Harry Turtledove - Fallout

He might not have lived in the Soviet Union for long. He knew how police states operated, though. The Japanese in Harbin had been at least as ruthless as the MGB was here. So had Mao’s men, once Manchukuo went back to being Manchuria. The best way to get along with secret police was never to draw their notice.

So he did his odd jobs. He kept an eye out for Grigory Papanin, but Papanin seemed to have decided leaving him alone was the better part of valor. He also kept an eye out for Gleb Sukhanov. Whether he’d wanted to or not, he’d already drawn that Chekist’s notice.

Vasili stood in the town square, listening to Radio Moscow’s news broadcast coming out of the speaker mounted on the pine pole. Roman Amfiteatrov alternated between bragging about the ruin Soviet bombers dealt to cities on the East Coast of the USA and moaning about the ruin American bombers had visited on Russian cities in response.

If you listened to Amfiteatrov, the Soviet bomber crews were heroes. They represented the vanguard of the proletariat and struck a mighty blow on behalf of the oppressed masses and the advance toward a classless society. The Yankee bomber crews, by contrast, were the lapdogs of plutocracy and warmongering imperialists who delighted in massacring workers and peasants and their children.

If you listened to Amfiteatrov…Vasili could see that, regardless of ideology, when you dropped an atom bomb on a city you knocked it flat and killed tens if not hundreds of thousands of people. How many others here could see the same thing? Either there weren’t very many of them or most of them, like Vasili himself, knew better than to show they could think for themselves.

“ Zdrast’ye, Vasili Andreyevich.” There was Sukhanov, right beside him. While he’d been listening, he hadn’t been watching. The MGB man went on, “He sure does talk funny, doesn’t he?”

“Oh, hello, Gleb Ivanovich.” Vasili did his best to sound as if Sukhanov were an ordinary friend, one who had nothing to do with the Ministry of State Security. “He doesn’t have an accent like mine, that’s for certain. Your jaw still doing all right?”

The Chekist touched the side of his face for a moment. “Hasn’t given me any more trouble since Yakov Benyaminovich yanked that stupid tooth, thank heaven. But I want to thank you one more time for the poppy juice you gave me. That kept me going till he was able to work on me. I owe you a big one there.”

“Nah.” Vasili shook his head, even as he was thinking Bet your dick you do. Will you remember when it counts? If you had to ask yourself a question like that, chances were you wouldn’t like the answer. Still casually, Vasili asked, “How’re things otherwise?”

“For me? Well enough. And you?”

“Not too bad, thank you very much,” Vasili said.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Sukhanov said. “I need to tell you something you may not be so glad to hear, though.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“You were listening to Radio Moscow just now. The war keeps going. It’s heating up, in fact. The way the Americans kill cities, they may as well be tigers killing elk,” the Chekist replied. Did he remember that the USSR had also struck at the USA? If he did, he didn’t show it. He went on, “Conscription calls are heating up, too. The ever-victorious Red Army has to get more men if it’s going to keep winning those victories.”

“If the rodina needs me to serve it again, of course I will serve it again.” Though Vasili bore down on the lying again, he wasn’t at all sure he meant that. Mean it or not, he had to say it. Saying anything else meant he’d serve the Soviet Union in a gulag like the one from which Maria Bauer had escaped-maybe in that very same one.

“Khorosho,” Gleb Sukhanov said. “So far, your name hasn’t shown up on any lists. If it does, maybe I can lose it. But I can’t promise I’ll be able to do that. All I can do is try.”

“Whatever you manage, I’ll be grateful for.” Vasili wondered whether he’d be better off letting the Red Army draft him or disappearing into the woods if it did. Either way, he was much too likely to have unfriendly strangers shooting at him.

“The other possibility I need to warn you about is, I may not be able to do anything at all for you. I may not be here to do anything for you,” the MGB man said. “My name may be on those conscription lists, too.”

But you’re a Chekist! Vasili thought. Then again, that might not matter. How many Soviet cities had the Americans incinerated? The ever-victorious Red Army did have to get its men somewhere. If it couldn’t lay its hands on enough ordinary people, chances were it would start grabbing secret policemen.

Aloud, Vasili said, “It’s a rough old world, Gleb Ivanovich.” He wanted to sound sympathetic without sounding as if he were criticizing Stalin. If you did that, you were unlikely to make any other stupid mistakes afterwards.

“It sure is.” Sukhanov set a hand on Vasili’s shoulder. Maybe he does like me, Vasili thought in surprise. The MGB man added, “Take care of yourself,” and ambled off.

Roman Amfiteatrov was still blathering away. He’d worked through the world news while Vasili talked with Sukhanov. Now he was praising the record aluminum output from shock labor gangs in Omsk. That did tell Vasili Omsk probably hadn’t made the acquaintance of an atom bomb yet. Whether the shock workers had really made all that aluminum was a different question. So was whether they even existed.

Down a side street off the square was one of the little unofficial markets the authorities grudgingly allowed. Babushkas sold strawberries and eggs and onions and golden cheeses they’d made themselves: that kind of stuff. You had to spend money there, but you could find much nicer things than you could in the state-run stores.

There stood David Berman, hefting a big white onion as if it were a grenade. “ Dobry den, David Samuelovich,” Vasili said. “How’s the world treating you?”

“Oh, hello,” the old Jew said. He looked less…less disheveled than he had when Vasili brought Maria to his door. His clothes sat on him the way they were supposed to, and Vasili thought he’d run a comb through the scraggly tangle of his beard. “The world is…not too bad for me, anyhow. How is it for you?”

“?‘Not too bad’ sounds right.” Vasili drew Berman away from the onion stand so the babushka wouldn’t overhear. “And how’s your niece from way off in the west?”

“She seems to be settling in pretty well, thanks,” Berman answered. “You know how it is with young people. Or maybe you don’t, since you are one yourself. Sometimes it’s like we don’t quite speak the same language. But she’s a nice girl, mighty nice. She’s friendly.” He nodded, as if pleased with his own choice of words. “Yes, very friendly.”

“Good. I’m glad for you,” Vasili said. If that meant what he thought it meant, Maria was fucking David till he couldn’t see straight. And if it didn’t mean that, too bad for him.

“Don’t just walk off with that onion there,” the babushka said. “You want it, you got to pay for it.” Pay for it David Berman did. Vasili thumped him on the back. He lit a Belomor, happy with the way that was working out.

–

Daisy Baxter stood outside the chemist’s shop, waiting for Bruce McNulty to pick her up. She could see a few of the brighter stars-Mars shone bright and bloody, low in the southeast-but it wasn’t true dark yet. It wouldn’t be for a while, either; as spring advanced toward summer, twilight lingered late and then came again early the next morning.

Not many motorcars moved along East Dereham’s narrow, twisting streets. Civilians had a devil of a time getting petrol. Bruce, of course, was no civilian. He could fuel whatever machine he got at the unfailing tap of a U.S. Air Force motor pool. If he wouldn’t be using it for military purposes…he didn’t care.