Terraplane by Jack Womack Read Free Book Online

remained, his and hers. A light flashed
green. "That signals her continued viability."
    "She's implanted?"
    We pulled from the Ring onto Gorgoko. "Certainly. Standard
microtransmitter in thick muscle at back of neck, inserted without pain or knowledge. Transmits thereafter over two-hundred kilometer range. The Dream Team always knows where to send
party invitations. Keep that one, please. Within one hundred
meters beeping will begin. We will close in."

    It long puzzled certain of those in our organization why
Skuratov, suffering from no political disaffiliation, unneedful of
clandestine finance, should have chosen treason as his hobby, but
nothing suspicious ever showed; his files, triplechecked twice, even
cleared Alice's approval. Political motivations are no more explicable than sexual fetishes, and not nearly so employable in quotidian
life; thus my mind remained untroubled by idle speculation.
Skuratov, eyeing the rearview, noticed Jake sunk seatways, lost in
his tunes.
    "Jake is great music lover?"
    "Some music," I said. "Mostly the blues."
    Jake's tape bore no music other than that of Robert Johnson, by
historical agreement the past century's greatest blues singer. A
single photo remained to give his voice form. Murdered before he
was thirty, he left but forty-odd songs recorded under the most
primitive conditions; Jake knew each by heart. So many Caucasians enjoy the blues, even when they'd have trod across the blues
singer were he lying cold before them in the street. Jake knew a
more elemental kinship whose nature remained a mystery to me; I
could only infer that whenever he felt himself touched by unearned
peace he would dive beneath phones to scar himself anew with
long-lost sound. Mister O'Malley mentioned occasions when Jake
picked up an old guitar in his office and strummed chords as if to
play, but I could never viz it. In Jake's hands musical instruments
seemed correct only if he might use them to transpose others into
death's chorale.
    "How much info of results exists?" I asked. "There's no weapons
potential seen?"
    "Not as such. Their findings appear to involve nonaggressive
device of unspecified purpose."
    We entered neighborhoods built up with workers' palaces: uniform rows of concrete shoeboxes dropped down in sidewalked
morasses. In front of each complex-unit stood sculptures recognizing the abilities of those who designed and developed; those not graffitied were usually decapped. Beneath the modern overgrowth
showed old Russia's spoor: huddled wooden houses top-heavy with
intricately carved gables and eaves, Orthodox churches bearing
five crumbling domes, sprays of birch and evergreen sprouting
amidst the billboards. Jake began vocalizing along with Johnson's
tunes as they flowed from player to ear.

    "Gonna get deep down in this connection-keep on tangling
with your wires-"
    To hear Jake sing ached bones and cooled blood; his warble held
neither tune nor tone.
    "-when I mash down on your little starter your spark gonna
give me fire-"
    "What use has a nonaggressive," I asked, "considering what
Krasnaya must have intended?"
    "Enormous use depending on nature of nonaggressive," said
Skuratov. `Alekhine tested and developed as he saw fit. Basic
essentials of prime discovery were known but to evershrinking
circle as success approached. Every time Krasnaya inquired he
made general remarks, refrained from telling specifics, at all stages
promised complete report upon project's finish. Three weeks ago,
he disappears. We find out three days ago that Miss Osipova
prepared her own departure."
    "Why weren't we advanced?"
    "Makes no difference from whom information is obtained, correct?"
    "Alekhine was surely implanted," I said; Skuratov nodded. "So
where has he gone? Where's he showing?"
    "He isn't showing," said Skuratov. "Our friend is nowhere
found. "
    "In Russia?"
    "In world. We have thorough coverage in all locales, as you
know Nowhere do we find evidence of his