The Steel Tsar (17 page)

Perhaps, I thought, I had been too long in Makhno’s company. Again I glanced across at Dempsey. He was fairly oblivious of me and Mrs. Persson’s attention was always elsewhere, though once she motioned me to silence, as if understanding the shock Marek’s statement had been to me. Both she and Captain Dempsey appeared to be waiting something out, as if they had anticipated the evening’s events.

For all my increased confusion, I also had the oddest sense that something in my brain—or at least my perceptions—was changing. All attempts to make logic of my situation were failing
—if I
insisted on logic as a fundamentally
linear
quality. Only when I let go, as it were, of these attempts did a kind of pattern emerge.

For a moment or two I saw myself as many individuals, each fundamentally the same yet, because of some small difference of circumstance, often leading radically different lives in radically different versions of our world.

Time and Space were the same thing. And they existed simultaneously. Only we who attempt to impose linearity on Time and Space are confused. We become the victims of our own narrowness of vision.

It is true we can manipulate Nature to a small degree, and make use of her benefits. But we could not create the wind which blows the sails or the electricity which powers the motor. Our natural animal instinct to use these elements makes us believe, in our folly, that we have some grasp upon existence, some means of turning the very stars to our own ends. Perhaps, through persistence, we could even do that. But we should still not have controlled the universe. We should merely have made use of its bounty.

Our attempts to manipulate Time and Space are like puny parlour tricks. They are impressive to the simple-minded. But what if Time and Space are merely as complex and subtle as our own brains? We have so far failed to understand one. Why should we believe we have the power to understand the other? And what if they are infinitely more complex than anything we can ever hope to understand, except perhaps through our technologies? Should we not content ourselves with putting our own little planet in reasonable order before committing ourselves to any larger plans?

Yet, I thought, as some peculiar kind of clarity emerged momentarily from my terror and drunkenness, a human creature
could
learn to exist in that uncontrollable environment where Time and Space merge and separate and swirl as one simultaneous thing. But how could one cling to one’s own identity, knowing that an infinite number of other versions of oneself existed throughout the multiverse?

What was the quality which allowed Mrs. Persson, for instance, to move seemingly at will from this version of our history to that? Why was she not mad? And, if she were not mad, how might I discipline myself to survive the chaotic movements of the time streams? How did such people negotiate and map their environment? Were they nomads who followed certain well-tried trails or were they also subject to the random whims of a chaotic multiverse? How dangerously vulnerable was the linear world we had constructed for ourselves? It seemed squarely to depend upon the race’s consensus to ignore the monumental evidence of the multiverse’s divine disorder!

Another thought came: If I were not hallucinating, had I perhaps created this entire reality merely to remove from myself the guilt of so much murder?

Djugashvili’s attention was suddenly focused on his empty bottles. He began to bellow at his servants, accusing them of drinking his vodka, of selling it, of trading it with the Jews and, when they denied this with abject fear of his passing mood, he beamed upon them and told them that it was the Jews who were hoarding the vodka and that some people should be despatched to make them give up what was by right the people’s liquor. And he laughed openly at this hypocrisy, as if he were enjoying it for its own sake—as if hypocrisy and deceit were arts he strove to master in all their finesse and subtlety.

While the scene was taking place, Mrs. Persson turned and looked directly into my eyes. I felt a frisson through my whole body and I heard her speak, very quietly, to me alone.

“You are not mad,” she said.

But Dempsey overheard her and looked up. “Unless the whole damned universe is mad.” He gave his attention back to his almost empty glass. “Better ask von Bek about that.”

Was von Bek alive here? Had he survived with Mrs. Persson? I wondered again how we had not been destroyed by the hell-bomb. Perhaps the very act of dropping the device had set off this great eddy of events—billions of new ripples across the fabric of the multiverse? The act had not merely been symbolic of mankind’s cruelty and folly. It had resulted in profound metaphysical upheavals. Perhaps I was doomed to live one almost identical life after another until I found some means of understanding my part in that crime. Again, having received a glimmer of perception, I was plunged into stupefied bewilderment and had the presence of mind to pull myself together as best I could, if only to placate the unpredictable warlord. He had wandered back onto the earlier subject.

