"It's a long story, and since you are working for the American
government now, I don't think I'd better tell you. Not that anything
I plan doing will hurt America--far from it. But you know about
time-travel and the way we have to do everything in secret. All I want
is some information, anyway. What's the current international state of
affairs?"
"I wish I knew, Tedor. Frankly, I'm worried. The Russians have massed
three million troops on their European border, another million to the
east, north of the Yellow Sea. Their big planes, capable of delivering
anything including atomic weapons a third of the way around the world,
are lined up on a 'round-the-clock stand-by basis at half a dozen
airfields; there's talk they'll be used soon. Everything seems to hinge
on something happening in the Kremlin right now. There's talk, wild
rumors, but nothing official."
"What are the rumors about?"
"You'll think this is silly, but they're from usually reliable sources.
They claim Stalin has come back to life."
"What!"
"That's right. Stalin has come back, sort of like a totalitarian
Communist Messiah. All people have a culture-hero who's supposed to
come back in times of trouble and lead his nation to glory. Even
though Stalin's been gone only a year and a half, he's the Russian
culture-hero. If somehow they can rig up a setup--the men in the
Kremlin, I mean--which convinces the people he has come back and wants
war, there's no telling what Russia might do."
"But does the Kremlin want war?"
Marsden shrugged. "It might be necessary to keep power. The people
don't like their government, although they tolerated it under Stalin
because he managed to convince them he was something of a deity. But
if the government can turn the people to an exterior trouble, namely a
world war, the government would stay in power. It depends on what these
rumors are all about."
"And don't you know?"
"No."
"Okay, Harry. Thanks. Listen, don't tell Dorlup I was here if he should
call you. I'll get in touch with him when I have a chance."
Marsden gave Tedor an address where Dorlup could be reached, told him
they'd have to have lunch together some time, then led him to the door.
* * * * *
Vladimir Chenkov's dacha--his big estate at the far end of the
private highway some thirty-odd miles south of Moscow--almost had
the proportions of a palace. It was big all over, with huge rooms,
high ceilings, half a dozen fireplaces, two grand pianos, ponderous,
overstuffed furniture and eight private bedrooms, each easily large
enough to accommodate four people although each contained only one
oversized bed.
"You're a strange girl, Anna," said Chenkov, sitting with her on
bearskins near the fireplace and trying to maneuver in such a way that
when she grew tired her head would naturally fall into his lap.
"Oh, I like you--yes. Don't misunderstand. But at times you are
so--cold."
"You're married, Vladimir, and sometimes I think of your wife and think
of how I would feel under similar circumstances."
"That is all?"
"Well--"
"Then listen to me, Anna. What is a wife? A man has a wife because
it is conventional, like a country says it is striving for peace
when often it must have war to keep from flying apart. I can get you
anything, anything. I could treat you like no wife ever was treated.
Here, you like this dacha? Say the word and it is yours."
Servants came with vodka, champagne, paper-thin slices of sturgeon,
caviar. Chenkov nibbled at the sturgeon while Laniq had some caviar and
champagne. Chenkov began drinking vodka and hardly paused until, Laniq
realized, he was high enough to be uninhibited, yet not sufficiently
high to be a boor. It was the gentlemanly thing in Russian nobility,
Laniq knew.
"Do you not even feel inclined to kiss me tonight, my Anna?"
Laniq offered her lips without heat, got them bruised by Chenkov's
teeth.
"Then at least dance for me, Anna."
She had danced for him before, here in this very dacha, at the same
fireplace. But now it was different, now she could not feel the same
emotional indifference and so whet Chenkov's appetite sufficiently for
him to start talking.
Laniq got up and did a tentative pirouette.
"Come now."
Laniq danced slowly, spinning and dipping and feeling terribly sorry
for herself. But the firelight was warm and the champagne, and the
whole room seemed to go out of focus except for Chenkov's hungry eyes,
which became enormous--and in Laniq's own time the dance was something
to be done because you loved doing it, and except for Chenkov's eyes
she might dance with abandon and enjoy herself.
_Tedor_, she thought. _Tedor...._
* * * * *
If she closed her own eyes she thought, almost, she was dancing for him
and not for Chenkov. The slit skirt swirled around her flashing thighs;
the bodice, slashed from throat to waist, clung and fell away, clung
and fell away.
She danced not for Chenkov but for Tedor--and then not for Tedor but
for all the people in the world who might live in freedom if Chenkov's
tongue loosened. But the hands which reached up for her legs and pulled
her down were Chenkov's.
"Tell me," she said breathlessly while Chenkov tried to paw her and she
scampered away to fill a large glass with vodka for him and a small one
with champagne for herself. "Tell me, are you as important a man as I
hear?"
"My dear Anna! You're jesting."
"No I mean it. I'm only a country girl, really I am, and I'd--"
"You? A country bumpkin. That's good, that's splendid. Well, then I
will tell you. I am number two man in all the realm, and...."
Laniq pouted.
"Don't cry. Don't. I will, one day be number one man, I know it. You
may rest assured of that. I could show you things, so many things which
would make your beautiful hair stand on end."
