Terraplane (6 page)

"They fold so easily," I remarked as we twisted through the exit
doors.

"True," Skuratov sighed. "Dream Team always formulate perfectly conceived program of action. Slightest unforeseen circumstance leaves them groping to find their own backsides. They are
never trained in spontaneity, for security reasons. Here is my fine
machine."

Skuratov's car was a navy Mercedes with black mirrored windows. He opened the trunk, retrieving the detachables: wipers,
hubcaps, the hood ornament, the sideviewers and the aerial, all
favored barterables on the Black Market. We climbed in as he
reattached all. Jake settled into the back seat. It took Skuratov one
or two minutes to close the trunklid, I noticed; a frozen lock,
mayhap, or a need to reshuffle still-trunked accessories. As we bug ran he climbed in; our sensors showed no ears within, and at last
we were almost secure.

"Impressive, Mal," I said. "How'd you obtain?"

"Suitable reward for many good works," he said. "Note handworked details and stylish instrument panel design. Gently rub
butter-soft leather upholstery." The car's skin was filthy, but every
Russian car needed a scrub. For its two million autos Moscow was
provisioned by Krasnaya with ten carwashes. "Leave windows
slightly open, please, to disrupt easily read glass vibrations. Engine,
drive us to destination one."

"Done," replied the dash's voice; the motor ignited and revved.
Skuratov took hold of the wheel and we entered traffic, passing red
streetcars rolling down the side lanes.

"What's the ETA?" I asked.

"Half hour. You are familiar with our friend's neighborhood?" he
asked as we rolled down the Sedovoye Koltes, or Garden Ring,
which supported fourteen lanes of fullbumper traffic. Glasseyed
towers lined the road, some nothing but Potemkin facades cloaking
defensive missile-launching sites.

"No," I said.

"Novy Marina Roshcha is a trushchoba," Skuratov continued.
"Slum of most terrible kind. Their look is quite American.
Krasnaya reactionaries have long insisted that their existence is
necessary evil, so that nonconsumers and ex-soldiers with problems adapting to nonarmy life might be suitably housed. Social
order is thus preserved by keeping together all bad people holding
much hurtful resentment. Many carry dangerous contagion. Be
careful the podonki do not touch you after we leave car."

"Podonki?" Jake inquired, wiring his ears to his pocket-player's
phones; the long thin yellow cords impressioned that he was being
intravenously fed.

"Scum," Skuratov translated. "That is official term only, meaning no disrespect."

"Why would she hide in such a place?" I asked.

"Is self-evident. From such slums individuals come and go as
pleased," he said. "Choice places for those unwilling to perform responsibilities. Favorite hideouts as well for vicious criminal element. Provides area from which suspects may always be plucked.
Krasnaya lives with drawbacks."

"Do many scientists fall into criminal element's heading?" I
asked.

"Depends on their science," he said, smiling. "Miss Osipova
takes chance of losing life, living among uncivilized trash, but is
chance she evidently wishes to take-"

"Where's her choice?"

"With Alekhine," he laughed. "No matter. Her new residence
will be free from fear of random hooliganism." He pressed on the
radio; the scherzo from Shostakovich's Tenth played. Only a few
bars passed before he switched to a station playing songs rich with
twang and blurp.

"We've addressed her precisely?"

"Her street is Raisa Row. With handy implement of mine we
locate with ease exact address." From underdash he extracted two
thin barlike devices no larger than TV remotes; he handed one to
me. A liqrystal screen made up all of one side; on the other were a
number of minute buttons and unlit lights.

"Only the Dream Team has trackers so advanced," I said, examining his face for reaction, but none showed. Our side had
obtained one, by accident, only months before, but I'd had no
opportunity to employ it. "How's it work?"

"One of my many confidential sources was very accomplished," he said. "Turn it on with red switch. Then touch button
marked M. "

Moscow's street grid imaged on the screen; innumerable glowing
dots winked in unpatterned formation, each white but for a single
blue spot.

"Blue one is myself. Press V, which is tuned to her coordinates."
As I did, only two dots remained, his and hers. A light flashed
green. "That signals her continued viability."

"She's implanted?"

