The Whenabouts of Burr (11 page)

“He is,” Swift said. “But what I meant was: what about the gadget that brought us here, the transporter; why can't we just travel by that?”

“We can only go where It goes,” Hamilton said. “Don't you know
anything
about the Prime Time, the It and all of that?”

“I guess I'm just culturally illiterate,” Swift said.

“Well, it's very foolish to use a device without having a clear idea of what it is and how it works,” Hamilton said. He opened the top of the wicker basket and delved into its contents, pulling forth a stoneware jug of wine and a baked-clay chicken. “Pull that flap at the side of the window,” he instructed. “That leather thing. That's right.”

Swift pulled, and a folding table descended and unfolded itself between them. Hamilton put the comestibles on the table, and produced two stemmed glasses, two china plates, and two sets of silver. “Hm,” he said. He dove back into the basket, and came out with two linen napkins. “Crack open the bird,” he said.

Swift picked up the clay chicken and examined it. Hamilton handed him a small wooden mallet. “Carefully,” he said. “Don't get clay all over everything.”

Swift put the bird on the table and gingerly tapped at it with the mallet. The clay cracked, shedding powder, slivers and chunks, then it neatly fell into two halves, and a baked chicken emerged.

“Well done, sir,” Hamilton said. “You may dissect it.” And he handed Swift a small, triangular-bladed knife, quite sharp in edge and point. “I'll have a leg, to start with.”

While Swift carved the chicken, Hamilton opened the jug, sniffed suspiciously at the wine, poured himself a taste, sampled, nodded approval, and poured out two glassfuls. Then he reached back into the hamper, to pull out a folded-up paper bag with a large red S, and the motto
Since we're neighbors, let's be friends
on the side. Opening it, he brushed the clay fragments into it, refolded and stuck it back in the hamper. “Neatness above all,” he said. “Civilized man must always strive for neatness; it's the first thing to go.”

Swift handed him a baked chicken leg, which he began to munch on reflectively. There was a series of sudden jerks, and the Intercontinental Coach began its Eastern Trek.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The cell they stuck Ves in was one they reserved for friendly prisoners, since he had agreed to talk. After spending a couple of hours in it, Ves was becoming increasingly glad that he was not classified as an
un
friendly prisoner. If this was what they did for people they liked… four feet square it was, and five-and-a-half feet high. A two-by-four foot mattress of straw ticking took up half the floor, and sopped up the moisture which seeped through the floor and dripped from the walls. The only light came through the six-inch square hole in the door, which had three half-inch thick bars down and three across. “What the hell do you need the bars for?” he asked the guard who threw him into the cell. “No one can crawl through a six-inch square.”

“Shut up,” the guard explained, slamming the door with more than necessary enthusiasm and catching his thumb in the bolt. Muttering threats, and words Ves was glad he couldn't understand, he stalked away.

Some hours later, two men brought him a pewter bowl of dinner. It was milky-colored and rancid-tasting, but there wasn't much of it. A mug of well-aged water, perhaps a bit past its prime, but with a delicate bouquet, completed the repast. Then they came and took the utensils and pottery back. Then they left him alone.

After an unknowable length of time alone; a time certainly greater than an hour and less than a week, a time after his first meal and before his second, the girl came to him. She was small, slender and dressed in satin; a red jacket trimmed with fur, red riding pants, and high, black boots; her hair was long and red (chestnut? brown? it was so hard to tell in the half-light). Her features were patrician, and her voice was soft and foreign and carried the inflections of the Orient. “Good mahr-nink,” she said, and it was like the trill of birds and the ripple of a slight waterfall.

The guard let her into the cell, locked the door behind her and went away.

“Good morning,” Ves said, sitting up on his damp mattress ticking. “It is morning? Welcome to my humble abode. I've heard of progressive penology, but this is the first example of it I approve of. How long do you stay? Do you do windows, or just light housework? Can you cook? My terms are generous: I offer Sundays off, every other Thursday, and a half-day Saturdays. I like my three-minute eggs done for no more than five and a half minutes; and my toast burnt on the top only, no use turning it over, because I can tell, you know; jam yesterday and jam tomorrow, but never jam today. Am I babbling? You're the first person I've had to talk to in weeks. Just this dumb guard who yells ‘shut up' and hits his thumb on things; very unimaginative. Weeks.”

“You've been in here since late this (she said ‘dees') afternoon. It now about ten o'clock in the evening (she said ‘eef-nink'). But if it pleases you to bubble, go right ahead.”

“Who are you?” Ves asked. “If they didn't send you as my live-in maid, what are you doing here?”

