“Bull.”
“I was in charge, and I did everything I could to prevent the war. I failed. So I can’t really say how I am, just yet. Maybe not too well. I don’t know. I’m giving them tit for tat in the negotiations. But I’m very tired.”
She tapped his hand with her fingers and nodded slowly, her eyes fixed on his. ”Okay. You still have my full confidence. You know that, Garry?”
“After things settle down, we can all take our turn sticking our heads through the hole in the Sisyphus mural. Now tell me about the invasion and everything that’s happened since.”
Lanier had a vague daydream of taking Mirsky to the second chamber library alone, or with at most only one bodyguard apiece. When he arrived at the cafeteria negotiating tables, Mirsky, Garabedian, two of the three surviving political officers—Belozersky and Major Yazykov—and four armed SSTs awaited him. He quickly asked Gerhardt and Jaeger to accompany him, and to balance the forces, four marines joined the group.
They rode in silence from the first chamber to the second chamber’s zero bridge. One of Mirsky’s troopers drove the track for the first half of the short journey. Mirsky glanced at Lanier several times during the trip through the city, sizing him up, Lanier suspected. The Russian lieutenant general was a closed book to Lanier; not once had Mirsky revealed any of his private side. Still, Lanier had a much higher regard for Mirsky than for Belazerksy. Mirsky might listen to reason; Belozersky wouldn’t even know what reason was.
Halfway across the bridge, the truck stopped and a marine took over the driving duties. They passed through the shopping district Patricia had described as “quaint” and then disembarked in the library plaza. One marine and one SST stayed behind to guard the truck. They squared off at opposite corners of the vehicle and studiously avoided conversation.
Gerhardt engaged Belozerksy in conversation through Jaeger.
This gave Lanier an opportunity to lead Mirsky a few steps ahead and prepare him for what they would find.
“I’m not sure what your commanders told you about the Stone,” he began, “but I doubt you had the complete story.”
Mirsky stared ahead stonily. ”The Stone is a better name than the Potato,” he admitted, lifting his eyebrows. ”Calling it the Potato makes us worms, no? I have been told the Stone was built by humans.”
“That’s not the half of it.”
“Then I am interested to hear the rest.”
Lanier told him the story in some detail as they entered the library and climbed the stairs to the second floor.
In the reading room, Lanier found a section of Russian volumes in the stacks and emerged with three, handing one to Mirsky—a translation of the Brief History of the Death—and one each to Belozersky and Yazykov.
Belozersky stood with his book firmly clutched in both hands, staring at Lanier as if he had been insulted. ”What is this supposed to be?” he asked. Yazykov opened his volume hesitantly.
“Read it for yourself,” Lanier suggested.
“It is Dostoevsky,” Belozersky said. He traded books with Yazykov.
“And Aksakov. These are supposed to interest us?”
“Perhaps if you would look at the printing dates, gentlemen,” Lanier said quietly. They opened their books, read and then closed them sharply, almost together.
“We must explore these shelves thoroughly,” Belozersky said. He did not sound happy at the prospect.
Mirsky held his book open in both hands, thumbing through it and returning several times to the publication notice, once touching the date with his finger. He closed the book on his thumb and tapped its spine on the surface of the reading table, looking up at Lanier. The second chamber library seemed, if anything, darker and gloomier than before.
“This tells the history of the war,” Mirsky half asked, half stated. “It is an accurate translation of the English edition?”
“I believe so.”
“Gentlemen, Mr. Lanier and I must be alone for a few minutes. Comrade officers, you will please wait with General Gerhardt and his men, and you will take our men with you.”
Belozersky placed the book on an empty reading table and Yazykov followed suit. ”You should not be long, Comrade General,” Belozersky said.
“As long as it takes,” Mirsky said.
Lanier had brought along a canteen half-filled with brandy, hopeful of just such an opportunity. He now poured out a cup for each of them.
“This is much appreciated,” Mirsky said, lifting the cup.
