. Sc.r.a.ppy shrubs in concrete containers. Unlit ground-floor windows, service roads and areas of broken paving. A yard for refuse bins. Lom could see into uncurtained corridors. A few lights still burned in upper rooms.

Steps led up from a square with benches and flower beds to a revolving door. He heard voices, hushed but urgent. A couple standing in the splash of yellow light at the foot of the steps, arguing.

'No, Sergei. Please. I have to go now. I must go in.'

The woman was young. Slight and not tall, with cropped hair. Neat, sober office clothes. The man was bigger, older. Aggressive. Standing too close.

'Why not, Mikkala? What's wrong with me?'

'Nothing's wrong with you, Sergei. It's just... It's late. I have to go.'

He grabbed her arm. 'Come on, Mikkala,' he said. 'You'll like it. I'm good. I'm the best.'

She pulled her arm away and stepped back. 'I said no.'

'You f.u.c.king b.i.t.c.h. All evening you've been... What's a man supposed to think? You can't just turn round and say no, you cold f.u.c.king...' He reached out and pulled her towards him. Moved his head to hers. She turned her face away.

'Please, Sergei.'

Lom stepped out of the shadows.

'Hey,' he said. 'What's happening? Is this man bothering you?'

Sergei turned. 'Who the f.u.c.k are you?' He was swaying on his feet. Squinting. Lom smelled the aquavit thick on his breath.

'You should leave her alone,' said Lom.

'It's nothing to do with you, a.r.s.ehole. p.i.s.s off. I'll break your f.u.c.king neck.'

Lom ignored him. 'Is this where you live?' he said to the woman. 'Come with me. I'll take you inside.'

'I said p.i.s.s off, f.u.c.k-pig,' Sergei growled. 'You can't push me around.'

'Sergei,' said the woman. 'Don't.'

Sergei made a shambling lunge and swung a fist at Lom. He was big but soft and clumsy, and there wasn't much speed or power in the punch. Lom could have stepped out of the way. But he didn't. He raised his arm awkwardly as if to ward off the blow but he let it through. Turned his head slightly to take it on the side of the nose.

It hurt. A lot. He rocked back and put his hands to his face. Felt the warm blood flooding from his nostrils.

'You hit me!' he said to Sergei. 'I'm bleeding.'

'You were lucky, pig. Next time I'll break your f.u.c.king spine. And yours, b.i.t.c.h. I'll see you again. I'll ruin your f.u.c.king career. I'll ruin your life. People will listen to me.'

He turned and walked away, swaggering, unsteady. Lom tried to staunch the bleeding with the sleeve of the driver's coat. Smeared it around. It made quite a mess. His whole face felt stiff and sore.

'Are you all right?' said the young woman. She was thin and pale. Narrow shoulders. Her eyes glistened blurrily. She had been drinking too. 'Did Sergei hurt you? 'I'm sorry.'

'Not much,' said Lom. 'Not really. I'll be fine in a moment.' He pressed the back of his hand to his nose and brought it away covered in blood. Red and gleaming in the light from the doorway. 'I could do with a little cold water. And perhaps a towel. Is there somewhere...?'

The young woman hesitated. Made up her mind.

'Come with me,' she said. 'I'll find you something.'

4.

Lom sat on the bed in Mikkala Avril's room. She brought a bowl of cold water and a couple of rough grey towels. He dipped the end of one in the bowl and dabbed at his face.

'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I haven't got a mirror. There's one across the way, in the bathroom, but it's women only. Actually we're not meant to have men in this building at all.'

'Don't worry,' said Lom. 'I'll manage. You tell me how I'm doing. Is there much blood?'

She sat down next to him on the bed and studied his face. Her face was very thin, her eyes unnaturally wide.

She hasn't been eating. Pus.h.i.+ng herself too hard.

'There's still blood coming from your nose,' she said. 'There's some in your hair, and it's all over your coat.'

He wet the towel again and pressed it against the side of his nose.

