The Steel Tsar Read online

  We reached the outskirts of the town. The Cossack Host was assembling, rank upon rank of horsemen, stretching almost as far as the eye could see. Armored vehicles and field guns were also drawn up. A platform had been erected in front of them and beside that a dais. Djugashvili mounted the dais and saluted his troops.

  Birchington supervised the men as they pushed the heavy metal figure to its feet.

  'Free Cossacks!' cried Djugashvili. 'Your blood has been spilled in the holy cause of liberty and socialism. The Central Government has sent its might against us and all the power of its science has been brought to bear on us. Yet we are not defeated. Now we have our own science - our own miracles. Behold!' He made a grandiose gesture with his arm in the direction of the metal man. 'Here is a Tsar made truly of steel. An impregnable battle-leader worthy of the Free Cossacks.' He murmured to Birchington. 'Set him in motion.'

  Birchington reached up to the figure's waist and depressed a lever. Suddenly the steel creature came to life. With awkward, spastic movements it reached to its belt and began to draw the huge saber, which had evidently been designed as a match for the mechanical man's size. With a screech the saber cleared its scabbard.

  The Cossacks were impressed. Djugashvili evidently knew them well. As the mechanical man raised the saber over its head, the Cossacks began to cheer. They drew their own swords and waved them; they made their horses rear. The noise of their approval was deafening.

  Slowly, the mechanical monster turned its head, as if listening. It inclined its gaze to stare down on Birchington. It lifted its head. Evidently Birchington had previously designed all these movements. It walked forward a few paces, towards the huge gathering of horsemen. It stopped, the saber still raised. Again they cheered.

  Mrs. Persson put her lips close to my ear. 'They love icons. They would rather have statues than real people. It has been their undoing over the centuries.'

  Dempsey had begun to laugh and only grew silent when Mrs. Persson signed to him to stop. I, for my part, found the whole scene nightmarish.

  The mechanical Steel Tsar began to wave its saber over its head, as if in imitation of the Cossacks. It moved forward again.

  Then one knee bent. I think Birchington had meant this series of movements to show the mechanical creature's supplication to its master, Djugashvili. But the motion was halted. The knee jerked a couple of times. There was a squeak and a clash of metal. It began to turn, but the leg dragged. It swayed.

  Djugashvili maintained his posture but he was angry. 'Set the thing to rights, Birchington, or you're finished.'

  Birchington ran towards his mechanical man, reaching up for the lever at the waist.

  The thing seemed to sense him and completed its turn. Swiftly the sword-arm began to descend.

  Birchington shouted: 'Oh, no. This isn't supposed to happen!' Then the saber had sliced him from crown to breastbone. Blood flew everywhere.

  Suddenly the Cossacks were silent.

  Birchington's body fell to the black earth. With a grinding of cogs and wheels, the mechanical man began to topple. It crashed onto its creator's corpse.

  I heard Professor Marek behind me. 'I said it was too soon. He didn't give himself enough time . . .'

  I could hear the wind, sighing over the steppe.

  And then came the dry, dreadful sound of Djugashvili's laughter.

  'Well, well, Mr. Birchington. How neat.' He addressed the bewildered Cossack Host. 'The traitor Birchington is the first to die beneath the vengeful sword of the Steel Tsar! This spy for the Central Government was trying to sabotage our War Effort. We are revenged, brothers! Freedom!'

  'Poor Birchington,' said Mrs. Persson. 'What a dreadful lesson.'

  'What a final one,' said Dempsey. He moved away.

  Djugashvili spoke to us. 'Professor Marek. Revive the mechanical man, if you can. Get it back to the laboratories.' 'Too soon,' said Marek. He signed to the soldiers to lift the creature onto their shoulders once again.

  'Captain Dempsey. Are the bombs aboard?'

  'They're aboard,' said Dempsey.

  'Then get to your first target. Be quick, Captain Dempsey. I want to witness no more disloyalty.'

  I looked up at the sky. I pointed. 'You had better concern yourself with immediate problems,' I said.

  There were troop-ships on their way. Even as we stared, the first gliding infantry began to leave the craft and drift towards us, firing as they came.

  8.

