Her only major worry, for now, was the fate of the tuberider expedition.
With the return of Mirsky, and the disappearance of the three political officers, the Russians were becoming more and more cooperative. There was the problem of a shortage of women—there had been two rapes and several near instances, but that was fewer than she had expected. Many soldiers—NATO and Russian—had donated small arms to the women. They had not had to use them yet.
Hoffman had an appointment to meet with Mirsky in the fourth chamber in an hour. It would be their second meeting since his return, and the agenda up for discussion was long but not riddled with crises.
With Beryl Wallace and two marines, she rode the zero train from the first chamber to the fourth, then transferred to a truck in the NATO compound. The Russian compound had split into three during Mirsky's absence; it now occupied a long stretch of shore and two offshore islands. Two large rafts had been slung together out of logs, and boats were being constructed slowly and painstakingly; there were no facilities for processing lumber yet, though it seemed there might be in a couple of months, and the materials available to the boatbuilders were primitive.
The spinward trip through the forest was pure pleasure for Hoffman. The Russian "mainland" compound was near the ninety train platform, about forty kilometers from the NATO compound. Some of the most rugged terrain and deepest woods surrounded the Stoner-built road. There was even a gentle rain that beaded the truck windows.
Wallace talked about the resumption of science in the sixth and seventh chambers; Hoffman listened and nodded, but found the subject somehow uninteresting. Wallace sensed this after a few minutes and allowed her to sink deeper into her reverie.
The Russian mainland compound resembled an old Western fort. Tall saplings had been stripped of branches and bark and erected to form a secondary wall of defense beyond a high rampart of dirt. Russian soldiers swung wide the gates at their approach, and swung them shut behind.
The first thing that caught Hoffman's eye was a gallows. It stood—unoccupied, she thanked God—in the center of a quadrangle cleared of all grass and foliage and demarcated by head-sized boulders.
Other log buildings were under construction; the most ambitious was going to be three stories tall, designed along the lines of an old Russian country house.
Soldiers motioned them to park the truck behind a long, narrow building made of split logs. Mirsky received them informally at a desk in the east end of the long building. There were no walls; other work areas and sleeping slings were open for all to see. Hoffman and Wallace shook his hand and he motioned for them to sit in the canvas chairs. The marines stood outside, solemnly flanked by two Russian troopers.
He offered them tea. "Part of our allotment from your commissary, I'm afraid," he said. "But it is good tea."
"You're making progress with the camp," Hoffman said.
"Let's speak English," Mirsky suggested. "I need to practice." He poured the dark amber tea into three lightweight plastic cups.
"Fine," Hoffman said.
"I can't take credit for the progress," Mirsky said. "You know I was not here when most of this work was done."
"Everybody has been curious. . . .” Hoffman said.
"Oh? About what?"
Hoffman smiled and shook her head. "Never mind," she said.
"No, I insist." Mirsky's eyes widened. "What?"
"Your disappearance."
He looked between them. "I was dead," he said. "Then I was made well again. Does that answer your question?" Before she could reply, he said, "No, I wouldn't think so. Well then, I don't know. It's as much a mystery to me as to you."
"Well, whatever," Hoffman said, relaxing her smile. "We're glad you're back. There's a lot of work to be done."
First on the agenda was a discussion of the unloading of the heavy-lifter carrying equipment and supplies. It had remained docked in the bore hole since the Death; the crew had been allowed to evacuate, but no agreement had yet been reached on disposition of the cargo. In a few minutes, Hoffman and Mirsky negotiated a satisfactory procedure. All armaments would be left in a locked chamber in the staging area, guarded by Russians and NATO personnel; other materials would be delivered to the Russian fourth chamber compound. "We need material to barter as much as we need the supplies," Mirsky said.
The status of the Russian science team was next. Hoffman maintained that team members who wished to remain with the NATO group should be allowed to do so; Mirsky thought in silence for a moment, then nodded. "I need no more people uncertain about my rule," he said, regarding them both with eyes wide and facial muscles taut. He blinked twice, rapidly.