“
Tovarich
,” she said. “I glad you asked me that.”

“What was that first word,” Ves asked. “I'm afraid I didn't quite catch it.”

“You don't have to be afraid,” she said. “I your
droog
. I not one of them. I not the Russian you think.”

“I'm prepared to think you're any sort of Russian you like,” Ves said, edging away from her. “How did you get in here?”

“Imperial Russia has friends among the guards; and I have friends among the officers,” she said. “You are to come with me.”

“Who sent you,” Ves demanded, “and where are you taking me?”

“Your
droog
Captain Richardson sent me,” she said, “and I am to take you to the nearest Eet. Unfortunately, it is some distance away.”

“Oh,” Ves said. “Then you're not a Russian; you're Prime, like Richardson. You're from the Directory?”

“You bubble again,” she informed him. “Of course I am Russian. I am not from this Time, but I am certainly Russian. In my time it is Nineteen forty-seven, Gregorian.”

“Ah!” Ves said. “You're a Stalinist.”

“A which?” she asked. “I am Countess Tatiana Petrovna Obrian: I hold the rank of Colonel in Secret Service of Tsar Alexander the Seventh.”

“A countess in the secret service?” Ves asked. “Isn't that a bit unusual?”

“Certainly not,” she snapped, drawing herself up to her full five-foot four, her eyes blazing. “Would you ask a peasant to spy?”

“I guess not,” Ves admitted. “It's a pleasure to meet you, Tatiana Petrovna; I am Amerigo Vespucci Romero, prisoner of his Democratic Majesty, Jacob Schuyler.”

She clicked the heels of her boots together and bowed from the waist. “A pleasure,” she said. “We might be political antagonists in home worlds, but as fellow travelers sideways through time, we must aid each other, depend on each other, love each other. Russians good at love.” She looked at him suggestively, relaxing her rigid military pose.

Ves shook his head. “You go too fast for me,” he said. “One second you're clicking your heels, and the next you're talking about love.”

“It is the complex Russian character,” she told him. “It is why we are so sad.” She removed an iron key from her boot and inserted it into the keyhole. “Contrived,” she said. “They want you to escape, they give you key. No prisoner ever wonders why is keyhole
inside
of door. Most cells, is not keyhole inside door. Come, we leave now.”

“Your accent seems to be thickening,” Ves commented, following her into the hall.

“I am feeling patriotic,” she told him. “Keep voice down.” She tiptoed down the corridor to the far end, where an iron door on massive hinges barred their way. “We get out by going in,” she whispered to Ves. “This leads to inner courtyard, now closed off and used as exercise yard for those prisoners who are allowed and able to exercise.” Another key opened this door, and locked it behind them. “This way,” she said, “to right. Leads to courtyard. Straight ahead leads to recalcitrant prisoners' block.
Ochen
disgusting. Come.”

She led; Ves followed. Down the narrow corridor they hurried, to a thick, barred, wooden door at the end. There the countess paused, with Ves behind her, and there they waited.

“What's the matter?” Ves asked, in an urgent whisper.

“Nada,” the countess said. “Nothing. I have not the key for this door, so we must wait until it is opened from the other side.”

“By anyone special?” Ves asked, “or are we waiting until someone just happens by with the key?”

“I have a confederate in the courtyard,” Tatiana Petrovna whispered harshly to him. “He will open the door.”

“When?” Ves asked. “What is he waiting for? I mean, they're liable to notice that I'm gone any time now; they just might come looking for me out of spite.”

“Pah!” the countess said. “No chance. They suffer from inefficiency and conceit, and the combination is fatal. If anyone comes for you and you are not in your cell, he will assume that someone else has already removed you for some official purpose: delousing perhaps. He knows you cannot escape, you see; because no one ever escapes. When anyone ever does escape, they are ashamed to mention it and write down that the prisoner either died or was released.”

“The guard won't notice that I'm gone?” Ves asked.

“Pah! The guard. Pah!” The countess dismissed this menial with a wave of her hand. Just at that moment a gong started ringing in a far section of the building, and the sound of running feet could be heard down the corridor.

“What do you suppose that is?” Ves asked, pressing up against the wall and trying to melt into the stone.

“The guard has discovered that you have escaped,” Tatiana Petrovna explained.

“Do you think we could convince your friend on the far side to open this door?” Ves asked. “I don't want to seem anxious—”

“He will open it at any second now,” the countess said. “The door is quite thick, and we can't yell for him; so he is opening it at a prearranged time.”

“Which is how far off?” Ves inquired.

