Watson, Ian - Novel 11 (21 page)

 
          
By
NOON
NEXT
day they had crossed
the headwaters of the Makirta only fifteen or so versts from its source. Here
the stream was shallow enough to ford without a soaking, though the waters were
still sufficiently angry to stop ice from crusting them over. The bitter wind
of yesterday had slackened to a chilly breeze.

 
          
As
they toiled up the slope of Khladni Ridge six versts beyond the Makirta,
hacking a path through the snow-thatched tangle of tree bones, it became
evident that the upper heights of the felled larches had not simply been
stripped bare—they had been scorched into the bargain.

 
          
Not
even a cosmetic covering of snow could conceal this fact. The fist of wind
which had felled these giants had been intensely hot. It might well have come
from a limb of the sun itself. Many of the trees looked as though their tops
had been thrust into a white- hot furnace.

 
          
Yet
strangely, in the aftermath of this incandescent blow, no forest fire had raged
across the wrecked taiga; otherwise all the fallen timber would have been
reduced to ash. Maybe the very air had been torn away from the ruined forest,
suffocating the flames even as they were lit . . .

 
          
A
few times they stopped to sweep snow free from the corpses of these trees so
that
Lydia
could photograph the charring of the wood. Tsiolkovsky would fumble
with a pencil in his glove, scribbling hasty calculations of units of heat and
energy.

 
          
At
the top of Khladni Ridge the party halted, in awe at the view from this
high point
.

           
They could see tens of versts
northward over the hilly terrain, as far as the snow-shrouded hills along the
distant
Khushmo
River
. And all across this huge expanse
everything had been burned and blasted to the ground. Eastwards, far away in
the lee of some craggy hills, a few patches of forest still survived intact
where they had been sheltered from the shockwave. In the ultimate distance
right on the eastern horizon they could make out where the living taiga resumed
its march across the land . . .

 
          
With
theodolite and binoculars, Mirek and Vershinin took the measure of this terrain
of hell; while
Lydia
used up two whole rolls of her German film.

 
          
Presently
Ilya Sidorov fell to his knees in the snow as if to pray. He was overwhelmed.
“Oh God,’’ he wailed. “We’re such insignificant creatures! What can a human
being ever hope to achieve—in view of this?’’

 
          
“Get
a grip on yourself!’’ growled Vershinin. “Damn it, you ought to be feeling
vindicated. Here it is, and it’s all true.’’

 
          
Tolya
regarded the stooped man with glee. “Place cursed. So
is
you.’’

 
          
“Shut
your face!’’ shouted the Baron.

 
          
Mirek
glanced round from his theodolite. “Do you realize, we aren’t even
near
the centre yet?’’ He pointed. “See
how all the trees are still lying pretty well parallel, pointing back the way
we came? The meteorite must have struck the ground at least another twenty
versts north of here. That’s why we can’t see any crater. When we do, it’ll be
enormous! The
Arizona
one won’t be a patch on it. Frankly, I’m surprised the ground isn’t
riven into fissures and strewn with fallen boulders even this far away.’’

 
          
Tsiolkovsky
banged his hands together to restore his life-blood to them.
“That’s
because the spaceship exploded in the sky.’’
He gestured upwards, “It
must have become a little sun for a few seconds. Imagine the power locked in
it! Actually, there’s no need to imagine—it can all be calculated.’’

 
          
“Power?’’
Sidorov parroted the word. “We’re powerless, and
no denying it . . .’’

           
Tsiolkovsky moved over to comfort
him. “Ilya Alexandrovich, we too will learn to unlock the power of the sun!”

 
          
Vershinin,
the professional soldier, eyed the scientist thoughtfully. “Is that wise? Just
look over there: suppose this was
Moscow
, and your ship had been exploded over it by
design—as a weapon. Why, there wouldn’t be a building left standing. And as for
people: noble and peasant, merchant and priest alike—all dead in a flash. I
tell you, as a military man the very prospect appals me. Where’s the point in
valour or discipline in such circumstances? It would mean the end of war as a
heroic activity. Your sort of people would be ruling the roost, not officers
and nobles.”

 
          
“Nobles, indeed!”
Anton spoke bitterly. “When every noble
spawns a dozen other nobles, sometimes nobility runs quite thin . . .”

 
          
“This
is hardly the place for us to fight a duel, Anton Pavlovich! This is the
aftermath of battle—waged between the Present and the Future. If Tsiolkovsky
has his way, we’ll all be the losers.”

 
          
“Sorry,
I wasn’t trying to be offensive ... In many respects I agree with you. I mean,
it would be pointless for a chap to do anything for his country—if a Napoleon
of the future can simply send one ship to explode over
Moscow
, and destroy it all in five seconds . . .”

 
          
Sidorov
struggled to his feet. “A world without meaning . . . isn’t the world absurd
enough already?”

 
          
“Some
of the fellows in it are!” snapped Vershinin. “Tell me something, Anton
Pavlovich: supposing the world
did
become as absurd as this, how would you artist chappies go about ennobling the
human race, then?”

