Transreal Cyberpunk Page 4

  Dusk fell. We bulled our way around the slope of one of the hills, while leafless, withered branches crunched and shrieked beneath our treads. The marshy Tunguska valley, clogged and gray with debris, came in to view. Sergeant Mukhamed called a halt. The maze of fallen lumber was too much for our machines.

  We tottered out of the byutors and savored the silence. My kidneys felt like jelly from days of lurching and jarring. I stood by our byutor, resting my hand on it, taking comfort in the fact that it was man-made. The rough travel and savage dreariness had taken the edge off my enthusiasm. I needed a drink.

  But our last liter of vodka had gone out the train window somewhere between Omsk and Tomsk. Nina had thrown it away “for Vlad’s sake.” She was acting more like a lovesick schoolgirl every day. She was constantly fussing over Vlad, tidying him up, watching his diet, leaping heavily to his defense in every conversation. Vlad, of course, merely sopped up this devotion as his due, too absent-minded to notice it. Vlad had a real talent for that. I wasn’t sure which of the two of them was more disgusting.

  “At last,” Vlad exulted. “Look, Ninotchka, the site of the mystery! Isn’t it sublime!” Nina smiled and linked her solid arm with his.

  The dusk thickened. Huge taiga mosquitoes whirred past our ears and settled to sting and pump blood. We slapped furiously, then set up our camp amid a ring of dense, smoky fires.

  To our alarm, answering fires flared up on the five other hilltops ringing the valley.

  “Evenks,” grumbled Sergeant Mukhamed. “Savage nomads. They live off their reindeer, and camp in round tents called yurts. No one can civilize them; it’s hopeless. Best just to ignore them.”

  “Why are they here?” Nina said. “Such a bleak place.”

  Vlad rubbed his chin. “The record of the ‘27 Kulik Expedition said the Evenk tribes remembered the explosion. They spoke of a Thunder-God smiting the valley. They must know this place pretty well.”

  “I’m telling you,” rasped Mukhamed, “stay away. The men are all mushroom-eaters and the women are all whores.”

  One of the shaven-headed Uzbek privates looked up from his tin of rations. “Really, Sarge?”

  “Their girls have lice as big as your thumbnails,” the sergeant said. “And the men don’t like strangers. When they eat those poison toadstools they get like wild beasts.”

  We had tea and hardtack, sniffling and wiping our eyes from the bug-repelling smoke. Vlad was full of plans. “Tomorrow we’ll gather data on the direction of the treefalls. That’ll show us the central impact point. Nina, you can help me with that. Nikita, you can stay here and help the soldiers set up base camp. And maybe later tomorrow we’ll have an idea of where to look for our artifact.”

  Later that night, Vlad and Nina crept out of our long tent. I heard restrained groaning and sighing for half an hour. The soldiers snored on peacefully while I lay under the canvas with my eyes wide open. Finally Nina shuffled in, followed by Vlad brushing mud from his knees.

  I slept poorly that night. Maybe Nina was no sexy hard-currency girl, but she was a woman, and even a stukach can’t overhear that sort of thing without getting hot and bothered. After all, I had my needs, too.

  Around one in the morning I gave up trying to sleep and stepped out of the tent for some air. An incredible aurora display greeted me. We were late for the 50th anniversary of the Tunguska crash, but I had the feeling the valley was welcoming me.

  There was an arc of rainbow light directly overhead, with crimson and yellow streamers shooting out from the zenith towards the horizons. Wide luminous bands, paralleling the arch, kept rising out of the horizon to roll across the heavens with swift steady majesty. The bands crashed into the arch like long breakers from a sea of light.

  The great auroral rainbow, with all its wavering streamers, began to swing slowly upwards, and a second, brighter arch formed below it. The new arch shot a long serried row of slender, colored lances towards the Tunguska valley. The lances stretched down, touched, and a lightning flash of vivid orange glared out, filling the whole world around me. I held my breath, waiting for the thunder, but the only sound was Nina’s light snoring.

  I watched for a while longer, until finally the great cosmic tide of light shivered into pieces. At the very end, disks appeared, silvery, shimmering saucers that filled the sky. Truly we had come to a very strange place. Filled with profound emotions, I was able to forget myself and sleep.

