‘I am an Investigator of the Vlast Political Police.’
Khyrbysk sighed.
‘Oh, really, must we continue this charade?’ he said. ‘I know you are not what you say you are. Whatever you might have told poor Zsara, you are evidently nothing to do with Lavrentina, and you are certainly not from the police, so let us waste no more time on tedious diversions. Spare me that. I am not surprised you have come. I have been expecting you, or someone like you, for a long time.’
‘Who do you think we are?’ said Lom.
Khyrbysk shrugged.
‘Precisely?’ he said. ‘Precisely, I have no idea at all. Spies? Agents of the Archipelago? The specifics hardly matter. You are outsiders. People from elsewhere, come to find out what is happening here in Novaya Zima. As I said, I have been expecting that someone like you would come eventually. Our achievements were bound to attract such attention, though frankly I thought there would be a more subtle approach. A less frontal assault, shall I say? Well, no matter. You are here, and I have nothing to hide, so let us be civilised. Share my wine and tell me what you want from me.’
Khyrbysk’s manner was smooth and urbane but there was hard calculation in his eyes. He’s playing with us, thought Lom. Playing for time. But there is no time.
‘You met Chazia when she arrived?’ he said.
‘Of course,’ said Khyrbysk.
‘There was a woman with her. Early twenties. Five foot nine. Black hair cut short at the neck.’
For the first time, Khyrbysk looked surprised. Genuinely surprised.
‘I couldn’t say. I don’t recall seeing such a woman. Lavrentina’s entourage was large. I did not meet them all. Of course not.’
Lom’s patience had reached its limit. He pulled the Blok 15 from his pocket and pointed it at Khyrbysk’s belly.
‘Where is Chazia now?’ he said.
Khyrbysk glanced briefly at the gun and looked away. Dismissed it from his attention.
‘When I left Lavrentina earlier this evening she was in the mountain. She had work to do. She is a woman of remarkable energy.’
‘You’re going to take us to her,’ said Lom. ‘You’re going to take us into the mountain and vouch for us with your security. Tell them we are your guests. Take us to where Chazia is.’
‘Of course,’ said Khyrbysk. ‘If that’s what you want.’ He glanced at the gun. ‘Your argument is persuasive.’
‘Don’t over-focus on the gun,’ said Lom. ‘You should worry more about my friend there. I certainly would.’
84
They went out of the Foundation Hall and across the floodlit square. The sky-aspiring sculpture cast three long black gnomon-shadows. Lom walked on one side of Khyrbysk, Florian on the other. The square was deserted. It was almost nine.
‘No transport?’ said Khyrbysk, looking around.
‘No,’ said Lom.
‘You don’t have much of a plan then.’
‘The plan’s simple,’ said Lom. ‘If there’s any trouble from you we kill you and think of something else.’
‘I see. You have no transport. Well, I’m afraid my driver has gone home for the night, but if we go back inside I could get Zsara to telephone for a car.’
‘We’ll walk,’ said Lom.
‘Five miles in the night?’ said Khyrbysk. ‘Partly across open country? Better to take the train.’
There was a transit station at the corner of the square. The system was still running. They didn’t have to wait long for a northbound service. There were a couple of solitary passengers–night workers going on shift–but Khyrbysk led them to seats at the other end of the car.
‘The city is beautiful at night,’ he said, looking out of the window, ‘but you should see it in the long summer days. It is the northern jewel of the Vlast.’
‘You call this place a city?’ said Lom.
‘Yes, certainly Novaya Zima is a city. A city is defined by importance rather than size. By centrality to the culture of the coming times. Novaya Zima is not an agglomeration of buildings, it is a machine for living. A machine for making the future. And it is a metaphor. A work of art.’
He sat back in his seat and unbuttoned the fawn camel-hair coat he had put on over his shirt. It was hot in the carriage. He seemed inclined to talk. Perhaps it was nerves, but Lom didn’t think so. Khyrbysk didn’t seem too bothered about his predicament at all.
‘Take the building where I live, for instance,’ Khyrbysk was saying. ‘The Foundation Hall. It is made from steel and glass. Above all, glass. What better metaphor than glass for the future we are building? Millions of separate grains of sand, weak and uncohesive when separate, fused together under a fierce transmuting heat to form a new substance. And the new substance is perfect. Unblemished, transparent and strong. This is how we shall reforge humanity. The progress of history is inevitable. It is happening already. The individual is losing his significance–his private destiny no longer interests us–many particles must become one consistent force…’
Khyrbysk paused.
‘You smile,’ he said. ‘But I assure you, what I am saying is a clear-sighted expression of fact. Novaya Zima signifies. Everything you see in Novaya Zima, the fine architecture, this mass transit system of which we are so proud, it all signifies.’
Florian grunted. ‘You have a fine apartment,’ he said.
‘You sound censorious,’ said Khyrbysk, ‘You want to make me ashamed of my privileges while others labour hungry and the Vlast is at war?’
‘The thought occurred to me,’ said Florian.
‘But I am not ashamed,’ said Khyrbysk. ‘The fact that others forgo essentials so we can live like this, that is what drives us on. It shows our strength of purpose. The Vlast may suffer hardships, Novaya Zima says to the world, but we can still do this.’
‘This place tells the world nothing,’ said Florian, ‘because the world doesn’t know it exists.’
‘Not yet perhaps,’ said Khyrbysk, ‘but when we are ready it will.’
Lom remembered the smell of the empty trains at the Wieland marshalling yard. The ranks of empty trains. He was surprised by the heat of his own anger
‘You’ve built a comfortable utopia for you and your friends on the bones of slaves.’
‘You’re trying to provoke me,’ said Khyrbysk blandly, ‘but I will not rise to it. I am merely a worker in my own field, as are we all. There is no egotism here, only I becoming We: the clear and perfect simplicity of glass.’
‘And the workers under the mountain? Do they see it like that? I’ve seen the trains.’
‘Certainly they do. Most of them. Physical labour is redemptive. Many request to stay on when their terms are complete. They ask for their families to join them.’
Lom turned away in disgust. He caught his own reflection in the window looking back at him. And through his own face he saw the lighted windows of kommunalki buildings moving past. For a moment it was as if he was stationary and the buildings were sliding away, leaving him behind.
‘The quality of our city,’ said Khyrbysk, oblivious to Lom’s reaction, or ignoring it, ‘expresses the supreme importance of the work we do.’
Florian leaned forward intently.
‘What work?’ he said. ‘What is happening here? What is all this for?’
‘The Foundation for Physico-Technical Machines,’ said Khyrbysk, ‘is the greatest concentration of human intelligence the world has ever seen. The whole city exists to support our work. There is more brilliance lodged in Foundation Hall, in that one single building, than… There is no comparator. No precedent. It is our academy. We have sacrificed our careers to be here, all of us. We do not publish, at least not under our own names. We get no fame for what we do, none of the mundane rewards. But the future will know us by our work.’