Red Equinox

Chapter Fifteen

Major-Commissar Zimyanim was becoming puzzled — puzzled and a little intrigued.

"Who's in command out at Peredelkino, Alicia Andreyinichna?" he asked.

"Lieutenant Ulyanov, I think. Why? Is something wrong out there?"

"No. Yes." He paused. "Possibly. Just these reports he keeps sending me."

"What about them, Comrade Major-Commissar? Is it trouble?"

He shuffled the files. As he looked down at them, the morning sunlight bounced off the top of his polished skull.

"Three men missing. Horses found. No, two found. It's believed wolves took the other one. Bodies found. All shot at medium range by heavy-caliber handblasters. Good observation that! Bright boy. Could go far. Old woman's missing. Never found her. Bones. Figures the wolves again. And her mutie son found dead, standing upright in a doorway."

"Guerrilla band?" the girl suggested.

"No. Food taken, he thinks. And some furs. Why would killers steal furs and food with spring coming in fast? Slay five people? Why? Then the jeep patrol saw a trio of strangers. One-eyed man, redheaded woman, short man in glasses. I checked that. Rimless glasses. They were in furs. Stolen furs, would you say, Alicia Andreyinichna?"

"Could be. But there isn't much out that way now, is there?"

"Now?"

She blushed at the sudden sharp look he threw her. With the pockmarks and the drooping mustache she realized he looked like old pictures of the Tartar gallopers who had ruled the steppes centuries ago.

"Yes, of course. Once, I think, there were many rich houses. Dachas built by the wicked Stalin for his friends. Later used by others. Even the Americans had one there."

Zimyanin picked up a pencil and rolled it between finger and thumb, nodding.

"So? Interesting. And then a kulak driving his ox cart sees three strangers on the road to the city. Man with one eye, tall woman with red hair — very red hair, he says to Lieutenant Ulyanov — and a third person. Pale of face. Dark glasses. He walked slowly with a stick. A sickly cripple, thought the old peasant. But this one spoke a kind of Russian."

"A kind of Russian?"

"Precisely. Not like someone from that region, nor, he thought, like someone from the city. So, it means he could have come from a different part of the land."

"Have you asked the Bureau of Internal Movements if they know of..."

Zimyanin waved a finger at her. "No, no, no. This does not concern them. It is a problem for us. And we will solve it. But it is surely a great mystery. Most odd."

"Most odd," Clerk Second Class Andreyinichna echoed dutifully, knowing that such agreement was essential if she was to rise to the exalted position of Clerk First Class.

"Odder than you would think, my dear," he replied, smiling.

"Why?"

"Many months ago I encountered some of the Americans. You know this?"

"Of course, Comrade Major-Commissar. Everyone knows of the story."

"I met several of them. But among them was a man who had only one eye. His left eye was gone, and his face was scarred. I was threatened by one of the butchers of the Narodniki. My life was spared by a woman of the Americans. She had red hair. Veryred hair."

"But you don't..."

Zimyanin laughed. "The same man and woman! Of course not. Impossible. Americans in Moscow! That's a good joke, Alicia Andreyinichna, is it not?" The laughter ceased as quickly as it had begun. "But, it is certainly very odd."

There was considerable evidence that the Americans in the final, and briefest, world war had used a significant proportion of neutron weapons.

Ryan had a miniature rad counter, but it stayed consistently low in the green-to-yellow margins. Once or twice he noticed it flickered well up into the yellow, but it never went anywhere near the limit of orange.

But the true story lay in the mute evidence of structural damage.

They passed through regions where the nuking had blasted everything out of existence. The devastation had been total. But they also encountered regions where many of the buildings were visibly older. As they began to reach what had been the outer suburbs, they found whole streets of perfectly preserved houses. Occasionally they saw damaged roofs, but most structures were sound. There were few signs of inhabitants. Any they did see were busy about their own business, scurrying along with heads down, avoiding eye contact with anyone else.

"Not many stores," Krysty commented.

"Not like the edges of big villes back home," Ryan agreed.

Rick was exhausted, so they found a house in a quiet side street. Its interior had been stripped, but it was dry and secure. There were so few people around that Ryan didn't bother to keep guard during the night. He bet their lives that nobody had seen them go into the overgrown garden.

While the companions ate a breakfast of smoked fish and dried meat, washed down with some of the spring water, they made plans.

From the front window they could see a tumbled apartment building, rusting strips of iron protruding from the shattered concrete. Window frames of torn iron hung loose from the crumbled walls, and scorch marks etched deep into the south wall indicated where the main blast had come from.

From the side window they could see a towering wall of what must have been some sort of a factory. Still visible, after a hundred years of Russian winters, were the remains of a giant mural. It showed a man, a worker, holding a huge unfurled flag, the crimson toned down to a dusty pink. He seemed to be leading a group of adoring men and women up a hill toward a glittering palace of white stone.

"Art on a heroic scale," Rick observed.

"What's the message?" Krysty asked, flattening her nose against the cold windowpane.

"The original one says something about how the brave workers of Govorovo will forever carry on the fight against the paper tigers of American aggression and imperialism. Kind of catchy, huh?"

"How about the painted stuff underneath?" Ryan pointed to some smeared letters in runny black paint. Rick put his head to one side, trying to make it out.

