The Curve of the Earth

23




Petrovitch kicked the bedstead. “Come on. Breakfast.”

Newcomen’s face emerged from inside his sleeping bag, lying on the bare mattress. “What?” He blinked and squinted as the single naked bulb above his bed grew in luminescence.

“Breakfast, I said. Recommended calorie intake is around ten thousand for an Arctic environment, so unless you like snacking on bars of butter, I’d shift your arse into the kitchen.”

“What time is it?”

“What am I? Your wristwatch?” Petrovitch kicked the bed again. “Use your link. That’s what someone who belongs to the Freezone does.”

Newcomen rolled around in his bag, wriggling like a great grey maggot. Eventually a hand appeared at the neckline and worried the zip down a fraction.

“I don’t belong, though. Do I?”

“And yet you have a link. There’s a riddle to start the day with.” Petrovitch left him there and went back to the stove. His frying pans were heating up nicely, and one advantage of seeing in the infrared was that he could tell precisely how hot they were.

He retrieved a cardboard box from the fridge – a massive American thing that looked like a chrome coffin – and opened it up. If the store had got his order wrong, he was going to look a complete mudak.

But here were strips of bacon and minute steaks, a tray of a dozen eggs, a block of lard, a loop of blood pudding, hash browns, links of pink sausages, and at the bottom, a tin of corned beef with its own key.

He became absorbed in the ritual of making, banging a battered enamel coffee pot on to a spare ring and feeding more wood to the ever-hungry furnace. Soon, things were frying, and the smell drifted out into the hall and down the corridor.

Newcomen staggered through and slumped at the kitchen table. “So what time is it?”

“Six thirteen. We have a lot to eat and a long way to go. Six hundred k. North.” Petrovitch opened enough cupboards to track down two plates and some cutlery, which he dealt out on to the work surface. “And a full day’s work ahead of us.”

“We don’t even know what we’re going to find when we get to wherever it is.”

“Deadhorse. Of course we don’t. That’s why we’re going. We can do only so much remotely. We can look from the sky, we can listen and measure and track and record. But we have to be there, too. Do you think Alan and Jessica would have responded to a couple of messages left on their usual dropboxes? Considering his parents are desperate for them to stop bumping uglies?”

“Oh please. I haven’t even got a cup of coffee yet.”

“Yeah, sorry about the poor service. We don’t have a woman in the house to do the cooking for us.”

“Just, just.” Newcomen rested his forehead on the warm pine tabletop. “Don’t start.”

“Hah,” said Petrovitch triumphantly. He started banging the heavy iron skillets around to free the food within them. “Make yourself useful and find some mugs.”

Newcomen dragged himself from his chair and started opening doors. “I don’t suppose you’ve got any milk.”

“I don’t have any sugar, more to the point. I’ll cope, and so will you.”

Using a metal slice, he started to divide the food more or less equally between them. Newcomen found two china mugs and reached for the coffee pot. Petrovitch slapped his outstretched hand with the slice.

“Ow.”

“The coffee inside is boiling. Any reason why the handle is going to be any colder?” He threw an oven mitt at him and carried on lifting and turning.

By the time he’d finished, the plates were piled high and it was barely possible to carry them the short distance to the table.

Newcomen drew his knife and fork towards him. “Am I going to be allowed to eat this without a lecture about the decadence of my country or a list of my own personal faults?”

“Yeah, okay. Though ‘my own personal’ is tautologous.” Petrovitch twirled his fork through his fingers and back again to his grip. “Dig in while it’s hot.”

“I hate you,” said Newcomen.

“I don’t care.” He stabbed a sausage and held it on the tines while he ate first one end, then the other.

“And there’s no oh-jay.”

“Yeah, I never heard Armstrong or Aldrin refusing to take that one small step because they didn’t have juice for breakfast.” Petrovitch picked up a hash brown, and regretted not ordering mushrooms. “You’ve fallen so far, so fast.”

Newcomen jabbed across the table with his knife. “I thought you said you weren’t going to lecture me.”

“So I did. Prijatnovo appetita.”

Petrovitch worked his way through his food methodically, one ear to the news reports from around the world that his agents had selected. Each one came with a commentary from Freezone analysts, whether they could confirm or debunk it, and if the Freezone collective was involved in any way. They had virtual fingers in lots of the pies, from co-ordinating food distribution in Mindoro to transparent accounting in Namibia. The naked newswires poured into his head, with a slew of additional information: blogs, pictures, biographies, historical background and future trends.

