Oberheim (Voices): A Chronicle of War by Christopher Leadem (to read list txt) 📗

say she holds over three hundred vessels—-cruisers and battleships among them. Twice the size of our entire fleet."

"Are the evac ships off yet?"

"Checking. The last one is just clearing now."

"Give them thirty seconds to be off, then put the third robot battery in his face. I'm tired of looking at it."

Masaryk waited, gave the order.

P-B3

"Colonel, it's the Commonwealth commander." Dubcek shook his head.

27) N x P

"Bel-Swiss destroyer group engaging."

"Big surprise. Knock them out with battle cruiser two."

R x N

"Cat's out of the bag now," said Dubcek. "Hayes is making short work of our battleship. Poor bastards."

28) Q x R(ch)

"He'll be coming after us, next."

"I hope we didn't make him mad."

Masaryk smiled. Even as they spoke, the great ship, anticipated by a swarm of torpedo ships and fighter-bombers, began to come forward, gathering speed as if to ram them from the sky.

"Oh, Lord. Here they come."

"Bring us forward! All guns open fire!"

K-N2…..

……………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………….

INTERLUDE VOICES

"Morgan? Do you love me?"

He rolled away from her and onto his back, stared at the ceiling. The blanket was keeping him warm.

"I don't know." He was not sure, only that he had never felt this way before. Maybe once, long ago, as a child.

"Because I love you."

"How can you?" Now that the rush of sexual elation was over he felt wounded, and as hollow and empty as a man can feel.

"I don't know. But I do."

He took her hand and held it, against his leg. The motion was mechanical, without feeling.

"You sure it isn't something Freudian?"

"Don't be stupid, Morgan."

"I'm sorry. He looked straight at the nothing. But something stirred inside him. "I care for you very much."

She studied him in the half-light.

"Are those your own words?"

"No. I think Lawrence said them." Nothing. "You see what a waste I am."

"No. I don't think so. But I wish you would kiss me."

He rolled back toward her, felt her long and beautiful beside him. He began to kiss her, felt something warm at the corner of his eye.

"Why do you have to go? Haven't you done enough already?"

"Apparently not."

"Oh, of course. The Belgians and Swiss, and now the Commonwealth.
That was your fault, too."

"You don't understand, Elonna."

"What am I supposed to understand? That your father was a racist bastard who didn't love you, or any one or anything else? That you don't know how to deal with your guilt? God damn it! Are you going to sacrifice everything we've found, just to satisfy your pride?"

He tried to glare at her, turned away and faced the window. "I'm so glad I could trust you."

"Don't you say that to me! Don't you dare pretend that you don't care about me. You didn't bring Johnny and I here just to satisfy your conscience and have an exotic fuck." He was silent.

"What do you want from me?"

"I want you to stop KILLING yourself." The emotions of a lifetime seemed to be trying to push their way through her throat, the back of her eyes. "DAMN you. Aren't there enough things out there to destroy us….. I want you to find another WAY to fight them." As he weakened she started to go to him, checked herself.

"Listen to me, Morgan. One more raid isn't going to make a difference in this war, one way or another. It's too big for that now. But if you're killed it will mean everything to you….. And to me."

They stood in silence.

*

Again they stood within their chambers beneath the transparent dome on the planet Alba: early night. Morgan was preparing to leave.

"Please don't go." The tears flowed freely down her face. "I could never forgive you." The boy, standing by her side, looked at him with an angry, puzzled expression.

He started for the doorway. Reaching it he stopped, and stood perfectly still. As the battle raged inside him.

"Morgan, please." He turned to face her. She was love and loss personified.

His shoulders went limp, and the rifle slid halfway down his arm. He had never felt so empty. Twenty seconds.

He lifted the strap of the rifle, leaned the weapon against the corner by the door. He walked past them and into the bedroom.

Un-shouldering his pack as they followed him in, he unfastened the flaps at the top and took something out of it. Steel hoops on a black chain shone silver. The man placed one cuff around his wrist, hooked the other to the metal bedpost. He took a set of keys from his pocket. . .and threw them across the room.

He slid to the floor, covered his face with his arm.

"Morgan," she said quietly. "What are you doing?"

"I love you." His sobs were audible.

……………………………………………………………… ……………………..

A WALK THROUGH THE NIGHT

THERE'S NO WAY YOU COULD POSSIBLY DESCRIBE THIS. One foot after the other. Rock walls rising black on either side, a chasm of stars. The road like a gray snake winding through cold air. Night.

WHEN YOU'RE READING A BOOK….. YOU'RE ALWAYS SAFE INSIDE YOUR MIND. THERE ARE WALLS AND WARMTH AROUND YOU. THERE'S NO WAY YOU CAN FEEL EXPOSED, LIKE THIS. The sound of shoes on pavement. A chill sweat. THIS WEAKNESS. IT PUTS YOU IN A DIFFERENT WORLD, MAKES YOUR MIND FEEL…..STRETCHED. This weakness. It puts you in a different world, makes your mind feel. . . stretched. Convulsed stride and a kind of shudder. DAMN.