Hoffman glanced down at her notes. "This is going even more smoothly than last time," she said.
Mirsky leaned toward her, elbows on his knees, hands clasped. "I am tired of disputes," he said. "I have the calm of a dead man, Miss Hoffman. I'm afraid I unsettle some of my comrades."
"You keep saying you were killed. That doesn't make sense, General."
"Perhaps not. But it is true. I do not remember everything. But I remember I was shot in the head. Pogodin tells me they—" He held up his hands. "You can deduce who killed me. Half my head." He waved his hand away from the right half of his skull. "Killed, and then I was brought back to life again. I am thankful I was unarmed, or I might be where Belozersky, Vielgorsky and Yazykov are even now."
"And where is that?"
"I'm not positive," Mirsky said. "In detention, perhaps. It seems Thistledown City still has the means to carry out its own law."
"I thought that might be what happened. That means Thistledown City is still capable of making decisions and judgments, and acting on them."
"We must watch our behavior there, no?" Mirsky suggested.
Hoffman nodded and returned to the agenda. One by one, within forty-five minutes, all the items were covered, negotiated and agreed to.
"It's been a pleasure," Mirsky said, standing and offering her his hand. Hoffman shook it firmly and he escorted them to the truck.
"What about the gallows?" Wallace asked as they backtracked anti-spinward to the zero compound. "What are we going to make of that?"
"No more Mr. Nice Guy," Hoffman suggested idly. "Maybe it's just a warning."
"He's spooky," Wallace said.
Hoffman agreed. "Very," she said.
Chapter Fifty-Five
From their quarters in Axis Nader, the five were taken by Suli Ram Kikura and the Frant to the flaw passage, around which the cylindrical precinct rotated. Their transportation was an empty shaft three kilometers long; their fall was similar to a ride in the apartment building elevator in Thistledown City, and therefore—mercifully—not too unexpected.
Carrolson enjoyed it the least of them; she had a distinct fear of precipices; not of heights per se, but of edges. She managed, however, with both Lanier's and Ram Kikura's encouragement. "I'm not a goddamned old woman," she said resentfully as they fell.
The flaw passage was a half-kilometer-wide pipe through the Axis City, with the singularity at its center. Hundreds of thousands of citizens lined the walls and floated in clutching, roiling yet very coordinated clusters along their path. Ram Kikura and the Frant conferred with the passage engineer, a female homorph who, like Olmy, was also self-contained and lacked nostrils.
The five were then introduced to the first of many city officials, the Minister of Axis Nader, a gray-haired, distinguished and hale-looking orthodox Naderite who flew a Japanese rising sun over his left shoulder. He seemed to have not an ounce of Oriental blood, but then, his form could have been artificial—probably was—and no one had time or much inclination to inquire. "You may call me Mayor, if you like," he said in perfect English and Chinese. These languages were now the rage of the four precincts, extending even beyond those who claimed specific ancestry.
On the flaw was a beetle-like, black maintenance vehicle not dissimilar to the one that had dismantled the tuberider. It was larger, however, equipped with a wid
e and well-appointed cabin, liberally decorated with rare (and genuine) red bunting. Pictors projected very convincing fireworks around the vehicle and the flaw as Ram Kikura, the mayor and the Frant stood aside, allowing them to enter first. They took seats in a half-circle behind the controls and were gently clamped in by something they could not see.
The mayor took the controls—a Y-shaped black pillar with receptacles for the fingers of two hands—and the hatch irised shut silently.
They moved down the flaw, preceded by a faint pulse of red. Fireworks still blossomed on all sides, sometimes harmlessly intersecting parts of the crowd.
"It's not enough just to see you on the pictors," Ram Kikura said. "People haven't changed much. I'd guess that maybe a third of those out there are ghosts—picted themselves, with monitors at the center of their images. See and be seen."
"Where's Alice?" Heineman grumbled.
"Alice who?" Ram Kikura asked.
"Just Alice," Heineman said. "I can't help feeling we're in Wonderland."