He felt compelled to keep himself informed, especially at a time like this. It was a truism that the one connecting fact that linked together everything he was doing could appear half a world away. He wasn’t the only one watching, reading, collating and sifting, but he was a link in the chain: too much information was being generated for any one man to know, but he wanted to try.

Nothing from China yet. The US press was silent on his whereabouts, and the FBI’s Most Wanted list didn’t feature either him or Newcomen. Amsterdam spot prices for crude were up: he dug a little further and found a supply problem. The Alaskan pipeline hadn’t restarted pumping yet. Maybe another week, while the technicians and mechanics replaced circuits and reprogrammed computers.

So there was something to look into. Hardly anyone worried about the price of crude oil any more, since most people didn’t burn it in their cars. But as a chemical precursor, it was vital. He passed a message back to the data miners and stuck a priority flag on it.

He looked down: his stomach was as full as his head.

“Okay. I’ll go and turn the turbines over, and you see to the washing-up.”

Newcomen was halfway through his food and slowing. “Where’s the dishwasher?”

“I’m looking at him.” Petrovitch wiped his mouth on his sleeve, to Newcomen’s obvious disgust. “Plenty of hot water in the tank. Leave it to air-dry, and I’ll see you back at the plane.”

“It was dark last night…”

“It’s dark now. Use your link. Michael knows where you are, where I am, and has maps of the bits between.” He pushed himself away from the table, and carried his plate to the sink, making a show of rinsing it off and placing it in the bottom of the bowl. “Don’t be long. But don’t make a half-arsed job of it either. We leave stuff as we find it.”

“Unless it’s breaking windows and walls with people’s heads.”

“Yeah. There are exceptions to the rule.” He leaned back against the work surface. “When others cause the mess, I let them clean up after themselves.”

Newcomen kept on chewing. “I thought you were going to start the engines.”

“I have already. I’ll just get my bag and I’ll go.” He levered himself upright. “Don’t bother locking the door. Just make sure it’s shut.”

Petrovitch went to delve under his bed for the carpet bag. He looked around to see if he’d left anything: just the sleeping bag, and he didn’t need that again.

Ready, except for the five minutes it took him to dress for the outside.

The cold snap was stretching itself, but was due to break tomorrow. Warm, wet air from the Pacific was pushing up the coast. It meant rain in Seattle, but if anything was left when it reached them, it’d be snow.

He could hear Newcomen in the kitchen, banging plates and rattling the pans, muttering all the while under his breath. With a little enhancement, he could tell what he was saying – not at all what a good little Reconstructionista ought to be vocalising, whether or not they were thinking it.

“Oh, Christine. I don’t know who’s had the narrower escape: you or Farm Boy.”

[It is highly likely that Christine Logan’s trust fund, once invested, would have paid for domestic help. It is also probable that while Joseph Newcomen’s mother would have made him do chores when he was younger, he has not washed up after a meal for several years. Christine, never.] Michael stopped, then started again. [A meat question: if competence in a wide range of skills is desirable, why do people not take every opportunity to display those skills? Especially if those people were desiring a mate – appearing both knowledgeable and competent across a diverse set of normal human tasks would surely increase that person’s chances of attracting a life partner.]

Petrovitch pulled the front door closed behind him and set off across the snowy ground.

“You mean, like I do?”

[You fit the pattern of competency I have outlined, yes.]

“Because being able to do or fix something can be seen as a commercial transaction. We’re used to that: poor people often see it as drudge work, rich people as beneath them. Working with your hands is something you either get paid to do, or pay others to do for you. There’s also learned helplessness and deliberate incompetence, too, but they’re passive-aggressive strategies and anyone who uses them needs a kick up the zhopu.”

Away from the front of the house, it was properly dark. He turned his eyes on and blinked away the visual world.

“But you’re going somewhere with this, right?”

[Joseph Newcomen managed to attract a rich, beautiful woman without displaying any of the characteristics you believe to be important. How, then, did he achieve this feat?]

“Yeah. Some things are just mysteries.”

[Or it could be that your theory does not cover the totality of their relationship.]

“People don’t behave rationally when they believe they’re in love.”

