James P. Hogan (42 page)

Agniya left Hut 19 early in October. She had accepted an offer of a teaching position in Turgenev on condition of good behavior, and was released for a three-month probationary period to take up normal accommodations in the town.

“That’s how they get you,” Svetlana said to Paula as they stood watching with some other friends as Agniya sent back a final wave before, disappearing into the Administration Building. The second of the two guards who had helped her carry her belongings from the hut closed the door behind, “They gave her a work assignment at the elementary school. She’s always loved children. Now she’ll cooperate and do what they want – and not only that, but be grateful for it, too. With you it will be computers.”

“I doubt if it’ll come to that,” Paula said.

“Well see.”

“That’s what this whole place is for,” Elena said as they began retracing their steps down toward the huts. “At one time they used to punish dissenters, but it was so wasteful. Then they tried brainwashing, but it destroyed the creativity that they wanted to use. Now they rehabilitate people without losing them.”

Agniya’s replacement arrived that evening. A guard showed her to the hut and deposited her bags inside the door, while a second waited outside. She stepped in and looked around, nodding a greeting to Svetlana and Elena. Then she shifted her eyes to Paula, who had risen to her feet and was staring wide-eyed. They gazed at each other in amazement for several seconds, and then hugged warmly. It was Tanya, the schoolteacher whom Paula had last seen in the infirmary, before her transfer to the surface level.

“So it was true, they did move you up here!” Tanya exclaimed. “Anastasia and I often wondered about you. You remember Anastasia?’

“Of course. How is she?”

“Up and about again. And you! You’re looking so well compared to how you were. Things must really be a lot different up here.”

“Yes, you’ll find it quite a change. Oh, but I’m being rude – these are the other two ladies who live here.” Paula introduced Svetlana and Elena They showed Tanya the bunk that Agniya had vacated. Svetlana offered her a cigarette. She declined and began unpacking her things. Paula helped her put them away while Elena made tea.

“Is it true you have a beach up here?” Tanya asked.

“Yes – kind of,” Paula said. And more. I’ll show you around before dark. But how did you get here?”

Tanya sighed. “The usual kind of deal, I suppose. There are a lot of pew arrivals at
Tereshkova
these days – moving into quarters that have recently been completed at Turgenev and Landausk. They include many families with children.

Apparently the place is short of teachers. I was offered a transfer up here in return for helping out at one of the schools… And here I am.”

“You’re a teacher, then?” Svetlana said.

“Yes.”

“Isn’t that interesting. Agniya – the woman you’re replacing here – she went to teach at Turgenev, too. She was released, in fact.”

“Subsurface Zamork is filling up, too,” Tanya said. “New faces appearing every day.”

“I wonder what’s going on,” Svetlana mused.

“They want the place full and bustling with people for November seventh,” Tanya said. “And this year it’s going to be sun-bronzed youth and gymnastics displays. Troops and tanks are out.” Potemkin villages, Paula thought. Yet at the same time the news made her stop and think. It was hardly the kind of population that anyone would want on a battle platform.

They finished getting Tanya settled in, and talked while finishing their tea, after which Paula and Tanya got up to leave for a tour of the surface level. But just as they came out of the hut, Olga appeared.

“Olga, I’d like you to meet Tanya, a friend of mine from when I was Sub. She’s just moved in as Agniya’s replacement. Isn’t that wonderful? Tanya, this is Olga. If you really want to find out how to get anything done up here, she’s the woman to know.”

“A pleasure,” Tanya said, extending a hand.

Olga shook it lightly and smiled, but she seemed distracted. “Paula, look, there’s someone I want you to talk to. He has some news you’ll be interested in.”

“Now? I was just about to show Tanya around.”

“It is urgent.” Olga’s voice was serious.

“Of course you must go,” Tanya told Paula. “I’m sure everything will still be here in the morning, And to tell you the truth, I am rather tired, I’m sorry we had to meet in such a rush, Olga. We’ll see each other again soon, I’m sure. Good night.” And with that, Tanya turned and went back into the hut.

Olga took Paula to Hut 8, which was close to Hut 19, in the next row downhill toward the Administration Building.

