Charles Stross - Red, Hot and Dark

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Red, Hot and Dark

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Moscow: Monday morning, August the 20th, 1991:

The soldiers on the back of the personnel carriers stared around, wide-eyed, clutching

their rifles like drowning men hanging on to buoyant life-rafts. They were out of their

depth, teen-age conscripts from the sticks being trucked in by the Grey Men in the

Kremlin, none of them sure what they were meant to be doing here. The emigre group

seemed to be taking it quite well as the BMP's rumbled past their hotel. They clustered in

the bar, talking quietly in small groups, occasionally pestering a vodka out of the

distracted staff. Reporters swarmed and darted everywhere, like wasps around a rubbish

bin in summer. And Oleg Meir ...

Oleg Meir ignored the soldiers as he left the temporary safety of the hotel. The phones

were down, only international calls from the city's contingent of foreign correspondents

getting through. They must be crazy, he thought: cutting off communications at a time like

this. Trembling with a chill, he thrust his hands deep into his coat pockets as he walked

back towards the University. He glanced up at the clock jutting from the face of one of

the office buildings on the opposite side of the road. It was almost ten o'clock! He'd have

to hurry. Oleg increased his pace until it was little short of a trot. Got to get the papers,

destroy them or something. Change myself, get lost in the crowd. That way they won't

find me. If I can do it before Andrei catches up with me ...

Yesterday's events had brought everybody out onto the streets; everyday life had ground

to a halt. The air was filled with tension, as if an abscess was about to burst. Never had

he seen crowds of people who all looked so angry; it scared him almost as much as the

horror of a remembered guilt, the phone call in the early hours from his mysterious patron

-- just before the public lines went down.

Tanks were drawn up in the square outside the University, their engines ticking over,

soldiers milling around uncertainly in front of a throng of defiant youths; they made no

attempt to detain the bespectacled professor as he made his way past them towards the

concrete monolith of the Institute of Space Sciences. Nobody stopped him as he went in,

but he noticed a few anomalies: a distinct shortage of staff, a surfeit of students milling

around the foyer and chattering.

Can't be good. Oleg made for the elevator, half-remembered skills blending him with the

shadows like a third element of light and darkness. Too many people about. The elevator

began to rise. He yawned uncontrollably. The elevator stopped; its brass gate slid open.

"Professor Meir?"

Oleg jumped. "Who is -- oh, Anatoly. What is it?"

The student stared at him. "You looked a bit preoccupied, is all," he said. "About the

coursework, I know it's overdue --"

"Don't worry about it." Oleg looked away. "Heard the news?"

"Which news?"

"Don't worry." Moving down the corridor towards his office, the student following him:

Oleg had things on his mind. "Have you got a few minutes?"

"For you, professor?" The student's elaborate shrug was wasted. Oleg was too busy

unlocking his office to notice.

"These filing cabinets. Do me a favour, get everything out of the top drawer there,

stacked in order, and put it on the table. Please? I'll make it worth your while."

"How worthwhile?" Something nudged Oleg's attention, but when he looked up Anatoly

looked back at him innocently. "A regrading?"

"You said it, not me." Anatoly turned to the filing cabinet eagerly. "Now if you will excuse

me --"

The terminal on Oleg's desk was an antique, but it still connected him to the machines in

the basement. To his surprise, Oleg found that his palms were sweating as he sat down

and logged on. This has gone too far. He shivered and glanced over his shoulder. If

Andrei gets his grubby hands on these there won't be an excuse under heaven that'll save

me! Still he hesitated. Something in the air tickled his nostrils; scent of woodsmoke and

gasoline far away, screams remembered in the moonless night. From her. Behind him,

Anatoly was systematically stripping his files from their steel nest. Oh well. It had to

happen -- now or later.

Oleg began to type, carefully -- the sluggardly machine could barely keep up with his

keypresses -- a short e-mail message. He stared at it for a few minutes after he finished

it, trying to understand what he had done. To KGBVAX, the police monitor on the net.

User: Valentin016. An anonymous label. Danger. He'd been sweating before he started.

Now he pressed enter, consigning the message to the invisible guts of the connected

mainframes, where it would find it's way eventually to the destination --

To Valentina. Who'd know what to do, if anyone did. Oleg logged out and turned round,

stood up and stretched, stared at the student working on his files. Time to think about

avoiding Andrei. Why did I ever let it get this far? he wondered. Hands deep in pockets,

he wandered over to the window and stared out towards the distant Kremlin. Dancing

with the devil ...

Twenty five years ago:

Oleg had first met Andrei back in sixty-three, sixty-four, back when he had been a young

student of astrophysics, fresh in from the sticks. Always the terrified compulsion to look

up at the stars -- attending Shklovskii's bull sessions about intelligent life in the universe

made him feel out of control, his thin veneer of sophistication in danger of cracking open

to reveal the depths of his superstitious fear. The feeling had a shuddery attraction to

Oleg, who was unable to join in the merry banter of his colleagues.

"You see, comrades, if we are not alone in the universe, the very fact of our lack of

uniqueness has implications for our way of life! No longer are we part of an isolated,

unique trend. Other intelligences, once their existence can be proven, would provide a

powerful stimulus to our exploratory tendencies. Such intelligences, should they be more

advanced than us, may be expected to be in constant communication even if physical

interstellar travel is impossible -- yes? What is it? Meir, again?"

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Charles Stross - Red, Hot and Dark

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