"Then show me!"
"Very well--I shall, my Anna."
"Show me how you can do anything, anything you want in all of Moscow."
"And in the Kremlin, too," Chenkov said thickly. "Yes, in the Kremlin.
Tomorrow morning I will take you to see something you never dreamed of.
Tomorrow morning...." He kissed her wetly, too far gone with vodka.
"Tomorrow morning then. I'm sleepy." And Laniq stood up, brushed his
fumbling hands away from her, climbed the stairs to the second floor,
retreated to a bedroom and bolted the door behind her. Chenkov was soon
stomping up the stairs and banging insistently at the door.
"Tomorrow," Laniq whispered, and repeated it when Chenkov protested. "I
said tomorrow."
"But Anna--"
"You show me what you can do. After all, I don't want to be a
fly-by-night mistress of this dacha. Good night, Vladimir."
"Good night, then. Tomorrow morning--and tomorrow night."
* * * * *
They always tried to bring Chenkov in on everything. _They_
actually had more power than people on the outside could imagine,
Malenkov thought petulantly. They numbered only two-score but
they were his cabinet of ministers and sub-ministers and it
seemed--ridiculously--that he had to answer to them for everything.
"But why don't we forget about Vladimir?" Malenkov pleaded, "who must
certainly be kept busy with his Army work?"
"Vladimir will come. Stalin would have wanted it that way."
Stalin, in truth, had asked for Chenkov as well as Malenkov. Stalin.
Malenkov trembled when he thought of it. That was not Stalin--that was
nobody. A thing, not a person. It spoke even with a mechanical voice.
Stalin--the Old Stalin--never answered to a cabinet of ministers and
sub-ministers. As for the new Stalin, the strange horrible thing which
the bio-chemist, Zhubin, insisted was Stalin, there was no telling what
he would want or demand. Malenkov wished passionately he could get his
hands around Zhubin's scrawny neck and choke the life from him. This
was all Zhubin's fault.
Not really, for Mulid Ruscar couldn't be discounted. Why did everything
happen this way? Why did men from the future even insist on poking
their noses into his, Malenkov's business? But why was any of this
Ruscar's affair, anyway? Ruscar seemed to hold the whip-hand. Ruscar
told them what to do, and they did it. Ruscar knew political intrigue
as well as a Chenkov, bio-chemistry as well as a Zhubin--for was it not
Ruscar who had helped, paved the way, in fact, for Zhubin to construct
the monster masquerading as a resurrected Stalin? As if a hideous,
naked thing in a glass cage could be a man of flesh and blood and think
like a man.
"Hurry, Comrade Premier. Ruscar is waiting and Stalin with him."
Ruscar--and Stalin. But Ruscar had not been born yet, and would not be,
for thousands of years. Stalin? Stalin was dead.
"I do not feel well," said Malenkov. "Summon the Comrade Doctor."
"I am here, Comrade Premier. I will go with you to the meeting. A
slight sedative will perhaps--"
"No! Get that thing away from me!" Malenkov recoiled in terror from the
needle which the Comrade Doctor had extended. "I am all right."
Was the Comrade Doctor in the employ of Chenkov to poison him? Was he
in the employ of Ruscar for some nameless purpose? Or of Zhubin, the
bio-chemist, to transform Malenkov also into a pink thing floating in
ghastly fluid in a little glass container?
Almost blubbering as he walked toward the laboratory, Malenkov could
feel the weight of Communist Empire, crushing him like a worm to the
floor.
"I've never been in the Kremlin," Laniq told Chenkov as they hurried
along the silent hallways within the walled fortress. She had seen the
towers, the minarets, the gaunt walls only briefly from the outside,
and then Chenkov had spirited her within the place, although clearly a
Red Army guard would have protested had he been anyone but the Chief of
Staff.
"I can take you anywhere you want." Chenkov promised, walking beside
her, his arm tucked in hers, resembling neither the whip-lash leader
of the Army, which he was, nor the romantic lover, which he hoped to
be--but rather the obscure military figure who had climbed to glory
over the purge-slain bodies of his comrades. He would one day look the
part of the field marshal, Laniq thought; at the moment he was trying
to convince himself as well as Anna Myinkov of the brightness of his
star in the communist firmament.
They reached a heavy metal door flanked by two guards. "Marshal
Chenkov!" cried one, and they both saluted with their rifles. The door
opened, they went inside.
* * * * *
Laniq saw a huge room, a laboratory it seemed--all white porcelain
and gleaming chrome. At the far end a group of men clustered about an
object which seemed suspended in air and bathed in radiance of gold and
amber. The object was cylindrical and rather small, transparent with a
pinkish mass floating inside.
Laniq almost screamed. The thing in the glass container was a human
brain.
Chenkov grasped her arm more tightly. "They won't like it when they
find I brought you here." He smiled. "They'll probably insist you
remain within the Kremlin--with me."
A big, nervous man with flabby jowls and the palest face Laniq had ever
seen turned to face them.
"Vladimir," he said, "you're late."
It was Georgi Malenkov.