We pulled from the Ring onto Gorgoko. "Certainly. Standard
microtransmitter in thick muscle at back of neck, inserted without pain or knowledge. Transmits thereafter over two-hundred kilometer range. The Dream Team always knows where to send
party invitations. Keep that one, please. Within one hundred
meters beeping will begin. We will close in."

It long puzzled certain of those in our organization why
Skuratov, suffering from no political disaffiliation, unneedful of
clandestine finance, should have chosen treason as his hobby, but
nothing suspicious ever showed; his files, triplechecked twice, even
cleared Alice's approval. Political motivations are no more explicable than sexual fetishes, and not nearly so employable in quotidian
life; thus my mind remained untroubled by idle speculation.
Skuratov, eyeing the rearview, noticed Jake sunk seatways, lost in
his tunes.

"Jake is great music lover?"

"Some music," I said. "Mostly the blues."

Jake's tape bore no music other than that of Robert Johnson, by
historical agreement the past century's greatest blues singer. A
single photo remained to give his voice form. Murdered before he
was thirty, he left but forty-odd songs recorded under the most
primitive conditions; Jake knew each by heart. So many Caucasians enjoy the blues, even when they'd have trod across the blues
singer were he lying cold before them in the street. Jake knew a
more elemental kinship whose nature remained a mystery to me; I
could only infer that whenever he felt himself touched by unearned
peace he would dive beneath phones to scar himself anew with
long-lost sound. Mister O'Malley mentioned occasions when Jake
picked up an old guitar in his office and strummed chords as if to
play, but I could never viz it. In Jake's hands musical instruments
seemed correct only if he might use them to transpose others into
death's chorale.

"How much info of results exists?" I asked. "There's no weapons
potential seen?"

"Not as such. Their findings appear to involve nonaggressive
device of unspecified purpose."

We entered neighborhoods built up with workers' palaces: uniform rows of concrete shoeboxes dropped down in sidewalked
morasses. In front of each complex-unit stood sculptures recognizing the abilities of those who designed and developed; those not graffitied were usually decapped. Beneath the modern overgrowth
showed old Russia's spoor: huddled wooden houses top-heavy with
intricately carved gables and eaves, Orthodox churches bearing
five crumbling domes, sprays of birch and evergreen sprouting
amidst the billboards. Jake began vocalizing along with Johnson's
tunes as they flowed from player to ear.

"Gonna get deep down in this connection-keep on tangling
with your wires-"

To hear Jake sing ached bones and cooled blood; his warble held
neither tune nor tone.

"-when I mash down on your little starter your spark gonna
give me fire-"

"What use has a nonaggressive," I asked, "considering what
Krasnaya must have intended?"

"Enormous use depending on nature of nonaggressive," said
Skuratov. `Alekhine tested and developed as he saw fit. Basic
essentials of prime discovery were known but to evershrinking
circle as success approached. Every time Krasnaya inquired he
made general remarks, refrained from telling specifics, at all stages
promised complete report upon project's finish. Three weeks ago,
he disappears. We find out three days ago that Miss Osipova
prepared her own departure."

"Why weren't we advanced?"

"Makes no difference from whom information is obtained, correct?"

"Alekhine was surely implanted," I said; Skuratov nodded. "So
where has he gone? Where's he showing?"

"He isn't showing," said Skuratov. "Our friend is nowhere
found. "

"In Russia?"

"In world. We have thorough coverage in all locales, as you
know Nowhere do we find evidence of his presence. Alekhine's
implant is like mine, in brain instead of neck, and impossible to
remove without-" He paused. "Terrible mess. Either he has discovered way to jam signal, which no one else has ever done, or he
has gone somewhere beyond our range, which is to say, no place."

"Inferences must have been possible," I said. "What lines were
followed?"

"From Dream Team reports we ascertain that device as perfected
must involve paraphysics rather than parapsychologics."

"What's meant?"

"After long years of study we find no truth in so-called para-
psychologics in traditional sense. Forecasting future, calling up
spirit of dead mother, reading thoughts of strangers; such foolish
things are as dreams. Minds are thick as Kremlin walls unless
Dream Team methods are employed, and then only generalities
may be inferred. Employing such methods we know that paraphysics are involved, that major experiment succeeded. Otherwise, no more.

