The Curve of the Earth

25




Petrovitch held his arms up: his weight proved difficult for the wiry Josie and the athletic Newcomen to manage, but they struggled on and got enough of his torso through the window that he was able to drag himself clear.

“How heavy are you?” asked Josie.

“Couple of hundred kilos. Titanium’s dense compared with bone.” Petrovitch sat down on the snow and used handfuls of it to scrub as much of the soot off his parka as he could. “So, George. Any idea what you’ve got yourself mixed up in?”

“No one said anything about dead guys. Just the RV.”

“This was Jason Fyfe, a Canadian citizen. He worked with my daughter. He was going to rescue her, because she’s missing up on the North Slope. Seems she saw something she shouldn’t, and some people are desperate that she doesn’t pass that on. Desperate enough to kill this good man.”

Josie hunched over and looked sourly at the black hole of the RV’s back window.

Newcomen cleared his throat, and pulled his collar away from his mouth. “Did you, uh, see anything? In the sky, on the ground?”

“Might have done. Depends how much more trouble it gets me into.”

“We know a lot about it,” said Petrovitch, “except we don’t know what it actually looked like. So we’d appreciate it if you just said what you saw.”

The Inuk carried on thinking about it, so Petrovitch tried again.

“Yeah, we’re trying to stop World War Three here, amongst other things. No pressure, though.”

“War?” Josie looked up sharply. “Who said anything about war?”

“We’re not the only ones interested in what happened that night. The Chinese, for one.”

“The Chinese?” Josie looked down again. “This is crazy.”

“You Yanks and the Chinese knocking the crap out of each other might be amusing to watch, but I’m very aware that fallout doesn’t respect national boundaries.”

Josie glanced at Newcomen, almost as if he were asking permission. Newcomen shrugged in his dense coat.

“It doesn’t look good,” he said. “Anything you can tell us might help.”

“It was after midnight. Bright light in the sky, going from east to west. Brighter than any shooting star, sharp enough to make shadows, almost like you couldn’t look at it. It seemed to flicker, then there was one big burst of light before it went out. We lost our TV signal, some of our computers stopped working. Radio still isn’t fixed.” Josie jerked his head towards his sled. “They gave me a new one.”

“And you saw this yourself?” said Newcomen.

“The dogs started barking, so I went to the window: couldn’t see it from there, but I could see something. I went out, and there it was. Lasted maybe twenty, thirty seconds.” Josie shrugged. “Could have been less, but it seemed that way. I was standing out in the street with some of the others, and we were talking after the flash. There was this sound, like thunder. That went on and on. Bouncing off the mountains, I guess. It must have been a real big bang.”

Petrovitch looked away to the north. “You were this side of the Brooks, right?”

Josie nodded. “Something fell from space, didn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“Something Chinese?”

“We’re trying to work that out.” Petrovitch straightened up and patted away the snow still clinging to him. “Looks likely, though.”

“So why is it just you two out looking? Why isn’t everyone working on it?”

“I’m sure they are, but not only is no one telling me anything, they seem determined to make it as difficult they can. Like this.” Petrovitch pointed at the RV. “What was the point in killing Fyfe? They could have slashed his tyres in the night and had done with it. There was no need. No need at all.” He reached down for Josie’s arm, and pulled him upright with seemingly no effort at all. “That’s the sort of person you’re working for, George. I’m not impressed.”

“They never said anything about dead Canadians. Just stopped me in the middle of nowhere, up where Bettles used to be, told me where to wait during the day.” Josie looked grim. “I don’t get what I’m supposed to do now, though.”

“You do what you’ve been told to do. Tell your handler that we were here, and we’ve seen Fyfe’s body – you might want to add that you didn’t enjoy that little surprise – then forget you ever saw us.”

“Hold on,” said Newcomen. “You want to give our position away?”

“If George doesn’t tell Ben and Jerry we were here, how can we go on to report the location of Fyfe to the Canadians?”

“Why do we have to tell them? Can’t we just…?”

“No. I’m thinking about Fyfe’s parents. Not about us.” Petrovitch realised he was still holding on to Josie’s arm. He let go with a murmured apology.

“I’m sorry too,” said Josie. He nodded at Newcomen. “He’s right: this isn’t good.”

“There’s still a chance to redeem yourself,” said Petrovitch. “You could tell your friends – your real friends, not the ones that give you expensive toys and lie to you – that we’re on our way. We need help finding Lucy, and they’ve been on the ground throughout: ask them to let me know what they’ve seen and heard.”

“Will they get into trouble if they do?”

“I can’t promise that they won’t. But I can promise it won’t be me giving them grief. I’m not a bad man, George, no matter what you’ve heard.”

