The Space Conquerors’ Monument towered over Moscow that day, as it always did. It went straight through the web of wires stretching from Ostankino Tower and far beyond, up past the clouds.
The towering monument, more than a hundred meters tall and describing a great arc toward the heavens, was proof that mankind had in fact conquered space. Standing at the base of this monument to our glorious motherland’s triumph were statues of our heroes, the cosmonauts. With them were Tsiolkovsky, the father of rocketry; Gagarin, the first man in space; and Tereshkova, Chaika <seagull>.
And then there was the moon man, Vladimir Komarov.
So many men and women who had pitted themselves against the challenge of the cosmos after those first bold steps taken by the canine Laika.
Sputnik, Zond VIII—even the passage of two hundred years couldn’t dull the shine of these exemplars of human effort. So what if we hadn’t taken a single step beyond those first footprints on the moon? The value of those steps could never be denied.
It simply meant that after that first giant leap for mankind, no one had ever gone up to break the record.
Thus our effort was rewarded
We overcame the infinite blackness and the terror
Forging wings of flame and fire
We bring forth the age of the motherland and of the people!
✦ ✦ ✦
I couldn’t understand difficult stuff, so I didn’t really get what the poem inscribed on the monument meant.
What I understood was that these folks were outstanding. The men, the women, the dogs: They’d done real work.
Whereas I was crawling along Peace Street that day under their watchful gaze.
It was very rare for our glorious motherland to experience one of those awful capitalist-society phenomena known as a traffic jam—but today was that rare day.
The street was crammed with vehicles, mostly mass-produced cars—Moskvitches, Zhigulis, and Pobedas. Horns honked, and people shouted insults at one another. Then there were the gunshots and explosions.
“Davai!”
“Fuck off, sobaka!”
That was the mafia guys shouting at each other and brandishing their Kalashnikovs. Somebody threw a hand grenade. Was this a brawl, or war? The soldiers were having a firefight, but it wasn’t clear why.
Anyone who got sucked into this was going to pay for it. I saw a bunch of people yelling despite the fact that they didn’t really understand what was going on. Others were running away as fast as they could—they weren’t cowards; they were the smart ones.
“Stoi <Stop>! Stoi! I said stoi tupoi <idiot>!” The militsiya on patrol were adding to the cacophony, but their efforts weren’t doing much. Or maybe it was more accurate to say they didn’t want to do more than shout—they didn’t get paid enough to get involved in this.
Not like I was in for a rich payday, myself.
But the pay was enough to get me to risk my life.
I saw a seamless, near-futuristic limousine, the VAZ-X, belching orange flames and black smoke. No one seemed to have time to care about it. Well, neither did I. Every second counted.
I snorted, pushing my way through the crowd as I ran down the street.
The situation was what it was. I could carry my PPSh in full view, and people would hardly notice.
The rest was up to my enemies. I reviewed the information I had pounded into my brain, my lip curling at the irony.
—Mne povezlo. If it’s just MI6, I might have a chance.
What a thing to think. I might have a chance if it was just MI6?
“I’m not Ilya Murometz!” I groused as I ran. I thought my heart might burst, but so what? I felt a twinge of regret that I hadn’t gone cyborg at all.
Let me die—I’d keep running.
Stasia’s life hung in the balance.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Mmm… Ooh! Ah… Ahhh! Mmmn… Nnngh…!”
Stasia stretched gently, her eyes damp, her breath coming in pleasant little gasps. I had my arms around her narrow hips, supporting her light body, her breasts pressed against my chest. It was the best job in the world.
“Ooh, ah…! Ah! Daaa…nyaaa…?”
She grabbed my body armor to support herself and looked up at me gently. Maybe she was running out of steam? Her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes were heavy lidded with pleasure. A small silver thread hung from her lips, and anyone in the world would want to kiss her again.
But I couldn’t do that. Time was limitless, but it was always in short supply. My Sturmanskie kept perfect time—it was still the same watch that had ticked down Gagarin’s 108 minutes.
