Atomsk: A Novel of Suspense

XIV. THE REVOLT OF THE MATERIAL

"Sasha, comrade," said Major Dugan, "just Sasha, splicing another damned wire."

"Sasha who?"

"Shestov, good comrade Red Army man! Just hold your little gun until I get this wire spliced."

The man below became impatient. Dugan did not wish to have to go down and fight. It was much too much trouble. If he used the gun he would create a hullabaloo, which he had managed to avoid thus far in his visit to Atomsk; if he killed with his hands, it would use up too much of his strength, overcoming a man with a rifle. Anyhow, he did not want to kill the man: what did he have against that soldier? The fellow's voice sounded reasonable.

Dugan made little rustling sounds. He swept a branch back and forth on the ground.

The soldier was intelligent and skeptical. He called: "You Shestov or whatever you say you are, come right down here and show your identification papers." He added doubtfully, "Or I'll shoot."

"Wait a minute, comrade."

Dugan began creeping away, farther up the hill. The soldier called after him, "Stop creeping off. Come down here!"

"I'm following the wire, comrade, I have to follow the wire. Come along if you wish, but I can't let this wire go, now that I've found it."

The soldier did not seem to want to come. Dugan began to think that the hill must have something pretty interesting on top of it, inside of it, or on the other side, if a soldier sounded so nervous about climbing up the slope. Fishing for information, he called down to the soldier:

"Come on up here, Red Army man. You can lend me a hand."

Sure enough, the soldier refused. "I can't. I'm on duty. You come down here and show your pass. You've got to show your pass when challenged."

"Don't I know it!" laughed Dugan. "I've had more passes in my time than you will ever see, Red Army man. Well, if you can't help me, save me a climb by going around to the other side and meeting me there. Then I'll show you passes that will make your eyes pop out."

"You can't go over there," the soldier yelled.

"Why not?" called Dugan, still climbing farther away.

"You have to have a Series Three Special Pass." The soldier's voice began to sound pretty far away.

Dugan stopped, in order to yell back, "I've got a Series Three Special Pass."

"Do you, really, comrade?" shouted the soldier. "What's the number on it?"

Dugan did not dare improvise a number, so he shouted back the suggestion that the soldier do something highly indelicate with the number. The soldier was enchanted by this rugged humor, and not at all offended by the gross language. But he persisted:

"Give me your name, then, comrade, and I'll write it down. You can't go over the hill to the Materials area without a Series Three pass. It's your tough luck if you haven't got one."

"Why can't I?" shouted Dugan.

"Because the Materials would see you and start a riot."

Hm, thought Dugan to himself. To the soldier he shouted, "I'd come down and show you my papers, comrade Red Army man, but if I put this wire down now, it will be sure to start a big bright forest fire. You wouldn't want to be responsible for that, would you?"

"Your name—!" shouted the soldier.

"Sasha — that's short for Aleksandr — Alesandr Aleksandrovich — my old man had the same name, see?"

"Of course," yelled the soldier, "how else would you get the name?" Several lurid adjectives preceded the noun name.

"Don't abuse my name, comrade," yelled Dugan, "or I'll drop this wire and start a fire and tell everybody you made me do it."

"All right," said the soldier, all tired out, "will your Blue-nosed Lordship please tell me your Blue-nosed Lordship's famous and commendable name?"

They both laughed heartily at this urbane wit and then Dugan carefully spelled the name Shestov, repeating it all very seriously at the end.

"My name," said Major Dugan distinctly, "is Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Shestov and I am a Senior Electrician and an Authorized Emergency Lineman, Senior Class. Got it?"

"Got it!" said the soldier.

Dugan went on over the top of the hill. The woods were thick, with the branches almost always interlacing, but, presumably in order to forestall the fire hazard, the Russians had cleared out most of the underbrush. The result was that the going was very easy, with the floor of pine needles underneath.

The hill was only sixty or seventy meters high. Dugan soon reached the crest and started downward. He saw no glow of lights, no sign of walks — nothing but the curious dead blackness of the night, the curious lifeless quiet of the forest. Even wild animals must have been excluded. He hurried a little.

