Fall Revolution 4: The Sky Road

receive those
non-verbal tics, in parallel processes of increasing wisdom.
    ‘That’s what our opposition are saying,’ the
woman said. „ ‘No more New World Orders!“ Well,
I’m sorry, but we need a real new world order, one on our
side this time. It’ll be only temporary – once we get
enough forces out there, there’s no way anyone can keep
central control. Once the emergency is over, it’ll
just…’ She made a downward-planning gesture.
    ‘Wither away?’
    Juniper’s creased eyes registered the irony, her
compressed lips her refusal to let it deflect her.
‘Speaking of states that wither away,’ she said,
changing the subject adroitly, ‘if any of you find
yourselves looking for new opportunities, when all this is over
one way or another…’
    Valentina and Andrei said nothing, at least not in
Myra’s presence; but Myra herself smiled, and nodded, and
said she’d bear it in mind.
    ‘Well!’ said Andrei Mukhartov, when the function
was over and the guests had departed, the diplomats, the
apparatchiks and captains of industry. Andrei, Valentina, Denis
and Myra had retired to one of the hotel’s smaller and
quieter bars. Hardwood and mirrors, leather and glass, plush
carpets and quiet music. There were plenty of people in the bar
who’d had nothing directly to do with the funeral. This
made for a degree of security for the four remaining Commissars,
huddled as they were around a vodka bottle on a corner table,
like dissidents. ‘Thanks for your intervention earlier,
comrades. Ithought I was getting somewhere until you turned
up.’
    ‘You thought wrong,’ said Myra. She didn’t
feel like arguing the point. ‘I know Juniper, she’ll
seem to agree with you and then start talking about the war.
Which is where we came in. You didn’t lose
anything.’
    ‘Huh,’ grunted Andrei. He knocked back a thumbnail
glass. ‘Tell me why you need a Foreign Secretary at
all.’
    ‘Because I can’t do everything myself,’ Myra
told him. ‘Even if I can do every particular thing better
than anyone. Division of labour, don’t knock it. It’s
all in Ricardo.’
    Andrei and Valentina were looking at each other with
eye-rolling, exaggerated bafflement.
    ‘Megalomania,’ said Andrei sadly. ‘Comes to
all the dictators of the proletariat, just before the
end.’
    ‘Think we should overthrow her before it’s too
late?’ Valentina straightened her back and sketched a
salute. ‘Get Denis in on it and we can form a troika. Blame
all the problems on Myra and declare a clean slate.’
    ‘That is not funny,’ said Myra. She poured another
round, watched the clear spirit splash into the crystal ware,
four times. ‘That is exactly how it will be. One day all
the problems of the world will be blamed on me.’ This was
not funny, she thought. This was her deepest suspicion, in her
darkest moments. She grinned at her confederates. ‘To that
glorious future!’
    They slugged back the vodka shots and slammed down the empty
glasses. Myra passed up an offer of a Marley or a Moscow Gold,
lit up a Dunhill from her last trip out. The double foil inside
the pack, the red and the gold of its exterior – there was
still,to her, something wicked and opulent about the brand, which
she’d first smoked when duty-free still meant
something.
    ‘So, what’s the score, Andrei? Apart from
today’s subtle approaches.’
    ‘Ah.’ Andrei exhaled the fragrant smoke through
his nostrils. ‘Not good, I have to say. Kazakhstan’s
still keeping out of it – after all, they have Baikonur to
think about, and the Sheenisov threat. If it weren’t for
previous bad blood between them and the space movement, I think
they might be tempted to side with it. So their neutrality is
something, when all’s said and done. As for the rest - I
have canvassed every country, I have checked with our delegates
in New York, and frankly it looks as if next week’s vote
will go through.’
    ‘Valentina?’
    Myra didn’t need to spell anything out. Kozlova had
spent days and nights tracking reports from agents in the
battlesats and the settlements. She replied by holding out her
spread hand and waggling it.
    ‘Nothing much we can do up there,’ she said.
‘The other side have all the resources to tip the balance
their way, whichever way the argument is going.’
    ‘Not all the resources,’ Myra said.
    ‘Oh, come,’ said Valentina, with careful calm.
‘We