Ken MacLeod - Newton's Wake

Brezhnev : What of the brotherlands, of Comecon?

Andropov : The sledded Polacks grumble in their yards.

They hearken to, on shortwave radio that turbulent priest, Pope Wojtyla,

and bide their time. The Bulgars hard

oppress their Turks. The Czechs

bounce currency abroad and Semtex too

and do protest too much their fealty.

The Magyars boast themselves

the happiest barrack in the People’s camp.

Our Germans seethe

with discontent at that dividing Wall.

As to our brother Serbs, what can I say?

Their house of cards may topple any day.

(Uproar.)

Gorbachev : We cannot live like this. We must face facts.

We must learn (as Lenin said) to trade,

to reckon and account, in roubles hard

as dollars are, not in worthless chits.

Our factories must feel the chilling blast

of competition fierce, and strengthened thus

go forth into the world, where we must make

our peace with other lands, and first America,

mightiest in arms. Let’s not provoke

their wrath in rash adventuring abroad

as bold Guevara did, to die for naught.

Let’s give our people what they want, which means

fast food, cheap television, cars, and Levi jeans.

Brezhnev : I know my people well. They’re still the folk who stormed the heavens in the Five-Year Plans—

built Magnitogorsk, defended Stalingrad,

drove Hitler’s hordes back to Berlin,

then stormed the heavens in very truth:

Gagarin blazing a cosmic trail! With them I’ll face

the worst America can do. Tikhanov—beat

your ploughboys into swordsmen! The Party too

I know and can command. A mighty host

of all the best in Muscovy, the strong,

loyal, intelligent—my very knights. All discipline

is in their hands. It is the key

you overlook, good Mikhail Gorbachev

that shall unlock our problems old and new.

No traffickers shall tell us what to do.

Later. A forest. Enter Two Conspirators.

Schevardnadze : While Brezhnev tarries nothing can be changed.

Gorbachev (aside) : His passing? That can be arranged.

Exeunt, pursued by a bear .

It must have gained something in the translation, Lucinda thought. Eighty-Seven Production Brigade watched the play on the big screen utterly agog. They hooted with laughter, gasped, wept at inappropriate moments, thumped the tables and each other’s backs. They shook their fists and hissed at the sly, treacherous Gorbachev; shuddered as he took his blood money from the evil American emperor, George II; applauded the noble, doomed Leonid. Andropov’s eulogy over the prince’s bullet-riddled body had them sitting bolt upright, silent, tears streaming down their cheeks.

‘This is wonderful,’ San Ok said at last, to enthusiastic nods. ‘With this Eighty-Seven Production Brigade will make fortune in entertainment. This will be viewed in many habitats.’ She looked down at the card. ‘And so much more! The musicals! The operas! Who is this Ben-Ami?’

Carlyle was so relieved and pleased that she let the rice wine loosen her tongue. ‘He is a great writer and producer,’ she said. ‘He lives on the other side of your gate.’

‘That is interesting,’ said Jong, and Carlyle realised she had said too much.

‘Is very powerful play,’ said Ree, the following morning when the lifter was a good thousand kilometres south of the family farm. He looked as if he was recovering from a hangover, and somehow furtive. There was no actual need for him to look over his shoulder as he flew, but now and then he did. ‘But I fear some may misinterpret it.’ He sighed. ‘Revisionism, antirevisionism, self-reliance idea. Is all very complicated. I am poor marine ecologist. I sit in the bowels of Marx. I swim around the trousers of Mao. At low tide I walk in mud at feet of Dear Leader, and throw down my metre-square and count invertebrates. I am very self-reliant. Some day I hope to meet nice girl, another biologist perhaps, and together we make contribution to many child policy. We will live in big habitat spinning in the sun, natural environment for self-reliant conscious primate. Man is to master and transform nature. Not stick in the mud like ignorant Yank. That is all I know and believe in.’

‘Sounds enough to be going on with,’ said Carlyle.

He glanced at her sideways, his hands moving over the terrifyingly complex and unforgiving controls.

‘It was until last night,’ he said. ‘The play said nothing that was incorrect or against self-reliance idea. There is not one line that is immoral or decadent. Very strong moral against revisionism. But even so, whenever I think about it, it perturbs my mind.’ Becoming agitated, he waved his hands. The craft yawed. Hastily he grabbed the levers. ‘You see?’ he went on. ‘I lose control. I think about Prince Leonid and I say to myself, “He was a man and he lived .” Who will say that of me?’

‘But you’re a man and you’re living,’ Carlyle objected, though she knew fine well what he meant. ‘And Brezhnev, well, to be honest he was not like the Prince in the play.’

Ree shook his head. ‘That does not matter. The play is the thing.’

Carlyle said nothing. Subversive intent had been the last thing on her mind, and Ben-Ami’s ignorant or wilful misprision of the boring old bureaucrats as rival medieval barons had seemed, if anything, to dignify them. Their doings were quite reminiscent of the rumoured goings-on at the senior levels of her own family, that production brigade of predation, and nothing at all like…

‘Ah,’ she said, ‘I see what you mean.’ She gave him an earnest smile. ‘Keep it to yourself.’

At the spaceport she was glad of her space suit. Without it she’d have collapsed in the heat. She said goodbye to Ree, who shook her hand and strolled off to recharge his machine for the homeward journey. Carlyle headed for the terminal building, a typical low flat-roofed structure sprouting aerials, radars, and solar power panels. The spaceport was a few square kilometres of mirage-shimmered, sun-cracked concrete in a clearing carved out of the scrubby jungle on the shore of an equatorial continent. She had no idea why it was there. Certainly orbital mechanics and launch energy considerations had nothing to do with it. Most of the ships here, including the one with whose captain she was soon dickering over the fare, were the same KE-built type she’d just seen over Eurydice. It was out of the corner of her eye, through the big window, that she first saw one of the exceptions.

A hundred-metre-wide stylised batwing shape rose and headed skyward, disappearing and reappearing in a rapid series of flickers, like an old celluloid movie in stop frame. Each time it did so there was a momentary flash of Cherenkov radiation, blue against the blue. The craft was fittling in atmosphere .

Captain Eleven Starship Enterprises Dok Gil barely glanced up from the numbers crunching on his slate.

‘Showing off,’ he said sternly. ‘Hundred-metre FTL jumps!’

‘I’ve never seen a ship like that before,’ Carlyle said. ‘Where did you get it, if you don’t mind me asking?’

‘We did not get it from anywhere,’ said Dok Gil. ‘We built it ourselves.’ He waved a hand. ‘There are several more on the field. My Eleven Starship Enterprises hopes to acquire one soon, but they are much in demand and quite expensive.’

‘I’ll bet,’ said Carlyle. If its general performance was anything like that glimpse had shown her, it was definitely the coolest ever piece of juche tech. ‘Before we leave, I would like to see the spec and a price list.’