 
          
It
appeared to be a serious question, so Anton tried to answer it. “Possibly . . .
artists would invent other worlds—where such things didn’t happen? Possibly
they’d even try to live entirely in those worlds, in their imaginations? I
don’t know, really . . . Maybe they might invent worlds which were even worse and
more absurd—so that the real world seemed sane by contrast?”

           
Tsiolkovsky butted in. “Obviously
the artists of the future will imagine other worlds! Worlds out in space—beyond
the prison of the planet Earth! But you needn’t worry about scientists destroying
the world—they’ll only use such power to liberate us.” Anton nodded. “Science
is our best hope.”

 
          
“True,”
said Vershinin. “It’s just that I look at all this, and wonder . . .”

 
          
“Well,
let’s get on with some science!” said Mirek testily. “Take a look at those
clouds—I’d say we’re in for another spot of foul weather.”

 
          
Tolya
began to ramble.
“Me, coward.
Grandad could climb the
sky. Now all knocked flat. Giants are dwarfs. You think it needs brave man to
come here?
Needs
creature.
Creature on string.”
They ignored him.

 
          
Mirek
was perfectly right about another turn in the weather. They encamped below
Khladni Ridge that evening in a bitter blizzard, and the whole party crammed
into a single tent. To leave the wretched horses exposed out in the open seemed
the height of cruelty and insanity—the wind flayed you alive, the moment you
set foot outside . . .

 
          
“Is
anyone else alive in the whole world?” asked
Lydia
as they lay jumbled together in the
darkness after eating, still too cold to sleep.

 
          
“It
gets to you, doesn’t it?” murmured Vershinin softly. “You have to be brave—you
have to believe in yourself.”

 
          
“Your
photos will amaze people,” Tsiolkovsky assured her. “They’ll set the world on
fire. So will my calculations, for that matter. This place will become a
Mecca
of science.”

 
          
“
Mecca
, eh?”
Anton sighed. “I once thought that
Sakhalin
ought to be a Russian Mecca—where people
made pilgrimages for the good of their souls . . .”

 
          
Sidorov
began to whine. “We’ll probably all die out here—” “We damn well won’t
! ”
thundered Vershinin. “You’ll get back, you wretch, if I
have to drag you personally.”

           
But the wind howled its wolf-pack
cry for their deaths, outside. It howled with huge, mindless indifference.

 
          
They
weren’t able to move during the whole of the next day. Even brief forays
outside the tent to perform bodily functions or to try to tend to the horses,
proved agonizing. Idiotically, they spent much of their time playing lotto for
ten kopeck stakes.

 
          
“Eighty-one!”
they called out; and “
Trente-quatreV
’
and “Twenty-two!” Lotto wasn’t really such a bad game, once you got used to it.
Or perhaps their brains had simply frozen up . . .

 
          
The
following day was worse still: a glacier of boredom and immobility and petty
quarrelling. They had drunk the last of their vodka, and food stocks were
beginning to look very scanty, given the slim hope of shooting any game
en route.
Some time during the next
night one of the horses perished. When they roused themselves to the new day
they found the beast lying frozen stiff under a fresh fall of snow.

 
          
However,
the weather had calmed again: only a few flurries were blowing down from the
grey clouds which hung low everywhere. They agreed that it would be madness to
climb Khladni Ridge again and strike off northwards in an attempt to reach the
centre of the explosion. Another forty versts added to the round trip could
well prove suicidal.

 
          
So
they loaded the two surviving horses—one of which seemed to be on its last
legs, in any case—and they started the long trek southwards. Only Mirek really
regretted the decision, since he still had to see his great crater; while
Tsiolkovsky pointed out fastidiously, citing factors x, y and z, that there
couldn’t possibly be one . . .

 
          
Their
return of Tolya to the bosom of the Tungusi provided a little respite on the
vilest journey ever. Thereafter, it only got worse.

 
          
Before
they were to struggle into Kezhma thirteen days later, they would have shot
first one horse, then the second. The first, because the nag couldn’t go any
further—and with it, went one sledge. The second, simply for the sake of food;
they had exhausted the small stock of frozen horsemeat from the first. With
this second loss, they were forced to abandon the other sledge as well, along
with most of their equipment, retaining only one tent, guns, notebooks and
Lydia
’s camera.
And a hunk of
horse.

 
          
When
they did arrive at Kezhma, the
Angara
River
was by now a mass of swiftly moving
ice-floes. But because the water hadn’t yet locked solid, they bought a raft.
On this they proceeded downstream, in constant danger of overturning.

 
          
Three
days later they arrived at the trading station of Strelka, near where the
Angara
flowed out into the Yenisey; and here they
rested for a while in exhaustion.

 
          
Within
a week the Yenisey had frozen through thickly enough to support sleighs. So
they bought two sleighs and more horses, and with a bitter wind at their backs,
which presently became an Arctic blizzard, they returned to
Krasnoyarsk
at last down the snowy river, worn out and
sick.