WHY AM I ALWAYS EXPOSED LIKE THIS? ALL THOSE YEARS, DON'T THEY MEAN
ANYTHING? Hunger and cold. MAYBE I COULD WRITE A STORY….. WOULD
THAT MAKE IT ANY BETTER? A sound to my right. The same fear again.

YOU CAN'T KNOW UNTIL YOU'VE FELT THESE THINGS. I ALWAYS THOUGHT I WAS GOING SOMEWHERE. NOWHERE BUT THIS ROAD. Another shudder from the cold. Chills again. DAMN IT. DAMN IT!

"Save your strength."

I'VE STILL GOT A LONG WAY TO GO.

……………………………………………………………… ……………….

KGB

Images sifted through his subconscious as he slept, and his mind put a story to them.

*

A villa just outside Berlin, in the narrow strip of West Germany surrounded by the communist East. A beautiful dark-eyed Russian woman, a defector, lived here beneath the shelter of trees.

She was not alone here. Other defectors. . .no, patriots. Bulgarians, Poles and others, who loathed their totalitarian masters and the brutality, without freedom, under which their peoples were forced to live, and work away their lives, like ants. Former high-ranking members of the government, military, and intelligence branches of the Eastern bloc and the Soviet Union. KGB. Here they lived in close communion, despite the danger, working sometimes with the West, sometimes without it, according to their skills, to undermine the iron grip of the communist leadership, to encourage and protect dissidents, and to publish their work both home and abroad. As well as other goals that were more immediately humane.

It was not a place loved by the Kremlin or the East German puppets, the loyal KGB. Many times assassins, head hunters had been sent, either to infiltrate or destroy the traitorous band. But so far as could be told, under the watchful and knowing eyes of Sonya Semenov, herself a former agent, none had yet succeeded their aim. And those who had tried, the captured, sure of death, had not been executed, or even turned over to the west. Instead they were sent back unharmed, with no greater injury than the knowledge that a hated sect had shown them mercy, and (to some) disquieting questions about their own loyalty and courage.

For mistress Semenov, the former operative, used methods of testing that were quite unique. Those who arrived at the Villa under pretense of defection, always suspect, were kept alone in a basement cell, of drab cement, for two days and nights without food or water. Their only contact with the world outside was a tiny, barred window that looked out on a beautiful garden, filled with birds. This window was kept shuttered, blocking out all light and sound, but for five minute periods twice daily. At all other times the cell was dark, cool and silent. There was no bed, nor any comfort to be found.

On the third day a single cup of water was brought, and the steel shutters remained closed. At intervals, moving pictures were projected from a square opening onto the opposing wall of gray: scenes from the Holocaust, the American bombing of Hiroshima, the torture and later execution of a 'dissident' during the Stalin era. Grim portraits with no clear political message or theme, except that of human suffering. Always suffering.

After two more days of this an evening meal was brought, along with water and wine, by one of the women (or men) of the allegiance. A comfortable bed was made of a mattress against the hard floor. The window was opened and she (or he), the deliverer, remained for the night: kissing, massaging aching limbs, making love. The entire ritual was then repeated. Afterwards, the pledge was sent to a small cabin in the woods, given food, drink and writing materials, and told to return in three weeks time.

The final test, after the writing had been studied by. . .was making love to Sonya Semenov. . .the group….. Making love. . .and love. . . kissing, massaging….. Sonya Semenov…..

"Sonya."

The man stirred, but did not wake, in his sleep. The sensations, physical, of his love seemed to fade. They faded. And as he sank back the dream began again, at the beginning. But this time he was Sonya Semenov, a man, and a dark-haired Hungarian woman had come to them, escaped from the life of concubine to a ranking member of the Presidium, as she explained to the others. Wearing a deep melancholy, whose depth was still greater for the pain in her large eyes, which could hide nothing of what she felt, whom he trusted instantly, or would have, except that he was Sonya Semenov, and life had taught him not to trust.

She was put to the test, and every minute he hovered like an angel above her, seeing her pain, in the merciless concrete room, her great and caring heart that had been so maimed, and always wanting her, wanting to disband, destroy the test, because she was so beautiful and incapable of anything but truth. Wanting her, and loving her more and more. And when she went into the woods his spirit followed her, and the poetry she wrote, which spoke of suffering, the suffering of others, he felt because of her. And he loved her still more and she was everything that he had never found after an eternity. And after an eternity she returned from those woods, made magic by her presence, whose green leaves lifted for her in the wind and turned their light undersides like Spring, the dark green returning like deepest summer as she came back to them. The Villa. And those who questioned her he wanted to kill but mostly only wanted her and needed to be with her. Wanting her, and the time of their joining drew near and he knew she would make love to her, Sonya, and he prayed in his sleep that the dream would not fade.

And at the last she came to him. In the beautiful dying light of the day, she lifted away her garment and stood shimmering by the open door of the balcony, as the wind kissed her hair and rustled the leaves in the high branches and she trembled slightly. And he