Josie didn’t say what he’d heard. Up in Alaska, Reconstruction hadn’t bitten quite as deep, and for men like him, the border with Canada didn’t have the same iconic status as it did for most Americans.

Petrovitch was counting on swaying the man, turning him to his cause.

“Bear in mind what I’ve said, George. It’s just me and Newcomen searching for my girl, and frankly, he’s not much use. Some say she’s dead already, but I’m certain she’s not. The faster we find her, the better, and the more eyes and ears we have, the happier I’ll be.”

“I can’t promise you anything useful will happen, but,” Josie nodded slowly, “I’ll do what I can.”

“Give him his rifle back,” Petrovitch said to Newcomen.

“Are you…?”

“Yeah. I’m sure.”

Newcomen wasn’t, but he lifted the strap over his head and passed the gun into Josie’s waiting hands. He kept hold of the breech. “Do you know how lucky you are?”

“What d’you mean?” Josie jerked his head at Petrovitch. “Him?”

“Him. He’s supposed to put a bullet in your head about now, or one through your engine block so you’ll freeze to death, slowly.” Newcomen frowned. “Instead, he’s being nice to you.”

Petrovitch looked on, amused. “I shoot everybody in the head, apparently. That’s what it says in the bumper book of Petrovitch, right?”

“Something like that,” said Newcomen.

“I just want to be left alone. You wouldn’t think it’d be too difficult to manage, but no: govno like this happens, and suddenly we’re in a whole world of pizdets.” He took one last look around. “Just let go of the rifle and get back on the plane. We’ve been shown what they wanted us to see, and now it’s time to leave.”

Newcomen released his grip, and Josie drew the gun close to him.

Petrovitch started away from the RV, ploughing through the loose snow to the road, where it was more compact. He could hear Newcomen dragging after him, then catching him up.

“He could still kill us,” said the agent.

“In your binary world, people are either full-square behind you and can be trusted completely, or they’re criminals who’d sooner slit your throat than look at you. The truth, as ever, lies somewhere in between.” Petrovitch shifted his shoulders. “He won’t shoot. Well, he won’t shoot me, at least.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

The plane’s door popped open, and Petrovitch scaled the ladder. He glanced around at the top: Josie was still standing there by the pile of snow he’d dug, wondering what had just happened.

He’d call his handlers for certain. Whether he’d pass on the message to his North Slope friends and family remained to be seen.

Petrovitch climbed inside and threw his furry hat on to one of the seats. He started to take his parka off, and remembered to grab the gun perched uncertainly inside. He laid that on the seat next to his hat.

Newcomen stamped snow off on the top step and stood at the door, looking out.

“He’s just watching us.”

“That was his job. It probably still is.”

“So they know we’re coming. Or will do before we get there.”

“They always knew that.” The frost that had collected at his collar had turned to beads of moisture that was starting to soak in. Petrovitch gave the parka a shake, and tossed it aside to dry. He picked up the gun, and headed for the cockpit, starting the turbines spinning as he slid into the pilot’s chair. “The only variable was when we got there.”

“They could always have stopped you,” said Newcomen from behind him, still trying to squeeze the toggles of his coat through the loops with cold-heavy fingers.

“That was never going to happen.” Petrovitch engaged the antigravity, and the plane pulled itself free of the road in a shower of ice crystals that tumbled away in white streamers. He let the direction change freely, the nose taking in a full circle of Alaskan vista before he applied any throttle.

“They could have.” Newcomen finished wrestling with his coat fastenings and sat in the seat next to him. “Stopped you, I mean.”

“Of course they could. Killing someone is easy. As they proved with Fyfe. If they’d really, really wanted me dead, they’d have put a bomb on the plane from the Metrozone, and you, me, and a couple of hundred other people would be propping up the Mid-Atlantic Ridge by now. Problem solved.”

“Then… hang on. What are you saying?” Newcomen blinked, staring out through the windscreen. They were starting to climb over the mountain range ahead, the peaks shrouded in low cloud that wasn’t low at all. The pipeline was a grey snake off to the left, and the road a white line underneath.

“I’ve been – we’ve all been – working on the assumption that the US government doesn’t want me sticking my nose into this, that they want to keep me as far away as possible from the North Slope, and absolutely, definitely don’t want me to find Lucy.” The corner of Petrovitch’s mouth twitched. “What if I’m wrong?”

Newcomen shifted uneasily in his seat. “I thought you were never wrong.”

“Let’s pretend for a moment, then, that we live in a universe where such things are possible. The first people to look for Lucy were the university, who had to rely on the military to get to the research station. They didn’t find Lucy because she wasn’t there any more. They didn’t have the resources to search for her themselves, so they called in the FBI. You started slowly, stupidly slowly, like you weren’t that bothered – an act guaranteed to enrage me. You put a couple of field agents into Fairbanks when we complained, but you were warned off: the agents were recalled and Buchannan was told to look the other way.

