Supermind by Randall Garrett and Laurence M. Janifer (chromebook ebook reader txt) 📗

seat. The car took a wide curve and swayed slightly, and Malone found himself nearly in Lou’s lap. The sensation was so pleasant that all conversation was delayed for a couple of seconds, until the car had righted itself.

“So,” Malone went on when he had straightened out, “we decided to save ourselves the expense of a trial.”

“Very natural,” Petkoff said. The slight delay had apparently allowed him to recover his own mental balance. “The capitalist countries think only of money.”

“Sure,” Malone said agreeably. “Well, anyhow, that’s the way it was. There was no point, really, in putting them in prison—what for? What good could it do us?”

“Who knows?” Petkoff said.

“Exactly,” Malone said. “So, since all we wanted to do was get rid of them, and since we had an easy way to do that, why, we took it, that’s all, and shipped them here.”

“I see,” Petkoff said. “And the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is properly grateful.”

“My goodness,” Her Majesty put in, apparently out of an irrepressible sense of fun. “Maybe we’ll get medals.”

“Medals,” Petkoff said sternly, “are not given to capitalist agitators.”

“We are not agitated,” Her Majesty said, and folded her hands in her lap, looking quite satisfied with herself.

Petkoff thought for a second. “And why,” he said, “did you feel that such elaborate precautions were necessary in returning these men to us?”

Malone shrugged. “Well, we couldn’t have them just running around all over the world, could we?” he said. “We felt that here they’d be properly housed and fed, in their own homeland, even if they didn’t get a job.”

“They will be properly taken care of,” Petkoff prophesied darkly.

“Now, wait a minute—” Lou began, and then stopped. “Sorry,” she said.

Malone felt sorry for her, but there was nothing he could say to make things any better. “Exactly,” he told Petkoff with what he hoped was a smile.

“Ah, well,” Petkoff said. “My friend and colleague, we should cease this shoptalk. Shoptalk?”

“Quite correct,” Malone said.

“I have studied English a long time,” Petkoff said. “It is not a logical language.”

“You’re doing very well,” Malone said. Petkoff gave him a military duck of the head.

“I appreciate your compliments,” he said. “But I fear we are boring the ladies.”

The major had timed his speech well. At that moment, the ornate Volga pulled up to a smooth stop before a large, richly decorated building that glowed brightly under the electric lights of a large sign. The sign said something incomprehensible in Cyrillic script. Under it, the building entrance was gilded and carved into fantastic rococo shapes. Malone stared at the sign, and was about to ask a question about it when Petkoff spoke.

“Trotkin’s,” he said. “The finest restaurant in all the world—in Moskva, this is what they say of it.”

“I understand,” Malone said.

“Come,” Petkoff said grandly, and got out of the car. One of the two silent men leaped out and opened the back door, and Her Majesty, Lou and Malone climbed out and stood blinking on the sidewalk under the sign.

Petkoff leaned over and said something to the driver. The second silent man got back into the car, and it drove away down the street, turned a corner and disappeared. The party of four started toward the entrance of the restaurant.

The door swung open before Major Petkoff reached it. A doorman was holding it, and bowing to each of the four as they passed. He was dressed in Victorian livery, complete to knee-breeches and lace, and Malone thought this was rather odd for the classless Russian society. But the doorman was only the opening note of a great symphony.

Inside, there were tables and chairs—or at least, Malone told himself, that’s what he thought they were. They were massive wood affairs, carved into tortuous shapes and gilded or painted in all sorts of colors that glittered madly under the barrage of several electric chandeliers.

The chandeliers hung from a frescoed ceiling, and looked much too heavy. They swayed and tinkled in time to the music that filled the room, but for a second Malone looked past them at the ceiling. It appeared to represent some sort of Russian heaven, at the end of the Five-Year Plan. There were officers and ladies eating grapes, waltzing, strolling on white puffy clouds, singing, drinking, making love. There was an awful lot of activity going on up on the ceiling, and it wasn’t until Malone lowered his gaze that he realized that none of this activity had been exaggerated.

True, there were no white puffy clouds, and he couldn’t immediately locate a bunch of grapes anywhere. But there were the musicians, in the same Victorian outfits as the doorman: three fiddlers, a cellist, and a man who played piano. “Just like in night-clubs in bourgeois Paris,” Petkoff said, following Malone’s gaze with every evidence of pride.

Between the musicians and Malone were a lot of tables and chairs and ancient, proud-looking waiters who appeared to have been hired when Trotkin’s had opened—and that, Malone thought, had been a long, long time ago. He felt like those two ladies, whose names he couldn’t remember, who said they’d slipped back in time. Officers and their ladies, the men in glittering uniforms, the ladies in ball dresses of every imaginable shade, cut, material and degree of exposure, were waltzing around the room looking very polite and old-world. Others were sitting at the tables, where candles fluttered, completely useless in the electric glare. The noise was something terrific, but, somehow, it was all very well-bred.

The headwaiter was suddenly next to them. He hadn’t walked there, at least not noticeably; he appeared to have perfected the old-world manner of the silent servant. Or, of course, Malone thought, the man might be a teleport.

“Ah, Major Petkoff,” he said, in a silken voice. “It is so good to see you again. And your friends?”

“Americans,” Petkoff said. “They have come to see the glorious Soviet Union.”

“Ah,” the headwaiter said. “Your usual table, Major?”

Petkoff nodded. The headwaiter led the party through the dancers, snaking slowly along until they reached a large table near the musicians and at the edge of the dance floor. Her Majesty automatically took the seat nearest the musicians, which she imagined to be the head of the table. Lou sat at her left hand, and Malone at her right, his back against a wall. Petkoff took the foot of the table, called a waiter over, and ordered for the party. He did a massive job of it, with two waiters, at last, taking down what seemed to be his entire memoirs, plus the list of all soldiers in the Red Army below the rank of Grand Exalted Elk, or whatever it might have been. Malone had no idea what the major was ordering, except that it sounded extensive and very, very Russian.