  A Kind of Revolution

  Professor Marek hurried aboard just as we were about to go aloft. On the familiar control deck of the Vassarion Belinsky I stood between Captain Dempsey and Mrs. Persson, staring through the observation ports as the ship rose swiftly into the air. We had a ramshackle crew of half-trained Cossacks, some of whom were deserters from the Volunteer Air fleet. As Dempsey had said to me: 'They're good enough for this work, Bastable, never fear.'

  Through the ports we could witness the first battles between Cossacks and Central Government troops. The expert riflemen of the steppe were picking off the gliding infantry even as they left their ships. They fell like stricken butterflies.

  'We'd better let them get on with it,' said 'Dempsey carelessly. 'All right, height coxswain - put us up to five thousand feet: moderate ascent. Helmsman - North-by-North West, if you please. Half-speed, Mr. Bastable.'

  All at once he had become a capable airship commander -everything he had been before he had helped in an appalling crime of mass-murder, in the name of an idealistic principle. But, why had he agreed to bomb Makhno's camp? Had cynicism, like a cancer, corroded him completely?

  Dempsey's hands were hardly shaking at all as he stood on the bridge, his arms folded across his chest, watching the ground fall away. Our ship still flew Russian colors, so we were not attacked. Indeed, Dempsey made the wireless operator send a message offering to join the battle. We were told to return to Odessa for fresh armaments and to report on our condition.

  The last thing I saw were the first aerial torpedoes buzzing down upon the Cossack riders. I turned away from the observation ports.

  'Dempsey,' I said. 'Are you really going to drop another of those hell-bombs. Are you going to kill Makhno and all his people?'

  Dempsey turned his sad, self-mocking eyes on me. 'Of course—'

  'But—'

  'Of course he is,' said a voice behind me.

  It was Djugashvili, flanked by a couple of well-armed Cossacks. He had not trusted any of us.

  The Steel Tsar laughed within his mask. 'I want to see Makhno's end for myself.'

  'But your men,' I said. 'They are leaderless! It seems that the entire Volunteer Fleet is going against them.'

  'They have Birchington's giant. It's down there some­where, giving them strength, giving them hope.'

  'It's a useless icon!'

  'They need nothing else. Besides, Captain Bastable, those chaps have pretty much served their turn. They are an anachronism - their attitudes hamper the course of Scientific Socialism.'

  I could feel the blood drain from my features. 'You are sacrificing those men. They trusted you absolutely. You gave them the rhetoric and the goals to make them fight. They will not surrender. They could all be killed. For what?'

  'For History,' he said. He seemed impatient with me, as if I was asking childishly naive questions. 'For the Future.'

  Mrs. Persson interrupted us. 'The idea of the Future,' she said, 'will gradually come to replace the idea of God. The two conceptions, however, will be all but identical in the manner in which they are self-contradictory and therefore confusing to their worshippers. By remaining confused, and therefore weakened, their priests more easily manipulate the worshippers, or whatever those priests call themselves. Since the priests are often as confused as those they pretend to lead, they will become angry if their rationales are in any way questioned. They will kill the questioners. In the meantime—'

  She was speaking rapidly in English. Djugashvili strode up to the bridge and stood beside Dempse
y, raising his withered arm to silence her. 'You'll be our first admiral, Captain Dempsey. You will be a Hero of Socialism. Never fear. There are hundreds, thousands of disaffected people in Moscow and Petersburg alone. They'll rise up to join us, after our demonstration of what Scientific Socialism can achieve.'

  Dempsey leaned forward, checking various instruments. 'Three-quarter speed, Mr. Bastable.'

  Three-quarter speed.' I conveyed the order to the engineers.

  'You will lead our airships to Petersburg,' Djugashvili continued. 'You are a brave, fine man, Captain Dempsey. You will be rewarded with every honor . . .'

  We all knew that this was his method of cajoling what he needed from people. We all knew that as soon as Dempsey had served his turn, he, too, could be 'liquidated' in the name of the Future.

  'Thank you, sir,' said Dempsey. He looked towards Professor Marek, who sat jotting down calculations on a pad of paper.

  Djugashvili clapped Dempsey on the back. 'I know how to show my gratitude, captain.'

