William Gibson Collection Short Stories

[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

STAGGERING SOVIET TRADE DEFICITS . . . POPULAR DISCONTENT WITH SPACE EFFORT .
. . RECENT DECISIONS BY
POLITBURO AND CENTRAL COMMITTEE SECRETARIAT . . .
"They're shutting us down!" The Plumber's face contorted with rage.
Korolev twisted away from the screen, shaking uncontrollably. Sudden tears
peeled from his lashes in free-fall droplets. "Leave me alone! I can do
nothing!"
"What's wrong, Colonel?" The Plumber grabbed his shoulders. "Look me in the
face. Someone's dosed you with the Fear!"
"Go away," Korolev begged.
"That little spook bastard! What has he given you? Pills? An injection?"
Korolev shuddered. "I had a drink-"
"He gave you the Fear! You, a sick old man! I'll break his face!" The Plumber
jerked his knees up, somersaulted backward, kicked off from a handhold
overhead, and catapulted out of the room.
"Wait! Plumber!" But the Plumber had zipped through the docking sphere like a
squirrel, vanishing down the corridor, and now Korolev felt that he couldn't
bear to be alone. In the distance, he could hear metallic echoes of distorted,
angry shouts.
Trembling, he closed his eyes and waited for someone to help him.
He'd asked Psychiatric Officer Bychkov to help him dress in his old uniform,
the one with the Star of the Tsiolkovsky Order sewn above the left breast
pocket. The black dress boots of heavy quilted nylon, with their Velcro soles,
would no longer fit his twisted feet; so his feet remained bare.
Bychkov's injection had straightened him out within an hour, leaving him
alternately depressed and furiously angry. Now he waited in the museum for
Yefremov to answer his summons.
They called his home the Museum of the Soviet Triumph in Space, and as his
rage subsided, to be replaced with an ancient bleakness, he felt very much as
if he were simply another one of the exhibits. He stared gloomily at the
gold-framed portraits of the great visionaries of space, at the faces of
Tsiolkovsky, Rynin, Tupolev. Below these, in slightly smaller frames, were
Page 45
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
portraits of Verne, Goddard, and O'Neill.
In moments of extreme depression he had sometimes imagined that he could
detect a common strangeness in their eyes, particularly in the eyes of the two
Americans. Was it simply craziness, as he sometimes thought in his most
cynical moods? Or was he able to glimpse a subtle manifestation of some weird,
unbalanced force that he had often suspected of being human evolution in
action?
Once, and only once, Korolev had seen that look in his own eyes-on the day
he'd stepped onto the soil of the Coprates Basin. The Martian sunlight,
glinting within his helmet visor, had shown him the reflection of two steady,
alien eyes-fearless, yet driven-and the quiet, secret shock of it, he now
realized, had been his life's most memorable, most transcendental moment.
Above the portraits, oily and inert, was a painting that depicted the landing
in colors that reminded him of borscht and gravy, the Martian landscape
reduced to the idealistic kitsch of Soviet Socialist realism. The artist had
posed the suited figure beside the lander with all of the official style's
deeply sincere vulgarity.
Feeling tainted, he awaited the arrival of Yefremov, the KGB man, Kosmograd's
Political Officer.
When Yefremov finally entered the Salyut, Korolev noted the split lip and the
fresh bruises on the man's throat. He wore a blue Kansai jump suit of Japanese
silk
and stylish Italian deck shoes. He coughed politely. "Good morning, Comrade
Colonel."
Korolev stared. He allowed the silence to lengthen. "Yefremov," he said
heavily, "I am not happy with you."
Yefremov reddened, but he held his gaze. "Let us speak frankly to each other,
Colonel, as Russian to Russian. It was not, of course, intended for you."
"The Fear, Yefremov?"
"The beta-carboline, yes. I you hadn't pandered to their antisocial actions,
if you hadn't accepted their bribe, it would not have happened."
"So I am a pimp, Yefremov? A pimp and a drunkard? You are a cuckold, a
smuggler, and an informer. I say this," he added, "as one Russian to another."
Now the KGB man's face assumed the official mask of bland and untroubled
righteousness.
"But tell me, Yefremov, what it is that you are really about. What have you
been doing since you came to Kosmograd? We know that the complex will be
stripped. What is in store for the civilian crew when they return to Baikonur?
Corruption hearings?"
"There will be interrogation, certainly. In certain cases there may be
hospitalization. Would you care to suggest, Colonel Korolev, that the Soviet
Union is somehow at fault for Kosmograd's failures?"
Korolev was silent.
"Kosmograd was a dream, Colonel. A dream that failed. Like space. We have no
Page 46
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
need to be here. We have an entire world to put in order. Moscow is the
greatest power in history. We must not allow ourselves to lose the global
perspective."
"Do you think we can be brushed aside that easily? We are an elite, a highly
trained technical elite."
"A minority, Colonel, an obsolete minority. What do
you contribute, aside from reams of poisonous American trash? The crew here
were intended to be workers, not bloated black marketeers trafficking in jazz
and pornography." Yefremov's face was smooth and calm. "The crew will return
to Baikonur. The weapons are capable of being directed from the ground. You,
of course, will remain, and there will be guest cosmonauts: Africans, South
Americans. Space still retains a degree of its former prestige for these
people."
Korolev gritted his teeth. "What have you done with the boy?"
"Your Plumber?" The Political Officer frowned. "He has assaulted an officer
of the Committee for State Security. He will remain under guard until he can
be taken to Baikonur."
Korolev attempted an unpleasant laugh. "Let him go. You'll be in too much [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Tematy