“Special service,” Lanier said.
“My political officers would accuse you of trying to get me drunk and pump me—that is the idiom?—for information.”
“There’s not enough left to get drunk on,” Lanier said.
“Pity. I am not strong enough for ... this.” Mirsky gave the library two widely spaced jabs with the empty cup. “Maybe you are, but I am not. It frightens me to death.”
“You’ll find strength after a while,” Lanier said. ”It’s as attractive as it is frightening.”
“You have known this for how long?”
“Two years.”
“I think I will let others find the attraction,” Mirsky said. “My people will now have access to all this—unrestricted, any of us, the soldiers and officers, too?”
“That’s the agreement.”
“How did you learn to speak Russian? In school?”
“In the third chamber library,” Lanier said. ”It took me just over three hours.”
“You speak like a Muscovite. One who has been overseas for a few decades, perhaps, but still ... a Muscovite. Could I learn English that quickly?”
“Probably.”
Lanier split the last of the brandy and they toasted each other.
“You are a strange man, Garry Lanier,” Mirsky said solemnly.
“Oh?”
“Yes. You are turned inside. You see others but don’t let them see you.”
Lanier did not react.
“There, see?” Mirsky grinned. ”You are that way.” The Russian’s eyes suddenly resumed their sharp focus on him. “Why didn’t you let the world know about this from the beginning?”
“After you’ve spent a little more time here, and in the third chamber, ask yourself what you would have done.”
It was Mirsky’s turn not to react. ”There are bitter grievances between our people,” he said, dropping the book on the table with a thump. ”They will not be easily laid to rest. In the meantime, I do not understand this place. I do not understand our position here, or yours. My ignorance is dangerous, Mr. Lanier, so I will come here, or to the other library, when time permits, and educate myself. And I will learn English using your method, if that is possible. But, to prevent confusion, I do not think all my people will be allowed to come here. Would it not be wise for you to look to similar restrictions?”
Lanier shook his head, wondering if Mirsky even saw his own contradictions. ”We’re here to break the pattern of the past, not continue it. As far as I’m concerned, it’s open to all.”
Mirsky stared at him for an uncomfortably long period of time, then stood. “Perhaps,” he said. ”That is much easier for you to say than for me. My people are not used to being well informed. Some of my officers will find the thought frightening. Some will not believe any of this ... they will assume it is an American trick. That would be very comforting.”
“But you know it isn’t.”
Mirsky reached out to touch the book. ”If a truth is dangerous,” he said, “then perhaps it is not true enough.”
The strip of parkland in the second chamber where Mirsky’s battalion had landed now took the bodies of the dead. A hundred and six American, British and German soldiers had died in the battle and lay in aluminized sacks down a long trench opened by one of the anthropology team’s excavators.
Three hundred sixty-two Soviets lay in four more trenches.
Another ninety-eight Soviets and a dozen Western bloc soldiers were missing and presumed dead,
either destroyed in the battle or drifted out of the bore hole to become freeze-dried mummies in orbit around the Stone. A special marker had been set up for the dead of OTV 45 and the crews of the lost heavy-lifters.
Two thousand three hundred people gathered around the trenches.
Mirsky and Gerhardt spoke in Russian and English, keeping their words brief and to the point. They were burying more than just their fellows; though there was no marker yet for the dead of Earth, they were burying distant family members, friends; distant cultures, histories, dreams.
They were burying the past, or as much of it as they could part with.
The Soviets stood together in ranks. Within the Soviet group, the members of their science team remained isolated, selected out.
The Soviets stood in silence as a Chaplain Cook and Yitshak Jacob, acting as a rabbi, administered last rites and kaddish. A Soviet Uzbek Moslem stepped forward to offer his prayers.
Mirsky threw the first spade of dirt into the Soviet graves.
Gerhardt threw a spadeful into the NATO grave. Then, without planning or warning, Gerhardt took a shovel of dirt from the mound to be pushed over his men, and carried it to the first Soviet trench.
