The Last Aerie

  His ancient voice tapered away, and Nathan could see that he was tired. But before he would let him sleep, or sleep himself: “You still haven’t told me how you knew.”

  The old man reached up and tapped his nose again, winked, opened the palm of his hand to show its deep, etched lines. “I read things in the lines, in flights of birds, in the mists of the earth. I see things, hear things, know things, which other men can never know! I have … feelings! Voices call to me out of the winds; the planets that travel through the skies direct my travels; the waters of my ears and brain are lured even as the moon lures the tides. And as the Ferengi’s true blood of life was in my father, so my father’s blood is in me. Ah, for the blood is the life!”

  The old chief stood up, turned down the lamp, and in the glow from the stove stepped to his bed beside the door. Nathan went to his own bed, a narrow bench at the back of the caravan, and curled up there. So old Vladi was a seer, a fortune-teller: he read future times … but he wasn’t a mentalist. And Nathan knew that he could leave his mind unguarded, so that Zek could come to him.

  Before sleeping, Vladi’s whisper reached out to Nathan in the dark: “About your route. When will you know which path to follow? In the autumn, because I sensed that something was happening in the old places, I instructed my people to lay in food for men and beasts alike, so that we might winter in the caves of the foothills. But now … it’s cold out here in the open, and we may not stay too long.”

  “Maybe in the morning,” Nathan answered. “Come sunup, I’m sure I’ll know by then.”

  “They will … speak with you, you think?”

  “Someone will, yes.”

  “Ahhh!”

  And to prove it, long after the old chief began to snore, Nathan lay awake, waiting and listening for that someone …

  It was so obvious that Ben Trask wondered why they hadn’t seen it from square one. But having wondered, he knew the answer to that, too: that mindspies are not spies in the classic sense of the word. David Chung had been pretty close with his suggestion that they go in with a team of specialists. But it wasn’t until Trask got in touch with the Minister Responsible, and he in turn spoke to others on a similar level in the Corridors of Power, that everything came together. Chung’s sort of specialists wouldn’t be required. A different type of specialist was already in place.

  For fifteen years now the West had been helping sort out Russia’s problems; ever since those three momentous days—the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first of August, 1991—when as the result of a bungled coup against then-Premier Mikhail Gorbachev, old-style Communism had died a well-earned death and signaled the giddy ascent of two hundred and fifty million oppressed people to freedom and a true democracy. But while the mailed fist and the apparatus of the Old State was mainly absent now, the helping hand of the West remained extended, and its influence was never more in evidence.

  West of the Urals (only a little more than seventy miles from Nathan where David Chung had found him and Zek Föener had contacted him), in the chill, sparsely populated foothills of the Timanskiy Kryazh near Izhma, American geo-satellites had detected evidence of oil and gas fields which might well rival those at Ukhta in the south. Exploratory drilling had started two years ago; satellite predictions had been confirmed; the Anglo-American consortium would collect its very reasonable fee and pull out in two to three years’ time as per the contract, leaving other Western outfits to complete the pipeline. And from then on the Russians would pay a royalty or percentage to perpetuity.

  Meanwhile the hard-hats were still there, working in situ and resupplied on a regular basis by jet-copter out of Stockholm via Helsinki. Why not from Moscow or Sverdlovsk, or from the long established fields east of the Urals in Beresovo and Ust’balyk? But if the Soviets had retained that sort of technological capacity or know-how following their industrial, economic, and ideological collapse, then the West would never have been allowed in in the first place.

  Part of a Western aid program agreed to in the early 1990s, the Izhma Projekt was only one of many hundreds of schemes in progress right across the old USSR, from the Black Sea to the Kamchatka Peninsula and from Novaya Zemlya to Irkutsk. Now a small portion of that huge debt—in the shape of a wanderer from another world—would flow the other way, but with any luck the Russians would never know of the repayment.

  Except:

  “Maybe our luck just ran out,” Zek said, worriedly.