"Are we missing someone?" the mayor asked, turning his head and appearing concerned.
"No," the Frant said, making its tooth-grinding noise.
The journey took a half hour, covering fifteen kilometers from the vicinity of Axis Nader to the Central City. Here, the crowds were even more dense—and more disorderly. Individuals—neomorphs predominating—tried to block the slow progress of the maintenance vehicle and were gently brushed aside, by the uncurling sheets of traction fields rippling ahead of the craft.
Patricia sat patiently, saying little, occasionally stealing glance at Lanier. Lanier's face wore a constant half-puzzled frown. He lifted his lip slightly at the appearance of some of the neomorphs—elongated snake-like curls, shiny as chrome; fish, birds and radiolarian spheres like the silicate shells of plankton; varieties of human shape that went beyond the basic description of homorph. Farley absorbed it all with gape-jawed fascination.
"I'll bet I look like a rude," she said at one point, then glanced at her companions, realizing nobody understood her. "What's the word I'm looking for?" she asked Lanier.
"I haven't the faintest idea," he replied, grinning affectionately. She put her hand on his. Patricia withdrew a little into her seat.
So what is this? she asked herself. A little jealousy? Being unfaithful to Paul? Why should Garry pay any attention to you to at all? He came to find you—out a sense of duty.
She shut off that area of inquiry, seeing no need to invade a territory of great pain and uncertainty and guilt.
They left the maintenance vehicle—and the mayor of Axis Nader—behind, escorted now by the neomorph Minister of Central City and Senator Prescient Oyu. Olmy greeted them at the broad circular entrance to the Hexamon Nexus Chamber. Within the chamber, there was confusion on all sides; homorphs, neomorphs, some with American flags picted over their shoulders—and at the center, near the podium, two wide and vibrantly living images of the flags of the Republic of China and the United States.
Cheers and music, boisterous and welcoming.
Heineman blinked and Carrolson took his arm as they were pushed along a traction field by Olmy and Ram Kikura. Prescient Oyu, as beautiful and graceful as any woman Lanier had ever seen, took his arm and Patricia's, and the Minister of Central City entered beside Farley.
Lanier saw several senators—or were they corpreps?—wearing the Soviet hammer and sickle. And then they were in the center of the Nexus Chamber. The senators and corpreps became quiet and all displays faded.
Director Hulane Ram Seija came to the podium and told the Nexus that their guests would soon be going to the Frant gate, to see the workings of commerce in the Way. And after that, they would be taken by Senator Prescient Oyu to meet with her father, who even now presided over the preliminaries to a gate opening at 1.3 ex 9.
Lanier had been elected spokesperson for the group. Suli Ram Kikura had suggested—against Olmy's mild objections—that he might use this opportunity to state his case.
He moved unsteadily along a traction field to the podium and received the armillary bands of light.
He looked to all sides—and behind—before starting.
"It's not an easy thing talking to one's descendants," he said. "Though. . . I never had children, so I doubt if any of you are even remotely related to me. And of course, there's the matter of different universes. Discussing these things makes me feel like a Stone Age tribesman seeing his first airplane—or spaceship. We are completely out of our element, and while we have been welcomed here, we cannot call this place home. . . .”
He caught Patricia's eye and her brief expression between fear and expectation. Of what?
"But the one place we can call home is now in ruins. This is our tragedy—our mutual tragedy. For you, the history of the Death is remote, but for us it is immediate and very real. We still suffer from our memories, our experiences, and we will grieve for years to come, probably for the rest of our lives." What he needed to say came clear to him then, as if he had been thinking about it for days—and perhaps he had, but not consciously.
"Earth is our home—your home, your cradle, as well as my own. It is now a place of death and misery, and it is beyond the power of my friends and colleagues to remedy that. . . .
"But it is not beyond your power. If you would celebrate us, and celebrate our unlikely presence in this chamber, then would it not be appropriate to help us? Earth needs your help desperately. Perhaps we can rewrite history, and correct it.