[I have more than sufficient evidence of that. Neither am I immune, Sasha. But your opinion is that Joseph Newcomen and Christine Logan would have been an ill-matched pair: I challenge that view. They share a culture, political leanings, religion and life goals. They would have been happy.]

Petrovitch ducked under a tree branch laden with snow. “He’s changing. He’s putting up a lot of resistance, but his faith in Reconstruction is in tatters. He wouldn’t go back now, even if he could.”

[And I maintain that even if it required massive cognitive dissonance on his part, he would return to his relationship with Christine Logan should circumstances permit. Sasha, you cannot look on transforming Joseph Newcomen’s world view as a priority.]

“I don’t,” he said.

[You are beginning to. It was noted that his assistance would be vital, but not his conversion.]

“Conversion? He already has religion.”

[You are attempting something equally fundamental. It is distracting you from your main task. I would not be your friend if I did not point this out to you. You are with Joseph Newcomen every waking moment, and it is natural for you, since he is both a citizen of the United States of America and an adherent of Reconstructionist philosophy, to seek to influence him.]

“Did Maddy put you up to this?”

[Madeleine Petrovitch shares my concerns, but they are my concerns nevertheless. Joseph Newcomen is not the man who ordered the infiltration of the Metrozone. He is not the man who planned the Outie invasion. He is not the man who ordered my destruction and yours. Convincing him that Reconstruction is a self-contradictory and self-destructive quasi-fascistic nationalist movement that ought to be rejected is not going to change the policies of the United States government. And since he is not the man who is responsible for Lucy’s disappearance, it will not bring her back either.]

“I know this, okay? I really do.”

[Then remember that he is neither your enemy nor your friend. He is a victim for whom you may rightly have compassion, but he is still a special agent of the Federal Bureau of Intelligence. Unless you intend to suggest he becomes part of the Freezone collective, by converting him you will be denying him any possibility of reintegrating into his society after this affair is over. They even have a word for it.]

“Feral.” Petrovitch stamped through the snow to the frostrimed outline of the plane. His and Newcomen’s were the only footprints to approach it – human footprints at least. A moose had wandered past, leaving only a pile of scat and its tracks. “Off the grid.”

[And unlike the collective’s laissez-faire attitude to our own remainers, the ferals are despised and live as an actively persecuted underclass throughout the United States. Would you have Joseph Newcomen live like that, assuming he lives?]

The turbines were turning over, blasting hot exhaust out across the clearing and causing an early spring thaw to the trees directly in their path. He sent the command to open the door, and it popped free. Inside, the lights flickered on.

Petrovitch knocked the snow off his boots and stepped up and in.

“Yeah, okay. I’ll take your advice. If I start banging on again, let me know.” He dropped his bag on one of the cabin seats and started to warm up both the cockpit and the instruments. He had enough fuel to get to Deadhorse, maybe with a teaspoon or so spare, and everything else working more-or-less fine. Nothing was going to drop off just yet.

He wondered if he actually needed Newcomen at all; whether the kindest thing would be to abandon him here, where there was civilisation and some way of getting back – because he was certain he was flying straight into a trap. He just didn’t know who the trap was intended for.

But he’d already offered him an out, and the agent had refused. That meant something. Or other.

“Yeah, Michael. Is there any possibility that Newcomen is a plant? That he’s the best agent they have, trained in all sorts of black-ops stuff, and has been reprogrammed like Tabletop was so he doesn’t remember any of it – until the critical moment when he knifes me in the back.”

[We have done a thorough background check on Joseph Newcomen. As far as we can tell, his life can be completely accounted for and verified by external sources.]

“And you’re absolutely certain the guy who’s walking towards me right now is the same one who broke his arm in a football game, and that Joseph Newcomen isn’t holding up a bridge somewhere.”

[We have a confidence of almost one hundred per cent on that being the case.]

Petrovitch looked out of the windscreen at the figure dragging its feet through the snow.

“You know what? I’m regretting this more and more.” He got out of his seat and went to get his polar bear gun from his bag. Then he decided that the rest of the bag ought to be in easy reach too.

He was sitting back in the pilot’s seat when the plane rocked and Newcomen appeared.

“Is everything, uh, ready?”

“Yeah.” Petrovitch told the ladder to retract and the door to close. “We’re ready now.”