"Of course. A mongol leader who conquered all of Asia—his own Gobi, India, China. He moved on into Europe, too, sweeping the Russian, Polish and Hungarian Armies to defeat. He probably conquered more of the world than any other single man."
They stood on a high, wind-swept plateau with vast reaches of glistening white sand all around them. Legions of wind-driven dunes marched endlessly to the horizon, but a mile or so to the east reed-bordered ponds ruled over a verdantly green oasis. Surrounding the oasis was Genghis Kahn's city of yurts—the dwellings borrowing some of the features of the tent and some of the American aborigine tepees.
Dung-fires tainted the air with an unpleasant pungency. Strangely, Tedor discovered, there were no guards, no sentries.
"Their sentries have outposts on the desert," Laniq explained. "If a large body of horsemen arrives, they will see it in plenty of time. As for the lone traveler, he could be nothing but a friend. An enemy would not live long in this place."
They advanced on the oasis, the unfamiliar yakskin clothing itching Tedor's skin, the stain which converted him to a Mongol in appearance smarting in his eyes. Before long the black felt yurts were not ahead of them but all around them and they walked, completely uncontested, to the very door of Genghis Kahn's own yurt, the standard of the nine yak tails billowing above it in the stiff wind.
The Kha Khan, the Emperor of Mankind, the Power of God on Earth, the Master of Thrones and Crowns, the Mighty Manslayer—Genghis Kahn squatted, Oriental fashion, by his dung fire. With him were two men, the first old and bent, a scraggly white beard falling to his ornate belt. The second was younger and—Tedor may have imagined it—he seemed to be squirming and scratching in the yakskin clothing.
"He can work magic," the ancient man declared. "I have seen him blast rocks, Oh Kahn. I have seen him make fire from a simple tube. Heed wisely his words, Oh Kahn."
Genghis Kahn wore long, plaited, greased red hair. His coarse, wind-beaten features worked themselves into a scowl. "He speaks fantasies," said the Kahn.
"Not fantasy," the third man at the fire said, sniffing distastefully, Tedor thought, at the dung-fumes. "Truth. I say this: Genghis Kahn can one day master all the world, from the Land of Morning Calm to the city called Vienna."
"Of Vienna I have never heard."
"One day you will," the younger man promised, "but sure, bold strokes are essential. The Shah of Persia would stop you. You balk at crossing his frontiers. You would return to Karakorum and rest."
"Yes. My capital is a beautiful city, and Iwouldrest."
"You must never rest, not with all mankind ready to fall at your feet! The Shah of Persia anticipates border actions, clashes, sorties, patrols. Fool him. Strike with your entire army at the gateway city. It is far to the south of here, in a warmer land, but it is the gateway to the West for your people, Oh Kahn."
"Who is he?" Tedor whispered.
"Working for the monopolist, from our own time. Here in this age they call him Chepe Noyon and he is one of the Kahn's two greatest generals. Shh."
"I will lead your army, Oh Kahn. I, Chepe will lead it, and if I fall you may have me flayed."
"He can work magic," said the shaman.
"He had better," the Kahn declared dryly. "For we march from here to Karakorum to resupply our Army and from Karakorum we will take the southern route across the mountains to Tibet to the West. We will hit Bokhara in the spring."
"The Kahn is wise," said Chepe Noyon, still scratching at his yakskin garments.
"Let's get out of here," Tedor whispered.
But the shaman looked up, said; "And who are those two, that man and woman?"
Genghis Kahn shrugged imperial shoulders. Chepe shook his head.
"Then I say they are an evil omen."
"Ho!" roared Genghis Kahn, evidently more superstitious than history had suspected. "Detain them!"
Yakka warriors converged on them. Tedor grabbed Laniq's hand and started running, fanning his atomic pistol's fire all around them. He caught a glimpse of Chepe Noyon's face, astonishment stamping the features, and then he forgot everything but the fact that they had to run—and hard—over the shifting, seething sand.
The desert was strewn with corpses, but the warriors kept coming, for life was cheap on the Gobi. Presently they showed sufficient imagination to keep well back out of range of the atomic pistol, however, and when Tedor and Laniq reached the time-conveyor they were alone.
They tumbled inside, Laniq running to the controls and Tedor bolting the door. Tedor would never forget Chepe Noyon's face as they departed. He did not have to sayyou are not alone. Clearly Chepe knew it.
"Enough!" Tedor cried. "I believe you." His head was whirling, but if the girl said her people had beaten the monopolist in all but the twentieth century, he wanted to go there at once.
She smiled at him. "No. I want to really convince you."
They watched Tamerlane's abortive attempt to repeat Genghis Kahn's Asiatic Conquest. They stood by while a man from the far future gave England's Cromwell the necessary encouragement for hiscoup d'etat. ("Cromwell's head will roll anyway," Laniq said cheerfully.) The pages of history came alive again when Napoleon cavorted for them at Elba, convinced by a man who appeared mysteriously out of nowhere to break the chains of his exile and try his hand once more at world empire. ("Thank God for Wellington.") They watched Kerensky's provisional government fall in the days of the Russian Revolution, paving the way for Communist dictatorship. But Kerensky was betrayed from within, and not by a Russian but a man from the future. ("We don't know about this one yet, Barwan.") And not the Germans in a secret railroad train, but men from the future in a time-conveyor, spirited Lenin back from Russia in time to assume the mantle of empire and so pave the way for Stalin and Malenkov.
"I want to show you one thing more before we head for the year 1954," Laniq told Tedor, whose head by now was swimming with a vast new—and sinister—concept of history. "Did you ever hear of Adolph Hitler?"
The city was Munich in the early 1920's, narrow cobbled streets all a-clatter with horses and wagons and learning the new sound of the gasoline automobile and the swaying electric trolley. Munich, Germany, city of commerce, transportation hub noisy with the sounds of arrival and departure, its byways crowded with small homburgs, bicycles, checkered caps. The Munich of the Beer Halls and great steins of hearty German beer and singing and raucous laughter. But also the Munich of unrest, distrust, intense intellectual turmoil, and the Munich which, not many months later, was to be the scene of the abortiveputschin a beer cellar which started a slight little man with stray-locked dark hair on his path toward world conquest.
They sat in a beer hall, Laniq and Tedor, and at a table near them sat a man, young but with eyes which to Tedor were at once the most fiery, most intense and oldest he had even seen. He was a man, Tedor guessed, who would never know a tranquil moment in his life; cold, friendless, fidgety, smouldering with nameless resentments.
"That's Hitler," Laniq said unnecessarily. "It is why we have come here."
They had spent three hours in the beer cellar so often frequented by Hitler, a second-rate poster artist, ex-Army corporal and smouldering revolutionary.
A man came to the table and joined Hitler, not half a dozen feet from where Laniq and Tedor sat with their beer. As the one was stamped with his personality as clearly as ever a man could be, so the other was poker-faced non-descript, neither German nor non-German, feverish agitator nor tranquil pacifist.
