Astronomy(37)
“Who is this Kriene person anyway?”
Malmagden made a dismissive gesture. “Jürgen Kriene is a dilettante. He is capable of the occasional gesture, as you can see. But he is a technocrat at heart. Everything he knows came from his betters.”
Malmagden referred to himself, of course.
Charley said, “Kriene is a friend of yours?”
“Ha! That is good. I will hang him by his testicles when I catch him. And then I will put that wheelchair of his into overdrive.”
“I don’t get it,” Susan said. “Even if Jürgen Kriene could do something like this,” she indicated the chasm before them, “why would he?”
“Because,” Malmagden laughed, as if amazed at her question, “Das Unternehmen is not ended. It has been duplicated somewhere. It comes to fruition. Do you not see?”
“This Artifact,” she said. “Kriene took it back with him to his new digs? As a sort of safety valve to prevent this from happening to him again?”
“Kriene has not the power to move it with magic. He hasn’t the knowledge of the black arts. He can only destroy it.”
“Naw, come on,” Shrieve said. “If Kriene has been up here, he’s seen what comes pouring out of the end of that fracture. Why would he destroy the only firewall in the world?”
“Is it not obvious? Jürgen Kriene is not developing a weapon.” Malmagden paused, as if he were only realizing the truth of this as he spoke the words. “He is fashioning a punishment for the entire world.”
Malmagden laughed with sudden malicious glee. He leaned back and shouted at the sky, “Jürgen, you are such a coward!”
Came an answering voice from the dark:
“And you, Krzysztof Malmagden, are a war criminal.”
Chapter Eight
SUSAN HAD A WILD IDEA THAT SHE WOULD turn around and this Kriene, whoever he was, would be standing there, waiting to rebut Malmagden’s argument.
But it wasn’t Kriene. Lieutenant Illyenov was coming across the glass with a squad of soldiers and a pair of heavy machine guns.
Susan could guess what was happening. Something unearthly was coming. She heard a crash of rocks in the dark directly ahead of them. A curtain of dust silvered under the moon. Whatever they had tracked among the valley’s western cliffs had come around to attack from the rear. Illyenov’s men were establishing their eastern perimeter.
Somewhere on the far side of the Russian camp, the Lysander engine wheek-wheek-wheeked, coughed itself to life, rose to an even drone. The Russians had positioned it on the far side of the campfire, pointed in their direction. Susan looked back to see the flames flatten and stretch beneath the sudden wind. Plumes of oily smoke were already rolling across the glassified plain to meet them. An idea came to her, a bit from her Dunwich, Massachusetts, lectures. She started to get an idea what the Russians needed this smoke machine for.
She really hoped she was wrong.
“You know,” Illyenov said, “you press my Slavic hospitality to the breaking point.”
A kid pointed toward a promontory of rock overlooking the glassy lakebed, crowned by the wreckage of the Faulkenberg hydroelectric plant. This had been their destination. The kid wanted to know if they should carry on. Good cover up there. Lots of metal and concrete to hide behind. With a little time, they would have found a way up the cliffs and set up a nice crossing field of fire. Indeed, Susan tried to imagine what Illyenov was doing down here.
He had a bag of something that he eased gently to the ground. With a couple head-slaps and a few quick words, Illyenov directed his troops to form a defensive perimeter right here on the glass. Then he turned his attention to them.
“You did not tell me your friend was the great Krzysztof Malmagden. I had to eavesdrop on you till you said his name out loud. That is hardly the way comrades and war-time allies treat each other.”
“We’re here investigating a threat to the peace,” Susan said.
“With your friend the war criminal, you are worried about the peace?”
She winced a little. That sounded lame, even to her.
Illyenov turned a predatory smile on the German. “You are Krzysztof Malmagden,” he said.
Malmagden stepped back, touching his throat in the manner of an aging movie star. “Excuse me. Do we know each other?”
“You are the man who ran the dead people. You are the man with the ghouls.”
“I am afraid you have me confused with someone.” Malmagden turned toward Susan. “Tell him—”
Illyenov went for him with a bayonet coming up from below. Malmagden caught the Russian’s wrist, threw a forearm into his throat. They went down, locked together at hand and throat.