Russian Spring (70 page)

When Jerry threw it, nothing happened.

“Fuck!” he exclaimed.

“I hope it’s not the motor . . . ,” Albrecht said uneasily.

“You and me both!”

“What now?”

Jerry thought about it. If they started screwing around with the wiring now, the test bed could be down for hours if they were lucky, and all day if they weren’t. If it
was
a bad motor . . . well, he didn’t even want to think about it.

“We’ll test the rest of the motors first and then worry about it,” he said. “Waste a lot less downtime that way.”

“Makes sense,” Albrecht agreed, and they fired the remaining six rockets. Everything went nominally.

“Now what?” Albrecht said.

“We’d better have a look at the motor,” Jerry sighed. “If that’s the problem, we’re fucked, but it’d take a lot longer to find a short in the wiring if that’s all it is, so we’d better eliminate the possibility of the worst news first.”

“I guess you’re right,” Albrecht said unhappily. “Shut down the panel, we don’t want to take any chances while we’re out there if there
is
a short in the wiring,” he ordered his crew. “And I don’t think I have to tell you that this is
not
a smoking break!”

He and Jerry stepped out from behind the safety partition and threaded their way across the wiring to the test bed. “Well?” he said as they stood over number eighteen.

“First thing to do is remove the cowling and check the fuel and oxidizer lines,” Jerry told him.

Albrecht nodded, took a wrench out of a coverall pocket, and carefully loosened the series of bolts securing the top half of the cowling to the interior framework of the small motor assembly. He lifted off the oval piece of sheet metal, handed it to Jerry, leaned over, and peered into the guts of the mechanism.

“Well . . . ?” Jerry said, holding the cowling over his head with his right hand, and leaning forward impatiently to peer over Albrecht’s shoulder at—

“Scheissdreck!” Albrecht shouted, leaping backward, colliding with Jerry, knocking him off balance. “The hydrogen line’s loose, we’ve got to get—”

Jerry staggered back, threw up his arms in a futile attempt to regain his balance, and the cowling flew loose from his right hand as he spun around and started to fall—

—as the cowling came clattering down on the rocket motor assembly—

—there was a soft whooshing explosion—

—something slammed into the base of his skull—

THE MEDIA BLITZ ROLLS ON

Vadim Kronkol, having purchased another hour of airtime on an American broadcast satellite with money that went in one pocket as it went out the other, made yet another rabble-rousing speech that seemed to have gone through several rewrites in both Washington and Hollywood, invoking everything from the Stalinist genocide against the Ukrainian kulaks to Catherine the Great’s alleged predilection for stallions to demonstrate that Russians were nikulturni barbarians and perverts who regularly ate innocent Ukrainian babies for breakfast.

It was quite a vintage performance by the Ukrainian Rasputin, next morning’s polls showed he had improved his lead over the nearest voice of reason another five points, to 69 percent. This time, the American satellite targeted Moscow and Leningrad too, where there certainly are no votes to be won for the Ukrainian Liberation Front, as if to provoke Russians into providing riot footage.

Which unruly mobs in both cities dutifully did, led by Uncle Joe hooligans, but joined by many of their Russian nationalist elders who certainly should have known better. And of course the American media
wizards have now taken the choice footage of Uncle Joes smashing restaurant windows and beating up supposed Ukrainians and cut it up into the sixty-second commercials that are now saturating the Ukraine.

The next step is all too predictable. Kronkol’s next televised speech will have been given a good excuse to be even more hydrophobic, the Americans, as rumored, will no doubt blanket all of Russia, leading to even better atrocity footage from which to cut yet more inflammatory commercials for Kronkol.

The hairiest of Bears are being used like Hollywood extras by these mercenary American media-masters. Have no rational illusions. These people could sell dehydrated water in the Sahel desert and they can sell a raving atavism like Vadim Kronkol to the Ukrainians.

After all, they sold Harry Burton Carson to the Americans, didn’t they?

—
Mad Moscow

Sonya had been in a meeting with the Renault people when some nameless
ESA
functionnaire had telephoned Red Star, and the first call hadn’t gotten through to her. It took a second call, this one from Boris Velnikov himself, to get the switchboard to break into the meeting, and then
ESA
had told her that a car and a police escort were already on the way. They were there within fifteen minutes, but le rush had already started, and it took an hour to get through the traffic even with a motorcycle escort.