"You have come," said Hitler, easily loud enough for Tedor to hear. "It is good. I have spent the entire day thinking of what you have told me. It is like a storm bursting inside of me, a happy torment, as if it holds the seeds of a strife which can make everything clear, lucidly clear for Germany and the world, their destiny, one the master the other the follower. You will one day be a great man."
"Not I, Adolph. You harbor the inherent qualities for greatness."
"I know," said Hitler, and made it sound the most natural thing in the world. "I was born for greatness, I will be great. But you have earned it with your perception, your understanding, with your ability to point out objectively what I could not see for my raging emotions."
"It is only common sense, Adolph. You had the idea; clearly, the idea was in you. A year, two years, it would have materialized. I merely acted like a catalyst."
"To the East," said Hitler in a dreamy voice, all the while his eyes burned furiously, "is the Bolshevik, the Red Scourge, the hated, feared enemy of mankind. To the West is the Democratic world, the England of many centuries, the France of polite ways and laughable indecisions, the young America, still trying its wings.
"Which is the enemy of the people? I will tell you which. It is as you have said. The Red, the Communist Bolshevik is the enemy of the people. Tell them, 'See, the Red is coming!' and they will run, to arms, defending their homes and what they love as if it were Ragnarok itself. Good. We will tell them that.
"And which is the enemy of Hitler, the real enemy of Hitler who—as you say—was born to lead Germany, the Third Reich, to world glory? It is not the Red Bolshevik, no. It is the West, with its standard of living, its broad, idealistic aims which while incapable of bearing fruit are nevertheless infinitely attractive; the West with its showcase democracy, the West with its guaranteed personal liberties for morons and sub-morons, the West which yearns after the individual to the neglect of the state and so makes all individuals everywhere yearn so too.
"I will fire my people with hatred for the Red when hatred for the Jew has weakened because one day we will exterminate the Jew. The one is a legitimate hatred, the other a fancied one—but with the fires once stoked, the hatred will burn brightly. When it turns, as assuredly it will, to still a third and now unthinkable hatred, frenzy will ride high the crest of a wave—and the legions of the Third Reich will turn suddenly and devastatingly on the West, which today the German people cannot hate but which will one day bear the brunt of their hatred and power and rage because I, Hitler, tell them so."
"I am glad I could bring this to the surface in you so much sooner than it otherwise might have appeared," said the non-descript man.
"Youare glad?You?" Tears streamed down Hitler's face, yet he laughed. "Think how I feel. I, Hitler. A man today, a God tomorrow, because you showed me the way. Name your price, request your reward; when the world is mine the half you want shall be yours."
"I want only what is best for Germany and its people," said the man.
"What he means," Laniq whispered to Tedor, "is he wants what is best for the monopolist. Naturally he's one of our own people. Fortunately for the world, he drove this point home too strongly. Hitler will move, and soon, making a wild, incredible bid for power. When it aborts, he will bide his time for another decade, giving the free world additional time to prepare."
"Why don't we wait for him outside, take him, and see what we can learn?" Tedor demanded.
"Risk everything on that when we know Hitler will fail? This man probably doesn't know the monopolist, anyway. He is a shadow figure, a ghost. None of them knows his identity, at least that has been my experience."
"Still—"
"Still nothing. The twentieth century's middle years are the significant ones. Let all else ride if we must, for it is there the monopolist will either succeed or fail with plans that will make the dreams of a dozen Hitlers seem something less than child's play."
"Okay, Laniq. You win. But remember this; once we get to my stamping grounds, I'm going to take over. Brief me if you want to, but I have the contacts. Besides, I came hell-bent into the time-stream looking for you and now I find apparently all my ideas need readjusting. I'll be able to think a lot better with some affirmative action under my belt."
"Very well. What do we do first?"
"Well, now—"
"We seek out my father in Afghanistan, naturally. He can do the briefing you suggest. After that...."
"After that I take over," Tedor growled, then smiled. "Come on."
"My father's followers needed an out-of-the-way place like this," Laniq explained as the time-conveyor dropped out of the time-stream and cruised along above the desert. "We're building a spaceship, you see."
"A spaceship? What for? There is nothing worth while on the planets, nothing worth the trouble to mine it."
"My fault, Tedor. I should have said a starship. If necessary, we'll go to the stars. Oh, we can do it, although the trip will take generations and only a few hundred people will find room. We won't do it unless the monopolist forces us. If he gains the dictatorial control of time he's seeking, we'll have no choice. We're collecting trophies, artifacts of man's culture, just in case. We'll gladly put them in a museum or return them if the monopolist fails." Laniq turned to the port, gazed down on the desert sweeping by. Suddenly; "Tedor!"
Tedor stood beside her and stared down. There had been a village of tents below them. There now were the remains of tents in a well-watered oasis—but no village.
Fires smouldered below them. Charred wreckage lay strewn about the rolling dunes and jumbled rock on either side of the oasis. A great silver hull—the body of an incomplete starship, Tedor knew, lay on its side, a dying animal, huge rents and gashes disfiguring it like ugly, bloodless scars.
"Tedor—Tedor—I'm afraid!"
Tedor took the conveyor down, landing it adjacent to the wrecked starship. He climbed out first, helped Laniq alight. Dazed, clasping and unclasping her hands, she walked about the oasis. In some of the burned tents dishes were set on crude tables. Personal equipment was everywhere, on the floors, on the charred plastoid beds, in hastily emptied lockers. Most of the fires had burned themselves out, but smoke still curled lazily into the dry, hot air of the desert.
"They came, Tedor. They destroyed—everything."
Tedor stood mutely, uncomfortably, not knowing what to say. Everything he thought about Laniq had changed so drastically in the space of a few hours and now he wanted to help her, but could do nothing.
"Miss Hadrien. Miss Hadrien!"
They whirled together, saw a dark head poke itself out from behind one end of the spaceship, large burnoose very white over the brown skin. It was a boy of perhaps fourteen. He was trembling, his lips puckered. He sobbed. "Oh, Miss Hadrien...."
Laniq went to him, patted his shoulder. "Mahmud, there now. It must have been awful, I know. There, Mahmud."
With someone to comfort him, Mahmud cried all the more. He wailed loudly, letting the tears gush down his cheeks, abandoning his body to wracking sobs.
Tedor who spoke Persian and understood it, realized the boy would go right on crying and Laniq comforting him and so not finding time to cry herself. And so he said, "Mahmud, tell me what happened. Tell me where Miss Hadrien's people are."
Mahmud sniffled, blinked his eyes, plucked a handful of gummy dates from the folds of his burnoose. He munched, sniffled again. "Dead," he sobbed. "They are all dead, almost."
Laniq sobbed too, clutching little Mahmud's shoulder more firmly. "Dead?" she cried. "Dead? Where?"
"Maybe not all, Miss Hadrien. Those that could, fled—taking the dead with them. It happened not long ago when three round craft came down from the sky and burned everything. They struck without warning. My people fled."
