The Thunder Never Sounds

Yevgeny LUKIN.

The thunder never sounds.

Oxana the reporter turned out to be an arrogant young girl with flawless Russian and no hang-ups whatsoever.

“So, Constantine Cyrillovich,” she interrupted the Director’s smooth discourse with a polite yet skeptical smirk, “as long as you are on your guard, nothing can happen to our glorious past. Do I understand you correctly?”

Her burly, gray-haired counterpart was not so easy to baffle, however. He certainly had seen more reporters in his life than she had directors.

“Precisely so,” he replied, studying her with visible pleasure. “It’s nice to deal with such an intelligent… and, what’s more important, such a beautiful… uh, journalist.”

His compliment, if it was one, fell on deaf ears.

“You have to agree, however,” she was driving her point home relentlessly, “that a hundred per cent of successful interceptions are a rather suspicious figure. Such numbers simply do not exist in real life, Constantine Cyrillovich! What if some miscreant lays his hands on the time machine? Where do you keep it, by the way?”

“My unit? Here, in this safe.”

Both of them looked at the safe squatting in a corner.

“Sorry to say, but to crack it only takes a can opener. And you don’t seem to have a lot of security personnel here. So it’s just come and help yourself, isn’t it?”

“Hmmm… it is, in general,” the Director had to admit. “But strictly speaking… what for?”

“What for… WHAT??”

“Why would a troublemaker need it?”

“The time machine, you mean?”

“Yes, of course. What on Earth would drive him to go into another epoch?”

Perplexed at last, she paused and scrutinized the Director.

“Well… let’s say, pursuit of personal gain.”

Constantine Cyrillovich offered her a gentle fatherly smile.

“Oxana! I see that your idea of this whole business is somewhat incorrect. Please understand that our technical means are very limited. The future, for instance, we cannot penetrate at all. As for the past, from this very moment, this when we’re having this conversation in, and all the way down to the first half of the thirteenth century, all this time is not accessible to us, either. The dead zone.”

“But couldn’t one profit taking something from the thirteenth century? Or the twelfth, the eleventh—?”

“No, he couldn’t,” said the Director, still looking at her kindly. “Neither from the thirteenth, nor the twelfth, nor the eleventh. To bring something from the past into the present is impossible by definition.”

“But, excuse me… You say it is possible to travel to the past! What if I had, say, a white swan roast at a feast given by Prince Vladimir the Great—?”

“You still come back with an empty stomach. Try to think for yourself, Oxana: If it were possible to transport anything of value from the past with what you call ‘the time machine’, would we have this kind of security then? They would’ve sunk us way under the ground, and put a vegetable depot on top as a disguise.”

“Well then… what if someone wanted to flee justice?”

“An escape into the past? Wouldn’t work either. In a few hours the battery would run down, and both the machine and your fugitive would neatly bounce back, right into the clutches of authorities. No, the crooks are a smart lot and have long since given up on the past. But the others are a different story. The various chrono… uh, the fanatics… the menders of history…”

“The ones that you intercept and neutralize so consistently,” Oxana continued wryly. “Kindly forgive me, Constantine Cyrillovich, I just find it hard to believe! Not a single slip in the whole time you’ve been here—”

“It looks like we’re running around in circles, Oxana,” the Director complained, pressing a key on the intercom. “Artem! Are you there? Come here for a minute, please!”

* * *

The person who entered was perhaps a little older than Oxana herself, a short nimble fellow with a distinctly impassive aspect. Introduced to the girl, he gave her a brief nod and switched his inquiring gaze to the boss.

The latter cleared his throat. “Well, Artem,” he said. “Oxana here has some doubts as to… hmmm… how safe we keep our cherished history from various, uh, gentlemen of fortune. When are you planning to catch your chronomuddler?”

Catch who? Oxana was about to ask, but checked herself in time lest her luck be scared away.

“Sometime next week,” Artem replied cautiously.

“Can you do it today?”

Artem considered.

“Well… I suppose I can.”

