The Steel Tsar (21 page)

“And here,” she said, “is what you might call an alternative future, comrade.”

The horizon was filling with airships, coming up over the wide line of the steppe until it seemed a vast thundercloud approached us. They had cut their engines and were using the prevailing wind. The old airshipman’s trick had been perfectly timed.

The Cossacks were in temporary disarray, scrambling for their horses and vehicles, tearing the canvas from their artillery.

Then, in ragged unison, the engines of the Russian fleet burst into life and the ground shook to their roar.

It was the first wave—troop-ships bearing the aerial marksmen who preceded the arrival of the great flying ironclads.

Even as we stared, the gliding infantrymen began to pour from the huge gondolas, sailing on wings of shimmering silk and firing as they descended.

I saw mounted Cossacks charging towards the flying infantry to be cut down by accurate fire from the carriers which hung low in the sky, offering light artillery cover. I saw horses and men fall in the light of the noon sun, sliced into red ribbons by the steady chatter of the aerial gatlings, their blood bright as their last night’s dreams.

I turned my back upon the scene. Then we marched away, heading for the secret hangar. There, the
Vassarion Belinsky
stood ready in her lines, bearing the cargo from hell she must soon release upon the world.

I did not look at my companions. I did not want them to look at me.

In my heart of hearts I knew that I was planning to do all I could to change the course of history, to challenge the forces of fate and, if necessary, perish in the attempt.

T
o my surprise, Professor Marek hurried aboard with Djugashvili just as we were about to go aloft. The Steel Tsar’s little eyes were bright with a kind of lust, but he went straight to the cabin he had made his people prepare for him. For a while at least, we were spared his company on the familiar control deck of the
Vassarion Belinsky.

The hangar was lit by crude flares and not until Dempsey had given the orders to set the engines at idle did the Cossacks push back the great doors and let in the light. Then they took hold of the ropes and slowly eased the great ship out of the shed.

She began to tug at her confining ropes like a mastiff on a leash and at last we were in open ground.

Dempsey stood back with a courteous, half-mocking bow and allowed me to take the wheel. I did so naturally. “Let go the ground lines,” I said.

My orders were relayed to the rough-and-ready crew below. I put the engines to half-speed and we began to rise into the sky, our turbines pounding like a single heartbeat, lifting effortlessly, light as swan’s down, into the early afternoon. We had drawn most of our crew from a ramshackle bunch of half-trained Cossacks, some of whom were deserters from the Volunteer Airfleet. I murmured some uncertainty, but Dempsey reassured me. “They’ll do for this work, old man, never fear.”

Through the observation ports we were witness to the first clashes between Cossacks and Central Government troops. Taking cover where they could, the expert riflemen of the steppe were picking off the gliding infantry even as they left their vessels. They fell from the air like stricken moths.

Again I could do little but watch helplessly.

Dempsey took the wheel again. “There’s nothing else but to let them get on with it,” he said. “All right, height coxswain— put us up to five thousand feet: moderate ascent. Helmsman—” this to me—“North by north-west, if you please. Hold our speed steady as she goes.”

She was a beautiful ship and did effortlessly everything we demanded of her. This dignified queen of the skies should never, I thought, have been employed in the foul work Djugashvili demanded of her.

“Let her take a point or two,” Dempsey commanded. All at once he had become a capable airship captain—as he had been before he had helped commit history’s worst single crime in the name of idealistic principle. Yet even if he bore no guilt, why, I wondered, had he agreed to bomb Makhno’s camp? Was he making amends for something or was he determined to compound his crime? Had cynicism, that most cancerous of human qualities, consumed him completely?

Yet he was every inch the airshipman. His hands were hardly shaking at all as he stood on the bridge, now folding his arms across his chest, watching the ground fall away.

There was a strange air of calm aboard. We were still flying the Russian colours, so we were not attacked. It was, however, a very odd feeling to witness all that destruction taking place around us as we sailed through it, almost as if we, ourselves, were already ghosts...