"You are very brave, Mahmud," Laniq declared. "What—happened to my father?"
"The Hadrien Sir was badly hurt, Miss. Of that much I am sure. They carried him with much moaning and bleeding into their craft, your people did, and went to the West. 'Laniq' he kept mumbling. He looked at me while they carried him and said 'Laniq! you tell Laniq we went to Nevada. She'll know where. Tell Laniq we went to Nevada, but tell no one else.' That is what he said and I, Mahmud, remember every word."
"Thank you, Mahmud. And what about you?"
Mahmud smiled for the first time. "Oh, presently I will return among my people who fled in the face of all this terror from the sky. But it will not be the same."
"It will be the same," said Laniq. "They are your people."
"I say it will not be the same, but thank you, Miss. I will go among my people with my great sadness and remember yours forever."
"If I thought you would be happy, I would take you with me."
"Miss—" Mahmud looked at her hopefully.
"No, Mahmud. You won't understand this, not yet. But they are your people, your home and your world. You could not pick up the threads of a new life and a new way of life without sorrow. Your people did what anyone else would have done, includingmypeople. They had their own homes to protect; they could not throw their lives away vainly in my people's defense."
Mahmud smiled again, then turned to go. "I was hoping you would say that, Miss Hadrien." He trotted off with head high and shoulders squared.
"He'll be all right, I think," Laniq said. "We'd better get to Nevada, Tedor."
Together they ran for the time-conveyor. It hurt her not to, but Laniq never looked back at the devastated community.
"Seventeen, red," fat Dorlup proclaimed to the croupier in a Reno gambling joint.
The wheel spun, the ball clicked, rattled, jumped with it.
"Seventeen, red," declared the croupier in an awed voice as he raked a tall stack of chips toward the one Dorlup had placed in the red seventeen. Dorlup gathered the stack in with his pudgy arms and deposited it carelessly in the growing mountain of chips nearby.
"You're wonderful," the honey-blond solidio actress told him, squeezing his arm to add emphasis.
There was no shaking Beti, not since that day, months ago, when she had steered Dorlup into the Automat in New York. Since then he had been across the country three times, and she with him. He had gained a lot of source material for his solidio, and it amused him after a few days when he realized Beti was spying on him for someone. He didn't care, since he had nothing in particular to hide. And, anyway, there were certain joys of which Beti was truly the mistress, despite the vacuum which seemed to exist inside her skull.
"Youarewonderful," Beti said again.
Dorlup patted her hand without real affection. "Everyone in here thinks I have a system.Thesystem to beat the game, I might add. There is only one system. I know that system. Roulette wouldn't have a chance where we come from."
"It all rides on eight, black," Dorlup told the croupier.
"All?" The man's polish had cracked.
"All."
"Eight black," the croupier intoned a moment later. The crowd ooh'ed and aah'ed.
"Well," said Dorlup, and gathered in the chips again.
"Mr. Dorlup?" someone at his shoulder asked.
"Yes, I am Dorlup. What do you want?"
"Come with me."
"What for?"
"Don't make a scene, Mr. Dorlup," the man said in a soft voice. Then in a language which Dorlup had not heard for six months: "It is important that I talk with you."
Dorlup's eyes bulged. "You're an Agent?"
"Come with me, please."
Dorlup told Beti to play with his chips, then followed the man from the gambling room into the bar.
"Scotch," said Dorlup with a smile. "Might as well be your treat, eh?"
"Two scotches, then," said the man. "You're in serious trouble, Dorlup."
"Is that so?"
"Quite. For a long time the Century Agents have played down stories about a time-tinkerer who had broken more rules than all the tinkerers before him. He was called the monopolist of despotism, although frankly the Agents neither invented nor particularly cared for the term. We played down the stories but we hardly doubted them. As I said, you are in trouble, Dorlup. You are under arrest."
"This is fantastic. What's the charge?"
"Time tinkering, of course. You are the monopolist, Dorlup."
"What? WHAT?"
"You are the monopolist."
Beti played with Dorlup's chips until not one remained in front of her. The croupier was his old self again, calm, detached, indifferent. She looked all around the club for Dorlup but couldn't find him.
No doubt the stranger had been an Agent. Beti hardly understood all that had happened in the last few months. First they told her to spy on Dorlup and she had—gladly, since she had done other small jobs for them in the past and the pay was good.I'm not as dumb as he thinks, she thought with a smile. And then, then they had told her to lie in her reports. She had lied cheerfully, at their direction. But why did they need to spy if she spied and found nothing, then reported all sorts of things? She shrugged her shapely shoulders. They had their reasons.
They also had Dorlup, she concluded. Then her job was finished.
She had a drink, listened to a sultry-voiced girl render the latest popular song, and went outside into the cool night air. A sleek car roared to a quick stop in front of her. The back door opened. "Get in," someone said in the darkness.
She hesitated. Hands reached out, tugged at her, pulled her. She was too surprised to try fighting them off, but they were big, strong hands and it would have been futile anyway. She was deposited on the back seat of the car, between two men. The one on her right she had never seen before. She had seen pictures of the one on her left, the handsome man who was approaching middle age so attractively.
He was Mulid Ruscar, Chief of the Century Agents.
"Where's my father?" Laniq demanded.
"I'll take you to him." The man led them down a street lined with prefabricated, Quonset-like houses. People smiled at Laniq, but wanly—and most of the houses were deserted.
An old man shook his head sadly, said, "There was great carnage in Afghanistan. We don't know how it happened; we can only guess. Someone was followed, despite all our efforts."
They walked on, came at last to one of the prefabricated dwellings which seemed no different from all the others. It was late autumn, 1954, but here in southern Nevada, warm winds swept uncomfortably through the dusty street.
A short, stocky man met them at the door. "You'll have to be quiet," he said.
"Dr. Jangor, how is my father?"
"Badly hurt, I'm afraid. He'll live, but we had to amputate his right leg above the knee. Come in, child."
Tedor followed Laniq awkwardly inside.
"He's in there," the doctor said, pointing to a closed door.
"I'd better wait outside," Tedor told Laniq.
"No, I want you with me."
Shrugging, Tedor followed her within the room. His head propped on pillows, a man lay in the single bed. He was neither awake, nor asleep, but in that half-way state, semi-conscious, dreamy, yet extremely lucid.
"He's been doped against the pain," said Dr. Jangor, and closed the door behind him.
"Dad," Laniq called softly.
The head on the pillow stirred. Sweat beaded the skin, ran into the eyes and made them squint.
"Dad, it's Laniq."
The lips hardly moved, but Tedor heard: "La-niq? Laniq, you've come back."
She knelt by the bed, let her hand rest on her father's feverish brow. "It's all right now, Dad. Everything's going to be all right."
"They destroyed the starship, Laniq. Completely. We—don't have that way out any longer. We've got to beat the monopolist in Russia. It's his last chance." Domique Hadrien spoke without heat, with no emotion at all. The words spilled from his lips one after the other, tonelessly. "We have beaten him all along the line, without even knowing his identity. But he has the best chance in Russia and knows it.