“Excellent! Let’s not waste time, then. Oxana! I’m placing you in charge of Artem. You’re going to take a field trip to Kievan Rus and see how we do it. Have no fear! Artem is an old hand, he just looks youngish.”

For a second the girl just sat there frozen, wide-eyed. To participate in a field mission! To intercept a fanatic who is planning to change the course of history! Could she even dream about such a stroke of luck?

“However,” Constantine Cyrillovich began, smiling, “if you’d rather—“

“No!” she said, rising at once. “I’m ready!”

When the two of them came out into the hallway, Oxana immediately blocked Artem’s way with such resolution as if she were about to seduce him there and then.

“Artem!” she said in a hoarse, passionate whisper. “Tell me the truth! Have you taken any reporters there before?”

“Yes I have,” he admitted, batting his eyelashes. “Many times.”

The girl’s pretty young face darkened.

“But… how come? Many times, and not a single sensational story? All I heard was some lukewarm praise and a bunch of general statements. To me it looks like a case of stonewalling, you know!”

Artem considered, then shrugged his shoulders indifferently, as if saying: What do I care? Oxana regarded him with great suspicion.

“Oh well,” she drawled musingly at last. “Never mind! Do we have time for a preliminary talk?”

“As much as you like.”

The girl swiftly changed cassette in her Dictaphone. Artem looked at her hands with admiration. Such skill is employed by soldiers reloading their weapons in combat.

“Well, then. Let’s start here.” Oxana concentrated, bit her lip, and rattled out in a professional spiel. “We all know that history is a fragile object. Recalling the famous short story by Ray Bradbury, where a crushed butterfly in the past causes a political disaster in the future, I’d like to compare your work with disarming of land mines: Make a single mistake, and you can’t correct it. Please, tell me in simple words, how does this monster responsibility weigh you down—” She thrust her Dictaphone into the teeth of Artem, who flinched a little.

“Well, speaking generally… It is a job. Yes, there is responsibility…”

He’s rather inhibited, Oxana observed. Not so good. A cliché. But what’s the difference? A paper story is not an essay.

“Okay,” she said. “Who are you planning to intercept this time?”

For some reason the young man looked up at the ceiling that, in truth, could use a few coats of whitewash. The old manor that housed the whole outfit was rather dilapidated. I need to mention this as well, she thought mechanically. The tax department can have palaces built, while these guys have to cram in this dump.

“Well, we got this chronomuddler,” Artem said reluctantly.

Oxana became aroused.

“Excuse me… who?”

Artem looked somewhat uncomfortable.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “This trespasser, I meant to say. A former lab assistant from an R&D outfit. He assembled his unit at home from stolen parts. And, he is convinced that all problems of contemporary Russia stem from the Mongol oppression of Old Rus. So… last week he departed for the Kalka River, to meet the Mongol tumens with withering gunfire,” Artem concluded somewhat scornfully. He was not lacking the sense of humor after all.

“How did you know that?”

“He left a note.”

“But what if he didn’t?” Oxana’s voice was anxious.

Artem shrugged again.

“Somebody would miss him sooner or later.”

“What do you mean, later?!!”

The young man scratched his eyebrow, annoyed.

“Sorry, I just said it wrong. It cannot be too late in our business.” He was about to say something else, when a tin-plated door in the end of the hallway swung open, and someone clanged through onto the cracked, squeaky floorboards. The man was dressed in an iron mail shirt reaching down to his knees, his head crowned with a flattish helmet reminiscent of a skullcap. In his hand the warrior was holding an ordinary spade.

With a rustle and a clink, he strolled by, giving his colleague a regal nod.

“Who is this?” Spellbound, the reporter followed the imposing stranger with her eyes.

“One of our workers.”

“Why does he have that spade?”

“It’s a long story,” Artem replied warily. “By the way, he’s also bound for the Kalka River.”

“You mean… we’re going to see him there?”

“No,” Artem said. “You and I are going to June 16, 1224, and he’s headed for May 31, 1223.”

“I just don’t understand anything, then!” Oxana admitted. “When was the Battle of the Kalka River?”

“Well… Some annals refer to the first date, others to the second. It all depends upon whatever historic source the trespasser used.”