Finally the waiter went on his way. Major Petkoff turned to Malone and smiled. “Naturally,” he said, “we will begin with vodka, nyet?”

Malone considered saying nyet, but he didn’t feel that this was the time or the place. Besides, he told himself grimly, it would be a sad day when a Petkoff could drink a Malone under the table. His proudest heritage from his father was an immense capacity, he told himself. Now was his chance to test it.

“And, naturally, a little caviar to go with it,” Petkoff added.

“Certainly,” Malone said, as if caviar were the most common thing in the world in his usual Washington saloons.

It wasn’t long before the waiter reappeared, bringing four glasses and three bottles of vodka chilled in an ice-bucket, like a bouquet of champagne. Petkoff bowed him out after one bottle had been opened, set the glasses up and began to pour.

“Oh, goodness,” Her Majesty started to say.

“None for me, thanks,” Lou chimed in.

“Oh, yes,” Her Majesty said. “I don’t think I’ll have any either. An old lady has to be very careful of her system, you know.”

“You do not look like an old lady,” Petkoff said gallantly. “Middle-aged, perhaps, to be cruel. But certainly not old. Not over ... oh, perhaps forty.”

Her Majesty smiled politely at him. Malone began to wonder if it had been gallantry, after all. From what he’d seen of the Russian women, it was likely, after all, that Petkoff really thought Her Majesty wasn’t much over forty at that.

“You’re very flattering, Major,” Her Majesty said. “But I assure you that I’m a good deal older than I look.”

Malone tried to tell himself that no one else had noticed the stifled gulp that had followed that remark. It had been his own stifled gulp. And his face, he felt sure, had aged one hundred and twelve years within a second or so. He waited for Her Majesty to tell Major Petkoff just how old she really was....

But she said nothing else. After a second she turned and smiled at Malone.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Oh, you’re quite welcome,” she said.

Petkoff frowned at both of them, shrugged, and readied the bottle. “Well, then,” he said. “It seems as if the drinking will be done by men—and that is right. Vodka is the drink for men.”

He had filled his own glass full of the cold, clear liquid. Now he filled Malone’s. He stood, glass in hand. Malone also climbed to his feet.

“To the continued friendship of our two countries!” Petkoff said. He raised his glass for a second, then downed the contents. Malone followed suit. The vodka burned its merry way into his stomach. They sat.

A waiter arrived with a large platter. “Ah,” Petkoff said, turning. “Try some of this caviar, Mr. Malone. You will find it the finest in the world.”

Malone, somehow, had never managed to develop a taste for caviar. He was willing to admit, if pressed, that this made him an uncultured slob, but caviar always made him think of the joke about the country bumpkin who thought it was marvelous that you could soften up buckshot just by soaking it in fish oil.

Now, though, he felt he had to be polite, and he tried some of the stuff. All things considered, it wasn’t quite as bad as he’d thought it was going to be. And it did make a pretty good chaser for the vodka.

Her Majesty also helped herself to some caviar. “My goodness,” she said. “This reminds me of the old days.”

Malone waited, once again, with bated breath. But, though Her Majesty may have been crazy, she wasn’t stupid. She said nothing more.

Petkoff, meanwhile, refilled the glasses and looked expectantly at Malone. This time it was his turn to propose the toast. He thought for a second, then stood up and raised his glass.

“To the most beautiful woman in all the world,” he said, feeling just a little like a character in War and Peace. “Luba Vasilovna Garbitsch.”

“Ah,” Petkoff said, smiling approvingly. Malone executed a little bow in Lou’s direction and followed Petkoff in downing the drink. Two more glasses of vodka wended their tortuous ways into the interior.

“Tell me, colleague,” Petkoff said as be spooned up some more caviar, “how are things in the United States?”

Malone shot a glance at Her Majesty, but she was concentrating on something else, and her eyes seemed far away. “Oh, all right,” he said at last.

“Of course, you must say so,” Petkoff murmured. “But, as one colleague to another, tell me: how much longer do you think it will be before the proletarian uprising in your country?”

There were a lot of answers to that, Malone told himself. But he chose one without too much difficulty. “Well, that’s hard to judge,” he said. “I’d hate to make any prediction. I don’t have enough information.”

“Not enough information?” Petkoff said. “I don’t understand.”

Malone shrugged. “Since our proletariat,” he said, “have shown no sign of wanting any rebellion at all, how can I predict when they’re going to rebel?”

Petkoff gave him an unbelieving smile. “Well,” he said. “We must have patience, eh, colleague?”

“I guess so,” Malone said, watching Petkoff pour more vodka.

By the time the meal came, Malone was feeling a warm glow in his interior, but no real fogginess. The dance floor had been cleared by this time, and a group of six costumed professionals glided out and took places. The musicians broke out into a thunderous and bumpy piece, and the dancers began some sort of Slavic folk dance that looked like a combination of a kazotska and a shivaree. Malone watched them with interest. They looked like good dancers, but they seemed to be plagued with clumsiness; they were always crashing into one another. On the other hand, Malone thought, maybe it was part of the dance. It was hard to tell.

The dinner was as extensive as anything Malone had ever dreamed of: borshcht, beef Stroganoff, smoked fish, vegetables in gigantic tureens, ices and cheeses and fruits. And always, between the courses, during the courses and at every available moment, there was vodka.

The drinking didn’t bother him too much. But the food was too much. Unbelieving, he watched Petkoff polish off a large