"Difficult. Kind of slang, I guess. Nearest I can get is that one day's fucking is better than a hundred days of labor for the Party. Guess I'll drink to that."

There were more people in the streets than there'd been the previous evening. The sky was overcast, but the day felt warmer. Since they depended on the furs for disguise and protection it wasn't good news.

"Best try and pick our way closer to the middle of the ville," Krysty suggested.

But Rick raised an objection to that. "I don't know what it's like now, but in the old days — my days — you'd have needed passes to pick your nose in a sec-sensitive region. You saw that patrol. Suppose there's sec men out here? Suppose you need some kind of a pass to get to certain regions? It wouldn't be that surprising, would it?"

Ryan chewed his lip. "Guess not. No. Fireblast! Never thought it'd be this difficult to pick up a hammer and screwdriver." He hesitated for a moment, uncharacteristically. "Still, I figure we have to move on. If we... What's that?"

A whooping, ululating sound cut the air, resembling the cry of a hunting animal. That was Ryan's first impression, and it proved close to the truth.

A ragged, limping man, well below average height, hobbled around the corner of the street, looking wildly from left to right. Everyone else on the street immediately turned away from him, moving briskly off in every direction. Some of them broke into a clumsy, jogging run in their anxiety to get away.

"Something's after him," Rick said, moving back from the window as the fugitive's face turned toward their house.

"Someone. Lots of someones." Krysty cocked her head. "Sounds almost like a gang of kids in a playpark."

Like magic, the suburban road was deserted, as if some staggering leper, bright with rad glow, had come screaming into a church social.

"Here they are," Ryan said quietly. "If he comes in here, we move fast and quiet out the back. Could be bad."

There were around a dozen in the screeching group that was trailing the cripple. Most had knives or long-handled hatchets, while one or two carried nail-studded clubs. They wore an assortment of skirts and pants, but all wore bright red berets with a single silver circle embroidered on the front. From behind the dusty window it was hard to tell, but Ryan's guess was that none of the pack was older than twelve.

Their prey had given up. He'd fallen to his knees, partly hidden from Ryan, Krysty and Rick by a spreading yew tree. He was holding his hands up imploringly as the children ringed him. They shuffled around the helpless figure, almost dancing. It wasn't possible to hear, but from the pattern of the words, it sounded like they were singing. As they moved around the circle they made mock cuts at the kneeling man, forcing him to cringe from them.

Rick spit with disgust. "Can't we?.. No, don't answer that. Course we can't. But that poor little gimp..."

Their game didn't last long. Like all children, the pack was easily bored.

The freezie turned away and walked across the bare boards of the long-dead room, his bamboo cane rapping furiously on the floor. Ryan and Krysty watched. It wasn't very different from other things they'd seen in other places. Just a few changes in the small details. Nothing more.

The gang beat the middle-aged man to the ground, kicking and punching at him. But the blows didn't seem designed to cause serious injury, and none of the blades were used.

Once they had him down, they kept him down. Two of the kids held each leg, forcing the man's feet far apart. Two others went to each arm. Despite their youth and size, it was obvious they were strong and skillful in their craft. Apart from tossing his head from side to side, the cripple was held totally still. The gang had stopped their whooping and chanting, and the only sound was the moaning of their victim.

The leader was a girl of about thirteen, tall and as skinny as a lath. She stood between the man's spread feet, grinning down into his face with a crack-toothed leer.

Ryan winced in anticipation, but she ignored the opportunity to inflict devastating pain. The girl was businesslike in the way she stepped astride her victim, hoicking at her skirt and squatting on his chest.

"How's the kid going to?.. Oh, I see." Krysty also turned away from the window, not wanting to see the macabre ending to the minidrama.

Ryan continued to watch, seeing no good reason not to.

The girl had pulled a length of narrow whipcord from inside the leg of her bottle-green panties. It had a thicker, softer piece of rope knotted to each end to make the grip that much easier.

With an experienced hand she adjusted a loop around the victim's neck, settling herself more comfortably on his chest. She then glanced around to make certain her cohorts were ready.

With a whoop of delight she began to heave on the ends of her garrote, tightening it. She leaned back to apply more pressure, so that the waxed cord vanished into the scrawny flesh, biting deeper, drawing blood that ran dark onto the sidewalk. From his viewpoint high above, Ryan could see how fiercely the crippled man struggled for the last choking breaths of life. But the gang of street brats were too many and too strong.

The girl was good at it, and Ryan wondered idly just how many times she'd performed this obscene ritual of public execution. As the ending came near she braced herself by pushing her booted feet against the side of her victim's throat, sawing at the strangling cord to make it cut deeper.

There was a convulsive jerking from the man that the children found hard to contain. Then a gout of blood erupted as the whipcord sliced through the artery close to the ear.

With a shriek of satisfaction the girl stood up, uncoiling the murderous length of thin rope and tucking it back into her panties. She stood astride the corpse and leaned over to spit delicately into the open, boggling eyes. It was obviously some sort of a ritual with the gang, as they all followed her example before filing off down the tree-lined street, just like any other bunch of kids.

"Why that way?" Krysty asked.

"Cheaper than a speeding bullet," Rick replied, then retreated to a corner of the room where he was quietly sick.

"Welcome to Moscow," Ryan said quietly.