  'Oh, indeed, sir.' Dempsey gave a further instruction to the helmsman.

  The skies were gray today, and vast. A little rain began to spot the observation ports. We heard it drumming on our hull. Grey light filled the bridge, increasing Dempsey's pallor and emphasizing the unhealthy, peeling skin of Professor Marek. The ship seemed like a ship of the dead already, to me.

  Dempsey detected a change in the forward starboard engine. He cocked his head to one side. Like any good airship captain he was listening all the time. An airship's running depends as much on the ears as on the eyes. 'Something wrong, Mr. Bastable. Could you go and check the nacelle?'

  'Very good.'

  I left the control cabin and, to my surprise, found that Mrs. Persson had followed me.

  'How much further to Makhno's camp?' I asked her, as we walked along the companionway. There was cloud all around us now.

  'About half-an-hour. We have to disarm those bombs, Captain Bastable.'

  'What?'

  'It's the whole point of this. We disarm them, they're dropped, and they prove useless. It is why we've been going along with Djugashvili up to now. However, we hadn't expected him to join us aboard the ship.'

  I was enlightened. 'I know very little about bombs,' I said, 'especially this kind.'

  'I know a great deal about them. Come. We'll go to the bomb bay this way. It isn't guarded.' She opened a hatch door and let me into semi-darkness. We descended a steel ladder. I could hear the familiar creaking of the bomb-racks and at last saw four crudely-made cases of roughly standard size, lettered in Old Slavic and decorated with peculiar designs of the kind I had seen on Cossack weapons. Were these the bombs, which could threaten the destruction of the entire world?

  Mrs. Persson said: 'the detonating devices are in the noses. We have to unscrew them.' With her legs straddling the bomb-flaps, she reached for a large wrench. 'Use this,' she said.

  Below I could see a little daylight from time to time, as the flaps gave slightly. I had the feeling that we could as easily fall through the flaps as the bombs and began to tread very carefully as I strove to remove the nose of the first bomb.

  We had not been working more than five minutes before we heard voices from the gallery above us. 'There's no need for that.' It was Dempsey, sounding like the Wrath of God. 'There's no need for that, at all. Leave my bombs alone.'

  'Dempsey!' Una Persson became agitated. 'Are you really crazy? This was what we agreed we should do—'

  'It was your plan, Mrs. Persson. Not mine.'

  'You surely aren't going to help Djugashvili!'

  Dempsey was pointing a large revolver at us. 'Move away,' he said.

  'Dempsey!' I had never seen Mrs. Persson so obviously frightened. 'You can't. Makhno—'

  'Those bombs must be detonated,' said Dempsey. 'Nothing else will do.'

  'But we intend to prove they can't work . . .'

  'It will prove nothing!'

  Mrs. Persson continued to persevere with the nose of the bomb. Dempsey ordered his men towards us.

  Mrs. Persson seemed almost to be crying as she struggled. I must admit that I gave up. Quietly, I handed my wrench to the first Cossack to approach me. He put a pack into my hands, as if in exchange. I did not know what it was.

  The bomb bays were full of Cossacks now, completely surrounding us.

  'You're interfering with my plan,' said Dempsey coldly. 'And I have the right, not you, to decide what to do with these.'

  'You have no right. No more than anyone. You assume too much guilt, Captain Dempsey.' Mrs. Persson struggled as the Cossacks held her, forcing her to drop the spanner.

  'And you assume too much responsibility,' he said. 'I have the right.'

  'And what about you, Captain Bastable?' she said. 'Haven't you an equal right?'

  'Not here,' I said. I looked up at Dempsey. I didn't know what he planned to do, but I now respected his judgment completely. 'And I agree with Captain Dempsey, Mrs. Persson. He has the right, together with Professor Marek.'

  Dempsey bowed slightly. My words seemed to cheer him. He raised an eyebrow. 'Mrs. Persson?'

  She shrugged. 'Very well. Captain Dempsey. But if you kill Makhno…`

  'That will be my responsibility, I think.'

  'And mine, if I haven't attempted to stop you.'

  I interrupted. 'Is this the moment for moral discussions?' I asked.

