Angel Eyes (42 page)

Now I am the father, Valeri Bondasenko thought, sitting beside his mute, unthinking daughter on the wide lawn of the asylum near Arkhangelskoe. I want to teach her what you taught me, Father, but even if she hears me, she isn't listening.

Does this mean they've won, Father? The Russians who systematically beat us, stripped us of our culture, our past, who have entangled us in hopelessness, who have tried their best to exterminate us? No, no, no! I haven't forgotten what you taught me, how to bury my hate so deeply no one would ever find out what was in my heart.

No. They haven't won, the Russians, but they haven't lost. Not yet. Not yet.

Another day, another visit to the man who would be God, Mars Volkov thought as he drove up to the Hero's fortresslike complex within Star Town.

He did not immediately get out of the Chaika limousine, however, but instead listened again to the tape recording he had made of his last conversation with the Hero.

"I don't know what's come over me. Before I lifted off, I never had much of a sense of humor. Who knows, perhaps being suspended between heaven and a living hell will do that for you. "

It had been a rather nice touch. Mars thought, to make such a theatrical display of disabling the monitoring equipment in the Hero's living quarters. Of course, it was quite real. Mars had actually shut down the system. And he had been correct not to inform the dolts downstairs. Their display of genuine pique had put the icing on the cake. No amount of acting, no matter how expert, would fool the Hero or his idiot manque, Arbat. (Mars had to admit that the bloody dolphin had been his one major mistake, but now that it was done, he could hardly take it away.)

"There are some who think you 're lying, or have misremembered, or are delusional. "

''Are you one of those ?''

All in all, Mars thought, the last interrogation had gone well. Mars was far too clever to try to fool the Hero at this late stage. It would, he knew, be another mistake to underestimate the Hero now, even though he, Mars, had finally gamed the high ground in their battle of wits. Mars's own sentiments about being fed up with playing their no-win game had been real, as well. But he was not as much the maverick as he had led the Hero to believe-it was far more convincing to tell a semblance of the truth than to try to put over a lie. Consequently, Mars had come prepared to his last meeting. He had been wearing a body mike attached to a portable microcassette recorder. The same was true today.

"The corpse opened its mouth and-"

"No, no. This isn't something out of a science-fiction or a horror film." He didn't come back from the dead, nor was he animated like a zombie or a golem. This was something else . . ."

Mars reached over, shut off the tape. What had happened up there between the stars? He was becoming consumed with this puzzle.

He sat for a moment longer, lost in thought. Then he got out of the Chaika, went through the laborious but necessary security procedures to allow him entrance to the Hero's complex.

Inside, the Hero was with Tatiana. She was a short blond woman, with a ruddy complexion and wide-set, direct gray eyes. She had the wide shoulders, narrow waist and hips of the athlete. She was as attractive as Lara, though in an entirely different way.

''Good morning, comrade,'' Tatiana said when she saw Mars enter the pool area. Her swimsuit was quite shockingly brief, cut very high around the tops of the legs in the Western manner, and Mars made a mental note to order different, more modest suits for his guard girls.

He nodded to her, said, "Where is Odysseus?"

Arbat surfaced, sped across the diameter of the pool, spewed water all over Mars. Tatiana put her hand over her mouth, tamed her face away, but not before Mars caught a glimpse of her laughing.

"He's in the shower," she said when she had recovered. She brought him a towel. Mars glowered, making quite sure her face was solemn.

"What the hell does he need to shower for?" Mars said tightly. "He's in the goddamned pool all the time, anyway."

"He never goes in the pool without showering first," Tatiana said.

A buzzer sounded, and she went across the room. She opened a translucent glass door, and Mars could hear the shower cut off. Then she reappeared, carrying the Hero in her arms.

Odysseus said nothing until Tatiana had deposited him into the pool. He slid from her arms as if he were a slippery eel. His sleek, hairless body, so pale and unearthly in color, was sheened as if with oil as well as water. Arbat immediately began a series of clicks, to which the ???? responded briefly.

He turned to Mars. "You're early."

"Good morning to you, too," Mars said sourly.

The Hero bobbed in the water, eyed him. "Did you fall into a puddle? I don't believe it's raining.''