All Velnikov had been able to tell her was that there had been some kind of accident, a hydrogen explosion or something. Jerry was alive, but he was badly injured, some kind of brain damage. They had helicoptered him to the nearby airport hospital, which, Velnikov assured her, was the state of the art when it came to head-trauma cases.

Velnikov was waiting at the entrance when she finally arrived at the hospital, along with a gray-haired woman in doctor’s greens, whom he introduced as Hélène Cordray, the chief of the neurosurgery unit.

“How is he? What happened?” Sonya demanded as they hustled up the stairs and into the building.

“Your husband’s condition has been stabilized, and his life is in no immediate danger, Madame Reed,” Dr. Cordray said.

“There was an accident on the test bed,” Velnikov told her, “a hydrogen leak, a small explosion—”

“—a small piece of metal was embedded in his medullary cortex, we were able to remove it quickly and keep the damage localized,
but there has been significant trauma and a permanent loss of function—”

By this time they had reached a bank of elevators. One of the doors opened, Dr. Cordray ushered them inside, hit the button for the third floor. “I’ll be able to explain it more fully in my office—”

“I want to see him,” Sonya told her. “Now.”

The doctor looked at Velnikov, shook her head.

“It’s
my
husband, not his, and you’ll take me to him
now
,” Sonya snapped angrily.

“Very well, Madame Reed, if you insist,” the doctor said without rancor, and she hit the button for the fifth floor.

They rode up to the fifth floor in silence and walked rapidly down a green corridor smelling of disinfectant and synthetic lilac, past a series of heavy metal doors and large windows, through which Sonya could not keep herself from catching unsettling glimpses of patients lying in hospital beds in various states of unwholesome infirmity, hooked up to IV stands, computers, ominous-looking banks of life-support machinery.

“Your husband is in a sterile chamber, so we can’t go inside,” Dr. Cordray told her, as they stopped by one of the windows.

“Merde . . . ,” Sonya whispered as she peered through the glass.

There was a bed in the room, all but hidden by banks of machinery, and a nurse at the foot of it, sitting on a chair before a series of monitors. Jerry lay in the bed with his eyes closed and his skull swathed in white bandages. There were IV lines in both of his arms and another catheter in the bandages near the top of his skull. Two electrical cables led from the back of his head to a pair of consoles about the size of large television sets that looked something like mainframe computers. There were electrodes taped all over his bare chest with leads running to yet more bulky devices. A transparent oxygen mask fit over his nose and mouth.

“The brain areas that control respiration and heartbeat have been destroyed,” Dr. Cordray said softly. “We’re using computers to simulate the lost function. There has been no deterioration of the higher brain centers, and we believe that motor control, excretory, and sexual functions have not been lost. Barring unforeseen circumstances, we believe he will make a full recovery.”

“A . . . a full recovery?” Sonya stammered.

“Except for what has already been lost. He will always require computer assist to maintain heartbeat and respiration, of course. . . .”

“He’ll have to spend the rest of his life like
this!
” Sonya cried. “You call that a full recovery!”

“This is only temporary, Madame Reed, please try to control yourself, there are other patients—”

“Equipment is being flown in from Star City,” Velnikov said, “and it’s far more sophisticated than this.”

“From . . . from Star City . . . ?” Sonya stammered.

“I wanted to discuss the prognosis before you subjected yourself to this sight, Madame Reed, but you insisted on seeing the worst immediately,” Dr. Cordray said soothingly. “I assure you the situation is not as hopeless as it currently seems. Now please let us go to my office where we can discuss matters much more calmly.”

Numbly, Sonya let herself be led back to the elevator, down to the third floor, along a corridor to a small spare office, where the doctor sat down behind a plain metal desk and she and Velnikov perched on hard metal chairs before it.

“The Soviets are flying in a new piece of equipment,” Dr. Cordray said.

“It’s an experimental device we’ve been developing for really long-duration space travel,” Velnikov told her. “The idea is to slow down respiration and heartbeat to produce an artificial state of hibernation, but the software can easily enough be modified to induce normal heart and lung function.”