  'Those packs contain gliding apparatus,' said Dempsey. He rubbed at his sunken eyes. His voice became suddenly weary. 'You'll use them to escape.'

  'Where is the Steel Tsar?' asked Mrs. Persson. 'He has the real power on this ship . . .'

  'Not any longer,' said Dempsey.

  'Where is he?'

  'Safe.' Dempsey turned away. 'I'll say goodbye to you both. It's unlikely we'll ever meet again.'

  'Goodbye, Dempsey,' I said. And I added: 'And good luck.'

  He was laughing as he climbed back up the steel ladder, towards his control deck. 'Thank you, Bastable. Thank you very much.'

  The gliding apparatus was strapped onto us and we were pushed roughly through the bomb-flaps. Seconds later the wings opened out and we were drifting slowly down towards the barren steppe. There was no sign of human life anywhere below us. We looked back.

  The airship was making good speed away from us, heading north East.

  We landed rather bumpily on coarse turf. I hurt my ankle slightly, but had no serious injury.

  As I was helping Mrs. Persson remove her apparatus I was suddenly bathed in brilliant light, as if the sun had emerged, unexpectedly, from behind the clouds. Mrs. Persson flung herself down and I followed suit, without quite understand­ing why.

  Moments later the ground began to shake as a huge, echoing boom began to sound throughout the world.

  We both recognized it for what it was, of course. Dempsey had exploded the bombs in the air over the steppe. We saw a massive column of smoke, just as ash began to fall like rain across the landscape.

  Mrs. Persson said: The fool. I knew he'd try it. I thought I'd convinced him. But he outguessed me, after all. His guilt was too great. But it was completely unnecessary.'

  'I understand why he wanted to do it this way,' I said.

  She was impatient. 'Understand? So do I. But what's that got to do with it? This is another loss.'

  I still do not know what she meant. She was crying.

  I made some attempt to comfort her, but Una Persson is not an easy woman to comfort. She recovered herself as she began to walk stolidly across the steppe, her back to the bomb cloud. The wind blew against our faces. She said: 'the bomb, its inventor, the despot prepared to use it and the despot's servants are all gone now. But while that syndrome continues to exist so will that particular circle continue. I'd hoped to break it. To make a different circle.'

  'Can that circle ever be broken?' I asked her.

  'It's what I'm trying to find out,' she said.

  A day and a half later we were discovered by some of Nestor Makhno's h
orsemen. We were weary and depressed, and the news that Makhno had gained concessions from the Central Government, of territory in which to conduct his 'anarchist experiment' only slightly cheered us.

  That evening, during an open-air celebration, beneath the masts of Makhno's black cruisers, I became quite drunk and asked Mrs. Persson: 'Did Dempsey really die for nothing?'

  'I suppose not. But what good is a martyr, Captain Bastable? While people believe in the magic power of personalities, rather than the human fallibility of indi­viduals, they will never be free.'

  'But Dempsey wished only to make amends. He said it was his right: and it was his right.'

  Nestor Makhno leaned forward. He was even drunker, I think, than me. 'We are all guilty. We are all innocent. Only when we accept responsibility for our own actions are we free - and only then will the world be safe for us all. Dempsey had an old-fashioned sense of honor. He destroyed himself because of it. He saved many lives, it is true, but Mrs. Persson's plan might have saved more. While we compete with ourselves in that way, while we compete with each other, blame one another for our misfortunes, there will always be the chance of conflicts such as the one which is now over.'

  Makhno's words meant something to me. But then so had Dempsey's actions. At last I was relieved of that terrible lack of faith in myself, of that awful bewilderment and, as Mrs. Persson told me later, was ready to become a conscious traveler between the worlds, to join that strange body of people known as the League of Temporal Adventurers. I felt that what had begun in the Temple of Teku Benga was now finished. A new phase in my life was beginning - perhaps a more positive phase.

  Time, as they say, will tell, Moorcock. I have learned only one thing in all my adventures: that despots are all pretty much the same, but there are many different kinds of victims.

  I hope this manuscript reaches you and that you will be able to publish it. I have a feeling it is the last you will ever receive from me. The time for reviewing my past is over.

  Now I look forward, if that's the appropriate word, to life in the eternal present.