"We approach 1955, the crucial year. I said it was the monopolist's last chance. Well, it is ours as well. If he wins in Russia, if he goes on to unite the whole 20th century world as a Russian slave state, then he's on his way toward ultimate conquest of all time. Think of the power at his disposal: an Army to be drawn from two and a half billion people. We must stop him.
"Who is with you, Laniq?"
"A friend," Laniq assured him. "You can talk."
"I—I know what we have to do. A one-legged man, recuperating, isn't good for much. Someone must go to Russia and—"
"I can go," Tedor said. "I have contacts there. Century Agents."
"I'll go with you," Laniq told him.
"You'll stay right here."
"Yes? What would you do in Russia?"
"Well—"
"Do you have a plan?"
"Of course not—yet. But I could see what's happening—"
Domique Hadrien seemed more clearly awake, more alert. "Nonsense, young man. When it comes to intrigue, Laniq is as capable as a man. Further, she knows what we've been planning all along."
"What's that?"
"If you're familiar with their recent history, you'll recall that their former dictator, Stalin, died early last year. The new premier, Malenkov, is a man to his people, where Stalin was a god. With their effective propaganda-indoctrination machines, I don't doubt Malenkov will one day also be regarded almost as a deity—if we give them time. That's what the monopolist wants, naturally. It's a necessary part of his plans. But Chenkov, the new Army Chief is backed by a strong military clique which would like him and not Malenkov to assume the mantle of godhood. As for the people, they were willing to take what Stalin dished out because Stalin was their god; but Malenkov is not only a man but a hated half-Tartar, and the people grumble whenever they have to tighten their belts another notch.
"So, Malenkov will one day have godhood. That was their original plan, but there is another development paralleling it. Wild claims have come out of Russia, rumors, whispered talk—all saying that Stalin, miraculously, is living again. It's sheer imagination, I suspect. It's an attempt to pan a make-believe Stalin off on the people in case Malenkov falls on his face while playing God."
"Then we go to Moscow," said Tedor, "as Russians, of course. We must discredit Malenkov where possible, disprove the Stalin re-birth theory—"
"And incite the people to revolt," Laniq finished for him.
"Well," said Tedor, and smiled.
"It isn't as difficult as it looks, although I think I'd rather go hunting for lions with my bare hands. You see, I've been to Russia before, several times, and for the same reason. I have a fictitious identity there, which I assume on arrival. I've managed to snag a few top men as—uh, admirers. That includes Vladimir Chenkov, by the way."
"Sounds better already. You stay with your father," said Tedor, "for a while. I'm taking a trip up to New York to get some information from our Century Agent there. Then I'll return, pick up one female intriguer out here in Nevada, and we'll be on our way. Take care of yourselves." And Tedor left.
"Nice chap," Hadrien told his daughter.
She smiled at him. "You know something Dad? I'm just beginning to realize that. Very nice."
The office was on the twenty-third floor of a big office building in mid-town New York, room 2307. It came with all the standard equipment, desks, filing cabinets, chairs, phones, an attractive secretary.
"I'd like to see Mr. Sertant," Tedor told the secretary, who was leafing through one magazine with half a dozen others waiting their turn.
"Isn't a very busy office," she told him flushing slightly.
"I didn't think it would be."
"You know Mr. Sertant?"
"We're old friends," Tedor assured her. It wasn't the truth, for he'd never met Sertant, although he had heard of the Agent.
"Then can you do me a favor, Mister?"
"Maybe."
"What does he do? I mean, what's Mr. Sertant's business? The way he snoops around people sometimes, you'd think he was a private detective. You know, like Mike Hammer?"
"You might call him that."
"I just wanted to know if I could tell my friends I'm working for a private detective or what, but Mr. Sertant doesn't ever tell me what he does. I just sit here in case anyone comes. Who shall I say is calling, sir?"
"Mr. Barwan. Tedor Barwan."
"Umm." The girl said nothing, but she scowled while trying to write Tedor's name on a pad.
"T-e-d-o-r B-a-r-w-a-n," he spelled it out for her.
"Are you Turkish, Mr. Barwan? It sounds maybe like it's Turkish."
"No."
"Mr. Sertant has a funny name, too. Sertant. Excuse me please, Mister."
"That's all right."
"I'd better tell Mr. Sertant you are here." She flicked the intercom, and Tedor could hear a buzzer dimly in the inner office. "Mr. Sertant? There's a Mr. Tedor Barwan to see you.... Yes, sir.... You go right on in, Mr. Barwan."
Tedor thanked her, pushed through the gate, opened the door to Sertant's office, closed it behind him. Sertant got up from his desk, an Agent somewhat younger than Tedor, with red hair and very fair, almost livid skin.
"Your identification please, Barwan."
Tedor gave his papers to Sertant.
"Excellent. It's quite a coincidence you dropped in, Barwan. We've been looking for you."
"Really?"
"It will save us a lot of work."
Tedor was about to ask why, but Sertant began answering the question before he had the opportunity to ask it. Sertant reached into a draw of his desk, his hand emerging swiftly and with clear purpose, grasping a 20th century automatic pistol with comfortable familiarity and pointing it at Tedor.
"Sit down, Barwan."
Tedor sat.
"You're under arrest."
"This is crazy," Tedor snorted. "What for? By what authority? I think I outrank you as an Agent, anyway."
"I don't doubt you do."
"Then you can't arrest me."
"This gun says I can. I also have orders which say I can." With his free hand Sertant groped about the top of his desk, never letting his eye leave Tedor. Presently he found a sheet of paper tucked under his blotter, passed it across the desk-top.
Tedor scanned it quickly, and with mounting incredulity. It proclaimed:
HEADQUARTERSCENTURY AGENTSOFFICE OF THE CHIEFTo all Agents, all centuries: Important. Century Agent C-20 Tedor Barwan—now on vacation, whenabouts unknown—is to be detained on sight for possible connection with or knowledge of serious case of time tinkering. Signed. Mulid Ruscar, Chief.
HEADQUARTERSCENTURY AGENTSOFFICE OF THE CHIEF
To all Agents, all centuries: Important. Century Agent C-20 Tedor Barwan—now on vacation, whenabouts unknown—is to be detained on sight for possible connection with or knowledge of serious case of time tinkering. Signed. Mulid Ruscar, Chief.
"It's Ruscar's signature," said Tedor, "but I still say you can't hold me."
"This gun says I can," Sertant repeated. "I'm sorry, Barwan, but those are my orders. I hardly know anything about it myself, although something seems to be popping right here in this century."
Tedor began to think of getting away. It was something to think about, but not at the moment, for Sertant seemed on the point of telling him something which might be of value.
"Ruscar is here, right here in Twenty. It appears whatever is happening is sufficiently important to demand his presence."
"Well, then, what's happening?"