“Professor Marek! Marek! Wake up, you b—old p—!” he shouted to his tame scientist, who brought himself round with the alacrity born of long experience.

“Sir?”

“How many bombs did you say you had ready?” Djugashvili demanded to know.

Marek shrugged. “Four. All about the same strength, as far as we can tell.”

“You are unsure?”

The professor was quick to deny any lack of confidence. “I have their measure now.”

“So you can produce more quite easily?” his master asked. Light suddenly caught the steel of his helmet and made it burn like the face of some mighty fallen angel. It could have been the face of Lucifer himself. I felt then that he was perfectly capable of destroying the whole world without a shred of remorse if he believed that he could not, himself, go on living. Such creatures, I remember thinking, have always dwelt among us. They would reduce the multiverse to ash, if they could. Why, I agonized, can we not recognize them and stop them before they achieve so much power? A tiny part of the human race was responsible for the misery of the majority.

I thought again of the injustices which we ourselves casually perpetrated and I wondered how we should ever set anything to rights while we continued to allow such vast discrepancy, so much at odds with the religious and political principles we claim as our daily guides.

Such reflections were perhaps natural as I sat listening to Djugashvili’s braggadocio, in which large notions of justice and equality were used to obscure the actuality of his ambitions. Professor Marek had plunged into a complicated explanation of his work which the warlord dismissed with a yawn and a wave of his hand. “Production, professor? Results. Can you produce more of the bombs?”

“Of course. With Mr. Wilson’s help. The Yekaterinaslav laboratories had everything we needed. Our information was perfect.”

Captain Dempsey lifted his head, but it was only to welcome more refreshment, brought from somewhere by the same trembling servants. Mrs. Persson did not seem pleased with his behaviour and her passing glance in his direction had only irony in it. She pushed her dark hair back from her face and I was struck once more by her refined beauty, her dignified bearing. She was the kind of woman a man of my sort, fundamentally a plain soldier, could only look up to. I could never aspire to win her. I doubted if any man would ever keep her for himself alone. There was a sense of freedom about her which nothing could hurt; even when I had seen her a prisoner of Major John in East Grinstead, about to be tortured, she had retained that same sense of integrity, reminding me of nothing so much as Sarah Bernhardt in her famous role of St. Joan. I think it was there, if not before, that I had fallen in love with her. Only now, as we listened to the bellowings of the grotesque beast seated at the table’s head, did I realize how strong those feelings were. I would have laid down my life for her and, though I scarcely understood it, everything she stood for. Was she really Korzeniowski’s daughter or was the old captain merely her mentor? Perhaps her lover?

She said: “I thought Yekaterinaslav was retaken.”

Djugashvili shook his metal head and turned to glare with feigned good will upon her. “So it was. But we got what we were after. The purpose of the attack was to supply Professor Marek with certain materials and information he needed. At Yekaterinaslav they were working along similar lines to us, eh, professor?”

I felt suddenly very sick, physically ill and deeply tired. Yet I wanted to leap from my chair and beg them to stop talking so easily about those terrible bombs which, for all I knew, could easily destroy the entire globe!

How could Mrs. Persson hold her tongue? And what was keeping Dempsey silent? Why did they want me to say nothing of what I knew?

I looked from face to face and saw only fear. They were all as afraid as I! Even Djugashvili was appalled by his own godlike power. We watched as the knowledge dawned on him— through his vast drunkenness, his mighty self-appreciation—that he might well have the means of destroying the whole world! By demonstrating this power, he could fulfill every nightmarish ambition at a stroke. He would be Emperor of the Earth! Everything and everyone would be at his personal disposal!

Djugashvili’s lips moved beneath his mask.

His smile was almost sweet.

Suddenly Cornelius Dempsey was on his feet, supporting himself with one hand on the table. “You’re wasting time, your honour. You’d better hurry up and use ’em, general. Otherwise the Central Government will be here to claim its materials back before you can make any worthwhile number of bombs. You’ll have to put your money where your mouth is, old boy. After all, there’s a huge aerial force on its way.”