'I don't even know your name,' he said. His voice was m.u.f.fled by the cloth. 'I'm Vissarion.'

'Mikkala. And... thank you. For what you did just now.'

Lom waved it away. 'It was nothing.'

'But I feel awful,' said Mikkala. 'I was so stupid; I should never have gone with Sergei and got drunk like that, it's not the kind of thing I do. Ever. I'm not... I wasn't good at it. I didn't handle it. It all went wrong. Everything's gone wrong here. I was so proud when I came, but nothing's going right...'

She was really quite drunk. Words tumbled out.

'Is Sergei your boyfriend?' said Lom.

'No!' She shook her head fiercely. 'No, no, not at allnothing like that. I've met him two or three times, that's all. It's just... I don't know many people here. I work on my own; there's no one I can talk to, and the resurrectionists are more friendly than the others. They drink and talk and they're not so cold and stuck-up. I started spending evenings with them. It was... a mistake.'

'How long have you been here?' said Lom. 'At Vitigorsk?'

'Not long.'

'Same here,' said Lom. 'It's an odd sort of place. It's hard to know what it's all here for. It's not easy to fit in.'

Mikkala nodded. Her cheeks flushed.

'Yes!' she said. 'Yes! That's it exactly. That's how I feel too. I thought I could be friends with the resurrectionists. I thought they liked me, and it made me feel part of something, not just on my own.'

Lom put down the towel and showed her his face.

'How is it now?' he said.

Mikkala frowned and squinted.

'Your nose has stopped bleeding,' she said. 'It looks a bit sore though, and I think you're going to have a black eye. Oh, there's still blood in your hair. You poor man, I'm so sorry.'

Lom dipped his hands in the water and pushed them through his hair.

'So what went wrong tonight?' he said. 'I mean, if you don't want to talk about it...'

'Oh it was awful,' said Mikkala. 'Sergei took me to see the resurrectionists' building, where they work. He showed me the freak shop and it was horrible. It made me really upset. I was sick on the floor, and afterwards... Sergei had a bottle of aquavit and we went somewhere and drank it. He said it would make me feel better but it didn't. I drank too muchwe both did. I don't normally drink at all. But after what I saw...'

'At the freak shop?'

'Yes.'

'How's my hair, Mikkala? Do you mind just checking?'

'What? Oh, yes, it's fine nowI think sobut your coat...'

'That's nothing.' Lom took it off and began to dab at the sleeve. 'What did Sergei show you at the freak shop?'

She shuddered. 'Dead babies. In jars. Ruined babies. Deformed foetuses.'

She went quiet.

Keep going, thought Lom. Don't stop now.

'Dead babies?' he said gently.

'It's not right,' said Mikkala. 'What they're doing. I don't think it's right. Of course they have their duty. It's their part of Task Number One, they're working to solve the common problem and that's a good thing, but... they're experimenting with the effects of exposure to different isotopes, and it goes wrong all the time. It feels wrong. They have old bodies too. From graves.'

'Why are they doing that?'

'It's the resurrection programme, learning to grow artificial bodies and bring people back from death, making it so people can live for ever and not die any more. So we can make the long journey to planets around other stars. The Director told me himself, one day we'll be able to bring someone back to life if you have even just a few atoms left from their bodies, because atoms have memories and they're alive. Sergei said they're thinking now that you don't need living people on the s.h.i.+ps at all, only a few crew: you could maybe just send out small pieces of the dead and bring them back to life when you get there.'

Lom remembered Josef Kantor's strange invitation to him, six years before, alone in Chazia's interrogation cell in the Lodka. Looking into Kantor's dark brown eyes was like looking into street fires burning.

Humankind spreading out across the sky, advancing from star to star!

Impossible, Lom had said, and Kantor slammed his hand on the table.

Of course it's possible! It's not even a matter of doubt, only of paying the price! Imagine a Vlast of a thousand suns. Can you see that, Lom? Can you imagine it? Can you share that great ambition?