“That’s amazing!” she could barely say, looking around. The hallway was empty again; the armored employee had disappeared around a bend. “You mean to say, the bad guy has gone into the wrong past?”

Her imagination obligingly displayed a bold headline: Before You Try to Fix History, Fix Your F on History! The next instant, Oxana appreciated the splendid meaning of the mysterious word she had not understood at first.

“But of course!” she cried in delight. “A chronomuddler! Got his chronology all mixed up, correct?”

“Well… yes, to a certain extent.”

“Is that your official operational term?”

“Why don’t we step into my office for a minute,” Artem suggested after some hesitation. “Rather than hanging out in the hallway, you know…”

* * *

Besides a desk and a cabinet, the tiny office accommodated a safe and a refrigerator with hardly any room left.

“How come you’re so crowded in here?” Oxana blurted out.

“Just the way it is,” Artem replied philosophically, squeezing through to the desk.

“Do they provide enough funding, at least?”

“We get paid on time, and thank goodness for that.”

“I just don’t understand it!” Oxana said earnestly. “How can you work in these conditions? It’s scary even to think that the very outcome of the Battle of the Kalka depends upon you guys! I don’t get it! And all this weird silence of the media—” She was going to add more when he pulled a drawer and took out something resembling her Dictaphone scaled about three times up.

“Is this the thing?” the girl asked, peering.

“Yep… it is,” Artem replied meditatively. Frowning, he began to press tiny buttons on the unit. “The very thing. Minichron, Model One. Here…” he drawled with satisfaction, placing the gadget inside a shoulder bag sitting on the chair. “I guess we’re ready to go.”

“What! Just the two of us?” Oxana asked anxiously.

“Why, what else did you expect?”

“I thought you had a SWAT team—”

“Too much credit,” he muttered, stuffing a checkered blanket into a different compartment of the bag.

“But he has a machine-gun!”

“I was kidding,” Artem said, zipping up the bag. “He doesn’t. He just wants to warn Prince Mstislav the Bold against ever splitting the Rus forces.”

“Wait!” Oxana recalled the clanging warrior. “Are we going like this? What about the gear, outfits?”

Artem looked at her contemplatively. Then he turned towards the refrigerator and not the safe as one would expect.

“Right on!” he encouraged her and opened the door. “What do you prefer to drink?”

For the life of her, Oxana couldn’t grasp what was going on.

“Well… in a picnic setting, I mean,” Artem explained, answering her bewildered gaze. “I got beer, but I’d rather recommend dry red wine with cheese and greens. Or would you like something stronger?”

* * *

“Is this the Kievan Rus, then?” Oxana asked, gawking around.

An ordinary country landscape surrounded them. A river snaked between low hills. There were neither shingled roofs nor latticed power-line towers in sight. On the other hand, gingerbread mansions and wooden palisades of the Old Rus were nowhere to be seen, either.

“O Rus! Back of the knoll art thou,” Artem replied with a quote, also looking around for something. “I see a perfect spot! That’s where we’ll sit. A great overlook, but the main thing we’ll be in plain view as well.” He adjusted the stuffed bag and sauntered toward a hillock. Oxana followed.

“But… what if the Mongol horsemen show up?” she asked anxiously.

“You think if the Rus horsemen show up it would be any better?”

“But still—!”

Artem looked back.

“Whoever shows up, just clap your hands,” he suggested. “As loud as you can. Or scream.”

“And that would scare them away?”

“No. This Minichron is tuned to sound. It would switch off, and we’d bounce right back to our starting point. That is, my office.”

They reached the top of the hill. Artem unzipped the bag, took out and spread the checkered blanket, then began to unload the cheese, greens, flatbreads, and the two bottles of wine.

“Hey, look!” Oxana cried. Luckily, she did it softly enough.

Artem straightened up and looked in the direction she pointed. At the edge of the woods they caught a glimpse of a human figure – once, then again. The stranger was dressed in blue shorts and a white T-shirt.

“Is that him?”

“No,” Artem said after a pause. “That’s me. Never mind, I come here often enough.”