  It was a little after one-thirty A.M. GMT in London, and about five A.M. local in the woods west of Kozhva, where her call had shocked Nathan from his sleep. She’d kept it short: told him to head due west for Izhma, and what to look for. Then, almost too hurriedly, she’d pulled out. Now Zek’s face was drawn, and not only from concentration. Ben Trask’s voice echoed her concern when he asked, “What is it, Zek?”

  “Unless I miss my guess,” she answered, “there were other minds out there scanning around, looking for Nathan. And one of them was female, and powerful!”

  Most of the other Branch members were present, including Ian Goodly. He said, “That would be Siggi Dam. She’s their very best.”

  It was hardly reassuring. Likewise Zek’s: “But there was more than just that one. And at least one of the others was a locator, I think. His probe wasn’t telepathic, anyway.”

  The reason they had chosen this hour (the early hours of the morning in the Urals) was a simple matter of human frailty. Espers need sleep as much as other people, and the Opposition’s agents no less than anyone else. At five in the morning, people were at a low ebb. There was a flaw in that line of reasoning, of course: namely that Turkur Tzonov would understand the principle, too. But it had been a calculated risk.

  Trask said, “Do you think they overheard you?”

  “Not overheard as such … but they might have sensed my presence, just as I sensed theirs.”

  Trask looked at a blowup of the area superimposed on the large screen. “Terrain?” he queried of no one in particular.

  “Fairly flat,” someone spoke up. “Hard ground and a few woodland trails. Some moorland and frozen marsh, but plenty of cover in bands of dense, boreal forest. Climate? Cold enough to freeze the … antlers off an iron elk.” (That last in deference to Zek, Millicent Cleary, and Anna Marie English.)

  “But Nathan is hardy,” Zek said. “A Traveller in the company of his own kind.” She’d taken that from Nathan’s mind in a blurred, rushed sequence. “But I wonder: what on earth were they doing up there, those Gypsies?”

  “Let’s just be thankful they were there,” said Trask. And: “Weather?”

  “Frozen snow on the ground,” the same researcher replied. “And according to the Finn weather station at Kotka, a lot more of it on the way. But just soft, steady snow. Maybe we should also be thankful that it’s not going to be a blizzard! It’s due to start in two hours’ time and keep going for a day and a half. In any case, the supply plane won’t leave Stockholm until it’s over.”

  “Oh, really?” Trask grunted. “Well, in that case I’ve got some bad news for the pilot. The first hint of a break in the weather and he’s airborne!” He glanced at Chung. “And David, I want you to get some sleep. Tomorrow morning you’re with me on the first flight to Stockholm. Then, obviously, I want you on that supply plane to Izhma. If our man is coming in out of the cold, I don’t want him getting lost.”

  Trask looked at the other espers and smothered a yawn. “As for getting your heads down: with the exception of duties, the same goes for all of you.” He stretched his shoulders and eased his neck. “I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m dead on my feet. Time we called it a day.” And as they started to disperse: “Thanks for being here, everyone.”

  In a matter of minutes he and Zek were alone. “And especially you,” he told her. “Thanks for being here.”

  “Your coffee is dreadful,” she said. “But David booked me in at the hotel down below, and theirs is quite good. We could talk about Harry maybe, for a while … ?”
r />   Trask looked at her. She looked as tired as he felt, and this was her first time in England. A very capable woman, Zek, but right now she must feel lonely as hell. So did he, come to think of it. But then, he had for most of his life. “Sure,” he nodded. “A nightcap would be great.”

  They drank coffee in Zek’s hotel room (Trask had a small brandy with his), and talked a while about everything and nothing, until Zek fell asleep fully clothed on her bed. Then Trask pulled a cover over her, put the light out, and returned to his easy chair.

  And when she gave him a shake it was morning …

  8

  Not Quite Hell, and Sheer Hell!

  In the uncomfortable, noisy confines of the jet-copter’s passenger cabin, Siggi Dam studiously avoided the thoughts of her closest travelling companion and reflected upon the events of the last two days …

  Back in Perchorsk, Turkur Tzonov had been coldly furious for some thirty-odd hours now. In a way, this had suited Siggi well enough; she had been more than satisfied to steer clear of him. But even on the few occasions when they had come together accidentally, she’d not dared to look into his mind. For some reason (as a result of their showdown, perhaps, or something else which had happened since their trip out to Little Kozhva on the snowcat), Tzonov now demanded the same degree of mental privacy as Siggi herself. He would know it if she attempted to spy on him, and she didn’t want to give him any excuse to use similar tactics on her.

