James P. Hogan (10 page)

Beyond the spoke, the car passed through more of the agricultural zone, all pretty much as before, and finally entered the outskirts of Novyi Kazan. Houses and apartments appeared strewn down the valley sides as at Turgenev, but with more greenery and water; a sports field came and went, with figures playing soccer, and the view ahead became one of buildings merging and rising toward another chaotic downtown center. Then the track entered a tunnel. The car slowed, and McCain watched through the front window as it lurched to follow a branch tunnel off the through-route.

One of the guards moved forward to the console under the window, which appeared to be the driver’s position when the car was being operated manually, and the car halted before a sturdy-looking metal door closing off the track ahead. A tone sounded, and an officer’s face appeared on the console screen. “Prisoner two-seven-one-zero-six for admission,” the guard said. The officer consulted something off-screen, then leaned forward to operate a control. A camera mounted inside the car pivoted slowly to survey the interior, pausing for a few seconds when it came to McCain’s face. Then the door ahead slid open. The car moved through and stopped beside a platform. The guards motioned to McCain to get out. When they emerged, the door across the track behind had already closed.

They were in what looked like a loading and unloading bay, with the track branching into two lines that ran parallel between service platforms for a distance and then merged again before disappearing through another door at the far end, also closed. More guards were standing on the platform that McCain and his escorts had stepped out onto. With them was a group of a dozen or so men in plain gray jackets and matching pants with scarlet stripes, who began filing into the car. They were of various colors and races, and McCain guessed them to be from the place that he was on his way to. Several of them glanced curiously at him as he passed. They seemed healthy enough and alert. At least it didn’t look as if he were about to join a house of zombies, he reflected as he walked between the guards toward the door opening off the platform.

Behind the door was a guardpost, inside which McCain saw the officer who had appeared on the screen within the car. A short corridor brought them to a stairway and elevator. They took the stairs up a level and crossed a hall containing rows of seats to enter a room with a counter running along one side, where the senior of the two escorts from Turgenev produced papers for the duty sergeant to sign. Then a captain came out of a room at the back to take charge, and the escorts departed. The captain asked the routine questions, and McCain gave his routine fictitious answers, which the sergeant duly entered into a terminal on the counter. Then McCain was conducted through to an examination room, where he waited forty minutes for the doctor to be found to perform a physical check. At last, after being fingerprinted, voiceprinted, blood-sampled, facially scanned for computerized mug-shotting, typed, tested, measured, and weighed all over again, he was given an outfit like the ones he had just seen in the monorail terminal. The captain handed back the bag he had brought with him, along with another containing a spare change of clothes. Finally he told McCain to hold out his left arm.

“Why?”

“You are not here to ask questions.”

McCain raised his arm. The captain pulled back the sleeve of his jacket, and the sergeant clipped an electronic unit on a red, plastic-coated band around his wrist, and then crimped and sealed it with a special tool. The captain pressed a button, and two more guards appeared from a door at the back of the room.

“This is your key to the areas which you are authorized to enter,” the captain told McCain, indicating the wristband. “Security is mostly electronic at Zamork. Guards are too valuable here to stand around doing nothing, and the same applies to prisoners. Therefore you will be required to work a minimum-forty-eight-hour week. Your duties will be assigned by the foreman of the billet you’re put in. Enforcement of discipline is firm, but not unfair. After an initial probationary period, a sensible attitude can earn privileges. Movement outside quarters after curfew, and attempts to cross the compound perimeter or to leave designated work areas in other parts of the colony are strictly forbidden – although escape from
Valentina Tereshkova
is, of course, quite impossible. Do you have any immediate questions?”

“What about communications with my government and messages home?”

“That does not fall within my area of authority.”

“Whose area of authority does it fall in?”

“Such matters are questions of policy, decided in Moscow.”

“So who’s in charge of this whole place?”

“The governor is Lieutenant General Fedorov.”

“So, how do I talk to him?”

