Michael Swanwick - Dancing with Bears

Beaming, Svarozic put his hands together in prayer.

Then, in a flurry of activity, the stranniks placed the satchel in Arkady’s hands, slapped him on the back, and ushered him out the door. He found himself alone in the hallway, blinking. He hadn’t understood a word of what had just been said to him. But it sounded very spiritual. In some way, it involved God. So whatever or whoever the Eschaton was, it must surely be a good thing? Of course it must.

He put his head inside the satchel, inhaled deeply, and returned to his work with renewed determination.

The tunnel stretched more than a kilometer beyond the Kremlin’s walls. Built with the eerie precision characteristic of the ancients, it curved almost imperceptibly, so that more of the corridor was continually appearing before them and monotonously disappearing behind. Luminous lichen covered the ceiling and walls, filling the tunnel with gentle light. Surplus led, followed by Zoesophia and then Chortenko with his dwarf savants, Max and Igorek, striding lockstep at his heels. The six bear-guards came lumbering after them.

“This is a bit of a walk,” Chortenko said. “But a pleasant one, yes?” Not that he believed for an instant that his unwitting captives found it any such thing. But he was fascinated by what untruths people could be made to agree to, rather than acknowledge an unbearable truth.

Stiffly, Zoesophia said, “You must excuse me, if I am not in the mood for idle chitchat. I have suffered a serious blow today.”

Surplus said nothing.

No one knew for what purpose the tunnel had originally been dug, for such things were never written down. But periodically the company passed a doorway that had been filled in with masonry or else secured by metal plates and locks that had long ago rusted solid. So that purpose, whatever it had been, was no more.

“Walking is such good exercise. I know you will think me a health faddist for saying so, but I try to put in at least an hour per day.” Chortenko removed his blue-glass spectacles. He could read Zoesophia’s face like a book. When he had first joined Muscovy Intelligence as a junior officer, he had had his eyes surgically removed and the hemispherical insectoid organs he now possessed grown in their place. That people found them intimidating had been pleasant for a homely youth of pudgy build. But their true merit was that they saw deep into the infrared, and so he could follow the patterns of blood flow in people’s faces.

Zoesophia, he could see, was lost in dark thoughts, dominated by worry and more than a touch of tristesse. But no fear. So she suspected nothing. Surplus was harder to make out, since his face was covered with fur. But his body language said it all. He plodded along listlessly, walking stick tucked under an arm, paws clasped behind his back. He stared fixedly at the ground before his feet. He was the very picture of one who had accepted the inevitability of pain and death, and was now overcome with despair.

Or so Chortenko would have assumed, were he the sort to make assumptions. He was not. They were coming up on a trap he had prepared years ago, which had caught many a would-be fugitive. It was a door which had been left unlocked and just a little bit ajar. Anybody harboring the least spark of hope that he might escape would seize upon the opportunity and dash through it. Only to find himself in a cul-de-sac no larger than a closet.

Surplus gave the door a dispirited glance and continued past it.

So the sad creature was already as good as broken. Well, Chortenko thought, it was a pity, but all his research with the hounds had been for nothing. He would not have much fun with this one.

Zoesophia, however… Chortenko half-closed his eyes, imagining what might be done with a young woman of delicate sensibilities and a cloistered upbringing who blistered at the slightest touch of a man’s finger. Yes, there were possibilities there. Great possibilities. He would have to be careful to take it slowly.

He would have to make sure she lasted a long, long time.

Finally, the tunnel brought them to the kennels of Chortenko’s basement.

The dogs leaped and bayed furiously when Chortenko appeared, making the cages rattle as they slammed their bodies against the sides over and over again.

Zoesophia looked startled and flinched away from the dogs’ sudden violence. But Surplus only hunched his shoulders and stuck his paws in his pockets.

“You are dismissed,” Chortenko told the bear-guards. They saluted and turned back into the corridor, carefully locking the door behind themselves.

“Sir!” Five agents of the secret police stood in a line at the far end of the room. All wore drab civilian garb, and all, save for one, were ordinary-looking men. The speaker was simultaneously the tallest and thinnest man present. His face was so fleshless as to be almost a skull. “We await your orders.”

“So,” Surplus said in a dead voice. “It has come to this.”

“Come to what?” Zoesophia demanded. “Who are these men? Why are we in this filthy place, surrounded by wild dogs?”

Chortenko did not immediately answer. He had tucked his spectacles in an inner jacket pocket and was relishing the way the blood drained from her face. Behind his back, he held up two fingers.

“There are so many puzzling questions about the nature of the Byzantine mission,” he said in a voice that would have been reassuring to the lady were not two of his men pulling on cloth gloves as they advanced upon her. “I intend to have them answered.”

“Then ask!” Zoesophia cried, even as she was seized.

“Oh, there’s no rush, my dear. We have all the time in the world.” Chortenko turned to his men: “Throw her in an empty kennel. Not too roughly, please. I want her in pristine condition for what is to come.”

There were two unoccupied kennels. One of the secret police opened the nearest, and the two who held Zoesophia tightly forced her backward toward it. She struggled most fetchingly.

With disdainful ease, the men flung Zoesophia onto her back on the floor of the cage. Then they slammed and locked the door. She gathered herself up in a corner and crouched there, trying not to whimper in fear.

It was all most satisfying.

But, enjoyable as this was, there were more important matters to attend to. Chortenko had not expected the underlords, who would share only the broadest outlines of their plans with him, to be prepared to act until spring at the earliest. A hundred preparations would have to be altered. All the timetables he had set in place would have to be moved up.

“Wettig,” Chortenko said, not taking his eyes from his new captive.

“Sir,” said the tall and cadaverous agent.

“I have something to say to you privately.” Wettig bent low, his ear all but touching his superior’s lips, and Chortenko murmured,“Go to Baron Lukoil-Gazprom’s room. He is currently at the Kremlin for a meeting of the Committee for the Suppression of Dissent. When he returns, kill him.”

Wettig straightened, nodded, left.

Filled with the satisfaction that comes only when one has done one’s work well and sees everything falling neatly into place, Chortenko turned back to his confederates with a slight smile. Then he paused and looked around the room, feeling vaguely that something was missing.

With a touch of bewilderment, he said, “Where is the ambassador?”

Surplus sauntered idly through Red Square.

It was an astonishing space. One entered the square through the Resurrection Gates and so came upon it suddenly: To the right loomed the Kremlin. To the left was the building that locals for reasons nobody could explain called “Goom,” its facade as elaborate as a wedding cake; it had been originally built to house shops and now, after many changes of fortune, was converted to prestigious apartments for the wealthy and connected. Straight ahead was St. Basil’s Cathedral, with its throng of domes painted in bright candy-box colors. Nowhere was there a tree to be seen, or anything that had not been built by human hands. The granite-block-paved square (a rectangle, really, with the long axis running from the gates to the church) rose slightly and then sank down again before St. Basil’s, as if gracefully genuflecting. All these factors put together created an exhilarating effect such that wherever one stood, one felt as if he were standing on the very top and center of the world.