  Siggi knew how stupid she’d been, and how incredibly fortunate. Stupid in what she had done, and fortunate in that she hadn’t been found out. But surely Tzonov’s failure to discover her treachery meant that he was stupid in his turn, or at the very least blind. The latter was true, she knew. His egomania blinded him, preventing him from seeing the truth. But if the time should ever come when he did see it …

  In the evening following their return from Kozhva, esper assistance had arrived from Moscow in the shape of two lesser telepaths and a locator. The latter was a thin-faced, effeminate weasel of a man named Alexei Yefros; Siggi knew him through their work and disliked him intensely. Despite his suspect sexual proclivities (or perhaps because of them) Yefros was a misogynist with an especially ugly sadistic streak. Fully aware of Siggi’s telepathic range, still on those several previous occasions when they’d met he had not once attempted to camouflage thoughts which could only be likened to a cesspool. An admirer and close confidant of Turkur Tzonov, he was ruthless, ambitious, and extremely dangerous.

  Since the arrival of the espers, Tzonov had kept himself closeted with them in his makeshift operations suite just off the control room. Siggi had not been privy to their conversations, but she did know that Tzonov had spoken at some length to Premier Turchin (or to his presidential adviser, at least), and that he’d been given what amounted to a free hand in the matter of Nathan’s pursuit and recapture—with one important exception. Tzonov had wanted authority to bring the fugitive back dead or alive (preferably dead, as Siggi was well aware), but Turchin had insisted that Nathan be taken alive. It was the human rights issue, of course. Gustav Turchin was still cleaning the political mud of a very messy century off Russia’s boots, so that the last thing he wanted now was the blood of an innocent on his hands!

  The night after Nathan’s escape, Siggi had found sleep impossible. Tossing and turning in her bed for long hours at a stretch, only half-sleeping at best, finally she had given it up for a bad job. Rising well before dawn and dressing in her warmest clothing, she’d ventured out into the grey-misted ravine. There, relieved of Perchorsk’s claustrophobia and satisfied that Tzonov and the others were asleep, she’d extended a tentative telepathic probe across the mountains and beyond Kozhva, deep into the woodlands where the Gypsy caravans had been.

  The faint, ethereal dreams of loggers, trappers, and villagers, all were there, but she had searched for something else. And she had found it! Like a spiral of mental static from some weird computer mind, briefly (but very briefly), she believed that she had touched upon Nathan’s sleeping thoughts—only to discover that someone else was touching them, too! A telepathic mind: feminine, wary, clever, and benevolent. But who? British E-Branch? To Siggi’s knowledge there was only one female telepath in British ESPionage: a spinster called Millicent Cleary. But she was sure that this wasn’t her. No, for this one was a woman entire, experienced in every sense of the word.

  All of this from a mere touch; it said a lot for Siggi’s talent, and even more for the talent of the other. For in the selfsame moment that Siggi had become aware of the stranger, so that one had sensed Siggi … and not only Siggi!

  Then, made suddenly aware of other talented minds awake and watchful in the night—afraid that they might recognize hers—Siggi had withdrawn her thoughts and returned quickly to her room. And lying there in the dark, with the weight of the mountain once more pressing down on her (but not nearly as heavily as the weight of her fears), she’d wondered:

  But if Turkur is using these people out of Moscow in this way, why isn’t he using me? Was it her punishment for defying him: temporary exclusion from his schemes? Or would it be more permanent, because he no longer trusted her?

  Finally she had slept, but her dreams had been strange, furtive things in which she was pursued across the ridgy grey landscape of a throbbing, gigantic brain by black-winged inquisitorial thoughts with the piercing eyes, talons, and beaks of carrion crows …

  And the echoes of their cries (their questions?) were still ringing afar when she started awake. So that with Tzonov and his espers so close, she had wondered: was it perhaps more than just a dream? The invasion of sleeping minds would be common enough practice among espers such as these. And there had been times in Siggi’s past when her own duties were such that … that she no longer had the right to complain.