"The dolphin-" Out of the corner of his eye, Mars saw Tatiana stifle a laugh. "It was your bloody dolphin's idea of a joke."

"Oh, not a joke," Odysseus said when Arbat's clicks had ceased. "It was her way of saying 'Hello, comrade!' "

"Don't be idiotic. You're trying my patience."

"And you," Odysseus said, "have been trying mine." He smiled. "That makes us even, though not in any way you'd understand. But maybe you still feel at a disadvantage. You're wondering, I'm willing to bet, what it is that Odysseus sees in being in the pool all day. Am I right?" Before Mars had a chance to answer, the Hero had pressed on. "So here's your big opportunity, Comrade Volkov. Take off your clothes and join us. See firsthand what it's all about."

When Mars hesitated, the Hero said, "Still undecided? Let's give you a hand in making up your mind. Arbat?" The dolphin leaped up and at the top of her arc, spat a long stream of water into Mars's face. When she landed, she did so broadside, sending a wave over the side of the pool, inundating Mars.

"Guess you don't have much of a choice now, comrade," Odysseus said, clearly delighted.

.Mars, in an inner rage, resolved to do nothing outwardly to show the Hero he had won this round. But simple human dignity dictated that he say, ''I have no bathing attire.''

"That's a quaint thought," the Hero said. "I don't need 'bathing attire,' why should you?"

Mars could think of no appropriate answer, so instead he stalked across the room to the shower area and disrobed. He wrapped a towel around his middle, reemerged.

"Welcome, Volkov," Odysseus said, "to the isle of Polyphemus, the Cyclops."

Grim-faced, Mars approached the pool and, deliberately ignoring Tatiana, who was already bobbing alongside the Hero, dropped the towel and slid into the water.

Arbat made quite a fuss, clicking and diving. For a moment Mars was uneasy. It suddenly dawned on him that he was in the creature's domain. What would the dolphin choose to do to him? Nothing, it seemed, but click and dive. Arbat never approached him.

"It's easier here in the water," the Hero said in the silence after the dolphin's last outburst.

''What is?" Mars found himself asking.

''Life,'' Odysseus said, staring up at the arched ceiling, alight with reflections from the water. ''I thought that would be self-evident once you were in here." His gaze lowered. His eyes, Mars saw, were the color of gun metal today, and seemingly just as hard. "But perhaps I have overestimated you."

"I hope not, " Mars said.

"We'll see."

Mars said, "I'd like to return to something you spoke about last time. The unspeakable color you saw in ... Menelaus's eyes after he died." Mars had almost forgotten the name the Hero wanted him to use. Menelaus, another of the Greek chieftains who took part in the sack of Troy, and, so Homer would have us believe, Odysseus's alter ego. "The color of God, so you said. I'm interested to learn why you used just that term. Surely there are others that would do as well.''

"Are there?" Odysseus said. "If so, it's clear you wouldn't know them. You're in the dark here, all of you. I'm the only lamp to guide you."

"That's true," Mars conceded. "But God?"

"We're back to Him, I'm afraid," Odysseus said. "And you said you no longer wanted to talk about God."

"I've changed my mind."

"Really? Well, that's mighty adaptable of you. I'm impressed." The Hero closed his eyes for a moment. "All right: God. Do you know that dolphins believe in God? Arbat has quite a cogent concept of Him, much more sensible than the clumsy versions humans have been able to come up with.'' There it was again, not "we" but "humans," as if he was no longer human.

"I chose that phrase 'the color of God' because it was the only one that is appropriate," the Hero said. "We return to Albat, to dolphins in general. Their minds don't work like humans' , Volkov. Arbat's mind works in a kind of wave pattern and, beyond that, spirals. Linear thinking is unknown to her. Interesting, no?" his eyes popped open. "So. God to her is Time. Not day and night, dolphins don't conceive of such categorized sections. Time as in movement-the movement that has extended before life, that extends through life, and will extend after life has been terminated."

Mars tried to absorb this circumlocution. "And what has this to do with the color in Menelaus's dead eyes?"

"They weren't dead," Odysseus said. "Oh, yes, Menelaus himself was an empty husk, embalmed by the winds of space. But his eyes had become a conduit."

"What precisely did you see in them?"