  Next morning everyone woke up refreshed and cheerful. Vlad and Nina traipsed off with the surveying equipment. With the soldiers’ help, I set up the diesel generator for Vlad’s portable calculator. We did some camp scut-work, cutting heaps of firewood, digging a proper latrine. By then it was noon, but the lovebirds were still not back, so I did some exploring of my own. I tramped downhill into the disaster zone.

  I realized almost at once that our task was hopeless. The ground was squelchy and dead, beneath a thick tangling shroud of leafless pines. We couldn’t look for wreckage systematically without hauling away the musty, long-dead crust of trees. Even if we managed that, the ground itself was impossibly soggy and treacherous.

  I despaired. The valley itself oppressed my soul. The rest of the taiga had chipmunks, wood grouse, the occasional heron or squirrel, but this swamp seemed lifeless, poisonous. In many places the earth had sagged into shallow bowls and depressions, as if the rock below it had rotted away.

  New young pines had sprung up to take the place of the old, but I didn’t like the look of them. The green saplings, growing up through the gray skeletons of their ancestors, were oddly stunted and twisted. A few older pines had been half-sheltered from the blast by freaks of topography. The living bark on their battered limbs and trunks showed repulsive puckered blast-scars.

  Something malign had entered the soil. Perhaps poisoned comet ice, I thought. I took samples of the mud, mostly to impress the soldiers back at camp. I wasn’t much of a scientist, but I knew how to go through the motions.

  While digging I disturbed an ant nest. The strange, big-headed ants emerged from their tunnels and surveyed the damage with eerie calm.

  By the time I returned to camp, Vlad and Nina were back. Vlad was working on his calculator while Nina read out direction-angles of the felled trees. “We’re almost done,” Nina told me, her broad-cheeked face full of bovine satisfaction. “We’re running an information-theoretic analysis to determine the ground location of the explosion.”

  The soldiers looked impressed. But the upshot of Vlad’s and Nina’s fancy analysis was what any fool could see by glancing at the elliptical valley. The brunt of the explosion had burst from the nearer focus of the ellipse, directly over a little hill I’d had my eye on all along.

  “I’ve been taking soil samples,” I told Nina. “I suspect odd trace elements in the soil. I suppose you noticed the strange growth of the pines. They’re particularly tall at the blast’s epicenter.”

  “Hmph,” Nina said. “While you were sleeping last night, there was a minor aurora. I took photos. I think the geomagnetic field may have had an influence on the object’s trajectory.”

  “That’s elementary,” I sniffed. “What we need to study is a possible remagnetization of the rocks. Especially at impact point.”

  “You’re neglecting the biological element,” Nina said. By now the soldiers’ heads were swiveling to follow our discussion like a tennis match. “I suppose you didn’t notice the faint luminescence of the sod?” She pulled some crumpled blades of grass from her pocket. “A Kirlian analysis will prove interesting.”

  “But, of course, the ants—” I began.

  “Will you two fakers shut up a minute?” Vlad broke in. “I’m trying to think.”

  I swallowed hard. “Oh yes, Comrade Genius? What about?”

  “About finding what we came for, Nikita. The alien craft.” Vlad frowned, waving his arm at the valley below us. “I’m convinced it’s buried out there somewhere. We don’t have a chance in this tangle and ooze ... but we’ve got to figure
some way to sniff it out.”

  At that moment we heard the distant barking of a dog. “Great,” Vlad said without pausing. “Maybe that’s a bloodhound.”

  He’d made a joke. I realized this after a moment, but by then it was too late to laugh. “It’s just some Evenk mutt,” Sergeant Mukhamed said. “They keep sled-dogs ... eat ‘em, too.” The dog barked louder, coming closer. “Maybe it got loose.”

  Ten minutes later the dog bounded into our camp, barking joyously and frisking. It was a small, bright-eyed female husky, with muddy legs and damp fur caked with bits of bark. “That’s no sled-dog,” Vlad said, wondering. “That’s a city mutt. What’s it doing here?”

  She was certainly friendly enough. She barked in excitement and sniffed at our hands trustingly. I patted the dog and called her a good girl. “Where on earth did you come from?” I asked. I’d always liked dogs.

  One of the soldiers addressed the dog in Uzbek and offered it some of his rations. It sniffed the food, took a tentative lick, but refused to eat it.

  “Sit!” Vlad said suddenly. The dog sat obediently.