"My friend, that is what Ruscar will want to ask you. Actually, I don't know. So I'll simply have to detain you until Ruscar gets here—which could be soon. It could also be several weeks."
Tedor did not like the idea of an indefinite wait. He eyed Sertant speculatively wondered just how much experience the young Agent had with the obsolete pistol—how much he had, in fact with violence of any sort.
Tedor calculated the distance between them. Six feet, with Sertant sitting comfortably behind the desk, elbow propped on its surface, gun in hand; Tedor standing in front of the desk, shifting his weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other.
The desk? Tedor considered. It wasn't too heavy, but it also did not give him much of a hand-hold. If he could duck, grasp it firmly, spill it over on top of Sertant....
Sertant settled the problem himself. He stood up, came around the side of the desk and stopped near Tedor. "I really should put this antique weapon away," he admitted. "After all, we Agents can trust one another, and Ruscar probably wants you only for information on something."
Tedor shrugged, beginning to feel like a heel, but realizing it was necessary. "Then why don't you?"
Sertant looked at the gun uncertainly, but continued holding it, the muzzle pointed half at Tedor and half at the floor. "You are going to be a headache," he said. "Obviously, I can't lock you in any of the 20th century jails. The natives would want reasons and I don't have the authority, anyway."
"Then why don't you let me go—provided I promise to remain in the 20th century until I see Ruscar?" Tedor realized he could cheerfully make such a promise and keep it, for if they uncovered and defeated the monopolist in Russia, Ruscar assuredly would want to hear of it.
Sertant shook his head. "Since Ruscar issued this directive for you personally, I have to detain you."
At that moment, Sertant's office-intercom buzzed. Sertant leaned across the desk, his eyes still on Tedor, and flicked a switch. Tedor heard the secretary's voice.
"Mr. Sertant, I'd like to see you about something."
"What?" Sertant demanded irritably.
"Your correspondence to Mr. Hoblan in Cairo."
Hoblan's name was familiar to Tedor. C-20, middle-east, as he recalled.
"Umm, yes. That can't wait. Come on in, Miss Peterson."
The door soon opened. Sertant averted his eyes from Tedor for an instant, looked at Miss Peterson.
Tedor leaped at him. The gun roared deafeningly, brought a cascade of plaster down from the ceiling. Miss Peterson screamed.
Then Tedor was grappling with Sertant, forcing him back over the edge of the desk, and twisting the hand that held the gun. Miss Peterson disappeared, on her way to notify the local police in all probability.
Tedor twisted savagely, heard something snap. Sertant cursed; the gun clattered to the desk-top, then to the floor, but Sertant's hand was at Tedor's throat, choking him. Abruptly Tedor relaxed, permitting Sertant to straighten away from the desk. Tedor swung his right hand in a short clubbing blow which chopped at Sertant's chin. It broke Sertant's choking hold, opened Sertant's guard so Tedor could pound two swift blows at his stomach.
Sertant doubled over, got thrust upright again by a hard left cross which loosened his teeth and sent two of them flying from his mouth with a spray of blood. Sertant gurgled, covered head with hands and slumped on the desk.
Tedor left the office, tidying his clothing. In the outer room he passed a near-hysterical Miss Peterson, who had just returned the phone to its cradle.
"Better get him some water," Tedor told her. "Cold water. And tell him I'm sorry. Tell him I'm an Agent, doing an Agent's job and nothing, not even Ruscar, can delay it. Tell him Ruscar can find me in Moscow if he really wants me."
"M-moscow?"
"Moscow." Tedor closed the door behind him.
Dorlup was sweating. Naturally, he had nothing to hide; he had done nothing which could call the Agents down on him. "I don't know what you're talking about," he repeated for the fifth time.
"We'll see about that. We have a sworn statement by this solidio actress—"
"Beti? That's insane. Beti's been with me for months, I admit that; but my behavior has always been within the limits of the law. Why man, the natives accept me as one of their own."
"That's what you say."
"Yes it is. I challenge you to prove otherwise."
"We already have. The actress' testimony is enough to condemn you."
"I demand that my legal advocate be notified."
"He will, when you're returned to the future for trial."
The door to the small room opened. Tall, slender, self-assured, Mulid Ruscar entered with another man.
"It's done," the other man said.
"We have her statement," said Ruscar. "You can send this one back any time—and just a minute! Something's coming over your teletype. This primitive communications...."
The man who had been questioning Dorlup walked to a bulky piece of machinery which was clicking excitedly in a corner of the room. He peered in through the metal case, read:
HEADQUARTERS EASTERN UNITED STATES DISTRICT COLON URGENT EXCLAMATION POINT IS RUSCAR PRESENT QUESTION PLEASE HAVE HIM CONTACT ME IMMEDIATELY REGARDING TEDOR BARWAN PERIOD BARWAN WAS HERE BUT MANAGED TO ESCAPE CMM TRICKING AND OVERPOWERING ME PERIOD BARWAN ASSERTED INTENTIONS OF VISITING MOSCOW USSR CMM PURPOSE OF VISIT UNKNOWN PERIOD PLEASE NOTIFY PERIOD JELDON SERTANT C TWENTY NEUSA CMM NEW YORK NY END
HEADQUARTERS EASTERN UNITED STATES DISTRICT COLON URGENT EXCLAMATION POINT IS RUSCAR PRESENT QUESTION PLEASE HAVE HIM CONTACT ME IMMEDIATELY REGARDING TEDOR BARWAN PERIOD BARWAN WAS HERE BUT MANAGED TO ESCAPE CMM TRICKING AND OVERPOWERING ME PERIOD BARWAN ASSERTED INTENTIONS OF VISITING MOSCOW USSR CMM PURPOSE OF VISIT UNKNOWN PERIOD PLEASE NOTIFY PERIOD JELDON SERTANT C TWENTY NEUSA CMM NEW YORK NY END
"Barwan's slipped through our fingers again," the man said bitterly.
Ruscar frowned at him. "Actually, you're jumping to conclusions concerning Tedor. He's a good man, one of the best Agents we've got."
"That's just it, Chief. That's exactly it. He's been so well indoctrinated in Agenting, he'll never play along with us."
"No. Who do you think it was who indoctrinated Tedor? I did. I believed that way myself, you know. If I changed my mind, perhaps I can change Tedor's. I'd certainly like to, because we can use Tedor.
"Well, you can take this Dorlup thing from here. The girl has had an unfortunate accident. She's dead. But we have her statement, and it should hold up in a court of law."
"Dead!" Dorlup cried, not understanding what was going on.
"Take him out of here," Ruscar said, and someone removed Dorlup from the room.
"Now, then," Ruscar continued. "Return to our century with him. Press charges. Make an astonishing revelation, as it were. We doubted the existence of a monopolist of despotism, but we're not infallible. We were wrong. Dorlup is the monopolist, and we have proof."
"Poor Dorlup."
"One of those things. We needed a scapegoat, because too many people were beginning to demand action regarding Domique Hadrien's claims. Too bad we couldn't stick it on Hadrien himself; that would be taking care of two things at once.