“With your permission, we will keep your husband under sedation and implant permanent electrodes in his brain and then seal the incision,” the doctor said. “The Soviet device needs no physical connection, it uses external electrodes that complete the circuit through electromagnetic induction. This prevents the probability of infection through a permanent opening in the skull and fascia.”

“And since it has been designed for use by cosmonauts, where weight counts, it has been highly miniaturized, and the power requirements have been reduced to the point where it can run on a twelve-volt battery.”

“Your husband will have considerable mobility, Madame Reed.”

“Considerable mobility . . . . ?” Sonya said, looking back and forth between the two of them distractedly. “Highly miniaturized . . . . ?”

“It weighs only eleven kilos with the battery,” Velnikov said. “It’s about the size of a portable television set, and we can mount it on a cart for mobility. The connecting cable can be as long as you like, so Jerry will be able to move freely around a room without moving the controller.”

“It all sounds quite horrible,” Sonya said. “Isn’t there something else you can do? A brain transplant, maybe?”

Dr. Cordray shook her head. “Only the Americans are working on anything like that, and they’re at least five years away, and by that time . . .”

Velnikov shot her a dirty look. But it was too late.

“By that time,
what?
” Sonya demanded.

The doctor’s eyes became furtive.

“Tell me!” Sonya insisted. “I have a right to know!”

Dr. Cordray sighed. “The Soviet device can only
approximate
normal hindbrain function, of course,” she said. “Also, there will be an enzyme debt from the loss of brain tissue that will be difficult to compensate for with artificial supplements. Eventually, there will be accumulated vein and artery damage, mini-strokes, perhaps full-bore cerebral hemorrhages, slow emphysema. . . .”

“I see . . . ,” Sonya whispered. “How long?”

“Two, perhaps three years, at the outside,” the doctor said. “Of course, by that time, there could be new advances, you never know. . . .”

“You’re talking about two or three years of . . . of . . . of a slow horrible deterioration toward . . . toward . . .”

“I’m sorry, Madame Reed, it’s the best we have to offer,” Dr. Cordray said. “A year ago, there would have been nothing at all.”

She reached into a desk drawer, pulled out some printed forms and a pen, and handed them to Sonya.

“What’s this?” Sonya stammered.

“Permission forms. Since this certainly qualifies as heroic life-extension measures, we need the permission of next of kin to implant the electrodes. We also need permission to keep him on the present life-support machinery beyond ninety-six hours.”

“You mean if I don’t sign these papers, you’ll just turn it all off and let him die?”

“That
is
the law. As his wife, you
are
legally next of kin.”

“
Ex
-wife,” Sonya blurted.

Dr. Cordray glanced at Velnikov. “I thought . . . ?” She looked back at Sonya and frowned. “This is rather ambiguous, legally,” she said. “Is there someone else who could sign quickly? A son? A daughter?”

“Our son is in America. Our daughter is an Aeroflot pilot, and I have no idea where she is right now.”

Dr. Cordray frowned. She grimaced. “This does present legal problems,” she said. She drummed her fingers on the desktop. “The devil take it!” she finally exclaimed. “I’ll take your signature as next of kin, and let the law argue about it later. I’ll not stand by and let someone die over such a minor technicality.”

“Assuming that I’m willing to sign . . . ,” Sonya said.

“There is no other alternative, Madame Reed.”

“Oh yes there is, Dr. Cordray.”

“You’re not thinking of . . . ?”

But Sonya was. Jerry would never live to take his spaceship ride. He would probably never even be able to work again. He would be
tied to an eleven-kilo piece of machinery for what little remained of his life. And what would remain would be a slow but steady physical deterioration. Perhaps mental degeneration as well. And he would be alive and aware the whole time to watch his own decline. Wouldn’t it be more merciful if he never awoke?

He would be an invalid, with no one to take care of him, no—

A wave of self-loathing washed over her as she thought it. That’s it, Sonya, isn’t it? she told herself in disgust. There’s no one but
you
to take care of him, is there? No one but you to sit around and watch him slowly die and listen to his complaints and his anguish and his self-pity on the long way out.