Dream Team methods involved modified implants, so that those
so adapted might not only be at all times located but, in some as-
yet-obsure way, have thoughts' track mapped without derailing the
train. "What falls under paraphysics' heading?"

"Inexpressibles," he said as we entered a bleak avenue carrying
four rutted, scarred lanes. Putty-colored ten-story towers were
stuck like arrows along each side. Cars' shells lined curbs, covered
sidewalks, piled high upon yards as if left by guests at a technological clambake. Rats raced streetways, daring us to strike. "Poltergeists and telekinetic effects. Sonar showing large animals in lakes
where limited food supply prohibits such from existing. Wild
cougars in London suburbs where no one has lost cougar, and
grown alligators in Canadian ponds in dead of winter. Why frogs
fall from cloud-free sky." He pressed a button, shifting to slower
drive as we rounded a turn. "Plane crashes and little girl's body
found, unburned; no little girl on board or on ground reported. A
silver coin in a chunk of granite. The look of a sinner on the face of
a saint. Growth of hair on a mummy's head." He flashed his steel.
"Why one sock of pair always vanishes in dryer."

"What's meant by transferral device?" I asked. "Transferral
where?"

"Over rainbow, perhaps," he said, his eyes glistening, as if flashfrozen. "Soon we discover. Novy Marina Roshcha, gentlemen."

Eight-wheel crowd compromisers, steel skins gleaming, guns
and gas jets shining, guarded each end of a twenty-man soldierline
blockading the avenue. On either side of their wall, the worlds
appeared similar in look. The formation broke to allow our passage; none cared that we didn't slow, none halted us to check ID,
none questioned our intent or purpose or plan.

"Residents come and go freely, you said," I reminded Skuratov.
"Hasn't the army more immediate situations?"

"Individuals come and go free, I said. Army is here to prevent
attempts at simultaneous escape of many. Krasnaya prefers to
certify safety of even these citizens, for great loss of life would be
unavoidable if such problematic situation occurred."

"Krasnaya prefers this?" I asked, seeing Russians of decidedly
unpropagandistic value.

"As also mentioned, Luther," he said. "Not everyone prefers
fitting into fine-running system just as not everyone rises to appropriate level during lifetime. These neighborhoods offer suitable
surroundings for-how is it put-"

"Casualties of the system," I said. Their great-grandparents
suffered under the nobles, their grandparents under the Big Boy,
their parents under the nomenklatura and so they suffered under
the supervision of the great Krasnaya multinationale. Inheritance
they provided forever grew, no matter who borrowed against the
trust.

"They prefer to live in such way, after all," he said. "It is hard to
remember at times." The street sparkled with broken glass as if
diamond paved. Cardboard blocked wind blowing through broken
windows; newsprint curtained those yet unshattered. Dunes accumulated at building corners where concrete devolved into sand.
There'd once been trees; rotting stumps remained, the rest
recycled into cold night's fuel. We rolled downstreet sans sound
within or without, past residents' dead stares. Children at play
scrambled over those rust red cars, yanked rodents' tails to hear the
squeak; women indistinguishable from potato sacks squatted beside
building entrances. Groups of men huddled over trash fires. All
but the children were drunk. Russians, no matter the prohibitions,
drank alcohol as they breathed air. As those of Skuratov's class guzzed beverages suited to their status, so these citizens surely
poured down their raw throats formaldehyde, eau de cologne,
varnish and liquid heat. Jake slipped his phones from his head, his
attention seized. I supposed that he suddenly felt more at home.

"How close?"

"We are on Raisa now," said Skuratov, eyeing his own tracker,
"and she is but a short ways further. " The beep began, a steady
pulse. Jake readied. Between two eight-story hulks I robbed a
glimpse of the center's faraway spires and pastel domes, hazed soft
in morningshade.

"Locals' interaction expected?" fake asked.

"None should harangue," said Skuratov. "Fine car such as mine
can belong only to high Krasnaya member, or so they will fear.
Therefore they understand not to give hands-on treatment in
untoward manner." From undercoat he drew a slim black Shrogin
machine pistol, an item impossible to procure at any level. "But if
podonki approach my crowdtickler will hush them. Jake, be fully
prepared. These people very temperamental around those they
unavoidably see as their betters."