"About Barwan, tell Sertant to forget it. If Barwan's on his way to Moscow, then we can only assume he's thrown in completely with Domique Hadrien and his followers. That doesn't mean it's irrevocable, for I'm going to Moscow myself. I'd like to have Barwan with us, as you know. If not—well, no one man is indispensable."
In the next room, meanwhile, Dorlup was fuming. His whole orientation toward what had happened had been drastically altered in the last few moments. It was not a mistake, hardly a mistake at all.
A plot?
A plot, decidedly. Dorlup was being used as—what was the 20th century term he had picked up?—as a fall guy. He'd have none of it. Not Dorlup. At first he hardly knew how to straighten it out, but if Ruscar wouldn't help—he had counted on Ruscar and now it seemed Ruscar was behind everything—then Dorlup had only one place to turn. He smiled grimly. After what had happened at the Eradrome, he never thought he'd go to Tedor Barwan for anything.
The guard kept one eye on Dorlup, and at the same time tried to listen, through a partially opened door to the conservation in the next room. Dorlup picked up a chair when he was convinced all the guard's attentions were centered on the other room. He swung the chair like a four-stemmed club, shattering it over the guard's head. Feet pounded in the next room, but Dorlup was on his way out.
Shots barked in the darkness, and once a parabeam zipped past Dorlup. But he kept on running and he found a car at the head of the driveway. Not only were the keys in the ignition, the engine was idling. Dorlup sprung inside for all his massive bulk and had gunned the automobile out toward the main highway before another car started in pursuit.
Heading for the road to Reno and his time-conveyor, Dorlup wondered how he could approach Tedor Barwan in Moscow—if, indeed Tedor was on his way there. Well, Dorlup knew a man in the Spasso House, the American Embassy fronting on Red Square. He was an expatriate time-traveler who had decided to remain in the 20th century as one of its citizens—something growing more common every day. Perhaps he could help Dorlup....
Ifhe ever got to his time-conveyor, let alone Moscow.
Headlights blazed in his rear-view mirror. He pressed his right foot down on the accelerator, as far as it would go. The lights did not fade, nor did they grow brighter.
"It can't really be him," Georgi Malenkov told the Comrade Doctor in obvious distaste.
"I assure you, Comrade Premier it is he."
Malenkov walked ponderously to a bar in the corner, poured himself two ounces of vodka and drank them straight. His suite was far within the walls of the Kremlin, so deep and so well hidden, in fact that not fifty people in all of Moscow knew its location. For Stalin this had not been necessary, Malenkov thought uncomfortably. His suite had been secret, true enough—but thousands of people had known its location. With Malenkov it was different. He could trust no one—no one. He never knew a man could feel so completely alone, so helpless at night and afraid to sleep. Every time he saw Vladimir Chenkov's lean, gaunt face he went almost sick with fear.
Chenkov, grim, deadly Chief of Staff of the Red Army, who had arisen from Ural obscurity to power only this year—Chenkov coveted what he did.
Not Chenkov alone. Everyone. Why, he couldn't even trust his servants—two men and a woman who never saw the light of day, never ventured from his suite in the Kremlin.
He was not Stalin, not the Iron Man, not the half-deity. He was Malenkov, the man, the fat half-Tartar—and afraid. He had thought at first that in a matter of months he could cement his position securely enough to venture forth without fear. But here it was, more than a year and a half since he had taken office and he had still to drive along the private highway and use his private dacha to the south for a few days of relaxation.
Fortified with the vodka, Malenkov scowled at the Comrade Doctor. "I won't ask you to explain—such explanations are beyond me. You say it is he. Very well, but hear this: if you are lying, if you are wrong—lying or not—your life shall be forfeit."
The Comrade Doctor shrugged. "I spoke the truth."
Everyone was against him, Malenkov sulked. Everyone. Now even a ghost. "How long will he live—uh, heisliving?"
"The answer to the second question, Comrade Premier, is yes. He is alive, although the manner of life is decidedly unusual. As for the first question, does the Premier want a truthful answer?"
"I insist upon it," said Malenkov, who now desired more vodka, but thought it a matter of impropriety to return to the bar and so call the Comrade Doctor's attention to the fact that he drank heavily. Such things had a way of getting out and causing trouble. Perhaps Chenkov would know some way to use it as a weapon.
"Then, I do not know. I can promise nothing. He is alive now—in a very special sort of way. How long he will live I cannot predict. He might die in a minute, an hour, a year—he might live, if properly cared for, for an eternity. He—"
The phone buzzed. Malenkov shuddered, jumped. It had sounded so loud. He must have them mute the phones.
"This is the Comrade Premier," he said.
"Comrade Zhubin, the bio-chemist, Comrade Premier."
Zhubin. Malenkov's heart pounded. "Go ahead, Zhubin."
"He is calling for you."
"Already?" Malenkov was hoarse, found it difficult to swallow. "How long has he been calling for me?"
"Several minutes. He is laughing as if something is quite funny."
Malenkov said he would be right there, returned the phone to its hook. He shuddered again. The thought of the thing in its small round glass case was terrible. Should he tell the people? Already rumors were afoot. Who couldn't he trust? The Comrade Doctor. Shuddering was becoming habitual. Hehadto trust the Comrade Doctor, or die of fright every time he got the sniffles. The Comrade bio-chemist, Zhubin? But Zhubin had the thing in the glass case and might be considered the second most important man in the Communist hierarchy.
Then who was first?
Malenkov?
The thing in the glass case?
Shuddering Malenkov bid the Comrade Doctor make himself comfortable. He excused himself, entered the hall and started walking. Who was first? He suddenly remembered something. Malenkov was not first, nor was the thing in the case. Someone else—someone none of the Russians knew anything about, except for Malenkov, and Stalin before him, and perhaps one or two others.
But Mulid Ruscar, the quiet man impossibly (and yet it was so) from the future, preferred to remain in the background.
After all, hadn't the thing in the glass case been Ruscar's idea?
"But of course, Vladimir, my dear—of course I missed you! Could it be otherwise, ever?"
Laniq sat curled on a chair, talking into the telephone. Her transformation had been amazing, thought Tedor. Not many hours before, they had set their conveyor down a score of miles south of Moscow, in a heavily wooded area. Dressed like city folk and equipped with all the counterfeit documents they needed, they had confiscated an auto (Laniq's forged paper placed them high in the Communist nobility) and motored to Moscow.
There they entered the apartment Laniq maintained, Laniq excused herself, left Tedor in the living room with some good vodka, and went into the bedroom to change her clothing.
Tedor had to whistle when she returned.
The gown clung to her body, dazzling white, patterned with gems, slashed boldly from throat to waist revealing Laniq's shapely breasts as much as it concealed them, revealing and concealing in a breathless rhythm as she moved about. The skirt also was slit on one side to mid-thigh.
"I'm going to call Chenkov and have dinner with him," Laniq had said. "Find out what's going on."