Mirsky did the same without hesitation.
Belozersky watched with a face permanently locked in disapproval.
Vielgorsky kept a silent, dignified demeanor.
Yazykov seemed to be somewhere else, and his eyes were moist.
Hoffman and Farley stepped forward and laid a wreath at the head of each site. As the crowd moved away, the archaeology team immediately began filling in the trenches. The Soviets divided to return to the first and fourth chambers. Farley, Carrolson and Hoffman joined Lanier and Heineman at the zero bridge. They watched people crossing to go to the train terminals. Carrolson edged closer to Lanier and touched his arm.
“Garry, there’s something we have to talk about.”
“Let’s hear it,” he said.
“Not here. In the compound,” Carrolson said, looking to Hoffman.
They gathered in the trucks and crossed the first chamber. Carrolson, Farley, Heineman and Hoffman accompanied Lanier to the deserted administration building, where they gathered around Blakely’s desk on the first floor.
“Sounds like bad news coming,” he said. His eyes widened in present realization. ”Oh, my God,” he said. “Where’s—”
Carrolson interrupted him. ”You’ve been too busy until now. We’re not sure what’s happened, but Patricia can’t be found anywhere. There are two reports, but one’s Russian and it may not be credible. Rimskaya heard it when he was talking with the Russian science team. The other’s from Larry. We thought we’d find her, that maybe she was just hiding out somewhere, but—”
Heineman nodded. ”What I saw just seems to add to the mystery,” he said.
“Patricia left the fourth chamber compound last Wednesday,’’ Farley said. ”Nobody saw her go, but Lenore is convinced she must have taken a train to the third chamber.”
“She said she was going to a library. We were all a little crazy then, and she was taking it very hard,” Carrolson said. “The Russian team says that a Soviet soldier saw an aircraft land near one of the subway terminals in Thistledown, on the northern side—the zero line terminal,” Farley said. ”Two people got aboard—and something the Russian called a devil. One of the ... humans was a man and the other a woman, and the woman fits Patricia’s description. The aircraft flew off. White, spade-shaped, but with the nose blunted. It didn’t make any noise.”
Heineman stepped forward. ”I saw a boojum go past when I was down the corridor. Arrowhead-shaped, blunt nose. It was traveling in a spiral around the plasma tube, heading north.”
“There hasn’t been time until now to put it all together,” Carrolsou said. ”I’m sorry about the delay.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” Lanier said, shaking his head. “Maybe she was just captured by the Russians. Maybe—”
“Rimskaya’s asked around. He thinks not,” Carrolson said. “There wasn’t anybody in Thistledown but a few Soviet paratroopers off course—no diversionary troops, none of our troopsnot at that time. Nobody but Patricia.”
“And a boojum,” Heineman said. ”The coincidence is too close, Garry.”
He continued to shake his head. ”It’s over. Please. I just can’t handle much more,” he said. ”Judith, tell them. I can’t do anything now. There’s the negotiations, and the—”
“Of course,” Hoffman said, gripping his shoulder firmly with one hand. ”Let’s all get some rest.”
Lanier held one hand to his face, as if to smooth the deep grooves of anguish around his mouth. ”I’m supposed to take care of her,” he said. “She’s important. Judith, you told me to take care of her.”
“It’s all right. There wasn’t anything—”
“Goddamn this place, Judith!” He raised his fists and shook them helplessly. ”I hate this fucking rock!”
Carrolson began to cry. Farley held her. ”Not just you,” Carrolson said. ”You put her in my charge.”
“Stop it,” Hoffman said quietly, looking away. Heineman stood back, embarrassed and uncertain what to do.
“I’m not going to just give up on her,” Lanier said, lowering his arms and opening and closing his hands. ”She’s not just gone. Larry, can we have the tuberider fueled and ready to go soon?”
“Any time you give the word.”
“Judith, I think you chose wrong,” Lanier said.
“I don’t think so. What do you mean?”