“I do not know,” the countess said. “I have no watch.” Before Ves had a chance to think about that, the door creaked, shuddered, groaned, vibrated, and swung open. A tall man in a Hussar's uniform, complete with saber and busby, embraced Tatiana Petrovna, pulled them both through the door, and closed it. “Come along,” his voice boomed in the courtyard, “I am tired of crouching innocuous in the corner. Let us get away from here.”

“Lead the way,” Ves said.

“No,” the tall man said. “The countess leads; I stay last, to influence those who would follow.” He touched his sword, and nodded significantly.

“You've convinced me,” Ves said. “Let's go!”

“Keep against the wall,” Tatiana Petrovna said, “someone may be looking out from an upper window.”

The courtyard was a long, narrow area, walled by five stories of brick building on all sides, and floored in cement. The ground floor windows were sealed closed by iron shutters, the second and third floor windows were heavily barred, the fourth floor windows were encased in thick iron mesh, and the fifth floor windows were open. “I suppose those are the executive suites,” Ves muttered.

Tatiana Petrovna inched forward, her back pressed against the wall; then she stopped and shook her head. “Is stupid!” she announced. “Sneak like criminals and anyone who sees you knows you are criminal. Proceed in self-assured manner, and he thinks you are guard—or maybe warden. We will proceed in self-assured manner!” She strode into the direct gloom of the central courtyard, then turned around and beckoned to the men. “Come!” she said. “Stride like a Cossack.”

At the far end of the courtyard was a short flight of cement stairs, going down, leading to a painted metal double-door. They strode like Cossacks to the doors, and paused while the countess opened them. “Storeroom behind kitchen,” she whispered. “We now pass through kitchen and to side exit door. Simple—no problems.”

They entered the storeroom, closed and sealed the door behind them. It was a large, high-ceilinged room, lit by a pair of gas fixtures high on the wall at each end. It was stocked with cartons, kegs, canisters, barrels, boxes, bins, and the sort of loose unaccountable effluvia that piles up in a storeroom as the decades pass. There was a stack of rusted metal trays in one corner, a collection of cups of various patterns missing their handles on a shelf, and a broken machine that once stirred large amounts of something-or-other squatting by the door. They passed through the storeroom as rapidly and quietly as possible, and gathered at the inner door.

“Kitchen,” Tatiana Petrovna whispered. “Might be empty; might be one-two cooks inside.” She shrugged. “Pay them no attention and they will do the same. Head for side door to left. Ready?” Without waiting for an answer, she opened the door.

The light dazzled, and the sound clamored. The kitchen was a large expanse of spotless white, relieved here and there by a scrubbed wood counter top or a polished brass pipe. Scattered among the counter tops, ranges and sinks were groups of people in white smocks and white aprons, with floppy white hats or round white caps; tasting, stirring, seasoning and discussing. All such activity ceased when the door opened, all mouths closed except for those which opened wider in astonishment. All eyes stared at the three who emerged. A man in a deep red suit, fashionably tailored (at least Ves still wore his own clothing, and not prison stripes), a lady in a fur-trimmed jacket and pants (pants!) tucked into riding boots, and a uniformed soldier from no army that
they
'd ever seen.

Ves took one quick look at the situation and, smoothly closing the door behind him, turned to his companions and waved his right hand toward the gaping cooks. “This is the kitchen,” he said loudly. “If Madam Commissioner will come this way…” He walked forward with an air of obsequious nonchalance. “Notice how clean everything is kept in the actual food handling area. Quite unlike the storeroom.”

“Um,” Tatiana Petrovna said, striding over to the nearest counter: “Um.” She produced a pair of white gloves from an inner pocket of her jacket, ceremoniously put them on, then drew her fingers across the counter top and around the rim under the counter. “Grime,” she said, examining the gloved finger.

“Grime?” Ves said, sounding incredulous. He turned to face the white-smocked horde and allowed his voice to rise. “Grime?
Grime
?”

Suddenly all the starers remembered something they had to do urgently, right now. They turned aside and stirred, checked the flame, washed the spoon, bowed the head, bent the knee, and averted the eye.

Tatiana Petrovna stalked haughtily through the kitchen without another word; behind her came Ves, wheedling and supplicating, “But Madam, they weren't prepared—but Madam Commissioner, you must give them another chance—I assure you they make every effort—this is normally the cleanest of kitchens—” and so they passed through the door and out.

“Brilliant,” the countess said, saluting Ves. “My carriage is on the next block. Let us go.”

“Where,” Ves asked, “are you taking me?”

“To the It,” Tatiana Petrovna said. “We take you to Prime Time.”