For answer, Tedor took her in his arms and kissed her. It was one of those things, a sudden impulse which he regretted in the first split second. Regret turned to delight. Laniq seemed surprised, tried to pull away, but all at once her lips melted under his, her arms were flung about his neck, her body thrust against him.
"Laniq," he had murmured. "Laniq, I—"
"Shh!" And they were kissing again.
"Laniq—it's crazy, wild, impossible. We hardly know each other, we.... I came into time looking for you wanting to kill you!"
"We have been through all of civilization together. I know you for five thousand years. Umm-mm, don't stop, Tedor."
And he hadn't, not for a long time. She burned like fire and she cooled like a clear mountain lake on a hot summer day and Tedor had whispered in the dark, "I love you, Laniq."
"Tedor! I love you. Tell me again."
"I love you."
And afterwards, he had prepared drinks and they toasted the future and discussed plans and then Laniq had gone to the telephone and called Chenkov.
"I have to see you, Vladimir. I missed you every minute." Tedor stood nearby; she kissed the tip of his nose.
Tedor was so close he heard the voice faintly over the receiver. "I'm busy, but I'll put it aside. Dinner and then my dacha for the night, darling Anna."
That was Laniq's name here in Russia, Anna Myinkov. As Anna Myinkov she had on previous visits captivated the hearts of Chenkov and others. Only fat Georgi Malenkov, she had told Tedor, had been impossibly aloof. Of course, the extent of her captivation was information. She could learn what was happening, but Tedor somehow would have to put it to use.
"I'll pick you up in an hour, Anna."
"An hour, then," and Laniq cut the connection, turning into Tedor's arms.
Tedor scowled. "Just what—happens at his dacha?"
Laniq laughed softly. "Silly Tedor, we're not married yet." But her eyes were twinkling.
"What happens?"
"You leave that to me, but I can tell you this: if I gave Chenkov what he could get, and gladly, from any Russian beauty, he'd tire of me."
"Just what do you do?"
Laniq practiced some exaggerated bumps and grinds like those Tedor had often seen in the Eradrome. "Enough, but not too much. Listen, Tedor—you'd better be on your way in a few minutes. What happens if Chenkov finds you here?"
Grumbling, Tedor picked up his fur-lined coat and Russian pile-cap. "There's a man at the Spasso House," he told her. "Someone who decided he liked the twentieth century better than our own, counterfeited a birth certificate, deposited it in an American department of health some thirty years ago and took up citizenship there. He went into state department work and is here in Moscow now.
"You get what information you can from Chenkov. I'll see my friend. We'll compare notes and decide what to do. Laniq—I want you to—well, be careful, that's all."
"Well ..." Laniq smiled at him.
"I'm not joking. Maybe that gown kind of hurried what I felt all along, but it was coming, Laniq. I loved you from the beginning but didn't know it. Laniq, be careful."
"You can come back and sleep here tonight if you want. I'll see you in the morning. And you know I'll be careful, Tedor. Now that I've found you I want to keep you—and I want to stay healthy enough to appreciate what I've got."
The phone rang.
"Hello, this is Anna Myinkov. Yes? Oh, yes, Vladimir. My, but that was fast. Of course." Laniq hung up, shoved Tedor toward the door. "Get out of here, quick! Chenkov's suite of rooms when he's not in the Kremlin or his dacha is in a hotel down the street. He's early. He's on his way up right now. Scram!"
Tedor kissed her quickly, stalked out into the hall and waited for the elevator. A middle-aged man got off—wearing the uniform of a Red Army marshal, carrying a large bouquet of flowers.
"You should have doffed your hat," the female elevator operator admonished Tedor as they started down. "That was Marshal Chenkov."
"Don't I know it," said Tedor.
"Barwan! This is a surprise. Come in, come in."
The Spasso House, the American Embassy adjacent to Red Square, was a gaunt, grim structure. Frawdin Chlon—Harry Marsden now—was a man of about Tedor's age, but shorter, fair of skin and hair and quite calm and self-possessed in an American business suit.
"We were about to close for the day, Barwan. But this is a surprise."
"How are you, Frawdin—no, I guess it had better be Harry."
"You're telling me! Fine, thank you. It's quite a coincidence, because I had another visitor earlier today. He says he knows you and wanted to see you, but I had no idea you were in Moscow."
"Who was that?"
"A solidio writer, name of Dorlup."
"Dorlup?" Tedor frowned.
"He claims to be in some kind of trouble and says he has a story to tell which would make your hair stand on end."
"He has a habit of doing that. Do you have his address?"
Marsden nodded, then asked: "What brings you here?"
"It's a long story, and since you are working for the American government now, I don't think I'd better tell you. Not that anything I plan doing will hurt America—far from it. But you know about time-travel and the way we have to do everything in secret. All I want is some information, anyway. What's the current international state of affairs?"
"I wish I knew, Tedor. Frankly, I'm worried. The Russians have massed three million troops on their European border, another million to the east, north of the Yellow Sea. Their big planes, capable of delivering anything including atomic weapons a third of the way around the world, are lined up on a 'round-the-clock stand-by basis at half a dozen airfields; there's talk they'll be used soon. Everything seems to hinge on something happening in the Kremlin right now. There's talk, wild rumors, but nothing official."
"What are the rumors about?"
"You'll think this is silly, but they're from usually reliable sources. They claim Stalin has come back to life."
"What!"
"That's right. Stalin has come back, sort of like a totalitarian Communist Messiah. All people have a culture-hero who's supposed to come back in times of trouble and lead his nation to glory. Even though Stalin's been gone only a year and a half, he's the Russian culture-hero. If somehow they can rig up a setup—the men in the Kremlin, I mean—which convinces the people he has come back and wants war, there's no telling what Russia might do."
"But does the Kremlin want war?"
Marsden shrugged. "It might be necessary to keep power. The people don't like their government, although they tolerated it under Stalin because he managed to convince them he was something of a deity. But if the government can turn the people to an exterior trouble, namely a world war, the government would stay in power. It depends on what these rumors are all about."
"And don't you know?"
"No."
"Okay, Harry. Thanks. Listen, don't tell Dorlup I was here if he should call you. I'll get in touch with him when I have a chance."
Marsden gave Tedor an address where Dorlup could be reached, told him they'd have to have lunch together some time, then led him to the door.
Vladimir Chenkov's dacha—his big estate at the far end of the private highway some thirty-odd miles south of Moscow—almost had the proportions of a palace. It was big all over, with huge rooms, high ceilings, half a dozen fireplaces, two grand pianos, ponderous, overstuffed furniture and eight private bedrooms, each easily large enough to accommodate four people although each contained only one oversized bed.
"You're a strange girl, Anna," said Chenkov, sitting with her on bearskins near the fireplace and trying to maneuver in such a way that when she grew tired her head would naturally fall into his lap.
"Oh, I like you—yes. Don't misunderstand. But at times you are so—cold."
"You're married, Vladimir, and sometimes I think of your wife and think of how I would feel under similar circumstances."
