Monster Planet(17)

'Do you want me to do a little pirouette, so you can see my backside too?' Ayaan asked, surprising them all.

The scarred woman stepped closer. She smelled of expensive moisturizers and lotions. She had diamonds in her ear lobes. 'They say you killed one American koschei .' The Russian word for 'lich'. 'They say you're assassin, best one with a rifle.'

Damn. The one thing Ayaan had been counting on was anonymity. She hadn't personally killed Gary but she'd been part of his death. If the Tsarevich knew about that... well, he would keep her under close observation. He wasn't stupid.

'Take her to showplace, with others,' the scarred woman said, dismissing Vassily. The young man took Ayaan's arm and she let him guide her away. At least she'd learned something. They didn't want people getting past the mushroom-lined street. The fortification there spoke volumes. There had to be something behind it, behind the scarred woman. Ayaan figured that must be where the Tsarevich lived. She filed the fact away for future use.





Monster Planet





Chapter Eight


Lined up in rows the prisoners filed into the small amphitheater at the center of the refinery and plunked themselves down on the hard ground. The prisoners were seated in the round, leaving only a narrow aisle down to an impromptu stage. There were no seats or benches, just a conical depression with a wide metal drain in its center. An enamel bath tub stood near the drain, full of what looked like clean water, clearly part of the pageant about to unfurl. Would the Tsarevich come out and baptise each of them, maybe wash their feet?

Ayaan scanned the faces of her fellow captives, looking for something'not anger, no, it was the wrong time for that. She was looking for intelligence, resolve, will. She was looking for people who could help her escape. As she studied the middle-aged women and young boys and old men and veteran soldiers with poorly-treated wounds she found little to inspire her. Most of the gathered people looked a little scared, a lot confused, with maybe a trace of hope dashed in for measure.

It was that last, the hope, that made her despair. It looked like the others had been treated to the same act she got'the kindly guide leading them on a tour of what must look like a paradise on earth. To many of these people the idea of a safe place where the dead were kept at bay and where there was a little something to eat had long ago faded from possibility. They had been hiding, hiding for years in fallout shelters or hardened public buildings, eating when and what they could, resorting to whatever it took to stay alive'Ayaan knew that many of them could tell her what human flesh tasted like. They had been cold and hungry and alone for over a decade. When the Tsarevich's troops dug them up out of their holes it must have felt like inevitable doom descending. What little fight or spark of anger left to them had been shaken out on the long, horrible journey in the cages. Now they were brought to this safe, clean place and told lies about apple trees. Their brains no longer knew how to process bullshit.

In other words the Tsarevich had them right where he wanted them. The show he provided was a master stroke and even Ayaan had to admit its brilliance.

There were no light displays, no music. Just a man shuffling down the aisle, his body wrapped in a shapeless burlap robe. He moved slowly, deliberately, and Ayaan wondered what was wrong with him. He took his time and showed no response to the inquisitive calls of the audience. When he reached the center and stepped onto the drain every eye was focused on him though no word had yet been spoken.

After a pregnant pause the man lifted shaking hands to his head and twitched back the cowl that had obscured his features. The audience screamed or gasped or recoiled in horror'it was a ghoul standing before them. The flesh of his face had been eaten away, either literally or just eroded by time. His eyeballs were huge and staring, his nose nothing more than a dark cavity in the middle of his head. His cracked yellow teeth curved into something approaching a smile. And then he began to cough. Long, painful paroxysms as air flooded into his motionless lungs. When it came back out of him it sounded like words.

This dead man could talk.

'My... name is... Kolya...' he creaked. His eyes rolled around the audience, trying to make eye contact. They were very blue. 'Kolenka,' he stuttered out, 'Kolenka Timofeovich Lavachenko. I was... mechanic for... agriculture implementation... in Ukraine farms... I repair and oil combines and, and tractors... now I serve him... in life eternal. Is real.'

A puppet. Ayaan knew that the dead man wasn't speaking of his own volition, that the Tsarevich had to be somewhere nearby, controlling this corpse, pushing air down its throat, plucking its vocal cords like the strings of a guitar. Gary had done something similar years prior. He'd made a crowd of dead people speak with one voice, one outpouring of hatred. She frowned, thinking this was in very poor taste, and looked around the audience again.