“Then take them with you,” she insisted. “What if your old chip fails? One whiff of seawater and it could rust up like—”
“Keishi,” I said. “You’re being ridiculous.”
She lowered her eyes, but not before I saw her face cloud. Well, love was impatient. Or so I told myself, not really knowing whether it was or not. “I suppose you’re right,” she said forlornly. Then she suddenly brightened. “Say, why don’t you come to Arkhangelsk early? There’s a train at 9:15.”
“I guess I could. There’s not much left for me to do here. Any special reason?”
“Apart from the obvious? I’m trying to sniff out that whale. If I do, maybe we can crash Voskresenye’s party a little early and get this story put together right.”
I shook my head in amazement. “How did I ever get along without you? Here I’ve practically forgotten the whole story, and you’re working harder than ever.”
She inclined her head, obviously pleased.
“Where should I meet you, then?”
She hesitated for what was, to a megascops, quite a long time. At last she said: “When you get to the trainport I’ll be there.”
“You mean in person?”
“… Yes.”
“Well, it will be nice to meet you, Keishi Mirabara.”
“You know,” she said carefully, “I don’t look exactly like my Net image.”
“Who does?” I said, laughing. Then I saw how nervous she was, so I said, “I still don’t know exactly how I feel about you, but I doubt it would make any difference if you weighed a hundred kilograms.”
She looked up sharply, then relaxed and smiled. “I may just hold you to that.”
“Well, I’ll find out in Arkhangelsk.”
Her face grew wistful again. “Yes, you will…. Maya, I love you.” She smiled, rather weakly, and held up a hand. “No, don’t answer. I know you can’t yet.” Her image vanished.
I whispered to the blank monitor: “I hope I love you too.”
I stood there thinking until the phone reverted to its clock display, then jumped: it was almost 8:30. Barely time to put on my coat, shrink-seal my sockets, wrap a plastic babushka around my head, and run to the trainport. I plunged out into the rain, feeling, reckless and rakish. A dangerous joy was gathering in my heart: the kind of joy that makes you do things you remember all your life, not necessarily with fondness. I stepped right into the braided ripples in the gutter, and crossed the street in defiance of all laws of traffic.
The quickest route was through the park. I started to walk around to the gate. But on my way, I noticed a gap in the hedge that children squeeze through when, to their childish impatience, the gate seems too far. On impulse I ducked into it, emerging on the other side with leaves and twigs clinging to my coat. Well, let them cling. I would not bother to brush them away.
The rain pounded against my head, and the sky was a charred log. It was almost perfect; but it needed music. I switched on Audio Classical Seven—picking the number for luck. White letters, projected onto the saturated grass, informed me that I was hearing Mozart’s Requiem. Then the lyrics began to scroll through my peripheral vision. A sing-along? Well, all right, I’m no soprano but I can follow the bouncing ball. I sang loudly and tunelessly, the Net helping me to understand the Latin. Dies irae, dies illa, solvet saeclum in favilla: a day of wrath, that day, it will blow the world to smithereens—or words to that effect. But not just yet, please; I have ten years coming; do it then.
Then I thought of Keishi’s passphrase, and gave it to the Net to translate. “All you people who pass on the street…” Yes. Yes, that was just how I felt.
As I racewalked my way through the park, I came upon two women ducking under a single umbrella. Their heads were almost touching, and at my approach they looked up with, it seemed to me, guilt: caught in the act, by a camera, no less.
“Relax for gods’ sake!” I called out to them. “Your tribe!” And I laughed as I passed, seeing myself through their eyes: a singing missile, if you could call it singing, that had crashed past and shouted nonsense at them. I knew they were only sharing an umbrella, not kissing as it had seemed. But it was lovely to pretend.
Galuboy—the word came to me suddenly, out of the undiscovered country the encyclopedia suppressed. “Light blue.” How odd; how inappropriate. Like kit, whale, which sounds like a chick’s peeping. But galuboy’s for men; what is it called in women? Well, words would come later. For now, this feeling. My head tingled with the memories it kept in trust, as though it couldn’t hold them back much longer. The Requiem crashed in my head like the stamping of a great beast. Of course, an elephant. Oh, I had been awful to her! Hooks, indeed. But even those remembered insults would be cherished in the end.
I turned around and walked backward a few steps in order to sing another verse to the umbrella women, and as I spun back again, my coat fell open. I had lost the belt somewhere, probably in the hedge. There was no time to retrieve it, so I held the coat shut by crossing my arms and gripping each epaulette in the opposite hand. Just you give me a crook and flail, and I’ll adorn you a sarcophagus, or lie on an African moistdisk in hologram gold.
The trail started to meander unproductively, so I splashed onto the grass, refusing to divert my path even for the deepest puddles. And so, butchering the Tuba mirum, I climbed and crested a low hill, and saw a man in a black suit leaning against a tree ahead of me. I stopped singing, reduced my pace, and changed course slightly to avoid him. I had almost passed him, and was half-convinced my fears were wrong, when he called out, “Do you know the time, tavarishcha?”
“Ask the Net!” I shouted, and looked back over my shoulder at him. He had turned his head, showing me a black slab of moist-ware set flush with his skull, like those sunken tombstones you can mow right over.
“Please put your hands in the air where they are clearly visible,” the Postcop called out.
I did.
“Thank you, tavarishcha. Now please reach down very slowly and remove first your Net chip, then all other enhancements except for your encyclopedia.”
Again I complied, fumbling with the babushka. Yes, quite an enhancement, that encyclopedia.
“You see it is much better to cooperate. Now, if you would, please place your hands behind your head and lie on the ground with your face down.”
I dropped to my knees and then, because I couldn’t use my hands to catch myself, fell forward awkwardly onto the wet grass. My face was in a puddle, so I had to close my eyes and hold my breath. For a moment no one came, and I vainly hoped that I would be allowed to lie there in the grass until the rain dissolved me. It was a hard, sharp rain that would leave no skeleton.
Then my arms were grasped and cuffed, and two sets of hands gently lifted me to my feet. My face and clothes were covered with mud, and I noticed that the Postcops that were flanking me wore rubber gloves.
As we walked to the van I began to think again, a little, and realized that they would not have known where to ambush me unless they had been listening in on my conversation with Keishi. In that case, they must know everything. The rain would not dissolve me—in fact, I realized as they loaded me into the back of the windowless van, I might never see rain again; and I turned to see the sky one last time, only to have my head pushed firmly down.
As the van drove through the streets of Leningrad, the rain besieged it, crashing against the metal, clawing the roof with its nails, howling as a wolf howls when torn from her pups or her prey. It could not get to me. No, it would not be the rain. But I had gotten what I’d wished for. I was dead.