Europe in Winter (The Fractured Europe Sequence)(11)

Eight months after the Ufa explosion, nobody was any the wiser about its cause. The Line was in virtual lockdown, bombarding the media with denials about fusion power which no one believed. It had even managed to knock the Community off the top of the news for the first time in almost half a decade.

In the wake of the explosion, the Trans-Siberian was enjoying something of a resurgence after years of neglect, but it had taken Rupert, who refused to fly anywhere, more than a week of rackety trains and twelve-hour waits for connections to reach Novosibirsk for his meeting with Rudi’s pet mathematician, and it took him twelve days to get back to what he considered familiar territory.

In Prague, he checked into the Hastal in the Old Town and had a long shower to wash off the journey’s grime. Snow was starting to drift down from the low clouds as he left the hotel that evening and used his phone to navigate to a Brazilian restaurant on Malá ?tupartská, a narrow, traffic-choked street not far from the Market Square.

“I ordered churrasco,” Rudi told him after they’d sat down at a corner table. “It comes with fries, because of course it does.”

The fries arrived, served in what appeared to be small cowboy hats, which Rudi regarded sourly. Also side salads. A waiter came to their table with metre-long skewers of barbecued meat, which he sliced with great ceremony onto octagonal slabs of wood before departing again.

“So,” Rudi said when they were alone and the rather irritating samba from the restaurant’s music system drowned out their conversation from nearby diners.

Rupert gave him a potted version of what Lev had told him in Novosibirsk. By the time he had finished, their platters were empty and another waiter had visited the table with a dessert menu, which Rudi had waved away after a moment’s consideration.

“Well,” he said. “That’s interesting.”

“Is it?” asked Rupert.

“These are interesting times. Someone who could predict even the dozen or so most likely outcomes of an action would have something of an advantage over the rest of us. I could certainly use something like that. Thank you.” This last to yet another waiter, who served coffee.

“He said there’s a lot of topological research going on there, too,” Rupert said. “Which means Mundt.”

“Not necessarily. Although it may involve the work Mundt was doing before you jumped him out of the Neustadt.”

“Anyway.” Rupert took a little hard drive from his pocket and passed it across the table. “He says everything he’s learned so far is in here. He’s nowhere near finished, though.”

“No,” Rudi said. “We got a lot of data back. It’s going to take a while.” He pocketed the hard drive. “Did you hear the UN are offering the Community a seat on the Security Council, by the way?”

“I haven’t seen the news in almost a fortnight,” Rupert said.

“Have they been in touch?”

“The Directorate? They’d have had to move fairly smartly to find me.”

“Hm. Fair point.” Rudi sat back and looked towards a corner of the ceiling. Rupert thought he looked tired and grumpy.

“From what I understand, a seat on the Security Council is hardly a badge of honour,” Rupert said.

“Oh, not these days, no.” Rudi smiled wearily at him. “I just think it’s interesting. Everything is interesting; the hard part is working out how it all fits together.”

“Where have you been?”

“Me?” Rudi shrugged. “Ah, talking to people. Asking questions. Not getting many answers.”

“Are you asking the right questions?”

Rudi chuckled. “Well, now, that is a question.”

They paid for their meal and left the restaurant. Outside, the snowfall had thickened. A breeze, funnelled by the street, carried it in swirls and whorls, brushing against car windscreens and making pedestrians hunch their shoulders. Rupert wondered just where Rudi had been asking his questions; there were alleyways in Prague which led over the border into the Community, crossings which everyone seemed to have forgotten about, although he knew the Directorate, the Community’s security service, better than that.

“What next?” he asked, turning up the collar of his jacket.

“We’ll let Lev continue his research,” Rudi said, stirring the tip of his cane in the millimetre or so of dry snow which had settled on the pavement just beyond the restaurant’s canopy. “I’ll keep asking questions. Something will turn up; it always does.”

“What if it doesn’t?”

Rudi looked out into the street, the snow dancing through the car headlights. “It will,” he said. “Eventually we’ll just start to annoy the wrong people. Then something will happen.”





3.





RUDI WOKE FROM a troubled sleep, stumbled out of bed and into the bathroom, used the lavatory, had a quick wash, and breakfasted on toast and cereal and coffee. He dressed in his running kit and went downstairs to the street door. And stopped.

It was foggy outside. This was not entirely unusual for Kraków, but this was different. It was unseasonable, for one thing. And it was so thick that he couldn’t see across the street. It deadened all sound; he couldn’t hear anything. No people, no traffic, no trams. Nothing.