Acting on Djugashvili’s earlier orders, a wireless was sent out to the surrounding ships, giving our status and offering to join the battle. The warlord had anticipated the response. We were told to return to Odessa for fresh armaments and to report on our condition.

We sailed away from the main battle arena as the first flying ironclads began to heave their mighty hulls across the sky, while from their tubes burst deadly aerial torpedoes to wail earthwards and burst amongst the Cossack riders. Those reckless horsemen had no chance against the torpedoes. Horses and men went down in a blur of exploding scarlet and smashed bone. After a while, I refused to look out of the observation ports.

I felt obliged to ask the next question. “Dempsey,” I said urgently, “do you honestly intend to drop those hell-bombs on another mass of innocent people? Are you really planning to kill Makhno and his followers?”

Dempsey turned his sad, self-mocking eyes on me. “Of course,” he said. “I am the servant of Fate. I have no choice.”

I still could not tell if he was serious.

“By what logic do you justify such an action, man?”

“By the logic of chance and random impulse, Captain Bastable.”

“By the logic of savage nature!” It was Djugashvili coming up onto the bridge. He was flanked by two huge Cossack bodyguards.

Something had happened to his helmet. It seemed streaked with blood or rust, but he was oblivious of this further stigmatum, and for a moment I thought I was a different Bastable standing on the deck of a different airship and addressing a different Djugashvili. Images of those around me rippled outwards in a multitude of colours, many of them unrecognizable, and again I felt faint. I held tight to the wheel and pretended my full attention was on my steering. There was a mixture of sulphur and lemon in my nostrils, perhaps from some ointment the warlord used on his ruined face.

I could not rid myself of a terrible sense of inevitability, as if I must take part in this inhuman action over and over again, without hope of change. It was as if I had already descended into Hell. And did I already serve Lucifer? Such was the nature of my thoughts, for at certain times only the old descriptions serve. It could be that I was caught forever in this scene, doomed always to repeat actions which would lead to this moment, over and over again for eternity. This was the legendary fate of such mythical figures as the Flying Dutchman and the Wandering Jew. Was that why their stories retained their power? Because they told a fundamental truth of our condition?

At the same time I felt that many strange tensions were surfacing and, in manifesting themselves, might be explained or at least examined. I think that Time had become a little unstable, because of the attempted manipulations, and that we were all aware of an unusual and dangerous situation. We were infected by a demonic carelessness as if we actually were about to witness the end of the world.

I found it very difficult to concentrate on my undemanding task. I looked across at Dempsey and again experienced that scene, with O. T. Shaw, von Bek, Una Persson and the others, as the
Loch Etive
drove relentlessly through the skies, bound for Hiroshima.

Every so often I thought I noted von Bek on deck with us, but I never saw him directly. This was not the von Bek I had sailed with, so long, long, ago—and yet even now sailed with somewhere at this very moment—this was the albino “Monsieur Zenith”, who had described himself as something of a sorcerer. I thought again of Teku Benga, of the supernatural forces which gathered there, and my rational mind refused to find answers. Here, aboard the
Vassarion Belinsky
, commanded by a mad Georgian claiming to be a Cossack, I knew that neither our science nor our sorcery—nor, indeed, our swords—could affect one jot the power of the multiverse to continue reproducing itself, every action, every soul, every creature, infinitely. New Bastables were even now being formed from the raw stuff of Chaos. No action could stop this. Every action had its consequence, added to the proliferation of possibilities, added new dimensions to Time and Space.

“Are we anything other than curious maggots, burrowing through the rotting cheese of History,” mused Professor Marek, fingering his face. Recent events had disturbed him deeply. “What do you think, Dempsey?” His look towards Dempsey begged him for any crumb of comfort. “Why are we doing this? Shouldn’t we—”

“We survive,” said Dempsey, paying attention to the distant Earth. We were passing over the great wheatlands, beginning to turn in a wide arc now that we were out of range of the Centralists.

I saw that the man had begun, silently, to weep. But he quickly took control of himself.

“You don’t believe in cause and effect, then, captain?”

Dempsey shrugged off Djugashvili’s question and the warlord did not pursue it. “What about you, Mrs. Persson?” he asked.