Hurrying was a mistake.

His foot slipped, he fell on his back, and the next thing he knew, he was chuting-the-chute. He had slipped into a narrow gully and was tobogganing downward on pine needles. If he had known where he was going, it would have been pleasant, but Dugan did not like the idea of being pitched into an electrified fence or a lake of radioactive water. Neither awaited him at the bottom. The floor of the gully tipped steeply. Dugan made a last wild, useless grab for a bush to arrest his fall. He missed and landed jarringly on his feet.

He was on a walk. Next to him an astounded soldier, lighted by the dim light from a tunnel entrance, stared at him open-mouthed.

"Where did you come from?" asked the soldier.

"None of your damned business," snapped Dugan, catching his breath. "Give me your name and rank."

"Private Lizunov, Special Sentry, Materials Section."

"Are you an authorized messenger?" asked Dugan sharply.

"I don't know — Captain," said the soldier. "Show me your identification," snarled Dugan.

With a practiced gesture, the soldier reached into his pocket and pulled out a sheaf of assorted cards and tickets. He started to fumble through them, peering at them in the dim light. Dugan authoritatively took them out of the man's hand. Inner Camp. Materials Section. Main Gate. Inner Gate. Rail Gate. Atomsk Motorcycle Permit. Food card. What? thought Dugan, what? what? what? Motorcycle permit? A big golden door began to open in Dugan's imagination. He allowed himself a silent Asiatic chuckle. He wished that his old wartime friends on the Imperial Japanese General Staff could see this!

He handed the cards back to the man. The soldier was about two inches shorter than he, but on a motorcycle it would not make much difference.

Dugan waved one of the Cossack's cards in a peculiar palming gesture and said to the soldier in a nasty tone of voice, "See this?"

The soldier, just as credulous as his colleague on the other side of the hill, did not see it. But he said he did.

"Fine. Know what it means?"

"No, Captain."

"Call me Colonel, comrade," said Dugan sharply.

"No, polkovnik, I don't know what that means."

"Special Section. Special Branch of the Special Section," hissed Dugan.

"Yes, polkovnik."

"I'm going to put on a drill. Can you bring your motorcycle here?"

"But—"

"Shut up!" snarled Dugan. "I'll give you a written order later. You're relieved from sentry duty this instant. You're transferred to the Special Section. Tell no one till the drill is over. Can you bring your motorcycle here?"

"If the Colonel does not mind, it's not far away."

Dugan snarled ferociously. He had learned good snarling while living in Japan. It was enough to make any enlisted man jump in his boots. "You bring it here. Instantaneously!"

The soldier saluted and hurried away.

Dugan rushed into the tunnel. There was a blue light twenty feet in. Unlike the tunnels on the other side of the hill, this one had a right angle in it. When Dugan came to the turn, he saw a soldier standing by a red light farther in. Soldier and the door beside him were both covered by an infernal red glow. They looked like a minor scene from hell.

This soldier was tough. When Dugan approached, he pointed the machine pistol at Dugan's abdomen first and asked questions second. "Password!" he snapped.

"Can you control these men?"

"Password!" said the soldier doggedly.

Dugan pretended to be tremendously excited. "Radioactive water! It's flooding. It kills when it touches. Get yourself and these men out of here. Line them up in the woods. Do anything you please. But if you lose a single one, you'll be shot for it. How many have you got here?"

"Twenty-three. But I can't move without orders. Won't you give me orders? The password, please."

Dugan told him what he could do with the password. "My name is Ivanov," said Dugan, "and I am a Military Atomic Technician, not a fool officer. Suit yourself. I'm spreading the warning." Dugan ran out of the tunnel, stamping his feet loudly. Once outside, he crept back in. He had seen that the outside sentry was not yet back with the motorcycle.

There was a sound of bellowing from within the tunnel. The inside sentry was waking up the prisoners. Dugan wondered who they might be. Polish intellectuals? Russian Communists who had violated the Party line? Italian or German prisoners of war? Or just miscellaneous surplus personnel enticed out of the labor camps by a false gamble for life and freedom?