"That," the Hero said, "is the fundamental mistake you've all made. I didn't see something in them, I saw through them. It was as if they had become a telescope of fantastic power. I saw Elsewhere. I saw Elsewhen."

Mars closed his eyes, pressed his fingers against the lids. He was getting a headache. The essential problem was that he couldn't tell whether this discussion was too profound or too laughable for him. Was he confronting a madman or... what? What had happened to the two men of Odin-Galaktika II during the event, when all telemetry and monitoring went down? That was what Mars had been ordered to find out.

Had the Hero in some way been transformed, or was he merely pulling everyone's leg, amusing himself at the state's expense as some kind of sick reparation for his disabilities?

The truly frightening thing. Mars thought now, was that there was at least the possibility that the Hero had been transformed by the event. In that case, what had he become?

"Can you give me even a hint," Mars said at last, "of what 'Elsewhere' and 'Elsewhen' mean?"

Odysseus held out his arm. "Tatiana," he said, "would you come here?"

Tatiana obediently swam in his direction so that she was in front of him. Then the two of them swam forward until Tatiana's body was pressed so firmly against Mars's that he could feel her hard breasts, the slight swell of her stomach, the press of her pubic mound. "What-"

''Bear with me, comrade,'' Odysseus said firmly. "And don't back up; this is all in the name of so-called science.'' He peered into Mars's face. "I want you to imagine that still being you, you feel Tatiana's breasts as if they were your own, you feel her sexual organs as well as yours, swim in the pulse of her blood as well as your own, wander through her thought patterns. Can you do that, Volkov? No, I suppose not." He let Tatiana go. "But that is what I meant when I said 'Elsewhere.' "

'"This means," Mars said slowly, taking it a step at a time, "that in Menelaus's dead eyes you sense the presence of another entity."

"Yes."

"And during the event you merged with the entity."

"Not merged," the Hero said. "It was more as if I was allowed in for just a moment to take a look around."

"I want you to be absolutely clear about this," Mars said. "By 'entity' do I take it you mean an extraterrestrial?"

"I can't think what else it might be."

This is rapidly becoming infuriating. Mars thought. He's so clear about this that I'm beginning to believe his madness. Perhaps I'm coming here too often. Can madness be communicative? No. Impossible. But then he reminded himself that if Odysseus were, indeed, mad, it was an entirely new form of madness, which the scientific team had yet to identify, let alone begin to define.

"All right," Mars said. "Let's leave the issue of 'Elsewhere' for the time being. What about 'Elsewhen'?"

"In an odd way, that's simpler to explain," the Hero said, "because it more directly relates to the color between the stars; the color of God. God is Time, and Time is what I saw. Not the present or the past or even the future.''

''Now you're talking in riddles,'' Mars said testily. ''Einstein proved that-"

"Einstein was wrong," Odysseus said matter-of-factly. "His mind, brilliant though it was, was human, and therefore bound by certain limitations."

"But when it comes to time, there is only past, present, and future."

"Not so, Volkov," the Hero said. "What I saw was all three at once: past, present, and future merged, not three streams, but a continuum. It was like coming to the edge of a dense forest and, beyond, walking down a shoreline to a vast ocean that I never before imagined was there." Now Mars felt a peculiar crawling in his belly, an icy fear gripping his bowels, for as he spoke, the Hero's face had become transfigured.

Odysseus said, "There I was wading in it. In Time. And I came upon Existence. I saw myself existing in past-present-future all at once. They were the same, not different. There was no younger or older. There was no death. Age and death are myths, Volkov, but they 're not the only ones." He reached down, plucked at his sleek, silvery flesh. "The body, too, is a myth. It's what inhibits us, what gives rise to the myths of age and death. Without the body, we can step freely into the ocean of Time."

Mars experienced once again that vertiginous sensation that comes with the proximity to madness, but he still did not know which of them in the pool was mad.

''You don't believe me," Odysseus said. ''I can see it in your face.'' He shrugged. ''Well, you asked for the truth. Don't blame me if you're unable to accept it.'' He gave Mars a pitying look. "However, I can't, in all good conscience, blame you. You weren't there. How could you believe?"

Mars took a long time thinking over what the Hero had said. At last he said, "One thing disturbs me."