“I’m not going to see it through. I’m going to run off on a foolish rescue mission, not stay here and argue with a bunch of Soviets. You know me. You know I’m going to do that.”
“Okay,” she said. ”You’ll go after her. There are other who can negotiate.”
“We’re stuck here, aren’t we?” Hoffman said. ”We have to find out what’s down there soon anyway. Larry, does the V/ STOL work? The tuberider?”
“They work fine,” Heineman said.
“Then we’ll plan. But we’ll do it carefully. Is that okay? Not right away, but soon?”
“Okay,” Lanier said meekly.
“I think we all need to relax and eat and rest,” Farley said, looking around for agreement.
They stood in silence, a bit shaken by how close to the edge Lanier had come—and by the realization of how close they all were.
“I’d like to go, too,” Carrolson said.
Chapter Thirty-three
So I suppose you want to get away from it all. Feel like it’s very remote.
—Yes.
Go chasing down the corridor after her. Why?
—To save my goddamn soul, that’s why.
You haven’t done badly.
—The Earth is in ruins, the Stone is half-occupied by surly Russians, and I’ve lost the one person I was specifically told to protect.
But the Stone is still here, and the situation seems to be stabilizing —Belozersky. Yazykov. Vielgorsky. OM-liners, hard-liners. Yes. They’re trouble, and shouldn’t you stick around to blunt their particular axes? You’ll leave Hoffman with all the problems.
—She’ll let me go because she knows I’m at the end of my rope. I can’t take any more. I’m of no use to her or the Stone ... except to go find Patricia.
Lanier opened his eyes and looked at his wristwatch: 0750 hours.
He felt paralyzed. The voices continued in his head, back and forth.
His mind was trying to cope with the intolerable—and to find his place in a new situation.
He kept thinking of Earth, of people—friends, co-worker’s, perhaps the very people he had met a few weeks before—crawling through the rubble.
Very likely, there was not a single person alive on Earth whom he knew personally. That was good statistics but a lousy thought, lousy psychology. Most of his contacts (his people) had lived in cities or worked in military centers.
One exception was Robert Tyheimer. A submarine
commander, he had been married to Lanier’s sister, who had died of a stroke two years before Lanier was assigned to the Stone.
They hadn’t talked since a year after her death. Tyheimer might still be alive, under the ice, waiting. If he hadn’t already contributed to the general destruction, then Tyheimer would guard his warheads and wait ... and wait ... for the next exchange. For the final blows.
“I hate you,” Lanier said out loud, eyes closed again. He didn’t even know whom he meant. Three psychiatrists gathered in his head and discoursed; one, a cliche Freudian, always twisted the worst and most sordid interpretation out of his every fleeting glimmer of thought.
Yes ... and your mother ... and what did you say then? Meant yourself, didn’t you?
Another sat quietly, smiling, letting him hang himself in his own ropy confusions.
The third nodded and recommended work therapy. The third resembled his father.
He turned over in the bed and opened his eyes again. No sleep, no rest. How long would it take for the people on the Stone to crack? How many, and how seriously? Who would contend with the problem, himself or Hoffman?
But the decision had already been made. He had given Hoffman the grand tour—and had encountered Mirsky in the third chamber library, sitting before a teardrop. The Russian lieutenant general had been accompanied by three bodyguards, even though the library was otherwise empty. He had appeared exhausted, and ignored them.
Showing Hoffman to a seat some distance away from the Russians, Lanier had taught her how to use the facilities. He had passed the keys to her, and she had welcomed them.
He sat up and flipped on the intercom. Blakely was back at her desk and still in charge of the central switchboard.
“I can’t sleep,” he said. ”What’s Heineman’s schedule now?”
“He’s awake, if that’s what you want to know,” she said.
“Fine. And in the seventh chamber, no doubt.”
“No, schedule here says staging area in the southern bore hole.”
“Call him, please.”
“Will do.”
“Tell him I want to leave tomorrow, early, eight hundred hours.”