The sentry came around the corner, walking backward, keeping his machine pistol trained on the prisoners who followed him. Most of them were in their underwear. A few had gotten their boots and pants on. Dugan could not tell, in the. dim light, who they were.

He had to take a chance, if he was going to create the diversion which would give him a real opportunity to escape.

"Ivanov, Special Technician," he called to the prisoners. "Atomsk is being flooded with poison radioactives. The technicians have taken over. Get up into the hills. Climb trees. But stay high. We'll rescue you later. Run for it!"

The open, unguarded tunnel mouth was enough for most of the men. The inside sentry took two seconds to understand the frightful meaning of "Ivanov's" words. At that he was one and a half seconds too late. Dugan chopped him down with a blocking blow to the side of the neck and then kicked him in the head to make sure he stayed asleep for a while.

At the tunnel mouth the last of the prisoners was scrambling out and up into the night when the outside sentry arrived with a motorcycle.

The motorcyclist stared.

Dugan grinned cheerfully. "A small sample of prisoners has been let loose to create the simulated conditions of an inside mutiny. Now take me to the nearest Red Army post outside Atomsk, so I can simulate conditions of an outside attack. Exciting, isn't it, comrade?"

"Yes, Colonel," said the soldier, looking scared.

"Let's leave ordinary civilians out of it," said Dugan. "Which is the nearest regular Red Army post?"

"Not your own Special Troops, Colonel?"

"Hell, no," snarled Dugan, affable no more. "You blockhead, do you think I would use half-wits like you if I weren't simulating emergency conditions?"

The soldier was not good at talking, but he was miraculous on a motorcycle. He said the one word, "Arkhipovka," and let Dugan get on the rear saddle. Then he took off.

Dugan could not see where they were going. Neither, so far as Dugan could tell, did the soldier. That didn't slow the cyclist any. They idled along a level walk for several hundred yards. The cyclist had cut his muffler out so that the motor made plenty of noise and Dugan had the impression that the sentries and passersby, drilled in this routine, flattened themselves against the hillside when they heard the motorcycle approaching. Even at that, it was a pure miracle.

What followed was worse. The soldier said, "Hold tight, Colonel."

Dugan did. He needed no prompting. The cycle almost stopped, turned sharply, and then roared.

So far as Dugan could tell, they had gone off a precipice. Nothing like this had happened to him since he had tried to land a burning glider over Port Swettenham in 1938. It was the original ancestor of all roller coasters, made out of a Siberian hill. Dugan kept his eyes opened, with great effort, and saw that the driver was aiming his machine at two lights. They seemed to be in boxes, since they were curiously framed. While he watched, one light rushed madly up toward them, increased in size enormously, and then vanished. The cycle, ending the descent, started uphill without slackening its pace. Dugan felt his weight increase to about three gravities.

The other light was at a hillcrest. They had swooped down to the valley floor and up to the opposing hill — a mile and a half or two miles — on an arrow-straight paved path through the forest.

"Main Gate," said the driver, stopping.

Two men stepped forward. Dugan flashed the Cossack's card, shouting, "The Material is loose. Extraordinary Alert. Let no one through without a triple check of credentials. I'm Special Section alert officer. Notify the road ahead. Put the same thing on. Make a note of the time I pass. I'll get help back to you. They have probably cut the main telephone wires."

The cyclist, the duty officer, and the sentry all hesitated. A lurid Russian oath from Dugan scattered them about their tasks. The cycle roared on.

At the farther gates, men were waiting with flashlights. When they saw the cycle coming they stepped aside and the cyclist said importantly, "We phoned ahead. Ivanov, Special Section officer. Shut the gate tight after us."

Then they roared on.

One nice thing about this path, said Dugan to himself, is the fact that nothing but another motorcycle would overtake us. You couldn't run a car on this.

The gray dawn was showing when they came at last to an ordinary Siberian dirt road.

Dugan tugged the motorcyclist's pistol out of its holster. The man felt the pull and slowed his machine. "Comrade Colonel…" he queried. The real note of protest had not yet come into his voice.

"My name," said Dugan, "is none of your business. This is a simulated security violation, and I am taking care that it is good. How far is it to the next sentry post?"

"Less than a kilometer."

