Permafrost(8)

A mush of slurred syllables spilled from my mouth.

“Sorry,” I tried again, concentrating on that one word in the hope that some part of it might get through.

Still, I had more immediate and pressing issues than this woman’s mental well-being. I used my free hand to fumble at the drawstring. The dusty plastic blinds started to click toward the ceiling, and I gained my first fuzzy impression of the world beyond this room.

Out of focus, still. But enough to be going on with. I was several floors up, looking down on a courtyard flanked by what must be two wings of the hospital, extending out from the part of the building containing my room. All concrete, metal and glass. If the layout of the wings was any guide, I had to be on the sixth floor of an eight-storey building.

What else could I give Cho? In the courtyard, paths wound their way around an ornamental pond. Farther out, there was a service road and some parked vehicles, glinting in sunshine, and beyond that some outlying buildings. The ground shadows were attenuated. I couldn’t see the sun, but it had to be quite high up in the sky.

I glanced back at the bedside cabinet and made out the silvery squiggle of a pair of glasses.

Cho had told me that even the smallest detail could help with locating my position, even something as innocuous as a vehicle registration number. Suitably determined, I started my return to the bedside. I’d only taken a couple of steps when there was a polite tap on the door. A moment later it swung open and a white-coated young man stepped in from the space beyond the partition wall.

Get out of me.

My knees buckled. I started to stumble. The young doctor looked at me for an instant, then sprang in my direction. He’d been carrying a sheath of papers, which he tossed onto the bed to free his hands. I felt him catch me just before I went over completely. For a second, ludicrously, we were posed like a pair of ballroom dancers, me swooning into his embrace.

I took him in. Twenties, fresh-faced, a dusting of youthful stubble, but just enough tiredness around the eyes to suggest a junior doctor’s workload.

“What are you playing at, Tatiana?” he said, in perfectly good and clear Russian. “You’re barely out of surgery, and already trying to break your neck?”

I looked at him. I wanted to reply, wanted to give him an answer that would satisfy his curiosity, but I wasn’t ready.

What are you waiting for?

“Permafrost,” I whispered, repeating the word twice more.

*

Cho had come back to Kogalym two days after our meeting in the school. He’d been south on some business.

“Very good, Miss Lidova!” he said, shouting above the engine noise. “I am so glad you will be joining us!”

I had to shout in reply.

“You promise me the pupils will be well looked after?”

“The arrangements are already in place—I’ve spoken to all the local administrators and made sure that they understand what needs to be done.” His gaze settled onto my surly-faced porter, the man who’d been deputised to help with my baggage and books. “That is properly understood, Mr. Evmenov? I’ll hold you personally accountable if there’s any lapse in the provisions.” Cho beckoned me aboard. “Quickly, please. We don’t want to lose our weather window.”

I went up the ramp, stooping to avoid denting my head on the overhang. My cane thumped on the metal floor. I had to squeeze past some hefty item occupying most of the helicopter’s cargo section. It was the size of a small truck and covered in sheets. It didn’t have the shape of a truck, though. More a turbine or aircraft engine: something large and cylindrical. Or a piece of genetics equipment: some industrial unit recovered from an abandoned university or industrial plant.

“What is that thing, Mister Cho?” I asked, as I was shown to my seat just behind the cockpit, on the right side of the helicopter. “A gene synthesizer, for your seed program?”

As he buckled in opposite me, Cho considered my question, tilting his head slightly to one side. It meant that he was searching for an answer that was close to the truth, while not being the thing itself.

“It does have a medical application, yes.”

The engine surged and the rotors dragged us into the air. We were soon flying north from Kogalym. We passed over a scattering of ghost towns and villages, no lights showing from their empty buildings. The terrain was getting icier with each kilometre we covered.

After a few hours we touched down near an isolated military compound. Cho asked me if I wanted to stretch my legs; I declined. Cho got out and stood around while some trucks came out to meet us. Hoses were connected and fuel began to gurgle in. Another truck came, this time with a flatbed. Some boxes were unpacked and driven away. Cho got back aboard and we fought our way back into the air.

“We were a little heavy,” Cho said, turning to address me across the narrow aisle. “We had to unload some nonessential supplies, or we wouldn’t have made it between fuel stops.” He waved his fingers. “It’s nothing to worry about.”

We continued into darkness. There were no lights out there at all now. Every now and then the helicopter would put out a searchlight and I’d be surprised at how high or low we were.

“How far north are we going, Director?”

“To the Yenisei Gulf. It’s a little remote, but it turned out that it was the best place to locate our project. We needed somewhere with maritime access, in any case.”