David Nickle - Rasputin's Bastards

“Okay, well first off — you don’t have to worry about me ravaging—” he stopped himself, then turned back to Zhanna, whose eyelids were fluttering with the effort of controlling her commandeered bodyguard. “Could you please stop that? I came to talk to you . Not some — some surrogate mouthpiece.”

Zhanna blinked and looked at Stephen. She took a deep breath, and patted her chest and shoulders. “Just so we understand one another,” she said.

“Perfectly.”

“You may sit down,” She motioned toward her narrow bunk. Stephen sat so that he had a good view of both Zhanna and the Romanian guard outside.

“I have some questions,” he said.

Zhanna turned around to face him. She crossed one leg over the other and smiled. “I like questions.”

“Um. Okay. First, I want to know about your son.”

“My son?” She frowned. “Oh! Vladimir! Yes — he is my son. You must excuse me. I don’t usually think of him that way.”

“Why’s that? You gave birth to him.”

“Yes. And I carried him for nine months. But he was not given me in the regular way. No husband — no sex. Just a long needle and a doctor. Do you know that technically, I am still a virgin?”

“Um, right. No. I didn’t.”

“It is true. For I have lived only among brothers and sisters. And the few technicians and scientists that maintained City 512 after the Revolution. Now some of those desired me, and I might have — but they were filthy old men who—”

Stephen interrupted. “Vladimir?” he said.

“Oh yes — of course. Forgive me, Stephen.” Spots of red appeared in Zhanna’s pale cheeks, and she looked down at her hands. “I don’t talk to people — I mean, just talk to people — without knowing their thoughts also. It is unusual, this — talk. Having to guess what you are thinking of me as we talk.” Zhanna looked back up and met Stephen’s eyes. “Ask your questions.”

“What is Vladimir?” said Stephen. “Ilyich Chenko claimed the baby could speak when he was born.”

“Vladimir could speak long before he was born,” said Zhanna. “We had many conversations as I carried him. That is how we were able to leave — to make it all the way to this submarine without being caught or killed. Vladimir guided us all. I think he spoke his first words—” she squinted one eye and looked away, as though trying to remember “—after four months. ‘We must rejoin the others,’ he said to me. ‘It is nearly time.’ You asked me what Vladimir is — not who. That is a good way to phrase the question.”

Stephen waited. “And the answer is — ?”

“I don’t know,” said Zhanna. “I don’t think that Vladimir knows. He is something that they had been planning for a very long time. But I do not think they know what he is either.”

“You mean they ,” said Stephen, “as in City 512.”

“At least,” said Zhanna. “Yes. They at City 512, at the very least of it. We were all a part of a grand experiment there. Each generation, would be better and brighter and more nimble than the last. Do you know that our grandparents could barely manage to dream-walk if they were locked in an isolation tank? That the slightest breath of air would send them scurrying back into their bodies? That they could only communicate properly with poor wretches — who had been conditioned for years to open their thoughts to a dream-walker? They could barely stand the sea. And now — look at us! Look at… Hey. What is happening with your face?”

Stephen started, sat up. “What do you mean?”

Zhanna leaned forward and squinted. “Colour is draining from it. Your eyes are looking down at your hands. And you were shaking your head. What does that mean?”

“You can’t read my mind,” he said, “so you have no idea — do you?”

There was a shuffling in the hallway as the Romanian crossed it and stepped into the room. He brought the barrel of the gun up to Stephen’s face. “You are playing with me,” he said in a voice like Zhanna’s. “You think that because I cannot read your mind that you have the upper hand in this.”

“I don’t think I have the upper hand in this,” said Stephen carefully. “I don’t think I have any hand in this.”

The Romanian jerked the gun away, and raised it over his head, as if to strike. Stephen took a breath. But he didn’t flinch away.

“Would you like to fuck him?” said the Romanian.

“What?”

The Romanian stared at him matter-of-factly. “You like to lie with men, and not women. That is what Kontos-Wu knows for a fact. So there is no hope for you and I. But perhaps — I thought with this one…”

Stephen turned to Zhanna and stared at her. He had no idea what to say.

Zhanna opened her eyes. The Romanian shook his head, looked at the gun in his hand, at Zhanna, at Stephen. He muttered something in a reverent tone and stepped away. Stephen wondered if this guy had had any idea that he’d just been offered up as a sex toy by his high priestess.

Zhanna put a hand to her forehead and scrunched her eyes shut. Her mouth tightened.

“Hey,” said Stephen. He reached across and patted Zhanna’s knee. More fucking tears , he thought with an unkindness that made him ashamed. “Don’t cry,” he said.

Zhanna stopped. She put her hand on Stephen’s, pulled it further up the fabric of her pants. She rolled her chair towards him. “Can it be — ?” she said, eyes widening with a creepy kind of optimism.

Stephen yanked his hand away. Zhanna took it like a slap on the face.

“I’m sorry!” she bawled, pulling her hands to her chest, raising her knees to her chin. “I’m sorry! I’m no good at this, Stephen! No good!”

Stephen was jolted by a sudden spark of empathy. It was not unlike the times when he thought he’d gotten into Richard’s skull, or walked behind Amar Shadak’s eyelids. This poor girl had lived her life in this City 512. Everyone she spoke to, she did through the stark honesty of Discourse. Those who didn’t have the talent or training to speak back were open books to her. If a man wanted to sleep with her, he’d broadcast his intentions clearly — even though his eyes might be discreetly averted and his hands busied with paperwork or at a computer keyboard. Zhanna had lived a life without guesswork. She was about as intuitive as Stephen was psychic.

Stephen reached out again. He put his hand on Zhanna’s trembling shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Look. Don’t — don’t cry. But I’ll lay it out for you. Your intelligence is good on one thing: I’m queer. Here’s another fact Mrs. Kontos-Wu might not know: I’m HIV positive. You know what that means?”

“Y-yes,” said Zhanna. She nuzzled Stephen’s hand with her chin. “You’ve got the AIDS. I am sorry.”

“It’s shitty,” Stephen agreed. “But I’m not exactly sick with AIDS yet. I’ve just got the virus — and I’m not going to go spreading it around here.”

Zhanna opened her eyes and looked at him with fierce determination. “One day, we will cure the AIDS.”

“That’s what they say,” said Stephen.

“No,” she said, firmly, “one day we will cure the AIDS. That will be a part of the new world that we design.”

Stephen smiled.

“New world. It’s no wonder that they’re making a religion out of you with ambitions like that.”

Zhanna lifted her head and snorted derisively. “The religion. That’s foolishness. Like the Babushka nonsense.”

“Babushka.” Stephen sighed with inward relief; it looked as though Zhanna was as anxious to steer the conversation back to normalcy as he was. “There’s that word again. Who is Babushka?”

“Ask me questions I can answer,” said Zhanna. “I’m not sure who Babushka is. She contacted Vladimir when he was two months old. She convinced him that he could come to North America — arrange passage there — and together, they could bring everyone together. End the oppression. Now that Vladimir is there, however — he’s not so sure. Babushka — whatever, whoever she is — she’s the one who turned this into a religion. And that wasn’t what any of us wanted.”