She tapped on the door, which was opened almost immediately by a big, heavyset man with a fleshy, smooth-skinned, olive complexion, wide eyes, and reddish curls framing a high brow. His face was familiar, but Paula had never had reason to talk to him. He had evidently been expecting them, and stepped outside. The three of them began walking slowly in the direction of the reservoir.

“Paula, this is Eban,” Olga said. “You’ve probably seen him around. I think Eban can help you with regard to the other American you’ve been asking about.”

“Lewis Earnshaw? You know where he is?”

“Hmm, I’ve possibly heard tell of him,” Eban said non-committally. “Describe him to me.”

“Oh, about six feet in height, I’d guess. One-eighty pounds, probably – solid, lean kind of build. Black, wavy hair. It used to be short, parted on the left. Brown eyes, alert, taking things in all the time. Clean-shaven face.”

“Why is he here?”

“He came here with me on May first, as a journalist for Pacific News Services of California, We were arrested on charges of espionage.”

“Why did he really come here?”

“I’ve given you my answer.”

Eban sniffed and looked at Olga questioningly. “She’s reliable,” Olga said. “I’ve worked with her for a long time now. Have you ever regretted trusting my judgment?”

“I don’t like the part about showing her the Crypt and the way into it,” Eban said, speaking as if Paula wasn’t there. “It’s not necessary for her to know of it at this stage. Why can’t we bring him up here instead?”

“There are reasons, as you know,” Olga replied.

“Hmm.” Eban reflected for a moment longer, then nodded. “Very well. But I will need to make arrangements. Come by the hut at the same time tomorrow. Knock if a pot with yellow primroses has been put in the window by the door. Otherwise don’t bother – it will mean the hut is being watched.”

The next day, Olga visited the library and brought Paula the transcript of a reply from “Tycoon/Golic,” addressed to “Pangolin/Hot.” “Tycoon” was Foleda’s code name, while “Golic” completed the compound “Hypergolic,” the first half of which Paula had supplied in her transmission. It acknowledged receipt of Paula’s message, asked a few specific questions, and expressed interest in the list of inmates’ names that Paula had referred to. She decided to put off responding until she’d allowed some time for the promised contact with Earnshaw – which with luck might be imminent.

That evening, the flowers had been placed in the window by the door of Hut 8 when Olga and Paula approached. Paula hadn’t asked how Eban knew whether or not the place was under observation. It was the kind of thing that could happen at any time for no particular reason in Zamork. Olga was carrying a book. They went up to the door and knocked, and Eban let them in. Inside was another man, late thirties or thereabouts, with flat, sandy-colored hair and a ragged mustache. He was wearing the gray uniform of regular-category inmates from the subsurface levels. Paula’s first thought was to wonder how he had gotten into the hut, almost in the center of the surface level compound, without being seen. Before Paula could say anything, Eban touched his lips with a finger and shook his head as a signal for her to remain quiet.

“I’ve brought your book back, Eban,” Olga said. “Most of it was good, but I didn’t agree with the last part. Do you really go along with that?”

“Yes, but I’m not in a mood to argue about it now. Oh, did you want to hear that tape I was telling you about?”

“The American one?”

“They call it piano blues. I wonder why we never invented anything like it.” Eban started a player on a shelf in one corner, and twangy music turned to high volume filled the room. Silently the mustached man handed Paula a flashlight, and then he and Eban went through to the small bathroom and shower closet at the rear of the hut, motioning for Paula to follow. Olga came after them.

The mustached man knelt down by the shower and felt with his fingertips under the edge of the lip enclosing the cubicle floor. The click of a catch sounded, and the whole square of tiling surrounding the drain hinged upward, A section of pipe below the drain had been replaced by a loop of flexible tubing to allow the trapdoor to swing free. Below was a vertical shaft, shored with strips of metal and plastic panels. It was lit by a small bulb fixed in one of the corners a short distance down. The mustached man swung his legs into the shaft and climbed down out of sight. Eban nodded for Paula to follow. She crouched down and sat on the edge of the opening. Below, the head and shoulders of the mustached man were silhouetted dimly against the light. She turned and braced her arms on the edge, and a hand from below guided her foot toward a rung fastened to the shaft wall. Paula felt with her other foot, found the next rung, and began climbing carefully down. Above her head, the trapdoor swung back over the top of the shaft and clicked shut.