“When
he
decides he wishes to talk to you. You will be interviewed by your block commandant later. Bring the matter up with him. In the meantime, you report to the foreman in billet B-three. The guards will take you there.”

The guards took McCain back through the door that they had come from, and along a corridor to some stairs which led down to another door. A red light above the door came on as McCain approached, and a moment later went out again, accompanied by a beep. On the far side was a wide thoroughfare running crossways, with lime-green walls that were featureless except for welding seams and bundles of piping. There were large doorways opening off at intervals. It suggested, if anything, an enclosed street. Figures in gray tunics, singly and in pairs and groups, were walking on both sides, while in the center an electric tractor was hauling a trailer loaded with boxes. Just two guards were visible, pacing slowly together some distance away and looking more like street cops. McCain and his two escorts followed the road right to a corner, where it went left and continued, looking much the same as before. They passed an opening flanked on either side by sections of fixed bars, with a center section consisting of a sliding barred gate, which was open. A sign above read
BLOCK
A
. Farther on they came to a similar gate, this time labeled
BLOCK
B
. A red light came on as McCain followed the first guard through, then went out with a beep. McCain had the feeling that he could get really tired of red lights and beeps before very much longer.

They were at one end of a more-or-less square hall, with two rows of doors facing each other across a broad center space. On a higher level above, two more rows of identical doors looked down from behind railed walkways reached by metal stairs. Footbridges at both ends of the hall connected the walkways to complete a gallery overlooking the central floor area from all four sides. At the near end of the hall were several long tables with benches, at which men were loosely scattered, some in groups, others sitting alone. As with the group that McCain had seen boarding the monorail car, they were a mix of races and types. Some were reading, one writing, others playing cards, while many just sat. In the open area beyond the tables, more were standing talking, and others were gathered in a circle around some kind of game that involved tossing coins.

As he and his escorts moved on across the hall, McCain caught babbles of different languages. The voices dropped for a moment as he passed by the tables, and curious eyes followed him. They came to one of the doors on the right, which carried a large “3” painted in yellow. One of the guards gestured toward it. McCain stepped forward; the red light lit and the beeper beeped. He tried the door, and it opened. Without a word the two guards turned and left. McCain pushed the door wide and stepped through. The light was dimmer than in the area outside, and he paused for his eyes to adjust. Then he moved on inside, letting the door close behind him.

The room had an open area running all the way down the center, containing several tables with chairs pulled up on both sides. He moved forward and deposited the two bags he was carrying on the table nearest the door. To left and right, the space along the sides of the room was partitioned into a series of five or six bays, each of which contained two double-tier bunks, one alongside the partition on each side, separated by a narrow aisle containing kit lockers. There were pictures adorning the walls in places, some mugs and eating utensils on shelves, books, a long, carved wooden pipe resting in a bowl, and an unfinished game of chess on one of the tables. The place looked reasonably clean, but had a distinct odor of too many bodies living in too confined a space. Whoever the bodies were, they were absent for the moment.

There was an open door at the far end of the room, and as McCain’s hearing adapted to the quiet after the hubbub outside, he discerned sounds of movement. A moment later a figure appeared framed in the far doorway, holding a broom. McCain waited. The man shuffled out and approached around the farmost table. He was of Oriental appearance, lithely built, and wearing a black skullcap in addition to the regulation gray tunic. As he came closer, McCain found that he had an abstruse face that managed to both reinforce and contradict at the same time the impression of years conveyed by his physique. It was furrowed and wizened about the eyes, yet surprisingly smooth everywhere else. His chin sprouted a short beard that was turning gray, but his stare was bright and alert like that of a curious child.

“You must be the American,” he said. “My name is Nakajima-Lin Kohmei-Tso-Liang.” His voice and expression were neutral, carrying neither undue warmth nor hostility. McCain was instantly confused. The construction was typically Asiatic with the family name coming first, but the double name itself was a composite of Japanese and Chinese; the first of the given names following sounded Japanese, but the other two were Chinese. He watched McCain curiously, and McCain had the feeling that he was able to read if the contradiction meant anything to McCain or not. “Generally I am called Koh.”