  “She understands Russian,” Vlad said.

  “Nonsense,” I said. “She just reacted to your voice.”

  “There must be other Russians nearby,” Nina said. “A secret research station, maybe? Something we were never told about?”

  “Well, I guess we have a mascot,” I said, scratching the dog’s scalp.

  “Come here, Laika,” Vlad said. The dog pricked her ears and wandered toward him.

  I felt an icy sensation of horror. I snatched my hand back as if I had touched a corpse. With an effort, I controlled myself. “Come on, Vlad,” I said. “You’re joking again.”

  “Good dog,” Vlad said, patting her.

  “Vlad,” I said, “Laika’s rocket burned up on re-entry.”

  “Yes,” Vlad said, “the first creature we Earthlings put into space was sentenced to be burned alive. I often think about that.” Vlad stared dramatically into the depths of the valley. “Comrades, I think something is waiting here to help us storm the cosmos. I think it preserved Laika’s soul and reanimated her here, at this place, and at this time ... It’s no coincidence. This is no ordinary animal. This is Laika, the cosmonaut dog!”

  Laika barked loudly. I had never seen the dog without the rubber oxygen mask on her face, but I knew with a thrill of supernatural fear that Vlad was right. I felt an instant irrational urge to kill the dog, or at least give her a good kick. If I killed and buried her, I wouldn’t have to think about what she meant.

  The others looked equally stricken. “Probably fell off a train,” Mukhamed muttered at last.

  Vlad regally ignored this frail reed of logic. “We ought to follow Laika. The ... Thunder-God put her here to lead us. It won’t get dark till ten o’clock. Let’s move out, comrades.” Vlad stood up and shrugged on his backpack. “Mukhamed?”

  “Uh ...” the sergeant said. “My orders are to stay with the vehicles.” He cleared his throat and spat. “There are Evenks about. Natural thieves. We wouldn’t want our camp to be raided.”

  Vlad looked at him in surprise, and then with pity. He walked towards me, threw one arm over my shoulder, and took me aside. “Nikita, these Uzbeks are brave soldiers but they’re a bit superstitious. Terrified of the unknown. What a laugh. But you and I ... Scientists, space pioneers ... the Unknown is our natural habitat, right?”

  “Well ...”

  “Come on, Nikita.” He glowered. “We can’t go back and face the top brass empty-handed.”

  Nina joined us. “I knew you’d turn yellow, Globov. Never mind him, Vlad, darling. Why should you share your fame and glory with this sneaking coward? I’ll go with you—”

  “You’re a woman,” Vlad assured her loftily. “You’re staying here where it’s safe.”

  “But Vlad—”

  Vlad folded his arms. “Don’t make me have to beat you.” Nina blushed girlishly and looked at the toes of her hiking boots. She could have broken his back like a twig.

  The dog barked loudly and capered at our feet. “Come on,” Vlad said. He set off without looking back.

  I grabbed my pack and followed him. I had to. I was guarding him: no more Vlad, no more Globov ...

  Our journey was a nightmare. The dog kept trying to follow us, or would run yipping through ratholes in the brush that we had to circle painfully. Half on intuition, we headed for the epicenter of the blast, the little hillock at the valley’s focus.

  It was almost dusk again when we finally reached it, battered, scratched and bone-tired. We found a yurt there, half-hidden in a slough off to one side of the hill. It was an Evenk reindeer-skin tent, oozing grayish smoke from a vent-hole. A couple of scabby reindeer were pegged down outside it, gnawing at a lush, purplish patch of swamp moss. The dead trees around had been heavily seared by the blast, leaving half-charcoaled bubbly lumps of ancient resin. Some ferns and rushes had sprung up, corkscrewed, malformed, and growing with cancerous vigor.

  The dog barked loudly at the wretched reindeer, who looked up with bleary-eyed indifference.

  We heard leather thongs hiss loose in the door flap. A pale face framed in a greasy fur hood poked through. It was a young Evenk girl. She called to the dog, then noticed us and giggled quietly.

  The dog rushed toward the yurt, wagging her tail. “Hello,” Vlad called. He spread his open hands. “Come on out, we’re friends.”

