David Nickle - Rasputin's Bastards

They were at Petroska Station.

Somewhere nearby, the Mystics were waiting.

There was a little room at the bow end of the submarine, just past the torpedo room, that Stephen had chanced upon during his early explorations. It was not wide enough for more than two men to stand side by side. There was a narrow ladder that climbed to the ceiling, where there was a small hatch. He’d asked Uzimeri about it when he first saw it. “Ah yes,” said the old man. “That is the docking hatch. For underwater rescue. I don’t have to tell you not to open it. On second thought, it’s you I’m talking to. Don’t open it.”

One of the Romanians was on the ladder when Stephen pushed his way into the room — turning the wheel on the hatch. Icy water splashed down over his arms, his squinting eyes. Stephen felt his throat clench at the sight of it. Even when the water flow subsided, just seconds after it had begun, Stephen felt himself shaking.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he shouted over the shoulders of the other Romanians. The one on the ladder — thin and balding, he was not much older than Stephen — gave Stephen a quick, sad look then leaned aside as the hatch swung down.

“Hey!” said Stephen. But the Romanian was already climbing up — through the open hatch. A second crewman mounted the steps at the bottom of the ladder. Others prepared to follow.

Stephen was tempted to bolt for the back of the submarine — back to the galley, where he presumed everyone else was waiting; maybe even past that, to his cabin, where he could curl up on his bunk and pretend this wasn’t happening.

Instead, he grabbed the shoulder of one of the Romanians — this one, a squat brown-haired man with wide eyes. The man tried to shake him off, but Stephen made him turn and face him.

“What the fuck is going on?” he said. And instinctively, he tried to push it out of him: imagined himself walking down his fingers, through the man’s shoulders, and straight into his brain. “What is up there? Tell me what is up there,” Stephen demanded.

The man grabbed Stephen’s hand and flung it down. He gave Stephen that same, sad should-have-helped-us-the-first-time look that the first one had. Then he turned, and got back in line to climb the ladder.

Stephen stamped his foot — shamefacedly aware he was behaving like a three-year-old, but unable to do anything about it. Where the hell was everybody, anyway? Still hiding back there? Stephen slammed his fist against a bulkhead, shut his eyes and winced at the pain.

When he opened them again, he saw he was alone in the docking room. The last crewman was climbing through the hatch.

Stephen looked up the ladder. A weak reddish light wafted down. He tried to see what was in the chamber above. It smelled like a locker room. The light was very dim, but he thought he could make out spars of metal several metres above the hatch.

What the fuck was up there? Stephen swallowed. There was only one way to find out. He put his foot on the bottom rung of the ladder.

He was about halfway up, when the figure appeared in the hatchway. Flesh white as snow, mottled around the cheeks like a bath-wrinkled thumbprint — and naked so far as Stephen could see. He couldn’t tell a gender. The thing had no beard, and hair that was a wispy black and shoulder-length. But if there were breasts up there, they were hidden by the lip of the hatch.

Stephen stared up at the thing with a kind of disbelieving calm.

“Ah, hello,” said Stephen, looking into the creature’s eye. He struggled to keep his voice sounding casual. “This is Petroska Station, I’m guessing?”

It bleated something Stephen couldn’t understand.

“I mean—”

Before Stephen could finish, the thing in the hatch reached across the opening with a long, pale arm and lowered a black metal cover over the opening. It clanged shut with such finality that it did not even occur to Stephen to push it back open to get another look at the thing.

In total, nine Romanians had left the submarine through the rescue hatch. That left maybe a dozen on board. Stephen wondered if that was enough to crew and operate a 641 Attack Submarine.

“No,” said Chenko. “We’ll need those who went away back with us if we’re ever to leave here.”

“Aren’t you the least bit worried about that?”

“I am not the least bit worried about that.” Chenko leaned back on the bench of the galley and stared idly at the back of his hand.

“It really is all right, Stephen.”

Stephen gave an involuntary flinch as Mrs. Kontos-Wu patted his forearm.

“You didn’t see that fucking thing. Don’t tell me it’s all right.”

“Well,” sneered Uzimeri from across the table, “you didn’t have the benefit of understanding that Zhanna has bestowed on the rest of us, who are not deaf to the voice of God. So stop trying to panic us with your five senses bullshit misinterpretation.”

“It was a fucking Morlock ,” said Stephen. “A zombie. A vampire. Right out of a fucking horror movie. Whatever they’re doing up there — the guys didn’t want to go.”

Konstantine Uzimeri regarded him smugly. “Bullshit,” he said.

Tanya Pitovovich smiled in a way that was meant to be reassuring. “They are only borrowing them,” she said. “It is a part of the transaction. Apparently, something similar happened the last time.”

“Last time. Which none of you were here for.”

Pitovovich shrugged.

“We can only be so many places at once,” said Mrs. Kontos-Wu.

“For now,” added Chenko.

Pok-pok-pok , said the bulkhead. Stephen looked up.

“What the fuck is that noise, anyway?”

“Nothing—”

Stephen interrupted Chenko with a hand. “Nothing to be frightened, of, I know.” He sighed. “What else did Zhanna tell you?”

“Ah,” said Uzimeri, smiling beatifically, “how to put it into words?”

Mrs. Kontos-Wu gave him a look. “Don’t be such a prick, Konstantine.” She turned to Stephen. “She told us that we’ve docked with Petroska Station. It’s deep underwater, as we’ve all guessed. Some kind of an old — habitat. For the next few hours, she and the others are in communication with the Mystics.”

“So Zhanna and the rest are in Petroska Station?”

“No. They’re still in their bunks.”

Stephen was confused. “If they don’t have to be on board Petroska Station to communicate with the Mystics, then why did we come all this way in the first place?”

The three looked at one another.

“Good question,” said Chenko finally. “We didn’t think to ask.”

“Of course you didn’t.”

And why would they? If you live your life based on the premise that the horny teenage girl asleep in an officer’s stateroom on a decommissioned submarine is about as fallible as the Pope — then what questions would you possibly have when she was done talking? If Zhanna says you’re safe in your submarine while rejects from Night of the Living Dead have their way with your zombified crew in some hidden undersea warren in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean — you must be safe.

Stephen was beginning to see the advantage to being a psychic deaf-mute. Around here at least, it let him think for himself.

The man watching the hatch to the officers’ section was a different one than the last time. This one was small and thin, with wire-rimmed glasses and light brown hair shaved to a peach fuzz on his scalp. He regarded Stephen with open hostility.

“Go back,” he hissed when Stephen stepped up to him.

“I have to see Zhanna,” Stephen said. The little man shook his head and told him to fuck off. To emphasize his point, he pulled out a small knife and waved it in Stephen’s face.