"Let us go home together," he said, feeling his throat catch.
In the first ring of seats, Olmy listened and nodded only once. Just beyond, in the second ring, Oligand Toller, the President's advocate and representative in this session, locked the fingers of his two hands in his lap, his face impassive.
"Let us go home," Lanier repeated. "Your ancestors need you."
Chapter Fifty-Six
Pletnev blew out his breath and wiped his red face with a scrap of towel, dropping the ax into a tree stump. A few meters away, a stack of notched logs waited assembly into a cabin. Pletnev had also made a trough for mixing mud to daub into the cracks between the logs, and cleared a site in the woods near the beach.
Beside him, Garabedian and Annenkovsky stood with arms crossed, faces intently surveying the ground.
"Are you saying," Pletnev began, after blowing out again, "that he has changed so much we can no longer rely on him?"
"He isn't concentrating on his command," Annenkovsky said. "He holds us back."
"Holds you back from doing what?"
"For one thing," Annenkovsky continued, "he treats Vielgorsky's followers as if they were merely errant children, and not dangerous subversives."
"Well, perhaps that's wise. There are too few of us to purge willy-nilly."
"That is not the only problem," Annenkovksy said. "He frequently leaves the compound, takes the train and a truck to the library, and just sits there, looking confused. We think his brain is addled."
Pletnev looked to Garabedian. "What do you think, Comrade Major?"
"He is not the same man," Garabedian said. "He himself admits it. And he keeps claiming he is dead. Resurrected. It isn't. . . appropriate."
"Is he still General Pavel Mirsky?"
"Why ask that? Ask if he is a good leader," Annenkovsky said. "Any of us could do better."
"He's been negotiating with the Americans. . . has he negotiated badly?" Pletnev asked.
"No," Garabedian said. "Smoothly, if anything."
"Then I don't understand what we have to complain about. He'll return to normal. He's had a traumatic experience—and a mysterious one. We can't expect it not to change him some."
Annenkovsky frowned and shook his head. "I disagree that he's negotiated well for us. He's made many concessions he shouldn't have."
"And he's gained concessions very useful to us," Pletnev said. "I know. Because of the agreements, we may be able to move into the cities soon."
"He is no longer in his r
ight mind!" Annenkovsky said heatedly. "He talks about not being the same person—he does not have the. . . the touch a commanding general should have!"
Pletnev looked between the two majors and then glanced up at the plasma tube, squinting. "What would Vielgorsky and Yazykov and Belozersky have done for us? Nothing. Made things worse. Killed all three of us, more than likely. I say, do not trade the devil you know for the devil you don't. Mirsky's a mild sort of devil."
"He's a lamb, not a devil," Garabedian said dubiously. "I regard him as a friend, but. . .”
Pletnev raised his eyebrow in query.
"Well, in a crisis, I do not know how he would behave."
"I think the crises are over," Pletnev said. "Now forget this talk. Go. Do not rock the boat. Let me build my cabin in peace."
Garabedian nodded, stuck his hands in his pockets and turned to walk away. Annenkovsky stayed for a moment, watching Pletnev trim a notch in a log.
"We were thinking of making you our leader," Annenkovsky said quietly. "We would not harm General Mirsky."
"I do not accept," Pletnev said without looking up.
"What if he goes completely crazy?"
"He won't," Pletnev said.
"Where are you?" Mirsky shouted for the dozenth time.
He stood in the middle of the array of library seats and data pillars, fists raised in the air. His cheeks were red and wet and his neck was ribbed with anger and frustration.
"Are you dead, like me? Did they execute you?"
Still no answer.
"You murdered me!"
He clenched his jaw and struggled to control his breathing. He knew if he tried to say anything more, the words would come out in mangled fragments. The little signal in his mind—a brief, explanatory warning, You are now using material not native to your personality, was about to drive him over the edge. So much of what he thought and did was punctuated by this message. He had explored those boundaries thoroughly—lying in his sling at night, trying to sleep, realizing he did not need to sleep.