“But what about Jason Fyfe? He’s a wild card. He’s not a US citizen, and he wasn’t going to take kindly to anyone telling him not to rescue Lucy, not when she clearly needed rescuing. So he was killed: quickly, cleanly, and with a minimum of fuss. Then the body displayed to us like a hunting trophy.”

“But they haven’t killed you,” said Newcomen. “They haven’t even tried to kill you.”

“No. Not yet. Why do you think that is?”

“Because you’re too important?”

“I’d like to think so, but that’d just be the ego talking. Come on, time to work that atrophied walnut you call a brain. Why haven’t they killed me?”

“Because they need you alive?”

“Yeah. They do.” Petrovitch looked Newcomen square in the face. “Why do they need me, Samuil Petrovitch, the Antichrist, the tyrant of the Freezone, the slaughterer of thousands, the humiliator of the holy United States of America, continual thorn in the flesh, alive?”

“Because they want you to find Lucy,” said Newcomen, mounting horror in his voice. “Because only you can find her.”

“That’s right. That’s absolutely right. They can’t find Lucy on their own, and not just because they’d draw attention both to the search and to whatever it is they’re trying to hide. They can’t find her because she’s deliberately and actively hiding from them. They don’t want the FBI looking for her, and they certainly didn’t want Fyfe blundering around up there. So they make it difficult enough for me to think they don’t want her found, but not so difficult that they’ll actually stop me from finding her.”

“She knows you’re coming, surely?”

“She knows it. She believes it in her soul. And don’t call me Shirley.”

Newcomen growled his annoyance. “What do they do when you find her?”

“I imagine that our first hello will be our last goodbye.”

“That’s… awful. If that’s what’s going to happen, you can’t carry on.”

“Of course I can. I’m going to find my daughter.”

“But you’ll kill her!”

“No. Your side will kill her. It’s not an insignificant difference.”

“There’s no difference at all. She’ll still wind up dead.” Newcomen slapped the console in front of him. “And so will you. You’re going to have to turn around and find another way to do this.”

“I can’t.” Petrovitch’s voice was calm, his mind clear. “If I stop now, Lucy’s going to die anyway: time’s their luxury, not ours. Every day that passes is a day closer to when she has to break cover. If I ever want to see her again, then I’m going to have to give away where she’s hiding.” He shrugged. “They understand me much better than you do. They know that even if I managed to unravel it this far, I’d still press on, though it means both our deaths.”

“But she’s your daughter. You can’t do this to her.”

“Your lot could have saved a lot of f*cking around by explaining all this to me right at the start. I’d still be here, doing exactly what I’m doing now.”

“You make it sound like it’s already been decided. It hasn’t. You have to fight. You have to think of something.” Newcomen grew agitated, desperate even. “You can’t die.”

“I’m not going to sell myself cheap. I’ll make it as messy and uncomfortable as I can. But I know how much firepower you’ve got stacking up on the North Slope. It looks like there’s something out there worth starting a war for, and Lucy knows what it is.”

“No. You have to listen, you, you selfish pig. You’re going to live. And so am I.”

Petrovitch raised his eyebrows. “You make it sound like either of us has another option.”

“I haven’t come this far to fail now. If you die, I die, and you’re not going to throw my life away in your grand gesture. I don’t care how much you hate America. I don’t care how much you love your Lucy. I want to live. I want to live, Dr Samuil bloody Petrovitch of the Freezone collective, and if that means hauling your metal ass across a freaking ice flow, I will do it. We will find your daughter and we will get her to safety and you will take out this bomb in my chest and I will live happily ever after and for God’s sake pull up!”

The cloud that had enveloped them cleared for a moment. In that moment, the ground came rushing towards them. Either side of the cockpit were towering black splinters of rock. The saddle of land between reared upwards like the crest of a breaking wave, intent on smashing them to pieces.

The turbines howled and the plane pitched nose up.

Certain they were going to hit, were hitting, had already hit and had lost the rear half of the fuselage, Newcomen clutched at his head and pulled his feet clear of the floor.

When he opened his eyes again, they were still flying. The ground was receding below the plane, and was losing its solidity in the mountain fog.

“Oh, dear Lord, oh, my sweet Jesus. Oh thank you.”

“The antigravity would have pushed us over,” said Petrovitch, less convincingly than he would have liked. “Perhaps you ought not to distract me, at least until we get on the ground again.”

Newcomen put his head between his knees and prayed so hard the tears squeezed out.