He had buried his parachute and now lay down in the long, sweet-smelling dry yellow grass near the road. Hands over his eyes, he waited for a truck or car to come along, so he might hitch a ride back to Podlipki—or was it that base in Mongolia with only a number, 83?
Not that it mattered. The sun was warm, and except for a slight headache, Major Mirsky felt grand. He had fallen so far off course that he might take hours to reach the base, missing dinner, but also missing the political instruction. He would gladly trade kasha for a few hours alone to think.
At length a dusty, long black Volga came down the road and stopped beside him. The rear window rolled down and a bulky, beefy-faced man in a gray fedora stuck his head out, frowning at Mirsky.
“What are you doing here?” the man asked. He resembled Major General Sosnitsky, but he also looked a bit like poor Zhadov, who had died in the bore-hole massacre, wherever that was, and whenever.
“What’s your mother’s name?”
“Nadia,” he said. ”I need a ride—”
“And what did you have for a cake on your eleventh birthday?”
“Comrade, I don’t see—”
“It’s very important. What did you have?”
“Something with chocolate, I think.”
The man in the fedora nodded and opened the door. ”Get in,” he said.
Mirsky squeezed in beside him. The seat was wet with blood; the man’s three companions were corpses, all alike, all with their heads bloody and brains leaking. ”Do you know these people?”
“No, I don’t,” Mirsky said, laughing. ”We haven’t been introduced.”
“They are you, Comrade,” the man said, and the dream faded to grayness. Once again, he buried the parachute ...
He began to get suspicious. Finally, after he had been picked up for the seventh or eighth time—the car minus its corpses—and the man in the fedora asked him about his Komsomol days, Mirsky decided to ask some questions of his own.
“I know I’m not dreaming, Comrade. So where am I?”
“You have been very badly injured.”
“I don’t seem to remember that—”
“No, but you will. You were shot in the head and suffered severe trauma. Parts of your brain are missing. You will never remember your life in quite as much detail, and you will never be quite the same person again.”
“But I feel whole.”
“Yes,” the man in the fedora agreed. ”That is normal, but it’s an illusion. Together we’ve been exploring, finding out what you have left. There is quite a lot, actually—surprising, considering the damage—but you will never be quite the—”
“Yes, yes,” Mirsky interrupted. ”So will I die?”
“No, you are out of danger. Your head and brain are being repaired and you will live. But you have decisions to make.”
“What sort of decisions?”
“You can live with the missing portions left blank, or you can receive prosthetic neurological programming and artificial personality segments tailored to fit those remaining to you.”
“Now I’m really confused.”
The man pulled a picture book out of his satchel. When he opened it, the pages were filled with beautiful complex designs, some in garish color, others muted and metallic, still others stimulating tastes and bodily sensations. He took the book and read through it.
When he was finished, he asked, “Will I know what is mine and what is not?”
“If that’s what you want.”
“And without all these ... prostheses? What will I be?”
“A cripple. You will have memories,” the man explained, “though some will be difficult to recall clearly and others will have curious gaps. It will take you weeks to learn how to see again, and you will never see very well. You will never recover your sensations of smell or the sensation of touch on the left side of your body. Your mathematical reasoning abilities will be intact, but your speech will be impaired and may never return.”
Mirsky looked at the man’s face until it seemed to fade into the sky beyond the car’s side window. ”It doesn’t sound like much fun,” he said.
“It is your choice.”
”You’re in the library, aren’t you?”
“Not what you’re seeing,” the man said. ”I am a city function shaped to be acceptable to you in your present condition. Human medical authority is not available, so the city has taken it upon itself to repair you.”
“Okay,” Mirsky said. ”That’s enough for now. I want to have nothing but darkness.”
“Yes, that will come naturally after you give us your answer.”
“I mean, I wish to die.”
“That is not an option.”
“Okay, then yes.” He made the decision quickly so as not to have to consider all the possibilities, all the horrors.
“You consent to prosthetic programming?”
“I consent.”
The man ordered the car to stop and smiled. ”You may get out,” he said.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Mirsky left the Volga and closed the door. ”Oh, one more thing,” the man said, leaning out the window. ”Did you have any plans to harm either Belozersky, Vielgorsky or Yazykov—particularly Vielgorsky?”
“No,” Mirsky said. ”They irritated me, and I would have rather done without all of them—except maybe Vielgorsky—but no, I didn’t plan to harm them.”
“Thank you,” the man said and rolled up the window.
“You’re welcome again,” Mirsky turned away from the road and it was night. He lay down in the grass and stared up at the blackness.