David Nickle - Rasputin's Bastards

Stephen took a step backwards. He had been expecting something like this — if Zhanna and the rest of them were busy dreaming, even with a reduced complement of monks they’d make sure to pick an intimidating one to guard them. And if the big stoic ones were all gone — well, a crazy little bastard with a knife could still get the job done. At least Zhanna didn’t have them waving around guns anymore.

That had been something else Stephen had counted on.

Stephen muttered an apology as he feinted and ducked, drawing a slash of the blade into the air where his left shoulder had been. He carried the motion forward in a roll, grabbing the Romanian’s scrawny forearm and twisting it. The knife clattered to the decking. The Romanian grunted — he obviously didn’t want to wake the dreamers with a shout — and tried to grab at Stephen’s hair. Stephen let him and in the same spirit as the Romanian, ignored the ripping pain as a hundred or so hairs left his scalp in the Romanian’s fist. Stephen plunged his elbow into the Romanian’s solar plexus, then when he was doubled over, twisted once more and brought his knee up into the man’s face. There was a crunch as his glasses shattered, and a certain amount of blood that stained Stephen’s pant-leg. Stephen hoped he hadn’t damaged the man’s eyes. The man whimpered, and made a desultory and ineffective jab at Stephen’s privates with a half-open hand. Stephen hit him twice more in the side of the head, then pushed him to the ground and kicked him twice more. When it was clear the monk wasn’t going to get up again, he found his knife, pocketed it, and walked on through.

At least, thought Stephen as he stepped into Zhanna’s cabin and heard her quiet snores, they’d kept it quiet.

“Zhanna. Wake up.”

“What — who? Who is there?”

“It’s me. Stephen.”

“Mm. Might have known. You’re the only one I can’t tell coming. Did you do that to our watcher?”

“The guard? Yeah. Wake up.”

“Nuh-uh. Back to sleep. In council.”

“Fuck off. Wake up.”

Zhanna blinked, sat up, and glared at Stephen through the shadows of her cabin. She wrapped herself in a sheet. Her hair was dishevelled. And the quarters were close enough that Stephen recoiled a little at the sourness of her breath.

“You are fucking everything up,” she said.

“I wouldn’t know,” said Stephen. He was surprised at the petulance in his tone. “Maybe you can expect your monks to respect your ‘council.’ Maybe you can give the others enough of a show to keep them quiet. But me—” he shook his head. “You can’t expect me to buy into any of this crap. Not without some explanation first.”

“Because you’re dead inside, and you resent it.” Zhanna shook her head, wrapped the sheet around her like a sari and got out of her bunk. “All right,” she whispered. “We can’t talk here. We’re already waking the others. The Council has to continue. Come on. We’ll go to the engine room.”

They stepped out into the hall. Sure enough, it was getting crowded. The low drone of snores was gone — in its place, beds creaked and shadows in robes hovered at the edge of the corridors. They glared at Stephen and Zhanna as they moved past, to aft and the engine rooms.

“Go back to sleep,” said Zhanna as they passed one heavyset boy who looked about sixteen. The kid muttered something in Russian that Stephen didn’t quite pick up and stayed where he was, watching them as they climbed down the steps into the quiet room. The lights in here were low — conserving batteries, no doubt. A couple of Romanian monks sat slumped next to a bank of valves. It was as though their strings were cut. They might have been dead.

“Now,” said Zhanna, looking at him with exaggerated attentiveness. “What do you want to know?”

“All right. First question. What is Petroska Station?”

“It is where the Mystics are,” said Zhanna.

“Right. And who are the Mystics?”

“The ones in Petroska Station.” She gave a half-grin that was not altogether kindly.

“And why did you consign your crew to living death among a bunch of fucking pod people in a watery hell a thousand metres under the sea?”

Zhanna opened her mouth and closed it again.

“It’s pretty tough to fuck with someone’s mind if you can’t read it,” said Stephen nastily. “Now. Answer my question. Those men are scared shitless of the things up there and I don’t blame them. Why did you send them there?”

“It was — requested,” said Zhanna. She looked at the floor. “Part of the price that the Mystics demand, for dealing with us.”

“What are they doing with them?”

“I don’t know. They are as lost to me now as you.”

“Really.” Stephen stepped back and turned to look at the two men huddled in the back of the engine room. “Like them?”

“These men? No. They’re resting now. There’s no work for them to do — so I leave them to themselves. If I need them—”

“You know where to find them.” Stephen looked at her. “Do you think this is what your son Vladimir had in mind when he set this whole thing in motion? I seem to recall you said that he wanted to liberate these sleepers. Didn’t he apologize to poor Chenko?”

Zhanna glared at him. “Don’t throw that in my face. Your old master Fyodor Kolyokov was far worse to his sleepers than anything we have done. The great leech Fyodor Kolyokov — living rich off the backs of the sleeping army!”

“No one,” he said, “who worked for Fyodor Kolyokov begged me for help.”

Zhanna’s hands made fists. “You — you are a bastard,” she said quietly. “You don’t know what you are talking about and you don’t know what is at stake. Living in America with the stolen wealth of the family. How could you? You are not even one of us. I don’t know how I could ever—” she stopped herself. Her face was red, and her eyes were wet.

Whatever , thought Stephen.

“What,” he said, “are they doing to your people up there?”

Zhanna didn’t say anything for a moment. Finally, she closed her eyes. Behind him, the two men who had been sleeping jerked to their feet like the marionettes that they were.

“Why don’t you go look for yourself?” said one.

“They’ve been asking after you since we came,” said the other. “I thought I’d protect you. I’d thought you were worth protecting. But why don’t you just go look out for your fucking self?”

Then they fell back to the floor, strings cut. Zhanna had left the room.

Pok-pok-pok, pok .

The noise on the hull seemed to follow Stephen as he made his way to the fore of the submarine, and the hatchway to Petroska Station. The sounds were not, he decided, musical. There was a definite cadence — but it was perhaps the cadence of speech. Sometimes it repeated itself. As though the thing outside the hull was trying to communicate. Stephen narrowed his eyes, so the corridor of the submarine became a dim blur — and tried to imagine himself beyond its confines — perhaps in the body of a huge squid, its alien thoughts rushing past him and through him — its tentacles caressing the hull of the submarine like a lover — its suckers, clicking out the simple message, again and again.

Help us .

Stephen climbed the ladder. The hatch at the top was still closed, and when he reached it, he raised his fist to pound on it. Before he could touch the metal, though, it moved aside. Creaked open. Slammed against a metal stop on the floor over his head. And he was staring into dim red light. There was no Morlock there this time.

Stephen drew a breath, and climbed the rest of the way. He pulled himself over the damp, slimy lip of the hatch, climbed to his feet, and drawing a breath of the stale, metallic air that was somehow even worse than the air in the submarine, Stephen got a look.