“Oh, I believe very much in cause and effect,” she said, “but not in the linear sense. Every action has a proliferation of consequences. We can’t remain alive without being responsible for thousands of actions and their consequences. We simply have to live with that fact and decide, morally if you like, how to formulate a civilized, secure environment for ourselves. So far we haven’t succeeded.”

Djugashvili was, obscurely, angered by this. He made a growling noise within his mask and stamped about the deck for a while. But she had less to hide from him now and pursued her point. “We think if we name something we control it.”

“So we do. So we do,” said the warlord, with disguised belligerence. “We make new names. Thus we control.”

“It’s an illusion. And a confusing one. It does nobody any good.”

Even as she spoke I watched a hundred shadows break away from her and diffuse, like so many haloes, into the surrounding air. Yet still I felt that I was trapped. Still the airship roared on towards her obscene destiny.

“We make new names and thus create a new future,” Djugashvili insisted. He glared out of the window and was disappointed in what he saw. “By this means we control both Time and Space! That is true power, Mrs. Persson.”

“Neither is controllable.” She shrugged. “One can only choose alternatives. Time and Space are constantly warping and recreating themselves. There is not the steady forward flow you so desperately need it to be, ‘So-So’, my dear—I tell you this merely for my own satisfaction. It can only seem to be that. The best we can hope for is to agree upon our joint hallucination!”

The Steel Tsar snorted and fidgeted. I thought he was regretting his decision to join us and witness Makhno’s destruction. He kept waving his hand at Mrs. Persson, trying to dismiss what she said. “You intellectuals! You confuse everyone. It suits you. But you will not do the same to me! I give it the name. I control it.”

“We can control only our own behaviour,” said Mrs. Persson. Her voice was almost a whisper, yet brought silence with it. “Then we shall learn how best we can enjoy our existence in the multiverse. But if you try to control the multiverse, you risk that existence entirely. You will be doomed to repeat your efforts endlessly.”

“The story of Tantalus!” Professor Marek giggled. His eyes darted from observation port to observation port. “Is each and every one of us carrying their own load, never reaching the end of their journey? Always frustrated. Always disappointed. Is this to be our human condition?”

“It is inevitable,” said Dempsey. But Mrs. Persson clearly did not agree with him.

Suddenly I was struck at the strangeness of the conversation, as if we had all quite casually accepted our situation and now were merely curious to see how it would develop. Perhaps such knowledge gives one cause to lean a little towards the abstract.

“We can change,” I said. “We can change something, surely?”

“Oh, certainly,” said Dempsey sardonically, “if we wish hard enough, eh? The bulk of society, my dear old chap, is made up of people so cautious they believe it is a major upheaval if they have to change their address, let alone the fundamental basis of their beliefs! This caution is why it is so easy for our master, Djugashvili, and his kind to control us. They even get us to build our own prisons and create our own terrors. Caution is not a virtue in these times, Captain Bastable. It is very much a vice.”

Djugashvili was fuming at the contempt in Dempsey’s voice. “Be careful, sir! Be careful, comrade! There are more pawns than kings, sir, in this and every game we play!”

“Bah!” Dempsey offered the warlord his back. There was a strange, bleak anger in him now. Djugashvili had no notion of what was actually being discussed, but the words themselves had disturbed him quite badly.

Again it seemed to me that the scene changed and I occupied the command deck of the
Shan-tien,
heard Mrs. Persson’s voice...

Parts of the city might be harmed...

Nonsense,
I heard myself saying,
the city’s nearly two miles away, Mrs. Persson.

“City? What damned city?” Djugashvili was glancing from face to face, his cruel mask alive with his inner fury, his confusion. “What are you doing with this ship?”

“Sailing her as commanded,” I told him almost casually. “Take her down to a thousand feet, height cox. Easy as she goes.”

“Makhno’s camp isn’t a city,” insisted Djugashvili. His Cossack bodyguards both had their eyes tight shut. Clearly they had experienced these strange shifts and echoes also and thought themselves mad or dreaming.