Peter Higgins - Truth and Fear

In her sleepless solitude Chazia began to wonder if perhaps, after all her efforts, she was going to fail. Maybe she was simply not good enough to do what she had set out to do. She felt the need for power, any power, in her belly like a hunger. She was incomplete without it. She was made for power, she was capable of it, she deserved it. She had worked so hard for so long. She had made sacrifices. She had given her life to the Vlast unstintingly. She had served . When she held her hands stretched out before her in the darkness, palms open, they felt empty, with an emptiness ready to be filled. And yet…

Chazia sat up abruptly and turned on the lamp. She swung her legs off the bunk and stood up. Her self-pity disgusted her. Such moods came upon her when she was alone with nothing to do but think. That was why she must always be working. Never be inactive. Never. Keep moving, keep trying, keep going forward. Always choose the difficult thing. Always choose to dare .

She went through to the next compartment, where she kept the suit of angel flesh that she had made. The uncanny watchfulness of the thing made her uneasy. She realised for the first time that she was frightened of it, in the way you’re frightened to get back on a horse that’s thrown you several times. But the reluctance, the fear in her stomach, that was the reason to do it. She took the headpiece from its shelf and put it on. She felt it reach out and clamp onto her, plunging invasive tendrils deep into her mind. It was eager, it was ready, and now so was she. Fresh excitement stirred in her belly. Her mind began to turn faster. It was better already. This was what she needed.

Awakening angel senses trickled information into her mind. She felt with prickling clarity the many lives on the train, the energy of the engine working, the miles and miles of passing trees and snow. The Pollandore. She felt the Pollandore by its absence. Its impossibility. It was a strange blankness. It told her nothing.

She called out to the living angel in the forest.

Where are you? Speak to me. I am here.

Again and again she called into the emptiness, as she had done a hundred times before.

And this time the angel answered.

At last it answered!

When the angel had spoken to Chazia at Vig, it had almost destroyed her. It had come roaring into her mind, a crude appalling destroying storm of sheer inhuman force, as infinite and absolute and cold as the space between the stars, pounding and pouring into her, stronger and more powerful than she could bear, until her head burst open and her lungs heaved for breath but could find none. But this time it was different. Perhaps it was because of the casket of angel flesh enclosing her head, or perhaps it was because she was stronger now, and better prepared, more equal to the encounter. It did not occur to her that the angel had learned subtlety and control.

I see what you’re doing, darling, the angel whispered, and its voice in her head was Chazia’s own voice, Chazia speaking to Chazia, intimately, the lover speaking to the one it loves. I see that thing you’re bringing, and I see what you want to do with it. You’re so brave, my beautiful, so brilliant and so brave. It really is remarkable. But you will not do this. It will not be done.

‘No,’ said Chazia. ‘No. I want it.’

I am so sorry, Lavrentina. I left you alone for so long. Too much time has passed. It was wrong of me, I made a mistake, I see that now, and I’ve come back. Can you forgive me, Lavrentina?

Her name! It was using her name. It knew her, it had always known her! Chazia had been right: it had been there watching all along, but silent, so cruelly silent.

I understand you so much better now, darling. You felt abandoned and alone and you turned to this other thing to comfort you. I understand that. But I’m back now. You don’t need the other thing, not any more.

The angel went everywhere inside her, turning everything over, Chazia’s angel-enhanced senses flared incandescently. It was overwhelming. She felt the strength of her body and the force of her will magnified a hundred, a thousand times. Nothing was impossible.

Is this not what you want, Lavrentina? Am I not enough and more than enough? Am I not all that you would ever need?

‘Yes.’

We just need to destroy that thing you’re bringing. You don’t understand it, Lavrentina. It has deceived you. It’s a terrible, repellent thing. We have to get rid of it and then, together, just you and me, we can do… anything!

‘I don’t want to destroy it. We can use it. Once I have learned—’

I know what you want, darling, and I will give it to you. I will give you everything. The whole world will see what you are. Just do this for me. The thing must be destroyed. Destroy the disgusting repellent thing. Let it burn.

‘I don’t want to do that,’ whispered Chazia.

But we need to destroy it, my love.

Lom woke to grey daylight and Antoninu Florian looking down on him, his hand on his shoulder.

‘Vissarion?’ Florian was saying. He looked concerned.

‘What?’ said Lom, warm and reluctant. He was comfortable. There was a pillow. Sheets. Florian’s head was framed in a wide square of leaden sky.

It was a window. There were thin lemon-yellow curtains, pulled open.

Lom hauled himself upright in the narrow steel cot. Springs protested under his weight. The walls of the room were corrugated tin on a timber frame. There was a table under the window. A desk. Empty.

‘Where are we?’ said Lom. He had been dreaming of water and trees. The encounter with the dead angel was a distant and receding darkness, a stain of metallic fear on the horizon. He didn’t want to think about that.

‘The aerodrome at Terrimarkh,’ said Florian. ‘How do you feel?’

Lom thought about it.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Hungry. And I could do with coffee. A lot of coffee. And a piss.’

‘OK,’ said Florian. ‘Good. And then we leave.’ He hesitated. ‘Can you do that? Are you well?’

‘Of course. Why?’

Florian handed him a razor.

‘You might want to shave while you’re in the bathroom.’

Lom ran his hand across his chin and felt a thick rough growth of beard.

‘Shit. How long—’

‘We have lost much time. You were delirious, confused, and then you slept very deeply. We couldn’t wake you at all. Gretskaya is fretting to be away.’

‘How long has it been?’

‘We have lost three days.’

‘ Three days! ’

Lom pushed back the covers, hauled himself out of the bed and walked unsteadily across to the window. Standing was a shock. The bare linoleum chilled his feet. His legs felt feeble. Shaky under his weight. He looked out on bleak expanses of concrete and asphalt under a threadbare dusting of snow. Hangars and huts, low and widely separated. Fuel tanks. A water tower. And beyond the aerodrome, nothing: no house, no hill, no road, no fence, no tree, only the weight of the sky, draining the world of colour. The single runway, swept clear of snow, stretched black into the distance. The Kotik stood ready. There were no other aircraft visible. No sign of life at all.

Three days! Maroussia! Shit!

‘How soon can we leave?’ he said.

‘Get dressed. I’ll find you something to eat. Then we’ll go.’

Two hours later they were airborne and on their way north to Novaya Zima. Gretskaya stayed below the cloud bank. The altimeter showed a steady 2,000 feet. She found the railway and followed it north. The track cut straight across monochrome tundra, mile after mile, hour after hour, parallel with the low hills on the starboard horizon, misted grey with distance. Drifts of leafless birch trees rolled away behind them, and white expanses of snow pitted with circular lakes. The lakes, not yet entirely frozen, were fringed grey with ice at the shore. The dilated coal-black waters stared sightlessly back at the sky.