Djugashvili made an irritable, almost feminine gesture. It was one I had seen before, when some fact did not quite suit his dreams. His usual method was to ignore it or destroy it. “Certainly I shall use them soon, Captain Dempsey. It only needs one ship for our purposes, eh? And we have that now. That’s why I was so glad to dispense with Makhno’s services. He’s troublesome and must be liquidated. No, no. We are saved, old comrade!” He became obscenely avuncular. “We have a ship. Captain Bastable—” he turned his medusa’s geniality upon me “—we have
your
ship, the
Vassarion Belinsky
.”

I felt bile rise in my throat. A thousand new, desperate associations rushed into my overcrowded mind. “Captain Korzeniowski would never fly her for you!”

“Captain Korzeniowski is no longer aboard. Indeed, his spirit is no longer aboard his body, Captain Bastable.” The creature chuckled, deep in his chest, and he sighed. The air seemed suddenly full of the stink of sulphur and stale vodka.

“You killed him?”

“Naturally, as a non-participant in this very important game, he had to be set aside. He is no longer a functioning pawn, Captain Bastable.” His eyes were now fixed on me and I was able to understand how he had been able to command so many so easily. I could not tear my gaze away from that awful glare.
“You
are lucky, Captain Bastable. You are still a functioning pawn.”

It was his warning to me. He must have employed the same phrase a thousand times or more. He knew it to be effective.

But my life was of no value to me while such monsters as Djugashvili were allowed to walk free upon the Earth! Again I felt that strange frisson. Looking across at Cornelius Dempsey I saw his face change suddenly from that of a drunken, self-indulgent boor, to sardonic dandy and back again, all in an instant.

They were playing parts, the pair of them! Playing parts as hard as they knew, allowing themselves no relaxation beyond what they had both briefly permitted me. And the only reason they had slipped so swiftly from their roles was to demonstrate to me that I must act with them and reveal nothing. Yet I also understood from Dempsey that he, too, was playing for the largest possible stakes and was prepared to lose his very soul in pursuit of the greater good.

There is nothing which gives one strength at a time of need than the presence of comrades who share the same ideas about humanity and justice. Suddenly I understood how profoundly Cornelius Dempsey believed in fair play. Once, it had driven him to drink. Now he used drink to disguise the strange intelligence lurking within those deceptively drugged eyes. I understood that it was only the very best in us, our capacity for love and self-respect, that enabled us to survive in a perpetually fragmenting multiverse. Only our deepest sense of justice allowed us to remain sane and relish the wonders of chaotic Time and Space, to be free at last of fear. Further violence would bring only an endless chain of bloodshed and an inevitable descent of our race into bestiality and ultimate insentience. To survive, we must love.

I had not been listening while Djugashvili elaborated on this threat. My horror and loathing at his casual acceptance of mass-murder—including the wasted deaths of those who followed him—were almost unbearable. It remained difficult for me to understand how some people are simply born mentally deformed, lacking all the natural moral restraints and imagination which dictate the actions of most of us, however partially. Such creatures have learned from childhood to ape the appropriate sentiments when it suits them, to charm or bully their opponents, to agree to anything, to tell any lie and to pursue their own ends with implacable determination.

“Such men and women are the true aliens amongst you and it is ironic how frequently we come to rule you. We use your very best instincts and deepest emotions against you. We convince you that we alone can satisfy your need for security and comfort and then we drain you dry of everything save perpetual terror. Ha, ha, ha!”

I looked with astonishment at Djugashvili, wondering how he could possibly have uttered those words or known what I was thinking. His smile was a soft, deceiving thing lying upon the pitted surface of his head like a red slug. “Such monsters can only be murdered, Captain Bastable. Do you have the stomach for murder? Of course not. You will command the
Vassarion Belinsky.
Congratulations. You will become a hero of the people, a legend amongst the Cossack Hosts.” He reached his irregular arms towards me as if to embrace me but then Cornelius Dempsey was on his feet, filled with unfeigned fury.