Гарт Никс - Dislocation Space

Outside somewhere.

Using all her strength, she hauled herself up and out–and fell, like a cork popped from a bottle.

The exit she had climbed up opened down.

Instinct and training, all those years of circus school, took over. She rolled on impact, steadied herself, looked up.

For a moment, she saw the indigo tunnel, a strange contrast of different blue to the sky beyond it. Then it disappeared, as if it had never existed.

The Original, whatever the hell it was, only went one way.

Aleksandra looked back down from the sky. The memories no longer thronged in her mind, threatening to overwhelm her. She simply felt exhausted, and stupid, unable to take in what she was seeing.

Broken, splintered trees stretched as far as she could see in all directions.

A familiar landscape.

The dead forest of Tunguska.

It was not another world. It was the same terrible, old world.

She had not escaped.

A dog barked nearby. Aleksandra’s hand flashed to the knife behind her ear, but she did not lift it out. After a second, she let go, leaving the blade where it was.

Better to be killed by dogs than be taken back alive.

She dropped to her knees, and bent her head, shutting her eyes.

“I do not believe in you, God,” whispered Aleksandra. “Not in heaven, or hell, except the hells we have made ourselves. But maybe I am wrong. Perhaps I will see Vladimir again, and my parents, and Konstantin and Marie, and all the others…”

She heard the dog come closer, but it had stopped barking.

The world was quiet, save for the faint whistle of the wind in the splintered trees. Then footsteps. Heavy boots. One person.

“Kill me,” said Aleksandra loudly. “I am not going back.”

“Why would I do that?”

Aleksandra opened one eye.

“I saw you fall from the sky,” said an old woman. She spoke Russian, but with an accent unfamiliar to Aleksandra. She was dressed in reindeer hide, had a wolfskin hat on her head, and cradled a rifle in her arms as familiarly as she might a baby. An older Mosin-Nagant, from the first German war. Her dog was at her side. Not a German dog at all, but a Borzoi, a good Russian dog. The woman gestured, and the dog lay flat, disappointed it had not found a wolf.

“Are you a spirit?”

“No,” replied Aleksandra. “How close are we to the camp?”

“What camp?” asked the woman.

“The camp,” said Aleksandra. She repeated the words dully. “The camp.”

“Are you sure you are not a spirit? My children tell me not to hunt wolves here, because of spirits. But I have never seen a spirit before, and because no one else comes to hunt, there are many wolves.”

“I am not a spirit,” said Aleksandra. “I am a zek. Shoot me please, before the guards come. You might even get a reward.”

The old woman scratched her forehead, right in the middle, under the protruding snout of her wolf’s head hat.

“What is a zek? What guards? There is no one else here. I told you. No one comes here. Only me. It is a long walk from anywhere, many days. Maybe not for you, falling from the sky—”

“Days,” interrupted Aleksandra. “Years.”

She opened both eyes, wide, and stared about her. The forest looked the same, but that would be true of any time since the initial explosion, it would be true for decades to come, maybe longer…

“What year is this?”

The old woman shrugged.

“Forty-eight, forty-nine, I don’t know…”

Aleksandra’s brow furrowed. Not the future, or the past?

“Does Comrade Stalin still rule us all?”

“Who?”

“Comrade Stalin.”

“Who’s that?” asked the old woman. “And why do you keep saying ‘Comrade’? No one talks like that. I think you must be a spirit.”

Aleksandra stared at her, and then glanced at the sun. She felt its warmth, strong and beautiful, heat she had not felt for many months. The artificial heat in the Original did not count. It was not the same. This was the real warmth, but…

“It’s summer!”

“Yes. It’s summer.”

“There is no Stalin.”

“Never heard of him.”

“The Central Committee?”

“What is that?”

“Are there camps?”

“Hunting camps, you mean?”

“No, no, for prisoners.”

“Not since the Czar went away to England, oh, years ago now. All that stuff, the secret police, camps. None of that in the Republic. People wouldn’t stand for it. Not nowadays.”

“People wouldn’t stand for it,” repeated Aleksandra. Tears started in her eyes. It was so long since she had cried, the tears felt very strange. Drops of water sliding down her face, but not from rain. “People wouldn’t stand for it.”

She laughed, and cried, and stood on her hands and walked on them in a circle around the wolf hunter.

The old woman muttered something about a spirit again, but she smiled, a toothless smile.

“I’ve escaped!” cried Aleksandra. “I have escaped!”

She flipped upright, hugged the hunter and kissed her on both papery, sun-scorched cheeks.

“Escaped from what?” asked the old woman, looking up at the endless sky.

“Another world, grandmother,” said Aleksandra, wiping her eyes. “Another world.”

Garth Nixhas been a full-time writer since 2001. He has also worked as a literary agent, marketing consultant, book editor, book publicist, book sales representative, bookseller, and as a part-time soldier in the Australian Army Reserve. Garth’s books include the award-winning fantasy novels Sabriel, Lirael and Abhorsen and the science fiction novels Shade’s Children and A Confusion of Princes. His fantasy novels for children include The Ragwitch; the six books of The Seventh Tower sequence; The Keys to the Kingdom series; and the Troubletwisters books (with Sean Williams). More than five million copies of Garth’s books have been sold around the world, his books have appeared on the bestseller lists of The New York Times, ‘Publishers Weekly’, The Guardian and The Australian, and his work has been translated into 40 languages. You can sign up for email updates here.

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