Lom-in-mudjhik lashed his fist against the concrete wall. Smashed the wall again and again. Men were in there. Men to hunt and kill.
Lom-in-mudjhik remembered how satisfying it was to burst a human skull between his hands. The sudden splash of warmth as the life went out. The blockhouse was filled with the reverberations in the air that humans made with lungs and mouths. Steel implements made their familiar small explosions. Lom-in-mudjhik traced the path of the small projectiles: some of them struck his body, their kinetic energy becoming gobbets of heat to feed his core. A couple that were going to miss him he slapped out of the air for fun. Lom-in-mudjhik killed the men with methodical deliberation, one by one.
When there was only one left he let it scrabble out through the door and start to run. Waited a moment for the pleasure of the chase. He knew what this one was: his former handler. He began to lope after him slowly, following along as the man raced and skidded and fell, making reverberations with his mouth. Lom-in-mudjhik knew that man’s dreams and nightmares, how he had imagined and feared just such an unwinnable race as this.
Slowly, gradually, patiently, Lom-in-mudjhik came up alongside the running man and fulfilled his dreams.
The Pollandore watches Maroussia coming north across the ice. She is wearing nothing but a dress and thin shoes and the front of the dress is soaked in blood which is not hers. The blood is freezing on her dress. Bright crimson crystals stiffen the cotton. The crystals are thin and brittle and sometimes they crack and fall.
Maroussia is so cold that she will die if she does not get warm.
Ahead of her in the dark Uncle Vanya’s cousin is waiting.
She will be warm enough soon.
Wolf-Florian sniffed at Maroussia’s trail in the snow. Picked up pace and followed it for a while, then slowed and hung back. He circled, a grey prowling shadow in an agony of uncertainty. He paused. Testing whether the time had come.
It had not come.
Wolf-Florian turned away and ran back towards the perfumed breathing beacon that was Vissarion Lom.
Archangel sees him.
Archangel-fragment-bird is alert. Even as his moment of triumph approaches he is monitoring the peripheries. He does not overlook the danger. Archangel has outgrown mistakes.
Archangel sees the wolf. And, following the threads, scanning the environs, he finds the abandoned, dormant body of Vissarion Lom. Archangel perceives the tiny possibility of threat, the hairline crack at the margin of his domain.
Archangel acts.
He tears a hole in the preposterous angel-suit and crashes screaming into the mind of Lavrentina Chazia, who is waiting on the ice for the moment of ignition, when Uncle Vanya’s big cousin kindles into cataclysm.
DESTROY THE TRAVELLERS! THEY ARE COMING!
CRUSH THEM! BREAK THEM! DESTROY THEM NOW!
Lavrentina Chazia burned with ecstatic joy at the coming of the Archangel voice. Her belly exploded with detonations of pleasure. Hot with the obedience-thrill of Archangelic power and purpose, encased in angel substance and gravid with Archangel harvest, she turned and began to run.
91
Lom-in-mudjhik felt a sharp blow across his face. It stung. But it was not Lom-in-mudjhik’s face that hurt: it was the face of his old useless abandoned human body. Some creature was leaning over it. Shaking it. Making the air reverberate with quiet urgency. The creature was like a human but not. A hunting beast. A new thing.
A thing to kill, then.
Lom-in-mudjhik began to run.
The creature’s reverberations had some faint meaning that percolated down through Lom-in-mudjhik’s understanding. To part of him they meant something, to part not. Because Lom-in-mudjhik was two parts now, not one.
Vissarion! Vissarion!
Florian was hissing his name in his ear.
Lom opened his eyes and coughed. Retched sour liquid down his chest.
‘Vissarion!’
Florian put his hand under his chin and lifted his head. Lom opened his eyes and brought Florian’s face into focus. A pain in the front of his head pounded mercilessly. He puked again.
‘You killed them,’ said Florian. ‘All of them.’
‘I thought…’ Lom shook his head to clear the pain a little. Wiped his mouth on his sleeve. ‘Not me. Not me that killed them. It. I thought I could control it…’ He snapped his head up abruptly, looking around. ‘Maroussia? Where is Maroussia? Where is she?’
‘She wasn’t in the building. She slipped away. Escaped. But she’s gone north. Towards the Pollandore. Towards the bomb.’
‘Bomb? What bomb?’
‘Khyrbysk’s bomb. The one that sets the world on fire.’
‘What?’
‘The bomb is the other thing,’ said Florian. ‘Fucker Khyrbysk’s other thing. I knew… He was hiding it. I should have pressed him harder. I should have… I have made mistakes, I have done everything wrong.’
Lom struggled to think. The aftertaste of the mudjhik’s mind was still in his, dark red and confusing.
‘Why?’ he said. ‘Maroussia. Why has she gone there?’
‘Because the Pollandore is there. Chazia is going to destroy it with the bomb. Maroussia… she has gone there for the Pollandore.’
Lom struggled to his feet. He felt dizzy and weak.
‘How do you know?’
‘About the Pollandore?’
‘About the bomb!’
‘The technicians were only too happy—’
‘We have to follow,’ said Lom.
Florian grabbed his arm.
‘You can’t help her, Vissarion. The bomb will detonate in…’ He grabbed Lom’s wrist and looked at his watch: 8.33. ‘We have twenty-seven minutes. Not enough. Even here we are not safe outside the bunker. The bomb is the largest they’ve made. The technicians are not happy about being even this close. They are leaving.’
As Florian was speaking they heard the sound of an overhead rail car starting into life. It trundled away to the south as they watched.
‘The detonation cannot be halted from here,’ said Florian. ‘The operations control room is elsewhere.’
‘I’m going after her,’ said Lom.
‘You can’t. It will destroy you.’
‘I’m going after her. You get away while you can. There’s no need for you—’ He stopped suddenly. ‘Chazia,’ he said. ‘Where is she? Did you—’
‘Somewhere out on the ice. I could not find her. She has a protective suit. She thinks it will keep her safe against the effects of the blast, but the technicians—’
Florian broke off. His head jerked round suddenly and he leaped aside, landing ten feet away in a crouch. His body longer, thinner, whiplash strong.
The mudjhik was lumbering fast towards them over the ice.
No! Stop!
Lom slammed up a wall in front of the mudjhik. It was like a word spoken. A sheer instinctive act of will. The mudjhik crashed into it and fell to its knees. Dazed. Lost.
There, said Lom-in-mudjhik gently, letting his mind run smooth and quiet across his own anger. Calm. Patience. Look at the snow. Look. Look at the snow. Together we are better. Together we are calm. Together we are still.
Vissarion Lom was a separate watchfulness, inside Lom-in-mudjhik but not lost there.