  The girl stepped out and inched toward us, watching the ground carefully. She paused at a small twig, her dilated eyes goggling as if it were a boulder. She high-jumped far over it, and landed giggling. She wore an elaborate reindeer-skin jacket that hung past her knees, thickly embroidered with little beads of bone and wood. She also had tight fur trousers with lumpy beaded booties, sewn all in one piece like a child’s pajamas.

  She sidled up, grinning coyly, and touched my face and clothes in curiosity. “Nikita,” I said, touching my chest.

  “Balan Thok,” she whispered, running one fingertip down her sweating throat. She laughed drunkenly.

  “Is that your dog?” Vlad said. “She came from the sky!” He gestured extravagantly. “Something under the earth here ... brought her down from the sky ... yes?”

  I shrieked suddenly. A gargoyle had appeared in the tent’s opening. But the blank, ghastly face was only a wooden ceremonial mask, shaped like a frying pan, with a handle to grip below the “chin.” The mask had eye-slits and a carved mouth-hole fringed with a glued-on beard of reindeer hair.

  Behind it was Balan Thok’s father, or maybe grandfather. Cunningly, the old villain peered at us around the edge of his mask. His face was as wrinkled as an old boot. The sides of his head were shaven and filth-choked white hair puffed from the top like a thistle. His long reindeer coat was fringed with black fur and covered with bits of polished bone and metal.

  We established that the old savage was called Jif Gurd. Vlad went through his sky-pointing routine again. Jif Gurd returned briefly to his leather yurt and re-emerged with a long wooden spear. Grinning vacuously, he jammed the butt of it into a socket in the ground and pointed to the heavens.

  “I don’t like the look of this,” I told Vlad at once. “That spear has dried blood on it.”

  “Yeah. I’ve heard of this,” Vlad said. “Sacrifice poles for the thunder-god. Kulik wrote about them.” He turned to the old man. “That’s right,” he encouraged. “Thunder-God.” He pointed to the dog. “Thunder-God brought this dog down.”

  “Thunder-God,” said Jif Gurd seriously. “Dog.” He looked up at the sky reverently. “Thunder-God.” He made a descending motion with his right arm, threw his hands apart to describe the explosion. “Boom!”

  “That’s right! That’s right!” Vlad said excitedly.

  Jif Gurd nodded. He bent down almost absentmindedly and picked little Laika up by the scruff of the neck. “Dog.”

  “Yes, yes,” Vlad nodded eagerly. Before we could do anything, before we could realize what was happening
, Jif Gurd reached inside his greasy coat, produced a long, curved knife, and slashed poor Laika’s throat. He lifted her up without effort—he was terribly strong, the strength of drug-madness—and jammed her limp neck over the end of the spear as if gaffing a fish.

  Blood squirted everywhere. Vlad and I jumped back, horrified. “Hell!” Vlad cried in anguish. “I forgot that they sacrifice dogs!”

  The hideous old man grinned and chattered excitedly. He was convinced that he understood us—that Vlad had wanted him to sacrifice the dog to the sky-god. He approved of the idea. He approved of us. I said, “He thinks we have something in common now, Vlad.”

  “Yeah,” Vlad said. He looked sadly at Laika. “Well, we rocket men sacrificed her first, poor beast.”

  “There goes our last lead to the UFO,” I said. “Poor Laika! All the way just for this!”

  “This guy’s got to know where the thing is,” Vlad said stubbornly. “Look at the sly old codger—it’s written all over his face.” Vlad stepped forward. “Where is it? Where did it land?” He gestured wildly. “You take us there!”

  Balan Thok gnawed her slender knuckles and giggled at our antics, but it didn’t take the old guy long to catch on. By gestures, and a few key words, we established that the Thunder-God was in a hole nearby. A hidden hole, deep in the earth. He knew where it was. He could show it to us.

  But he wouldn’t.

  “It’s a religious thing,” Vlad said, mulling it over. “I think we’re ritually unclean.”

  “Muk-a-moor,” said the old man. He opened the tent flap and gestured us inside.

  The leather walls inside were black with years of soot. The yurt was round, maybe five steps across, and braced with a lattice of smooth flat sticks and buckskin thongs. A fire blazed away in the yurt’s center, chunks of charred pine on a hearth of flat yellow stones. Dense smoke curdled the air. Two huge furry mounds loomed beside the hearth. They were Evenk sleeping bags, like miniature tents in themselves.