“Lewis Earnshaw,” McCain responded. “Most people call me Lew.”

Koh came to where McCain was standing and indicated the lower tier of the bunk by the first partition to the left. “Your place will be there,” he said. He nodded toward the corner bunk behind McCain’s right. As McCain had noticed with some of the other bunks, its upper cot was hinged upright out of the way. It suggested that the place was not occupied to full capacity at present. “I live across there. It seems, therefore, that for a while we are to be neighbors.” Koh spoke English well, with slow and careful articulation.

McCain picked up his bags from the table and moved across. “Well, I guess that’s fine with me. Does your name make you Japanese or Chinese?”

“A mixture of the two, which goes back many generations. Appropriate to this century.”

“I’ve spent some time in both countries. It sounds as if you were expecting me.”

“The billet foreman is usually notified when a new arrival is due.”

“What exactly is a foreman?”

“You are not familiar with the system?”

“How could I be?”

“Aren’t you transferring from another part of Zamork?”

“No, I only just arrived.”

Koh nodded. “I see. Every billet has a foreman. It’s a trusted category of inmates who are responsible for discipline, take complaints to the right quarters, and hand out work assignments. Ours is called Luchenko, a Russian.” He gestured vaguely in the direction of the far end of the room with his free hand. “His place is back there. He’ll talk to you when he gets back.”

“So, what’s he like?”

“Oh, some days good, some days not so good. Most times okay.”

McCain looked down at his cot, which held just a bare mattress. “What do we do about getting blankets and stuff?”

“You pick up a kit at OI – dishes, eating implements, and so on.”

“What’s OI?”

“The Official Issue store, in the Core complex across Gorky Street.”

“Gorky Street?”

“Outside the block mess area – where you just came along. If you wish, I will show you the way when I’m finished.”

“Are you here all the time, Koh?”

“One half day each week is for cleaning. This week it’s my turn. It provides a welcome opportunity to think in peace and quiet. One seldom gets time to be alone in Zamork.”

“How long have you been here now?”

“A year, roughly.”

McCain nodded absently and stepped back to survey the bunk above his, trying to gauge something about the person who would be his closest neighbor. There were several raunchily explicit pinups attached to the head end of the partition, a rock magazine cover showing a pop group in action behind a star-spangled logo in the shape of the letters “USA,” and, folded on the pillow below, an Ohio State University T-shirt. “What are you in here for?” he inquired.

“
Vy govorite po-Russki
?” Koh asked suddenly from behind him –
Do you speak Russian
?

McCain turned and studied his face for a second, then nodded.
“Da.”

“Where are you from in America?” Koh went on, still in Russian. “Have you been on
Tereshkova
long? What was
your
offense?”

McCain saw the point and nodded resignedly. “I don’t know you,” he agreed, switching back to English.

“Nor I, you. As you obviously already understand, one learns not to ask such questions of strangers.”

“Would I have admitted to speaking Russian if I’d been planted here?” McCain asked.

“Unlikely,” Koh conceded. “But then again you might, if you were being very clever.”

“Are they often very clever?”

“No. But when they are, that’s when they’re at their most dangerous.”

McCain sighed. There was nothing he could say to alleviate all suspicions instantly. It would take time and patience. He sat down on his bunk and turned his attention to transferring the contents of his bags into his locker. “Who’s the guy upstairs?” he asked, changing the subject. “Looks like another American.”

Koh gave a short laugh. “No, not an American. An Americophile. His name is Mungabo. He’s Zigandan. The Russians have strange impressions of American life, especially with regard to racial tensions, which their propagandists exaggerate. They also have a strange sense of humor. Luchenko thought it would be funny to put the American under the black man.” He turned and began walking back toward the far end of the room. “Toilets and washing facilities are through there. I’ll take you over to OI when I’m through.”