David Nickle - Rasputin's Bastards

Amar Shadak.

“What is that?” whispered Alexei. “It is incomprehensible.”

Vladimir’s smile was all gums. “Discourse,” he said. “That which you are hear-ing is what we call Discourse. When we speak to one another without words. It is like the conversation we are having now. But broader.”

“Broader?” Alexei frowned. “It sounds insane. Who is it that is speaking?”

“Many,” said Vladimir. “You really have no inkling about Discourse, do you?”

“I’ve heard the word. Many who? Is Fyodor Kolyokov among them?”

“Oh yes.” As they spoke, Ming and Wali Beg separated and turned on a foot to face away from one another — like dancers in a music box. Young Alexei stood with his hands dangling at his side, his head back and jaw slack.

“Am I — was I among them?”

Vladimir rubbed his face and his smile vanished.

“You are getting close,” he said, “to the nub of things.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” said Alexei.

“Listen,” whispered Vladimir.

The caves fell silent: only the faint whistling of wind through unseen fissures; the distant thunder, more sporadic now, of artillery fire. Ming and Wali Beg had sat down, backs to one another and cross-legged in the sand. Young Alexei’s eyes were open, and seemed alert, but he sat still, leaning laconically against a crate in the top tine of the E . The sky was a disc of gold and azure at the top of the chimney. It mingled with the dark blue of the top of the carriage to make purple. Nothing moved — it was as if nothing lived. Idly, Alexei rocked the carriage.

“What is to happen next?” asked Alexei.

The carriage creaked.

“Vladimir?”

Alexei stepped around the carriage. His breath caught in his throat.

“Vladimir!” The seat was empty. Vladimir was gone.

Alexei bunched his fists. And looked around the cave. He swore. The little bastard had abandoned him! Left him at the cusp of understanding. In a great, silent cave, where even the whistling of the wind was muted.

“Talk to me!” He hollered it to the sky. To the others. The wind whistled.

And after a moment, he could hear:

RodionovRodionov

Discourse.

The Discourse was still going strong — but the more Alexei listened, the more he could hear of it. And hearing more of it turned the entire thing into a cacoph-ony; it was like trying to tell the data from a telephone modem by listening to the connection screech:

Iyouitwillnotbeinthehellofyourmakingwewilltransformyouwalkwalkrunrunmo-verunredorangeyellowgreenblueindigovioletranoverrodionovcaseykandaharasey…

Was this Vladimir’s idea, Alexei wondered? To leave him alone with this in-decipherable rant, to let him figure out his history with this? He couldn’t believe that. He got up off the crate, and strode across the sand. He turned sideways and folded himself through the crack in the cave wall. And then, as he bent back and forward around the difficult rocks in the tunnel, Alexei lost track of the Dis-course. And the silence of the caves was broken by another sound — of angry whispering — just two voices; and just ahead.

Alexei continued forward — creeping, trying to be stealthy, in spite of the fact that he could move unseen and unheard. Finally, he made it to the end of the tunnel — and stepped out into the small antechamber. There was Shadak — and another man: one of the Mujahedeen. A thin-bodied, thin-bearded young man who Alexei vaguely remembered from the trip out.

“This is complete shit,” Shadak was saying. “You are not even attempting to hide the shipment. Why are there no guards on the hillside? This is a fucking set-up, isn’t it?”

The man was didn’t answer. He stared at Shadak and through him. Shadak ran a hand through his hair. He glared at the man.

“You fucker,” he said. “If this were a fucking drug run, I’d have shot you by now.

This is fucking intolerable.”

The man ran his own hand through his hair.

“Why don’t you fucking answer me?” he demanded. “Why don’t you fuck-ing—”

Shadak stopped. He looked up. Directly at Alexei.

“You!” he said, eyes wide. Alexei’s own eyes went wide too. Then he felt a chill at his back — moving forward through him, like a storm through his flesh.

“What do you know of this?” said Shadak darkly.

“I — I don’t,” said Alexei.

“More than you,” came a voice from Alexei’s throat. “But not for long.” At the same time, he heard:

Redorangeyellowgreenbluepreparetheagentonetwothreereadysetgowemust-finishthisoneorallmaybelostthenRodionovRodionovRodionovonovovovovovfocus-focusonlyonechancetodothisrigh —

And then, Alexei found himself looking at the back of his own head. His own younger head. As the head receded, Alexei pieced together what had happened: his younger self had just passed through him — an intersection of his ghosts.

Of many ghosts. Locked in Discourse.

Alexei stepped back and watched his younger self step up to Shadak.

“What the fuck,” said Shadak darkly, “is going on?” He thrust his thumb back over his shoulder. “Nobody out there is doing a fucking thing! They’re standing still like fucking zombies and there’s work to be done! Those fucking Russian guns aren’t going away — they’re — they’re — they—”

“On your knees,” said young Alexei.

“What?” Shadak blinked, and looked down at Alexei’s right hand. It was hold-ing an old Tokarev automatic pistol. Pointed at Shadak.

“On your knees,” he repeated.

Shadak’s face reddened. “What the fuck is this?”

OhhesgoodgoodskullthickasleadnothingthroughtheregoodgoodbadRodionovheresoonohey

heresoon

Alexei bent — stepped forward —

And stepped into himself.

He sat there a moment — crouched with his head sticking out of his younger chest, his ass poked out of the back of his younger knees. Shadak was staring up at him in a mix of outrage and terror. The gun was indisputable betrayal — Alexei didn’t need to read Shadak’s mind to know his mind. Shadak was saying something else — but intersecting as he was with himself, Alexei couldn’t make it out.

All he could hear, this close, was the chaotic scramble of Discourse.

FyodorconcentrateonmetaphoryoudmitritakeinthroughidtherestofyouhelpkilodovichvesseltoestablishthespacialstimulusstimulusstimRodionovRodionov

And then

— a fugue —

“Rodionov could kill us in a second. This is folly.”

Alexei blinked. The caves of Afghanistan were gone, replaced by a great dark-ness — a deep void where the voices of the Discourse slowed. Alexei floated in this void, rolling head over heels like a cosmonaut. In the darkness, he could make out shapes — huge shapes of men and women, ass-end toward him. They were big as sky-scrapers, as submarines. They spoke with voices as deep as a thunderclap and as af-fecting as an earthquake.

“Rodionov,” said another of the giants, floating beyond his reach, “will not kill us. He does not even know where we are.”

“Still — he has it in him. He’s got the will.”

“We should turn him.”

“Set your Alexei on him, Fyodor — and see.”

“Yes. Make him sleeper.”

Alexei swam toward the giants. He felt as though he were rising, and for a time imagined this place not a void at all, but water: a huge lake on which these bickering creatures floated. But that metaphor strained quickly; for as he looked up at them, he saw that they couldn’t be apprehended as floating in a particular order. They over-lapped one another as they floated.

“No need to worry about Rodionov,” repeated the first one. “We make these sleep-ers here — he will never know. And we — we will control the arms pipeline through Afghanistan. Now, and forever.”