Peter Higgins - Truth and Fear

Khyrbysk set off again.

‘Follow, please,’ he said.

Lom and Florian fell in behind him. They had reached an unspoken agreement to let the man have his head and see where he took them. He would surely lead them to Chazia, one way or another.

Khyrbysk bounded up another iron staircase. Another rail car waited there, a rounded oblong box with windows, painted in the same colours as the transit carriages but much smaller, designed to carry up to six passengers with a small luggage bay behind. It hung suspended from an overhead rail and swayed slightly when they climbed in. Khyrbysk went to the front and switched on the power. Interior lamps flickered into life and floor-level vents began to breathe heated air into the cabin. The floor was covered with stippled rubber, the steel walls and ceiling were painted cream, the seats upholstered in green leather. A chrome handrail ran the length of the wall on both sides. The interior smelled strongly of rubber and hot engine oil.

A lectern-like brown bakelite panel was set at an angle under the forward window, marked out with a complex map of radial and intersecting lines. There was a tiny switch and light bulb at each labelled node. Some of the nodes bore names–RAILHEAD, POLISHING, REFECTORY IV, CENTRIFUGE, NORTH GATE EXIT–but most were designated by short, impenetrable alphanumeric sequences.

‘This is a plan of the entire complex?’ said Lom.

‘Correct,’ said Khyrbysk.

He set the panel with practised speed and the car lurched into life. The last node he activated was labelled EDB/CENTRAL.

‘What’s EDB?’ said Lom.

‘You’ll see.’

The car rattled through narrow tunnels and swept out high above underground chambers. They saw women in overalls and headscarves worked at assembly lines, operating lathes and welding machines. They passed the slopes of sour-smelling slag dumps. Furnace doors clanged open beneath them, belching blasts of heat and disgorging planks of glowing molten metal onto conveyor belts. A gently descending tunnel took them past honeycomb stacks of artillery shells painted a garish yellow. Notices on the racks warned, with perfect superfluity, DANGER! HIGH EXPLOSIVE!

‘Armaments?’ said Lom.

‘Certainly,’ said Khyrbysk. ‘We must satisfy our benefactors. The iron law of economics. The Foundation must wash its own face.’

They swung out across a dim shoreless lake of milky-green water reeking of naphtha, its surface wreathed with scraps and scarves of steam. Hard-hat gangers clambered across half-built scaffolding and tramped in silent groups on perilous unrailed walkways. Then, after ten more minutes of featureless tunnel, the rail car lurched to a stop alongside two identical carriages.

EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN BUREAU.

EDB.

Khyrbysk led them through double swing doors into another world. The oppressive scale of the underground complex was gone, replaced by green corridors. Fire extinguishers. Noticeboards. Wall-mounted telephones. The muted clatter of distant typewriters. Linoleum floors squeaked underfoot. Half-glazed doors opened into offices and meeting rooms. SURVIVABLES. LENSING. CENTRIFUGE. DEPLETION. STAGING. NOÖSPHERE. PROJECT WINTER SKIES.

A few people were working late. Men in shirtsleeves and sleeveless pullovers. They sat alone or gathered in small huddles, rumpled, smoking, arguing earnestly in quiet voices. Many of them nodded to Khyrbysk as he passed and he greeted each one by name.

Lom noticed that Khyrbysk’s creased heavy face was damp with perspiration. For the first time he looked tense. But there was something about the way he was walking that wasn’t nervous, but the opposite: a kind of bravado in the way he carried himself.

‘Nearly there,’ he said.

Now we are coming to it , thought Lom. He tightened his grip on the gun in his pocket. Beside him he sensed Florian ready himself for action. Clever Khyrbysk has fooled us all. So he thinks.

Khyrbysk veered suddenly to the right, pushed open a door and entered a large hexagonal room overlooked by two mezzanine tiers. The central floor was occupied by a circular plotting table twenty feet in diameter, the green baize surface laid out with maps and charts. In the corner a telekrypt whirred and blinked. Up on the mezzanines women in uniform whispered intently into telephones. Half a dozen VKBD officers in pale red uniforms looked up when they entered.

Khyrbysk stepped sharply away from Lom and Florian.

‘Draw your weapons!’ he barked. ‘Lieutenant Gerasimov! Arrest these men! They are spies. They are terrorists. They are assassins. Lock them away somewhere and inform Secretary Chazia immediately. I put them in her hands.’

The VKBD men snapped to their feet, a dozen revolver muzzles covering Lom and Florian.

‘The Secretary is not here, Director Khyrbysk,’ said Gerasimov. ‘She took the observation car to the testing zone. She wanted to witness it herself.’

Khyrbysk frowned.

‘Gone already? But the test is not till dawn. I was to travel with her. That was the plan.’

‘We could telephone, but… She will not welcome a trivial interruption. She took the woman with her.’

‘The matter is of no relevance to me. But she must deal with this, Lieutenant. I want to hear no more of these men. And Gerasimov, I have made representations before about the lax security in the city. I will be doing so again, depend on it.’

As he turned to go Khyrbysk threw a contemptuous glance at Lom and Florian.

‘Idiots,’ he muttered.

When Khyrbysk had gone, Lieutenant Gerasimov detached two of the VKBD–heavy grey-faced men with broad dull faces, early forties, running to fat–to take Lom and Florian to the detention area.

‘Wait with them there till Chazia comes.’

The VKBD men looked bored and resentful. They didn’t like being dragged away from bothering the women working the telephones. Vagant revolvers in hand, they shoved and hustled their captives along the corridors. People glanced at them curiously and quickly looked away, avoiding the eye of the VKBD. Lom shuffled along passively, eyes to the floor, looking defeated. Florian walked with as much dignity as he could muster, bareheaded, holding his astrakhan hat in his hand.

When they reached the transit car, Lom watched carefully as one of the guards set the control panel. The man worked slowly, concentrating on each move. The operation was simple: there was a button under the counter to turn on the power, then you selected your route and flicked the switches of the points you wanted to pass through. If you made a mistake, you flicked the switch the other way to cancel the instruction. The guard made several mistakes. Lom guessed the VKBD had arrived with Chazia the previous day.

The car rocked and settled and lurched into life.

No point in waiting. There won’t be a better time.

Lom glanced at Florian, who was watching him with glittering, rapacious amusement. Florian raised an eyebrow. It was a question. An invitation.

‘Leave it to me,’ said Lom. ‘No need to rip their heads off.’ He regretted the loss of his Blok 15, which the VKBD had taken. But it didn’t matter. It made no difference.

The guard nearest to him frowned.

‘Keep your fucking mouth shut—’

Lom stepped in close, inside the gun hand, and crunched his right elbow into the man’s face. Felt his nose burst and his head jerk back. In the same movement with his left hand he gripped the Vagant and the fist that held it and twisted. Hard. Felt the trigger finger snap. The gun fired, deafening in the enclosed space. The bullet punched a hole in the wall.

If the other guard had been watching properly, and if he’d been trained, and if he’d practised so much that he didn’t need to think, he might have realised what was happening and responded effectively in, what, two seconds? Maybe less. But he wasn’t trained, and he hadn’t practised, and he didn’t have two seconds. He was still standing in the same position with a puzzled look on his face when Lom’s right fist, holding the Vagant, powered by the momentum of his charge and with the full two hundred pounds of his weight behind it, crashed into the side of his head. The guard staggered sideways. His gun slipped from his fingers and skittered across the floor. Lom recovered his balance and aimed a vicious kick at the man’s kneecap. He screamed and fell. Lom kicked his head again just to be sure. It felt good. The angel taste was in his mouth again.