David Nickle - Rasputin's Bastards

That was clearer now than ever. He knew he had to get out — he’d checked each of the sarcophagi, and found all but one empty. The one that was locked contained a body — a corpse, bloated and swimming in the brine. Fyodor Kolyokov would have been like that, if he’d stayed in his tank a few weeks longer.

It all raised very interesting questions — questions like: if the Mystics weren’t in their tanks — where they should have been, if they were dream-walking Romanians and teaching Stephen how to fly squid and having a big conference with the children on the submarine — if they weren’t there…

Then first: where were they, and second: were they even the things that Stephen had been talking to in the first place?

What had they said about the ocean? It was dangerous like the face of God? You could lose yourself in it and find yourself in it.

Was it possible that the Mystics had migrated into the ocean itself? Just maybe kept this place operating and alive for old times’ sake?

Stephen set it all aside. Bottom line: he had to get out. Talk to the children. Because now more than ever, he was certain that the thing the self-proclaimed Mystics were worried about — Lena, the Babushka — had come upon them. The fact that the Romanian in his stateroom hadn’t even bothered to pursue him actually confirmed that: if indeed “she” was “everywhere” as they put it, then there would be no need to stop him from doing anything. Anytime she wanted to, she could just swat him.

Stephen made his way to the edge of the aerie. He reached up and touched the curve of the dome. It was cool. On the other side, he suspected there was nothing but ocean.

Ocean, where squid roamed.

His squid.

Stephen wanted to try the squid out again. Of course, it would be dangerous — before they had vanished, the Mystics had warned Stephen not to go to sleep — to stay put. No doubt, dream-walking into a giant squid right now would put Stephen at risk.

Wouldn’t it be worse, though, Stephen rationalized, to remain lost in this giant underwater catacomb? Abandoned here when the submarine detached? Wouldn’t that be worse?

Stephen concocted a plan. He’d dream-walk a squid — send it along the bulkhead, tapping it with its tentacles as he went. When Stephen heard the pok-pok sound, he’d know where the squid was — and thereby, have an idea how to get back to the submarine.

Plus which, thought Stephen, he’d have another chance for a go-around in a giant squid.

Of course, it was a cheap rationalization. Stephen closed his eyes. He watched the light crawl across the inside of his retina. He did the things that he’d done when the Mystics had sent him there. He was prepared for failure — for waking up, gasping, as he had a hundred times at the Emissary while Fyodor Kolyokov flew the skies.

And yet —

— it worked.

Stephen spun around, sent tentacles reeling out, contracted the chitinous suckers like camera irises — peered into the dark, got his bearings — thought he spotted the peculiar signature of Petroska Station.

“Stephen? Stephen Haber?”

Stephen spun in darkness, looked around for something else — another creature here that might have the gift of language. There was nothing, though. He was alone with his squid. If not alone in his squid.

“Who the fuck’s that?” he demanded. It didn’t sound as he’d imagined Babushka sounding. The voice was Russian, true enough. But it was deep. Familiar sounding.

“I am surprised you do not remember me.”

Stephen glared around in the dark. “Yeah, you know what? I’m sure that in context—”

“Alexei Kilodovich.”

“What?”

“I am Alexei Kilodovich.”

Stephen thought about that for a moment. He thought about how Alexei Kilodovich could end up here inside the brain of a giant squid, at the bottom of the ocean and just outside a secret Russian underwater city.

“Here?” he finally said, and — “What?”

“You remember me now? You hired me to look after Mrs. Kontos-Wu.”

Stephen’s mind raced. “Um, yeah. Right.”

“You are aware, I am assuming, that the whole thing was a bullshit ruse by Fyodor Kolyokov.”

Stephen took a breath — felt himself slipping away from the squid brain and back into the real world — and put things in order. This was not, in fact, all bad.

“Fyodor Kolyokov,” he said. Kolyokov had, Stephen remembered, told Stephen to find Kilodovich. He was to be a “hidden asset” in New York — and yes, he was to understand himself to be a bodyguard. This was before Babushka — before the submarine, and Turkey — before the old man even knew he was dead. Stephen felt a momentary pang of guilt — because instead of searching for Alexei Kilodovich, Stephen had spent his time here goofing around inside the giant brain of a giant squid. He was hardly showing the take-charge attitude that Kolyokov had demanded of him.

Yet here was Alexei Kilodovich — right now. The hidden asset — the dumbass bodyguard — and Shadak’s price. Here. In the brains of a behemoth.

Stephen laughed.

“You think this is funny?” said Alexei. “Fyodor Kolyokov fed us a huge bucket of shit and made us like it. Even Wolfe-Jordan.” In the dark, Alexei Kilodovich paused significantly. “A lie, Mr. Haber . A lie. ”

Stephen kept laughing. “Oh fuck off, Alexei. No one was fooled by Wolfe-Jordan — except maybe the I.R.S. And obviously yourself.” He felt his composure returning as he talked. “Okay, now you tell me — what are you doing here?”

The squid brain went silent for a moment. Stephen turned his attention outside — watched as the sea reeled past — guided the kraken down, to the tangle of metal and glass that sprawled across the shelf — the submarine that suckled at its belly. He let the tentacles flutter out, scraping along the bulkhead of the thing, tapping on it.

“I flew,” said Alexei finally. “I flew across time, and then through the sky. For a long time, I flew over land — I saw Rome, you know, from high — it looks beautiful in the dawn light — then past Gibraltar. Like a bird, but far faster. And not with the cold that would come.”

“Dream-walking,” said Stephen. “Fine.” Kolyokov did that kind of thing all the time.

“And all the time, I am getting nearer to the ocean. I am thinking: fuck New Pokrovskoye.”

“Where?”

“New Pokrovskoye. Where I am — I think, fuck Vladimir and his plans for me. He wanted me to figure things out — fine.”

“Vladimir?”

“Little kid. Brain like a forty-year-old.”

“Vladimir.” Stephen caught his breath, and thought about Chenko and Pitovovich’s incredible story. “ The Vladimir.”

“Are you listening? I am telling you a story. So I fly along the water, and just for fun I stick my finger in it. Felt okay, so what the hell, I stick my head in. Before you know it, I hear a beautiful song. And then — I’m like an oil slick on that ocean. Everywhere. Including here.”

“You didn’t use the bathyscaphe, did you?”

“The what?”

Stephen sighed. Kolyokov didn’t tell him much about dream-walking. But he had made clear to Stephen for many years about his anxiety coming from deep water — the compelling song of the ocean. The bathyscaphe was Kolyokov’s safety metaphor.

“That’s what Fyodor Kolyokov used to use, any time he had to dream-walk underwater. A bathyscaphe — a diving bell.”

“What are you, crazy? I told you I was flying by myself. No bathyscaphe.”

Stephen shook his head. “You have a lot to learn,” he said.

“That is what everyone keeps telling me.”

“You may not know it, but you’re in a lot of trouble.”

“Trouble?”