"Can you get me past?"

"Of course, Comrade Colonel—"

Dugan stopped him. "I mean, without a pass."

The man stopped his machine. He looked very unhappy. Dugan had firm possession of two guns, one in his blouse, one in his hand. Dugan did not even let the man get down from the saddle. The soldier tried to look around at him, but Dugan commanded:

"Eyes front!"

The soldier swung his face back to the forward position. "I can't do it, Comrade Colonel. They will shoot."

"Sorry, comrade," said Dugan grimly. "I'm under orders from the N.K.A.R. to make this an effective violation. To test our security all the way up. If you don't get through, I'll shoot you."

The man started to argue, but Dugan repeated his threat and the man saw that he meant it. He was one of the new Communist-reared generation trained in absolute obedience.

Dolefully he pleaded, "Our only chance, Colonel, is to go through fast. But they might hit me. Or you."

"Don't you worry about me," said Dugan. "I'm taking the same chances that you are."

This gave the cyclist heart. Dugan felt misgivings when he deduced that the man did not feel he had driven fast yet. He wished he were not so tired. If he had the strength, he could think of something better. When there was only one chance, that one was the chance to take.

The cyclist started up his machine. It raced forward with terrific acceleration. Dugan held tight. The road reeled in front of him. As they swung he saw the sentries ahead of him. They stood in the road, blocking it. The driver wobbled his machine.

They plowed into the men.

Dugan felt the motorcycle dropping sidewise. He strained with his entire will to force it back to balance. Forty or fifty feet past the sentries it slewed sidewise. Dugan received a terrific blow on the left shoulder. He absorbed as much of it as he could, and fire ran through his side and arm.

He blacked out momentarily — five seconds, a minute, he could not tell. When he opened his eyes he saw a sentry approaching him. The body of the motorcyclist was halfway over Dugan's. The approaching sentry had his gun ready. Dugan raised his pistol with a final effort of will.

His bullet and the rifle shot seemed to blaze out at the same precise instant. Dugan felt the body over his jump at the impact. The motorcyclist's blood covered them both. But the approaching soldier was not to be seen. And the second sentry?

Dugan dragged himself to his feet.

The nearer sentry was lying on his face. Dugan walked over to him, saw the man move, fired a bullet directly into him. If the second sentry had been standing there with a rifle, Dugan would not have been able to account for him. But the second sentry was not there.

Dugan limped back to the sentry box. The other man was there on the ground, groaning. Dugan, who felt bad about the two men in the road behind him, tapped this one on the head and silenced him,

He got back to the motorcycle. It took him long, long minutes to right the machine. He tried the controls half a dozen different ways before he saw the obvious ignition switch. Turning it on, he kicked the motor into action.

It could not go fast. The front fork seemed out of line, and the right handlebar was twisted. But even at slow speed it took him a kilometer or two beyond the post.

The road here ran along the edge of a wooded gorge. Taking his one last chance, Dugan turned the machine over the lip of the cliff and ran it down a steep incline which seemed to smooth out at the bottom.

He expected to crash but he did not. He slewed into heavy bushes and ended up with a jar. The machine had jammed itself and him into a very heavy fir tree. Dugan looked around to see if he could be seen from the road. He simply could not tell. He screwed up his eyelids, trying to tighten them so that he could see better. That effort was his last. He fainted and fell from the machine.

When he awakened, an undetermined time later, the day had become bright. He woke with fire burning against his naked flesh, tearing his side with its sharp flames. Full consciousness brought him the surprise that the fire was internal — the burning of his nerves. At the threshold of consciousness he had believed it real.

He got on hands and knees and unscrewed the canteen he had brought from Atomsk. Water helped wake him.

He rose to his feet.

The road was farther away and higher up than he dared hope. He wondered that he had gotten through the descent down the clifflike slope. What had looked like an incline from above looked like a perpendicular from below.

He touched his face. It felt swollen. Blood, probably his own, was on it. If Sarah could see him now … what would she give for his chances?

There was nothing to do but to fight. First, he had to think of hiding the machine. And then, sleep. And sleep again. Like an animal. That was the first price of staying alive.