Oxana stared but the distance was too great and she couldn’t make out the face.

“Can I come closer?”

“There’s only one Minichron for the two of us,” Artem said. “You move about fifteen paces away, and find yourself—”

“—back in your office?”

“Exactly.” Artem smiled, no longer looking so bashful. He appeared a lot more relaxed in the first half of the thirteenth century than in the present.

They sat on the blanket. Artem produced a corkscrew and opened the first bottle. The wine was good, the kind that should be sipped, but the girl knocked the first glass back in a single gulp. She needed it to get her bearings.

“So!” she said, shaking her head resolutely. “Let’s cut to the chase. How are you going to intercept him?”

With a thoughtful air, Artem was wrapping cheese and greens into a piece of flatbread.

“May I recommend…” he said, “…breakfast of the Georgian peasant… Intercept him? God bless you, what for? Where would he go? All he can do is walk around for a while… and come back all by himself.”

“What do you mean, walk around? He’d have enough time to—” Oxana halted and surveyed the deserted surroundings again. “What?” she said in a grave whisper. “But where are—” Goggle-eyed, she suddenly burst into laughter. “Oh well! Here I am, waiting for the battle to start! So it is there after all and not here? May of 1223, isn’t it?”

Artem looked at her closely. For some reason he found it necessary to refill the glasses.

“In May of 1223 we have exactly the same situation,” he informed her somberly.

The laughter stopped.

“I don’t understand—”

“That’s easy. Both chroniclers were wrong.”

“So it’s just as deserted there as it is here?”

“Not exactly,” Artem said. “Rather crowded. You saw that guy with the spade. Well… he’s sorting it out there with his own chronomuddler. Has been at it for a couple of years with no end in sight.”

“But there was a Battle of the Kalka River after all, wasn’t there?!” Oxana exhaled timidly.

“Probably there was one.”

“Where? And when?”

“We’re still looking for it,” Artem reassured, handing her the glass.

* * *

…After a while they felt completely at ease with each other.

“So now you understand why they fund us the way they do,” Artem was saying bitterly. “We serve no purpose! What is that we’re supposed to safeguard? Who on Earth needs the real past? The government couldn’t care less. Why, they don’t give a hoot about what really happened! What they need is ideology, a legend! Here to your health!”

They clinked glasses and sipped.

“But… if some people still try to mess with the past,” Oxana said, puzzled, “then there is something to guard, isn’t there?”

“The chronomuddlers?” Artem gave a contemptuous scowl. “Just drop it! Not a single one of them ever lands where he aims to. Don’t you understand: They want to change the textbook on history, not the real history. Got the difference? The dimwits just can’t grasp that textbooks are written in the present, not the past!”

“But the historic documents—”

“Oxana! Documents are written by people! So, in truth, the principal chronomuddlers have always been the chroniclers and historians… And by the way, it’s about time our dude should show up.” Artem carefully set his glass on the blanket and, rising halfway, scrutinized the environs. “Aha! I see him,” he reported gruffly after a while. “All right! He’s spotted us, coming over. Wow, look! Decked out like a regular folk dancer!”

Oxana jumped up and stared in the direction Artem was looking.

The man walking up the hillside was indeed bedecked in the style of an amateur folk ensemble; a shirt of scarlet silk belted with a tasseled cord and baggies of blue silk tucked into short jackboots. In his hands he was holding a gusli; was he perhaps aping Boyan the bard?

Wildly gaping around, the chronomuddler was trudging toward the hilltop. Now Oxana observed his long, emaciated face (perhaps the result of wandering about for three hours), the locks of fair hair barely covering his ears, the narrow chin covered with sparse blond stubble. An unsightly fellow, and yet there was something pathetically-helpless about him.

The miscreant halted a few paces from their blanket and gawked at his contemporaries, stumped as to where they could come from. They could see the poor devil was just about to lose his marbles.

“Have you seen the Mongols?” he asked anxiously.

Artem shook his head.

“What about our guys?”

“Come sit with us,” Oxana said, looking at him with compassion. “Have a drink and relax. I’ll explain you everything…”

2001