  That morning, yesterday, Tzonov had been up and about at first light, and his first act had been to cancel the search parties scheduled for duty in the regions to the east of the pass. But even as he’d ordered the jet-copter made ready for a mission to the west of the mountains, and sought Siggi out to take her with him, it had started to snow. And heavily.

  The flight had been canceled (even a routine ascent out of the pass could be hazardous enough without this!), which had served to determine Tzonov’s mood for the rest of the day. As for Siggi, she had never been happier to see bad weather. And the snow had stayed, and stayed. Not a blizzard but a continuous fall that blanketed the sky, turned the entire pass white, and forbade absolutely any kind of aerial search or reconnaisance which Tzonov might otherwise contemplate.

  As the day had progressed, so Siggi’s worries about her standing with the head of Russia’s E-Branch had receded somewhat. With every hour that passed, Nathan was getting farther away, and discovery of her own involvement less likely.

  Also, and despite Premier Turchin’s orders to the contrary, she knew that if Tzonov did track the fugitive down his men would be just as likely to shoot him as take him prisoner. Later, they would write corroborative reports to show how he had “resisted arrest” and they had been obliged to use force. On the other hand Tzonov might decide it were best if Nathan disappeared altogether, presumed “fled to the West”; in which event his riddled body could be dumped into a deep ravine somewhere, with no chance of any blame ever attaching to Turkur Tzonov. Anything in order to stop Nathan falling into the “wrong” hands, to prevent his (in any case doubtful) return to Sunside/Starside, or to exact a measure of vengeance in repayment for a bruised ego and a few days of intense embarrassment. But a man’s life? It seemed a lot of repayment to Siggi.

  She’d tried arguing with herself, tried telling herself that she too would benefit from Nathan’s death (for dead men can’t, after all, tell tales). But damn it to hell, she’d known him, however briefly, and been changed by knowing him! She would never be able to erase him—the innocence of Nathan’s mind—from her memory now. She wouldn’t want to erase it.

  So yesterday had dragged itself relentlessly by; the sky ha
d unloaded its burden, and Siggi’s depression had returned to deepen like the snow in the pass …

  Tzonov had arranged that she have dinner with him and his cronies. Siggi ate very little, kept her thoughts guarded from start to finish, sensed their hostility generally, and suffered Alexei Yefros’s seething, deviantly carnal glances especially. She could sense the locator’s rabid weasel mind loathsomely at work behind his glittering black eyes where they stripped away her clothing, and she shuddered not so much because he wanted her but for the ways in which he would like to use her.

  Finally the meal was over and Siggi could flee back to her room. The day’s events had exhausted her, and though she was half afraid of sleep, still she had no choice. Mercifully the previous night’s dreams (or visitations?) were not recurrent … at least, not until this morning. That was when she’d discovered that even wide awake, still one may nightmare.

  The nightmare was this: that the bad weather was clearing and Tzonov anticipated that by three P.M. the jet-copter would be cleared for takeoff. He and Yefros had a lead on the fugitive and would search for him west of Kozhva, and Siggi would accompany them. Yefros would attempt to locate him (there was this weird aura about him, something numerical, with which he shielded his mind), and Siggi would home in on Yefros’s probe for a more positive identification. This shouldn’t prove too difficult for her, for, as Tzonov delighted in reminding her, she’d already made Nathan’s “acquaintance” …

  Now it was four P.M. and Kozhva lay to the east more than fifty miles behind them; Tzonov was crammed up front with the pilot and copilot, and Siggi shared the passenger cabin with Alexei Yefros. His were the thoughts she studiously avoided, and his the probe she could sense sweeping out from him like ripples on a pool, or some personal psychic asdic, searching for Nathan’s fugitive identity.

  Yefros was good. Over Kozhva, suddenly he had come alive and pointed out of a window in a direction a little south of west. “That way! He’s there! He throws off equations like a smoke screen, which only serve to give him away!”