Simon Morden - The Curve of The Earth

“What d’you mean?” Josie jerked his head at Petrovitch. “Him?”

“Him. He’s supposed to put a bullet in your head about now, or one through your engine block so you’ll freeze to death, slowly.” Newcomen frowned. “Instead, he’s being nice to you.”

Petrovitch looked on, amused. “I shoot everybody in the head, apparently. That’s what it says in the bumper book of Petrovitch, right?”

“Something like that,” said Newcomen.

“I just want to be left alone. You wouldn’t think it’d be too difficult to manage, but no: govno like this happens, and suddenly we’re in a whole world of pizdets .” He took one last look around. “Just let go of the rifle and get back on the plane. We’ve been shown what they wanted us to see, and now it’s time to leave.”

Newcomen released his grip, and Josie drew the gun close to him.

Petrovitch started away from the RV, ploughing through the loose snow to the road, where it was more compact. He could hear Newcomen dragging after him, then catching him up.

“He could still kill us,” said the agent.

“In your binary world, people are either full-square behind you and can be trusted completely, or they’re criminals who’d sooner slit your throat than look at you. The truth, as ever, lies somewhere in between.” Petrovitch shifted his shoulders. “He won’t shoot. Well, he won’t shoot me, at least.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

The plane’s door popped open, and Petrovitch scaled the ladder. He glanced around at the top: Josie was still standing there by the pile of snow he’d dug, wondering what had just happened.

He’d call his handlers for certain. Whether he’d pass on the message to his North Slope friends and family remained to be seen.

Petrovitch climbed inside and threw his furry hat on to one of the seats. He started to take his parka off, and remembered to grab the gun perched uncertainly inside. He laid that on the seat next to his hat.

Newcomen stamped snow off on the top step and stood at the door, looking out.

“He’s just watching us.”

“That was his job. It probably still is.”

“So they know we’re coming. Or will do before we get there.”

“They always knew that.” The frost that had collected at his collar had turned to beads of moisture that was starting to soak in. Petrovitch gave the parka a shake, and tossed it aside to dry. He picked up the gun, and headed for the cockpit, starting the turbines spinning as he slid into the pilot’s chair. “The only variable was when we got there.”

“They could always have stopped you,” said Newcomen from behind him, still trying to squeeze the toggles of his coat through the loops with cold-heavy fingers.

“That was never going to happen.” Petrovitch engaged the antigravity, and the plane pulled itself free of the road in a shower of ice crystals that tumbled away in white streamers. He let the direction change freely, the nose taking in a full circle of Alaskan vista before he applied any throttle.

“They could have.” Newcomen finished wrestling with his coat fastenings and sat in the seat next to him. “Stopped you, I mean.”

“Of course they could. Killing someone is easy. As they proved with Fyfe. If they’d really, really wanted me dead, they’d have put a bomb on the plane from the Metrozone, and you, me, and a couple of hundred other people would be propping up the Mid-Atlantic Ridge by now. Problem solved.”

“Then… hang on. What are you saying?” Newcomen blinked, staring out through the windscreen. They were starting to climb over the mountain range ahead, the peaks shrouded in low cloud that wasn’t low at all. The pipeline was a grey snake off to the left, and the road a white line underneath.

“I’ve been — we’ve all been — working on the assumption that the US government doesn’t want me sticking my nose into this, that they want to keep me as far away as possible from the North Slope, and absolutely, definitely don’t want me to find Lucy.” The corner of Petrovitch’s mouth twitched. “What if I’m wrong?”

Newcomen shifted uneasily in his seat. “I thought you were never wrong.”

“Let’s pretend for a moment, then, that we live in a universe where such things are possible. The first people to look for Lucy were the university, who had to rely on the military to get to the research station. They didn’t find Lucy because she wasn’t there any more. They didn’t have the resources to search for her themselves, so they called in the FBI. You started slowly, stupidly slowly, like you weren’t that bothered — an act guaranteed to enrage me. You put a couple of field agents into Fairbanks when we complained, but you were warned off: the agents were recalled and Buchannan was told to look the other way.

“But what about Jason Fyfe? He’s a wild card. He’s not a US citizen, and he wasn’t going to take kindly to anyone telling him not to rescue Lucy, not when she clearly needed rescuing. So he was killed: quickly, cleanly, and with a minimum of fuss. Then the body displayed to us like a hunting trophy.”

“But they haven’t killed you,” said Newcomen. “They haven’t even tried to kill you.”

“No. Not yet. Why do you think that is?”

“Because you’re too important?”

“I’d like to think so, but that’d just be the ego talking. Come on, time to work that atrophied walnut you call a brain. Why haven’t they killed me?”

“Because they need you alive?”

“Yeah. They do.” Petrovitch looked Newcomen square in the face. “Why do they need me, Samuil Petrovitch, the Antichrist, the tyrant of the Freezone, the slaughterer of thousands, the humiliator of the holy United States of America, continual thorn in the flesh, alive?”

“Because they want you to find Lucy,” said Newcomen, mounting horror in his voice. “Because only you can find her.”

“That’s right. That’s absolutely right. They can’t find Lucy on their own, and not just because they’d draw attention both to the search and to whatever it is they’re trying to hide. They can’t find her because she’s deliberately and actively hiding from them. They don’t want the FBI looking for her, and they certainly didn’t want Fyfe blundering around up there. So they make it difficult enough for me to think they don’t want her found, but not so difficult that they’ll actually stop me from finding her.”

“She knows you’re coming, surely?”

“She knows it. She believes it in her soul. And don’t call me Shirley.”

Newcomen growled his annoyance. “What do they do when you find her?”

“I imagine that our first hello will be our last goodbye.”

“That’s… awful. If that’s what’s going to happen, you can’t carry on.”

“Of course I can. I’m going to find my daughter.”

“But you’ll kill her!”

“No. Your side will kill her. It’s not an insignificant difference.”

“There’s no difference at all. She’ll still wind up dead.” Newcomen slapped the console in front of him. “And so will you. You’re going to have to turn around and find another way to do this.”

“I can’t.” Petrovitch’s voice was calm, his mind clear. “If I stop now, Lucy’s going to die anyway: time’s their luxury, not ours. Every day that passes is a day closer to when she has to break cover. If I ever want to see her again, then I’m going to have to give away where she’s hiding.” He shrugged. “They understand me much better than you do. They know that even if I managed to unravel it this far, I’d still press on, though it means both our deaths.”

“But she’s your daughter. You can’t do this to her.”

“Your lot could have saved a lot of fucking around by explaining all this to me right at the start. I’d still be here, doing exactly what I’m doing now.”