If he were a weaker man, he would think it unfair. He would think Rizhin ungrateful. Was it not Yakov Khyrbysk who sent the shipment of atomic shells to Mirgorod so Rizhin single-handed could break the siege? It was. And was it not Khyrbysk who expanded the town of Novaya Zima into a huge, sprawling secret city where penal labourers built the armoury of manoeuvrable atomic field-weapons that tipped the balance of the war? It was. But Khyrbysk is a canny operator: he has never made the mistake of reminding Rizhin of all that he owes him.
Six months after the victory at Mirgorod, when the war against the Archipelago was still in the balance, Rizhin had ousted the feeble government of Fohn and Khazar and made himself President-Commander of the New Vlast. After that, the first thing he did was fly north to Novaya Zima to see Yakov Khyrbysk.
‘You must forget these bombs, Yakov,’ Rizhin had said. ‘I’ve got ten men who could run this show better than you. Talk to me about the other thing. Task Number One. Tell me about the ships that will carry us to the stars.’
Khyrbysk’s stomach lurched. It was sheer brutal astonishment. How did he know?
‘And bring me Farelov,’ Rizhin added.
‘Farelov?’
‘Are you the brain here, Khyrbysk? Does all this come from your head? I do not think so.’
Khyrbysk had blustered. He cringed to think of it now.
‘Well,’ he said,’ of course the theoretical foundations were laid by Sergei Farelov. Sergei is a brilliant mathematician and a visionary engineer, truly visionary, but he is not the sort of fellow to be the leader of an undertaking like this. I made Novaya Zima. I am the organiser, I am the efficient man. I am the will that drives it on.’
‘Bring me Farelov,’ said Rizhin. ‘And Yakov…’
Rizhin paused, and Khyrbysk, caught off guard, found himself looking unprepared into the gaze of a potentate. The neutral brown eyes of a man who knows for certain and unremarkable fact that he can do to you anything that he wants, anything at all–cause you any pain, destroy you and those around you in any way he chooses–and there is no protection for you, not anywhere, none at all. It was not a fully human gaze.
‘Do not keep secrets from me, Yakov,’ said Rizhin. ‘Never try that again. I don’t like it.’
Farelov arrived, tall and slender as a birch tree with wide nocturnal eyes.
‘You are the great engineer, then,’ said Rizhin, raking him with his gaze. ‘You are a vital national resource. You belong to the Vlast. Your very existence is a state secret now. Your name will not be spoken again.’
Farelov returned his gaze without speaking. He nodded slowly.
‘How long will it take?’ said Rizhin. ‘How long to build this thing so it works?’
‘I will answer,’ said Khyrbysk hastily. A promise not kept was a death warrant. He hesitated, mind racing. ‘Fifteen years,’ he said. ‘At the outside, twenty.’
‘Five,’ said Rizhin. ‘Make it five.’
‘Five! No. Five is impossible.’
‘Why impossible, Yakov?’ said Rizhin. ‘This, nothing else but this, is Task Number One. Tell me what you need and you shall have it. Without limit. The resources of the continent will be at your disposal. A hundred thousand workers. A million. Twenty million. You just tell me. Never hide your needs. How does a mother know her baby is hungry if the baby does not cry?’
Khyrbysk looked at Farelov.
‘It can be done,’ said the chief engineer quietly. ‘In theory it can be done.’
‘So,’ said Khyrbysk. ‘OK. Five years then.’
And in five years, though it was impossible, he had done it. He’d brought Task Number One this far, to this point of crisis: Proof of Concept baking quietly on her launch pad in the country of the hot panoptic undefeated sun.
6
In Mirgorod the new clocks are striking noon as the woman with the heavy canvas bag on her shoulder crosses towards her apartment building. The block where she lives is harsh and slabby: a cliff of blinding colourlessness under harsh blue sky in the middle of a blank square laid out with dimpled concrete sheets that are already cracked and slumped and prinked with grass tufts and dusty dandelions. Scraps of torn paper lift and turn in the warm breeze.
She climbs the wide shallow steps and pushes through the door into the dimness of the entrance hall. The sun never reaches in here and the lamps are off. There is no electricity supply during the day. No lift. She nods to the woman at the desk and crosses to the stairwell.
Her room is five flights up. The stairs smell of boiling potatoes and old rubber-backed carpet. On the landing of her floor an oversized picture of Papa Rizhin is taped to the wall. He is smiling.
She opens the door of her apartment into a blast of hot stale brilliance. The brassy early-afternoon sun is glaring in through a wide window. There is no one there. The women she shares with–young girls, sisters from Ostrakhovgrad–are out at work, but the room is heavy with their scent and full of things. The three beds, a table and chairs of orange wood, and shelf upon shelf of purposeless gewgaws and tat: make-up and toiletries, small china ornaments, magazines in faint typeface on thick brittle paper filled with advertisements and optimistic stories. The one big flimsy yellow cupboard stands open, overflowing with nylons and cheap summer clothes. Both girls are conducting affairs with high-ups in the Ministry of Supply. There is a can of raspberries tucked in the underwear drawer.
One of the sisters brought with her to Mirgorod a poster from the wall of the Ostrakhovgrad Public Library and tacked it inside the cupboard door: a photograph of strong women with the sun on their faces, shoulders back, heads up, the wind in their hair. DAUGHTERS OF THE VLAST, COME TO THE CITY! CITIZEN WOMEN! REBUILD OUR LAND! So many men were killed in the war, there was free accommodation on offer in Mirgorod to women of working age with no children.
The woman unwinds the pink towel with the lemon-yellow tractors and lays the long oilskin-covered bundle on her bed. Kneels on the floor to unbuckle the straps. Forcing clumsy hands to do what once went smooth as breathing.
She’d done a good job almost six years before. She’d left the rifle cleaned and wrapped in strips of cotton damp with lubricant, and it had kept well. No damp or grit had reached it. Awkwardly she strips it and cleans and oils each part. The touch and smell of the rifle is as familiar to her as her own body. The wood of the stock is still smooth and dark honey-brown. The magazine and firing mechanism, the telescopic sight rails, the pierced noise-suppressing muzzle and flash guard, all still blue-black steel, are a little scuffed and scratched–she remembers every mark–but there is no sign of corrosion. Only her own broken hands, finger bones snapped and carelessly re-fused, have to relearn their work. Figure it out all over again.
The Zhodarev STV-04–gas-operated, a short-stroke spring-loaded piston above the barrel, a tilting bolt–weighs eight and a half pounds unloaded and is exactly forty-eight inches long, of which the barrel is twenty-four. Muzzle velocity is two thousand seven hundred feet per second. Effective range with a telescopic sight, one thousand yards. The Zhodarev is not a perfect weapon: it is complex to maintain, a little too heavy, the muzzle flash too bright even with a flash guard; it tends to lift, and the magazine can come loose and fall out. The woman had always wished she had a Vagant. But she knows the Zhodarev intimately. She fitted the muzzle brake herself to counteract the lifting. It is her weapon.