"That is all?"
"Well—"
"Then listen to me, Anna. What is a wife? A man has a wife because it is conventional, like a country says it is striving for peace when often it must have war to keep from flying apart. I can get you anything, anything. I could treat you like no wife ever was treated. Here, you like this dacha? Say the word and it is yours."
Servants came with vodka, champagne, paper-thin slices of sturgeon, caviar. Chenkov nibbled at the sturgeon while Laniq had some caviar and champagne. Chenkov began drinking vodka and hardly paused until, Laniq realized, he was high enough to be uninhibited, yet not sufficiently high to be a boor. It was the gentlemanly thing in Russian nobility, Laniq knew.
"Do you not even feel inclined to kiss me tonight, my Anna?"
Laniq offered her lips without heat, got them bruised by Chenkov's teeth.
"Then at least dance for me, Anna."
She had danced for him before, here in this very dacha, at the same fireplace. But now it was different, now she could not feel the same emotional indifference and so whet Chenkov's appetite sufficiently for him to start talking.
Laniq got up and did a tentative pirouette.
"Come now."
Laniq danced slowly, spinning and dipping and feeling terribly sorry for herself. But the firelight was warm and the champagne, and the whole room seemed to go out of focus except for Chenkov's hungry eyes, which became enormous—and in Laniq's own time the dance was something to be done because you loved doing it, and except for Chenkov's eyes she might dance with abandon and enjoy herself.
Tedor, she thought.Tedor....
If she closed her own eyes she thought, almost, she was dancing for him and not for Chenkov. The slit skirt swirled around her flashing thighs; the bodice, slashed from throat to waist, clung and fell away, clung and fell away.
She danced not for Chenkov but for Tedor—and then not for Tedor but for all the people in the world who might live in freedom if Chenkov's tongue loosened. But the hands which reached up for her legs and pulled her down were Chenkov's.
"Tell me," she said breathlessly while Chenkov tried to paw her and she scampered away to fill a large glass with vodka for him and a small one with champagne for herself. "Tell me, are you as important a man as I hear?"
"My dear Anna! You're jesting."
"No I mean it. I'm only a country girl, really I am, and I'd—"
"You? A country bumpkin. That's good, that's splendid. Well, then I will tell you. I am number two man in all the realm, and...."
Laniq pouted.
"Don't cry. Don't. I will, one day be number one man, I know it. You may rest assured of that. I could show you things, so many things which would make your beautiful hair stand on end."
"Then show me!"
"Very well—I shall, my Anna."
"Show me how you can do anything, anything you want in all of Moscow."
"And in the Kremlin, too," Chenkov said thickly. "Yes, in the Kremlin. Tomorrow morning I will take you to see something you never dreamed of. Tomorrow morning...." He kissed her wetly, too far gone with vodka.
"Tomorrow morning then. I'm sleepy." And Laniq stood up, brushed his fumbling hands away from her, climbed the stairs to the second floor, retreated to a bedroom and bolted the door behind her. Chenkov was soon stomping up the stairs and banging insistently at the door.
"Tomorrow," Laniq whispered, and repeated it when Chenkov protested. "I said tomorrow."
"But Anna—"
"You show me what you can do. After all, I don't want to be a fly-by-night mistress of this dacha. Good night, Vladimir."
"Good night, then. Tomorrow morning—and tomorrow night."
They always tried to bring Chenkov in on everything.Theyactually had more power than people on the outside could imagine, Malenkov thought petulantly. They numbered only two-score but they were his cabinet of ministers and sub-ministers and it seemed—ridiculously—that he had to answer to them for everything. "But why don't we forget about Vladimir?" Malenkov pleaded, "who must certainly be kept busy with his Army work?"
"Vladimir will come. Stalin would have wanted it that way."
Stalin, in truth, had asked for Chenkov as well as Malenkov. Stalin. Malenkov trembled when he thought of it. That was not Stalin—that was nobody. A thing, not a person. It spoke even with a mechanical voice. Stalin—the Old Stalin—never answered to a cabinet of ministers and sub-ministers. As for the new Stalin, the strange horrible thing which the bio-chemist, Zhubin, insisted was Stalin, there was no telling what he would want or demand. Malenkov wished passionately he could get his hands around Zhubin's scrawny neck and choke the life from him. This was all Zhubin's fault.
Not really, for Mulid Ruscar couldn't be discounted. Why did everything happen this way? Why did men from the future even insist on poking their noses into his, Malenkov's business? But why was any of this Ruscar's affair, anyway? Ruscar seemed to hold the whip-hand. Ruscar told them what to do, and they did it. Ruscar knew political intrigue as well as a Chenkov, bio-chemistry as well as a Zhubin—for was it not Ruscar who had helped, paved the way, in fact, for Zhubin to construct the monster masquerading as a resurrected Stalin? As if a hideous, naked thing in a glass cage could be a man of flesh and blood and think like a man.
"Hurry, Comrade Premier. Ruscar is waiting and Stalin with him."
Ruscar—and Stalin. But Ruscar had not been born yet, and would not be, for thousands of years. Stalin? Stalin was dead.
"I do not feel well," said Malenkov. "Summon the Comrade Doctor."
"I am here, Comrade Premier. I will go with you to the meeting. A slight sedative will perhaps—"
"No! Get that thing away from me!" Malenkov recoiled in terror from the needle which the Comrade Doctor had extended. "I am all right."
Was the Comrade Doctor in the employ of Chenkov to poison him? Was he in the employ of Ruscar for some nameless purpose? Or of Zhubin, the bio-chemist, to transform Malenkov also into a pink thing floating in ghastly fluid in a little glass container?
Almost blubbering as he walked toward the laboratory, Malenkov could feel the weight of Communist Empire, crushing him like a worm to the floor.
"I've never been in the Kremlin," Laniq told Chenkov as they hurried along the silent hallways within the walled fortress. She had seen the towers, the minarets, the gaunt walls only briefly from the outside, and then Chenkov had spirited her within the place, although clearly a Red Army guard would have protested had he been anyone but the Chief of Staff.
"I can take you anywhere you want." Chenkov promised, walking beside her, his arm tucked in hers, resembling neither the whip-lash leader of the Army, which he was, nor the romantic lover, which he hoped to be—but rather the obscure military figure who had climbed to glory over the purge-slain bodies of his comrades. He would one day look the part of the field marshal, Laniq thought; at the moment he was trying to convince himself as well as Anna Myinkov of the brightness of his star in the communist firmament.
They reached a heavy metal door flanked by two guards. "Marshal Chenkov!" cried one, and they both saluted with their rifles. The door opened, they went inside.
Laniq saw a huge room, a laboratory it seemed—all white porcelain and gleaming chrome. At the far end a group of men clustered about an object which seemed suspended in air and bathed in radiance of gold and amber. The object was cylindrical and rather small, transparent with a pinkish mass floating inside.
Laniq almost screamed. The thing in the glass container was a human brain.