They had climbed down through no more than ten feet of the surrounding soil, or whatever else lay beneath the huts, when Paula felt herself stepping out of the shaft into thin air. The hand caught her foot again and moved it onto a solid surface. She ducked out of what turned out to be an opening in a roof, and found herself standing on a steel housing of some kind, partly visible in the feeble light from a second bulb at the bottom of the shaft they had emerged from. Machinery hummed in the space she could sense around her, and there was a current of warm air smelling of oil. Then even the light from the shaft vanished, plunging the place into complete darkness. A moment later a flashlight beam appeared, illuminating the hole in the roof above them. “Give me some light there with yours,” the mustached man hissed. Paula did so while he attached a panel over the opening. Then he turned back toward her.

Paula shone her lamp at his face. “We can’t go on meeting like this,” she said.

He grinned apologetically. “A dreadful way to introduce myself, I know.” He was obviously English. “Hello. My name is Sargent – Peter Sargent. I’m taking you to Lewis Earnshaw.”

“Paula Shelmer. How long has this tunnel been here?” “Well, now, that would be telling, wouldn’t it.” They climbed down to the floor, and Sargent led the way through a fragmented world of machines, pipes, ducting, structural supports, and cable runs glimpsed briefly in the dancing flashlight beams and made all the more unreal by the suddenness of the contrast with the world they had just left. A bridge of braced girders spanning a drop into black nothingness pointed to a wall reinforced with metal ribbing, which appeared to extend beyond the containing decks above and below. Heights had never been one of Paula’s strong points, and she made the crossing with trembling legs and a dry mouth. At the far end, Sargent straddled the topmost girder and removed a section that had been cut out of the wall in front, then drew Paula close by him to look through.

She felt as if her heart had dropped down to somewhere in her stomach. The shaft she found herself staring down plunged away to lose itself in blackness beyond the range of the light from Sargent’s flashlight. It was like looking down a bottomless mine.

“Down there?” Paula croaked.

“It’s one of the main Core elevators,” Sargent replied cheerfully, “The problem is that we’re up at the top, and the place we want to get to is down near the bottom. The part that the car runs over is in between, which means we have to get underneath it.”

“Wonderful.”

“Nothing to worry about. First we have to get across to the other side, which we do by dropping down onto that horizontal strip and following it around. There’s a space across there, behind the rails the car runs on, that we can use to get down. I’ll go first. If you’re not happy about the traverse, I can bring a line back to clip on you that’ll catch you if you slip.”

“No, I’ll make it. Let’s get it over with. But what happens if the car comes up while we’re only halfway over?”

“It’s all right. It doesn’t come up this high. But it causes quite a strong draft of air. Be ready for it.”

Sargent led off, and Paula tracked him with her light. He moved surely and unhurriedly, finding his holds and shifting position with effortless, catlike grace. He reached the far side in no time and lodged himself in the recess behind the vertical rails. Moments later, the beam from his lamp came on to light up the first stretch immediately below Paula. She was already wishing she’d accepted the offer of a safety line, but a streak of pride prevented her from calling out after him now. She lowered herself from the hole to the level of the horizontal strut and edged sideways onto it, feeling ahead with a hand, finding a hold, and pulling herself another step toward the first corner.

“Great stuff!” Sargent’s voice called from across the shaft. “There’s a plate just above your head that you can hold onto there. The next bit’s a little tricky because there’s nothing for your hands. Take it slowly and press your palms flat against the wall for balance.” Paula looked sideways and down over her shoulder. A metal bracing strip about three inches wide ran along the wall, a short distance out from it, with nothing within reach above but smooth, featureless metal. She swallowed hard and gulped a breath. Flattening her chest and the side of her face against the wall, she moved out from the corner, her arm stretched to the side, fingertips inching their way along the surface, feeling for the first edge or crack. Her breath came in short, uneven gasps. Sargent had made it look like a stroll. Probably one of those people who relaxed by walking up walls in Yosemite, she thought savagely.