I summoned all my wits and pulled myself off of Stasia as carefully as if she were made of glass. She pressed up against me, sorry to let me go, but I was at my limit, too.
“I think that’s it for today,” I said.
“Yes,” she said with a gentle smile. “Try to control yourself, okay, Danya?”
Don’t go to any other girl’s place. Stasia left off this last part—or maybe it was just a convenient fantasy in my head. Whatever; that was fine, too. It made me feel better just to imagine she thought of me that way.
I ran a heavily gloved hand through her silver hair, and she smiled like a cat.
“I’ll come again,” I said.
“Yes. I’ll be waiting.” She smiled again.
Stasia and I pressed our lips to each other’s cheeks one last time, then I left her room behind.
I glanced back to see Stasia’s hand brushing her hips. “Poka-poka.”
She made it awfully, awfully hard for me to suppress my smile.
As always, I got in the elevator with the slatted door and gave it its kopecks.
Moving silently enough to justify the price, the elevator carried me to the ground floor.
What happened next was, well, also the same as always.
“You’re finally down, Danila Kragin.”
There was Madam Pisken, her brow arched in annoyance, accosting me as aggressively as ever.
I wasn’t going to let her get the better of me, though. I’d faced down GRU and the bratniye, after all.
With studied deliberation, I glanced at the watch on my wrist. “I didn’t think I was up there that long. Wonder if my watch is running slow.”
“I heard how you hurt your foot. Stupid thing to do.”
Sarcasm didn’t work on the madam. She fixed me with a stare like a cat or a hawk eyeing its prey.
I found myself flinching every time she did that. Was that what they call discipline, or was it an instinctive reflex? I wondered, thinking vacantly of someone Mariya had told me about—a guy named Ivan Pavlov and his dogs.
“God loves those who are careful. There is no protection for idiots,” the madam said. So she believed in the unscientific being? She was one of the old guard.
I might have laughed at her. But I couldn’t bring myself to mock people’s beliefs. Not least because the madam would have slapped anyone ill-mannered enough to do so.
“They say the wolf is kept fed by its feet, don’t they?” I offered.
“Then you’d better not hurt those feet,” she snapped, easily smacking away my feeble objection. God, this got old.
This was when you wanted to let your results do the talking. Good work could shut anybody up.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ve saved up the money.”
“Of course you have. Only the people who pay get to hear the music.”
I agreed with her that you shouldn’t be too proud of something so ordinary, but hey, I’d worked awfully hard for this cash.
The madam extended an elegant hand, and somewhat crestfallen, I gave her an envelope.
“…Na,” I said.
“Ladno!”
She tucked the envelope away, making my time and effort disappear like magic.
This is how it always was with me: I felt like a big man when I earned money, then shriveled when it was taken away.
As I stood with my shoulders slightly slumped, the madam gave me one of her piercing glares. Then she jabbed me in the chest with a finger like a weathered branch—or maybe I should say, like an old witch’s staff. “Danila Kragin. I think you should stay away from here for a while.”
“Haaah?” I said.
“You heard me. Don’t come around here. Or don’t you speak Russian?”
“Oh, I do. I just heard nonsense. Eta kak zhe?”
It was only natural I should answer like that. Seeing Stasia took money. But that meant that if I brought money, I could see Stasia. Madam Pisken didn’t have the right to tell me that I could or couldn’t—well, okay, maybe she did.
I doubted the madam was going to tell me that she didn’t want an ugolovnik like me getting close to Stasia.
She looked me over, gave a bit of a sniff, then slowly shook her head. “Don’t get the wrong idea, now. It’s just what’s convenient for us.”
“Meaning what?”
“The next performance! I need the girl to concentrate. That’s all.”
“Hmm…” I pursed my lips, but there wasn’t much I could say.
Stasia’s performances were good, upstanding work; not mine to meddle with.
I was silent for a moment, then expressed my resignation with the click of my tongue. “Tsk. I promised her I’d come again, you know.”
“Then come,” said the madam with a contemptuous glare. And then—shock of shocks!—her lips curled upward. “Just make sure you have the money with you when you do!”